SangoProduction
2022-06-01, 08:29 AM
Preamble: Enhancement and Fey spheres next up on the chopping block. Almost no advanced talents between them, so this should be quick.
Post Review Analysis: Wow. OK, Fallen Fey. Calm the heck down. You don't need to be firing on all cylinders right now. Meanwhile, I basically forgot about Enhancement sphere as soon as I was done with it. Reverse Gravity could have been relatively safely set to level 10 rather than 15. Granted, in an open field, it's basically a no-save, just sit up there and be target practice. Hard for that to ever be balanced unless you are nearly guaranteed to have a counter to it.
I think I really like Divination advanced talents... from a DM standpoint. Less so from a player's.
Warning: This rare rating is given to talents that have truly game-breaking potential. Or at the very least need very close inspection before being allowed.
Questionable: These talents have an outsized impact, and should be considered in context before being allowed.
Acceptable: This is your standard faire advanced talent tier. Worth looking at, but rarely is it going to cause the catastrophic downfall of your campaign.
Fluffy: These little to no functional difference to a character. These are also the safest to give out as reward talents. For example, if they beat the witch who eats children, they might manifest the ability to summon items made of gingerbread.
Unknown: For when I really just don't know where it would lie. It's probably needlessly complicated. Take a good look at it yourself. I'll try and provide a cliff notes version of the talent, along with potential pit falls.
Enhancement
Bestow Life (lvl 10): Indefinite duration, intelligent, same-alignment minion printer. It does cost 24 hours of time, so it's either broken or utterly pointless depending on the timescale of the campaign. No other costs, functionally.
Alternative Energy (lvl 5): Only a worry if you allow different Energy Enhancements to stack. If you don't, this is just giving a better type selection. If you do allow them to stack, then this feat adds +2d6 damage by level 10. Per attack. On top of 4d6 of the basic version, which is very respectable, even without any optimization.
Give Magic Life (lvl 10): Funky. Creates a spell that is alive out of any durational spell. This gets out of hand pretty easily.
Antimagic Aegis (lvl 1): Allows Enhancements and aegis to keep working under the effects of antimagic field. Basically a nonissue in 99.99% of cases. That's a very limited subset of abilities with limited use, and simply lets them keep working, not to allow them to be cast again. They put a lot of effort into actually keeping their effects on them. Just let them have it.
Referential Enhancements (lvl 15): Basically creates an area of functionally permanent enhancement, that affects anyone you designate in the area while they are in the area (and if they return to the area). Works wonders for a Kingdom Builder type game. If you ever get to level 15. By which point simply enhancing the townsfolk probably isn't going to help.
Reverse Gravity (lvl 15): Incredibly fun. Not particularly potent. But being level 15, it'll basically never see play, and everyone will have flight by then.
Ascetic Control (lvl 5): Aside from bleed and sleep, this is entirely fluff. Fun fluff at that. And sleep is also generally fluffy. Just means one person is on watch instead of a rotating crew.
Fallen Fey
Banish to Faerie (lvl 8): So.... Will save, or effectively be extraplanar tossed, a minimum of 1 mile away. Can we just call that a save or lose? I'm pretty sure they stop contributing that far away.
Blinding Beauty (lvl 10): 30 ft aura of "I'm sexy and I know it," which blinds anyone who dares look at you. (Note: This is a passive aura, that can be tacked onto a 1 hour / CL fey-link.) But the stalker 35 ft away is just fine.
Drowning Kiss (lvl 10): Save or die. But requires melee range on an enemy that isn't fighting back. There are spells that inflict temporary helplessness, like Lich Touch in Death sphere. So this basically allows them to "escalate" from helpless to dead.
This runs into the same sort of issue as stat killing, in that it's effectively a different "health bar" that no one else is interacting with. So it just feels absolutely terrible in a team game. Unless they are actually setting up the player's Drowning Kiss. Which is neat, but it suddenly got a *lot* more troublesome to actually deal with. But if that is their tactic, then the speed coup-de-grace feat was already an option.
Steal Skin (lvl 5): Gets bumped way up for its sheer visceral gruesomeness of literally stealing the skin off of them to take their appearance. Yes, the original fairy tales did actually mean this by stealing skin. But this is still exceptionally brutal. This is down in Acceptable/Fluffy if you refluff it and remove the bleeds. At least for my games. Sure, people are literally burning people alive with acid and fire. But... anyway, I've said my piece.
Bound To Nature (lvl 10): immediate reincarnation at a time of your choosing, on death, with no real drawbacks. I mean, sure, it's basically once per day. But if you're dying once per day, the campaign probably deigns this a very potent ability. Here in Questionable because defensive abilities tend to be less troublesome than offensive ones. Until it makes the player go insane with an addiction to the power of immortality. Then you dispel magic and stab them, and that's that. No one's immortal. (By the way, this entire sphere is very vulnerable to dispel magic. If they were smart, they'd probably pick up ways to defend their fey link from dispel. Maybe excessively so. But even Antimagic Aegis doesn't keep Fey Link going through AMF.)
Fey Invisibility (lvl 5): True Invisibility (not spheres invisibility), with all the baggage that comes along with that. Probably fine. But also really potent for an hours/lvl effect. Though it ends on attack, or spell- / sphere- cast with verbal or somatic or Magical Signs components. Or even by speaking or "distracting actions." This makes it much less than hours / lvl, functionally. Simply by the need to... engage in roleplay. You know... the thing you're here to do. Except in some campaigns. And even more campaigns have very distinct "this is combat" segments, which are completely roleplay free. Some people don't even describe their actions in combat. You just... roll dice repeatedly until someone dies. My god those are boring. Also it's unclear whether an illusion of you talking counts as speaking or distracting. Or whether telepathy qualifies.
Fairy Ring Traveler (lvl 5): Very fluffy teleportation that occurs precisely at the speed of plot. It can put them as close or as far away from their destination as you desire. You might want to warn the player about how much effect it will actually have in your game, after asking for clarification on their intended purpose with it.
Fey Initiation (lvl 15): 8 hour ritual to change type to fey. If this were level 1-5, in vancian world, this would be busted. By level 15, it's adding much less actual protection to anyone.
Post Review Analysis: Wow. OK, Fallen Fey. Calm the heck down. You don't need to be firing on all cylinders right now. Meanwhile, I basically forgot about Enhancement sphere as soon as I was done with it. Reverse Gravity could have been relatively safely set to level 10 rather than 15. Granted, in an open field, it's basically a no-save, just sit up there and be target practice. Hard for that to ever be balanced unless you are nearly guaranteed to have a counter to it.
I think I really like Divination advanced talents... from a DM standpoint. Less so from a player's.
Warning: This rare rating is given to talents that have truly game-breaking potential. Or at the very least need very close inspection before being allowed.
Questionable: These talents have an outsized impact, and should be considered in context before being allowed.
Acceptable: This is your standard faire advanced talent tier. Worth looking at, but rarely is it going to cause the catastrophic downfall of your campaign.
Fluffy: These little to no functional difference to a character. These are also the safest to give out as reward talents. For example, if they beat the witch who eats children, they might manifest the ability to summon items made of gingerbread.
Unknown: For when I really just don't know where it would lie. It's probably needlessly complicated. Take a good look at it yourself. I'll try and provide a cliff notes version of the talent, along with potential pit falls.
Enhancement
Bestow Life (lvl 10): Indefinite duration, intelligent, same-alignment minion printer. It does cost 24 hours of time, so it's either broken or utterly pointless depending on the timescale of the campaign. No other costs, functionally.
Alternative Energy (lvl 5): Only a worry if you allow different Energy Enhancements to stack. If you don't, this is just giving a better type selection. If you do allow them to stack, then this feat adds +2d6 damage by level 10. Per attack. On top of 4d6 of the basic version, which is very respectable, even without any optimization.
Give Magic Life (lvl 10): Funky. Creates a spell that is alive out of any durational spell. This gets out of hand pretty easily.
Antimagic Aegis (lvl 1): Allows Enhancements and aegis to keep working under the effects of antimagic field. Basically a nonissue in 99.99% of cases. That's a very limited subset of abilities with limited use, and simply lets them keep working, not to allow them to be cast again. They put a lot of effort into actually keeping their effects on them. Just let them have it.
Referential Enhancements (lvl 15): Basically creates an area of functionally permanent enhancement, that affects anyone you designate in the area while they are in the area (and if they return to the area). Works wonders for a Kingdom Builder type game. If you ever get to level 15. By which point simply enhancing the townsfolk probably isn't going to help.
Reverse Gravity (lvl 15): Incredibly fun. Not particularly potent. But being level 15, it'll basically never see play, and everyone will have flight by then.
Ascetic Control (lvl 5): Aside from bleed and sleep, this is entirely fluff. Fun fluff at that. And sleep is also generally fluffy. Just means one person is on watch instead of a rotating crew.
Fallen Fey
Banish to Faerie (lvl 8): So.... Will save, or effectively be extraplanar tossed, a minimum of 1 mile away. Can we just call that a save or lose? I'm pretty sure they stop contributing that far away.
Blinding Beauty (lvl 10): 30 ft aura of "I'm sexy and I know it," which blinds anyone who dares look at you. (Note: This is a passive aura, that can be tacked onto a 1 hour / CL fey-link.) But the stalker 35 ft away is just fine.
Drowning Kiss (lvl 10): Save or die. But requires melee range on an enemy that isn't fighting back. There are spells that inflict temporary helplessness, like Lich Touch in Death sphere. So this basically allows them to "escalate" from helpless to dead.
This runs into the same sort of issue as stat killing, in that it's effectively a different "health bar" that no one else is interacting with. So it just feels absolutely terrible in a team game. Unless they are actually setting up the player's Drowning Kiss. Which is neat, but it suddenly got a *lot* more troublesome to actually deal with. But if that is their tactic, then the speed coup-de-grace feat was already an option.
Steal Skin (lvl 5): Gets bumped way up for its sheer visceral gruesomeness of literally stealing the skin off of them to take their appearance. Yes, the original fairy tales did actually mean this by stealing skin. But this is still exceptionally brutal. This is down in Acceptable/Fluffy if you refluff it and remove the bleeds. At least for my games. Sure, people are literally burning people alive with acid and fire. But... anyway, I've said my piece.
Bound To Nature (lvl 10): immediate reincarnation at a time of your choosing, on death, with no real drawbacks. I mean, sure, it's basically once per day. But if you're dying once per day, the campaign probably deigns this a very potent ability. Here in Questionable because defensive abilities tend to be less troublesome than offensive ones. Until it makes the player go insane with an addiction to the power of immortality. Then you dispel magic and stab them, and that's that. No one's immortal. (By the way, this entire sphere is very vulnerable to dispel magic. If they were smart, they'd probably pick up ways to defend their fey link from dispel. Maybe excessively so. But even Antimagic Aegis doesn't keep Fey Link going through AMF.)
Fey Invisibility (lvl 5): True Invisibility (not spheres invisibility), with all the baggage that comes along with that. Probably fine. But also really potent for an hours/lvl effect. Though it ends on attack, or spell- / sphere- cast with verbal or somatic or Magical Signs components. Or even by speaking or "distracting actions." This makes it much less than hours / lvl, functionally. Simply by the need to... engage in roleplay. You know... the thing you're here to do. Except in some campaigns. And even more campaigns have very distinct "this is combat" segments, which are completely roleplay free. Some people don't even describe their actions in combat. You just... roll dice repeatedly until someone dies. My god those are boring. Also it's unclear whether an illusion of you talking counts as speaking or distracting. Or whether telepathy qualifies.
Fairy Ring Traveler (lvl 5): Very fluffy teleportation that occurs precisely at the speed of plot. It can put them as close or as far away from their destination as you desire. You might want to warn the player about how much effect it will actually have in your game, after asking for clarification on their intended purpose with it.
Fey Initiation (lvl 15): 8 hour ritual to change type to fey. If this were level 1-5, in vancian world, this would be busted. By level 15, it's adding much less actual protection to anyone.