True strike

[Hellblazer]

As it stands now when you cast True strike you already loose 3 to 6 seconds to start fighting, so you generally have only 3 seconds to use it. For someone that uses it with a bow.. it's not as bad as someone that has to run the rest of the distance to fight up close. So I'm suggesting to change the spell so it's not 9 RL seconds  to

1 Round/Level + 1 Turn.

This would help the usability of this spell, even more so that the spell can't be extended.

[osxmallard]

A 20th level caster would get 3 minutes from a level 1 spell to have +20 to attack rolls.  Seems a bit unbalanced.  Maybe a set 3 rounds regardless of level so that it is more usable... it is barely usable even with a bow (Bow of the Guardian has the property 1x/day).

[Dorganath]

The thing is that True Strike is intended to be in impulse spell, not a duration buff, which is why there's a short duration. It's most effective when someone else casts it upon you in the midst of combat.

The idea is one attack that hits almost for certain, which is very effective in neutralizing casters when used smartly.

1 turn + 1 round/level is a duration of at least a minute.  If a level 20 Wizard casts it upon you, that's 3 RL minutes of +20 to-hit from a single casting...sometimes plenty enough for an entire battle (or several battles). You don't find that just a little unbalancing? +20 is the maximum to-hit bonus a character can gain.  That virtually guarantees a hit nearly every attack on level-appropriate opponents and even some above your ideal CR.

The name of the spell is True Strike, not True Strikes.


EDIT: Ninja'd by osX, but the reasoning stands.

[osxmallard]

Target is caster, I don't think you can cast it on someone else...

But still, it is not feasible to actually use in the current form with 1.5rd (9 sec).

edit: total ninja ftw.

[Dorganath]

Target is caster, I don't think you can cast it on someone else...

Oh yep...misread/misremembered on my part.

Not doing so well tonight....heh.

[Hellblazer]

A 20th level caster would get 3 minutes from a level 1 spell to have +20 to attack rolls.  Seems a bit unbalanced.  Maybe a set 3 rounds regardless of level so that it is more usable... it is barely usable even with a bow (Bow of the Guardian has the property 1x/day).

Thanks for the comment, but I'm afraid to say that I don't agree. At level 20, it is truly the only good spell that a caster can have if he plans to fight alongside or at a range. There for assuming that the caster is a pure caster he will have roughly 7+ level 1 spells to cast, for rangers it's even less. So even if you augment the duration it wouldn't change too many things. Yes you get a +20 to the ab, but at level 20, a caster only has a bab of 10 if he has nothing that augments his dex. Remember that ranged attack are dext based, unless specifically build to be good at range attack, the caster will still be under the melee and other archers. If the caster is built to be good at archery, he will have less spell to cast. That's not really unbalancing much since you think that with all the buffs and gears the other melee and range combatants can raise their ab to. And by the time the caster is at level 20, he will be fighting things that has an higher ac than the ab he will have. Think about it, just in the Arnax and the surrounding areas of Miritrix, the deep etc, a lot of the foes there have ac in the +40. The only thing you are doing is bringing the one using True strike, closer to the foes AC. You could always keep the gems and wands of true strike at 9 sec, so it wouldn't be abused by combatant with the ability to use those.

Even if it's meant to be an impulse spell that could theoretically be well used against casters. That wont happen. By the time you can anticipate the caster to cast, you cast the spell on you. You lose time waiting for your turn in the rolls, the enemy caster will have already fired his spell. Also, you get delayed to the next round if you try to enter combat in the middle of a round. And if you cast it at the beginning of the round, you will waste it if there is too many combatant because each turn become increasingly long to have all the turns for every enemy and your team mate to go through before you can start attacking.

A RL time spell, that is based on merely a turn and a half (9 sec) is simply not going to work vs a turn based dicing system that with each combatant that is active makes the turns longer.

[ycleption]

People complain enough about casters being able to do too much - do you really want casters to be able to fight alongside melee classes with comparable AB? For comparison purposes, my level 24 monk generally has an AB of about 30, which is what a level 20 sorc/wizard with 10 str (or dex) would be fighting with... if, as you say, they'd be casting it seven times a day, that's less than the resting timer, so they'd basically be able to always have that AB.

Now, that said, something like 3 rounds does seem more reasonable, so that characters can actually use the spell (especially at low levels, since its, well, a level one spell).

[Dorganath]

but at level 20 a caster only has a bab of 10, if he has nothing that augment his dex.

A multi-classed character with 20 caster levels can have a much higher BAB than +10, which is where this spell becomes most useful and powerful.

And by the time the caster is at level 20, he will be fighting things that has an higher ac than the bab he will have. Think about it, just in the Arnax and the surrounding areas of Miritrix, the deep etc, a lot of the foes there has ac in the +40. The only thing you are doing is bringing the one using True strike, closer to the foes AC. You could always keep the gems and wands of true strike at 9 sec, so it wouldn't be abused by combatant with the ability to use those.

Sorry...are you saying that we should give casters even more ways to solo?

Very few pure casters I know of will go physically toe-to-toe against level-appropriate foes, nor should they really.  If we continue down this path, you see how quickly we come up against that old issue, that being the relative power-level of casters at higher levels and their ability to solo where a similar-leveled melee character could not do so without buffs and assistance from said casters...I'm sure you've read the threads on them both.

Scrolls, gems and wands use the same spell as casters, but they use a fixed caster level. By your proposed math, that's still just over 1 RL minute and that can be quite powerful in the hands of even a moderately built combative character.

A RL time spell that is based on merely a round and a half (9 sec) is simply not going to work vs a turn based dicing system that with each combatant that is active makes the turns longer.

It's exactly what it needs to be for its intent.

Look at it this way:

• Casting time is about 1.5 seconds.
• The next 4.5 seconds is admittedly lost as the character ends the round, but that's the case for any spell. HOWEVER!  In this interval, you can click an opponent to launch an attack without disrupting a spell.
• This leaves 4.5 seconds for an attack to happen, which is enough time for (at least) one +20 strike.
• If you're hasted, then your "cooldown" delays are shorter and you have a greater chance to make use of the spell

You are very right that it's not very beneficial if you have to cast it then run up and try to strike in that time, but again, as an impulse spell, it's intended to be cast during combat, not before, so the cost of that +20 AB is the chance of an Attack of Opportunity and its short duration. It's not intended to be a duration buff in any way, nor is it meant to equalize casters against higher AC creatures.

[Hellblazer]

For comparison purposes, my level 24 monk generally has an AB of about 30

I'm sorry to hear about your monk having a 30 ab at level 24. But I'm thinking that you either didn't max his dext or str out to have the maximum ab possible, right? There for you made some choices based on RP or on a different kind of build possible. It's a concession you made.

Which at the same time, a pure caster that maximizes his built on int or cha makes a concession to his fighting abilities vs the number of spells (s)he can casts. Vs, if (s)he reduces the int or cha to favor dext, (s)he will have less spell to cast even in the level 1 spells.

A multi-classed character with 20 caster levels can have a much higher BAB than +10, which is where this spell becomes most useful and powerful.

Sorry...are you saying that we should give casters even more ways to solo?

I'm sorry but if the character is level 20, which is what we were talking here. Then the caster will have either a bab of +10, +12, +15 or +17 because of the rules of multi classing pre epic. Which means the more the caster has a high BAB, the less spell he can cast because of two factor. One the number of caster level reduces for getting more non caster levels. Two the more you multiclass in a non caster class, the more points you put in the ability score points that fits that class, there for your total Int or cha diminish. That leaves also less spell to cast. Right now as an example, Tyillaan is a 15 wizard, 5 arcane archer has a bab of +12. Which means if I had not maximized her dex, that is what she would be shooting with, but she wasn't planned to be an offensive caster, so the choice in her case was made to cast less spell to favor her Arcane archerhood.

Very few pure casters I know of will go physically toe-to-toe against level-appropriate foes, nor should they really.  If we continue down this path, you see how quickly we come up against that old issue, that being the relative power-level of casters at higher levels and their ability to solo where a similar-leveled melee character could not do so without buffs and assistance from said casters...I'm sure you've read the threads on them both.

I agree.

But people were complaining to the fact that Casters were able to solo places that even fighters wouldn't be able to.  That we all agree, and things have been made to prevent that.

You won't give them opportunity to solo even if you raise the duration of the spell. In any case, some are still able to solo those places today, if they spawn golems after golems after golems after golems who are probably much higher than level 20. So let's not take those into the equation.

You put a level 20 caster fully buffed up, that is not spawning golems after golems, in any part of the GF, or even attempting the deep now, and you will have a dead caster, much to the same that you see with a fighter. The only difference is that the caster might last 3 minutes longer (and with that I am very generous) until his GSS fails and they ram through his low AC with their High AB.

Maybe my example of a 2 minutes and 40 seconds is to high. Making it 3 rounds, well that's18 seconds. It's doubling the time it has right now, but it still is not very useful.

It maybe a one shot one attack kind of spell, but I still think that even if you upped the time, so it stays longer. It will not unbalance the game as it is set right now. In fact, any character that is able to use the gems, will be able to get a +20 boost every 2 turn if they wanted to. One turn to use the gem since you don't have to equip it, just need to have you inventory open, one turn under the spell. Correct me if I'm wrong but to use a gem of true strike, you don't even need to have Umd. So in between that possibility and raising the time of the spell for casters, what's the difference?

[Dorganath]

I'm sorry to hear about your monk having a 30 ab at level 24. But I'm thinking that you either didn't max his dext or str out to have the maximum ab possible, right? There for you made some choices based on RP or on a different kind of build possible. It's a concession you made.

Discussions on whether or not someone may or may not have maxed out their build are not really relevant here, nor is it advisable to critique anyone's build choices in either direction, whether they were done for RP purposes or to maximize one thing or the other.

Maybe my example of a 2 minutes and 40 seconds is to high. Making it 3 rounds, well that's18 seconds. It's doubling the time it has right now, but it still is not very useful.

I don't know how many other ways to say this.  The spell is not meant to have a "useful" duration. It's a short, one-shot benefit, and that benefit is significant.

Look at this another way.  A hasted Ranger/Wizard/Arcane Archer build, for example, has the potential with a longer duration to dish out some serious damage with a +20 BAB for any duration whatsoever, and he/she could do so at range and with almost no risk when fighting in a group.

[Hellblazer]

Please re read my post dorg as I was editing it while you posted, to include what you had posted at the same time as my previous one.

[Dorganath]

It maybe a one shot one attack kind of spell, but I still think that even if you upped the time, so it stays longer. It will not unbalance the game as it is set right now. In fact, any character that is able to use the gems, will be able to get a +20 boost every 2 turn if they wanted to. One turn to use the gem since you don't have to equip it, just need to have you inventory open, one under the spell. Correct me if I'm wrong but to use a gem of true strike, you don't even need to have Umd. So in between that possibility and raising the time of the spell for casters, what's the difference?

There's a big difference.

Use a gem today, that's one round of being out of combat and then one round with +20.  Let's say you have a ridiculous number of these gems in your inventory, and lets combat takes 1 turn to resolve.  Using gems as they stand now, you would have 5 rounds of attacking at +20.

If we upped the duration even to 1 Turn, you get 9 rounds of attacking at +20. That's 80% more!

Simple math will tell you that the more you can hit, the more damage you do.

[Hellblazer]

Alright, then by that same math, the caster gets more punch for the time and at the same time, the none caster who uses the gems.. Will also have the same increase in punch. So you're not unbalancing things between caster and none caster. your only extending the duration of the spell for both.  Except that the fighter that uses the gems will still always have a higher bab. Heck.. even if he's not using the gems, he still would have a higher bab. But at this points it's semantics.

And yes trust me it takes a ridiculous amount of gems. I remember a time where Rain would spend afternoons infusing those gems for other chars.

[Dorganath]

Great!  So then the balancing factor there is that one has to spend a crazy amount of time gathering, crafting and infusing to build up a stockpile and then go spam them in combat, using them up and having to start all over again.....versus resting for 30 seconds (or less) and having the 6 or 7 spells last straight through every combat encounter.

Regardless, the whole point is that True Strike is not meant to be up throughout combat, and while in its current form you can surely use it frequently, there's a cost.

Also, using Pure Caster vs. Melee-with-gems isn't where this would make the most difference anyway. A strong melee build (or ranged build) is going to have a high BAB anyway, with a strong chance of not needing True Strike. A pure caster going for the melee experience is going to be woefully insufficient (though by all rights they should be), and a +20 might put them into the fight, but even then it could be literally hit-or-miss (as opposed to miss-or-miss without). Once more, where this would really shine and tip balance all out of whack is a multi-classed caster with plenty of caster levels and a moderate AB.  With a level-based duration and a nearly persistent +20 on their side, they become pretty strong for the duration, and all the compromises they made for the sake of being a caster become more or less irrelevant with a single, 1st-level spell.

[Pibemanden]

I would just like to point out that even in the case of a pure mage the caster could just cast tenser's transformation on him/herself. That would leave the level 20 caster with +20 from true strike, +10 from tenser's, +3 from the tenser sword(I think) and around +2 from tenser's str bonus.
Now consider the fact that the level 20 mage has selfbuffs which could potentially make him/her almost impossible to hit(75% conseal anyone?) and the person would probably be running around hasted. That means that the caster has something like 45/45/40 AB on level 20 assuming no str bonus which it pretty big compared to a fighter of the level.
Of course it is an entirely different story when the character is multiclassed, but I would guess(since I don't know Storolds BAB on top of my head) that my character would be able to, for three minutes only a time though, have an AB that would make even Angela and other high level fighters wonder why they didn't choose mage levels. The build would just be even more crazy if people started skilling up for it getting feats to master the sword and such on fighter levels and then having another mage along who could cast keen and the like on the sword, but that is a totally different story...

[Frelinder]

I'm not realy going to add anything that haven't already been said. But i will show a few examples.

30 ab for a lvl 24 monk is quite normal.

16 base, dex + 6 (+1 dex every fourth lvl) so total 22 base. If he have max out at cap 12 dex with items he will have 34 in dex. Thats + 12 in AB.

Base attack for monk is lvl 24 is 17. So 17+12 is 29.

+ 1 for unarmed weapon focus and then + 3 for gloves. Total 33.

But this is if he maxes out his dex with items wich is unlikely if he doesn't get a caster throw cats grace on him.  Monks have quite low AB but they make up for it by having only -3 ab on thir secon, third and fourth attack instead of all the others that have -5 ab..

lvl 20 pure mage vrs a lvl 20 fighter.

With true strike a mage can rise their AB with 20. an fighter will have 10 higher ab then the pure mage at lvl 20 so then after casting TS the wizard still have 10 higher then the fighter. Yes the fighter will have spend more on his str and weapon focus to raise AB but thats not going to make up the 10 AB in different.

Fighter. 20 (base) + 11 (for his maxed out str bonus if he have total 32 in str) +4 for mithril weapon and weapon focus. Total of 35 AB.

Wizard 10 (base) + 7 (for maxed out str if base is 12). + 4 for GMW + 20 true strike. Total 41 AB.

Other things to raise AB like bless, aid and so forth aplys to both.

In this example with no multiclassing the wizard becames much better. and if you multiclass him it will just get redicolous.

With 8 wiz lvls before 20 and rest lvls spend in high AB class he will have base AB of 16 with 4 attacks each round. Hasted 5 attacks.

Ex: Fighter 5/duelist 7/ wizard 8. total 20 lvls.

An elf could have base 20 dex and 18 int. With his bonus feats from fighter lvls he can afford a few mele feats. This means that this combo with true strike would pre epic be better then then all pure mele oriented characters that are 10 lvls higher. After this charcters reach epic lvls in wizard it will just get out of proportion. In my opinion its to big of a difference as it is today. As Pibemanden said with Tensers an high lvl wizard already is extremly strong. Now I only compares the AB. But as Pibermanden said with 75% concealment and other wizard buffs/spells its easy to see how much better an spellcaster would be then an fighter character.

I can agree on that 9 sec is a bit short. But the spell is to powerfull to be any longer.. One way to make it more usefull is to lower the power of it to +10 AB and then making it a bit longer. But realy.. I don't think wizards need any more powerfull buffs/spells that make them even more powerfull..

[Aerimor]

It's a level one spell, it is only ever suppose to be useful.

It's a spell designed for a multi-class mage.

As it is, it's sometimes useful.

When combined with called shot or knockdown it's use it multiplied.

It's not broken and does not need to be fixed.

It also has a few RP uses.  For instance when you went to bed, got nice and comfy and relized the light is still on.  Simple True Strike and toss your shoe at the light switch.  Now you don't have to get back out of bed.  Invaluable.

Next topic.

[miltonyorkcastle]

**gets out his stick for beating dead horses**

For reference, Steel keeps five TS's prepared all the time because he gets massive use out of that little spell. Of course, he only uses it when he's hasted, and he has seven attacks in a round, so he very often actually gets three to five attacks in before the spell wears off. There is some trickiness in how to get the most out of those nine seconds, but I can express that the spell makes Steel exponentially more powerful. Give it any higher of a duration, and there won't be a whole lot that Steel (or other multiclass mages) won't be able to pulverize.

As has been expressed, the spell is meant to allow the striker one attack at the +20 BAB. As it is, I almost always get more than that out of it.