Grimoires and UMD requirement.

[Curve]

Things evolve and we can’t go back in time. That being said rather than take away the uses of UMD it might have been wiser (with hindsight of course) to just add in lore as a means of using scrolls.

[TurningLeaf]

Alternative point of view- nerf/lose timestop for being such a binary outcome crutch

[Irongron]

Just a reminder - don't build for loot items, especially those with charges, they come and they go. Sometimes there might be something powerful, other times not. UMD can be great for finding and using interesting items, but it won't give an infinite, predictable supply.

[LIAR LIAR]

Lore and UMD are entirely uncomparable. With 30 skill points in UMD, (putting a dump a full 3 levels before 30) and 8 charisma, you only need 6 umd on gear to achieve instant cast time stop. Comparing this to lore use and saying they're equal is bordering on the absurb. I literally cannot believe people are claiming comparison. It's an absolutely TRITE investment compared to having to take a Watcher's Cloak, knowledge bracers, and put +2 lore on the majority of your equipment to get Word of Faith on a 9 second cast.

Want Time Stop on a 9 second cast? Spend 33 skill points, two feats, and add lore rings to the mix, AND put lore on every single piece of your gear.

Want instant use time stop? Spend 30 skill points and put UMD on...3 pieces of gear lol.

Barbarian can be broken, but look your pet projects in the face. This is absolutely absurd.

[Curve]

6 seconds.

[CNS]

People really undervaluing the cost of an entire class slot here.

Also forgetting every scroll used to be avaliable for the princely cost of 15 UMD.

If people feel that they really want that UMD an s so take one of the few classes that offer it, that makes balance so much easier as it becomes class/class/3 levels of benign class. Rather than combine the best features of any three classes.

The books may have problems, but the problems are the Insta-casting of items not the fact they let you cast spells.

[Aren]

The funny thing is, if you remove "instant casting" from wands or umd items, you suddenly make melee characters able to stick to their targets much more easily. The issue, in my humble opinion, is not the ability to kite while using a wand - the issue is the array of spells available in these books, practically for no investment at all.

[Red_Wharf]

The funny thing is, if you remove "instant casting" from wands or umd items, you suddenly make melee characters able to stick to their targets much more easily. The issue, in my humble opinion, is not the ability to kite while using a wand - the issue is the array of spells available in these books, practically for no investment at all.

I particularly like the Gate spam in high level PvP lately.

[perseid]

While I understand that some things, including the books, take time to evaluate the impact they'll have on the meta. I don't see how anyone in this thread can believe it takes time to determine if an instant action Timestop will be strong if the requirements are low enough for melee burst builds to access them. Some of these books are really interesting in terms of their implications but others are obvious power creep that could have easily been anticipated at the time.