Dragonmark pass

[Kutalp]

I wish you a good day.


My suggestion is a humble revamp for Dragonmarks. Here is a simple example.


Race: Human.

Dragonmark: House Orien ( My favorite house at DDO although all dragonmarks are interesting )

Least Dragonmark of Passage Balance +3 , Dodge %2, Reflex +1, %10 movement and %3 hand-eye coordination (attack) speed. No Expeditious retreat.

Lesser Draonmark of Passage Balance total +6 , Dodge total % 4, Reflex total +2, total of +% 20 movement and total % 6 hand-eye coordination speed. Dimension door.

Greater Dragonmark of passage Balance total +9, Dodge total %6, Reflex total +3, total of %30 movement and total % 9 hand eye coordination speed. Mass Teleport to support the team.

[ Dodge bonuses do not cover maximum dodge cap and dexterity bonuses ]


Other Dragonmarks can get similar revamp. ( I would like to hear special revamp ideas for them from fellow forum mates )


Thanks for reading.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RFE...8s_v1h&index=4

[janave]

Dragonmark has limited uses for a high cost. If all the action point cost is lowered and the use per rest is doubled/tripled, they would be nice investment and support wider built diversity.

They were designed for much lower mob count/density and much shorter dungeon instances, taking these into ToEE, Slavers, Raids and some of the new content and it is very hard to justify the feat and all the action points for little use.

[Kutalp]

I agree, thus I hope more of us shall come to an agreement that Dragonmarks get similar update to what is stated at the post above.

Additionally may get a trick to recharge/day ability similar to a Roderick's wand recharge/day ability (?)

Thank you very much for the input janave.

[janave]

I forgot to add they lost value with epic destinies, where the utility or even upgraded versions are available to all builds without locking to feats.

We could see epic levels somehow enhance the use of dragon marks, on that note, a little too obvious but cool option could be to place more Dragon Mark enhancing into Draconic Incarnation.

Say` each core of DI could grant one additional use.
An automatic feat based that links to DM feat, adds a 4th SLA at level 21 or 24 ... other?

Examples:

Epic
~ Dragonmark of Warding: Prismatic Aura 18s / each 3s each target entering into your aura is hit by a prismatic ray CL = CR + d20;
~ Dragonmark of Shadow: Improved Invisibility 30s clicky
~ Dragonmark of Storm: A combination of Ice Storm + Call Lighning + Stormrage ... or something cleverer; CL = CR + Air Savant bonus + Arcane CL boosts.
~ Dragonmark of Healing: Mass CSW or Mass restoration; CL = CR + Divine boosts (whenif)
~ Dragonmark of Finding: 4+d6% treasure quality boost aura sla + 1+d4% discovery (named drop) aura (it should help noticing da chest blesser for the mental afkers).
~ Dragonmark of Sentinel: Similar to stalwart capstone boost
~ Dragonmark of Passage: Haste + AoE sprint boost and or then Greater teleport


Items adding more DM uses could be a little more commonly found. As a special affix maybe on crafted gear?

[NemesisAlien]

[Kutalp]

Thank you very much for the valuable comments.

[janave]

I am positive that this change would scale build diversity quite a bit, hoped for more discussion on it :P.

It is also a money maker for DDO for players to try them out (featswaps, lessers, etc).

Most importantly they show up on the character as a cosmetic!!! . SSG can sell more vibrant / different color dragon mark cosmetics / Or maybe some that show up on hands, foreheads. Cloaks that show a symbol with highlight if you are dragon marked .

Epic Dragon Mark feats could even add some minor aura glows or ioun stone like effects around the head.

Sky is the limit with the cosmetic aspect.

[Xgya]

I'd remove the racial dragonmark abilities altogether, make the SLAs unlock as the character levels.
It's already a feat tax.

Somebody suggested an epic version of the ability. Call it Siberys Dragonmark (I know, it's not really canon, since those rather powerful Marks usually appear suddenly on individuals that had none before, unlike the other dragonmarks, that expand as the power of their user grows accustomed to it)

While this might make some people that loved to use their racial APs to unlock the greater marks at lower levels, it's a tax most races could do without.
It's also an incentive to add some decent, worthy enhancements to the dragonmarked races.

Add some way to recharge dragonmarks, but keep them limited as far as charges go.
I'd love something akin to the Barbarian's Blood Tribute, causing permanent damage to a stat/skill until the next shrine, but recharging dragonmarks immediately.
- After thinking about it a hot minute, why not make it a penalty to the dragonmark's specific skill, like the half-elven Diplomatic Immunity?

[Kutalp]

Thanks for the valuble ideas. It is fun to read them.

[droid327]

I'd remove the racial dragonmark abilities altogether, make the SLAs unlock as the character levels.
It's already a feat tax.

Agreed. I've often called for DMs to simply become SLAs that work like any other SLA, rather than on charges. I'd keep the Racial tree though, and have it unlock successive SLAs...but then have the feat simply grant like +100 Spell Points so that non-caster classes can still use the SLAs, and the tree could add more SP in lieu of more "uses".

You'd have the cooldown to adjust to keep them balanced...but I'd be fine with, say, a halfling with Heal SLA on a 24 sec CD and CSW on 12 sec and CLW on 6 sec. Since it does scale off Char Level instead of Class Level, that's inherently better (and of course free metas, if you can take metas), but it still provides adequate self-healing for non-healing classes, for the cost of 1 feat and 12 AP.

It'd immediately create rolespace for some of the most currently underserved races...Halfling (self healing), Half-elf (Electric SLAs), Dwarf (I'd actually reduce the CD on Radiant Forcefield to make it more useful for tanky builds). Elf isnt currently terribly underserved, but Displacement SLA would be a proportional boost and something that's already available in Warlock and Cleric. Horc and Human and Gnome dont need the help, and their SLAs wouldnt be terribly useful anyway Oh boy a Recon SLA - a Human only needs that if they're Construct Essence, in which case they're Arti and already have it in RMM

[jkalten]

Agreed, thematically I find dragon marks to be one of the most "fun" portions of the setting, but in DDO they always felt like a trap to most builds.

[Xgya]

Agreed. I've often called for DMs to simply become SLAs that work like any other SLA, rather than on charges. I'd keep the Racial tree though, and have it unlock successive SLAs...but then have the feat simply grant like +100 Spell Points so that non-caster classes can still use the SLAs, and the tree could add more SP in lieu of more "uses".

You'd have the cooldown to adjust to keep them balanced...but I'd be fine with, say, a halfling with Heal SLA on a 24 sec CD and CSW on 12 sec and CLW on 6 sec. Since it does scale off Char Level instead of Class Level, that's inherently better (and of course free metas, if you can take metas), but it still provides adequate self-healing for non-healing classes, for the cost of 1 feat and 12 AP.

It'd immediately create rolespace for some of the most currently underserved races...Halfling (self healing), Half-elf (Electric SLAs), Dwarf (I'd actually reduce the CD on Radiant Forcefield to make it more useful for tanky builds). Elf isnt currently terribly underserved, but Displacement SLA would be a proportional boost and something that's already available in Warlock and Cleric. Horc and Human and Gnome dont need the help, and their SLAs wouldnt be terribly useful anyway Oh boy a Recon SLA - a Human only needs that if they're Construct Essence, in which case they're Arti and already have it in RMM

That's another way to balance them, for sure, and I might support going that direction if they chose to do that, but I'd rather keep the short cooldown and give a way to recharge them other than shrines.
They're unique in that sense, giving access to a new resource normally not accessible, and I'd love to keep that aspect.
I wouldn't support removing Monks' Ki mechanics for that reason.
My idea would be Dragonmark Overchannel: -3 to the Mark's associated skill until you next use a shrine, recharge all dragonmarks.
Classes with a focus on that skill might be able to recharge them more often, but the fact they're focused on that skill means it's already important to their build, which makes reducing it a meaningful sacrifice. The Dragonmark of Healing's associated spellpower would lessen every time you'd need to recharge, for example.

Making those abilities mana-based would make them a bit more useful for casters, that already get the most out of them because they're the only ones that can take metamagic feats.

[janave]

That's another way to balance them, for sure, and I might support going that direction if they chose to do that, but I'd rather keep the short cooldown and give a way to recharge them other than shrines.
They're unique in that sense, giving access to a new resource normally not accessible, and I'd love to keep that aspect.
I wouldn't support removing Monks' Ki mechanics for that reason.
My idea would be Dragonmark Overchannel: -3 to the Mark's associated skill until you next use a shrine, recharge all dragonmarks.
Classes with a focus on that skill might be able to recharge them more often, but the fact they're focused on that skill means it's already important to their build, which makes reducing it a meaningful sacrifice. The Dragonmark of Healing's associated spellpower would lessen every time you'd need to recharge, for example.

Making those abilities mana-based would make them a bit more useful for casters, that already get the most out of them because they're the only ones that can take metamagic feats.

Absolutely brilliant to connect in more Skill use at the same time. You should get a medal for this idea.

[K_9]

Some very good suggestions here and I do think they do deserve a pass.

My two coppers thoughts, remove the charges per rest mechanic and instead slap them with a SP cost with cooldown. Allow any offensive SLA to allow full metas. Also use the highest of CHA / INT / WIS for dc calculation of SLA. Some of the existing abilities should be replaced as they are so badly dated and not worth taking even if you were given free racial points and an extra free feat for the dragon mark.

Once this has been done then perhaps a new Epic Destiny feat, called Master of DragonMarks. Then depending on which dragonmark you choose you gain additonal benefits to existing dragonmarks like caster level / max caster level and an Epic version of the type that you previously choose.

[Kutalp]

Thank you everyone. It is fun reading the constructive comments.