Aktariel wrote:Also, why is Trident a separate proficiency? It's a Martial Weapon, which the Storm Lord already has proficiency with.
Because now every single person playing StormLord will think "I can use a Trident, or a martial weapon if one is better."
And then, they'll be more willing to use a Trident, because they'll have it already set up as a default weapon, and they'll realize how cool it is to have a Trident.
Funny, that was why I picked up a Trident. Although, I did first go to the martial weapon table to make sure I wasn't crazy, and that you did in fact call out a weapon they already had proficiency for.
Tridents: they're like longswords. That you throw. And they make you feel moar speshul.
Last edited by Aktariel on Thu Jun 10, 2010 8:52 am, edited 2 times in total.
I have a tenth level Storm Lord in my game currently. I gave him Storm Lord because the guy is effectively retarded. Since he can't add three numbers together, he isn't allowed to use the telekineses class feature or the storm hound class feature because either of those would involve his turn doubling the length of every combat.
That said, this class is fucking retard proof. It's beautiful. He just finds where he can hit the most enemies and then dust storms every round. Seriously, thank you for making a class I can let my retard player use without slowing my game down. Balance is pretty solid since in mook heavy combats he feels special because he's got good AoE stuff and against smaller sets of stronger enemies he gets to toss down lightning bolt and kite or use Angry Hands for decent damage at close range.
TLDR; Playtests pretty well at levels 8 and 10 and it saved me a massive headache at my table because I could give it to my retard player.
Kaelik wrote:Tell me uber. How well and to what extent did your retard use swift and immediate actions?
He was told that Gust of Wind knocks back any small or medium enemies that charge him, but it didn't really matter much since I almost never used medium or smaller melee guys at that level. I didn't ever run any archers either. So, they basically didn't make a difference.
Last edited by ubernoob on Mon Jul 05, 2010 5:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
This class is overall really cool and similar to a class I was trying to write but never got around to. I also was using the immediate wind gusts and telekinesis, for instance. But most of the abilities in here that aren't direct ports of PHB spells are really interesting and better than my ideas.
That said, the Dust Storm/Storm immunity interaction looks like the worst design in the history of ever. I haven't played much high-level D&D and haven't used these spells much at all so I'm very willing to be proved wrong, but I'm imagining something like this:
The Storm Lord nails the enemies with Dust Storm. This deals bullshit tiny damage but it will deal non-zero damage to almost everything. More importantly, everyone in the cone is shut down by no-save crowd control. Solid Fog defeats all movement abilities short of teleport (and maybe Freedom of Movement, but nothing you fight at level 7 has that). The enemy also can't see you, so can't use targeted spells or ranged weapons (you have other ways to disable ranged weapons anyway). That means that literally all they can do is take a five-foot step and then blindly fire an AoE spell if they have one. Meanwhile you can still see all the enemies. Unless they teleport they can literally never escape because you will simply take a 5-foot step and recast it every turn until all the enemies are dead. The worst part about this is that your party members can't see the enemies and will take damage if they get between you and the bad guys. Since you're the only one who can locate the bad guys and you are taking them out with at-will abilities, your team members are not only unnecessary but actively discouraged from even participating in the encounter.
Solid Fog is a really powerful ability when Wizards get it at level 7, but it does have some limitations. Because it's not at will, enemies can eventually get out of it. Also, even if using it auto-wins an encounter, casting it once is still a significant resource investment. Finally, actually killing the befogged targets is not a trivial problem. The Wizard can't do it himself without wasting precious spell slots on blind-firing AoEs. So he either has to burn a ton of spells, or wait for the enemies to emerge from the fog at which point the other PCs can finish them off, or enlist the help of another PC with at-will AoE damage.
As far as I can tell the list of enemies who can do anything against this is
--Anything with the mobility and range to kite the stormlord
--Demons and other teleporting outsiders
--Creatures with medium-range AoE abilities, preferably multi-use and with some non-visual senses
--Burrowers
--Underwater monsters
--Incorporeals
At CR 7 that gives you
Aboleth, Bulette, Nymphs, Spectres, some Driders and Lillends. That's not terrible actually, there's several things you can throw out there, but it's still a minority of the presented oppoisition. The real problem is that at level seven crowds of CR 5 baddies are still supposed to be a good fight, and dust juggling down everything but arrowhawks, bearded devils, and Phase Spiders. Oh and Tojanidas and Water Elementals if encountered underwater.
Freedom of Movement, but nothing you fight at level 7 has that)
Enemy NPC Cleric 7 or Druid 7
Pair of Spider Eaters (EL 7)
Nymph (casts as druid 7)
CR 8 adds the Lammasu
You're also forgetting that a strong wind or dispel can clear the solid fog effect. So you didn't just leave Blink Dogs off you list, you also left off everything that gets Dispel Magic, Gust of Wind, casts as a 5th level wizard and arguably Air Elementals in Whirlwind form.
Furthermore, Solid Fog sets a victim's speed to 5ft. They can still Run as a full-round action to move quadruple their speed. So the Storm Lord is going to need to use move action + recast, not merely 5' step to set up the tekken juggle and a pair of cr 5 enemies can escape merely by taking a round to run in opposite directions, putting 40' between them and meaning that the Storm Lord can only re-Solid Fog one of them on the following round.
With that in mind, it's still probably worth considering upping the activation to full-round action or maybe putting this on a short cool-down timer.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
Okay, I misread Solid Fog. If you're allowed to double-move or Run I guess it's not nearly as bad. I don't think Gust of Wind works though because it looks like it takes 1 full round to clear the fog, which means that you don't get free of the fog until the Storm Lord gets to recast it. You can use Dispel Magic to remove it for 1 round, allowing all your friends to scatter or counter-attack.
The effectiveness of scattering as a countermeasure especially given the double-move option means that in open spaces it's much less likely to auto-win than I had thought, although it's still unescapable in confined areas. However, I still worry about it because a fight that starts with the storm lord repeatedly dust storming while enemies truggle out the sides is going to be hell to resolve (let's start by rolling 3 saving throws for each creature in the targeted cluster and marking off 3 sets of damage on all of them) and intensely boring for the players waiting on the sidelines.
1) By my calculations, that tactic beets 23 out of 43 CR 7 monsters. And most of those are some variant of "ambush monster that spends it's load" or "Big hulking brute that is beaten by not being adjacent to it when it full attacks"
2) Ways around the tactic:
a) everything with teleport
b) everything with burrow/earthglide
c) anything incorporeal
d) air and water elemental whirlwind forms
e) ambushing
f) multiple enemies who aren't in the same cone
g) anything with an AoE attack, or gaze attack
Keep in mind, you don't have to blindly fire an AoE, because the StormLord has to be in the exact position it was in when it fired the Cloud, if it took a move action to get there, so you can just fire, also, listen checks where appropriate, and probably some ruling about which direction the shards are hitting you from.
That said, in small confined corridors it appears to be too powerful, one change I am making is to reduce the cone to a 30ft cone, I think that makes it much easier for multiple enemies, and if they are inside a small corridor, they should just duck around a corner and ready actions.
