TOPIC: Wizard MEC, Relic and Legendary

Dave wrote:

Jeff Martin wrote: MEC = May cast 1st-2nd level spell as a free action but no another offensive action for combat

Relic = May cast spell as a free action (1/room) & Skill Check adds +12 pts (not +6) to spell

Legendary = As Relic & SC adds +18 pts (not +6) to spell & Retributive Strike

Retributive Strike = may break any Rare Wand to cause a massive out-powering of magical energy. All monsters in the room take 100 pts of Force damage. The Wizard takes this same damage unless she rolls an 6-20 on a d20.

more time to think about this.
MEC - On second thought, its not as bad as I thought. I would probably use the Cabal set in round 1 to cast two spells and follow up in round 2 with another two spells using this ability. If the monster is still alive I would probably look at the party and tell them they are slacking and to clean up the mess.

Relic - I'm still ok with this as is.

Legendary - just find a way for me not to have to burn a consumable and I'd be ok with this.
Questions on Retributive Strike
1. I assume this is a standard action. Can I take a free action first and cast a spell using Ring of Spell Storing and then follow up with this ability?
2. Is it a power the cleric can restore?

Yes answers to either of the above make it seem better.

Dave, that's a good point. I was looking at it from a limited perspective of using it on the first turn in the room and then doing nothing. If you look at it as the closer to finish the room, it makes more sense.

I like the take 10 damage do 20 concept for the MEC. It's simple, easy to understand, and streamlines the possible impacts to future design.

I'm also fine with pushing the relic/legendary back a year so there's time to get it right. It seems really hard to have a discussion about it in a day or two, especially if the entire class card is being redesigned in a week. If it gets pushed back though I'd love to get the spellbook charm back this year to make up for it. It seemed like a fun, flavorful token that doesn't do anything to game balance.

Mike Steele wrote: I wonder if doubling the damage on the Wizard card to make the Wizard more competitive at higher difficulty levels will make the Wizard overpowered on Normal levels for groups using just starting 10 packs of tokens.

This is a valid concern. In a starter pack only run, wizard is in a good place compared to other classes, from my experience, so I think only small tweaks make sense at level 4.

Level 5 cards could bump things further (double skill check Damage and add 50% to base spell damage). We could check my starter build threads, but I’m pretty sure that +6 skill check and 50% Spell damage boost at level 5 would put the wizard as the highest damage dealer with an all rare build + level item.

From here you could build at the relic level - I would need to do a little work to get reasonable UR builds for all the classes, but I think wizard is likely only a little behind at ur. I think the 5th level changes would cover that.

From there you could handle the legendary.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Mike Steele wrote: I wonder if doubling the damage on the Wizard card to make the Wizard more competitive at higher difficulty levels will make the Wizard overpowered on Normal levels for groups using just starting 10 packs of tokens.

This thread has nothing to do with the character card redesign. Could you please avoid derailing the thread with idle curiosities if possible

Please ratchet down the hostility. This was in Jeff's original post: " If it helps, I am open to redesigning the Wizards cards next week to increase spell damage there. It would be better to fix the game on the cards rather than with tokens. Let's assume spell damage is roughly doubled moving forward.".

Per Jeff, he is asking for help redesigning the MEC, Wizard Relic & Legendary including the assumption that the Wizard spell damage on the cards is roughly doubled moving forward. It is reasonable to ask if that doubling of spell damage is going to unbalance groups that are just using starting 10 packs of tokens. Does that make the Wizards far too powerful in beginning groups? If it does, maybe that assumption needs to be looked at.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

NightGod wrote:

Miathan wrote: If the token is going to boost spell check damage , which I like, I would like to see it set an amount of bonus instead of saying a flat rate so that if spell check ever gets a boost in the future it scales with it.

As for the final act I think it would be cool to have something like (spell damage x number of spells left) slid spell can crit. I think it would be funny to see a puck on the board worth 400 damage that everyone else is trying to knock around or stay away from

I know I'm just one player, but tying the Wizard "big boom" to a slide seems like everything that the class wasn't meant to be, from the training room on. I can almost guarantee I would never make that Legendary.

I am personally OK with spell slides but they are a decisive issue with Wizards so I'd agree to avoiding that option.

Skill checks are also a decisive issue so I'd avoid those for the 1/game flare.

What about a 1/game that just replicates the next spell you cast twice. Deals it's damage 3 times total. Uses a single slide/skill check/modifier/etc

For the skill check I was simply going off of Jeff’s original post with spell check being +12 instead of +6. I would like to see that as a + 6 to spell check bonus just in case int or a different token in the future gave +to spell check bonus. That way it’s not locked in with language of a flat number

It does us no good to consider what MIGHT happen in the class redesign and factoring that into the legendary design. The only one who can truly speak to what will happen with the redesign is Jeff.

How strong the Wizard is at printed on normal has no bearing on the Legendary token design, overpowered or not. That's a discussion for the class card redesign NOT for the Legendary token design that's down to mere hours or days to complete.

Adding speculation on the card redesign does not help the token design, it only succeeds in distracting from the actual conversation that needs to happen. Thus my request to avoid doing so.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: It does us no good to consider what MIGHT happen in the class redesign and factoring that into the legendary design. The only one who can truly speak to what will happen with the redesign is Jeff.

How strong the Wizard is at printed on normal has no bearing on the Legendary token design, overpowered or not. That's a discussion for the class card redesign NOT for the Legendary token design that's down to mere hours or days to complete.

Adding speculation on the card redesign does not help the token design, it only succeeds in distracting from the actual conversation that needs to happen. Thus my request to avoid doing so.

Reread the first post, and you’ll see Jeff suggested a wizard card redesign starting Monday, so it must be analyzed from that angle as well.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: It does us no good to consider what MIGHT happen in the class redesign and factoring that into the legendary design. The only one who can truly speak to what will happen with the redesign is Jeff.

How strong the Wizard is at printed on normal has no bearing on the Legendary token design, overpowered or not. That's a discussion for the class card redesign NOT for the Legendary token design that's down to mere hours or days to complete.

Adding speculation on the card redesign does not help the token design, it only succeeds in distracting from the actual conversation that needs to happen. Thus my request to avoid doing so.

It doesn't seem like speculation when Jeff said that we should assume spell damage on the cards for Wizards will double. That sounds like the assumption Jeff wants us to use in the design of these three tokens. I agree that it is speculation whether other changes will be made.

Endgame wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: It does us no good to consider what MIGHT happen in the class redesign and factoring that into the legendary design. The only one who can truly speak to what will happen with the redesign is Jeff.

How strong the Wizard is at printed on normal has no bearing on the Legendary token design, overpowered or not. That's a discussion for the class card redesign NOT for the Legendary token design that's down to mere hours or days to complete.

Adding speculation on the card redesign does not help the token design, it only succeeds in distracting from the actual conversation that needs to happen. Thus my request to avoid doing so.

Reread the first post, and you’ll see Jeff suggested a wizard card redesign starting Monday, so it must be analyzed from that angle as well.

And I hate to say it - maybe that means we need to wait until we have the new character design before we can say what would be a good class legendary/relic.

If we simplify the MEC mechanic - that frees up designing both character/class specific. Toss in the OG Jinn spellbook so we still get some Wizarding love this year. And then we can take the time to get the character right,THEN the class specific.

Mike Steele wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: It does us no good to consider what MIGHT happen in the class redesign and factoring that into the legendary design. The only one who can truly speak to what will happen with the redesign is Jeff.

How strong the Wizard is at printed on normal has no bearing on the Legendary token design, overpowered or not. That's a discussion for the class card redesign NOT for the Legendary token design that's down to mere hours or days to complete.

Adding speculation on the card redesign does not help the token design, it only succeeds in distracting from the actual conversation that needs to happen. Thus my request to avoid doing so.

It doesn't seem like speculation when Jeff said that we should assume spell damage on the cards for Wizards will double. That sounds like the assumption Jeff wants us to use in the design of these three tokens. I agree that it is speculation whether other changes will be made.

Your complaint though was about what effect the character card redesign has on normal. That aspect of the conversation is what Arcanist asked you to hold off on as the impact to normal is not what is being discussed.

kurtreznor wrote: Ok, I feel the need to state this since a lot of discussion revolves around casting as a free action:

Your hands must be empty to cast. (Exception is focus items/weapons specifically designed to allow casting)

It takes a free action to empty your hands.

Free action spells are NOT as versatile as many are assuming. You CANNOT use a wand and cast as a free action.
You can use a scroll or throwing weapon then cast as a free action, BUT your hands are now empty and next round you will need to use your free action to put something in your hands. OR you will only be able to cast with no focus weapon bonus.
You can attack with a weapon and cast as free action ONLY IF that weapon is a focus weapon (or otherwise usable for casting).


Main point here is, unless the MEC or relic/legendary specifically allow something else, repeated free action casting mostly only allows double casting or melee attack plus casting and nothing else.

Thank you for the constructive feedback. I will go back and see if I can work something else out between card changes, wizard UR, relic and legendary to accomplishes what Jeff asked for and similar in power steps as what he proposed.

So, if I'm reading Jeff's idea right,

MEC would allow someone to cast round 1, cast round 2, then consider whether to burn their free action to cast again (and stay out of combat) or not, if not, cast round 3 (and likely use MEC here).

I really like the MEC as is. I think we could change it to 1/round, as an instantaneous action, take 10 eldritch damage to add 15 (non-eldritch damage type) to your next spell cast. This would be more than current 1st level spells with a successful spell check, less than 2nd and 3rd, but would not force the Wizard to guess when to use a free action.

It would also free the MEC from being tied to skill checks, opening up that design space for Relic and Legendary tokens.

It would continue to allow wizards access to other free actions (Cabal set, Ring of Spell Storing, etc).

Am I missing something incredibly obvious?

Also, I really don't love the idea of breaking wands to deal a ton of damage, with a 25% chance of needing to be resurrected, unless you have over 100 HP.