[4e] Reagents

[Blackdrop]

Anybody else see this?

Even though the upper level ones are a little too expensive to be effective those. Could you imagine how much more damage a warlock or wizard could add to an encounter with the flame rose? Awesomeness!

[TheOOB]

I don't like them. I think they go against the design philosophy of 4e, in that a character who only gets a few magic items and money won't be a good deal weaker then a character who gets a lot of them. Magic items are supposed to all require some expediture on the part of the character, either a daily magic item power(which you only get a few a day) or a healing surge or what not. These make it so characters with lots of money are more powerful then those who don't. Plus there are allready problems with ritual components taking monet away that characters are assumed to have spent on permenate items, I think this just aggravates that problem.

[OneFamiliarFace]

I can see where you are coming from, but these reagents do seem to be quite cost prohibitive, especially given that they can only be used once. And keep in mind that, under 4e's new treasure system, every character should have the same reasonable amount of wealth with plenty of spare money left over for buying their random wants and desires.

A player who wants reagents would have to give up getting a potion or a small magic item. And ritual components should be paid for jointly by the whole party, assuming they all benefit from them.

[bosssmiley]

The black cave pearl is probably worth it, but the Creeping Gatevine and the Flame Rose seem really, really *meh* for the money.

Boots of Teleportation
Level 28
Wearing these elegant boots, you never need to raise your feet to move.
Item Slot: Feet 2,125,000 gp
Power (At-Will Teleportation): Move Action. Teleport a number of squares equal to your speed.

Amended fluff: a giant inexplicable hand reaches down from the sky, picks you up by the head and moves you the same distance you could walk in 6 seconds. It does this as often as you can stomach.

For 2,000,000+ gp. At level 28? Colour me not so unimpressed.

[Charity]

I dunno Eggy, immunity from OA's and obsticles is pretty handy.. though it is only a little better than flight, I'd still go for it if I were a rogue.

[Starbuck_II]

I dunno Eggy, immunity from OA's and obsticles is pretty handy.. though it is only a little better than flight, I'd still go for it if I were a rogue.

Yeah, but Charity, who actually gets Flight at will?

[MammonAzrael]

The reagents seem like an interesting idea, but not only do they seem WAY too expensive for their effects, what equivalent items do martial characters have access to? These all seem to be focused on improving magic, and making it better than martial.

I like the boots, it's a fairly powerful effect. Never worry about OAs, terrain, jail cells, and anything else you can Line-of-Sight to ever again. Ever.

[fractic]

Some level 10 creeping gatevine would be very useful for paragon or better eladrin. Assuming it works on racial powers.

[Blackdrop]

The reagents seem like an interesting idea, but not only do they seem WAY too expensive for their effects, what equivalent items do martial characters have access to? These all seem to be focused on improving magic, and making it better than martial.

Which is exactly the reason they released the alchemy excerpt about, a week week-and-a-half ago. Same as this for the most part but with coating your weapons with alchemist fire and poison.

[MammonAzrael]

Which is exactly the reason they released the alchemy excerpt about, a week week-and-a-half ago. Same as this for the most part but with coating your weapons with alchemist fire and poison.

Except the alchemy stuff were all "attacks" in their own right, requiring standard actions and such instead of modifying/improving existing powers or abilities. And still doesn't give much options for melee-ers.

Though admittedly I had forgotten about the alchemy excerpt (I wish it had been memorable), so you're probably right. And since they're just excerpts, we should be seeing more when the AV actually arrives.

[Kletian999]

The black cave pearl is probably worth it, but the Creeping Gatevine and the Flame Rose seem really, really *meh* for the money.



Amended fluff: a giant inexplicable hand reaches down from the sky, picks you up by the head and moves you the same distance you could walk in 6 seconds. It does this as often as you can stomach.

For 2,000,000+ gp. At level 28? Colour me not so unimpressed.

Complete immunity to all grabs and immobilizing effects, difficult terrain, enemy pcs/magic walls blocking your path, opportunity attacks, high ground snipers, etc. I'm impressed.

[Yakk]

The costs of these are designed to be high enough that character's don't use them on a whim.

Same with alchemy.

[Blackfang108]

The black cave pearl is probably worth it, but the Creeping Gatevine and the Flame Rose seem really, really *meh* for the money.



Amended fluff: a giant inexplicable hand reaches down from the sky, picks you up by the head and moves you the same distance you could walk in 6 seconds. It does this as often as you can stomach.

For 2,000,000+ gp. At level 28? Colour me not so unimpressed.

This reminds me of a similar arguement I had with someone regarding the usefulness of the Dimensional Jaunt Reserve feat.

In combat, Dimensional Jaunt, being a standard action, is rather useless, for the most part. the occasional wall of force nonwithstanding.

I use dimensional jaunt constantly out of combat. Locked room? what locked room?

No stairs to the room below? No problem. I'll just pop down there and check.

It makes dungeon exploring really easy, especially for the Duskmage wearing a decent brestplate.

[Person_Man]

I think this shows why the concept of mechanical balance is a joke in any game system with no formal specifications about how powerful each power should be. They just need to sit down and say, "At 1st level, powers shall deal no more then X average damage, spread out over Y targets, and may include Z effects. And power shall add an action advantage." Do that for each type of power (melee, ranged, area of effect) and you will have balance.

Alternatively, you could just remove scaling (like Star Wars Saga Edition tried to do for most of its Talents) and give each class a dozen or so powers that are actually interesting, instead of 100 separate powers/feats/reagents/whatever that each add a minor static bonus.

Or you could just put all of the hard crunch in the core rules, and make your expansions strictly modules and new campaign settings and fluff.

Instead, WotC just throw stuff out there, and the end result is the codex creep problem. I don't think this is inherently a problem, because most people are smart enough to talk to their DM and fellow players, and come up with a build that's roughly balanced compared to the other players. But it sorta belies the entire "its good because its balanced" design concept behind 4E.

[AKA_Bait]

Cool stuff and given the price, I don't really see it being a balance problem.

[Dragonmuncher]

This reminds me of a similar arguement I had with someone regarding the usefulness of the Dimensional Jaunt Reserve feat.

In combat, Dimensional Jaunt, being a standard action, is rather useless, for the most part. the occasional wall of force nonwithstanding.

I use dimensional jaunt constantly out of combat. Locked room? what locked room?

No stairs to the room below? No problem. I'll just pop down there and check.

It makes dungeon exploring really easy, especially for the Duskmage wearing a decent brestplate.

Dimensional Jaunt can be quite good if you want to avoid an attack- ready an action to use Jaunt when, say, an enemy moves next to you. That big barbarian tries to charge the squishy wizard, and bam, you're on the other side of the room.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I'll probably throw them at my players as extra treasure in addition the parcels occationally, like I planned to do with alchemical items. These are the kinds of things they'll find in a wizard's desk drawer of something.

As a player, I probably won't be using them.