[.11] Celestial Armor vs Earth's Bounty

Manflesh

Artisan
Chicago Staff
What was the rationale for giving Celestial Armor a major upgrade in the latest packet, but not its Earth equivalent with Earth's Bounty?
 
Doesn't bother me. Rebirth is still the king of high magic.
 
That being said, there's an argument to be made comparing the two.

1) The ritual Arcane Armor takes a lot of value away from Celestial Armor. It's 16 ranks of Formal to give you 40 points that doesn't stack with existing Armor. That's 48 build (assuming Scholar) for roughly a bonus of 10 Armor and the convenience of not using a ritual. That’s a boatload of build.

2) While Earth’s Bounty is still overpriced IMO (15 Needs-Healing Body for 24 Build), it’s at least stackable with Armor. I do agree that EB is terrible (regardless of what my House tells me), but I wouldn’t want to drop 48 Build on CA, either.

Honestly, as a min/maxer, I wouldn’t get either. I’d rather have 16 Cloaks instead of CA or 9 Cloaks instead of EB. Heck, I’d pick Channeling over either.
 
I agree earths bounty is bad, It is just more healing you need when taking out with a KO effect. And in 2.0 it is 100% trash when you compare getting cloaks.

And yes Celestial armor has a really high cost. But probably worth it if you dont have arcane armor, I guess. Though that is alot of cloaks....
 
Would lowering its cost sweeten the pot? 1 High Magic Point for 5 Body Points, still max 3 ranks? Basically making it a slightly cheaper Hardy for straight casters (more so if you're a frail race)?
 
You could literally drop EB to 1 HM per 5 Body and I still wouldn’t buy it.

Compared to 25 Healing per 3 BP (Channel), it’s still underwhelming.
 
I would also like to point out that while the changes to Celestial Armor are a vast improvement from the 1.3 rules, it is still a largely useless high magic.

By the time a Celestial Formalist can utilize the full potential of Celestial Armor they can also easily create a full suit of arcane. The ten point difference is hardly worth 16 points of high magic.

Meanwhile, Earth's Bounty allows for 15 additional body, passively, which cannot be obtained by any magic item; it's possible that the new cloak/bane scheme makes this a bad trade off too. But if Earth's Bounty needs a fix to make it reasonable, Celestial Armor needs a fix to make it an actual boon versus an expensive duplication of a magic item ability.
 
I would also like to point out that while the changes to Celestial Armor are a vast improvement from the 1.3 rules, it is still a largely useless high magic.

By the time a Celestial Formalist can utilize the full potential of Celestial Armor they can also easily create a full suit of arcane. The ten point difference is hardly worth 16 points of high magic.

Meanwhile, Earth's Bounty allows for 15 additional body, passively, which cannot be obtained by any magic item; it's possible that the new cloak/bane scheme makes this a bad trade off too. But if Earth's Bounty needs a fix to make it reasonable, Celestial Armor needs a fix to make it an actual boon versus an expensive duplication of a magic item ability.
That's true. Although I'd still argue that EB goes the opposite direction and takes a dip in effectiveness from 1.3 to 2.0, since while it doesn't have a straight magic ritual equivalent (outside of technically Armor Shell), any starting level player can take 3 levels of Hardy right away and not have to pump in 100 xp in scholar skills to get the ability to do it temporarily for one logistical period at a time.

For Celestial Armor, I'd either remove the need to buy Extra Armor in order to take advantage of its maximum value (something AA can't do) or drop it down to 1 point per 5 armor.

For Earth's Bounty, either drop it to 1 point per 5 body or change it up entirely to a resist massive or something similar.
 
That's true. Although I'd still argue that EB goes the opposite direction and takes a dip in effectiveness from 1.3 to 2.0, since while it doesn't have a straight magic ritual equivalent (outside of technically Armor Shell), any starting level player can take 3 levels of Hardy right away and not have to pump in 100 xp in scholar skills to get the ability to do it temporarily for one logistical period at a time.

For Celestial Armor, I'd either remove the need to buy Extra Armor in order to take advantage of its maximum value (something AA can't do) or drop it down to 1 point per 5 armor.

For Earth's Bounty, either drop it to 1 point per 5 body or change it up entirely to a resist massive or something similar.

Removing the armor requirement for Celestial Armor might help out a mid-level game, but ultimately it doesn't make it useful. As long as it's effect can be largely duplicated with a magic item, it is pointless. Limiting it to 15 points, at 1:5, but it stacks with all other armor, limited by the casters arcane armor max, would be ideal.

As for Earth's Bounty: dropping it to one point I feel is reasonable, making it a resist weapon strike feels a bit OP, but either is worth a playtest.
 
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