The amount of text crammed into the description with special cases for amount of distance fallen, special casing for when you activate the power, interactions with other flight powers, interactions with conditions "as if you were flying". This power would need a flow-chart for me to understand its use as a player!
As I've mentioned earlier, there's no way for this not to be complicated. If it's too simple mechanically, then it stop making much sense thematically (recall that this is the problem with the Winged Bracers). If I move these rules from the power, then I have to put them somewhere else and end up scattering them around. The best that I might be able to do is to split it up into multiple powers, as was done earlier, but that would result in a lot of repetition of rules text, and I'm not convinced that would be any clearer.
Does it really seem any more understandable as two powers?
Hover At-Will Free Action, Personal Trigger: You fall at least 10 feet (2 squares) not during your turn. Effect: You take no damage from the fall. If you fall at least 25 feet (5 squares), then you can choose to stop falling at any point during the fall. You resume falling immediately after the start of your next turn. You also resume falling if you are stunned or if you fall prone, as though you were flying. Special: You can also use this power if you fall at least 10 feet (2 squares) at the end of your turn.
Glide At-Will Free Action, Personal Trigger: You fall at least 10 feet (2 squares) during your turn. Effect: You take no damage from the fall. If you fall at least 25 feet (5 squares), then you can choose to stop falling at any point during the fall and gain a fly speed equal to your speed until the end of your turn (you resume falling immediately after the end of your turn). However, this flight cannot take you upward, and if you fly upward before the end of your turn (such as by using your Wind-Walk racial power), then you lose this flight and cannot use this power to stop falling until after you have landed or until the start of your next turn (you can still use this power to not take damage from a fall). Special: You can also use this power if you fall at least 10 feet (2 squares) at the start of your turn.
EDIT: In case it's not clear, what I'm trying to say is that it's okay for the power to be complex as long as it is understandable enough. Complexity and understandability are not mutually exclusive ideas, so there are other ways to alter understandability without needing to alter complexity.
Maybe it would help if you could show me how you would do it?
Speaking of things that were badly designed, please check out this thread for my Minotaur fix. What have the critics said, you ask? "If any of my players ask to play a Minotaur, I'm definitely offering this as an alternative to the official version." - EmpactWB "If I ever feel like playing a Minotaur I'll know where to look!" - Undrave "WoTC if you are reading this - please take this guy's advice." - Ferol_Debtor_of_Torm "Really full of win. A minotaur that is actually attractive for more than just melee classes." - Cpt_Micha
Also, check out my recent GENASI variant! If you've ever wished that your Fire Genasi could actually set stuff on fire, your Water Genasi could actually swim, or your Wind Genasi could at least glide, then look no further.
Finally, check out my OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE article, an effort to give unique support to the races that WotC keeps forgetting about. Includes new racial feature options for the Changeling, Deva, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Kalashtar, Minotaur, Shadar-Kai, Thri-Kreen, Warforged and more!
I think I do prefer the split, although the problem is then comprehending how the powers "link", but at least I can figure out what to say Imagine a conversation player/DM - it's simpler to say "I use Hover." outside of turn, then "I use Glide." during the turn, than to say the latter in both situations and have to keep figuring out how Glide plays differently accoridng to all the situational constraints.
Is there not a way to phrase "Hover" so that Glide could trigger on your own turn due to the state of hovering? That would remove about half of the text from Glide . . .
I cannot see what prevents you giving the race a separate "Take no damage from falling..." feature? That would remove the "Fall at least 10 feet" (thus having two distances to associate with each power) and "You take no damage from the fall" text, and the "(you can still use this power to not take damage...)" text. I cannot see which in game events would play differently?
--------------------------------------
So, another suggestion, a re-working to reduce the text load, which you can consider "thrown at the wall" and pull apart for flaws:
Soft Landing (Air-soul Genasi Feature): Provided you are not helpless, stunned, or prone, you take no damage from falling.
Slow Fall At-Will Free Action, Personal (1/turn) Trigger: You fall at least 25 feet (5 squares). Effect: You can choose to stop falling at any point during the fall, and gain a Fly speed of 0. You lose this Fly speed, and resume falling immediately, either after the start of your next turn, or if you leave the square in which you stopped. Special: You can use this power, provided you meet trigger conditions, at the start or end of your turn (unlike other Free Actions).
Glide At-Will Free Action, Personal (1/turn) Trigger: During your turn, you have a Fly speed less than your highest speed. Effect: You gain a fly speed equal to your highest speed, until the end of your turn. Flight granted by Glide may not be used to fly upwards. Special: If you use any other power or ability to fly upwards, then the fly speed granted by Glide is immediately removed, and you may not use Glide or Slow Fall until the start of your next turn.
--------------------------------------
I renamed Hover just because it might be confused with Fly X (hover) - i.e. players might think they actually have Fly (hover). Just noticed that one. I put in restriction 1/turn, because I am concerned about attempts to chain these powers - especially "Slow Fall" which otherwise could be used repeatedly to prevent reasonable attempts to knock the character out of the sky.
Some of this might play differently in combination with other effects and powers than you intend. Most notably you could tack Glide onto anything that grants a lowish Fly speed (although most single action powers do not do so, they just make you Fly X squares). Some of course might be unworkable - you seem to have a more thorough understanding of flight/crash rules, and what might count as OP than I do.
Is there not a way to phrase "Hover" so that Glide could trigger on your own turn due to the state of hovering?
I'm not actually sure what you mean, but it sounds like you're suggesting that the character not start falling again at the start of their turn, and I don't think that's a good idea. It allows for too much air time. Anything less than a 40-foot fall between turns of flight would be too little, and I don't want for the power to allow characters to hang out in the air for too long in combat. In other words, if Wind-Walk followed by Glide is easily consistently allowing the character to remain aloft for an entire round, then the power needs to require more falling.
I cannot see what prevents you giving the race a separate "Take no damage from falling..." feature? That would remove the "Fall at least 10 feet" (thus having two distances to associate with each power) and "You take no damage from the fall" text, and the "(you can still use this power to not take damage...)" text. I cannot see which in game events would play differently?
I guess that I could, but again, the reason that I prefer that function to be part of a power as opposed to a feature (even if it's its own power) is because I want for it to require an action. There are too many game elements out there that negate falling damage while a character unconscious, stunned, petrified, etc., and I don't want that, at least not as a racial feature. The best that I could word such a feature would be something like:
Free-Fall: When you fall, even if you fall at the start or end of your turn, you can spend a free action to take no damage from the fall. Free-Fall: As a free action, you can reduce any falling damage that you would take to zero, even if you fall at the start of end of your turn. Free-Fall: As long as you are able to take free actions, you do not take falling damage, even if you fall at the start or end of your turn.
Maybe it's just me, but even those just don't feel quite right compared to a simple power format. They're features with an effect, a trigger, an action requirement, so I just feel like it's just more obvious and intuitive to make them a power like:
Free-Fall At-Will Free Action, Personal Special: This power can still be used at the start or end of your turn. Trigger: You fall. Effect: You take no damage from the fall.
Soft Landing (Air-soul Genasi Feature): Provided you are not helpless, stunned, or prone, you take no damage from falling.
I see no reason why being helpless or prone should be a restriction here. Characters can still take actions while helpless or prone.
Slow Fall Effect: You can choose to stop falling at any point during the fall, and gain a Fly speed of 0. You lose this Fly speed, and resume falling immediately, either after the start of your next turn, or if you leave the square in which you stopped.
I really don't like the speed of 0 thing. It still grants the character a fly speed and still therefore allows that fly speed to be used on turns other than the character's own. Yes, you've added extra text saying that they resume falling if they leave their square, but I don't see the difference between that and not giving them a fly speed at all and just saying that they resume falling if they're stunned or fall prone just as if they were flying. Besides, I see no reason why the character should fall if they are pushed, pulled, slid or even if they teleport. And the way that this is worded, if they do teleport or are pushed, pulled, or slid and your interpretation is that this does not cause them to fall, then they can now safely be granted movement not on their turn without falling because they will no longer be in the square in which they stopped and can thus cannot leave it.
Glide Trigger: During your turn, you have a Fly speed less than your highest speed.
This removes falling as a trigger, meaning that the combination of Slow Fall and Glide will arguably allow a character a turn of flight for every 25 feet of descent. Either way, this depends on the whole speed 0 mechanic to function, which I must say that I'm not a fan of.
I renamed Hover just because it might be confused with Fly X (hover) - i.e. players might think they actually have Fly (hover). Just noticed that one.
Fair enough, it was just a working title.
I put in restriction 1/turn, because I am concerned about attempts to chain these powers - especially "Slow Fall" which otherwise could be used repeatedly to prevent reasonable attempts to knock the character out of the sky.
I see no reason at all to do this, and I it feels like a further complicating factor to me. I can imagine no attempt to knock the character out of the sky where being able to use the powers more than once during a turn would be problematic. Can you give me an example? Either way, such attempts would still be fruitful as they would still bring the character closer to the ground. Further, there are plenty of situations where being able to use the powers more than once during a turn sounds totally legitimate to me, and I see no reason to disallow those.
Speaking of things that were badly designed, please check out this thread for my Minotaur fix. What have the critics said, you ask? "If any of my players ask to play a Minotaur, I'm definitely offering this as an alternative to the official version." - EmpactWB "If I ever feel like playing a Minotaur I'll know where to look!" - Undrave "WoTC if you are reading this - please take this guy's advice." - Ferol_Debtor_of_Torm "Really full of win. A minotaur that is actually attractive for more than just melee classes." - Cpt_Micha
Also, check out my recent GENASI variant! If you've ever wished that your Fire Genasi could actually set stuff on fire, your Water Genasi could actually swim, or your Wind Genasi could at least glide, then look no further.
Finally, check out my OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE article, an effort to give unique support to the races that WotC keeps forgetting about. Includes new racial feature options for the Changeling, Deva, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Kalashtar, Minotaur, Shadar-Kai, Thri-Kreen, Warforged and more!
Is there not a way to phrase "Hover" so that Glide could trigger on your own turn due to the state of hovering?
I'm not actually sure what you mean, but it sounds like you're suggesting that the character not start falling again at the start of their turn, and I don't think that's a good idea. It allows for too much air time.
Actually that's how I read your initial "Fall more than 5 squares" combined with "stop at any point during the fall". My reading of that is that I can stop falling on the initial square of a 5 square drop. If that's not what you intend, then there is definitely a clarity issue here. Or a brain issue on my part of course, but I hope I am not so unusual that the feedback is wasted . . . :-)
That function of the power does not trigger unless the character has already fallen 5 squares. You can't stop at a point before you could stop. I should think that this is obvious, but I could always just remove "at any point during the fall". Now that I look at it, it really is just superfluous.
Speaking of things that were badly designed, please check out this thread for my Minotaur fix. What have the critics said, you ask? "If any of my players ask to play a Minotaur, I'm definitely offering this as an alternative to the official version." - EmpactWB "If I ever feel like playing a Minotaur I'll know where to look!" - Undrave "WoTC if you are reading this - please take this guy's advice." - Ferol_Debtor_of_Torm "Really full of win. A minotaur that is actually attractive for more than just melee classes." - Cpt_Micha
Also, check out my recent GENASI variant! If you've ever wished that your Fire Genasi could actually set stuff on fire, your Water Genasi could actually swim, or your Wind Genasi could at least glide, then look no further.
Finally, check out my OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE article, an effort to give unique support to the races that WotC keeps forgetting about. Includes new racial feature options for the Changeling, Deva, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Kalashtar, Minotaur, Shadar-Kai, Thri-Kreen, Warforged and more!
That function of the power does not trigger unless the character has already fallen 5 squares. You can't stop at a point before you could stop. I should think that this is obvious, but I could always just remove "at any point during the fall". Now that I look at it, it really is just superfluous.
I think that my misunderstanding is due to falling treated as an instantaneous and atomic effect. Splitting up the distance "fallen so far" to qualify for the trigger and "remaining fall" for applying the effect line simply didn't occur to me.
Anyway, enough of that. I will try and contribute something more positive to other parts of this thread shortly . . .
Well aside from needing a different bonus for water on the elemental gaurdian feat (what about taking half-damage from oppurtunity attacks?), the glide thing is the only thing in need of critical examination, the rest is pretty much frigging perfect (except for the ability scores, i liked the int-str thing, but that's easy enough to switch back).
I also think you both are making too big a deal out of the start and end phases of the turn because I'm fairly certain you can use powers then. I mean all the saving throw booster powers get rather useless otherwise.
Furthermore The falling rules specifically state that if your turn starts mid-fall you get to take actions before falling again.
Well aside from needing a different bonus for water on the elemental gaurdian feat (what about taking half-damage from oppurtunity attacks?)...
I really like that as an effect fitting of the Water-Soul in general, but I just realized that feat only grants its benefit while a character is adjacent to an ally, and so granting a bonus versus opportunity attacks makes that sort of weird, and I should even change the Wind-Soul bonus to something else now that I've thought of that. >_<
Hmm, maybe this would be easier if I just changed the power entirely so that it didn't suck anymore.
the glide thing is the only thing in need of critical examination, the rest is pretty much frigging perfect (except for the ability scores, i liked the int-str thing, but that's easy enough to switch back).
Yay! ^_^ I did expect Glide to be the only thing to cause much controversy, but it is still nice to get feedback on the rest.
I also think you both are making too big a deal out of the start and end phases of the turn because I'm fairly certain you can use powers then.
Nope. Unless there's been some update that I'm not aware of, PHB pages 268 and 269 say respectively, and I quote: "No Actions: You can't take any actions at the start of your turn." "No Actions: You can't take any actions at the end of your turn."
I mean all the saving throw booster powers get rather useless otherwise.
Most of those are actually either No Action powers or powers that can be used at some other time than the end of your turn and that grant you a benefit that simply applies later on.
Furthermore The falling rules specifically state that if your turn starts mid-fall you get to take actions before falling again.
Yes, but that only applies if you've fallen 500 feet. Anything less than that is dealt with instantaneously and must be dealt with by this mechanic. It'd be a shame for a glider not to get to glide unless they've already fallen 100 squares. A turn of flight (18 squares on a double run?) for every 100 squares of a fall isn't very good gliding, mechanically or thematically.
Speaking of things that were badly designed, please check out this thread for my Minotaur fix. What have the critics said, you ask? "If any of my players ask to play a Minotaur, I'm definitely offering this as an alternative to the official version." - EmpactWB "If I ever feel like playing a Minotaur I'll know where to look!" - Undrave "WoTC if you are reading this - please take this guy's advice." - Ferol_Debtor_of_Torm "Really full of win. A minotaur that is actually attractive for more than just melee classes." - Cpt_Micha
Also, check out my recent GENASI variant! If you've ever wished that your Fire Genasi could actually set stuff on fire, your Water Genasi could actually swim, or your Wind Genasi could at least glide, then look no further.
Finally, check out my OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE article, an effort to give unique support to the races that WotC keeps forgetting about. Includes new racial feature options for the Changeling, Deva, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Kalashtar, Minotaur, Shadar-Kai, Thri-Kreen, Warforged and more!
Here's an initial draft of a version of Elemental Guardian that hopefully doesn't totally suck. Tell me what you think: ELEMENTAL GUARDIAN Source: Martial Power Prerequisite: 11th level, CON 15, Genasi, Fighter Benefit: When you end your turn adjacent to any of your allies or adjacent to any enemy that is adjacent to any of your allies, you and one such ally of your choice gain a benefit until the end of your next turn depending on the element that you are currently manifesting.: Earth-Soul: You ignore all difficult terrain when you shift. Your ally gains Earth Walk. Fire-Soul: Your resist fire improved by 2. Your ally gains resist fire 5 or their resist fire improves by 2. Air-Soul: You and your ally each gain a +2 racial bonus to AC and Reflex against opportunity attacks. Water-Soul: You gain a +2 racial bonus to saving throws against effects that include ongoing damage. All ongoing damage that your ally takes is halved.
What's weird about this feat is that it needs to be useful on its own but also not too good if you manifest more than one element. Also, the bonuses in question need to make sense with the benefits gotten while manifesting more than one element. For example, I couldn't grant a bonus to the Earth-Soul's Rugged Form or the Air-Soul's Swirling Form because a Genasi manifesting both Earth-Soul and Air-Soul gains neither of those features under this variant.
Speaking of things that were badly designed, please check out this thread for my Minotaur fix. What have the critics said, you ask? "If any of my players ask to play a Minotaur, I'm definitely offering this as an alternative to the official version." - EmpactWB "If I ever feel like playing a Minotaur I'll know where to look!" - Undrave "WoTC if you are reading this - please take this guy's advice." - Ferol_Debtor_of_Torm "Really full of win. A minotaur that is actually attractive for more than just melee classes." - Cpt_Micha
Also, check out my recent GENASI variant! If you've ever wished that your Fire Genasi could actually set stuff on fire, your Water Genasi could actually swim, or your Wind Genasi could at least glide, then look no further.
Finally, check out my OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE article, an effort to give unique support to the races that WotC keeps forgetting about. Includes new racial feature options for the Changeling, Deva, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Kalashtar, Minotaur, Shadar-Kai, Thri-Kreen, Warforged and more!
