Talk:The Vision (3.5e Vestige)

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Spanambula likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.

I feel like this vestige isn't technically overpowered, but it gives you too much stuff that's ALMOST overpowered. And to make matters worse, with the gimme feat of Improved Binding, it's all available at 1st level. While see invisibility is available at low level, it usually not available for 24 hours (unless you're a warlock, but See the Unseen is a sub-par choice for most invocation builds). Hope the DM didn't ever want to throw anything invisible at the party. See in Darkness has no range, so I'm assuming it works like the Devil Su ability, which is far superior to the Warlock Least invocation version which has a hard range of 30 feet. So at 1st level you can see perfectly in darkness around corners out to 10 times what normal members of your race could see in normal light. Moving on, there's the untyped +20 to spot, one of if not the most frequently used skill check in D&D. Again at 1st level with one feat. While Wisdom is usually a dump stat for binders, and this is a cross-class skill for them, this still means that with a Wisdom of 12 you have a 10% chance to succeed on a "Nearly Impossible" DC 40 spot check with only a -1 penalty per 100 feet of distance. Let's detail exactly what this negates. 1) Disguises, even magical ones using Disguise self and Alter self are reliably easy to beat. 2) Checks to read lips automatically succeed thanks to the base DC of 15, and thanks to the round-corners ability, you can basically overhear any conversation that's not taking place in a dark closet so long as you understand the language. Oh wait you can see perfectly in darkness so unless they're talking inside a hermetically sealed lead box... 3) Sleight of Hand. Again, unless the opponent rolls extremely well and you roll extremely poorly, you beat them. Also you have X-Ray vision, the TSA weeps with envy, every airport in the world wants to hire you. 4) Hide checks. Even if your opponents took 20 to set up the ambush, there's a good chance your binder sees them anyway. Since you can see around corners, unless they're hiding in a sealed box you spot them. Oh wait, X-Ray vision, you spot them anyway. While we're on the topic of permanent X-Ray vision that works in conjunction with your corner-bending vision, let's look at what that negates: 1) Any mechanical trap. Mechanisms are usually not set deep into solid matter, so all pit traps, spike traps, door traps, floor traps, wall traps, anything that isn't magical are completely obvious Your rogue trades out Trapfinding for some other ability in disgust. 2) Exploration is a joke now. Hey what's in the next room through the door/wall/ whatever direction? What's in the chest? Why is the DM suddenly making us adventure in the elemental Plane of Lead? Since it doesn't say otherwise, I assume you can use both curving vision and X-Ray vision in conjunction. Mechanically the curving vision is just weird, because there really aren't any mechanical limitations. There's no action requirement or penalty for this massive amount of visual input. Since even in modern houses most doors don't form a perfect seal, keyholes exist, and darkness isn't a problem, this let's you basically have infinite range all-around vision all the time. It's left to the DM and the player to hammer out what is and isn't allowable, with the DM being forced to Rule 0 things because as written you just see everything. Are your eyes closed? You have X-Ray vision and see perfectly in darkness. God, how would you even fall sleep? Immunity to dazzling is no big. Immunity to Blindness, one of the legit nasty and permanent early-game effects, isn't game-breaking, but it's just kind of adding to the "almost game-breaking" pile of benefits here. Whatever, go spy on nymphs or something. Also, binding the Vestige itself has no downside and no chance of a bad pact. While influence is mostly fluff and aren't meant to be terribly penalizing, they are one of the things that (for me) makes Binders so fun to play, and not having anything like that makes this vestige feel even more cheap. Making it inaccessible to Binders using your Willing Influence feels arbitrary and annoying. (Yes, I realize your fluff is all "must not interfere" but why not just make that the influence on the Binder, making the binder feel/act more neutral? That feels like a better fit with the vestige concept IMO. TL;DR: Christ, this is a huge fucking headache for any DM with a player who can bind this. The DM basically has to give his NPCs skill bonuses way out of line with early level parties in order to have a chance for the Binder not to spot everything. Even though it's not overtly overpowered, this vestige is basically instant-win at all exploration aspects of the game as well as many of the social aspects unless the DM again pulls spcific shenanigans to foil his players' specific abilities, which is bad for the game. Bottom Line: I would not allow this in any of my games. Fixes: 1) Hard limits to curved vision. They don't have to be Luigifan-level specific, but some general limitations would be nice. Hell, even a "each round you use curved vision you take some kind of penalty because sweet Jesus so much visual input" would work. 2) Reduce the bonus to +10, which is more in line with bonuses you get from spells and SLA's in early game. Honestly something like the Warlock's +6 bonus would work, since that's a 24 hour benefit. 3) Change the infinite eyesight to double or triple or soemthing. x10 is just ridiculous and impractical in most games. Taking a net -7 to spot something 1/2 a mile away is stupid. 4) Influence as mentioned above. An excuse to not have any influence is boring. Edit: Ok, fixes are good; I still grumble about the lack of influence, and I'd like for the vision bending to be use-activated instead of always on, or have some kind of drawback, but I can live with this. This is still a very good vestige, and still an exploration headache for a DM, but not a full on migraine like before. Edit of Edit: Ha! I missed the change to 5th level vestige. That is totally fine and the benefits at that level are great, and should make for some interesting synergies with some of the other exploration-based Vestiges. Thank you for listening to my griping.

	Eiji-kun favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	I am greatly amused by the visual nightmare of seeing all sides of an object at once produces. Picasso and Black Holes have nothing on The Vision. That said Span has good points. Need to address them. I'm not sure why I was so gung ho given how low level it is. All is well.

Binders binding binders

Special summoning: In order to summon the vision, the seal must be drawn under an open sky during the day. The vision also require the binder to bind herself during his summoning.

Did you mean BLIND herself, not bind?

Also, I am presuming any blinding, including closing one's eyes, counts. Or does one need to tear out one's own eyes? -- Eiji-kun (talk) 02:42, 25 December 2013 (UTC)