Past, Present, and Future Index & Discussion

[Stratovarius]

Hey there Prime, long time no see. I shall do as requested

[Amechra]

The man has returned! Hurrah, I say!

But, in utmost seriousness, I have half-in-giberrish* notes on fixin' up the Splices, mostly based on some things I observed when playing around with them.

*My notes make the Time Cube guy seem coherent and rational. Yeah.

[Stratovarius]

Fire up a thread or drop them here, and we can start work on fixing those bad boys up.

[sirpercival]

Strato, if you'd ever like to discuss things in realtime, I'm usually on the minmaxboards IRC channel, which is #mmxgeneral on irc.rizon.net.

[Stratovarius]

IRC eh? That's something I haven't used since I left the PRC back in 2009... I think. Any recommendations for modern ways of accessing it?

[Stratovarius]

So, start poking my way through the base classes. I've hit up the Echocaller and Historian (just the base class) with comments, and then I'll start chewing my way through the Techniques/Eras/Seeds/Feats etc that all apply to the Historian, based on a lot of the ideas brought up in this thread.

[Avalon®]

Now that's a name I haven't seen in a while. How ya doin' Strat?

I'll see if I can remember what we discussed regarding Epic Historians.

[Stratovarius]

Heya mate

Doing pretty well, just building more classes and dropping in a new magic system or two

If you can port it across, that'd be helpful. There's such a pile of material here.

[Avalon®]

I'll what I can recall from memory.

I don't have access to the exact rulings we did since those were stored in PMs that I now can't access over at BG.

[Stratovarius]

Copy pasta time.

How would these fare for Epic Feats?

Localized Disturbances Your mastery of time allows you to focus and shape temporal effects around you.

Prerequisites: Slicer Level 20, Intelligence 30
Benefit: You may cast area of effect slices on yourself or on another target. They still affect the area around them but are focused on the chosen target and remain centered on him even if he moves from the original spot.

Special: Slices cast in this manner are at -2 Slicer level

Weight of the Ages You are more closely attuned to the ancient magics. Due to your affinity in them, you may channel incredible amounts of energy but at a price.

Prerequisites: Ancient Wizardry or Ancient Prayer level 20
Benefit: Once per day, you may double your Maximum Spell Points per spell. For every spell point you spend more than your normal maximum limit, you lose 5 hp.

The "half spell point costs" one looks like it could help a lot. The important bit is just to reduce/eliminate the cost of the Permanent duration.

That as well as the Localized Disturbances feat make the Chronomancer/Historian a scarily good gish char. Multiple high-level permanent buffs from the Historian plus the slices (especially the stuff like the "harden"/"quicken" time one that absolutely shreds incoming spells) can make even Wizards and Co. quake in a direct confrontation with him though this is only theory at the moment.

That's what I've got, but I sent you some feats I can't see.

[Avalon®]

Unfortunately I really can't access my account on the old BG boards and I was unable to save them before the boards died.

Those two are more or less the only stuff we discussed except for some discussion regarding the classes themselves and some missing spells seeds you have like seeds for Detection and Dispelling.

[Stratovarius]

Well, if you want to keep working on the Epic material, I'll happily critique it. It's not an area of the game I've ever played, myself.

[Stratovarius]

Updated the Index to make it much easier to find things. Also broke a few things out into their own threads.

[Stratovarius]

Looked at all the prestige classes for this system, and noticed there's only two each for the Chronomancer and the Echocaller. Thinking I should possibly design some more. Thoughts?

[phaedrusxy]

How many spell points (and the martial equivalent) does the Historian get when he chooses an ancient technique? And he can choose any spell seeds he wants, regardless of whether he chooses Ancient Wizardry or Ancient Prayer? The Arcanist is limited to Wizardry, and cannot choose his known seeds every day. So unless the Historian gets dramatically fewer Spell Points, then he seems like a better casting class than the Arcanist.

Edit: Looked in the Spell Seeds thread, and saw the table there... 

Edit2: The historian looks even better when compared to the Ecclesiast. He gets nearly as many spell seeds known (which he can change daily) and even more Sacred Gifts and Fortes/Eras, and better hit dice! And I don't see that he's restricted to Prayer seeds when he chooses Ancient Prayer (though I'd bet he's supposed to be). The historian is seeming like the 2nd edition bard.

[Stratovarius]

How many spell points (and the martial equivalent) does the Historian get when he chooses an ancient technique? And he can choose any spell seeds he wants, regardless of whether he chooses Ancient Wizardry or Ancient Prayer? The Arcanist is limited to Wizardry, and cannot choose his known seeds every day. So unless the Historian gets dramatically fewer Spell Points, then he seems like a better casting class than the Arcanist.

Edit: Looked in the Spell Seeds thread, and saw the table there... 

The Historian is far more versatile, but gets less in the way of Eras (Arcanist calls them Fortes), Seeds, and Spell Points, and doesn't get a capstone ability either. Which should put the Arcanist ahead.

The Ecclesiast, on the other hand, is quite possibly objectively weaker than the Prayer Historian all the way to 20. It has, somehow, less Forte/Eras AND less Sacred Gifts. Not good design on my part.  Does get more Seeds and more Spell Points though.

[phaedrusxy]

Heh, I was editing when you posted to bring up what you said about the Ecclesiast. Yeah, the historian definitely looks too strong compared to it, and maybe too strong compared to the Arcanist as well.

Should the Historian really be getting full access to these abilities? I think capping the amount of points he can spend on spells/fusillades might be the way to go, since you have dedicated classes to these things now. The Historian seems more like a bard "jack of all trades" than a specialist (with a bit of the binder thrown in, as far as how he chooses his abilities daily). Maybe cap his maximum points spent at 3/4 class level (rounded up?)?

[Stratovarius]

Heh, I was editing when you posted to bring up what you said about the Ecclesiast. Yeah, the historian definitely looks too strong compared to it, and maybe too strong compared to the Arcanist as well.

Well, I forgot that my main restriction on the Ecclesiast/Prayer end of things was that it has less Seeds than the Arcanist, but has Sacred Gifts to make up the difference. I'll give him access to a couple more of each when I can.

Should the Historian really be getting full access to these abilities? I think capping the amount of points he can spend on spells/fusillades might be the way to go, since you have dedicated classes to these things now. The Historian seems more like a bard "jack of all trades" than a specialist (with a bit of the binder thrown in, as far as how he chooses his abilities daily). Maybe cap his maximum points spent at 3/4 class level (rounded up?)?

Yeah, the Historian was written as a class with stand-alone access to these abilities. The easiest change is probably nerfing his spell point cap to use the same progression as the Arcanist's Seeds (capping out at 15). At least for use in this setting. He's probably okay as he is when facing up to CoDZilla.

Edit: Take a look at the newly beefed up Ecclesiast.

Edit #2: Added maximum point caps to Ancient Spellcasting and Martial Fusillades for the Historian.

[phaedrusxy]

Looking over the spell seeds... I'd suggest just getting rid of the Following Shadow entirely... The Shadow Conjuration/Evocation spells and Shadowcraft Mage were bad ideas in the first place, and your classes have plenty of on-the-fly flexibility without it (IMO, of course).

[Stratovarius]

Looking over the spell seeds... I'd suggest just getting rid of the Following Shadow entirely... The Shadow Conjuration/Evocation spells and Shadowcraft Mage were bad ideas in the first place, and your classes have plenty of on-the-fly flexibility without it (IMO, of course).

One thing I am aware of (and hasn't ever really been dealt with because the Historian has dodged all playtests) is that the seeds are by and large not particularly balanced against one another. What I really need to do at some point is sit down and turn every single effect in the SRD into a seed, rather than half-assing it with ones that just grant access to certain spells. Especially when some of those seeds are quite powerful (there's one that's basically "Get most Illusion spells").