4e: The Lord of Greed - Page 3 - OG Myth-Weavers

Notices


4e: The Lord of Greed

   
It's pretty good. I might even say:

Give Me What is Mine!
Standard Action, recharge on a 5, 6
Range 20
+35 vs Will, Target drops in his square a held or equipped magic item. He chooses which item to drop, but the item must be of the same tier as the player's current level. Target is dazed until the LoG's next turn. The target cannot retrieve the item (save ends).

That way the player can simply choose to drop an item that won't cause his death. It is powerful, so I was thinking it might not even have to be the highest level item he has-- just an item that is of epic tier (we hope it's epic tier, at least!).

Thoughts?

Quote:
Originally Posted by DrMorganes View Post
I disagree that this is balanced.
I come the the side of the tracks that says nothing is balanced so dont try to make it so. Moreover, its a Lord of Greed. I would think many parites would die fighting it. So maybe its best not to fight it unless the party has some serious firepower. Maybe 3 or 4 parties.

I will admit making encounters that simply insta kill groups with no hope of victory is lame, but making them very hard to win and with a high chance the party may be defeated in my opinion is not. It is not really a win if its handed to you, nor is there any sense of accomplishment.

Just my take, and after living nearly 1/2 a century I will not be changing my mind.

Also, I like your changes to the power as the word best is ambiguous.

Farland -

That is pretty neat - more options, less chance of total fubarage but still a nasty ability.

Several things:

"targets enemies" is the standard monster notation for "all enemies in burst".
4e is very much against forcing players to recalculate statistics on the fly; instead of actually having the person drop an item, how about "the creature cannot use item powers", either save ends or until the end of the encounter?

Auras don't affect the originating creature unless it states otherwise; should the Lord of Greed benefit from its own aura?

The double attack is pretty weak, without the extra fire damage from the bite added in; I'd recommend one claw and one bite attack.

For a solo soldier, the Reflex and Will defenses are a little low. In addition, I'd add in some kind of way to shrug off stuns and dazes; perhaps give a save at the start of its turn against any effect that stuns/dazes/dominates, and if it succeeds, the condition is ignored until the end of the dragon's current turn.

I agree the recalculation is a bit of an inconvenience, but, really, its a rather small one. For example, it's no greater than a character switching implements to use a different encounter power from a wand. And your proposed change to the power, Sith, kind of makes the power feel both entirely different and not nearly as dismaying. I, personally, much prefer Farland's version. Just my two cents.

Yeah, that suggestion sort of defeats the flavor of the ability, which needs to go with greed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackrazor View Post
I come the the side of the tracks that says nothing is balanced so dont try to make it so. Moreover, its a Lord of Greed. I would think many parites would die fighting it. So maybe its best not to fight it unless the party has some serious firepower. Maybe 3 or 4 parties.
While I can appreciate the origin of this line of thinking, it flies in the face of the published design concepts for D&D 4th Edition. WotC went out of their way to redesign 4E with balance in mind. Gone are the "class tier" issues that often cripple 3.x games. Similarly, while parties should still face a good challenge, the party is generally expected to win an even-level encounter. This holds true even in most epic-level encounters.

Granted, the Lords of Sin are pretty much the biggest baddest evilest (sic) guys around, and their individual power level should probably be a level or two above the party that faces them. Even so, the party should win if they are smart. Since death at epic levels is often little more than a temporary inconvenience (as evidenced by the numerous powers that start "Once per day, when you die ..."), taking out one or two or three PCs in the course of the fight still results in a net win for the party.

Also, D&D isn't World of Warcraft. The 4 or 5 PCs in the party are the stars of their own little movie; they are pretty much the ONLY "big damn heroes" the world has to call on in this moment in time. Contrast this to WoW's "you'll need 70 Level 80 characters for this raid" mechanic
Hyperbole for example purposes
+. Sharing the spotlight with another playgroup is logistically difficult (in terms of real-world scheduling), mechanically unsupported, and a very advanced roleplaying concept. Game balance doesn't support that many PCs squaring off against a single foe.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DrMorganes View Post
While I can appreciate the origin of this line of thinking, it flies in the face of the published design concepts for D&D 4th Edition. WotC went out of their way to redesign 4E with balance in mind. Gone are the "class tier" issues that often cripple 3.x games. Similarly, while parties should still face a good challenge, the party is generally expected to win an even-level encounter. This holds true even in most epic-level encounters.

Granted, the Lords of Sin are pretty much the biggest baddest evilest (sic) guys around, and their individual power level should probably be a level or two above the party that faces them. Even so, the party should win if they are smart. Since death at epic levels is often little more than a temporary inconvenience (as evidenced by the numerous powers that start "Once per day, when you die ..."), taking out one or two or three PCs in the course of the fight still results in a net win for the party.

Also, D&D isn't World of Warcraft. The 4 or 5 PCs in the party are the stars of their own little movie; they are pretty much the ONLY "big damn heroes" the world has to call on in this moment in time. Contrast this to WoW's "you'll need 70 Level 80 characters for this raid" mechanic
Hyperbole for example purposes
+. Sharing the spotlight with another playgroup is logistically difficult (in terms of real-world scheduling), mechanically unsupported, and a very advanced roleplaying concept. Game balance doesn't support that many PCs squaring off against a single foe.
Morgane's got it exactly right. To add to that, although perfect balance is possibly never achievable, I want to strive for it nonetheless. It is true that the LOSs are supposed to be the worst of the worst, but this is represented by their levels, by the fact that they are solos, and by the less crunchy stuff, like the ideas that they control fortresses, armies, and kingdoms, not by their being more powerful than their level indicates. I want their level to be an accurate indicator of their power, even though O think they should be powerful for their level, given that at any level there will be a range of power.

@ Sith: the LOG's basic attacks are the same as the standard solo red I patterned him after. Do you think that the standard red's basic attacks are too weak?

Note: I didn't say they should be more powerful than their level. I said they should be a level or two above the party that faces them.

In 4E, a Level X party facing a Level X encounter (where X=X) is expected to win ALL the time, bad dice rolls notwithstanding. Facing an encounter of (Party Level+2) is about the largest gap where the party still has a chance to win. Much more than that and monster defenses get too high to hit often enough, monster attack values hit the PCs almost all the time, and monster damage quickly outstrips PC hit points.

So badass you want the Lords of Sin to be kind of depends on what level you throw the PCs at them in Final Confrontation mode. Level 30 is as high as PCs can get, so you're talking major end-game stuff here. Defeating the Lord of Greed could, in theory, be the quest necessary for at least part of the party to achieve immortality!

Quote:
Originally Posted by DrMorganes View Post
While I can appreciate the origin of this line of thinking, it flies in the face of the published design concepts for D&D 4th Edition. WotC went out of their way to redesign 4E with balance in mind.
Thanks and I agree they did a nice job because 3.0 and 3.5 were PoS about balance.

Again, I do not agree with what game designers conceptulize all the time. In addition, regarding what makes players feel anything is all up in air, as its all sophistry. I do respect your well stated point of view and Farland's wish to follow the concepts of Habro as laid out in their rulebooks.

Also serious Deja Vu on this post as I read Farland's reply - very odd.

In regards to end game super high level critters and 4e.

You could make a LoS or any end game bad guy Level 90, but in the presnece of some rare artifact or under the influence of some rare spell they become more vulnrable. Why say this? Well its makes the LoS truly unstopable unless somehting very special and unique occurs. They are not simply bad guys anyone can beat if they are X level.




 

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Last Database Backup 2024-03-28 11:38:33am local time
Myth-Weavers Status