TOPIC: 2025 Transmuted Tokens

All tokens not listed I think very good tokens.

Bifrost Charm: I think we're creeping past damage. Its more powerful than Charm of Winter and Summer which are Vol URs which often historically are close to relic power. Would still be worth it at +3
If participation relics are supposed to be on a higher power curve, then great. Fine with me. Just wanted to point it out.
Edit: Someone just pointed out to me that this is more powerful than our relic ring (Havoc), where rings have classically been much stronger than charms in the past. I agree with them

Eyepatch: Thank you, I think this is a perfectly balanced token.

Bead Necklace: If you can give us direction on this I'd appreciate it. If this is the power level you want, that's fine just let us know so we can stop beating a dead horse. If you would like a balance analysis on it, please let me know. I will make a spread sheet for you so you can compare this to all the past class neck legendries.

As it is, 5 Beads is considerably better than most class neck legendries. (Statistically, it is less fun though). 1,2,3 is current competitive to them via ability score analysis.

IS Trilliant: I genuinely have concerns about this really negatively affecting the health of the game. This isn't about power creep, its about healthy encounter design. As TD is putting itself in a position where elemental damage needs to be extremely high to present a challenge, effectively requiring all players to purchase this token to play at certain difficulty level, or TD may feel it needs to use "Eldritch Elemental" damage.

As someone who has volunteered on weekends where Eldritch Elemental damage was used, players were very very angry about it. I've heard from at least 2 DMs as well that they get incredibly negative feedback every time eldritch elemental damage occurs in a module.

Please consider replacing this token, or changing its effect. My suggestions are below:
Option 1:
Reduce [elemental type] damage by 50%, +1 Saves
Reduce [more elemental types] damage by 50%, +1 Saves
Reduce [even more elemental type] damage by 50%, +1 Saves
Option 2:(My preferred option) (Could be 1/combat instead of 1/adventure, you're call)
Reduce an instance of elemental damage by 10 1/adventure + 1 saves
Reduce an instance of elemental damage by 20 1/adventure, +2 saves
Reduce an instance of elemental damage to 0 1/adventure, + 3 saves

Reduce an instance of damage verbiage used so players still need to save against attack effects. To avoid this scenario change wording to "absorb an elemental damage attack" at legendary level.

If changed to 1/Combat, I suggest dropping save bonus to +1 at all levels.

I agree that the restrictions on the IS isn’t needed. I do think that restrictions on DR are also unnecessary. We all control our builds and if we don’t want the dr, we would use other tokens..restrictions on capping DR at the current time, would only mean equipping tokens that don’t do anything. We would just replace them with ones we wanted and would do something.

Also, keep in mind, some players have DR from things like cogwind's amulets.

Ultimately I think the game will be fine. You track your own HP anyhow.

Impy wrote: ... TD may feel it needs to use "Eldritch Elemental" damage.

As someone who has volunteered on weekends where Eldritch Elemental damage was used, players were very very angry about it. I've heard from at least 2 DMs as well that they get incredibly negative feedback every time eldritch elemental damage occurs in a module.

This is very strange to me.

TD has many damage types that are difficult or impossible to resist, why is Eldritch such a bugaboo?

Or would players also be reacting the same way if the damage getting dealt out was:

Acid
Bludgeoning
Force
Pierce
Psychic
Sacred*
Slashing

For which there is either no or minimal mitigation?

* for now anyway

My thoughts on some items:

Ioun Stone Trilliants: Mentioned in the UR thread for that one too, but 10 elemental DR in an easy slot with best in slot saves on top will cause major design issues for balancing elemental damage. Just because IS Topaz Trilliant largely negates Darkrift damage doesn't mean we should use the same model for other elemental damage types. I'd strongly recommend either tuning this down to 5 DR or striking it out. (Crackpot Request, replace all the damage charm participation tokens with smaller elemental DR charms instead that transmute to a better version)

Bifrost Charm: This seems too strong, it's better than a Relic ring (Greater Ring of Havoc) in that it grants +4 damage to both Melee and Ranged, and is in a lower-value slot than ring. Should probably be reduced to 3 damage, or even changed per my crackpot request above.

Matthew Hayward wrote: This is very strange to me.

TD has many damage types that are difficult or impossible to resist, why is Eldritch such a bugaboo?

Or would players also be reacting the same way if the damage getting dealt out was:

Acid
Bludgeoning
Force
Pierce
Psychic
Sacred*
Slashing

For which there is either no or minimal mitigation?

* for now anyway

It's the eldrich fire angle that happened in a prior event (e series maybe?)

Monster X is themed that it should be dealing fire damage. (Fire Elemental, Lava Monster, whatever).

Dungeon design is too difficult, though, when a player can have 25 fire resist or 0 fire resist. If the monster deals 10 damage to everyone, one party takes 0 damage and is completely non threatened while the other takes 100 damage (manageable). If the monster deals enough to damage to affect the first group, though, the second group might just end up TPK in 1 hit.

The solution seemed to be eldrich fire - fire damage that can't be resisted so both parties would take non TPK amounts of damage. Same thing happened in VTD when we took Sacred fire damage.

Why bother buying and equipping fire resistance gear when the fire damage is changed to ignore fire resistance.

That's why players were upset.

Powerblade3 wrote: My thoughts on some items:

Ioun Stone Trilliants: Mentioned in the UR thread for that one too, but 10 elemental DR in an easy slot with best in slot saves on top will cause major design issues for balancing elemental damage. Just because IS Topaz Trilliant largely negates Darkrift damage doesn't mean we should use the same model for other elemental damage types. I'd strongly recommend either tuning this down to 5 DR or striking it out. (Crackpot Request, replace all the damage charm participation tokens with smaller elemental DR charms instead that transmute to a better version)

Bifrost Charm: This seems too strong, it's better than a Relic ring (Greater Ring of Havoc) in that it grants +4 damage to both Melee and Ranged, and is in a lower-value slot than ring. Should probably be reduced to 3 damage, or even changed per my crackpot request above.

I never thought of it this way, though when talking about the Topaz Trillant, these 2025 Trillants are supposed to do 2 things, give us a path to a LIS and to suck up the desire to reprint the Topaz Trillant. Because of this it had to be used as a model. For those who can’t take a Relic of Legendary path have an UR IS Trillant that ( last round had -5 ) has - 10. This makes it so newer player and players who don’t want to spend $400 + for a Topaz Trillant ( if you can find one ). I 100% think we should be able to use both Topaz and Ruby ( and there higher versions ). Otherwise it renders the Topaz 100% useless. Capping a limit on Trillants I again, 100% agree with. Limit it to no more than 2. Another big reason is that I can still get the DR of the Topaz Trillant, without using the Trillant in the same IS slot. By TDA’s wording more Trillants are coming in the future, and I would wholeheartedly agree restricting those and under the 2 rule, you would have to give 1 or the other up.

Endgame wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: This is very strange to me.

TD has many damage types that are difficult or impossible to resist, why is Eldritch such a bugaboo?

Or would players also be reacting the same way if the damage getting dealt out was:

Acid
Bludgeoning
Force
Pierce
Psychic
Sacred*
Slashing

For which there is either no or minimal mitigation?

* for now anyway

It's the eldrich fire angle that happened in a prior event (e series maybe?)

Monster X is themed that it should be dealing fire damage. (Fire Elemental, Lava Monster, whatever).

Dungeon design is too difficult, though, when a player can have 25 fire resist or 0 fire resist. If the monster deals 10 damage to everyone, one party takes 0 damage and is completely non threatened while the other takes 100 damage (manageable). If the monster deals enough to damage to affect the first group, though, the second group might just end up TPK in 1 hit.

The solution seemed to be eldrich fire - fire damage that can't be resisted so both parties would take non TPK amounts of damage. Same thing happened in VTD when we took Sacred fire damage.

Why bother buying and equipping fire resistance gear when the fire damage is changed to ignore fire resistance.

That's why players were upset.

I agree Td shouldn’t make up new
damage types to avoid DR.

I hope calling a damage type “eldritch fire” or “sacred fire” is a breakdown in communications and no a fact of module design.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Endgame wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: This is very strange to me.

TD has many damage types that are difficult or impossible to resist, why is Eldritch such a bugaboo?

Or would players also be reacting the same way if the damage getting dealt out was:

Acid
Bludgeoning
Force
Pierce
Psychic
Sacred*
Slashing

For which there is either no or minimal mitigation?

* for now anyway

It's the eldrich fire angle that happened in a prior event (e series maybe?)

Monster X is themed that it should be dealing fire damage. (Fire Elemental, Lava Monster, whatever).

Dungeon design is too difficult, though, when a player can have 25 fire resist or 0 fire resist. If the monster deals 10 damage to everyone, one party takes 0 damage and is completely non threatened while the other takes 100 damage (manageable). If the monster deals enough to damage to affect the first group, though, the second group might just end up TPK in 1 hit.

The solution seemed to be eldrich fire - fire damage that can't be resisted so both parties would take non TPK amounts of damage. Same thing happened in VTD when we took Sacred fire damage.

Why bother buying and equipping fire resistance gear when the fire damage is changed to ignore fire resistance.

That's why players were upset.

I agree Td shouldn’t make up new
damage types to avoid DR.

I hope calling a damage type “eldritch fire” or “sacred fire” is a breakdown in communications and no a fact of module design.

I hope so as well. It was just some strongly worded complaints I've heard volunteering. Eldritch damage is fine. Eldritch modifying an existing damage type like fire on a fire elemental I've seen upset players.

That's all my point was. Adding such high DR may restrict design to a point where this may feel needed to challenge people. Or just lead to wildly varying experiences from how damage may rise from a result of such high DR from a single token.

Endgame wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: This is very strange to me.

TD has many damage types that are difficult or impossible to resist, why is Eldritch such a bugaboo?

Or would players also be reacting the same way if the damage getting dealt out was:

Acid
Bludgeoning
Force
Pierce
Psychic
Sacred*
Slashing

For which there is either no or minimal mitigation?

* for now anyway

It's the eldrich fire angle that happened in a prior event (e series maybe?)

Monster X is themed that it should be dealing fire damage. (Fire Elemental, Lava Monster, whatever).

Dungeon design is too difficult, though, when a player can have 25 fire resist or 0 fire resist. If the monster deals 10 damage to everyone, one party takes 0 damage and is completely non threatened while the other takes 100 damage (manageable). If the monster deals enough to damage to affect the first group, though, the second group might just end up TPK in 1 hit.

The solution seemed to be eldrich fire - fire damage that can't be resisted so both parties would take non TPK amounts of damage. Same thing happened in VTD when we took Sacred fire damage.

Why bother buying and equipping fire resistance gear when the fire damage is changed to ignore fire resistance.

That's why players were upset.

I can totally understand why players would be upset about that. I recall years ago, I had my entire group outfitted with Shirts of Shielding, and we were in a room where we took damage whenever we did melee damage on the monster. I recall saying that our Shirts of Shielding would prevent the retribution damage, and we were told that even though it looked like retribution damage it in fact was not retribution damage. That left a bad taste for all of us.

It seems counterproductive to create tokens that are so powerful in some way that the Dungeon has to be designed to ignore them.

While everyone is kibitzing about a couple of tokens, I'd like to join in but on a different tack. I believe that the Ring of the Dire Ram is useless. An item that takes a very valuable ring slot doing only 6 points of damage once per game??? You couldn't pay me to equip it. Even at 6 points per room/combat its ridiculously under powered for a ring slot blue token. At 6 points per attack roll hit (or better yet, automatic hit like some spells) it might be worth it for a low armour class wizard or bard,,, but for any straight up melee fighter type or ranged/missile weapon users the ring is useless.

Mongo64 wrote: While everyone is kibitzing about a couple of tokens, I'd like to join in but on a different tack. I believe that the Ring of the Dire Ram is useless. An item that takes a very valuable ring slot doing only 6 points of damage once per game??? You couldn't pay me to equip it. Even at 6 points per room/combat its ridiculously under powered for a ring slot blue token. At 6 points per attack roll hit (or better yet, automatic hit like some spells) it might be worth it for a low armour class wizard or bard,,, but for any straight up melee fighter type or ranged/missile weapon users the ring is useless.

I actually passed over this and think Mongo is right. For some reason I thought that ring was either 1/room or at-will, as a way for possibly melee characters to deal with ranged-only enemies or for people to deal with incorporeal enemies or such. As is this does seem fairly underpowered.