Changes I'm Thinking About [Input Wanted!]

[kellus]

Okay, so I've been thinking about the system in general, and I think there are two big changes I want to make to existing material, but I wanted your guys' input first!

1. Gramarists get invocations, up to 3/3/2/2 from a general utility engineering suite of them:

• Least Invocation List: alarm, animate rope, arcane mark, endure elements, erase, hold portal, mage hand (5lb/caster level), open/close, silent image, and ventriloquism.
  
• Lesser Invocation List: arcane sight, detect thoughts, fly (24 hour duration), gust of wind, illusory script and secret page (two for one!), magic mouth (automatically permanent if you choose), misdirection, phantom trap, shatter, and water breathing.
  
• Greater Invocation List: arcane eye, dimensional anchor, dimension door, fabricate, hallucinatory terrain, passwall, secret chest, sending, stone shape, and telekinesis.
  
• Revolutionary Invocation List: control water and control winds (two for one!), grasping hand, guards and wards, mirage arcana (must have Greater level hallucinatory terrain), phase door, reverse gravity, statue, transmute rock to mud and transmute mud to rock (two for one!), true seeing, and wall of iron.

This means they have something worth sticking around for, and have more options for interacting with their environment than just through gramarie and spectroconstruction. Now they can build and shape stuff out of rock and iron and similar things, and then place gramarie on top of it. I think this kills a few birds with one stone– it gives gramarists something to compete with their PrC options, it ties in with the eldritch blast they already have, and it gives them interesting to do (although still engineering-related) in a combat timeframe (ie: you won't see everybody and their mum only playing it gestalt-style). Least invocations for them count as 1st level spells, lesser 2nd, greater 3rd, revolutionary 4th. I'd also be taking Prime32's note about the spell level of eldritch blast, because...

2. Silver transformers get adjusted for inflation. Specifically, power inflation. People say linear fighters, quadratic wizards, so let's actually use a quadratic progression for spell value! 1,4,9,16,25,36,49,64,81 ebbs to cast spells from a silverOut, and they get hit hard by inefficiency; silverIn still only produces the linear amount. This is mostly because I literally have no control over the power level of spells; while other features in the system see fairly balanced around each other, all of the biggest problems I've seen come from using silver transformers to create an out-of-whack spell or something for cheap.

Thoughts would be appreciated! 

[Omnicrat]

1) I feel like a lot of the invocations gained don't fit with gramarie thematically.  Maybe that's just me though.  Also, wouldn't that change lessen the ebb output of eldrich blast?  If so, I'm opposed to it.  Its already not that great, but making it a constant 1 makes it virtually useless.

2) The Player In Me:  No!  This makes Higher level spells impossible to put in silver inputs without massive ebb generators or batteries!  By the time the average player gets access to the high level spells, those won't be too hard to come by, so all this does is screw over the lucky party who gets one output of a higher level spell and destroy any current models for silverout infrastructure!  You make your system require exploits almost if you make this change!

The DM In Me:  This is better than nothing.  Its still really easily exploited, as almost every day there is a new mass ebb generator (I believe the newest is creatures made of phlogiston living their lives inside a net of iceins).  It makes certain devices impossible, at least without heavy modification, but thats a fair price for closer balance.  Honestly, it would probably be best to not have spells expressible at all.

Internal Resolution:  Yeah, I guess it works.  But why do you have to keep breaking all my nice things? 

[davethebrave]

I think this makes them a bit more attractive to play, and I wholeheartedly agree with taking the nerf stick to some of the crazy shit silver transformers can do as a DM...but as Omnicrat says, ultimately the exploits are just a tiny bit more out of reach.

[Amechra]

I for one agree with pretty much everything here; however, how about this progression for SilverOuts:

1, 2, 4, 7, 12, 20, 33, 54, 88?

[Garryl]

Sigma Fibonacci? I'd love to hear the logic behind your recommendation.

[Amechra]

I personally prefer Sigma Fibonacci, since it means that lower level spells are more accessible, and higher level spells are slightly harder to get access to.

Also, I personally feel that it's closer to the actual progression for how powerful a given level of spell is.

[veekie]

The main problematic spells are those above third level anyway, so I support quadratic ebbery, as it encourages users to rely heavily on duplicating spells for their effects rather than working with Gramarie to get those.

[Arcanist]

2. Silver transformers get adjusted for inflation. Specifically, power inflation. People say linear fighters, quadratic wizards, so let's actually use a quadratic progression for spell value! 1,4,9,16,25,36,49,64,81 ebbs to cast spells from a silverOut, and they get hit hard by inefficiency; silverIn still only produces the linear amount. This is mostly because I literally have no control over the power level of spells; while other features in the system see fairly balanced around each other, all of the biggest problems I've seen come from using silver transformers to create an out-of-whack spell or something for cheap.

I support this, because at some point the Gramarist becomes an overpowered Artificer through abusing the Silver Transformers ability to replicate spellcasting and theoretically removing time as a factor by the use of Teleport Through Time, however I believe that 81 ebbs for a 9th level spell is to easy. 9th level spells should require A LOT OF POWER (probably into the hundreds) and Epic spells (which for all intensive purposes function as 10th level spells) shouldn't cost 10 ebbs. They should either cost thousands of Ebbs or shouldn't be accessible at all... Just my view on things. (No help, Just opinions and thoughts like always...)

1. Gramarists get invocations, up to 3/3/2/2 from a general utility engineering suite of them:

Wonderful. I always felt that Gramarist could use some sort of magical support beyond Eldritch Blast.

Least Invocation List: alarm, animate rope, arcane mark, endure elements, erase, hold portal, mage hand (5lb/caster level), open/close, silent image, and ventriloquism.

Hmm... I'd offer to either specify that Silent Image can only create structures, because Silent Image is single handedly one of the most powerful and easier to abuse 1st level spells in the game and making it at will and usable all day is just asking for trouble. It adds firepower to the class, but it adds to much firepower. If your aim was to make it replicate a lighter version of 101 IMCH you would be better off giving them Major Image. Adds a light heat signature, sound and smell which is pretty good, but this is even more power then Silent Image. I view the balanced spell level equivalent  for Invocations as being 0-2 for Least, 3-4 for Lesser, 5-7 for Greater and 8-9 for Revolutionary, but eh...

In the case of Silent Image, I propose using Invisibility (objects only). Not TOO powerful and it requires a certain level of creativity that to me, has become a signature for Gramarie. In addition to that, what is your opinion on using Enlarge/Reduce person for massive/miniture productions? Just a thought really...

Lesser Invocation List: arcane sight, detect thoughts, fly (24 hour duration), gust of wind, illusory script and secret page (two for one!), magic mouth (automatically permanent if you choose), misdirection, phantom trap, shatter, and water breathing.

For lesser, Major Image wouldn't exactly be to overpowered as well would be moving Hallucinate Terrain over here. This one might be a stretch, but I seriously recommend adding in Dispel Magic and allowing it to deactive Gramaric Principles for 1 round/level.

No real clue why Phantom trap, shatter and illusory script is there. Neither am I sure why misdirection is there. I'd add Clairaudience/Clairvoyance and make it so that it only works around your Spectroconstructs so that you have a constant eye on your aids. Also, I'd recommend Servant Hoard (think Mass Unseen Servant). Not really abusable, but it gets the job done if longer term physical labor is needed and your Specptroconstructs are too specific to use outside of construction.

I have alot more to say here, but lets move on for now.

Greater Invocation List: arcane eye, dimensional anchor, dimension door, fabricate, hallucinatory terrain, passwall, secret chest, sending, stone shape, and telekinesis.

Dimension Door is fine, just lower the range of function (changing it to close instead of long). This is one of my personal favorite levels with what you did here. Dimensional Anchor is a little unnecessary since I can't exactly imagine a use for it... Secret chest is always nice, and telekinesis kind of makes the Prime Mover slightly moot doesn't it?  Adding Animate Dead (Zombie's only) works as well, but fluff it so that it allows you adjust the skin of the creature to replicate BIOY 101. Prismatic Wall (1 layer at a time) would be just awesome really.

Adding Greater Dispel Magic for the sake of completeness.

Revolutionary Invocation List: control water and control winds (two for one!), grasping hand, guards and wards, mirage arcana (must have Greater level hallucinatory terrain), phase door, reverse gravity, statue, transmute rock to mud and transmute mud to rock (two for one!), true seeing, and wall of iron.

I have some recommendations for this here... Permanent Image, Greater Teleport, Disintegrate (Object only), Magnificent Mansion, Gate (Travel only) is all. Everything else here is just peachy.

Just recommendations really...

Kaleidomantics is REALLY hard to capture without making it overpowered and having it scale properly, same with Biollurgy. Heuristicism is just down right impossible without giving the Gramarist Contingency to scale that wouldn't work because they lack spells to cast.

In my blunt opinion, I'd rather the Gramarist have Artificer Infusions since they capture the "creator of all things forever" look your going for

[veekie]

^^
Overkill I think, given that the easiest way to generate ebbs is ALSO spells. Quadratic costs keeps the worst of it down, and you can't really do much better than that without ruling generating spells out entirely.

[Draconas]

Reposting from Giantitp now that I have an account here.

Kellus, for the thread about invocations for grammarists and silver outputs and inputs on Minmax boards(can't get an account there for some reason), I think the silver outputs and inputs make sense, especially given your fireball example in the arcanodynamics description(because most of the energy would be spent pulling the fire from the elemental plane of fire and turning it into a fire, so for probably most spells, quite a bit of the energy would probably be spent making the spell then actually makes up the end result).

For invocations, would it make sense for them to have wood shape in addition to stoneshape, and while I know there isn't such a thing as metal shape, maybe something for that too? And maybe each specialization(and universalist) gives a special invocation? (like geoccultism gives endure elements, but maybe the invocation also gives total immunity to all traits of biomes created by the caster, while arcanodynamics give the energy adaption power in invocation form, but the recipient might convert the energy to puissance if in contact with something that can use it instead of light)

[redking]

Okay, so I've been thinking about the system in general, and I think there are two big changes I want to make to existing material, but I wanted your guys' input first!

1. Gramarists get invocations, up to 3/3/2/2 from a general utility engineering suite of them:

• Least Invocation List: alarm, animate rope, arcane mark, endure elements, erase, hold portal, mage hand (5lb/caster level), open/close, silent image, and ventriloquism.
  
• Lesser Invocation List: arcane sight, detect thoughts, fly (24 hour duration), gust of wind, illusory script and secret page (two for one!), magic mouth (automatically permanent if you choose), misdirection, phantom trap, shatter, and water breathing.
  
• Greater Invocation List: arcane eye, dimensional anchor, dimension door, fabricate, hallucinatory terrain, passwall, secret chest, sending, stone shape, and telekinesis.
  
• Revolutionary Invocation List: control water and control winds (two for one!), grasping hand, guards and wards, mirage arcana (must have Greater level hallucinatory terrain), phase door, reverse gravity, statue, transmute rock to mud and transmute mud to rock (two for one!), true seeing, and wall of iron.

This means they have something worth sticking around for, and have more options for interacting with their environment than just through gramarie and spectroconstruction. Now they can build and shape stuff out of rock and iron and similar things, and then place gramarie on top of it. I think this kills a few birds with one stone– it gives gramarists something to compete with their PrC options, it ties in with the eldritch blast they already have, and it gives them interesting to do (although still engineering-related) in a combat timeframe (ie: you won't see everybody and their mum only playing it gestalt-style). Least invocations for them count as 1st level spells, lesser 2nd, greater 3rd, revolutionary 4th. I'd also be taking Prime32's note about the spell level of eldritch blast, because...

Nice. I note that this hasn't actually been implemented on the updated stuff at Giantip. These invocations aren't exactly game breaking power, and the grammarist desperately needs something like this.

2. Silver transformers get adjusted for inflation. Specifically, power inflation. People say linear fighters, quadratic wizards, so let's actually use a quadratic progression for spell value! 1,4,9,16,25,36,49,64,81 ebbs to cast spells from a silverOut, and they get hit hard by inefficiency; silverIn still only produces the linear amount. This is mostly because I literally have no control over the power level of spells; while other features in the system see fairly balanced around each other, all of the biggest problems I've seen come from using silver transformers to create an out-of-whack spell or something for cheap.

I see that spellcasting silverOut has been removed completely on the updated material at giantip, which is kind of unfortunate, I think. Your idea for quadratic progression was interesting but not quite satisfying. I made a revision - your quadratic sequence + the level of the spell. Thus the sequence is revised to: 2,6,12,20,30,42,56,72,90.

Making a silverOut use spells should probably not be XP free, either. I know that you already established a rule that XP must be paid on spells that require XP, but why not require a nominal XP amount for all spells that do not use up XP normally? I propose 10XP + spell level. Thus a first level spell costs 10XP + 10XP for it being a first level spell (total 20XP), a ninth level spell would cost 10XP + 90XP = 100XP, etc. Spells that normally have XP costs should follow your normal rule.