TOPIC: 2025 Token FAQ (WIP)

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Druegar wrote: Trinket Use
There is no limit on the number of trinkets you can bring into the dungeon with you nor with the number of times you can use a trinket per room. However, the one monster form per room rule is still in effect. You can go into and out of one particular form within any given room as many times as you like--assuming you have the resources to effect each change. E.g., if you have both Trinket of Trollform and Trinket of Bearform, you could hypothetically cycle between Troll form and your normal humanoid form dozens of times, but you could not cycle back and forth between Troll and Bear within a single room.

With this ruling, I'm struggling to understand why anyone would use Iktomi's Shaper Necklace, other than for flavor or roleplay reasons.

+1, very well put

Suggestion: make Trinkets use a Free Action instead of an Instant Action to activate. This makes no difference at all to a typical new player, but at high-end play avoids stepping on the relic/legendary advantage of being able to do something else with your FA.

I also think it makes more sense if you can only bring 1 of each trinket (so you can Bear 1/game and Troll 1/game in different rooms, but once you un-Bear you can't re-Bear)

Lequinian wrote: what does one slide in fire form? your weapon from coaching, no?

what if Iktomi's unlocked an "elemental form" token to slide with same/better numbers than typical legendary weapon?

You slide Iktomi's.

I'd recommend leaving the trinkets as-is, and then redesigning Iktomi's when we look at the Class Legendaries. The timing works out well, by the time we redo Iktomi's we'll know both the trinket design and the new class cards, so we can do something that is complementary and not duplicative.

Lequinian wrote: what does one slide in fire form? your weapon from coaching, no?

what if Iktomi's unlocked an "elemental form" token to slide with same/better numbers than typical legendary weapon?

Your token wish has been granted!

You slide Inktomi’s itself, which has a good damage wheel.

Mike Steele wrote: I'd recommend leaving the trinkets as-is, and then redesigning Iktomi's when we look at the Class Legendaries. The timing works out well, by the time we redo Iktomi's we'll know both the trinket design and the new class cards, so we can do something that is complementary and not duplicative.

If that’s the approach, I’d recommend just overhauling the rules for polymorph itself, and make:

All polymorphing an instant action

And

Once you polymorph into a form in a room you can go in and out of the form as many times as desired as an instant action with no further costs.

It’s pretty inelegant and confusing to have all these polymorph restrictions that only apply to out of print consumable potions and slotted URs when reusable slotless Trinket rares will always bypass those restrictions.

Why have a bunch of rules saying: polymorph works like this: x, y, z.

And then having to put into TokenDB for all trinkets going forward: Ignore the polymorph rules, instead not-x, not-y, not-z.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Lequinian wrote: what does one slide in fire form? your weapon from coaching, no?

what if Iktomi's unlocked an "elemental form" token to slide with same/better numbers than typical legendary weapon?

Your token wish has been granted!

You slide Inktomi’s itself, which has a good damage wheel.

If you overlook the fact that you are using two legendaries (Iktomi's+Drue's) the combined damage is 1.5 damage more than Kilgor's but without the 18-20 crit range. So the damage wheel is good, but it feels a little rough that you don't get any of the sweet stats from Viv's.

Opening up the legendaries to be balanced feels like a lot. I preferred the legendary bead necklace as I thought it was a good compromise solution, that didn't require the contentious and difficult work of balancing items folks have already made.

OrionW wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Lequinian wrote: what does one slide in fire form? your weapon from coaching, no?

what if Iktomi's unlocked an "elemental form" token to slide with same/better numbers than typical legendary weapon?

Your token wish has been granted!

You slide Inktomi’s itself, which has a good damage wheel.

If you overlook the fact that you are using two legendaries (Iktomi's+Drue's) the combined damage is 1.5 damage more than Kilgor's but without the 18-20 crit range. So the damage wheel is good, but it feels a little rough that you don't get any of the sweet stats from Viv's.

I'm not overlooking anything, and I'm not talking (here) about multiple legendaries.

I'm responding to someone saying 'maybe Iktomi's should offer a legendary level damage wheel' by pointing out it does that.

Iktomi's damage wheel is an average of 11

Asher's +5 Viper Stirke fang is an average of 10.5

Welfor's +5 is an average of 10.5

Ava's +5 Holy Avenger is an average of 10

Drue's +5 is an average of 9.5

Drake's +5 is an average of 8.5

Iktomi's damage wheel is a fine damage wheel for a legendary.

I don't know why you're comparing its damage wheel / other properties to a Fighter only weapon (Kilgor's) - it's not a problem or unexpected that a Fighter Only weapon will have a better damage wheel than other legendary damage wheels.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

OrionW wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Lequinian wrote: what does one slide in fire form? your weapon from coaching, no?

what if Iktomi's unlocked an "elemental form" token to slide with same/better numbers than typical legendary weapon?

Your token wish has been granted!

You slide Inktomi’s itself, which has a good damage wheel.

If you overlook the fact that you are using two legendaries (Iktomi's+Drue's) the combined damage is 1.5 damage more than Kilgor's but without the 18-20 crit range. So the damage wheel is good, but it feels a little rough that you don't get any of the sweet stats from Viv's.

I'm not overlooking anything.

Iktomi's damage wheel is an average of 11

Asher's +5 Viper Stirke fang is an average of 10.5

Welfor's +5 is an average of 10.5

Ava's +5 Holy Avenger is an average of 10

Drue's +5 is an average of 9.5

Drake's +5 is an average of 8.5

Iktomi's damage wheel is a fine damage wheel for a legendary.

I don't know why you're comparing its damage wheel to a Fighter only weapon (Kilgor's) - it's not unreasonable that a Fighter Only weapon will have a better damage wheel than other legendary damage wheels.

Only sort of. With new class cards on the way I think Figher's get better equipment is one of the things that needs to get dumpstered.

Hopefully the Fighter will get something compelling on the base card (at least as compelling as taunt and the x3 crit damage that Dwarf Fighters have).

From that perspective I think a Kilgor's+Viv's compared to Drue's+Iktomi's or Ashenne's+Drake's is appropriate when looking at class legendary balancing.

If you are going to rip the band-aid off, you might as well rip it off all the way.

Edit: Thematically in my mind if anyone should have a crushingly high damage wheel that is class restricted it should be Barbarians with a two-hander. But maybe I just watched Conan too many times.

OrionW wrote: Edit: Thematically in my mind if anyone should have a crushingly high damage wheel that is class restricted it should be Barbarians with a two-hander. But maybe I just watched Conan too many times.

D&D 3e had a really good way to deal with two-handed weapons and two-weapon fighting. In D&D, the primary damage bonus was Str, but 2H weapons got 1.5x Str, and, for 2 weapons, the off hand got 0.5x Str. So, two-handed weapons and 2 weapon fighting got roughly 1.5x the damage of single weapon fighting. It had the tradeoff of using your off hand for offense instead of defense.
In TD, there are way more bonuses than just Str, but having 1.5x all your bonuses for two-handed melee and only half your bonuses for off-hand attacks would go a long way towards balancing between Barbarian, 2H Fighters, and Ranger/Monk.
I agree that Barbarians should be doing massive melee damage with a two-handed melee attack, but, what I see in practice is that the Monk, Ranger, sneak-attacking Rogue, and shapeshifting Druid frequently do more damage than the Barbarian. Even though sneak attacks are limited, Monk and Ranger are not. And, sadly, even though when the Barbarian excels at melee damage, melee is often hindered, punished, and sometimes completely shut down.
Fighters should have the best one-handed weapons in the game. That seems thematic. But, they shouldn't be on par with a Barbarian's best two-handed weapon.

Druegar wrote: Trinket Use
There is no limit on the number of trinkets you can bring into the dungeon with you nor with the number of times you can use a trinket per room. However, the one monster form per room rule is still in effect. You can go into and out of one particular form within any given room as many times as you like--assuming you have the resources to effect each change. E.g., if you have both Trinket of Trollform and Trinket of Bearform, you could hypothetically cycle between Troll form and your normal humanoid form dozens of times, but you could not cycle back and forth between Troll and Bear within a single room.

Trinkets were initially presented as functional replacements for Polymorph Potions, with the key difference being that they would not be turned in on use, but can be kept to be reused in another run. So why are they so much better than them; why are they so much better than any other Rare weapons; and why are they better than slotted Polymorph enablers?

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Let's start by reviewing how Polymorph works: while Polymorphed, a player may not cast Spells, may not speak, and may not use items. In exchange, they gain the benefits listed on the Polymorph enabler, use its damage wheel, and gain bonuses exclusive to Polymorph, such as (but not limited to) abilities on the class card, tokens such as Charm of the Doppelganger , and Focus damage. They also retain all bonuses of their equipped gear, including the to-hit bonus and damage bonuses (conditional or otherwise) of the weapon they held prior to Polymorphing and any Oils applied to it. Once a player has chosen a form to Polymorph into for a room, that player may not Polymorph into a different creature in that room. At any time (or automatically at the end of a room), a player may drop their Polymorph form as an Instant Action in order to lift the restrictions (but also lose the benefits); once a player has done so, they cannot reactivate Polymorph without paying the costs a second time.

In order for a player to activate a Polymorph Potion, they must spend: a Free Action to retrieve the Potion, a Standard Action to consume the Potion, and the physical token itself -- it is turned in when the effect expires. While there are a number of different tokens that remove the Standard Action cost, such as Pouch of Tulz or Belt of Retrieval , the only way to avoid turning in the token is with Iktomi's. But, if you have Iktomi's, there's little reason mechanically to use a Polymorph Potion at all: Iktomi's damage wheel is better. This cost -- losing a token, spending a Free Action (and possibly Standard Action) -- justify the somewhat higher damage wheel that a Polymorph Potion has compared to permanent Rare weapons. After all, who would use want to burn a token and an entire round of combat for absolutely no advantage whatsoever?
(Arguably, with Focus contributing to damage, a higher damage wheel isn't even needed. But remember, new players will not have access to much Focus, if any.)

To use a slotted Polymorph enabler, a player must spend: a slot, to equip the item for the dungeon, an Instant Action, and possibly Spells of a certain level. Not too bad, especially compared to needing to burn a token. The damage wheels are also comparable to other tokens of their rarity.

Now, let's compare these to a Trinket: in order to activate it, a Druid must spend: an Instant Action. That's it. Nothing more. No slot cost. Instant Actions are unlimited per round. In exchange, the damage wheel is not only higher than permanent Rare weapons, it's also higher than any Polymorph Potion (which, as a reminder, have a higher cost to activate, including losing the token). This lack of cost also means restrictions on Polymorph are useless: just drop Polymorph (as an Instant Action), do whatever it was that Polymorph prevented you from doing (e.g., cast a Spell, use a Scroll), then Polymorph again as an Instant Action.

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Trinkets should have some sort of cost for activation. The simplest, to put them at parity with Polymorph Potion (which was the originally stated design), would be to have them cost a Standard Action (and no Free Action), and have each individual token usable once per dungeon. You can bring multiple with you if you want to Polymorph more than once a dungeon -- just like with Potions.

If the concern is that there are currently no ways remove the Standard Action cost (beyond Iktomi's), then we can design future tokens to convert this to a Free Action or remove it entirely, just as we have tokens today that allow a Potion to be used for a Free Action. Admittedly, this feels a bit scummy: design a problem, sell the solution! It's also going to be less well received, especially as a UR, as any such token will only benefit one class. After all, how often do we see Rogue tools, or Bard instruments, or Holy Symbols? Another alternative would be to the Standard Action cost to be removed with any tokens that remove said cost for Polymorph Potions, as this would bring it back into parity with Polymorph Potions as per the originally stated intention. If allowing Trinkets to interact this way would be too immersion-breaking, then reskin Trinkets into Neverending Potions of Polymorph, which require time (i.e., you must wait until you leave the current dungeon) to refill.

If the concern is that this forces newer Druids to collect multiple Rare tokens to play, this suggestion keeps Trinkets at parity with Polymorph Potions: previously, new Druids would need to collect multiple Rare (and turn them in!) for this playstyle. It also isn't too far off from martial charaters who use Thrown weapons: if a new Monk want to throw a pair of Shuriken in combat every round, or if a new Figher wants to throw a Spear every round, then (barring a Returning effect) they need to collect enough pairs of Shuriken (or enough Spears) to last the longest combat in a dungeon. If a Trinket needs to be have no limitation on the number of uses in a dungeon, then all Thrown weapons should also automatically be Returning.

If the concern is that skipping a combat round for a new Druid is not fun, look at new Rogues: in order to Sneak Attack, they must spend an entire round doing nothing, then the next attack deals +15 damage... if they hit. There are tokens that remove this delay, but as proposed above, we can make the same tokens for Trinkets. If it's unacceptably boring for a new Druid to spend a round to grant themselves +3 damage for the rest of combat, it should be equalling unacceptably boring for a new Rogue to do nothing for a round to gain a one-time boost of +15 damage (don't miss). If activating a Trinket is to be an Instant Action, then preparing for a Sneak Attack should also be an Instant Action -- don't let Rogues lose out on a round of combat either!
Additionally, there are other classes that spend their Standard Action to provide a buff: new Bards with Bardsong; and new Clerics with Bless, Prayer, Restore Spell, and Restore Power. Why should they have to give up a round of sliding in order to passively provide a benefit to the team?

If you still aren't convinced Trinkets should be a Standard Action, then make it a Free Action: newer players are less likely to have a use for one, and can slide immediately after they activate their Trinket. It also makes the cost similar to a Barbarian's Rage, which also takes a Free Action to activate.

As a side benefit of having some sort of Action cost, Polymorph restrictions become more meaningful: you cannot simply de-Polymorph, cast a Spell (or use a Scroll), then re-Polymorph in a round to work around them any more.

If trinkets aren’t instant actions you can not use the new Druid spells in the first round. This would make the +2 AC cantrip worse than it already is.

If the spells were instant actions you could cast them all at the same time, which I would be okay with, but might be more powerful then they want to make the new spells.

Any change should be made holistically with the changes on the new Druid Card.

OrionW wrote: Any change should be made holistically with the changes on the new Druid Card.

I'm avoiding the new class cards for two reasons: first, Trinkets need to be balanced for the 2024 season, before the new class cards come into effect. Second, we don't know if those new cards have been finalised, or if there will still be multiple rounds of edits.

Once the new cards are finalised, we can tweak Trinkets again to rebalance them for the 2025 season, if necessary. For this, I'd personally prefer to somewhat undertune them initially, then buff them if they aren't where we feel they should be. Why? People don't like seeing nerfs, but people are happy with (reasonably balanced) buffs. Going from each token having a limited number of uses, to simply needing to present a token for a single use? Everyone happy. Going from presenting a token for a single use, to losing the token forever? Everyone upset.

But if you want to talk about the currently proposed class cards, we can.

OrionW wrote: If trinkets aren’t instant actions you can not use the new Druid spells in the first round. This would make the +2 AC cantrip worse than it already is.

If the spells were instant actions you could cast them all at the same time, which I would be okay with, but might be more powerful then they want to make the new spells.

This is false; you can cast those Druid Spells in the first round. Each player gets a Standard Action and a Free Action every round, to be used in whichever order they wish. All of the proposed new self-buffs (Barskin, Nature's Fury, Nature's Wrath) are cast as Free Actions.

If activating a Trinket cost a Standard Action, Druids would be able to spend their Free Action to cast a Spell to buff themselves and their Standard Action to Polymorph on the first round, then start attacking on the second. There is no need for the Spells to be Instant Actions in order to make use of them.

If activating a Trinket cost a Free Action, Druids would not be able to both buff and Polymorph in the same round, but they could cast a buff and attack (with either a Spell or their weapon) on the first round, then Polymorph and attack on the second round. The self-buffs can still be used without being Instant Actions.

If anything, the lack of an Action cost is even more egregious with the new class card: not only is the damage wheel higher than any Rare weapon, but Druids also gain +3 damage from Enhanced Polymorph!