Tenser's Transformation

[voodoogroves]

No, what you've done is listed a bunch of things that show that the game does and did allow for various means to create new magic items. Then you've gone ahead and claimed (and claimed that it was obvious) that in spite of all these rules which exist, that no one anywhere intended for them to be used to create a very simple item.

Did they intend for people to make feather fall clickies? How do you know?


I get you - whatever - DM has final say blah blah blah optional blah blah not everyone uses them. Show me the written citation by all members of the design team that they never intended anyone to make a command-use activated divine power item. Then I'll agree it's obvious.


Until then, your claiming that someone wrote an entire section of optional rules that they intended would never get used. More to the point, intended they would specifically not be used for a certain circumstance.

I'd agree that they didn't plan out every possible use for the rules - no one spec'd out every possible item. That's a far cry from "intending" that the ones they didn't document should never be created and no one ever would or should.

[Angelus_dead]

Did they intend for people to make feather fall clickies? How do you know?

They did intend for Feather Fall clickies to be made by players, as indicated by the magic item entries that are Feather Fall clickies, such as listed in the Sharn rulebook.

Show me the written citation by all members of the design team that they never intended anyone to make a command-use activated divine power item. Then I'll agree it's obvious.

Well, that's up to you.

Until then, your claiming that someone wrote an entire section of optional rules that they intended would never get used.

I'm clearly not claiming that. My position is that the table entitled "Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values" is used for estimating magic item gold piece values, and that if it had some other function then it would've had a different name. For example, something called a "Magic Item Property Price List" could be usable as a source for what the prices of magic item properties are.

Reading the appropriate DMG section demonstrates that for any item whose description is not given, the DM must make one up. The section points to some tables the DM can use as guidelines, and it indeed emphasizes that they are only guidelines for estimation, and that the DM must use personal judgement as to if an item is allowed and what the cost will be. It's not that the DM is allowed to decide to deny something... it is mandated that he go beyond just rubber stamping X spell level = Y cost.

That's a far cry from "intending" that the ones they didn't document should never be created and no one ever would or should.

The Dungeon Master's Guide explains about how the DM can go about inventing new magic items, which is a more-complex process than simply picking spells from a menu. He is instructed to consider the combat value of the effects, which in the case of Divine Power can be quite substantial.

[Xenus_Paradox]

In regards to the permanent true strike item... that is where the DM uses a bit of evil logic based balancing to make it still possible but on the other hand make it not as abusible as one might think.

Say that the player makes the permanent True Strike item on a ring.

Now as the DM simply state that they may always have that +20 on that first attack in any given battle, but until they spend two actions to remove and then put back on the ring it won't give another +20 to their next first attack after re-equipping it because of the way the spell is worded. And as fiddling with equipment in the middle of battle can draw AoO attacks...

Not completely blocked, but also not quite as OP as one may have thought. (Though passing it over to the party rogue might be smart at that point if the rogue can successfully manage to break contact and hide to do the re-equip mid fight.)

Ah, but the price is the same for making a use-activated item with the trigger "I make an attack".

WHAT NOW, DUNGEON MASTER?! WHAT NOW?!

[voodoogroves]

Q: Will you sleep with me for a billion dollars?
A: Er, sure

Q: Will you sleep with me for one dollar?
A: No, what do you think I am?

Q-response: We've already established that, we're just negotiating the price.


....


Whether or not anyone, anywhere meant for them to be in the game is not the question. You're just arguing the relative cost and value now, right?

[wolfy42]

I think tensors should be downgraded in order to upgrade it heh.

Right now it's worthless. Absolutely worthless in almost every situation. Anyone who can get a divine power clickie will use it instead....always.

So I suggest you take away some of the advantages in order to make the more important ones last longer and work while casting spells.

Ditch everything but the BAB increase and perhaps a slight increase in hp per level. This would work well in combination with Masters Touch and enable spellcasters to become "virtual fighters" as well. Increase the duration to the same as divine power for a cleric at the same level and leave it at that.

No AC bonus, no stat bonuses.....nothing but pure BAB bonus and perhaps 2 hp per level for the duration of the spell. This would open up a world of possibilities for arcanes but would not be that over powered...especially if the BAB bonus is based on caster level.

One option is to give Tensors a +5 base BAB increase (up to a maximum of 20) at level 11 and add 1 more BAB for each 2 caster levels after 11.

This would prevent a Wizard only taking 11 levels and then multiclassing as something else without full BAB but getting a maxed out BAB anyway from tensors (Something you can do just fine as a cleric with Divine power btw)

With Masters Touch, Tensors, Haste, Displacement, GH etc a arcane could make a pretty decent melee character this way and would also gain more from being pure. This might even be a bit over powered for WF since they can self heal as well....possibly pushing them ahead of everyone else for solo ability (if they are not already there).

Thing is all of this is already possible with DP clickies.....so all changing tensors would do really is provide the ability to new players who don't have them yet...and take away the annoying use of DP clickies for everyone else.

One other negative for using tensors....it should remove all metamagic feats and prevent their use until it wears off. In other words no extend, maximize, empower, quicken etc while tensors is going. All spells work, cost the normal amount etc.....but they do not gain any metamagic bonuses. In addition remove the quick casting ability of a sorc while tensors is in effect (if that is possible without a ton of code). That is more of a deterant to sorcs then wizards which I know isn't very fair (sorry) but it makes thematic sense (your concentrating on something else (the transformation) so quicken and natural fast spellcasting abilities are impossible.

Such a change would not be that hard to make and would open up alot of different character paths...which I think would be a positive thing.

[tinyelvis]

It is a direct consequence of Craft Wonderous Item and similar feats.


No, it turns out that allowing a 30 Intelligence player character to invent the hydrogen bomb is what messes up the game.

Expecting players to be able to do anything that's not explicitly forbidden won't work well in gameplay, and it absolutely won't work in an analysis of what the rules allow.

People in real life invented a hydrogen bomb.

Let's say players characters travel time and space and enter a world where it could be beneficial for them if they do the same. Why does this necessarily mess up the game. There is no rule against this. The game is about doing things. A good DM is flexible and encourages players to solve problems, while loosely controlling the situation and guiding players. Messing up a game is different for different people and situations. For some folks, allowing half orcs might mess up their game, if this was you would you begrudging permit your world to be messed up because the game says players can roll up half orcs?

A person could come up with an infinite number of things that are not specifically permitted in the game. Are you saying that you are the one person who knows from all of those things which should be allowed and which not allowed, and that we should come to you for this guidance.

[ColdNapalm]

tenser has always been a trash spell...even in PnP. Until the no spell gets kicked, it will always be a trash spell.

[parvo]

You do know that no intelligent battle mage uses it right? Instead they carry cleric clickies that give them more for less restrictions. That's a broken spell.

More like monty design where the loot throws off balance. In the scheme of things, Firewall is much more broken.

[Letrii]

Tenser's Transformation is on the "yeah, this has to change" list. It's pretty faithful to the tabletop implementation, but that's not enough to make it a good spell. Expect it to change in the future to something more valuable to an arcane melee type character.

Heresy!!

[Aspenor]

None of your arguing changes the fact that "Variant: New Magic Items" and "Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Prive Values" are located 71 pages apart. "Variant: New Magic Items" does not point you anywhere in the book. It tells you to "be ready" to do things. What you are failing to understand is that divine power command word items are implicitly described simply by describing the rules necessary for creating them, using them, etc.

If these things were connected in such a manner that you claim, they would at least be approximately near each other, under the same heading, or more likely: the rules would be contained within the variant. They are not, and as such they are different topics altogether.

Rather than adding a bunch of stuff and meaning to things that isn't actually present in the words, try just reading the words on the page and understanding their meaning. As soon as you start saying "well the DM can do X and Y" you have already lost a D&D rules discussion, because you are invoking things that have no commonality.

Saying that the DM has final say doesn't make something a houserule. It is simple advice to the DM on how to handle things.

Furthermore, a simple Divine Power "clickie" in PnP isn't really broken. Heck, a permanent, use activated Wraithstrike item isn't even broken. This is because no matter how high your attack bonus gets, melee is weak, and nothing changes that. The fact of the matter is that the real melees had permanent wraithstrike and divine power at level 7, meaning that you absolutely must buy these items if you want to try to just keep up.

[ColdNapalm]

Saying that the DM has final say doesn't make something a houserule. It is simple advice to the DM on how to handle things.

Furthermore, a simple Divine Power "clickie" in PnP isn't really broken. Heck, a permanent, use activated Wraithstrike item isn't even broken. This is because no matter how high your attack bonus gets, melee is weak, and nothing changes that. The fact of the matter is that the real melees had permanent wraithstrike and divine power at level 7, meaning that you absolutely must buy these items if you want to try to just keep up.

Your right that DM has the final say isn't a house rule...it's RAW. It's called rule zero. However if you have to invoke rule zero, you are outside of RAW...I know, it's odd. However in the case of custom magic items, the RAW is step 1) DM sets the price. Step 2) if the DM is unable to best estimate the price, use the following chart. The chart is NOT the default method of pricing an item out. Otherwise you get stupidly broken stuff like a use activated true strike item for 2k gold (because you know +20 to hit, ignore all miss chances is only worth 2k gold).

The fact that you think a persistent wraith strike isn't broken is pretty funny. Yeah the melee classes were weak...but having those items didn't make them any better. The issues wasn't the damage they could pull off. Uber chargers did 10k+ damage a round. What divine power clickies and persistent wraith strike did was allow arcane casters to not only do all their you lose spells, but then could usurp the role of the melees as well, It is broken because of what it did for casters...not melees. You know what brought melees more in line with casters? Book of nine swords. Yeah you did less gibbing then the straight up fighter or barbarian, but you could do other stuff.

[voodoogroves]

Your right that DM has the final say isn't a house rule...it's RAW. It's called rule zero. However if you have to invoke rule zero, you are outside of RAW...I know, it's odd. However in the case of custom magic items, the RAW is step 1) DM sets the price. Step 2) if the DM is unable to best estimate the price, use the following chart. The chart is NOT the default method of pricing an item out. Otherwise you get stupidly broken stuff like a use activated true strike item for 2k gold (because you know +20 to hit, ignore all miss chances is only worth 2k gold).

The fact that you think a persistent wraith strike isn't broken is pretty funny. Yeah the melee classes were weak...but having those items didn't make them any better. The issues wasn't the damage they could pull off. Uber chargers did 10k+ damage a round. What divine power clickies and persistent wraith strike did was allow arcane casters to not only do all their you lose spells, but then could usurp the role of the melees as well, It is broken because of what it did for casters...not melees. You know what brought melees more in line with casters? Book of nine swords. Yeah you did less gibbing then the straight up fighter or barbarian, but you could do other stuff.

The price isn't the issue.


"Divine Power clickies were never meant to be in the game"

... assumes that any and all custom items not explicitly defined were not intended to be in the game. That isn't the case, and you're not even arguing that point.

You're arguing that there are rules to create them but in some cases, you would expect a DM to not use the published values as given in the rules, but rather to adjust their price/cost/etc.


That's great / fine and it jives. It in no way says that Divine Power (clicky or through some other mechanism) can only be used by clerics/FVS and for anyone else to use it is against some overriding principle of the game. It just says that you think the default value given the sample table is low.


I can agree with your opinion on that.




Just don't tell me that creating a command-word activated Divine Power item is explicitly against some rule. It isn't.

[bigolbear]

well this has been an interesting discussion, almost a how to cheat in pen and paper.

Fact is that all the stupid overpowered combos that exist in pen and paper are limited by your dm's say so. Ive been DMing games since i was 9 years old and im 32 now and no way in hell would i allow any thing like 21 attacks a round or pun puns or explosive scrying.

Aberations like these are errors in the rule set and the reason 'rule 0' is there is to let the dm keep a handle on crazy power gamers to keep the game fun for all without having to throw his dice bag and pizza at the players.

I lack the vocabulary to express just how much i truly loath the mentality of players that go in for breaking the game so they can get ahead - why dont you all just go play tragic the sadening instead its aimed at folks like you.

ok, so DDO isnt pen and paper - and turbine as effective DM isnt on hand to keep the players dreams of unlimited power under controll, instead they need to make the rules do that for them in addition to new things like dungeon alert and scaling. like wise as DDO is a computer game people play to win and will and should use the full tools at their disposal to do so - whether your a loot***** powergamer or a flowersniffer roleplayer DDO isnt pen an paper - they are different beasts to be enjoyed diferently.

So any ways on to the topic of tensers.
to address the usefulness of this spell in DDO im going to look at what this spell is SUPPOSED to be used for in pen and paper - as others have pointed out the spell isnt used there either by experienced casters other than for flavour reason.

How is tensers used in pen and paper?

1. in pen and paper Tensers is used as a last ditch spell for an arcane that is running out of spells and wants to continue to contribute is sustained fights or a series of rolling encounters.
2. its secondary use is as the final spell in a combo of spells that esentialy turn the caster into a competant mele - usualy to fight something that is highly resistant or imune to magic or again for flavour reasons.

How do we convert this into DDO?

1. almost imosible - DDO uses a roling encounter mechanism any way and the spell points granted to us allow for casters to continue to be effective throughout.
2. The typical combo spells simply dont exist in DDO - shapechange, polymorph, iron body etc. This means that unless these spells are introduced then tensers needs to fullfill this role by itself leading to the next question. Furthermore there are very few enemies that a caster will strugle to hurt with magic because of the way DDO's spell point system works.

How do we make tensers usefull in DDO?

it needs to make an arcane into a competant mele - id guess about 50% dps of a proper fighter, and to do so without making a battle mage more than 70% the effectiveness of a pure mele.

so in order to keep the 'spirit of the spell' i suggest we throw away the rules of the spell.
I would suggest it becomes something like this:

+3 arcane bonus to damage and to hit (stacking)
+6 arcane bonus to con (stacking)
+6 enhancement bonus to strength (non stacking with items)
+6 enhancement bonus to con (non stacking with items)
+5 dr/-
full bab. (like divine power)
proficiency will all martial weapons.
special: the arcane may use their casting stat in place of their str (if higher) for purposes of to hit rolls but not damage.
weakened spellcasting (all spells cost an additional 10 points and cast at -2 casterlvl)
duration: special - stance, cool down 1 min (like the pale master forms)

This puts a mele arcane about on par with a mele cleric asuming they have divine power and divine favour up, it also applies a cost and a penalty to casting making this spell a choice rather than simply a desired buff. it is beter than divine power clickies, but comes at a cost to spell casting without gimping a mele arcane out of casting completely.

[voodoogroves]

Thanks Bigolebear


In PNP it isn't used; serious arcanes found a way to use Divine Power (which is how we got off track). Tenser's has a few severe limitations that are more difficult to overcome or annoying that simply figuring out how to get Divine Power. What we don't want to do though, if we want to keep Tenser's in the game, is to make it just like Divine Power.

Drawbacks:
- Locks out spellcasting
- Annoying component management

Benefits:
- BAB
- Weapon profienciencies
- +4 to some stats (non-stacking enhancement bonus)
- natural armor increase by +4
- fort save increases (competence bonus)


While it looks like a lot, the reality is the locking out of spellcasting isn't worth any of that. This has lots of analogs to Madstone Rage, and the parallels are interesting.

Change #1: Can't lock out spellcasting; increase costs maybe, but locking it out is a non-starter.

BAB and weapon proficiencies are good. Those have to stay.

Natural armor increase: It can stay or go; it's actually pretty meaningless on an actual sorc/wizard ... but the danger here is making this a spell that becomes something arcanes still don't cast but rogues/others can UMD for even greater benefit. I actually recommend removing this.

Change #2: Remove natural armor increase

The stat increases, while they look like a bunch, are essentially worthless. They won't stack and by the time your 12th you'll have +4 on items already that you care about, except maybe STR. How about we take that potion and turn Tenser's into something a bit different.

Change #3: Give an alchemical bonus of 2 to STR and CON.



As a 6th level spell, that may do it for me to make it useful.



BAB, Proficiencies, Fort bonus, minor attribute bonus (stacking), SP cost increase for duration, still requires a heroism pot

[voodoogroves]

The proficiencies may be tough to implement (a la Master's Touch); tossing them would be fine as long as we through something else in (you suggested DR)

[doubledge]

in soviet russia, tenser's is effective!

[ColdNapalm]

The price isn't the issue.

Ah but price IS the issue in PnP. Just not so much in DDO. If I as a DM says that the item is worth 200k gold, it is a pretty big drain on resources available...less so in DDO. Hell I as a DM can say that it is an artifact level item and as such there is no price. In the given examples, the reason that the clickie works is because it uses the formula for cost...not a DM sets the price. BTW in any PnP game I have ever played in a divine power clickie would have been an epic cost item at the very least (i.e. the min cost is 2mil gold)...if not an out right artifact. I generally am considered quite generous to price it at 200k(also known as most of the wealth of a 15th level character and 1/4 of a 20th level one). It gives you BAB of a fighter of your level. This steps so much on class balance issue that it isn't even funny. It's like giving a clickie that gives fighters the spell casting of a sorcerer of eqv level. However considering the way DDO ramps up items and where your basically get pnp epic gear starting as low as level 6, divine power clickies are not too much an issue in DDO. Tensers being bad is...but that has been the case in PnP anyways...however since DDO changes up spells anyways, tensers really should be changed to be useful.

[Aspenor]

Your right that DM has the final say isn't a house rule...it's RAW. It's called rule zero. However if you have to invoke rule zero, you are outside of RAW...I know, it's odd. However in the case of custom magic items, the RAW is step 1) DM sets the price. Step 2) if the DM is unable to best estimate the price, use the following chart. The chart is NOT the default method of pricing an item out. Otherwise you get stupidly broken stuff like a use activated true strike item for 2k gold (because you know +20 to hit, ignore all miss chances is only worth 2k gold).

I am pretty sure I agree with this.

The fact that you think a persistent wraith strike isn't broken is pretty funny. Yeah the melee classes were weak...but having those items didn't make them any better. The issues wasn't the damage they could pull off. Uber chargers did 10k+ damage a round. What divine power clickies and persistent wraith strike did was allow arcane casters to not only do all their you lose spells, but then could usurp the role of the melees as well, It is broken because of what it did for casters...not melees. You know what brought melees more in line with casters? Book of nine swords. Yeah you did less gibbing then the straight up fighter or barbarian, but you could do other stuff.

That's not exactly what I said. What I said was that a permanent, use-activated item of wraithstrike isn't broken. The reason it's not broken is that the casters have been doing it for several levels. What this means that in the context of a caster that uses persistent extended Wraithstrike, a permanent wraithstrike item isn't broken.

Yes, the casters still have all the "I Win, You Lose" abilities, and persistent wraithstrike does take away the melees' thunder if they don't have access to it. However, realistically, the melees don't really have any thunder in the first place. Even without persistent wraithstrike, a spellcaster just says "lol hydra" or "lol cave troll" and destroys his opposition in melee. Taking those options away, he just says "lol summon monster" or "lol planar binding" and the melees still have no thunder.

Basically, take away a spellcaster's toy and he will always find and have another toy that makes mundanes look silly and out of place. This means that rather than nerfing spellcasters, you need to make mundanes more desirable. This is accomplished through house rules, of course, but it is a necessity.

Ah but price IS the issue in PnP. Just not so much in DDO. If I as a DM says that the item is worth 200k gold, it is a pretty big drain on resources available...less so in DDO. Hell I as a DM can say that it is an artifact level item and as such there is no price. In the given examples, the reason that the clickie works is because it uses the formula for cost...not a DM sets the price. BTW in any PnP game I have ever played in a divine power clickie would have been an epic cost item at the very least (i.e. the min cost is 2mil gold)...if not an out right artifact. I generally am considered quite generous to price it at 200k(also known as most of the wealth of a 15th level character and 1/4 of a 20th level one). It gives you BAB of a fighter of your level. This steps so much on class balance issue that it isn't even funny. It's like giving a clickie that gives fighters the spell casting of a sorcerer of eqv level. However considering the way DDO ramps up items and where your basically get pnp epic gear starting as low as level 6, divine power clickies are not too much an issue in DDO. Tensers being bad is...but that has been the case in PnP anyways...however since DDO changes up spells anyways, tensers really should be changed to be useful.

Without house rules, BAB is mostly irrelevant to being a decent melee combatant. Divine Power "clickies" cause less of a balance problem if they are used in the way we do in DDO than if they are used to do other weird stuff for which BAB can be used. Things like BAB to Caster Level infinite loop abuse (no, I wouldn't actually do that).

[ColdNapalm]

That's not exactly what I said. What I said was that a permanent, use-activated item of wraithstrike isn't broken. The reason it's not broken is that the casters have been doing it for several levels. What this means that in the context of a caster that uses persistent extended Wraithstrike, a permanent wraithstrike item isn't broken.

Umm a persistent wraithstrike is a level 8 spell. Your level 15 before you can pull that off. If your extending so your using a level 9 slot every 2 days instead of a level 8 spell every day, your level 17. A wraithstrike item by the formula given is 2X3X2000...or 12k gold. A piddly amount that you can have WAY before level 15. Not to mention that there is a magic item that already does what wraithstrike does and it costs +4 eqv. So yeah a perment wraitstrike item is you have to wait til you can reliably afford a +5 weapon isn't out of line (aka close to level 15)...when your getting it level 4 because all you pay is 12k for it...yeah it is an issue. And like I said, it's not like the melees are getting it, it's the casters. If wraithstrike was that good for a melee, they would be getting brillant energy weapons...and yet, it is pretty much ignored because a melee doesn't need help to hit...or do damage. It's a casters can do everything tool. Besides which, even by RAW your not even allowed to create a wraithstrike item. There is an item that does EXACTLY that in the core book and quite frankly, your suppose to use that before you go and make a custom item.

[InvadeNormandy]

How about they just let us goofy flavor build/gishes be eldritch knights and call it a day?

But yeah, tensers is hilariously awful for pure casters AND hybrid casters. Which means it is in fact broken. And I am overjoyed to hear it's getting looked at.