Paragon

[Drachos]

Maybe this kinda progression would solve the problem.

NOTE: This is the first time I have actually made something like this, as opposed commenting on balanced. I expect it to be broken. Please balance it for me... or at least discuss Balance with me.

Excellence.
Paragon Dual Wield: You need Two-Weapon Fighting or Multiweapon Fighting to pick this Excellence. Whenever you're fighting with two weapons, you may make an attack with your off-hand for every attack you make with your main hand instead of the regular number of attacks you would get for fighting with two-weapons. This includes Aoos and Charges. Double the bonus you gain from using Potential points for attacks and damage rolls while fighting with two weapons.

Greater Excellence.
Paragon of War: You need Paragon Dual Wield or Paragon Proficiency to qualify for this Greater Excellence. The Paragon has gotten so Masterful at combat, that his attacks flow into one another, and it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. In addition, the true master knows how someone will block a strike, and attack in such a manner that the next attack will be awkward to block.
You only need to roll one attack roll for every two attacks you make on a target. Should the attack succeed, both attack hit.

Perfect Excellence
Perfect Coordination: You need Paragon of War or Forged by Experience to qualify for this Perfect Excellence. The Paragon, has, via either magical enhancement or perfection of form, complete understanding of its body and where its limbs are. This can be used to attack as if all limbs are acting in perfect harmony. You only need to make one attack roll for every attack you make. In addition to this, should you have 4 or more limbs, Paragon Dual wield applies to all limbs, HOWEVER you must make at least two attacks, as the oppoent can at this stage dodge out of some of your blades into others, should he chose so.


I don't like the last one... But making Paragon Dual wield apply to all limbs, in a Marilith would mean so many attacks a round its actually insane. 3 attacks a limb, 6 limbs= 18 attacks a round. Thats way to much for a normal Excellence. But making a chain, that no one else can use doesn't fit the theme of the PrC

[oslecamo]

I'm not very sure if Paragon of War is an advantage at all. If you hit the first attack you hit both yes, but if you miss then you miss both, so you're just pushing probabilities for the extreme cases and removing the situations where one hits and another misses. Or do you mean that if your first attack hits, you can declare an auto-hit with your second on the same target, but if the first misses, you can still use your remaining attacks? That would be definetely more useful, but needs to be clarified.

Meanwhile the first part of Perfect Coordination "You only need to make one attack roll for every attack you make"... Isn't that how the attack rules already work?

As for the second part, well the problem is that the Marilith isn't the monster class with more limbs around here, not even close. Grell gets 10 with just 3 levels for example (Marilith however gets SLAs, SR, DR, telepathy, resistances and some other stuff) 

Also by experience, I can tell you lots of attacks on a character may look awesome in theory, but during actual play they can easily turn into a chore.

So I believe if Paragon Coordination kept the theme of Paragon of War of simplifying the math. If you hit an attack, you can auto-hit with your next 4 attacks on the same target, and possibility of spending extra points to make more of your remaining attacks (if you have them) auto-hit. Still pretty powerful, but cuts down on rolling.

[Drachos]

I'm not very sure if Paragon of War is an advantage at all. If you hit the first attack you hit both yes, but if you miss then you miss both, so you're just pushing probabilities for the extreme cases and removing the situations where one hits and another misses. Or do you mean that if your first attack hits, you can declare an auto-hit with your second on the same target, but if the first misses, you can still use your remaining attacks? That would be definetely more useful, but needs to be clarified.

Well, its mathematically speaking it depends on if you want more hits or more crits if Paragon of War is a buff.

Lets take a lvl 20 fighter, with 10 in every stat, (clearly he rolled bad) and a Greataxe as his weapon of choice.
And for no apparent reason, give him Paragon of War.

So Normally he gets 4 attack rolls, one with a BAB of 20, one with a BAB of 15, one with a BAB of 10 and so on, with each hit making him roll 1d12, and each crit he triples the damage.

With Paragon of War, he rolls twice, once with a BAB of 20, and the second time with a BAB of 15 and on a hit, roll 2d12, and on crit... well crazy damage occurs. However, you will crit less often, so a Great Axe would be possibly a bad choice of weapon.

But you will in theory, you hit more often and thus do more damage unless you are VERY crit focused.

Meanwhile the first part of Perfect Coordination "You only need to make one attack roll for every attack you make"... Isn't that how the attack rules already work?

As for the second part, well the problem is that the Marilith isn't the monster class with more limbs around here, not even close. Grell gets 10 with just 3 levels for example (Marilith however gets SLAs, SR, DR, telepathy, resistances and some other stuff) 

Also by experience, I can tell you lots of attacks on a character may look awesome in theory, but during actual play they can easily turn into a chore.

So I believe if Paragon Coordination kept the theme of Paragon of War of simplifying the math. If you hit an attack, you can auto-hit with your next 4 attacks on the same target, and possibility of spending extra points to make more of your remaining attacks (if you have them) auto-hit. Still pretty powerful, but cuts down on rolling.

Oh I know their are worse then Marilith... but I am planning to use this with a Marilith so that's where this all came from and the example I used. Clearly such Excellences would be even better with them, should they be melee focused.

The problem with Perfect Coordination's first part is that it is a direct upgrade from Paragon of War. All your attacks are merged into 1 roll, or 2 rolls if you have more then 1 set of limbs (so 4, 6, 8, etc). So the question becomes, "If I can get Perfect Coordination though Forged by Experience, why would I EVER take Paragon of War."

These were basic ideas, to try and work out a pattern for Excellences based around improving Multiple attacks a round. I shall do more thinking on this I think, if I have your approval.


Any suggestions for a replacement for Paragon of War, since Perfect Coordination is a linear upgrade?

[oslecamo]

Well the problem with Paragon of War is that the wording and your example leaves some holes. If you're rolling 2d12 How does it interact with DR? Or if you have, say, a stunning weapon or poison? Does it forces two saves? Your example sugests it counts as a single hit since you're adding the damage. And abilities that specifically block one attack? And why is your second "pair" of attacks done at 15 Bab and not at 10? Handn't you already used up the 15 Bab one? Does this allows you to change the order of your attacks?

As for scaling, you could just remove the option of picking Perfect Coordination with Forged by Experience. Several Perfect Excellences can only be unlocked with a single Greater Excellence already.

Keep up your thinking, since greater and perfect excellence for multiple attacks would be nice to have, but something you have to remember is that multipliers can scale out of control way easier than other stuff, in particular when you allow them to be directly combined with even more multipliers.

[Drachos]

In theory, DR would be doubled as well and any magical effect save they would have to roll twice on, as it is two separate hits, just with only one attack roll. But you are right, this is far more complicated then I thought when I wrote it.

As for the 20/15 instead of 20/10... that was to increase the effectiveness of it, however it did not spell this out.

I blame 4am.

Anyway, lets do this again.

The wording change to Paragon Duel Wield is good, so I think I will leave that at that.

Paragon of war has the issue that it has a LOT to explain. It has to deal with magical weapons save DCs, vorpal blades (a good example where Paragon of war WOULD be a downgrade), what BAB it uses, DR, and the like. So combining rolls doesn't seem easy without a wall of text explaining the ability.

Lets see what I can do

Paragon of war: Paragon of War: You need Paragon Dual Wield or Paragon Proficiency to qualify for this Greater Excellence. The Paragon has gotten so Masterful at combat, that his attacks flow into one another, and it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. In addition, the true master knows how someone will block a strike, and attack in such a manner that the next attack will be awkward to block.
The Paragon rolls once vs AC, for every two attacks made. For the purposes of BAB and Crit, this is treated as only 1 attack, meaning that on a 20/15/10/5 BAB array, the attacks use 20/15. However for all other purposes, (DR, Magical effects of a weapon, and the like) this is treated as two separate attacks, as the weapon impacts twice.


Now, why do I make it 20/15, instead of 20/10... well from my impression, the whole idea of the 20/15/10/5 array, is that every following attack is harder to make as it tends to be IRL. In this case, however, the idea is you make an attack in such a manner that one attack naturally lines up into the second, so that the weapon is already on the way to your next strike. Think like throwing a haymaker punch in such a way that it punches the guys head into your other fist, a short sword strike that is already turning to strike at the neck as it cuts the stomach, or an upslash attack on the left side of his body, specifically designed so that when he responds to that (too late) he opens himself up to getting smashed in the head by the same weapon.

Or mechanically, if you want to be so minded... it makes the effect better.


Before I work on Perfected Coordination, I want to know, is that any clearer, or should I try a different approach?

[oslecamo]

Much better, actually nice enough that I'll add it right away to the new Greater Excellence list. Good work!

[Drachos]

Well, I finish what I start, even though I will not get to play my idea anymore (The GM got fed up with the blue dragon's breath weapon because he had no idea how to balance her with the party. The line, "Its a monster campaign, you don't get many magical items" is all well and good at low levels... but it does mean casters and dragons SERIOUSLY destroy Minotaurs Barbarians and Drider Dread Necromancers, who can only get human Skeletons.

So we are now all level 1, LA0 races in a good guys campaign. *sighs*)

Ok, rant over.

So, lets try to balance the Perfected Excellence.

Perfected Coordination.
You require Paragon of War to Qualify for this Perfected Excellence.
Though magic or training, your understanding of your body had reached perfection, and your Kinesthetic sense is unmatched. Every strike, every movement, every physical act, are done with near perfection. This has the following effects:
You may take 10 on any roll physical Skill (uses Dex or Strength) roll that is a class skill of yours.
Your mastery of your body means you only have to make 1 attack roll on attacks, or two attack rolls if you are duel/multi -wielding weapons. This includes if you have Paragon Duel wield. Like with Paragon of War, for the purposes of BAB and crit it is considered 1 roll, but for all other purposes (DR, SLA, Magical weapons) this is considered as many rolls as you actually are supposed to impact the target with.
Finally, should you have taken Paragon Duel-Wield as a creature with 3 or more limbs, Paragon Duel-wield now applies to all additional armed limbs, instead of just 1.

Well that SHOULD help the situation, taking a potential of 60 rolls (10 limbs, each with 3 attacks, and 3 damage rolls) with a Grell with Paragon Duel wield (well its really multi-wield at that stage, but whatever) down to 32 (10 limbs, with 2 attack rolls total and 3 damage rolls each). Its still a lot of rolls, but I think things would get REALLY messy if I started merging damage rolls, with DR, and other such things.

But is it balanced, and can you see a safe way to decrease the dice pool further? Cause frankly at this stage I don't think the buff of an ability is a huge deal, compared to decreasing the glaring your GM is doing to you.

[oslecamo]

Hmm, yeah, if the minotaur was just taking plain barbarian levels, and the drider necro couldn't get any bodies besides basic humanoids, I can see a dragon pulling pretty far ahead.

As for your perfect excellence, first it needs some clearer wording. Make it clear that it's one roll for all your attacks.

Anyway what worries me is still the part where you combine that with anything with lots of limbs like the Grell.

So I would strongly sugest you only get full attack on two extra limbs over Paragon Wield, and anything over that, you pay potential points. So the grell with 10 limbs has to spend 6 potential points to get a full attack with all limbs.

Anyway, lots of damage rolls isn't nearly as bad as lots of attack rolls because you don't need to individually check if each hit or not. Either they all hit and you proceed to just add them up, or they all missed and you don't bother rolling at all.

[Leviathan]

Does the fast healing increase from Simply the Best apply to just the fast healing from No Time to Rest (effectively increasing it to your HD), or to all fast healing from all sources?


Edit: Also, an ACF: A left-handed paragon can gain "That Was Right Handed" at 12th level, replacing "That Was Left Handed". It provides the exact same benefit.

[VennDygrem]

It seems that you may be missing the point.

[Mithril Leaf]

Is there a particular reason that the Caster excellencies give more than twice the spells known compared to the powers known of the Manifester excellencies? I mean yeah powers scale, but so do spells to a lesser extent and the powers don't scale that well.

[oslecamo]

Does the fast healing increase from Simply the Best apply to just the fast healing from No Time to Rest (effectively increasing it to your HD), or to all fast healing from all sources?

Only paragon healing, clarified.

Edit: Also, an ACF: A left-handed paragon can gain "That Was Right Handed" at 12th level, replacing "That Was Left Handed". It provides the exact same benefit.

That's funny, but the ability already says you're performing the trick with your off-hand, regardless if you're right or left handed.

Is there a particular reason that the Caster excellencies give more than twice the spells known compared to the powers known of the Manifester excellencies? I mean yeah powers scale, but so do spells to a lesser extent and the powers don't scale that well.

-False Live vs Vigor.
-Astral Construct vs Summon Monster I-IX
-Temporal Acceleration vs Time Stop
-Psychic Reformation vs... Oh, wait, vancian casting doesn't get cheap fast retraining.
-You can use multiple standard actions in a single turn to cast multiple psionic powers, vs only one standard action spell per round.
-Psionic powers work just fine if you're tied up, gagged up and naked vs caster cabal getting shut down by a single silence spell.

I could also go on how psionics gets so many easy ways to boost ML that they actually scale better than vancian spells, and how you really never need to worry about running out of PP reserve boosters and recharge tricks are a dime a dozen, but there's multiple online guides about those already.

[Mithril Leaf]

Is there a particular reason that the Caster excellencies give more than twice the spells known compared to the powers known of the Manifester excellencies? I mean yeah powers scale, but so do spells to a lesser extent and the powers don't scale that well.

-False Live vs Vigor.
-Astral Construct vs Summon Monster I-IX
-Temporal Acceleration vs Time Stop
-Psychic Reformation vs... Oh, wait, vancian casting doesn't get cheap fast retraining.
-You can use multiple standard actions in a single turn to cast multiple psionic powers, vs only one standard action spell per round.
-Psionic powers work just fine if you're tied up, gagged up and naked vs caster cabal getting shut down by a single silence spell.

I could also go on how psionics gets so many easy ways to boost ML that they actually scale better than vancian spells, and how you really never need to worry about running out of PP reserve boosters and recharge tricks are a dime a dozen, but there's multiple online guides about those already.

Shapechange + Timestop vs Temporal Acceleration
Gate + Animate Dead vs Astral Construct
Orb of Force vs Amethyst Burst
Arcane Spellsurge vs... oh wait, psionics doesn't have a way to easily quicken a spell per round for free.

Psionics doesn't actually get so many easy ways to boost ML. It has a few viable ways, but merely getting several above requires notable resource investment. If you take a look at both the sorcerer and psion, two generally considered to be balanced with each other within standard power variation classes, You'll notice they get very similar numbers of total spells and powers. Paragon drastically jacks up the number of spells you get as a class that gets better spells vs worse but better scaling powers. I am not suggesting you buff the psion, but that you drop the caster spells per excellence down by one.

[oslecamo]

Shapechange + Timestop vs Temporal Acceleration

Two or those are 9th level, the other is 6th level.

Gate + Animate Dead vs Astral Construct

Two of those cost you fat exp/gold. The other has also been called a no-save just die power.

Orb of Force vs Amethyst Burst

One of those automatically hits multiple targets while being lower level, the other hits a single dude at best while being higher level, and may deal no damage at all.

Arcane Spellsurge vs... oh wait, psionics doesn't have a way to easily quicken a spell per round for free.

They don't need to when they have linked power and whatnot to easily get infinite actions.

Psionics doesn't actually get so many easy ways to boost ML. It has a few viable ways, but merely getting several above requires notable resource investment.

3000 GP for +3 ML, that explicitly stacks with itself, is a "notable" resource investment now? Fascinating.

If you take a look at both the sorcerer and psion, two generally considered to be balanced with each other within standard power variation classes, You'll notice they get very similar numbers of total spells and powers. Paragon drastically jacks up the number of spells you get as a class that gets better spells vs worse but better scaling powers. I am not suggesting you buff the psion, but that you drop the caster spells per excellence down by one.

Haha, nice try. Sorcerors have been kicked and insulted around the net for years now, while psions get little nothing but praise.

Besides, if a psion really believes spells are superior to powers, he can just go spell-to-power to get all the spells he wants. Which will automatically be better than the sorcerer spells because it'll get rid of gold costs and other penalties. And then retrain it all cheaply when he wants to try out new toys.

Really, the psionic excellences already gives a psionic paragon infinitely more versatility than a sorceror paragon. Why do you want to kick sorcerors down even more?

[Mithril Leaf]

Shapechange + Timestop vs Temporal Acceleration

Two or those are 9th level, the other is 6th level.

Gate + Animate Dead vs Astral Construct

Two of those cost you fat exp/gold. The other has also been called a no-save just die power.

Orb of Force vs Amethyst Burst

One of those automatically hits multiple targets while being lower level, the other hits a single dude at best while being higher level, and may deal no damage at all.

Arcane Spellsurge vs... oh wait, psionics doesn't have a way to easily quicken a spell per round for free.

They don't need to when they have linked power and whatnot to easily get infinite actions.

Psionics doesn't actually get so many easy ways to boost ML. It has a few viable ways, but merely getting several above requires notable resource investment.

3000 GP for +3 ML, that explicitly stacks with itself, is a "notable" resource investment now? Fascinating.

If you take a look at both the sorcerer and psion, two generally considered to be balanced with each other within standard power variation classes, You'll notice they get very similar numbers of total spells and powers. Paragon drastically jacks up the number of spells you get as a class that gets better spells vs worse but better scaling powers. I am not suggesting you buff the psion, but that you drop the caster spells per excellence down by one.

Haha, nice try. Sorcerors have been kicked and insulted around the net for years now, while psions get little nothing but praise.

Besides, if a psion really believes spells are superior to powers, he can just go spell-to-power to get all the spells he wants. Which will automatically be better than the sorcerer spells because it'll get rid of gold costs and other penalties. And then retrain it all cheaply when he wants to try out new toys.

Really, the psionic excellences already gives a psionic paragon infinitely more versatility than a sorceror paragon. Why do you want to kick sorcerors down even more?

In order:
9th level spells that are used for time freezing purposes, you get plenty more of them.
If you allow infinite PP, you can allow Thought Bottle or Beneficial Traps to negate the costs, if you want to assume equal optimization. Also just because something is claimed doesn't mean it's true. The whole premise of that is flawed.
On the other hand, if you want to get identical damage you have to pay for a 9th level slot, instead of a 4th. Amethyst Burst can also do no damage at all if your opponent has evasion, which is exceedingly easy to pick up.
If you want to play the infinite game sorcerer can just pull ice assassin of himself and become recursively powerful, via traps if need be (which he can craft). The gamebreaking combos can only be factored in equally if you factor them in.
Please name the actual item that gives you +3 ML for 3000 GP.
A StP erudite is better than a psion just like a wizard is better than a sorcerer. Please don't drag irrelevant classes into this comparison.

It's your class though, since you won't be convinced to change it, the whole thing is fruitless. Do as you please.

[oslecamo]

In order:
9th level spells that are used for time freezing purposes, you get plenty more of them.

You only ever need one time freezing effect, and psionics get it much earlier, simple as that.

If you allow infinite PP, you can allow Thought Bottle or Beneficial Traps to negate the costs, if you want to assume equal optimization. Also just because something is claimed doesn't mean it's true. The whole premise of that is flawed.

What is true in D&D is what people assume is true, and propaganda has made plenty of players believe the actual rules (and even certain aspects of the real world) aren't true.

Also, tought bottles work just fine for psionic tricks as well. Both sides can abuse them, so moot point. Ditto for traps, you can make psionic versions of them as well.

On the other hand, if you want to get identical damage you have to pay for a 9th level slot, instead of a 4th. Amethyst Burst can also do no damage at all if your opponent has evasion, which is exceedingly easy to pick up.

Claiming that nonstandard abilities can hinder psionics isn't really helping your case.

If you want to play the infinite game sorcerer can just pull ice assassin of himself and become recursively powerful, via traps if need be (which he can craft). The gamebreaking combos can only be factored in equally if you factor them in.

Yay, moar 9th level spells being pulled to face stuff psionic characters got 6 levels ago!

Please name the actual item that gives you +3 ML for 3000 GP.

Quori shards. Man, you know about the more obscure splat stuff like ice assassin and tought bottles, but somehow miss basic  stuff like psionic traps and quori shards. I could imagine you're being somewhat biased towards psionics.

A StP erudite is better than a psion just like a wizard is better than a sorcerer. Please don't drag irrelevant classes into this comparison.

Erudite is still a psionic class. Since we were discussing vancian casting vs psionics, it's only fair I consider the full range of psionics out there.

It's your class though, since you won't be convinced to change it, the whole thing is fruitless. Do as you please.

I already did. This is just for pointing out all the stuff you missed about psionics.

[Raineh Daze]

Claiming that nonstandard abilities can hinder psionics isn't really helping your case

I wouldn't call Evasion non-standard. Isn't there a ring that gives that?

[Mithril Leaf]

Please name the actual item that gives you +3 ML for 3000 GP.

Quori shards. Man, you know about the more obscure splat stuff like ice assassin and tought bottles, but somehow miss basic  stuff like psionic traps and quori shards. I could imagine you're being somewhat biased towards psionics.

Please tell me what Quori Shard gives you +3 ML for 3000 GP. Because of all the ones I can see, it doesn't exist. Are you thinking of the Power Link Shard which explicitly works nothing like what you've described?

[oslecamo]

I stand corrected on the name. They still give +3 ML for 3000 GP, they still stack with themselves, and you still don't run out of uses as long as you're fighting 3 battles per day. You won't really need more than one power per battle when you get to use them at double or over your usual ML after all.

Claiming that nonstandard abilities can hinder psionics isn't really helping your case

I wouldn't call Evasion non-standard. Isn't there a ring that gives that?

For 25 000 GP. Amethyst burst comes online at 3rd character level.

[VennDygrem]

A couple questions:

1) Paragon Magic states "Plus now you ignore all ACF on any armor and shields you wear." Is this ACP (Armor Check Penalty) or ASF (Arcane Spell Failure)? I imagine the latter was intended, as it pertains more directly to spellcasters, though both are a factor.

2) Regarding Paragon Spell; Is there any way to retrain which spell this bonus pertains to? If you have a reduced casting progression (such as entering through a monster class that grants 2/3 casting progression, for instance) or if you just enter with a spontaneous casting class (such as a Sorcerer or Beguiler) and you go straight through with only the magic-specific excellences, you're quite a bit behind a Wizard who takes Paragon levels. Don't Wizards have enough advantages compared to other casters already?

Seriously though, being able to change the spell once each time you gain a level, even with a limit on how high a spell level you can apply it to, would likely help. The benefit even fits Sorcerers/spontaneous casters more in flavor, who tend to have a smaller selection of spells known and thus are more likely to eventually have a 'favored spell.'