Discussion and Suggestion Thread

[The-Mage-King]

Nonlethal actually is a completely different type of damage...

Just like Vile damage is; they aren't modifiers to a given type of damage, they are their own thing.

Now, that clause is totally fine, and awesome.

But remember, nonlethal Substitution on a Fireball let's you deal the full nonlethal to a Fire Elemental; does it make sense?

No. But dems da rulez, mann.

Huh. Seems I was incorrect. Apologies.


That's stupid, though. Just flat out stupid. 


Eh. Just like most of WotC's rulings. 

[radmelon]

Yeah, that really is odd, because brown mold in the DMG does explicitly say that it's 'nonlethal cold damage'. Wierd.

[DonQuixote]

I would point out that Wizards of the Coast can be horribly inconsistent, but they're not even consistent about being inconsistent.

[Amechra]

They aren't as bad as some writers I could name (McCracken comes to mind...)

I really feel like I haven't been doing anything to aid the GLORIOUS SPELLSHAPING DIRECTIVE, so if you want to off-load anything onto me, I'm all for it.

My homebrewing urges are getting harder to put off each and every day.

[DonQuixote]

Chromatic initiate is up.

I really feel like I haven't been doing anything to aid the GLORIOUS SPELLSHAPING DIRECTIVE, so if you want to off-load anything onto me, I'm all for it.

My homebrewing urges are getting harder to put off each and every day.

I'm honestly not sure at the moment.  I'll let you know as soon as I have stuff to offload.  It's just that, right now, I have so few ideas--most of which I have very specific ideas about--that I'm loathe to let go of any of them.

[sirpercival]

Hey Amechra, I'll pass one of my ideas to you -- wanna write a spellshaping vestige?  You can use these as guidelines...

[Garryl]

Squee!

Is there anything in Prismatic Formulae that stops you form combining different kinds of formulae or using ones that don't make sense being carried on a spellshape attack? I don't see anything stopping you from taking minor formulae or standalone major formulae, but it does make it so they'd all be carried onto your prismatic spellshape attack as part of the prismatic formula.
   Wow, you could do some crazy things like this. Sharing personal buffs at the cost of a small bit of damage is just the tip of the iceberg (or fireball, or lightning bolt, or planar rift, or poison cloud, or sonic boom, or corrosive spray, or two at once).

Interesting. Iridescent Curse functions sort of like a minor formula, but as it isn't a formula it only follows the SLA rules, not the formula rules. Among other things, you can have multiple instances of it active at once. As if one of them wasn't going to be hard enough to keep track of already.

Please define "walking speed" in Hypnotic Hues. Also, you can probably see them, too, so you'll have to save against it as well most likely.

For Chromatic Veil, see Iridescent Curse, but in reverse. Also, what's Prismatic Mist?

Opalescent Body seems more like a capstone ability than 9th level. Immunity to 3 energy types and 4 nasty debuffs is strong. The kind of strong that makes a high point to leave the class on.

[DonQuixote]

Squee!

I've been getting that a lot from people who'd seen it pre-fluff.

Is there anything in Prismatic Formulae that stops you form combining different kinds of formulae or using ones that don't make sense being carried on a spellshape attack? I don't see anything stopping you from taking minor formulae or standalone major formulae, but it does make it so they'd all be carried onto your prismatic spellshape attack as part of the prismatic formula.
   Wow, you could do some crazy things like this. Sharing personal buffs at the cost of a small bit of damage is just the tip of the iceberg (or fireball, or lightning bolt, or planar rift, or poison cloud, or sonic boom, or corrosive spray, or two at once).

There is, actually.  First paragraph, third sentence: "Only major formulae that modify spellshape attacks can be combined into a prismatic formula."

Interesting. Iridescent Curse functions sort of like a minor formula, but as it isn't a formula it only follows the SLA rules, not the formula rules. Among other things, you can have multiple instances of it active at once. As if one of them wasn't going to be hard enough to keep track of already.

Actually, there's actually nothing that prevents you from having multiple instances of minor formulae active at once.  That rule applies only to major formulae.  Good luck keeping track of them, though!

Please define "walking speed" in Hypnotic Hues. Also, you can probably see them, too, so you'll have to save against it as well most likely.

Hrm.  I pulled it from a hypnotic effect somewhere that left it undefined.  I'll define that, yeah.  I'll also prevent you from having to save against your own colors.

For Chromatic Veil, see Iridescent Curse, but in reverse. Also, what's Prismatic Mist?

Same answer for iridescent curse.  And prismatic mist is an area prismatic spell from Player's Handbook II.  It's fairly low-powered compared to things like, say, prismatic wall, which is why I found it to be acceptable for this purpose.

Opalescent Body seems more like a capstone ability than 9th level. Immunity to 3 energy types and 4 nasty debuffs is strong. The kind of strong that makes a high point to leave the class on.

A good point.  I'll bump it up to 10th level and come up with something new for 9th level.

(In case it wasn't obvious, those immunities are precisely what you need to run through a prismatic wall without caring about anything except for the plane shift.  A small homage to the time my hellbred chased Vecna through two prismatic spheres.)

[Garryl]

Doy, reading fail.

Wait, minor formulae can have multiples? I did not know that.

Could you please put a reference (PHB2, or "found in Player's Handbook 2", or something like that) with the mention of Prismatic Mist so it's obvious where it's from?

When you roll twice for Prismatic Blast (8), do you deal damage once as both damage types or double damage (once for each damage type). What happens if you roll the same hue twice? What happens if you reroll 8 twice?

Question regarding prismatic blast and the Force (violet) hue. When is it determined whether or not the spellshape is a Force effect, and thus whether or not it has a 50% chance of not affecting incorporeal creatures? What happens if you get two hues (one of which is violet and one of which is another hue) when you're attacking an incorporeal creature (does the 50% ineffectiveness chance apply to the aspect containing the non-force component)?

[DonQuixote]

Wait, minor formulae can have multiples? I did not know that.

The "only one instance" restriction was added after the system was originally written, and it was primarily added to avoid throwing up copies of powerful, long-duration formulae.  Durations actually posed the main problem of converting the maneuver system to magic--if things lasted too long, you'd always have them recovered long before their durations ran out.  The general rule of most formulae durations maxing out at 5 rounds was calculated with respect to the impulse mage recovery mechanic.  The numbers on the impulse mage's formulae prepared have changed since then, so it might not work out as well as it once did...but that's where it came from.

I never bothered extending the one-instance restriction to minor formulae, as few of them are powerful, long-duration debuffs.  And, looking at it now.  I figure that there's no reason to punish people who want to focus on buffing or minor debuffing.  Even iridescent curse, powerful as it may be, is fairly inconsistent.  You might end up penalizing Charisma and Strength on a wizard.

Could you please put a reference (PHB2, or "found in Player's Handbook 2", or something like that) with the mention of Prismatic Mist so it's obvious where it's from?

It was before: "or be affected by the prismatic mist effect associated with the color that is currently dominant (see page 121 of Player's Handbook II)."

It is now: "or be affected by the prismatic mist (see page 121 of Player's Handbook II) effect associated with the color that is currently dominant."

When you roll twice for Prismatic Blast (8), do you deal damage once as both damage types or double damage (once for each damage type). What happens if you roll the same hue twice? What happens if you reroll 8 twice?

The intention is for you to deal damage once, half of which is each damage type.  I'll try to come up with wording that makes this more clear.

As far as rolling the same hue twice goes, rolling an 8 is defined as "Hit by two colors." From this, we can assume that you would reroll until you have two different colors.  This is stolen from the prismatic spells, so it would work however those work.

We do know that you ignore any "8" results, so you'd presumably just reroll those anyway.  I read "ignore" as "treat the roll as not having been made."

Question regarding prismatic blast and the Force (violet) hue. When is it determined whether or not the spellshape is a Force effect, and thus whether or not it has a 50% chance of not affecting incorporeal creatures? What happens if you get two hues (one of which is violet and one of which is another hue) when you're attacking an incorporeal creature (does the 50% ineffectiveness chance apply to the aspect containing the non-force component)?

Hrm.  Currently, the color roll occurs after a creature is struck, so the whole "Force effects ignore incorporeal miss chance" thing is a moot point.  However, with that in mind, force damage isn't really much different from untyped damage.  Let me think about ways to deal with this.

I stole the damage types from rainbow beam in the Spell Compendium.  I swapped in untyped in place of sonic.  Maybe it would be best to set indigo as sonic and violet as untyped, ending this problem entirely.  Edit: I am stupid, that is not what happened.  So, in the Spell Compendium, the damage type for green is listed as "Poison."  Which isn't a damage type.  So, I substituted "Untyped (Prevented by immunity to poison)" for green.  I suppose that just swapping violet to untyped would still be different from "Untyped (Prevented by immunity to poison)," so I might just do that.  Doesn't feel quite different enough, though...

I'll keep thinking.



Edit Again: Opalescent Body was moved to 10th level, replaced by Prismatic Surge.  Prismatic Mastery was renamed to Chromatic Mastery.  I think the only things left to do are:

• Clarify the whole "roll again" business.
• Figure out the force damage issue.

Edit the Third: Prismatic Surge is far too powerful.  Time to figure out something else with which to replace it...


Edit the Fourth: Clarified the "roll again" business, changed the damaged dealt by violet to untyped, and replaced Prismatic Surge with Chromatic Wall.  Jubilation!

[Amechra]

I think I'll do that vestige... when I have time, and when we don't have thunder and lightning striking all around.

[Garryl]

What happens when you shape Chromatic Wall through the space a creature already occupies?

[DonQuixote]

Every die at the table explodes, the rulebooks catch fire, and the miniatures melt into slag.

That, or the wall fails to materialize.  Only time and sneaky editing will tell.

[phaedrusxy]

Wow... what a crazy class! Too much work to play it, though... and too much randomness for my taste.

[DonQuixote]

Yeah, as I said, it requires more bookkeeping than most spellshapers.  On the other hand, for those willing to do it, I'm pretty sure it would be a lot of fun.

[Amechra]

It isn't random enough.

We need a truly random class, damn it!

One that rerolls it's HP at the beginning of each turn!

AC becomes an opposed roll!

All your ability score modifiers are replaced by this! And then after calculating all your stuff, all rolls will also be run through that dice throwing!

All spells you cast automatically are affected as if you were in a Wild Magic area, using this table!

Everyone kills you when you have to roll 50+ dice every round! Half of which dick everyone over!

And did I mention that, every time you attack, are attacked, cast a spell, activate a magical item, roll a d20 die that isn't rolling on the random effects table to see if you get dicked over, or are included in the area of effect of a spell or effect, you roll on this table? (there is a 1:10000 chance that any violent action that you undertake will cause a supernova. Fuck yes. Also, this means you have to roll on the table twice whenever you cast a spell, or 3+ times if the spell has an attack roll...)

OK, I could actually see that being kinda funny for a one-shot if you had a computerized roller, but still...

[DonQuixote]

Hanako wrote a die rolling program for the Catenative Doomsday Dice Cascader.  I think that needs to be worked in.

[phaedrusxy]

<Madness>

You know... now that you mention it, I remember a really old game (2nd Edition, when we made up more rules than we looked up) where I played a tinker gnome alchemist. The DM thought this was hilarious, and made up a bunch of tables to determine what happened whenver I tried to make something. Most of what happened was just ridiculous (flowers growing out of peoples' hair, etc), but there were a few spectacular effects (not quite Supernova, but like that, usually beneficial to the party).

We also had great fun constantly elaborating on his backstory. One part I remember was that one of his relatives had created something called a Leaping Netflinger. It was supposed to be a harvesting machine, but had turned out to be an insanely dangerous automaton instead.The idea was that it would cut grain with a bunch of scythes that swung out of it, and then catch it in nets that swept in and out of the machine, all at dizzying speeds. And for some reason, it moved by hopping around like a giant rabbit. Instead, what happened was that it jumped around throwing nets on people and then stabbing them to death with its razor-sharp scythes. It escaped into the forest, and became a wandering monster and thing of local legend.  Part of my character's motivation in adventuring was to one day capture it and redeem his family name somewhat.

[Garryl]

A chromatic wall set to materialize in a space occupied by a creature is disrupted, and the formula shaped into it is expended with no effect.

Maybe let the creatures in the wall's space make a Reflex save and/or move to the nearest space not occupied by the wall or something? I'd hate to lose a turn's worth of actions due to an invisible creature I wasn't aware of... or a fly. (Spaces are 5' squares. Very small creatures occupy spaces, even if the physical space that they take up within them is very small. Very small insects are Fine creatures.)

By the way, how does the chromatic wall interact with objects (including terrain)? Can the wall project through solid objects, like variations in the height of the terrain, or floors and ceilings, or actual walls? How about passing through an arrow slit? If an unattended object passes through the wall, is it completely unaffected (current wording only uses "creatures")?

Can the wall extend from a point within 30' to a point outside your line of sight? The wall may not be shapeable, but how can it be oriented?

[DonQuixote]

Maybe let the creatures in the wall's space make a Reflex save and/or move to the nearest space not occupied by the wall or something? I'd hate to lose a turn's worth of actions due to an invisible creature I wasn't aware of... or a fly. (Spaces are 5' squares. Very small creatures occupy spaces, even if the physical space that they take up within them is very small. Very small insects are Fine creatures.)

Done.

By the way, how does the chromatic wall interact with objects (including terrain)? Can the wall project through solid objects, like variations in the height of the terrain, or floors and ceilings, or actual walls? How about passing through an arrow slit? If an unattended object passes through the wall, is it completely unaffected (current wording only uses "creatures")?

Relevant changes to the wall description:

The wall can be made smaller and can be shaped to accommodate variations in surrounding terrain, but it is not otherwise shapeable.  The wall must begin within 30 feet of your location, but can extend beyond that distance.  The wall cannot extend through solid objects and is immobile once created.

Additionally, objects passing through it are now affected.

Can the wall extend from a point within 30' to a point outside your line of sight? The wall may not be shapeable, but how can it be oriented?

The wall can technically be extended outside your line of sight, yes.  The wall can be oriented in whatever ways a wall spell could normally be oriented.