Talk:Aegis of Health, Tome (3.5e Feat)

Ratings

	Zhenra-Khal likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	Flavor-wise I don't think the effects really match the connotations of the name, but mechanically it's very sound. I wish we had more effects like this, really.

Things ping off your shiny muscles, a la Major Armstrong from FMA. --Ghostwheel (talk) 16:37, 6 August 2019 (MDT)

Tarkisflux likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.

This is a solid defense and utility feat for any martial type. The spells granted here allow them to use their normal combat options in times when they might otherwise be inapplicable and also provide substantial out of combat utility in a number of cases. And since the spells only drop when they're overwhelmed or have been taken down a few notches in an actual fight, it also helps reinforce what they're arguably supposed to be doing anyway. Any martial that takes this really really wants a recurring source temp hp though, so that they can benefit basically all the time.

	Leziad favors this article and rated it 4 of 4!
	I think it very high, but I love it. Fighters get nice things.

	balmz is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.
	Eh it's ok but really strange tbh, i don't get how it works as magic for non magic characters, also part of me thinks it would be better if it scaled with fort save or will save some of the effects.

Comments

I'm open to changing the balance point, but could you please explain why you think it's VH? It doesn't make you deal any more damage, any stronger, hit more effectively, gain extra attacks, or the like, and doesn't especially make you able to do your shtick (kill people) any better than you already do, which is mostly the purview of VH-level feats. --Ghostwheel (talk) 13:44, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I personally think it VH because of the sheer amount of money you save on buffed items (which will be used for you know actually good items) and because most of the tricks this feat prevent exist in VH. --Leziad (talk) 13:46, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Do you think I should make the BAB req +12 so wizards can never take this? OTOH, that means that rogues need to wait until level 18 to take it... As-is though, wizards can easily take it with their level 18 feat, and I'm unsure how cool I am with that :-/

Also, a main tenet of the balance system is to inform DMs what would be too powerful for their game to include so that their games aren't broken. This is readily noticeable with most VH feats; is that the case here? Would it break any of the lower-balance games, and thus require to be in a higher balance range? --Ghostwheel (talk) 13:50, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Seconding Leziad on the balance here. For a level 9 feat slot (yes, some characters don't get it until later, but so what), you get a permanent level 4 1min/level spell, a permanent level 4 10min/level spell, a permanent level 5 1min/level spell, and a permanent level 8 all day spell. They fall down when you take a bunch of damage, but they're easy enough to put back up. Even just the part where you get mind blank 7 levels before the spellcasters is so far above the H reference feats that I don't really see where the disagreement is coming from.

But since you want to ignore our reference guidelines and instead ask 'Does this break an H game?', well yes it does. A bunch of strong and blanket protections just 'break the game' (as you'd say) from the other side of the screen. You can't use invisible creatures anymore, or illusionary walls, or dopplegangers/mimics/werewolves/vampires as plot devices, or suggestion / charm, or inflict X attacks, or grapples, or lots of other things that I'm leaving off. The list of things that this is a hard counter to is long, and most of those things just aren't as relevant halfway through the combat when these protections finally drop (like all of the illusions, particularly the out of combat ones). And if you're going to turn around and say that those are all VH tactics anyway you're just proving the point of where this belongs even more because this sort of blanket immunity isn't needed outside of that range and you're throwing away any valid tactics in the mix. It's a huge stack of protections, and it's really strong.

If you wanted to boost the prereqs, you could go BAB +10. It's a fighter bonus feat so they'll just get it at 10 instead of 9, and wizards won't get it at all. But it's still pretty clearly VH despite being something you'd actually let in your game. If you wanted it H, you might need to break these up into separate feats for each spell. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 15:33, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Fine, fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine... :-P

So apart from the balance range, thoughts on the feat? --Ghostwheel (talk) 17:53, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

The more that I think about it, the more that I think that mind blank is too much. I forgot to include "all divinations" in the above list of things that this blocks, which brings this up to shutting down almost 3 full spell schools for the feat with 2 of them coming from mind blank alone. That it's many levels earlier than anyone else gets it seems to just compound the problem.

The rest I'm more ambivalent on. I like the basic idea of defenses that are up until you get beat up a bit (it's a nice ablative defense setup), but I'm not big on this kind of block granted immunity. I'd probably have gone with a feat that let you select one or two of those effects to benefit from (that did not include mind blank), and allowed you to take it again to select additional effects from the same list. And I don't get the reasoning for the BAB+11 prereq at all. No one gets bonus feats at level 11 unless you're doing multiclass stuff and it seems weird to prioritize that. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 18:28, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, hey, it's all different now. Well, crap. Lemme rethink that then. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 18:29, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

*shrug* In MIC (or was it XPH...?), a continual Mind Blank item costs 120k. If you get a 1/day item that serves you about as well, it comes to around a fifth of that. So at higher levels it's still well within the grasp of a character to pick up Mind Blank. --Ghostwheel (talk) 18:32, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

One a day mind blank suffers from dispel in ways that this doesn't, so the continual version is probably the more apt comparison. I'd swap Mind Blank and True Seeing in the new form to match standard acquisition order. And maybe drop figment immunity entirely and replace it with see invis at 1 as well. There are plenty of figments that matter for plot reasons (walls specifically), and I'd rather keep those around until 11 when true seeing kicks in (assuming a swap happened). - Tarkisflux ^Talk 18:42, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd be fine with that. Done. --Ghostwheel (talk) 18:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)