+2 Flaming Dirk
So, a +2 VSF that isn't part of a set. If this is printed as is, seems to set a new benchmark and makes printing all of those 5.5 average damage UR rogue usable weapons without major abilities a reason for players to complain about how weak those hypothetical UR weapons will be. Seems like a pretty good year for +2 Short Sword of the Sun, instead, but that may just be too meek, I mean, weak.
+3 Rod of the Meek
Interesting to have the dirk to compare and contrast. Let's assume the damage restriction is dropped as it seems rather pointless [ha?]. A non-cleric, non-wizard could choose to take -1 to hit to have no restrictions at all. These two weapons seem too similar to each other.
I just had a thought that will never happen. Make this a cleric only weapon with no restrictions and -2 STR. That would give clerics something and ... and ... bah, nobody ever worries about clerics getting anything good, anymore. No-body.
Ranged UR? 2h UR in the year of the barbarian? I may or may not have said last year that the Death Flail was an odd decision in a year not-of-the-barbarian. Increasingly, on a tangent, I'm seeing the value of 2h weapons as something that rangers definitely can't use and monks routinely won't be able to use. Maybe we could get a +2 Claymore with a damage wheel that ...
Arcane Belt
At some point, will there be a token, probably in the neck slot that just says "+2 to everything, yup, even that"? So, the reason not to have certain nice things is that it steals design space to have other nice things later. Is there any particular reason an "Arcane" anything helps melee and missile builds?
I guess this needs to make up for how meek the other two pieces of the Arcane set are ...
Arcane Bracelets & Arcane Earcuff
Let's say there was a token at the UR level that gave +2 Ioun Stones from the wrist slot (call it the Well-Stoned Bracelets), and that's all it did. I guess that doesn't seem so out of line, though I already consider the wrist slot overcrowded, if only there were a wrist expander. Oh, wait, as soon as this gets made, no wrist expander ever will get made.
So, why bother make any comments? It's part of a set. It's putting a lot of focus, er, attention on slot expanders all in the same year.
Is the Earcuff more OP? Well, consider how much fighting there is at the charm slot and how much dependency the UR+ crowd (especially the + crowd) has on charm expanders. It doesn't fight with Earcuff of Orbits, just replaces Icecrag's or Charming (in my builds, anyway).
And, it has a set bonus. And, it means what for 2021 and 2022 in terms of slot expanders? Ooh, great idea I just got - a wrist slot expander ...
If the earcuff was not part of a set and not this year, would it be concerning? So, you get a couple UR earcuffs, let's say Orbits is reprinted at some point or not horrendously expensive, and your build nets two slots. Someday, I imagine there will be a charm that expands slots and an ioun stone that expands slots, can you just see a charm that gave two ear slots? Oh, the frabjous day.
But, that's all speculation and getting far afield commenting on what is. What seems more reasonable to me to rein in some of the expansiveness? Arcane Bracelets +1 Charm, +1 Ioun Stone. Arcane Earcuff would have to do something else, maybe something not always amazing, maybe something that sounds cool but is not so clearly awesome, like reduce elemental damage by some number, maybe a large number to get people's attention.
Or, since there are hardly any earcuffs that increase damage, "+3 dmg with missile when Bardsong is heard" or something.
That would reduce the number of expanders down to what seems reasonable, one, for 2020. Then, can start expanding the shirt slot next year.
Bracers of Reckless Fury
Please limit to 2h melee weapons or do something else involving only 2h melee weapons. Amazingly enough, I do use 2h melee weapons when playing classes other than barbarian.
Or, (see below as to why), limit this to Barbarian, Fighters or Barbarian, Cleric, Fighters.
Cloak of the Elm
So, I think it's unlikely 2019 sales sucked. I can see that any sales data probably indicated that the three URs that get transmuted into the class specific legendaries were not as popular as other URs.
But, is it really necessary to open up the URs to everyone? I would vastly prefer this being Ranger, Druid, Bard or Ranger, Druid. Then, you remove the silly drawback.
Hand of Glory
May not have held up as well. After all, there's the massive rare power leap of Amulet of Vigor, now. But, it's interesting and more powerful rings will get made because more powerful everything will likely get made.
If anything, this token helps point out how slot limits have such a massive impact on the game. While neck is crazy now, feet is kind of good, legs is kind of good, and more stuff will get more gooder. Philosophically, which I guess is better in a different thread, do you consider slot fights a good thing to continue to control power levels or do you make a bunch of slot expanders so that you can ignore limitations and have people always want more, more, more good stuff?
Lenses of Deer Sight
Oops, that would be Seer Sight. The +2 to spell damage, healing, and polymorph seems right in line with other Greater Focus items, if only it were Arcane Lenses of Seer Sight for the set bonus ... Oh, hold on, this is a sneak attack token. Sure, mechanically, it doesn't bother me, at least not anymore.
Ring of the Drake
Vastly prefer this being limited to Monks and, uh, sure, Fighters. Can, then, drop the Spells part of the text. Yes, this will massively decrease sales and TA will go out of business in 2020.
The reason to avoid having certain nice things is so that you can have other nice things. Not every token needs to do everything right now. I'm totally sure that when I comment on transmutes that there will be something along the lines of "Why are there so many effects on these tokens? Can't we just save some mechanics for other tokens?" Wait, let me copy this to my clipboard ...
Semi-Lich Skull
Worn me out. I think it was Fiddy who pointed out the unlikely nature of much more psychic tokens in the future as Teeth finally will come to an end. So, psychic has become slotless. I hope that it does what it's intended to do, at least, and drive some interest in 6th and 7th Teeth.
Shirt of the Oaf
Shirt transmute - okay. More stat bonuses to STR/DEX/CON?!? I guess it really will never end that tokens can't find something else to do. Oh, and I will have my cake and eat it, too, when my current Shirt of Focus can be used as the fourth ingredient for the "+2 to a bunch of stuff, no, not that" token? Sweet and moist.
So, I was thinking, like 10 seconds ago, that the Kilt took three physical stat boosters and turned into a choose your own stat rather than increasing all three stats by six [five, four, no five, no six, no five, no four, no three, ...]. So, this transmute is going to take three tokens that give about +2 to a single stat and give +2 to three different stats, while also consolidating Focus into one token. Well, Amulet of the Champion is +2/+2/+2, so Shirt of the Arcanum Champion can be +2/+2/+2/+2 as it's a transmute.
Once upon a time, I thought Shirt of the Fae was a good idea. Make an interesting token in a slot that could use some help. And, then, one year later obsolete it. To Hayward's point (I'm sure he won't mind my calling him Hayward), a problem with ever increasing power is that you build in expectations of rapid obsolescence, which means there isn't a reason to spend now as you could save for a higher ROI later. Assuming later ever comes as you could just wait forever and play with the toys, er, tokens you already have.
Taborlin's Key
Worn ... oh, wait, this is another strictly better than not having token that is physically worn but not app worn. So, I really am not interested in arguments about how this adds a 100 points of healing or in arguments that Linked Shirt of Healing is more healing. It's a slotless item. Not everyone is going to own every token, but it's a slotless item that interacts with one of the more common mechanics in the game while also not doing anything to drive Teeth sales.
If it was a slotless, "Healing scrolls heal you +2" or whatever, okay, pushes an underutilized mechanic in the game and does the all important "generate token sales" by incentivizing consumables. It's just good stuff that will never get replaced until the theoretical Key slot [ha, ha ha] is created to rein in the Key brokenness that will eventually occur.
There are already far too many slotless items, though, I do admit that I can tolerate more as long as they are esoteric. So, I'm not entirely committed to filling slots, um, ... nvm. But, at this rate, I can just imagine forum arranged "Greedy Slotless Runs" in order to challenge players who have 20 useful slotless items. Actually, hmmm ... next year, Origins, Greedy Slotless? Anyone?
