Artifact and ECL rules question

[Deinos]

Cosmic Descryer lets you throw extra HD onto things you could get with Summon Monster, Elemental Swarm, etc., it doesn't let you summon anything you want. Likewise, Gate doesn't let you screw around with anything that's some flavor of deity, which is almost anything to begin with... so it doesn't need any adjustment. Its mostly a way to ensure summons scale.

Anyway, I don't consider using summons and using constructs to be "optimization," all divine portfolios have some provision for summoning or constructing allies and so it can hardly be described as an unintended function. I was likewise not implying that WotC material constructs are on par with IH ones, but that constructs and summons are a really really useful part of a spellcaster's strategy... especially if one of your portfolios gives you a bonus to either. In particular, they're going to help out a lot against enemies that need to be killed in one round, that you only have a 5% chance of harming, or any given being can only harm once.

Considering the most iconic (or at least, constantly posted on image boards) IH monster is itself a neutronium golem, there's no reason to think minions ever go out of style. There's also the issue that the really, really powerful undead of IH are likewise nice at high tier comparisons too.

 

[Belzamus]

Oh, I misread your Golem comment, apologies. I see what you mean, and yes, indeed.

Summoning is, of course, both iconic and integral. I give Adjuration to every deity I stat just to take advantage of their Portfolio powers.

I still stand by the tactic being less than optimal in a lot of cases in high-Immortal play. If you're outclassed by an opponent, it would be better to run far and run fast; your allies won't even show up on the radar if it can effortlessly sweep you yourself aside.

Also, I for one never liked the Neutronium Golem. It's frankly, a poorly designed monster. That CR is ludicrous and not even close to correct. Khorvanis (a stage II demiurge of mine, ECL 1200 I believe) could sweep an endless amount of them aside with no threat to himself. Beyond that, though, it's simply not equipped to deal with the kind of threats it's alleged to face. A party of well-prepared ECL 800s or so ought to have little difficulty taking one down. Almost any tactic will work on it, it has precious few defenses and its offense isn't anywhere near as dangerous as it first appears.

Oh, and about Cosmic D. I'd simply worry about it getting out of hand, letting you summon far more powerful creatures than you yourself yet still under your control. Adjuration gives you mooks; those buffed-up summons could theoretically let you call in Cthulu and boss him around. Though...I suppose HD start scaling so high later on, it actually ends up underpowered without a divine or cosmic ability to boost it. Hmm...Now that I think about it, it might not even scale enough as it is.

Oh, and sorry for my tone above, I was having a bad day yesterday.

Edit: Oh, and against something with Learned Opponent Immunity and such, you really need something like Paradox or Multidimensional or you're pretty much screwed (unless you're the type that relies on 1-shot hits of incredible overwhelming force, rather than multiple, lesser such). Of course, Abrogate is always a good ace in the hole for situations like that, though it *really* should be limited to Cosmics and below, I think, to be balanced. Divine Nullification could conceivably demolish such abilities by pulling out their foundation/prerequisites, too. Anyway, Paradox, now THERE's a summoning ability...

 

[Deinos]

Also, I for one never liked the Neutronium Golem.
...

Neither do I, but I certainly like the scalable golems in IH:B.

Oh, and about Cosmic D. I'd simply worry about it getting out of hand, letting you summon far more powerful creatures than you yourself yet still under your control.

...Hmm...Now that I think about it, it might not even scale enough as it is.

Yeah, if we assume that spells and class features don't grant increased quintessence/divinity/etc. unless they specifically state they do, things don't really get out of hand. So Cosmic Descryer wouldn't advance all your Vrocks into Tetragrammaton High Lords, but all those HD would be useful for BAB, saves, and for a character focused on things that grant divine abilities and such to allies.

If the Planar Binding aspect was inappropriate, I'd just rule any being in the setting to have taken the Divine ability to be immune to Planar Binding... with perhaps a very specific slew of creatures in the cosmology not having such. Like how in Exalted, demons can be summoned and controlled, but gods usually can't be.

Oh, and sorry for my tone above, I was having a bad day yesterday.

Sall good, I mainly frequent anonymous imageboards of extremely rude natures...

Abrogate

Yeah, Abrogate is a bit of a cheesy must have at ultra high levels.

 

[Deinos]

re: Casters in IH rules

Actually, after doing some of the math, I definitely stand by the perspective that spellcasters in the IH ruleset absolutely rock.

Its been stated that "minimum hit dice" for various divine templates are a DM's reference, not that a PC who's been farming apertures and having entire planets colonized with his followers can't reach such heights of power, and that such characters are weak for their ECL. So I thought that a good start for playtesting.

What I found is that a double magic domain, sorcerer, elder one character, sans artifacts (at the time I thought UK wasn't using the sensible caster level = ECL concept), for ECL 100, can force enemies of typically up to CR 120 to roll saves that they will only pass on a 1, and will generally only be hit or fail a save on a very low roll as well. Of course, you probably want to invest in a secondary set of portfolios to get some Trumping effects besides for magic immunity, antimagic and dead magic.

And of course, they will only have around 1/5th the HP of their foes, vulnerable to stuff that obliterates HD in an area, enemies that auto pass fort/will and so on... but its merely a proof of concept thing to show that casters are still quite, quite viable at those levels.

 

[Belzamus]

Here's the thing. (And I don't mean to argue over this, I haven't even played this game in three years. This is purely academic speculation on my part.)

But if I'm DMing and you bring a build to the table that my monsters can't save against, the next encounter is going up in CR by 10%. If it happens again, 20%, and so on, whatever I need to to get a balanced encounter out of the game.

To me, this game is not about farming, grinding, power leveling, and then taking names all over the cosmos. It's for telling stories as a group, building characters (as in, personalities, not a collection of class levels and feats) and having memorable adventures with them.

Now, I don't really care how you play your own game. Really, whatever works for you. But I for one don't believe U_K ever created these rules to accommodate obsessive megalomaniac power-ravenous gods trying to take over the multiverse through whatever means they can possibly contrive. The rules just don't hold up.

(And yes, you could make a case for meta-knowledge of rules mechanics at a certain point of Intelligence.)

I mean, sure, if you want to curbstomp your way through the Bestiary's CR Hierarchy, go ahead and look for these combinations.

I'm just saying that 1.) it is isn't really necessary, most of the creatures aren't so tough for their CR as to need anything near the lengths you appear to be going to. And 2.) I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that U_K's design philosophy is one that values simplicity, and to me, it seems that you're introducing a level of complexity into the system that it honestly doesn't need, and can't accommodate without custom designing opponents with the same level of mechanics-fu.

Again, just my $0.02.

I can't really wrap my head around all these ideas you're presenting. Maybe U_K can offer something (assuming he even remembers these dusty, archaic, barbaric rules. )

 

[Deinos]

A character can be reasonably rated on whether he can deal with enemies of a similar CR or not, I assume? The point is that there's a way to build gods of magic that lets them be competitive at epic levels besides hitting enemies with Force Touch, and that there are ways other than massive power attack and abrogate to be effective.

I am sure all RPGs are about storytelling and roleplaying, but analyzing the rules to make sure they work isn't intrinsically a bad thing. And considering there are LARGE quantities of things that annihilate you without a save (Astro, Unknowing, etc.) I don't think its a bug.

 

[Belzamus]

You'd have to ask U_K for the details, I can't really recall, but there's an in-built expectation of party optimization standards in the IH rules. Anything over requires an EL adjustment to maintain the balance of play.

Of course, the level of optimization is rather subjective, so that's not really the best way to go about it, I don't think.

However, I will note, as a designer, I make far nastier monsters than what are found in the Bestiary for their equivalent CRs, because I *assume* a certain degree of ruthless competency in the party, whereas U_K's are simply a step above the general WotC level, where they're designed for generics pre-gens out of the DMG to handle.

So, what I'm basically saying is that you're (not *you*, you; generic you) more or less playing two different games, one with a baseline set at providing challenges for people either new to the rules or not looking to make the most out of their characters, whereas Ascension provides HUNDREDS of combinations to utterly wrecking everything that crosses your path.

Though, one should note that once get into having multiple Transcendentals, it's actually rather easy to become at least partially invincible by stacking a few of them together, whereas for offense they're really just more of the same. IMO, the defensive Trans. really seem to shine. (Quivering Aura is cool, though. )

Oh, and believe it or not, on the few opportunities I ever got to *play* instead of DM, I was, in fact, a fan of utterly wrecking everything in my path. Those were usually gauntlet games, though, where the DM told us beforehand not to even bother coming up with personalities for our characters, just make them as tough as possible, so...yeah.

And...I type too much.

 

[Deinos]

Yeah, it states to add +1 EL for an optimized party, and +2 EL for a "shamelessly minmaxed party that takes every advantage of the rules," which would be one of those builds that involves 4-7 classes by level 20.

The CRs in there are a bit strange, especially when compared to UK's analysis of the different monster CRs; for instance, in the v5 pdf, he considers a Xixecal to be something like CR 105, and in his Immortals Handbook Bestiary, he considers an Amilicti (sp) to be only CR 38 or something. Of course, in his v5 pdf, a party of 5 level 20s can indeed potentially beat a CR 105...

Either way, many the IH:B monsters have a special resonance with me, so I'd probably upgrade them rather than throw em away. In part because I bought the IH:B pdf right around when I went to Iraq, and had freakish dreams about being a Sadim.

EDIT: As to defensive vs offensive abilities, I've noticed it really depends on party size. In a group of, say, 2-3 players, defense powers seem to be more favorable, to the point of seeming overpowered, whereas in a group of around 6-7 players, defense abilities are not going to usually feel like they're worth it -- your PCs won't give a damn if one PC is invincible if everyone else gets killed.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey there!

Read back over the past few posts in this thread and its hard to isolate the actual questions from the statements.

A character can be reasonably rated on whether he can deal with enemies of a similar CR or not, I assume?

What I would say is that the mechanics do go a bit wonky with regards saves and so forth. Sometimes an enemies CR is more to do with how it will fare facing a group, rather than one on ones where high saves required might end a fight before its begun.

 

[Belzamus]

It has to do with the whole cubic nature of the EL system. I never really understood it, myself. I've always just eye-balled CRs or done an ECL tally and then multiplied by .67.

I don't how far it's been pushed back, but I had a thread a while ago where I updated all the Abominations from the ELH for Immortals play, and they're a lot closer in line to the nastiness I imagine threats of that level (50+) requiring. Though, even then, they could probably go a step farther.

Also, do remember an increase of +2 EL for optimization is a huge jump in difficulty. You're talking what *should* be a TPK for an average party of your level. At least, that's how I reckon the EL system works, I could be wrong.

And I do love most of the monsters in the Bestiary, I just think, on a whole, they would see a CR reduction of about 1/3 across the board if I was going to use them in a game. There may be some exceptions (a lot of the lower-level things, for instance, especially the sub-epics that just don't really work at that level of play.) But, for instance...the Kyriotates. It's like as not to die in the first round against an 84th level party. But against a 57th level party, you'd actually have a good fight on your hands, I think.

I mean, yes, you can strategize and make the most efficient use of their abilities, but in the end, most things just can't keep up in the numbers game, which is what really ends up counting. Again with the Kyrio...2,300 hp, +26 Init and 65 AC os just asking to be one-rounded. The only thing it really has going for it is a DC 69 Will vs. Stunning aura. Sure, some, melee-types will fail that, but the more competently built one won't, I don't think.

(Base 6 + 32 Epic +average 10 Divine) requires only a moderate Wisdom to give a decent shot at passing. (A cloak of resistance all but cinches the deal)

Just an example though. Then again, IMO the Kyriotates is one of the weaker nasties in there, pound for pound. Void Dragons are on the other end of the spectrum. (LOL! Fly-By Strafing Breath, half your HD are gone for good, and I'm 3 miles away!)