TOPIC: Rare Token Thoughts?

Fiddy wrote: Potion of Ablation: Gain DR 10 (all). DR is reduced by damage avoided each time character would have taken damage.

This seem strictly better than a 10 hp healing potion for everything except corner case MEC interactions?

Highest rare healing is I think 7 or 8 with drawbacks - maybe tone this down to 5 and just call it “temporary hit points”?

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Fiddy wrote: Potion of Ablation: Gain DR 10 (all). DR is reduced by damage avoided each time character would have taken damage.

This seem strictly better than a 10 hp healing potion for everything except corner case MEC interactions?

Highest rare healing is I think 7 or 8 with drawbacks - maybe tone this down to 5 and just call it “temporary hit points”?

Except, whatever you're calling it, there is the chance that you use it with 0 effect or at something less than full effect. Also, you have to do it before you'd be taking the damage rather than after (so there's an opportunity cost that you could have spent that action doing something else). That is why I gave it more impact than a rare healing potion.

Wording would need to be modified so that it doesn't work with MEC. I hadn't thought of that. Easiest solution is to change it to (all except eldritch).

Fiddy wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Fiddy wrote: Potion of Ablation: Gain DR 10 (all). DR is reduced by damage avoided each time character would have taken damage.

This seem strictly better than a 10 hp healing potion for everything except corner case MEC interactions?

Highest rare healing is I think 7 or 8 with drawbacks - maybe tone this down to 5 and just call it “temporary hit points”?

Except, whatever you're calling it, there is the chance that you use it with 0 effect or at something less than full effect. Also, you have to do it before you'd be taking the damage rather than after (so there's an opportunity cost that you could have spent that action doing something else). That is why I gave it more impact than a rare healing potion.

Wording would need to be modified so that it doesn't work with MEC. I hadn't thought of that. Easiest solution is to change it to (all except eldritch).

Nothing in td cares about how many hp you have left except berserker fight after death, so there is no opportunity cost for this - all that matters is “will the next source of damage put me to 0 or lower?”


Can you construct a non-MeC scenario where you would rather have a 9 point potion of healing rather than a 10 point potion of ablation (I’m assuming multiple ablation potions stack - maybe this is the difference?)

I can’t.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Fiddy wrote: Potion of Ablation: Gain DR 10 (all). DR is reduced by damage avoided each time character would have taken damage.

This seem strictly better than a 10 hp healing potion for everything except corner case MEC interactions?

Highest rare healing is I think 7 or 8 with drawbacks - maybe tone this down to 5 and just call it “temporary hit points”?

Except, whatever you're calling it, there is the chance that you use it with 0 effect or at something less than full effect. Also, you have to do it before you'd be taking the damage rather than after (so there's an opportunity cost that you could have spent that action doing something else). That is why I gave it more impact than a rare healing potion.

Wording would need to be modified so that it doesn't work with MEC. I hadn't thought of that. Easiest solution is to change it to (all except eldritch).

Nothing in td cares about how many hp you have left except berserker fight after death, so there is no opportunity cost for this - all that matters is “will the next source of damage put me to 0 or lower?”


Can you construct a non-MeC scenario where you would rather have a 9 point potion of healing rather than a 10 point potion of ablation (I’m assuming multiple ablation potions stack - maybe this is the difference?)

I can’t.

Potions only last until end of room. So if you don't get attacked, the Potion of Ablation was wasted. Whereas your potion of healing is still in your pocket.

+1 Medium Sword, 2-8 on the damage wheel.

Bead of the Hunter- +1 Ranged Damage
Bead of Focus- +1 to healing and damage spells
Bead of Claws - +2 to Polymorph damage
Bead of Quills - +2 to retribution damage

Assuming Tome is actually a limited slot:

Wayfarer's Almanac - Tome - Bard, Ranger
If party initiative would be less than 12, set it to 12

If Tome is not a limited slot, then stick this somewhere else - probably Charm.

Matthew Hayward wrote: Assuming Tome is actually a limited slot:

Wayfarer's Almanac - Tome - Bard, Ranger
If party initiative would be less than 12, set it to 12

If Tome is not a limited slot, then stick this somewhere else - probably Charm.

I had to read this several times before I realized you might mean the total initiative (roll + modifier). Is that what is meant?

Fiddy wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: Assuming Tome is actually a limited slot:

Wayfarer's Almanac - Tome - Bard, Ranger
If party initiative would be less than 12, set it to 12

If Tome is not a limited slot, then stick this somewhere else - probably Charm.

I had to read this several times before I realized you might mean the total initiative (roll + modifier). Is that what is meant?

Seems superpowered. A party wearing 10 Charms of Awakened Synergy only get +10 init. Maybe just call it +1 initiative, wherever it goes.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: Assuming Tome is actually a limited slot:

Wayfarer's Almanac - Tome - Bard, Ranger
If party initiative would be less than 12, set it to 12

If Tome is not a limited slot, then stick this somewhere else - probably Charm.

I had to read this several times before I realized you might mean the total initiative (roll + modifier). Is that what is meant?

Seems superpowered. A party wearing 10 Charms of Awakened Synergy only get +10 init. Maybe just call it +1 initiative, wherever it goes.

Making it +1 initiative then leads to it potentially stacking with CoAS. Which likely has other impacts. Of course you could just say "does not stack with other initiative modifiers on same character". Maybe we need more tokens with that kind of language on them? But I think any token that says it can't stack is effectively a dead-end token that you can't build around. Sometimes (like with the TEs) maybe it makes sense.

But I don't see this replacing anyone's CoAS, if the intended interpretation is "set initiative to 12 if initiative after modifiers is less than 12". That party of people wearing CoAS is probably on a difficulty where the monster has an initiative modifier higher than that. Easy to knock this token down to 11 instead of 12 to get rid of the corner case time you'd care about this at the same time as CoAS.

We don't have a lot of non-spellcasting tomes to balance against yet, not do we have a lot of things that impact initiative. So it may be too powerful for a Rare. UR may be more appropriate.

Agreed, if intent is roll plus modifiers, this could be a reasonable rare (or UR) depending on slot.

If the intent is "set your initiative roll to 12, then add modifiers as appropriate " it would need some hefty competition. For Bard, Carter's and Gregor's are both good. For Ranger, not just yet, though I suppose a 5th level ranger could equip either of those as well.
I lmk ike the idea though. I'm just not sure which one it is.

Fiddy wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Fiddy wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: Assuming Tome is actually a limited slot:

Wayfarer's Almanac - Tome - Bard, Ranger
If party initiative would be less than 12, set it to 12

If Tome is not a limited slot, then stick this somewhere else - probably Charm.

I had to read this several times before I realized you might mean the total initiative (roll + modifier). Is that what is meant?

Seems superpowered. A party wearing 10 Charms of Awakened Synergy only get +10 init. Maybe just call it +1 initiative, wherever it goes.

Making it +1 initiative then leads to it potentially stacking with CoAS. Which likely has other impacts. Of course you could just say "does not stack with other initiative modifiers on same character". Maybe we need more tokens with that kind of language on them? But I think any token that says it can't stack is effectively a dead-end token that you can't build around. Sometimes (like with the TEs) maybe it makes sense.

But I don't see this replacing anyone's CoAS, if the intended interpretation is "set initiative to 12 if initiative after modifiers is less than 12". That party of people wearing CoAS is probably on a difficulty where the monster has an initiative modifier higher than that. Easy to knock this token down to 11 instead of 12 to get rid of the corner case time you'd care about this at the same time as CoAS.

We don't have a lot of non-spellcasting tomes to balance against yet, not do we have a lot of things that impact initiative. So it may be too powerful for a Rare. UR may be more appropriate.

OK! First off I made a mistake, I was thinking party initiative started off at 10 for some dumb reason.

What I was trying to get to was concice-ish wording that meant:

If your party initiative mod is less than +2, it becomes +2.

I hadn't considered "after rolling, it's at least a 12" - but that seems like a fun / reasonable effect as well to me.