Talk:Rod of Arcane Fire (3.5e Equipment)

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Revision as of 18:59, 18 July 2020 by Ganteka Future (talk | contribs) (Justification)
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Ratings[edit]

RatedDislike.png Undead Knave dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.
A ring of minor energy resistance is a) a slotted item, b) gives energy resistance 10, and c) costs 12k. This gives energy resistance 10 as a slotless item as a secondary feature on an item that - without it - is probably properly priced. As is, if you got this at the earliest you could, you'd severely hamper most characters (or creatures) who frequently used typeless damage (such as warlocks or many other types of casters).

Clarificiation

"Per spell slot consumed" or "per spell level of the slot consumed"? --Zhenra-Khal (talk) 14:46, 20 November 2017 (MST)

The latter, 9th level spells give 10d6+Stat shots. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 19:19, 20 November 2017 (MST)
That's what I figured; I just read it and had to ask because of the way it's worded. --Zhenra-Khal (talk) 03:51, 21 November 2017 (MST)

Justification[edit]

Just a reply for UK's rating concerning energy resistances. Not all energy resistances are equally valuable, and I consider resistances to rare and unusual types to be of lower price, because you're going to get less use out of it on the field until your special circumstance comes up. So fire is very valuable, and resistance to city damage (a real thing) is basically useless.

This one is against "untyped". Mind you that doesn't cover divine, hellfire, etc. Those have types. This is specifically "you take damage" untyped, which is pretty uncommon. It's most common amount is against warlocks, but A) How many warlocks are you facing and B) How many warlocks are you facing that don't have a single essence that can help them here? Be it "turn it into another element" essence or "apply a debuff" essence. I could also makes an argument that DPS is not the warlock's primary business anyway. They're a reliable pinger and status effect machine.

And as far as giving them hassle... working as intended then. It's price is 8k now, it won't show up at super low levels. By the time you can afford it, you're dealing more than 10 damage and you have enough options to do something else than your laser.

As far as it being "slotless", it does have a slot: your hand. That's a valuable slot for weapons, shields, or if you want to interact with anything. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 11:12, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Warning: This is going to be rambling.
"Rarity" and "difficulty to resist" are two parts of determining cost of a value here, and the second part of that has been ignored. Providing an item that does grant resistance to a rare thing undermines its overall inherent value, which certainly doesn't work to make it cheaper. Damaging sources that deal untyped damage typically deal less damage or have smaller area than equivalent sources as part of their inherent value.
Yesterday, you compared this to a shield's +2 equivalent cost, which is a scaling cost as you improve it. Setting this as a hard value of 8,000 just makes it cheaper as you level more. The value you paid for it gets skewed as you level making it an awkward metric at best. I mean, you could say "hey, for the purposes of magical enhancement, the item counts as having a +1 equivalent cost already" or some such.
This makes the wizard a very competitive blaster compared to a sorcerer or other casting class that's supposed to be good at that. It also just makes you a golem-slayer, because it happens to be an easy touch attack, which is supernatural, that deals typeless damage.
As for the "slotless" concern that was brought up, the ability in question, the Untyped energy resistance doesn't carry a slot because the main ability, to shooty shooty some energy beams is the main ability and swords and things don't often also grant protective abilities. They can, certainly, but are quite costly, +1s and +2 equivalent costs sortsa things. While the item as a whole has a slot, the energy resistance basically gives you bonus protection without hogging up a ring. Adding those types of protective things on wondrous items usually also cost 150% what they normally would as just an item of that kind, or some other cost boost.
Oh, and this is a supernatural ability, for the beam, so it bypasses spell resistance, unlike a warlock. You also can't bop someone with it in melee to channel the ability, but that may be intended, since this would make a cleric or something with this thing really really scary (well, scarier).
Looks like this was set to be a club so a wizard can wield and threaten with it. Oh, and as a note, rods have AC 9, 10 hp and hardness 10.
Also weird that it is called the rod of arcane fire, when divine casters use it just fine. As written, it doesn't even look like you need to actually have the spell slot prepared in the case of a wizard, just available. This just lets a wizard be a weird blaster if they somehow lose their spellbook or something, which is... pretty powerful on its own as well. Also, noticed a wording problem maybe?
"If the spellcaster expends some of their spell slots or spells per day as part of using the rod, they may add an additional +1d6 points of damage per spell level of the spell consumed"... does this mean you can give up like, two third level slots, a fourth level and a fifth level slot (as per "some of their spell slots or spells per day") to deal a total of 16d6+stat for one attack? I don't think that is intended, but given it doesn't say "when making an attack, a spellcaster may give up a prepared spell slot or spell per day to add that spell's level in equivalent d6s" or whatever. That "some" in the original text leads it to read that several spells could be used. You may want to tighten the wording on this as well.
Also, something that was brought up to reduce price since that was a concern, was having it require an immediate action to absorb damage, making it an awareness and action-economy cost thing, or you could even go like, automatically but 3/day sorta thing as well, since those items tend to be cheaper and actually gives some dynamic play with it instead of just hard resistance.
All in all, I find the item sloppily designed, sorry to say. Some time in the shop could really help this thing shine. Right now I think it is an interesting idea, but the execution is lacking. The bonus and ability it grants versus the cost it has (especially the crafting cost) makes playing against it feel unfair as was discovered last night during session when it was at just half the cost it was.
I cannot recommend resistance 10 at all. That basically eats a whole spell level daily resource if two people with these were dueling. 5 at most. --Ganteka Future (talk) 18:58, 18 July 2020 (UTC)