After looking at the offensive gear, here are some options to protect the PCs
Magic Armor - Level 1+ Common Armor
Lvl 1 (+1); Lvl 6 (+2); Lvl 11 (+3); Lvl 16 (+4); Lvl 21 (+5); Lvl 26 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Nimble Armor - Level 2+ Common Armor
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Property: This armor has no check penalty.
Property: You can use this armor’s enhancement bonus instead of your Strength, Constitution or Dexterity modifier when making Acrobatics, Athletics, Endurance, Stealth, or Thievery checks.
Delver's Armor - Level 2+ Common Armor
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Property: You gain a +2 bonus to your first saving throw each encounter.
Armor of Resistance - Level 3+ Common Armor
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Special: When this item is created, choose one of the following damage types: fire, cold, lightning, thunder, acid.
Property: You gain resist 5 against the chosen damage type.
Level 13: Resist 10.
Level 23: Resist 15.
Razor Armor - Level 3+ Common Armor
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Property: When an enemy scores a critical hit against you with a melee or close attack, it takes 1d10 damage.
Level 13: 2d10 damage.
Level 23: 3d10 damage.
Shimmering Armor - Level 4+ Common Armor
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Property Your ranged and area attacks don't provoke opportunity attacks.
Juggernaut Armor - Level 4+ Common Armor
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Requires: Chain or higher.
Enhancement: AC
Property You gain resist 1 all.
Level 14: Resist 2.
Level 24: Resist 3.
Bramble Armor - Level 2+ Uncommon Armor
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Power (Daily)Minor Action. Until the end of the encounter, enemies that hit you take damage equal to 2 plus the enhancement bonus of this armor.
Dwarven Armor - Level 3+ Uncommon Armor
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Requires: Chain or higher.
Enhancement: AC
Power (Daily) Minor Action. You spend a healing surge.
Property: You can use a +4 bonus instead of your constitution modifier when making Endurance checks.
Level 13: +7 bonus.
Level 23: +10 bonus.
Reinforcing Armor - Level 3+ Uncommon Armor
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Property: When you are hit by an attack, you gain a +1 power bonus to AC until the start of your next turn.
Stoneskin Armor - Level 4+ Uncommon Armor
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Requires: Cloth, Leather, or Hide.
Enhancement: AC
Power (Encounter)Minor Action. Special: You must be bloodied. Effect: You gain 5 temporary hit points.
Level 14: 10 temporary hit points.
Level 24:: 15 temporary hit points.
Invulnerable Armor - Level 5+ Uncommon Armor
Lvl 5 (+1); Lvl 10 (+2); Lvl 15 (+3); Lvl 20 (+4); Lvl 25 (+5); Lvl 30 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Property You take no damage from missed attacks.
Power (Daily)Immediate Interrupt. Trigger: An attack hits you. Effect: You take no damage from the attack. Until the start of your next turn, you take half damage from attacks.
Ghost Armor - Level 2+ Rare Armor
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Property:Your attacks ignore the insubstantial trait.
Property: You gain resist 5 necrotic.
Level 12: resist 10.
Level 22: resist 15.
Power (Encounter) Minor action. You gain phasing and insubstantial until the end of your next turn.
Dragon Armor - Level 5+ Rare Armor
Lvl 5 (+1); Lvl 10 (+2); Lvl 15 (+3); Lvl 20 (+4); Lvl 25 (+5); Lvl 30 (+6)
Enhancement: AC
Special: When this item is created, choose one of the following damage types: fire, cold, lightning, thunder, acid.
Property: You become immune against the chosen damage type.
Power (Encounter, Fear): Minor action. Close burst 3. Targets enemies in burst. Until the end of your next turn, the targets gain a -2 penalty to attack rolls and grant combat advantage.
Property (requires extended rest): You gain a +2 item bonus to your healing surge value.
Level 15: +4 item bonus.
Level 25: +6 item bonus.
(A property that requires an extended rest only works if you have worn the item without interruption since your last extended rest).
As usual, any feedback will be greatly appreciated.
Posts
This is partially personal preference, but I'm not big on the direction that some of the items/feats in 4e have gone in nullifying certain tactical considerations. Shimmering Armor is the perfect example of this (as is the Badge of the Berserker, Staff Expertise, etc.).
ReplyDeleteWhile it's certainly powerful and useful to say "you don't provoke OAs in this scenario," IMO it detracts from the tactical aspect of 4e combat (i.e. fun). Personally I would have these items grant a bonus to all defenses against OAs so there's still a tactical decision to be made. The odds favor PCs with these items, but there's still some risk involved. A Wizard who could now blast away using any spell with impunity would instead perhaps have to fire off a close burst/blast and then fall back. Reducing risk entirely just isn't fun.
I guess it comes down to the existence of Staff Expertise, which is an extremely common feat with that very mechanic. If not for that, I might have been tempted to tone down Shimmering Armor and have it grant instead an AC bonus or resistance against OAs. As it is, if I want to design a weaker Shimmering Armor, unless I also nerf Staff Expertise, I don't think anybody would ever care about taking that item.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the issue of making the item effective at its intended task. Many of the characters who might be interested in a Shimmering Armor are quite fragile, or have miserable OA. For such a character, even an opportunity attack with a +4 or +5 bonus to defenses might be an excessive risk. I'm not saying it's impossible to come up with the right values, but any bonus high enough to make provoking OAs worthwhile (or to bother taking the item, for that matter) should be pretty close to immunity, anyways.
If you are interested in a game without opportunity attack immunity, I'd recommend changing Staff Expertise and Shimmering armor to instead grant resist 5/10/15 against OAs, depending on tier. And I'd change Shimmering Armor to a level 3+ item (perhaps even 2+), because it's definitely not worth it at 4. As for Badge of the Berserker, it should die a horrible death...
Dragon Armor: Immunity is just too strong. Not even the dragons themselves have it.
ReplyDeleteGive the item resist 5 per level, it is quite better than the usual 5 per tier, but still not overpowered.
I don't know... handing out immunity is the very point of the item, the one thing that sets it apart from non-rare stuff (since I see the other two abilities as nice extras, but nothing to call home about). I could use high resistances instead (say, double the usual values, for 10/tier), but that seems bland in comparison, for a level 5+ rare.
ReplyDeleteThis is partly a perception issue - immunity just looks that much stronger than resistance, even though high resistance values can often mitigate certain attacks well enough to make a character virtually immune to them. And I wanted to play with these perceptions to make an item that looked even cooler than it actually was.
My point being, I don't think the item would work out as well if it did away with the immunity part. If it turned out to be unbalanced, I'd rather completely redesign, or ditch it altogether.
That said, my current viewpoint is that it isn't really broken, but I want to take a second look at it, just to make sure. I'd also like to hear more opinions on the subject, to give me some perspective.
I forgot to mention, I don't think the lack of immunity in actual dragons to be a factor when evaluating this item. Just fluff it as dragon hide enhanced by powerful magic (which is what it is, really) to justify any such differences. Whether or not it breaks encounters, or characters, is a more pressing issue to me.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, if granting an ability that real dragons lack somehow breaks the item's flavor, that could be a reason for concern. But I don't think that's what Andras complained about...
I think this is not really about monster attacks, if you are immune to fire, the DM will send the Salamandras after another PC, and that is it.
ReplyDeleteThe real change is for the Wizard/Sorcerer of the party, now he can stop worrying about being party friendly. And this is HUGE.
Well, I don't think it's reasonable to expect a whole party to wear suits of dragon armor for this purpose. In practice you should be ignoring one ally in your areas, which is fine (particularly if said ally is a defender surrounded by monsters), but not really the same as ignoring friendly fire altogether. And, to be fair, blasters have always had the option to use War Wizardry in combination with their allies resistance from race, magic items, or the like, which didn't completely negate damage but did a good enough job at mitigating it.
ReplyDeleteArea damage getting out of hand wasn't remotely in my radar, and in fact there are several items boosting area attacks as well, if not better, than dragon armor. I'll keep an eye on it.
Typo: Ghost Armor's resistance bumps don't line up with the levels of its enhancements.
ReplyDeleteThanks, fixed
ReplyDeleteSorry if this is an old topic, but why have plain old +1 armor at all? I mean, it seems like such a boring option.
ReplyDeleteOn the plain +1 armor issue... that is actually a really good question. The short answer would be that it didn't even occur to me that I could get rid of them! That's one stealthy sacred cow - I had completely forgotten it was there...
ReplyDeleteWith that out of the way, let's go for a long answer. Having thought a bit about the matter, I think I prefer for the current system to have these plain +X magic items. The main reason is the range of item levels for a given enhancement bonus: as it is, dividing primary items with abilities into 4 different levels (plus 1 level for "no abilities") is hard enough to implement and justify. If we got rid of the plain item, we'd need to think of really weak abilities for the level 1 weapon/armor/neck, weak enough to justify having 4 levels of improvement over them. At that point, I'd probably give up and say that these items could only be of levels 1, 3, and 5, to keep a manageable amount of categories.
Another issue would be that, unless I created a lot of level 1 options (which implies additional effort and risk of bloat), and unless many of these options were both generic and awesome (which is not that easy to do), we'd probably end up with a lot of characters picking Level 1 +1 Magic swords with some random ability they don't care about. For these characters, there would not be a practical difference between these "improved" items, and the plain +1 sword. I'd rather not add additional complexity, if it is likely not to have much of a positive impact in the game.
Eventually, it comes down to personal preference. I like having the straightforward version of an item, and I enjoy the tension between "cool level 5 item full of abilities" and "plain level 6 item with more raw power". Particularly if the designer can manage to make it a real decision, at least most of the time. For some reason, I think this dilemma would feel worse for the player if one of the options became "level 6 item with more raw power and a ability that is pointless for me".
I'm a bit late for the conversation but, Re: Staff Expertise:
ReplyDeleteNow that Implement Focus exists, there's basically two reasons to always use a staff. Staff of Ruin, and Dragonshards. Staff Expertise is a really nifty feat because, hey, avoiding OAs: Who doesn't love that? But there are lots of ways of avoiding OAs, and it's a binary benefit, meaning once you can avoid OAs, well, you can avoid OAs. It's because there's a tactical consideration that allows you to get out of OAs (Teleport points, shifting, whatever) that it's actually not as good as you'd think.
Compare with Orb Expertise, ala +1 forced movement. Yeah, there are plenty of things that buff forced movement-but it's not binary, and it's a feat bonus (which virtually nothing else is when it comes to +forced movement) meaning it stacks.
In short, I don't think Shimmering Armor needs to be nerfed; it's certainly the best armor for anyone who doesn't have anything more specific to take, but a lot of builds will have something more specific to take.