TOPIC: Almost Final Transmuted Token Images! Please give these your look-see!

MasterED wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: You've got a great point, it doesn't seem right for just one of the powers of this overpowered legendary to be duplicating the powers of a Grand Eldritch token that people are spending seven years to transmute.

Where is MIke and what have you done with him? This is twice I have agreed with you.

Ed

Once is a coincidence, twice is a trend. Looking forward to lots more agreeing with you, Ed!

Aothos wrote: Pally Relic/Legendary: Guard isn't OP, so it should read "+1 to # Guarded", not just once per game. I think the token in general needs a real power boost. Yes it has the autokill 'evil outsider' clause, but how often are we going to see one of those in the coming years? I'm sure there will be years where we don't even see one at all. Its a wicked strong ability, yes; but there will be years where its pointless for its wielders. I just think it needs something more. Other class relics/legendaries can see all their abilities used with ease every year, lets not turn the Pally Relic/Legendary to a 'Sword in the Stone' scenario. I want to see those things out there every year.

+1; in addition, the extra guard granted by the legendary gives a paladin the option to not use the amulet of guarding.

Much of the conversation with regards to the Holy Avengers seems to focus on those rare, potentially very rare, times a paladin would be wielding a Holy Avenger and Amulet of Guarding - this will not be the norm across all groups and across all difficulties. I would postulate that this would only occur in NM and Epic groups in which the other armor wearing classes would already have AC's close to the Paladin - the extra guard would not be needed beyond wizard/elf wizard/bard.

The additional guard and extra lay on hands for the Holy Avenger are the only powers that a Paladin is
guaranteed to use each run - the others are situational and should feel legendary when used,

The Figurine of Power Phoenix and Amulet of Guarding are probably the only two paladin oriented UR+ tokens available. Give the paladins their legendary this now (don't make 'em wait.

Lastly, the Holy Avenger and paladins have been so closely tied together in RPG lore that I think it would be a great disservice and wasted opportunity to not let the Holy Avenger not be the paladin's first legendary - not a neck slot.

Philip Goodman wrote: I wanted to respond with some positive feedback for the Monk relic and legendary. I think they look great. Adding in the Psychic power and +1 use is especially cool. I think the damage could be reduced by 1 or 2 and they would still be pretty great.

I will break down my interpretation of it and discuss a few things:

Monk Relic

• +5 Sacred dmg FoB
  
• Stun Fist works 19-20
  
• may hit Ranged target with Flurry of Blows

Monk Legendary

• +7 Sacred dmg FoB
  
• Stun Fist works 18-20
  
• May hit Ranged target w/ FoB
  
• Imbues Psychic power w/ +1 additional use
  
• Unlocks up to power 7

I like segmenting the effects into other recognizable tokens, if I can, and have done so below:

Monk Relic

• +5 melee damage
  
• Ring of Stunning Fist
  
• Gloves of the Flying Fist

Monk Legendary

• +7 melee damage
  
• +1 Ring of Stunning Fist (if an ultra rare version of Ring of Stunning Fist were to exist)
  
• Gloves of the Flying Fist
  
• Dark Disciple’s Shirt
  
• The effect of having 7 teeth

I was initially apprehensive about seeing the legendary gaining the effects of all 7 teeth. I felt that it detracts from my tooth investment so far and only grants me access to power 7 one year early.

But then I considered how annoying it would be for someone to obtain or create this legendary in several years and then have to chase down difficult-to-find teeth to power it up. I think granting access to 7 teeth powers is okay and one of the less messy ways to make it work.

I really like the granting psychic power and +1 additional use similar to Dark Disciple’s Shirt without the restriction of using a different power. Very flavorful.

It is nice to see Gloves of the Flying Fist in the monk relic and legendary.

The damage of the relic and legendary is on the higher end, as I mentioned before. Reducing the damage by 1 or 2 may be appropriate and would still have the relic and legendary token on my "must make" list.

All in all, I am really excited about the current state of the monk relic and legendary tokens and am happy with changes made over the revision iterations.

Thank you again, TD, for letting us be a part of token development and listening to our feedback!

I agree the Monk's items are looking good. And I also agree the damage should be taken down two points as you suggested to +3/+5. +5/+7 is too good IMO, especially with the other powers.

Mike Steele wrote:

Wayne Rhodes wrote:

PalaDan wrote:

Wayne Rhodes wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: It appears to me that the reason the Avenger conversation is not converging is because people are valuing the fact that it's in the mainhand slot differently.

Might I suggest we end this discussion by:

1. Move the legendary to the neck slot.

2. Give it powers similar to:

+6 STR
May guard 3 players total
Grace 2/game
+15 LoH 1/game
Auto-kill evil outsiders om 20 while wielding +2 Holy Avenger

3. In the recipe, have one of the ingredients be:

One of +2 Holy Avenger or Amulet of Guarding


I think the above neck item "looks" a lot more like a legendary than the current weapon (also it makes the guard buff permanent).

To those concerned about "now 40% of the party uses the Paladin's AC!!!" - just have monsters balanced to have: 1/3 attacks melee, 1/3 ranged, 1/3 spell/AoE. Problem solved.

I would support this concept. I would rather have a good neck slot item then the current Holy avenger. Maybe make the extra damage sacred and if the auto kill was kept just change it to any holy sword to give room to improve in the future.

I agree that this actually wouldn't be a bad option. It might appease all the non-paladin players arguing the "free neck slot", and paladin players might be motivated to make it.

The real irony is, most of the powers on the token benefit any player in the party other than the paladin.

If there isn’t enough time to make the changes it might be best to drop the paladin legendary for 2020 all together. I don’t think many of us expected 4 legendary tokens this year so moving back to 3 to me is better than the paladin legendary not being good.

One reason to keep it this year is that the UR is still in print.

One reason to push it back is the UR goes out of print the same year the relic goes into print

Wayne Rhodes wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: One reason to keep it this year is that the UR is still in print.

One reason to push it back is the UR goes out of print the same year the relic goes into print

The +2 Holy Avenger is a 2019 token so it will be available next year for the Relic. If you wait till 2021 it wouldn't be and you would have to reprint having it be available for 4 consecutive years.

My money is on the Paladin legendary coming in 2020.

Ed

Ian Lee wrote: I may not be the primary audience for the paladin relic/legendary. I am an audience.

I would transmute my UR up the path.

Expectations seem to have grown immensely with what relics and legendaries are supposed to do.

Once upon a time, a +2 UR became a +3 relic. Baton of Focus gained +1/+1/+1 to hit/damage/spell stuff. Staff of Focus same thing. Slayer Sword less than that as just +1/+1. Redoubt piece gained +2 to one save with either no AC increase or 1 AC increase. Starhide is functionally just +2 Dex over Moonhide these days. Greater Cloak of Destiny +1 saves.

Relics became legendaries. Deathcleaver, an insane weapon at multiple levels, got +2/+2. Relsa's got +2 Focus, which was kind of good but gets cheapened over time as absolute numbers keep increasing. Surtr's +2 STR.

If all the +5 Holy Avenger did was +3/+3 over +2 Holy Avenger, that would be the old norm. Not saying that Welfor's model makes sense for the class specific legendaries or even any legendary today. But, I can see at least having some perspective on what relics and legendaries are supposed to be in the game, which is not the end all and be all of tokens.

I would imagine that the exact same idea, transported into the distant past of a few years ago, would have seen much weaker tokens because relics and legendaries were upgrades but linear upgrades, not linear upgrades with four more abilities attached.

As for moving to neck slot, I don't even understand the thinking. It's a thematic fail on what was advertised. It requires all sorts of convoluted engineering that a weapon upgrade doesn't. It would make the paladin weaker unless the neck version was stronger than what would be the most powerful 1h weapon intended just for melee in the game.

Maybe the damage on the Pally sword could go up a bit. Right now it's 10 (if my math is correct), Welfor's which is an older Legendary is 10.5. But the Cleaver is only a few better at 12.83 and you lose a Shield (offhand). In terms of game design if Jeff never sees a Token level above Legendary then over time the newer ones will have to out class the older ones.

Rob F wrote: Maybe the damage on the Pally sword could go up a bit. Right now it's 10 (if my math is correct), Welfor's which is an older Legendary is 10.5. But the Cleaver is only a few better at 12.83 and you lose a Shield (offhand). In terms of game design if Jeff never sees a Token level above Legendary then over time the newer ones will have to out class the older ones.

The damage on the Holy Avenger is already too high - it should be lower then the best 1H weapons for the offensive based classes. Unfortunately, we can't reduce it because it is based upon the already printed +2 Holy Avenger.

This is just a gift from Pelor for the Paladins.

Ed

Just a thought but not much talk going on about the ranger legendary. To me it seems like a few things are happening and that’s that since most play melee rangers this isn’t strong enough to make anyone switch so no one is going to make it and since the majority see that it’s a ranged item have written it off and haven’t thrown out any criticism so no tweaks have been made to it. Then again maybe he hit the nail on the head Already I don’t know

MasterED wrote: The damage on the Holy Avenger is already too high - it should be lower then the best 1H weapons for the offensive based classes.

The damage wheel on the token may be high but will the damage output really be high when we take into account base strength stat differences and the typical focus on damage output in the other offensive builds.

Steven wrote: Just a thought but not much talk going on about the ranger legendary. To me it seems like a few things are happening and that’s that since most play melee rangers this isn’t strong enough to make anyone switch so no one is going to make it and since the majority see that it’s a ranged item have written it off and haven’t thrown out any criticism so no tweaks have been made to it. Then again maybe he hit the nail on the head Already I don’t know

Iffy for me since I would not use animal companion or scrolls due to need for Alchemist's Parchments. I rarely use ammo tokens. So the con and sharp shooter bonuses are solely what I am basing my need on. These would have to provide more benefit that what other options are out there for the neck slot in order for me to make one.

Steven wrote: Just a thought but not much talk going on about the ranger legendary. To me it seems like a few things are happening and that’s that since most play melee rangers this isn’t strong enough to make anyone switch so no one is going to make it and since the majority see that it’s a ranged item have written it off and haven’t thrown out any criticism so no tweaks have been made to it. Then again maybe he hit the nail on the head Already I don’t know

I don't feel strongly about it, but, since you brought it up, I took a look at the relic and legendary again. If you strip away the consumable abilities, as I don't expect to use them even if I had one of these tokens, you get +3 CON/+4 dmg and +4 CON/+6 dmg. So, I use Charm Necklace for non-silly Ranger builds, but let's say someone was running Valhalla. That means -3 STR/-1 CON and +4 dmg and -3 STR and +6 dmg. Since STR is irrelevant to a pure ranged build using something like Io's or *gasp* a non legendary bow like +2 Keen Slayer, still seems kind of mundane.

Animal Friend - I think this is a waste of an amusing idea. Charm of Shadow Shot already exists, and I'm sure druids and wizards and bards all want to be friendly with animals, too. Plus, as folks have said, introducing a brand new ability that is the third ability on the token that uses consumables.

Scroll use - Thematic and somewhat amusing. It's just that using scrolls isn't all that desirable. This feels like the "fun" ability to tack on at the end.

Ammo - This is on point [sic] for rangers. Ranger should be the god of ammo use. The problem is that lot of players don't like using up tokens. Still, if you ended up with some common and uncommon arrows some year, elevate them from EM fodder to "Sure, why the hell not lose this low value token forever?"

I guess this is a lot of the benefit of the Holy Avenger not being a neck slot item - you don't have to constantly compare against amazing tokens over and over again.

I do see the point of raising CON. STR would encourage doing things like flinging Thor's and can be tanked with Io builds. DEX is just needless, as DEX is already prolific. Increasing damage to make closer to melee ranger also makes sense.

Sadly, Favored Enemy is just an awkward ability or could do more with that. Spell casting is too narrow and off flavor and we don't even know whether class reboot will ditch spells, anyway.

Ranger Warden is kind of interesting. If any of this year's tokens opened up that class, could see this one do it, but I don't see that happening this late in the game and with how much resistance there is to opening up RoSP classes (I don't just mean from comments but things like precedent/history).

EMs aren't the most sought after trade items, so maybe just make ammo either last for all of combat or become non-consumable, though the latter does defeat the Warden ability. It's like Iktomi's for arrows rather than potions.

Ranged wounding ability, like what Withering Runestone does, is way too wordy unless keyworded, but that could represent a ranger being especially good at impairing prey.

IDK, so much of what is done in combat is attack/cast for damage. To get away from that requires significant work or the alternatives - place token, reslide, extra slide - infringe on other classes.

dsypher (Luigi) wrote:

MasterED wrote: The damage on the Holy Avenger is already too high - it should be lower then the best 1H weapons for the offensive based classes.

The damage wheel on the token may be high but will the damage output really be high when we take into account base strength stat differences and the typical focus on damage output in the other offensive builds.

Should we even be taking that stuff into account? I agree, since this sword does a lot of other stuff, the damage wheel should be lower than that of a legendary one handed sword without all the extra abilities. And the Paladin sword should probably have a lower damage wheel than a Fighter legendary sword.