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Darwin
2009-04-16, 07:09 AM
The WoTC DnD boards has yet again dissapointed me with it's mind-blowing inactivity. I'll repost the thread here on the GitPg boards in hope that you guys would help me out.

"I am currently working on a conversion of the 3.5 module "Cormyr - Tearing of the Weave". Here in the PCs come across a mind control based artifact called "The Starry Gnosis" which will eventually fall in their hands. However this is the first time I'm working with artifacts, and I'm having a real hard time determining if it's too powerful, or not powerful enough. The PCs will recieve it somewhere between level 5 and level 6."

The Starry Gnosis v1.1
The New and Improved Starry Gnosis

{table]The Starry Gnosis Heroic Level
This item is a grapefruit-sized crystal sphere with a dark inner heart. No light can pierce it but tiny points of light, like stars, twinkle within the globe of the periphery of the dark core.
Wondrous Item
Property: You gain a +1 to Will defense.
Power (Daily) Charm: Standard Action; Cha vs. Will; the target takes a -1 penalty to attack and damage rolls (save ends), repeat this attack against the same target up to 3 times, or until you miss. If you hit 3 times make a secondary attack.
Secondary Attack: Cha vs. Will; the target is dominated (save ends).
Special: If the target has recently been subject to the Sacred Trust ritual you only make the secondary attack, the subject recieves a -4 penalty to its will defense against this attack, and the domination duration increases to 3 days.[/table]

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Goals of the Starry Gnosis
Enlisting creatures to the service of Shar.
To dominate and control the actions of others, especially those in service of Selune.
Remain hidden from the public eye.


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Concordance
{table]Starting Score 5
Owner gains a level +1d10
Owner worships Shar +2
Owner kills a worshiper of Selune (once per day) +2
Owner successfully dominates a target +1
Owner becomes dominated, dazed, or stunned. (once per encounter) -1
Owner tells another being about the Starry Gnosis -2
Owner worships Selune -5[/table]

Pleased (16-20)
“Shar favors me, her eyes wink at me through the blackness of the night sky”.
Property: You receive a +2 bonus to attacks with the Charm keyword.
Property: You gain Blindsight
Power (Daily): Standard Action. You can use Hunger of Hadar (Warlock 5)

Satisfied (12-15)
“Knowledge lies in the stars”
Property: You gain Darkvision
Power (Encounter): Minor Action. You gain concealment for 3 rounds.

Normal (5-11)
“It’s like a little piece of a beautiful, cloudless night”.
Property: You gain Low-Light vision
Power (At-Will – Arcane, Fear, Implement, Radiant): Standard Action. You can use Dire Radiance (warlock 1)

Unsatisfied (1-4)
“I feel so cold, so very, very cold”.
Property: You take a -2 penalty to Perception.

Angered (0 or lower)
“I’m gazing into the abyss, and someone in there wants me dead”.
The artifact wants its wielder dead, but will keep this fact hidden and instead encourage the wielder to regain its favor until it sees the chance to destroy him/her.
Property: You are blinded.
Special: You become dominated by the Starry Gnosis. The Gnosis will seek out a new owner, which it will demand to kill you as a test of loyalty.

I really need some outside opinions on the power level of my creation. Any suggestions for improvement or alterations are more than welcome

AgentPaper
2009-04-16, 01:46 PM
Well, it's really impossible to say whether an artifact is too powerful or not, since the only real constant with artifacts is that they're better than normal magic items. There's no real standard on how powerful they should be. As long as you account for the added power the artifact gives your players in planning challenges, it's not overpowered.

Thajocoth
2009-04-16, 05:41 PM
Darkvision alone is quite powerful.
The resists alone are quite powerful.
This item is very powerful.

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I'd recommend tying it's powers to it's concordance. Here's an example of what I mean:

"Power (At-Will – Arcane, Fear, Implement, Radiant): Standard Action. You can use Dire Radiance (warlock 1)"

might change to being an Encounter power when the Gnosis is Normal or Lower

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"Power (Encounter): Minor Action. You gain concealment for 3 rounds."

Perhaps this might be a Daily while Normal or Satisfied, nonexistant at Unsatisfied & lower, and en encounter when Pleased.

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"Power (Daily): Standard Action; Cha vs. Will; the target takes a -1 penalty to attack and damage rolls (save ends), repeat this attack against the same target up to 3 times, or until you miss. If you hit 3 times make a secondary attack.

Secondary Attack: Cha vs. Will; the target is dominated."

This power seems to be the Gnosis's focal point, so I'd keep it available at all levels of concordance. I might even add: "Special: If you don't make the secondary attack, this power doesn't count towards your total usage of item daily powers and recharges at the end of the encounter or in 5 minutes."

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Maybe have the resists & Darkvision depend on concordance too. If the item doesn't like the player, why would it grant them resists, right? Maybe when less happy with the player, it might give them low-light vision or not effect their vision. Maybe at it's highest concordance it might even grant Blindsight.

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Also, maybe change:
"Owner successfully dominates a target: +1"
to
"Owner successfully dominates a target: +1 (+2 if the target worships Selune)"
and maybe a few "(Max once per day)" on some of the concordance modifiers.

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These are just a few basic ideas on making the concordance more important and nerfing the item a little, while still making it seem even more awesome than before.

Alteran
2009-04-16, 05:56 PM
It is very powerful, but as AgentPaper said, if you know to expect it you can work around it. However, I would still consider toning it down a little. For one thing, there are very few drawbacks to this, which is unusual for an artifact. It's hard to lose concordance, and if you get to zero not much happens besides taking a bit of damage and losing the item. It's also quite easy to earn concordance. Things such as "Owner Kills a Worshiper of Selune" are usually limited to earning you concordance once per day. Things that happen more often and take away concordance usually are limited to doing so once per encounter. I would suggest making the holder lose 1 or 2 points of concordance every time they are dazed, stunned, or dominated (once per encounter max, of course). This is not too hard to achieve, but not ridiculously easy either. I would consider a more interesting result on reaching 0 concordance than "the Starry Gnosis kills itself". Maybe have it attack the holder to dominate them, and then use the dominated holder to find a better owner? You would need to house-rule in a longer duration dominate effect, but as this is already homebrewed that shouldn't be a problem. Another slight nerf I suggest is to drop the resistances and put a +1 bonus to will defense instead.

The domination power isn't entirely clear to me. Do you need to sustain it with a standard action each turn? A minor action? No action? If it's no action it's worth doing, minor action perhaps, but there is no way it's worth a standard action for 4 turns. Think of it this way, you're sacrificing 4 standard actions to take over an enemy for one turn (I'm assuming that's when it ends, there was no duration listed), and you need to make 5 attack rolls for it to work. I think it's probably fair to work with one attack roll and a standard action.

Also, as a wondrous item, it's not entirely clear to me how it is used. Is it wielded like a orb? Can it function as an implement for the powers it gives you, and if so what enhancement bonus would it have? Both Dire Radiance and Hunger of Hadar use constitution as an attack stat, while the item daily power uses charisma. I would suggest allowing a character to use their highest ability score for attacks granted by the Starry Gnosis, or perhaps only Charisma if that's the kind of character you want to use it. This is pretty much standard for artifacts.

This looks like a fun artifact, and I hope our suggestions can help you polish it so it turns out the way you want it to. Good luck with your game!

Darwin
2009-04-17, 03:52 AM
Thanks for some great suggestions :smallbiggrin:


The resists alone are quite powerful.
Yeah I figured they would be. The reason they got in there in the first place was because I use the artifact cloak in the DMG as a baseline, the cloak sports an impressive resist 5 acid, fire and lightning, but I'm more than happy to let it go for a slight boost to Will defense. :smallwink:


I'd recommend tying it's powers to it's concordance.
Again a matter of baseline, however the ideahas certainly crossed my mind, this will be given heavy thought.


"Power (Daily): Standard Action; Cha vs. Will; the target takes a -1 penalty to attack and damage rolls (save ends), repeat this attack against the same target up to 3 times, or until you miss. If you hit 3 times make a secondary attack.

Secondary Attack: Cha vs. Will; the target is dominated."

This power seems to be the Gnosis's focal point, so I'd keep it available at all levels of concordance. I might even add: "Special: If you don't make the secondary attack, this power doesn't count towards your total usage of item daily powers and recharges at the end of the encounter or in 5 minutes."

Page 164 in the DMG states that artifact powers does not count towards the daily limit of magic item power uses. :smallsmile:


Maybe have the resists & Darkvision depend on concordance.

Brilliant, I'll have the gnosis grant the wearer low-light vision at normal concordance, darkvision at satisfied and blindsight at pleased. At angered the gnosis will render you blind, seems like a fitting punisment, :smallbiggrin:

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On the matter of the Angered state

Having the Orb dominate it's wielder is both a great and very flavorful idea, I'll pair it with rending the wielder blind as well.


The domination power isn't entirely clear to me.

The thought was that the follow up attacks would be rolled in succession as a part of the standard action. The idea was that while it would be extremely hard to reach the domination state (4 succesful attacks), the item would still be worth using because of the increasing debuff. The duration was a simple error on my part, It's supposed to be save ends. I should also note that there will be a 3-day ritual that bypasses the initial attack and increases the duration of the domination to 3 days.


Also, as a wondrous item, it's not entirely clear to me how it is used.

Although being an orb it is not an implement, it's simply a round crystal ball you hold in your hand (preferably paired with a stylish pose!) and use upon your enemies in the name of Shar.

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And now it's back to work, you'll see a revised Starry Gnosis soon :smallwink:

Darwin
2009-04-17, 04:09 AM
This post has been moved to the top

Thajocoth
2009-04-17, 12:54 PM
I think that looks great.

Alteran
2009-04-17, 04:33 PM
I think it's great, and I agree with most of the changes you've made. However, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me for the wielder to be blinded while controlled by the Starry Gnosis, since that means it's less able to act effectively while dominated.

Darwin
2009-04-18, 03:20 AM
I had an idea that the angered Gnosis will only control the player when it deems it neccesary, the blindness will act as a "cover" penalty until it sees its chance to have the character eliminated or otherwise incapacitated. Presuming the Gnosis can see on its own, it will be able to control and guide the dominated player with no hinderance. :smallamused: