Difference between revisions of "Talk:Flame Disciple"

Revision as of 11:07, 23 June 2010

I've not been playing for a particularly long time, so I have no idea how well (or poorly) balanced this is. Specifically, I'm not sure if the minor elemental storm is actually useful or if it's just cool sounding. I've also thought about spell-like abilities like the following that could be used in place of the ones listed or possibly in the 2nd and 4th level slots:

Wildfire: all creatures (enemies?) currently on fire explode, dealing some nominal damage to themselves and catching enemies within 10' on fire (chance to save by reflex).

Living bomb: small damage per round, larger AoE on death/expiration of the DoT/dispel.

Combustion(?): Causes a small explosion under the caster's feet, dealing some small amount of damage and knocking everyone within 5' backwards 10' (used to disengage from melee enemies), possibly a chance to knock the opponent prone?

Engulfing flames: Some sort of stacking effect where each fire damage by the caster causes the target to be more susceptible to fire for N rounds.

...

If more balance is needed, I think it would be appropriate for non-fire based offensive spells to count as one level higher than they are listed for purposes of spells known / per day.

Another option I've considered would be to flesh out all of the spells so far and provide them as a supplemental spell list that the caster could take as necessary.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Be gentle.

TooMuchPete 17:27, 21 June 2010 (EDT)

I'm sure Matt or Slitherrr will chime in on the numbers and rulesy stuff, they're good with that. I like the idea, overall, and think we can do some more interesting stuff with it. First off, as far as becoming half elemental, we can do that. To whit: <a href="http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Templates.pdf">Templates</a>. I'm not sure about the half-elemental in there, but other ones abound, might even have one in a dragon somewhere. Essentally you'd become an Fire Outsider instead of a Humanoid and some other fire related bonuses. I'll put some thought in and see what other kind of suggestions pop up. I think, probably, some of these might be underpowered or impractical (2 minute activation time! That's 20 rounds. The ENTIRE of last sundays game was like 15), and a couple need to be scaled back or gradated or even degradated. I like the idea of taking extra damage from cold, but I don't know that it needs to scale that much. 50% extra at third and double at 5th or something, since working in halves is kind of a mechanical normalcy.

Also: If it's going to have one good save, it's will. It's a good start, should be fun to work on -gm

Ditto on will save, but the elemental swarm ability is pulled almost verbatim from the SRD, so I think its point is to be cast outside of battle. I also agree with the 1/3/5 resist/vulnerability step, for the same reasons, although numbers will take tweaking. Something like 10/20/immune-x1/x1.5/x2 would probably work, although vulnerability in the SRD is only a +50%, so inspecting those numbers might be worthwhile. Perhaps +1d4/+1d8/vulnerability (+50%)? We'll have to look into some cold-damage spells and see what numbers they do to figure those out. Talking in IRC, Pete and I both think that 1d4 is probably too much self-damage per round for self-immolate. Obviously the damage can't be resistible, or it might as well not be there, but having a cost is important, too. It might be best to just make the ability a pure toggle--that would make the self-damage less scary, but allow it to still be the fairly large (for a sorc's hp) 1d4/round amount. -Slitherrr

Excellent thought. Let me bring a DM's eye to this - the less die the better. I would suggest something more along the lines of sacrificing X HP in order to generate some factor of Xd4 in damage, with a cap influenced by level. It makes the math very easy, and scales with level, which I think is an important aspect of prestige classes. I almost always include at least one scaling ability per package.

I think for GENERAL energy resistance, 1/3/5 is the way to go, but for a discrete damage type - especially coupled with a vulnerability - I think 5/10/15 or even 5/10/20 is appropriate. 20 isn't IMMUNE, but you could still probably play at least one game of ping pong while standing in a wall of fire.

This is hard to balance. Those are pretty small numbers when you start talking about the sorts of damage fire can do, ESPECIALLY if coupled with vulnerability. I say that, if the resistance numbers are this "small" (and it's pretty small, since fire spells really start racking up the damage at higher levels, and it's not like this resist can stack with Resist Energy casts), we should consider also really reducing the cold vulnerability, or removing it altogether. After all, elementals aren't vulnerable to opposite-aligned elemental spells, the vulnerability was just to balance the fairly powerful (on a PC) immunity, and possibly other abilities.

Yeah, balance tweaking is in order here, but I don't think something like 5xDisciple Level in Flame DR is bad. 25 is quite a lot of resistance. The spells it won't soak up most of are things like delayed blast, which you don't need to be shrugging off, regardless. For any of the spells involved in the self-center mechanic, it should be more than enough - especially if that DR is doubled for that specific purpose.

Oh, and elementals most certainly DO have vulnerabilities to opposite alignment. It's right there under "Special Qualities." Of course, it's not scaling, it's just Some creatures have vulnerability to a certain kind of energy effect (typically either cold or fire). Such a creature takes half again as much (+50%) damage as normal from the effect, regardless of whether a saving throw is allowed, or if the save is a success or failure. . I do like this idea, but perhaps as part of the level 5 "turning into a half elemental" package. -gm

It feels somewhat weird to go from 1d8 to +50%, as it's not difficult to imagine a situation in which +8 would be more than 50% of the incoming damage. +25% might be awkward to do at level 3, and x2.0 might be a little high, but I think the x2 could be balanced a bit by adding another ability or somehow improving the survivability a bit in some other way. --TooMuchPete 11:15, 22 June 2010 (EDT)

I'd prefer not to add extra dice in the singular, so for something like cold vulnerability, the more likely way to go is a penalty to save coupled with some straight % of damage increase.

Also, the extent of transformation into an Elemental type would matter, since there are attributes that apply.

From the SRD:

1. Darkvision out to 60 feet.
2. Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, and stunning.
3. Not subject to critical hits or flanking.
4. Unlike most other living creatures, an elemental does not have a dual nature—its soul and body form one unit. When an elemental is slain, no soul is set loose. Spells that restore souls to their bodies, such as raise dead, reincarnate, and resurrection, don’t work on an elemental. It takes a different magical effect, such as limited wish, wish, miracle, or true resurrection, to restore it to life.
5. Proficient with natural weapons only, unless generally humanoid in form, in which case proficient with all simple weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entry.
6. Proficient with whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) that it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Elementals not indicated as wearing armor are not proficient with armor. Elementals are proficient with shields if they are proficient with any form of armor.
7. Elementals do not eat, sleep, or breathe.

5 and 6 obviously don't apply, and 3 and 4 probably don't, since crits/flanking is based on not having a discernible front or anatomy, and the usual trope for 4 is for members of transformation PrCs to still count as their base type for purposes of resurrection (not that it matters in THIS particular campaign), but the rest are fair game. The dragon disciple even gains stats, but I think that the spells and extraordinary abilities offset that particular bit for this guy. -Slitherrr

Yeah. I think a full on elemental type would me a little much. There are two or three different half-elemental templates floating around out there, to say nothing of a character race set (the Gensai, et al) based around half elementalism. The 5th level of the prestige class could be the acquisition of the template, which I think is preferable to a wholesale race substitution. But, either way, I think Outsider (Fire) getting added is a given considering the description.

Right. PrCs of this sort generally add a creature type, rather than substituting one completely (so Humanoid/Fire Elemental, or Humanoid/Outsider(Fire), which is a difference in degree), generally meaning that effects that target one or the other will affect the character (with some exceptions made, like being able to be resurrected and whatnot). -Slitherrr

Most of the additional ideas above seem impractical or not terribly useful, but I'd like to find a way to work Wildfire in. The two big problems I see with it now are: a) It would need to use a spell slot. Maybe level 1 or 2? Otherwise I could imagine it being a bit over-powered. b) there aren't a ton of spells that actually set the enemy on fire, so there's not a ton of usefulness to it. The only solution I could see to that is that fire damage dealt could have a chance to set the target on fire (maybe coupled with self-immolate?). That might be more useful than the Minor Elemental Swarm, which I added just because sounds cool. --TooMuchPete 11:15, 22 June 2010 (EDT)

Well, if it uses a spell slot, you might be better off just adding a fire-only spell slot to the class at the levels where he gains caster level, and then fleshing Wildfire out into a spell. Extraordinary/supernatural abilities tend to be limited by the x/day thing, or by repercussions (i.e. self-damage), or not limited at all.-Slitherrr

s/Wildfire/Self-immolate. Damn your WoW-centric vocabulary! -Slitherrr

Alright, I like the idea of where you're going with this, but I think that the stuff gained by the class needs to not be a spell like ability, but rather things that augment your spells. Consider, perhaps, the ability to cast any fire spell as a 10' radius (it could grow with character levels) spell centered on yourself. Either a set number of times per day, perhaps based on an attribute, or as a metamagic feat with sometihng like +1 spell level. You'd damage yourself, getting the immolation idea in, but the elemental resistance would eat up a lot of that. If the math works out to be too punishing, we could have the innate DR double when using the ability (so 5/10/20 or 30 becomes 10/20/40 or 60). So, for example, you could cast Burning Hands as a radius effect spell on yourself and you'd take whatever damage your fire resistance did not eat up, or a Searing Ray, or a Fireball or whatever.

Better, even, if the DR scales something like 5 per level, maxing out at 25 at level five? Likewise, perhaps, the character level would restrict the spell level for the ability: first level could only cast first level spells that way, through 5th level. Anything higher than that, really, even with 40 or 60 DR you might kill yourself.

As for Elemental Swarm - I think, especially considering you're going for the Pseudodragon, you would be better of developing it as a spell that you can pick up at the appropriate level. Something like what you are looking for, in spell form, probably exists in the wild

Thoughts? -gm

For the record, I see that there are two options as far as the immolation thing goes - the metamagic feat or extraordinary ability that turns spells into radius effects or a scaling X nonpreventable damage for Yd4 effect. I prefer the former, because it has built in scaling (by picking the spell) and mimics in mechanics what I think you are going for (centering firestorms on yourself.)

As for the firestorm idea, another option would be to include a metamagic feat that allows you to learn any elemntal tag spell as a fire version of that spell. So, cone of cold becomes cone of fire, etc. This way, there are actually a couple of options for firestorms at various levels, allowing you to get one or both. Ice Storm, which also impairs movement, and Acid Raid (or some such) which just does a megafuck damage. I think this is preferable, again, because it keeps the primary engine of your damage as the spell slot.

I think we might be combing two different ideas here that I had not intended to be related. The tl;dr on self-immolation (as I've proposed it) is a damage buff to fire-spells that costs HP. The small, caster-centered AOE is more of a result of the way the ability was conceived... which is basically that the caster becomes engulfed in raging flames, doing damage to himself and surroundings, but making his fire spells more powerful. Wildfire is more of a way to make fire contagious. When the ability is used, enemies who are on fire have a chance to set nearby enemies on fire, too. TooMuchPete 11:07, 23 June 2010 (EDT)