Drop Dead Studios Ask Me Anything #3

[Biolink22]

Q 553: Is there a reason behind Energy Aura's state? It's a cool ability from a flavour standpoint but is functionally useless, min damage per die, costs a spell point, short duration, reflex to negate, super low radius and costs a second spell point to even bring it to 1 damage /cl. Compared to the Searing Light talent from the Light sphere which has 30ft+5/2cl, base 1 damage/cl and lasts minutes per level (plus the feat that adds untyped damage on top of it) and only costs a single spell point why not errata Energy Aura to be useable?

[Ashiel]

Why did you guys ruin zombies?

Something that's really been grinding my gears with spheres of power (which on the whole I really like the spheres systems) is the 20 HD limit on zombies. In core, zombies have no restriction on HD, and there's a very good reason for that (they are intended to be large brutes and they get a lot of bonus hit dice) and you guys even included that larger zombies get up to +10 HD when animated so you must have known what zombies are for.

No amount of specialization into the Death sphere, nor Advanced Talents, can allow you to create something like a zombie T-Rex, whose CR is only 8. Whereas a simple casting of animate dead can do it easily enough at 13th level, or earlier if you have any +caster level boosts (such as death knell).

Was there a reason you guys front loaded necromancers so hard but destroyed their end game, or is this an oversight?

[kkplx]

Q554

What happened here, in your newest book "items of power"?

Shield of Blessings and Curses
Aura moderate Enhancement; CL 10
Slot shield; Price 2,659 gp; Weight 2 lbs.
Description
The shield of blessings and curses is a +2 light steel shield that can resize itself for whatever creature is wearing it. Whenever the creature wearing the shield is missed by a physical attack
by 3 or less (the AC bonus provided by the shield), the shield has blocked the attack and a random wild magic event happens. The character rolls using whichever source of wild magic the GM chooses to use, such as the universal chart from the Wild Magic handbook, a rod of wonder chart, or another source. Howeer events are determined, the wearer of the
shield is considered the caster and the striker of the shield is considered the intended target, if such things are important to the wild magic event created.
A character may create a wild magic effect by striking the shield himself or having an ally do so intentionally.
Construction Requirements Smith Magical Weapons and Armor, able to cast sphere effects with a wild magic chance; Cost 1,409 gp.

So this is a +2 shield (4000gp) with resizing (4000gp) with a random effect that can be activated at will, that somehow only costs 2659gp??

[kkplx]

Q555

What was the reasoning in items of power behind Spellpoint or CL granting items, especially their pricepoint?
The items below are quite underpriced for what they do and how heavily they break the previously established scarcity of SP and CL boosts.

Wand of Capacity, Elixir of Renewal, Stimulant of Sphere Focus and the worst offender in my opinion: Divine Symbol

[kkplx]

Q556

The "items of power"-Book seems to miss some rather important pieces of information for people wishing to create items.

• Outside of creating an entirely new set of creation feats (why?), what has changed from the original rules?
• What are the prices for the various unique enchantments and effects, like the wild magic shield ability? Or the CL and SP boosting effects.

[Mehangel]

Q555

What was the reasoning in items of power behind Spellpoint or CL granting items, especially their pricepoint?
The items below are quite underpriced for what they do and how heavily they break the previously established scarcity of SP and CL boosts.

Wand of Capacity, Elixir of Renewal, Stimulant of Sphere Focus and the worst offender in my opinion: Divine Symbol

A555: I don't have answers for all the items you have listed above, but:

Wand of Capacity: This wand follows the pricing guide similar to other sphere wands, except that instead of having spheres or talents, it has only spell points. With limitations such as attunement requirements, caster level cap, spell point recharging, and being a wonder (decreases character WBL by 30%), its potential for abuse is limited.

Divine Symbol: This enchantment is similar to a sphere staff except that it has multiple prerequisites: It can only enchant holy symbols, it requires the wielder to possess 2 of the domains (not merely associated spheres) of the deity, and finally possess the channel energy class feature. Even after activation, the holy symbol only grants a +1 bonus to CL w/ the spheres associated with the deity's domains, and only for 1 hour at that. With all these limitations, being priced at a 1/4th the price of a +1 sphere staff seemed reasonable.

Stimulant of Sphere Focus: If I recall correctly, this potion was priced using deconstructed values of a sphere staff. If absolutely necessary, I may be able to find the exact equation used by digging through years of archived comments on the earliest version of the handbook, but I would rather not.

I did not write the Elixer of Renewal, so I do not know how the item came to be priced as such, but I do know that its pricing was discussed thoroughly.

[inuyasha]

Why did you guys ruin zombies?

Something that's really been grinding my gears with spheres of power (which on the whole I really like the spheres systems) is the 20 HD limit on zombies. In core, zombies have no restriction on HD, and there's a very good reason for that (they are intended to be large brutes and they get a lot of bonus hit dice) and you guys even included that larger zombies get up to +10 HD when animated so you must have known what zombies are for.

No amount of specialization into the Death sphere, nor Advanced Talents, can allow you to create something like a zombie T-Rex, whose CR is only 8. Whereas a simple casting of animate dead can do it easily enough at 13th level, or earlier if you have any +caster level boosts (such as death knell).

Was there a reason you guys front loaded necromancers so hard but destroyed their end game, or is this an oversight?

I'm curious where you get your math from. T-rexes as creatures have 18 hit dice, and the Reanimate ability says you may not animate a creature with more than double your CL, and also you cannot reanimate something with more than 20 hit dice. Seems to me that a level-9 Necromancer could reanimate a T-rex just fine; the Reanimate ability's wording doesn't make me think of the bonus HD from the Zombie template.

"creatures with more than 20 racial Hit Dice can never become skeletons or zombies" implies that creatures with 20 racial Hit Dice can.

[Ashiel]

I'm curious where you get your math from. T-rexes as creatures have 18 hit dice, and the Reanimate ability says you may not animate a creature with more than double your CL, and also you cannot reanimate something with more than 20 hit dice. Seems to me that a level-9 Necromancer could reanimate a T-rex just fine; the Reanimate ability's wording doesn't make me think of the bonus HD from the Zombie template.

"creatures with more than 20 racial Hit Dice can never become skeletons or zombies" implies that creatures with 20 racial Hit Dice can.

Given the way that it uses creature HD and the resulting reanimated creature's HD interchangeably I initially thought that the case, and while a clear nerf from the core animate dead it wasn't such a horrible nerf since most things in the game have 20 HD or less. However, the Corpse Forge advanced talent notes the norms in parenthesis (that is, not a specific restriction of corpse forge itself but reminding you of the norm) and it specifies:

Corpse Forge

Prerequisites: Death sphere, Corpse Manipulation, 3rd CL or higher.

As standard action, you can destroy one undead you reanimated and control within close range (or the range of your Master’s Presence, whichever is greater) to add its Hit Dice to another undead you reanimated and control within range. The creature receiving the benefit of this talent does not gain any other abilities of the sacrificed creature beyond the increase in Hit Dice, although its own abilities are recalculated using the higher Hit Dice. Add their current hit points together (to a maximum of their new total hit points), and use the longer of their durations. You cannot fuse two undead if the newly-combined undead would be beyond your control (for example, have a total Hit Dice above 20 or greater than twice your CL). When the duration ends, all combined corpses separate into their original forms.

Emphasis mine.

Which as best as I can tell says that reanimate doesn't allow you to have undead with more than 20 HD, which would indeed bar someone from creating a zombie t-rex (18 HD base, +7 from size when zombied = 25 HD and thus illegal). Since the core 3rd level spell has no such restrictions on individual undead beyond their individual HD not being able to exceed twice your caster level.

I don't get the need for this restriction.

[viperwolf306]

Q557
Can a technician take a vehicle (a small one) made with the ships of skybourne as an independent invention?

[kkplx]

A555: I don't have answers for all the items you have listed above, but:

Wand of Capacity: This wand follows the pricing guide similar to other sphere wands, except that instead of having spheres or talents, it has only spell points. With limitations such as attunement requirements, caster level cap, spell point recharging, and being a wonder (decreases character WBL by 30%), its potential for abuse is limited.

Divine Symbol: This enchantment is similar to a sphere staff except that it has multiple prerequisites: It can only enchant holy symbols, it requires the wielder to possess 2 of the domains (not merely associated spheres) of the deity, and finally possess the channel energy class feature. Even after activation, the holy symbol only grants a +1 bonus to CL w/ the spheres associated with the deity's domains, and only for 1 hour at that. With all these limitations, being priced at a 1/4th the price of a +1 sphere staff seemed reasonable.

Stimulant of Sphere Focus: If I recall correctly, this potion was priced using deconstructed values of a sphere staff. If absolutely necessary, I may be able to find the exact equation used by digging through years of archived comments on the earliest version of the handbook, but I would rather not.

I did not write the Elixer of Renewal, so I do not know how the item came to be priced as such, but I do know that its pricing was discussed thoroughly.

Thank you for the response.

I'll retract the sphere focus potion complaint, since it doesn't stack with a staff's enhancement bonus. I'd still probably price it 50-100% higher, but it is not broken.
Totally overlooked that the wand was a "wonder" type scaling item and therefore extremely valuable, not a simple 100gp.

The issue with the Divine Symbol is that its bonus is effectively untyped, and that it in most cases supersedes the sphere specialization on incanters, who can now gain a +1CL on 2 spheres for 4 specialization points.
Or you're a powergamer, gained channel attempts via incanter or other means, you can then simply skill Use Magic Device and autosucceed on a DC20 UMD check (per Domain/Sphere you want +1CL on) to activate the Symbol.

That gives anyone with channel energy and ~5 character levels a very cheap effectively untyped CL boost, which lasts an entire encounter, often even the full dungeon.

[EldritchWeaver]

Q556

The "items of power"-Book seems to miss some rather important pieces of information for people wishing to create items.

• Outside of creating an entirely new set of creation feats (why?), what has changed from the original rules?
• What are the prices for the various unique enchantments and effects, like the wild magic shield ability? Or the CL and SP boosting effects.

A556: Only the first point, because I don't know anything about the rest.

The creation feats are partially necessary, because SoP requires different mechanics for magic items, partially because of the change of "function follows form" into "function is irrelevant of form" (including no affinity of item slots to certain abilities). The one general change I recall is that you can't just ignore CL prereqs for +5 DC, but instead the DC increases for each CL by +5. Can't remember if there any other relevant things.

[TheGSE]

This was never answered in the SoM playtest thread (edit: there was mention of "necessary text being lost"), but:
Q557
What's up with Limited Athleticism? It grants you a talent that works based off packages, which you don't have because you took LA.

[stack]

This was never answered in the SoM playtest thread (edit: there was mention of "necessary text being lost"), but:
Q557
What's up with Limited Athleticism? It grants you a talent that works based off packages, which you don't have because you took LA.

A557: Pick one movement mode you possess. You can use your (motion) talents with that movement mode.

[Ashiel]

Why did you guys ruin zombies?

Something that's really been grinding my gears with spheres of power (which on the whole I really like the spheres systems) is the 20 HD limit on zombies. In core, zombies have no restriction on HD, and there's a very good reason for that (they are intended to be large brutes and they get a lot of bonus hit dice) and you guys even included that larger zombies get up to +10 HD when animated so you must have known what zombies are for.

No amount of specialization into the Death sphere, nor Advanced Talents, can allow you to create something like a zombie T-Rex, whose CR is only 8. Whereas a simple casting of animate dead can do it easily enough at 13th level, or earlier if you have any +caster level boosts (such as death knell).

Was there a reason you guys front loaded necromancers so hard but destroyed their end game, or is this an oversight?

Q558 I guess?

[Civmaster]

Q559:
does exsanguinating strike from the blood sphere still give the hit enemy a Fort save vs bloodcontrol?

[stack]

Q559:
does exsanguinating strike from the blood sphere still give the hit enemy a Fort save vs bloodcontrol?

A559: Yes.

[Hunter Noventa]

Q560: When a technician uses Electrical Insight to create a [Robot] Independent Invention, it's stated to have an Intelligence score of 10. What about its Wisdom and Charisma scores?

[Keante]

Q558
Why did you guys ruin zombies?

Something that's really been grinding my gears with spheres of power (which on the whole I really like the spheres systems) is the 20 HD limit on zombies. In core, zombies have no restriction on HD, and there's a very good reason for that (they are intended to be large brutes and they get a lot of bonus hit dice) and you guys even included that larger zombies get up to +10 HD when animated so you must have known what zombies are for.

No amount of specialization into the Death sphere, nor Advanced Talents, can allow you to create something like a zombie T-Rex, whose CR is only 8. Whereas a simple casting of animate dead can do it easily enough at 13th level, or earlier if you have any +caster level boosts (such as death knell).

Was there a reason you guys front loaded necromancers so hard but destroyed their end game, or is this an oversight?

You seem to have misread the text of the Death sphere.

...creatures with more than 20 racial Hit Dice can never become skeletons or zombies.

A T-rex has 18 racial hit dice. It is under 20 and therefore can be turned into a skeleton or a zombie. Once it becomes a zombie it gains bonus hit dice and, therefore, would be harder to control than a skeleton as far as the limit to how many HD of undead you can control goes, but that's it.

[Ashiel]

You seem to have misread the text of the Death sphere.

A T-rex has 18 racial hit dice. It is under 20 and therefore can be turned into a skeleton or a zombie. Once it becomes a zombie it gains bonus hit dice and, therefore, would be harder to control than a skeleton as far as the limit to how many HD of undead you can control goes, but that's it.

Corpse Forge

Prerequisites: Death sphere, Corpse Manipulation, 3rd CL or higher.

As standard action, you can destroy one undead you reanimated and control within close range (or the range of your Master’s Presence, whichever is greater) to add its Hit Dice to another undead you reanimated and control within range. The creature receiving the benefit of this talent does not gain any other abilities of the sacrificed creature beyond the increase in Hit Dice, although its own abilities are recalculated using the higher Hit Dice. Add their current hit points together (to a maximum of their new total hit points), and use the longer of their durations. You cannot fuse two undead if the newly-combined undead would be beyond your control (for example, have a total Hit Dice above 20 or greater than twice your CL). When the duration ends, all combined corpses separate into their original forms.

Emphasis mine.

Which as best as I can tell says that reanimate doesn't allow you to have undead with more than 20 HD, which would indeed bar someone from creating a zombie t-rex (18 HD base, +7 from size when zombied = 25 HD and thus illegal). Since the core 3rd level spell has no such restrictions on individual undead beyond their individual HD not being able to exceed twice your caster level.

I don't get the need for this restriction.

Is this an editing error then?

[Kullervo]

Q561 The Necros Class Feature, the Corpse Puppet - does animating it count against total HD the Necros can control with Reanimate? So a Level 8 Necros without any investments into Greater Reanimate would control 2x8=16HD, and 7 of them would be taken up by their Corpse Puppet?

[stack]

Q561 The Necros Class Feature, the Corpse Puppet - does animating it count against total HD the Necros can control with Reanimate? So a Level 8 Necros without any investments into Greater Reanimate would control 2x8=16HD, and 7 of them would be taken up by their Corpse Puppet?

The necros class was not printed by DDS.

[SwordChucks]

Q562:

Is it possible to have two animal companions via the Beastmastery talent Animal Companion and the Conscript Beastmastery sphere specialization's Companion Creature? If not, does the answer change if Animal Companion is taken twice before gaining Companion Creature?

[stack]

Q562:

Is it possible to have two animal companions via the Beastmastery talent Animal Companion and the Conscript Beastmastery sphere specialization's Companion Creature? If not, does the answer change if Animal Companion is taken twice before gaining Companion Creature?

A562: Only 1 animal companion. I would allow free retraining out of the talent if class features make it obsolete.

[Zsaber0]

Q563

Does the choke hold wrestling talent interact with a Garrote's choke ability in any way?

[Llyarden]

Q564: Does a full attack count as an ability with a standard or greater activation time for the purposes of the Prodigy's Defeat opener?

Q565: Does the restriction on link components only giving you links once per round include openers used as a link component after being used to begin a sequence? (For instance, the Maneuver opener has no restriction on action economy; can you trip someone as a standard action to activate a sequence and then use something like Quick Force to bull rush them as a move action and gain a second link in the sequence?)

[stack]

Q564: Does a full attack count as an ability with a standard or greater activation time for the purposes of the Prodigy's Defeat opener?

Q565: Does the restriction on link components only giving you links once per round include openers used as a link component after being used to begin a sequence? (For instance, the Maneuver opener has no restriction on action economy; can you trip someone as a standard action to activate a sequence and then use something like Quick Force to bull rush them as a move action and gain a second link in the sequence?)

A564: Not sure I follow. Defeating a creature doesn't specify an action type. If you defeat it with a critical hit as part of an attack action, you only get one link. For full attacks, it is not clear in the text how to count them (is each attack a separate action, so you could defeat with one attack, then crit with the next?). Since full attacks are a specific type of action, with each attack a part of that action, I would say that a given full attack can only add one link.

A564: Yes, the restriction applies. Anything that adds a link component may only do so once per round.

[Biolink22]

Spoiler

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Q 553: Is there a reason behind Energy Aura's state? It's a cool ability from a flavour standpoint but is functionally useless, min damage per die, costs a spell point, short duration, reflex to negate, super low radius and costs a second spell point to even bring it to 1 damage /cl. Compared to the Searing Light talent from the Light sphere which has 30ft+5/2cl, base 1 damage/cl and lasts minutes per level (plus the feat that adds untyped damage on top of it) and only costs a single spell point why not errata Energy Aura to be useable?

Q553 redux: I have just noticed that in addition to Energy Aura being outdone by it's job by the light sphere, it's also outdone by the War Sphere of all things.

Scourging Totem (totem) [Core]
This totem emits pulses of energy, damaging every enemy within your totem’s range for an amount per round equal to 1/2 your caster level (minimum: 1). This damage may be acid, electricity, cold, or fire, as chosen when the totem is created. Creatures who enter the area of effect of this totem suffer damage immediately. Creatures who remain within the area of this totem suffer damage each round at the end of your turn.

The damage is lower sure, but it has no save making it far more reliable. In addition to that it has the option to at higher levels you can simply have this aura emitting for MILES /CL of radius. I get that not every talent can be good, but this is just a straight trap for anyone who likes the theme.

[Sam C.]

Spoiler

Show

Q553 redux: I have just noticed that in addition to Energy Aura being outdone by it's job by the light sphere, it's also outdone by the War Sphere of all things.



The damage is lower sure, but it has no save making it far more reliable. In addition to that it has the option to at higher levels you can simply have this aura emitting for MILES /CL of radius. I get that not every talent can be good, but this is just a straight trap for anyone who likes the theme.

I'm not a developer, but I imagine that the main reason for the limitations is because of the various rider effects that come with blast types. A crystal energy aura can entangle nearby enemies, an air energy aura would push away anyone that gets close, a force aura would make enemies fall prone, etc. Also, crafted blast would significantly increase the amount of damage dealt.

[Biolink22]

I'm not a developer, but I imagine that the main reason for the limitations is because of the various rider effects that come with blast types. A crystal energy aura can entangle nearby enemies, an air energy aura would push away anyone that gets close, a force aura would make enemies fall prone, etc. Also, crafted blast would significantly increase the amount of damage dealt.

Most of those rider effects have saves of their own/are not friendly fire safe without further investment (i.e. without epicenter using Living Crystal aura would just lock you down yourself. And Crafted Blast wouldn't affect Energy Aura at all as Energy Aura doesn't roll anything it's worded as "affected by your destructive blast as if it had dealt minimum damage" so it isn't treated as a die roll precluding the Crafted Blast effect (unfortunately). All of your arguments could also be applied to Energy Sphere which while it doesn't have a radius and is also save negates has the two rather large advantages of being able to be used at range thus not putting your person in danger, and also doesn't do min damage. Not to mention the ability to augment it further with feats and such.

[raithe000]

Q566: I'm a little confused by how the Critical Hit and Defeat openers for the Prodigy interact with the Attack opener and the rule of a single action only counting for 1 link. If they count as separate effects, does this mean you could get three links for killing a creature with a critical hit? If not, why specify them separately, as any Critical hit or Defeat opener will necessarily entail the Attack opener is fulfilled as well?