"Unlimited use - quality items"

[Rico_scorpion]

Hi,

So I have two in mind that fit "Unlimited use - quality items" as a descriptor:

Orc Blood Axe: Blood frenzy (7)
Armor of Immolation: Elemental shield (12)

I'm sure there are more.

So let me open with a (legit, sincere) question: What is the designer's goal with these items? What's the expected behaviour of the player?

A- The player that owns the item/equips will keep that spell up all the time. It's a perma boon taking the shape of a spell in the item
B- It's meant to be used when you really need it, not really "all the time"
C- It's meant to be a "niche" usefulness, as such the illimited component is a non-issue
D- It's only a thematic boon, it's not meant to have any mechanical usefulness
E- Something smarter escapes my mind

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Here's my "issue": the caster level for per round spells, below a certain treshold, is extremely tedious to reapply and after a certain power level of your toon, you won't bother to re apply a "small" boon for a full round. Only strong boons are worth re-applying every few rounds, blood frenzy is not one of them, and elemental shield only in niche circumstances.

Depending on the above answer there's or not a problem.

IF the answer is B C D, one could argue "charges" with a higher CL would feel more interesting and impactful, but current design still works. E is E so i have nothing to say.

However if current design is "A", then i suggest that these "small boons" (none of the two examples are game changing) have their CL NEVER below 10, and one would argue never below 15. If it's meant to be used, and meant to be part of the identity of the item "balance via tediousness" should really be avoided. If one fears that it's too strong, i would advise going back to charges/day with stronger CL.

Hope that helps! Cheers!

[Rico_scorpion]

Oh also, i would also like to add that "having the power" but not using it because it's clunky/tedious to reapply all the time (7 caster level for blood axe, every 7 round you lose a full round instead of unleashing 7 attacks :s) , gives a feel of "not using the item at full power" which generally traduce in minor frustration for the player. Not having the power at all in this case would free the "player-guilt" of not using it (not all players have that, but a lot do, you feel compelled to use it even if tedious, and if you don't, you feel minor frustration).

[The Rambling Midget]

I can't speak for the devs, but my impression of this type of item is that they were largely intended to be thematic, and they're only worthy of mention in a forum thread, because the playerbase has managed to find ways of twisting them into more useful things than they originally should've been.

The Displacer Beast Hide Armor seems meant to turn a Rogue into a poor man's Shadowdancer, but instead it allowed a Kensai to bypass three quarters of an epic dungeon.

The Armor of Immolation was clearly meant for CHA based, fire themed casters, but instead, it was used to absolutely devastating effect by a Barbarian in a recent PvP tournament.

The Blood Axe was meant to give Half-Orcs the ability to react quickly with a boost when caught unbuffed, but instead it gave them the ability to waste a round when they should've been charging instead.

Okay, two out of three ain't bad, but you get the idea.

The thing is that tediousness seems necessary to limit their use to utility, where charges and long duration might allow them to become stackable for cheesier use in PvP, and throw off the balance. Their short duration isn't meant as a punishment, but as a way of forcing you to decide what's most important. In a way, it's almost like 5E concentration spells. You can have the item effect or your normal actions, but you have to choose.

Having said all of that, it'd be pretty cool if the Blood Frenzy on Half-Orc weapons was changed to an instant action with a moderate CD.

[Anomandaris]

It just depends on the item. Penumbral vestiments shadow shield is super useful for shotgun pvp for avoiding death spells and an ac boost. Displacer beast cloak is a nice cloak but the use/day just saves money on wands. Amplify bardic mandolin same... on and on. Some are useful out of combat and for discovery like eye If savras in and out of pc/faction housing.

A lot of these things can be achieved with scrolls, wands or other means, it’s just a neat tool to have around. I get a lot of value out of daily use items like shield brooch, scabbard of blessing, bardic mandolin, displacer cloak and penumbral vest on my rogue. They seem nicely balanced and absolutely useful in a range of circumstances.

I don’t see any issues with these items being either OP or worthless.

[AstralUniverse]

Well... of course you dont see any OP thing about these items when you're playing a rogue, who's supposed to use them at a lot as a part of your kit. Problem Difference is that my weapon master can use most of them too lol.

[Scraps]

Blood Frenzy is +2 Strength +2 Consitution +1 Will Saves -1 AC for 42 seconds

That's what you'll be spending your round applying to yourself, just for context.

[Rico_scorpion]

For the record: "Unlimited use - quality items" is the boundary of this topic, which excludes penumbral vestment, displacer beast cloak (but yes the armor is included in the discussion then), and the like.

And yes, 2 str 2 con -2 ac +1 will is "bad" because of the 12 ability cap; you want to have str and con capped at all times, so for blood frenzy to be useful you have to purposefully stay at +10str +10con, under that context if you don't reapply religiously your blood frenzy every 7 rounds, you are indeed gimping yourself. It's both tedious and clunky. A caster level of 15 or 20 would go a long way into making it usable (which i feel, should be the case. If these powers are given, they should be used, that enhances the thematic feel of the character).

(To the midget: I see no problem seeing a barb using the immolation armor efficiently, at least one person has use for it. It's a very suboptimal choice (no DI) aside from that effect, so it better make it up, even more when you consider that it's a VERY expensive level 21 item. I don't really agree that these powers are meant to be "thematic winks" and shouldn't be taken seriously... aside from blood frenzy yes hehe. Also, as you said, making blood frenzy an instant action would be good yes, caster level could even remain the same (even if there is no reason for tediousness' sake)

Edit: maybe this is a case by case issue. Elemental shield is 12 CL, which is rather acceptable in terms of tediousness even if it could use a bump. Displacer beast armor doesn't need big CL because it's utility, and you have all the time in the world to re apply. So I guess maybe the problem only lies with blood frenzy because of the problem i described at the start of this post. Blood frenzy works in such a way that either you apply it 100% of the time flawlessly, or you don't use it at all, no inbetween. Bonus round: when you use blood frenzy, it's tied to the "taunt/warcry" (don't remember) voiceset sentence. Hearing a 5s long sentence every 42 sec is enough to want to mute the sound of the game or not use it ahah (can we remove that tie-in?)

Cheers

[Wuthering]

(To the midget: I see no problem seeing a barb using the immolation armor efficiently, at least one person has use for it. It's a very suboptimal choice (no DI) aside from that effect, so it better make it up,

"No DI?" What am I missing, does Elemental Shield not give 50% immunity to fire and cold on Arelith?

I'd always assumed that was one of the real strengths of the item, elemental immunity especially to fire.

[Rico_scorpion]

You know what I meant you re trading 10% slashing Dr as a barb. I m not saying it s not worth it, but the trade-off is there. Choice and options are good. Armor of immolation feels almost in a good place I feel.

[The Rambling Midget]

You know what I meant you re trading 10% slashing Dr as a barb. I m not saying it s not worth it, but the trade-off is there. Choice and options are good. Armor of immolation feels almost in a good place I feel.

I think you've finally circled back around to what I was saying. They're all in a good place, (except for the Half-Orc weapons) in that their power is self-limiting, and they have a lot of creative uses. I understand wanting them to be better, but if they were, they'd probably be too good.

Giving Blood Frenzy a duration long enough to last for an entire encounter is no longer a temporary buff. It's permanent. That's on the consistency level of a 24 Rogue having Haste for three out of every four minutes, which we know to be very powerful.

[Rico_scorpion]

Well frankly what started the thread IS the orc blood axe, but talking about one item in particular would have felt overly specific. Plus it s a broader subject that just one item. I was curious to see if there s a official stance on their role. Anyway seems we agree on both items.

[Kalopsia]

Blood Frenzy is wonderfully thematic, but lacks mechanical viability. Maybe replacing the spell with 3 casts of War Cry per day would be an option!

[Arigard]

Armour of immolation on a Barbarian is frankly obnoxious, especially with EDR 3. You have an unlimited way to deal damage in a bite back way. Being another melee character and trying to fight that, unless you are a red dragon disciple, ranged or have immunity to fire is pointless, it's better to just walk away from.

I don't really see the justification for having unlimited uses of things as items personally and I fail to see how when there have been such issues with damage shields in general, why there are items in the world with unlimited damage shield uses. It doesn't matter how many times you spell breach someone when you can simply just reapply it without fail.

[AstralUniverse]

As a barbarian, if you want to use a piece of armor with +1 base armor and +8 max dex bonus for it's cool active ability - you need to build the rest of your gear around it, otherwise you're missing a LOT of ac. And then archers will rekt you and others will wait out your rage and then rekt you. If you are in fact building and gearing a lot of dex (and investing stats and gear in it) then I'd say you've earned that cool synergy with the item and you've made fair sacrifice for it. If someone goes for that, it can easily look completely overpowered to the bystander but I dont think it is.

[Biolab00]

As a barbarian, if you want to use a piece of armor with +1 base armor and +8 max dex bonus for it's cool active ability - you need to build the rest of your gear around it, otherwise you're missing a LOT of ac. And then archers will rekt you and others will wait out your rage and then rekt you. If you are in fact building and gearing a lot of dex (and investing stats and gear in it) then I'd say you've earned that cool synergy with the item and you've made fair sacrifice for it. If someone goes for that, it can easily look completely overpowered to the bystander but I dont think it is.

A reasonable explanation. Barbarian is generally very low on saving throws. If you are aiming to cap your Dex, Strength and Cons, you will likely neglect saving throws. Then again, i don't really think it's worthwhile to trade Elven chain mail for Armor of immolation. The biteback damage for a level12 elemental is too low to make any impact ( at least for me, because i will usually make a melee build with resist energy fire & acid ) and with the 5 fire resist, i'll automatically shrug off 10 fire damage excluding DI. Not to mention, 12 round is really short. Yep, you can always turn it on, since it's infinite but it's very very tedious to keep this on if you conclude that you have to do it for like say, 30minutes to 1hour.

Hence in short, the trade-off is as follow -
1) Losing out on saving throws but gaining some subpar biteback damage. [ Though, the 50% fire/cold immunity is more worthwhile to me than the biteback damage since icestorm does not have saves and meteor storm is potentially half crippled if the barbarian didn't have evasion or fail the save. ]
2) To achieve 8 max dex bonus, the barbarian will need to start with a base of 14dex. If you imagine a barbarian build with High str, High Dex, High Con. You probably just imagine his Int and Wis distribution. If he didn't intend for 14dex, losing 2AC on top of already having borderline AC, uh to me, feels like he might as well don't need AC.

[TimeAdept]

I don't understand how anyone loses to an Armor of Immolation barbarian when Helm of Brilliance exists, is easily found, and supported by shield pots or other deflection AC and can be runed for saves

[Hunter548]

Blood Frenzy is +2 Strength +2 Consitution +1 Will Saves -1 AC for 42 seconds

That's what you'll be spending your round applying to yourself, just for context.

Unless you gear/behave (ie not using potions for some reason) specifically to not cap your strength/constitution without the blood frenzy, then all it does is waste a round lowering your ac and giving you +1 will.

Let's not pretend blood frenzy is useful.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Having extensively used a Blood Double-Ax, Blood Frenzy is useless. I'd rather it be Expeditious Retreat 10 times out of 10.

[Scraps]

Blood Frenzy is +2 Strength +2 Consitution +1 Will Saves -1 AC for 42 seconds

That's what you'll be spending your round applying to yourself, just for context.

Unless you gear/behave (ie not using potions for some reason) specifically to not cap your strength/constitution without the blood frenzy, then all it does is waste a round lowering your ac and giving you +1 will.

Let's not pretend blood frenzy is useful.

I thought putting literally putting out the stats and duration for everyone to see made that clear.

[Hunter548]

Blood Frenzy is +2 Strength +2 Consitution +1 Will Saves -1 AC for 42 seconds

That's what you'll be spending your round applying to yourself, just for context.

Unless you gear/behave (ie not using potions for some reason) specifically to not cap your strength/constitution without the blood frenzy, then all it does is waste a round lowering your ac and giving you +1 will.

Let's not pretend blood frenzy is useful.

I thought putting literally putting out the stats and duration for everyone to see made that clear.

Sorry; misunderstood the point you were making.