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InaVegt
2007-03-28, 02:04 PM
I have found the possibility of creating magic items at a lower caster level than needed to normally cast the spell to be a fun but potentially broken option. (like a CL 1 wand of scorching ray, 10 damage a charge, for 30 gp a charge, so 1 point of damage for 3 gp. Compared to a traditional wand of scorching ray which costs 90 gp a charge, for a slightly higher chance of overcoming SR (like that's needed at the levels you could use this kind of item) and 5 additional feet of range, these additions cost you 60 gp per charge.

Any other things you've found broken about ebberon?

marjan
2007-03-28, 02:08 PM
Planar Shepard.:smallwink:

ThunderEagle
2007-03-28, 02:10 PM
Which ebberon book is planar shepherd in?

CharPixie
2007-03-28, 02:16 PM
(You still pay the normal price for the Scorching Ray wand, btw. It's CL is 1 for effects and 3 for pricing).

Recharing wands. Artificiers being able to add charges to wands can lead to borrowing wands and a wonky wand economy. It's limited to fourth level spells, but a CL 10 Fireball wand would be a pretty nifty thing for a level 7 rogue to have.

marjan
2007-03-28, 02:17 PM
Which ebberon book is planar shepherd in?

Faiths of Ebberon.

Inyssius Tor
2007-03-28, 02:46 PM
It is spelled Eberron.

Two R's.

One B.

Aquillion
2007-03-28, 02:57 PM
Before it was errataed, Heir of Siberys' Mark of Making let you cast True Creation once or twice per day for free. No xp cost, create completely real objects and materials that can be used as spell components, up to some absurd limit with each casting (15 one-foot-cubes, I think?) Unlimited money, unlimited costly components, unlimited everything. And, on top of this, Heir of Siberys grants full BAB, full saves, and either partial casting or a free feat or two. (It's only a three level long PRC and you only need two of them, but still.)

Sadly they fixed that one. (Heir of Siberys still isn't bad for a fighter, I guess, since you still get full BAB, get a free feat or two instead of your fighter bonus feats, and improve your saves while getting a few castings of a level 8 spell every day. There are better options, though.)

marjan
2007-03-28, 03:06 PM
Heir of Siberys gives you Cleric's BAB if I remember correctly but it is still pretty good PrC for any class except maybe for skill-monkey since they reduced his skill points from 4+int to 2+int.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-03-28, 03:53 PM
The way you spelled the name.
Planar Shepherd
Pre-errata Heir of Syberis (Making)
Reducing Wand CL doesn't actually reduce cost


And now for my original ideas:
The Metamagic Item infusion. For the cost of one (fast) Infusion, you can double damage from a wand or scroll. And that's the one of the least abuseable Metamagics. The Metamagic Spell Trigger and Spell Completion class features are fine, because they cost you a lot of money or increase the Use Magic Device DC exponentially, respectively.

Artificers in general are very powerful at most levels above five, especially as blasters.

Cataclysm Mage isn't so much broken as stupid with regards to setting flavor. (No Dragonmark of Death for you!)

And finally, this isn't broken, but annoying: descriptions and particularly sizes of airships are incredibly inconsistent between the campaign setting, the Explorer's Handbook and Voyage of the Golden Dragon.

crazedloon
2007-03-28, 03:57 PM
I like the ability to creat items and uncreate them as a warforged thus netting craft reserve the only limitation is money (and I am sure there is a way to get around that)

marjan
2007-03-28, 04:06 PM
I guess it's not really good night for my English. :smallredface:

ImperiousLeader
2007-03-28, 04:28 PM
Eberron does offer one nasty abuse: Unlimited Spells. Take the 5th level spell, "Unfettered Heroism", (Races of Eberron) which grants you a temporary action point per turn. This is a personal Spell, so see if you can Persist it. Then, add the feat "Wand Surge" (Magic of Eberron), which allows you to use an action point in place of a charge from a spell trigger item. You may now activate wands or single-charge staves all day without actually expending charges.

martyboy74
2007-03-28, 04:32 PM
Artificers in general are very powerful at most levels above five, especially as blasters.
Oxymoron..senses...tingling!

Accolon
2007-03-28, 04:52 PM
Warforged need to be fixed. We have some hmebrewed we're working on, and the same with Shifters. In general, though, I love Eberron and will probably keep playing in it, (this is my 2nd Eberron camp)

Accolon
2007-03-28, 04:53 PM
Let me fix my horrific English Homebrewed rules. That was supposed to read Homebrewed rules. Duh me.

PinkysBrain
2007-03-28, 04:55 PM
What's wrong with shifters? (Apart from the fact there is really only one viable build which actually makes much use of shifting, which is the pouncing weretouched master.)

Druid
2007-03-28, 04:57 PM
Warforged need to be fixed. We have some hmebrewed we're working on, and the same with Shifters. In general, though, I love Eberron and will probably keep playing in it, (this is my 2nd Eberron camp)

What exactly do you feel is wrong with them?

illathid
2007-03-28, 05:42 PM
I too would like to know...

Nerd-o-rama
2007-03-28, 05:51 PM
Oxymoron..senses...tingling!
No, seriously. They can deal a lot of damage for their level with minimal effort, mostly thanks to having access to new spell levels earlier than Wizards, as well as cheesing with Metamagic Item and Energy Admixture/Maximize/Empower/whatever.

Just because Wizards have better things to do than pump out damage per second doesn't mean that direct damage is useless for all classes.

ImperiousLeader
2007-03-28, 06:32 PM
It's actually better for Artificers to go for Direct Damage, because they cast from their spells primarily from scrolls and wands, the DCs of their Save-or-Dies aren't as impressive as Wizards or Sorcerers.

Consider a 9th level Artificer with these three feats: Empower Spell, Twin Spell, and Wand Mastery. She crafts a CL5 wand of Scorching Ray. She uses a Metamagic Item infusion on her wand, applying Twin Spell. She then activates the wand with Empower Spell, burning 3 Wand Charges. She has now cast a CL7 Empowered, Twinned Scorching Ray, dealing roughly 24d6 damage.

This is far from the most she could do, but note, this combo is available at 9th Level. It's expensive to do over an over again, but this single activation cost her 450 gp if she'd bought the wand, 225 gp and 18 xp (which can come from her craft reserve) if she'd crafted it herself.

Not too shabby.

Aquillion
2007-03-28, 07:48 PM
Basically, look at it like this: Blaster-casters are balanced by two things. One, their damage is restricted by their highest level of available spells, keeping them from getting ahead of melee fighters; and two, they only have so many spells they can cast per day, which is more of a problem when you're not disabling multiple enemies with one spell. This is why it usually makes sense for casters to leave the 'blasting' to melee classes and focus on clever tricks instead.

But Artificers break both those restrictions. They can get easy access to spells above what blasters are supposed to have for their level (often far above what they're supposed to have, by taking it from a shortened partial caster list or a domain list), and they can keep using them an absurd number of times per day. Additionally, the way wands work encourages them to focus on a small number of spells and use item metamagic as needed. This is bad for save-or-dies (because you'd want a variety, to hit any weakness), but good for pure blasting. They can do battlefield manipulation, sure (and having a few scrolls of all the key spells just in case never hurts), but they're better off leaving it to the party wizard and instead focusing on their own potentally absurd damage output.

StickMan
2007-03-28, 07:58 PM
Warforged need to be fixed. We have some hmebrewed we're working on, and the same with Shifters. In general, though, I love Eberron and will probably keep playing in it, (this is my 2nd Eberron camp)

What is wrong with these two? I've played Shifters and I have no clue about that they seem perfect to me. As for the Warforged people often think they are strong but they have many drawbacks that people tend to look over.

Innis Cabal
2007-03-28, 08:02 PM
reserve feats....thats all a blaster needs

Ramza00
2007-03-28, 08:53 PM
reserve feats....thats all a blaster needs

9d6 at lvl 20.

At most 3d6 at lvl 1 (Precocious Apprentice, Improved Sigil Krau, and a reserve feat, needs 2 flaws) (most DMs probably won't allow Precocious Apprentice to power a reserve feat anyway even though it works by RAW)

Reserve feats aren't that good damage wise. They don't scale well, a wizard who has invested in a heavy crossbow is doing 1d8 damage at lvl 1, eventually 2 of those feats become worthless really quick.

Sturmjaeger
2007-03-28, 11:40 PM
Well, Weretouched Master PrC is kinda broken, particularly the werebear option. +16 Str???

marjan
2007-03-29, 04:40 AM
Well, Weretouched Master PrC is kinda broken, particularly the werebear option. +16 Str???

It's even worse with Weretiger - pounce and +12 STR.

And what's so bad with Warforged?

PinkysBrain
2007-03-29, 10:58 AM
The weretouched master was errata'd.

Lord Tataraus
2007-03-29, 06:25 PM
The Artificer along with other quirks in Eberron is why I hate it and do not like playing it. With the only exception being that I love Shifters, and Kalashtar and allow Changelings in my campaigns.

Indon
2007-03-29, 06:36 PM
It's expensive to do over an over again, but this single activation cost her 450 gp if she'd bought the wand, 225 gp and 18 xp (which can come from her craft reserve) if she'd crafted it herself.


It'd be free once a day with an eternal wand, wouldn't it?

PinkysBrain
2007-03-29, 06:39 PM
No, you couldn't apply metamagic spelltrigger to the eternal wand (not enough charges).

Indon
2007-03-29, 06:47 PM
Oh, activating a wand with Empower Spell _alone_ takes 3 charges... I read it as saying the entire combo took 3 charges.

ChaosOfTheStick
2007-03-29, 07:01 PM
Oh, activating a wand with Empower Spell _alone_ takes 3 charges... I read it as saying the entire combo took 3 charges.

It does only take 3 charges if you put the other metamagics in there with the Metamagic Item infusion.

Merlin the Tuna
2007-03-29, 07:11 PM
The Artificer along with other quirks in Eberron is why I hate it and do not like playing it. With the only exception being that I love Shifters, and Kalashtar and allow Changelings in my campaigns.Er... You don't like... quirks? What game do you play, Deadpans and Dicerollers?

Jack Mann
2007-03-29, 09:32 PM
Presumably, there are specific quirks he objects to. I mean, who could dislike all quirks? It would be like disliking foibles. Unthinkable!

ImperiousLeader
2007-03-29, 09:36 PM
Oh, activating a wand with Empower Spell _alone_ takes 3 charges... I read it as saying the entire combo took 3 charges.

Technically the combo costs three wand charges and one 3rd level Infusion. The Infusion Twins the Wand, and using three charges to add Empower.

An Eternal Wand has only 2 charges, so you could use an eternal if you could reduce Empower to a +1 with Practical Metamagic.

Beleriphon
2007-03-29, 09:56 PM
And finally, this isn't broken, but annoying: descriptions and particularly sizes of airships are incredibly inconsistent between the campaign setting, the Explorer's Handbook and Voyage of the Golden Dragon.

Yes and no. The setting presents a variety of different sized airships. They range from small skiffs up to massive galleons. The ECS default is the default size if you don't have anything else to work with, or just can't be bothered.

ChaosOfTheStick
2007-03-29, 10:06 PM
An Eternal Wand has only 2 charges, so you could use an eternal if you could reduce Empower to a +1 with Practical Metamagic.

I think that would be stretching it a little bit since the eternal wand description says nothing about them actually having charges, only that they can be used twice per day.

Innis Cabal
2007-03-29, 10:13 PM
planer shepard...

marjan
2007-03-30, 04:00 AM
The Artificer along with other quirks in Eberron is why I hate it and do not like playing it. With the only exception being that I love Shifters, and Kalashtar and allow Changelings in my campaigns.

Hey, DnD has it's own ways to abuse things. It's not Eberron specific.

Reinboom
2007-03-30, 04:14 AM
I will also have to say Planar Shepherd.
Main abuse options:
With all planes allowed: Far Realm, with infinite time and subjective gravity:
Infinite length time stop for your party members and you, and you all can fly. You also have a plethora of extremely weird creatures you can turn into.

With only extended planes allowed: Dream Plane, 10:1 time ratio. You activate the bubble, then end concentration, you and your party suddenly have 9 rounds to act (10 - 1 for the bubble activation), another "time stop eat your heart out", though the creatures of Dream aren't very interesting.

With only the "basic" planes allowed: Fire plane: Efreets. Your planar bubble causes a fire sphere around you, then, as an efreet due to the wild shape errata (you are still humanoid even though your not..) you can grant yourself 3 free wishes. Turn into a human then turn back for another 3. DMs who rule over the grant yourself part, or no errata, you can still grant them to your team mates. Then their's the pit fiends...

Cold plane: Everybody makes a will save or dies to sudden temperature change, insanely drastic temperature change, if they live, well, you still have cryohydras and constant cold damage up your sleeves.

Also, mind, your teammates and you gain immunity to all negative effects of the plane you choose. They won't take fire damage for instance, and they can cast real spells in the dream world.

Accolon
2007-03-30, 10:24 AM
Warforged have healing problems. For every forged you need an artificer. Improving a forged beyond first level is difficult, and they don't fit the mode of the role they were created for: soldiers: AC is too low to start, can't be healed, hard to make better, bump in Con or Str, but a drop in Wis or Int. In my group we're contemplatiing allowing a pool of healing points to help the forged not be a drain on the party's normal healing by giving him something similar to level +1 times 2, but we're still trying to balance it by taking something else away.

Shifters need to shift more and longer. Shifting for less than 5 rounds sometimes doesn't even cover the actual fight. My group is playing with that too, and again, we're just banging things around. Shifters need less help then forged, IMHO, but it's just opinion. Overall, I love Eberron and everything about it and this is the 2nd camp I'm running in the setting. Long live Eberron!

lumberofdabeast
2007-03-30, 10:29 AM
Warforged have healing problems. For every forged you need an artificer. Improving a forged beyond first level is difficult, and they don't fit the mode of the role they were created for: soldiers: AC is too low to start, can't be healed, hard to make better, bump in Con or Str, but a drop in Wis or Int. In my group we're contemplatiing allowing a pool of healing points to help the forged not be a drain on the party's normal healing by giving him something similar to level +1 times 2, but we're still trying to balance it by taking something else away.
Do something with Action Points. That's what they're there for.

Indon
2007-03-30, 10:38 AM
Warforged have healing problems. For every forged you need an artificer. Improving a forged beyond first level is difficult, and they don't fit the mode of the role they were created for: soldiers: AC is too low to start, can't be healed, hard to make better, bump in Con or Str, but a drop in Wis or Int. In my group we're contemplatiing allowing a pool of healing points to help the forged not be a drain on the party's normal healing by giving him something similar to level +1 times 2, but we're still trying to balance it by taking something else away.


Isn't there a line of like, repair spells that heal constructs in the Eberron setting?

Or maybe that was a repair _skill_...?

lumberofdabeast
2007-03-30, 10:41 AM
Isn't there a line of like, repair spells that heal constructs in the Eberron setting?

Or maybe that was a repair _skill_...?

Yep. Repair X damage, as opposed to cure x wounds. Problem being that, IIRC, it's an artificer-only spell set.

kamikasei
2007-03-30, 10:46 AM
Yep. Repair X damage, as opposed to cure x wounds. Problem being that, IIRC, it's an artificer-only spell set.

Nope, they're Sorcerer/Wizard spells of the Transmutation school as well.

Accolon
2007-03-30, 10:51 AM
Repair damage does heal a forge, but only Artificers can cast it. Also if a cleric casts a heal spell, the forged only get half the die. I like the Action Points idea: maybe cut them in half or something like that. That's why for every forged in a party, you need an Artificer just heal the forged. I think the warforged is a great idea, but for our game, we just need to make it more PC friendly. Thanks for the ideas, though, keep them coming.

Leon
2007-03-30, 11:36 AM
Pg 108 ECS - Sor/Wiz Spell list: 1st-4th Lvls, Repair X damage


Warforged have healing problems. For every forged you need an artificer. Improving a forged beyond first level is difficult, and they don't fit the mode of the role they were created for: soldiers: AC is too low to start, can't be healed, hard to make better


Adamantine Body, a Lge Shield and a +1 in Dex would give a 1st lvl Forged 21 AC quite good for 1st lvl when most normal people are struggling for AC and when you progess just upgrade the armour via Enchantments, get a new shield other & accessories

They can be healed, its just half as effective

Just Alex
2007-03-30, 11:48 AM
For healing warforged, I'm pretty sure that with Craft(make pain go away) and a repair kit, a warforged can heal hp.
Me, I'm a fan of Eberron. The setting lends itself well to Indiana Jones style adventures. Nothing quite beats fireballing nazis, though fleeing from an army while screaming "Start the airship Geoffry! Start the airship!" comes in a very close second.

kamikasei
2007-03-30, 11:53 AM
Repair damage does heal a forge, but only Artificers can cast it... That's why for every forged in a party, you need an Artificer just heal the forged.

Where has this idea come from?

ArmorArmadillo
2007-03-30, 11:55 AM
So far I see too problems; the Artificer class and Planar Sheperd. That isn't really a problem with Eberron, just with two specific classes. Call a spade a spade, Eberron is a great setting, it just includes in some of its source material two classes some people don't like. (Is Clerics and Druids being overpowered an abuse of the Greyhawk setting?)

Fizban
2007-03-30, 12:09 PM
Yes and no. The setting presents a variety of different sized airships. They range from small skiffs up to massive galleons. The ECS default is the default size if you don't have anything else to work with, or just can't be bothered.
I believe he was referring to the problem of how the airships float. In one book it says that soarwood floats by itself, another says its just lightweight. And that was just the start of it, none of the sources I've read agree on anything other than a: they use bound elementals, and b: they fly.

ImperiousLeader
2007-03-30, 12:22 PM
Soarwood gives an Airship bouyancy, ie. it floats. The bound elemental's purpose is to provide movement.

One exception is the Green Dragon from the Eberron Adventure Voyage of the Green Dragon, which is the largest airship in commission, and it requires a second bound elemental to help it stay aloft.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-03-30, 04:13 PM
Yes and no. The setting presents a variety of different sized airships. They range from small skiffs up to massive galleons. The ECS default is the default size if you don't have anything else to work with, or just can't be bothered.
No it doesn't. It provides a price and rough size for one kind of airship in the ECS, full stats for one specific gigantic (bigger than the biggest sailing ship in Stormwrack) airship in the Explorer's Handbook (which costs exactly the same as the one in the ECS, mind), and Voyage of the Golden (not Green) Dragon gives stats for a ship about 2/3 the size as "the largest airship ever built." There's no consistent scale, and it's mostly a question of editors not talking to each other.

And there is an inconsistency between the ECS and Explorer's Handbook on the properties of Soarwood; the former says it has 1/4 the density of normal wood while having basically the same hardness, structural integrity, etc. The latter claims it is actually lighter-than-air, and provides buoyancy for airships, where it was originally implied that the elementals provide both lift and thrust. However, I simply take this change to be errata of a sort; with lighter-than-air Soarwood, airships can suppress their elementals and float in midair, which is kinda necessary for docking.

I_Got_This_Name
2007-03-30, 05:44 PM
And the sailing ships built from Soarwood are explained by what, exactly? Lighter-than-air Soarwood is silly.

The airship could also transfer its weight to something else while docking (hang from something, or let a support connect under it, for instance).

Nerd-o-rama
2007-03-30, 05:49 PM
By the fact that they carry a lot more weight than Airships or something. I think it's a question of ballast. Wait, why am I defending this? I'm the one who complained about the airship rules in the first place.

martyboy74
2007-03-31, 10:38 AM
If soarwood is lighter than air, then where does it grow? Wouldn't the trees float away?

Indon
2007-03-31, 11:16 AM
Perhaps the living wood is heavier than it is when the trees die; i.e. only dead trees float away, and only after their roots break off/out.

Yahzi
2007-04-01, 01:07 AM
Perhaps the living wood is heavier than it is when the trees die; i.e. only dead trees float away, and only after their roots break off/out.
Remember that old myth about how when people die, they lose 2-3 ounces of weight, because their souls depart? In Eberron, it's true, see. When the trees die, they lose their souls and become lighter. The soarwood trees have such weighty old souls that they become lighter than air when the soul leaves! They must be the end-stage of druid reincarnation.

So remember, for every soarwood tree you cut, you have to plant a druid!

:smallbiggrin:

Jack Mann
2007-04-01, 01:18 AM
Or... Or possibly the dead wood isn't full of heavy, heavy water? Live balsa is not all that light. It's only when it's dried out that it becomes the lightweight wood beloved of hobbyists.

Aquillion
2007-04-01, 04:26 AM
A related question: Why do they make the airships, well, ship-shaped? It's a lot of work, and it serves absolutely no purpose. A large flat board of Soarwood would work just as well and be massively cheaper. Admittedly, the Random Pile of Antigravity Wood isn't as attractive a name as the Forgotten Freedom...

Dhavaer
2007-04-01, 04:28 AM
A related question: Why do they make the airships, well, ship-shaped? It's a lot of work, and it serves absolutely no purpose. A large flat board of Soarwood would work just as well and be massively cheaper. Admittedly, the Random Pile of Antigravity Wood isn't as attractive a name as the Forgotten Freedom...

To maximise the awesome.

Jack Mann
2007-04-01, 04:34 AM
Indeed. You could go with absolute realism (within the framework of wizards and dragons), but it's just more fun to make things stylized at times.

Zincorium
2007-04-01, 05:37 AM
A related question: Why do they make the airships, well, ship-shaped? It's a lot of work, and it serves absolutely no purpose. A large flat board of Soarwood would work just as well and be massively cheaper. Admittedly, the Random Pile of Antigravity Wood isn't as attractive a name as the Forgotten Freedom...

I assume that they've decided to leave in a bit of the aerodynamics of the real world by adopting the hydrodynamic characteristics of a ship's hull. Reduces drag, but really you'd want to turn it upside down, with the rounded part above and the flat part below so that you'd get proper lift, like a plane's wing. Or maybe they need the downward thrust to counteract the lighter-than-physically-possible soarwood's buoyancy?

Nerd-o-rama
2007-04-01, 05:47 AM
What he said. Aerodynamics. Also, you can't really store things in a flat piece of wood (well, okay, barges) and airships are used to transport things. Mainly people, with some premium cargo as well.

Shhalahr Windrider
2007-04-01, 11:45 AM
If soarwood is lighter than air, then where does it grow? Wouldn't the trees float away?
I assume the root system would keep that in line.

MobiusKlein
2007-04-01, 11:58 AM
Because if they are ship-shaped, you can build them with the same tools & forms as water-ships, in the same workshops?

Because you can land them in water if anything goes wrong with the soarwood?

Because it makes the passengers feel more comfortable being in a familiar ship shaped conveyance?

Because putting wheels on the bottom and making it flat would look ugly.

Or, the best answer the GM can give - "A random encounter breaks up the discussion about ship engineering. Roll initiative!"