Core Rulebook Exaltations - Revised

[GuardianTempest]

Jul 24, 2022 11:17:49 GMT -6 Traskus said:

So proboards decided to eat the list of benefits from revised maximum dragoning.

I think these are correct.

The power of Web Archive compels you!

It's from 2018 though, so I don't know if there were any further additions since then.

[Traskus]

And added back in.

[GuardianTempest]

Chosen, Mark of Khorne

I understand that you're sticking close to the book's wording, though if "basic attack" means "standard attack" then does that mean it can also be a special attack?

[Amanojyaku]

Yes. Just like Furious Assault.

[ScrapyardDragon]

So one thing that still confuses me about blood of tiamat is, how does switching quickening affect exp costs on characteristics? if you have cha at six due to being tuned to fire, are you refunded when you switch to water and have your cap go back down to five, or does the sixth dot move over to str with no further thought? If thats the case, the logical conclusion to playing a blood of tiamat dragonblood is to always toggle off of the quickening that boosts a stat you want to raise before you throw exp at it because its cheaper that way.

[Amanojyaku]

It explicitly says the latter. When you change your Quickening, you move the dot from the old characteristic to the new one.

[GuardianTempest]

Remind me again, why is Flash worded like that and not simply make the feat optional (or at least, already given)?

[Amanojyaku]

Read the book, that's why.

[GuardianTempest]

username proposed an idea for Quicken Spell during a post-session discussion in Journey to Carceri. The idea is to allow quickening any spell but you have to spend Motes equal to its level. So if you want to cast Energy Meteors, that's 5 Motes that could've gone into Empower spell + Dispel/Jaunt. This makes it a little more versatile than restricting it to only Level 1 or 2 spells. He likes abilities that scale with power stat, you see.

If it's too strong, just make the ability once per round to make it a decisive choice. It won't fix Magic Missile spam anyway.

[username]

Jan 18, 2023 2:28:31 GMT -6 GuardianTempest said:

username proposed an idea for Quicken Spell during a post-session discussion in Journey to Carceri. The idea is to allow quickening any spell but you have to spend Motes equal to its level. So if you want to cast Energy Meteors, that's 5 Motes that could've gone into Empower spell + Dispel/Jaunt. This makes it a little more versatile than restricting it to only Level 1 or 2 spells. He likes abilities that scale with power stat, you see.

If it's too strong, just make the ability once per round to make it a decisive choice. It won't fix Magic Missile spam anyway.

To expand on this, after having some time to test the Atlantean a bit (though sadly I didn't do as much with the non-magic capabilities) I think that it can be used to fix Magic Missile spamming with the other revision proposed to Empower Spell where the real scaling happens, to mirror the revision we made to Daemonhost: Make it so you get +1 level and spell school level for the next spell cast per mote spent with Empower Spell. This would heighten the maximum strength attainable (casting like you're level 10 or 11 instead of just 8 or 9!) but it would make it require significant additional investment from the Atlantean, have the power jump not be available as early and require some balancing regarding what they want to do with their resource as more empowering means less jaunting or dodging or Quickening or Maximizing or other things. Being forced to spend so much at once would also make it more likely for the Atlantean to actually run out of spells, as their ability to roll twice (or more) on Phenomena means that they don't suffer that much from the faster restore and often are Empowering with 1 resource for +3 and then getting it back instantly. Perhaps something like:

** Empower Spell The character may spend motes to empower the net spell they cast. For each mote spent the character may treat their level and the rank of their Magic Schools as being 1 higher for the purposes of the next spell they cast.
***** Quicken Spell By spending one mote per level of the spell, the Hero may cast the spell as a free action.

I modified the wording of Empower Spell a bit to try to get it right, mimicking Maximize spell a bit. Note that as with Maximize the Empower motes are spent in advance of the casting so it is possible for an Atlantean to spend 5 motes and then meditate for 5 hours during downtime to get them back before actually casting the spell, although due to the nature of this they can't really pull that off in the field when action is ongoing beyond the 1st spell they are casting if they prepped it. They can do that in the base book 1 ability too but it is easier as they only need to spend the 1 for a flat +3 to level and school rank.

This set up would make it functionally impossible for an Atlantean (without using some other homebrew of some sort) to continuously cast double Magic Missiles with the same capability they can now. Currently it is 1 for empower of the initial magic missile, 1 more for empower of quickened magic missile and finally 1 to actually cast the quickened magic missile. Same for Energy Meteors, 1 for empower the base, 1 for empower the quickened and then 1 to actually cast the quickened one.

With the proposed revision they'd need to spend 3 motes to empower for the same +3, 1 mote to quicken for another casting and then +3 to empower that one too for a total of 7 motes... not even a Kobold with Power stat 5 can pull that off. Energy Meteors is similarly right out as well, as quickening it would eat your full 5 motes you can spend per round so you'd not be able to empower either volley unless you're a kobold willing to eat 2 hp for a measly +1 meteor.

One other possible revision as an alternative or if this is STILL too strong is to modify quicken to make it so you can't double up on spells. So if you cast energy meteors, you can't quicken it as well in the same turn and would need to cast another spell like magic missile or luck. There is still an awful lot of things you can do with that along with enormous raw power, but it would encourage the Atlantean to be more flexible and variable instead of just smashing the delete button over and over.

[ScrapyardDragon]

Its no secret that heart dragonblood is by far the worst of the quickening options, and after a bit of conversation I have at least one proposal for a tweak to it.


Heart: The Dragonblooded gains +1 Fellowship and may raise this characteristic to 6. By spending a point of breath, they may treat any one die rolled as a social attack or with a social skill as a 10. The Dragonblooded's claws gain Orgone Array and Volatile properties and may be used as implements when casting spells. You gain the Implement Focus feat, and may use it twice if you are using your claws as the implement.


basic idea is to lean into the implication that heart is the "caster" option of the adamic gang and give it something properly useful without trying to modify anything else. At the very least the +1k0 from draconic mind and 2 die rerolls should go a long way for making heart into a generally versatile caster. Plus implements are useless without the feat or arcane knight completions so they should really begin play with the ability to actually *do* implement things haha.
Also I still don't really get why water and earth dragonbloods can't just go a full +3 on str/con for maximum dragoning. those are not the problem characteristics when raised sky-high, dex is, and none of the quickenings give dex. I don't see a reason for water and earth to be indirectly worse than the other options due to not getting as many extra dots from max dragoning.

[Traskus]

Added the heart quickening change and the quicken spell change.

I'll wait for more support for the change to maximize spell before changing it. Hey, lurkers with home games, what do you think?

[asher]

Just for some clarification with Promethean’s integrated weapon when it says “draw them as a free action” is that the ready action or do you still need to ready it

[Amanojyaku]

...exact wording from the book. Might be an artifact from the pile of various games this one's derived from, looking over at the Quick Draw feat that also lets you ready weapons (and only weapons) as a free action, but this one's specifically for the ones you have jammed into your guts.

Traskus! Fix it!

[Traskus]

Rewording complete. The quirks of the book continue to pop up.