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Danzou posted:I feel like an Epic Wizard should have been able to prevent that. the wizard got a girlfriend and wasn't there for that session
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Mar 27, 2012 01:56
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HKR posted:the wizard got a girlfriend and wasn't there for that session Ah yes, the only thing truly capable of consistently defeating a 3.5 wizard.
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Mar 27, 2012 02:19
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I don't get why you guys don't understand why undoing the PC actions is an inherently bad idea. When you make everything they accomplished moot, it wastes all the time they just spent. That's why you make the PCs have the reins of the whole "rewrite the past year" plot device and let them choose how to end the campaign. Just saying "I'm the DM, I say this campaign never happened, by the way the PCs all die" line is horrible.
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Mar 27, 2012 02:43
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rotinaj posted:I don't get why you guys don't understand why undoing the PC actions is an inherently bad idea. When you make everything they accomplished moot, it wastes all the time they just spent. That's why you make the PCs have the reins of the whole "rewrite the past year" plot device and let them choose how to end the campaign. Just saying "I'm the DM, I say this campaign never happened, by the way the PCs all die" line is horrible. But you gotta admit, some players deserve it.
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Mar 27, 2012 02:54
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Danzou posted:I feel like an Epic Wizard should have been able to prevent that.
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Mar 27, 2012 03:30
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On the other hand, some gods do have wizard levels.
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Mar 27, 2012 07:14
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Vorgen posted:But you gotta admit, some players deserve it. If that's the case, kick them out or stop running the game. It's never a satisfying game for anyone when the game ends with rewriting/invalidating everything that has been accomplished. Some of my best games have happened using backstory from past games I've run. I'd go into details about my worst gaming experience where the DM ended up doing just that, but it'd be too much of a derail, I think. Gee, I hope Rich is okay. 
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Mar 28, 2012 01:17
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It loses its power if you intentionally invoke it.
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Mar 28, 2012 01:21
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I've never had a bad DM, only bad fellow players. So bad that I would gladly sacrifice my own past and my entire character just to see them cry. And no, I'm not exaggerating, dude would cry over DnD. Also raise his voice and loudly argue his points, no matter how much they wouldn't work.
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Mar 28, 2012 01:30
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Vorgen posted:I've never had a bad DM, only bad fellow players. So bad that I would gladly sacrifice my own past and my entire character just to see them cry. And no, I'm not exaggerating, dude would cry over DnD. Also raise his voice and loudly argue his points, no matter how much they wouldn't work. Then you are a very VERY lucky man. I've played with a variance of DMs from the awful to the mediocre, with the occasional good to great ones that keep me coming back to the table. Hell, I once had a DM so bad that when we found a room full of monks whose job was to keep chanting or else the universe would end, we tried to kill them all to end the universe! Granted, that was in high school when even the best of us was really only barely adequate. It's harder to get a really bad DM these days because to be truly wretched, you need to be inexperienced. And, sadly, there just aren't that many new people entering the hobby, so there aren't many chances for people to start off terrible and get better. These days most DMs have been running games for years and sheer experience lets them achieve at least a certain degree of competence. So yay, our hobby is dying, but that means we're all really good at playing in the ruins!
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Mar 28, 2012 05:08
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rotinaj posted:I'd go into details about my worst gaming experience where the DM ended up doing just that, but it'd be too much of a derail, I think. You're in luck! There's a whole thread just for gaming experiences both good and bad!Take your derail over there and it won't even be a derail it'll be appropriate!
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Mar 28, 2012 13:14
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:You're in luck! There's a whole thread just for gaming experiences both good and bad!Take your derail over there and it won't even be a derail it'll be appropriate! Maybe so, but as derails in THIS thread goes (as happens every time there's a long gap between comics) you should be happy to get some D&D reminiscing rather than, say, another Familicide debate, or worse, another alignment chart and subsequent sperging or something. It's a derail, sure, but it's at least a NEW derail. And anyway, it'll vanish with the next comic, which should be any day now. I hope.
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Mar 28, 2012 16:12
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Seriously the derails suck. I fear the power of worry is failing since he did so well on the kick starter.
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Mar 28, 2012 17:41
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Obligatory "Gee, I hope Rich is okay.  "How about this: How would you optimize each of the Order, without changing their strategies? For example, V would make a hell of a Warmage, Roy'd be a drat good Swordsage of the Stone Dragon, and Durkon's a Cleric, so he can gently caress right off.
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Mar 28, 2012 18:17
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Colon V posted:Obligatory "Gee, I hope Rich is okay. I don't think being a warmage would optimize V. She just needs to get some better evocations. Stuff like Crushing Grasp, Manyjaws, Great Thunderclap, etc. If she gets her hands on a copy of Complete Mage and the Spell Compendium, watch out.
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Mar 28, 2012 18:32
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One word: incantatrix. Alas, Rich would have to decide whether to call V an 'incantatrix' or 'incantator' and that would break the gender ambiguity joke.
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Mar 28, 2012 19:44
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Colon V posted:Obligatory "Gee, I hope Rich is okay. I'd make Roy a Warblade, with a focus on White Raven and Iron Heart maneuvers. That way he gets to use his intelligence and propensity towards leadership as well as his iron will. Or make him a a pure Barbarian and make him an Ubercharger with Pounce maybe. Make Haley a Rogue/Scout mix with Daring Outlaw, some way to consistently move 10 feet and full attack, a much better bow (enchanted with Splitting at the very least) and a way to sneak attack more (buy some Swordsage maneuvers/stances with feats, or magical items). The Archer Archetype is not well supported though, and to get around that you'd need to make her like a Cleric with Zen Archery or do some Soulbow trickery I think. Comedy option is that way you stack Hellfire Warlock with those classes that keep advancing its class features, with the one level dip in binder, so you can do 30d6 Eldritch Blasts all day every day. Elan's actually probably fine as is I think, though he could utterly replace his prestige class with the feat Snowflake Wardance, do some crazy Inspire Courage stacking shenanigens, and discover his amazing Sonic Dragon ancestry so he could pick up Dragonfire Inspiration. Give him one of those crystal blades, or the lingering song feat, and every combat could give the party both +10/+11 to hit and damage and another +11d6 sonic damage with some pretty casual optimization. Keep him as pure Bard and rock face. Uh, Durkon just needs to pick better spells and pick up Divine Metamagic so he can persist them for 24 hours and just keep doing what he's doing. Bonus points if he manages to become a Cheater of Mystara. V- Incantatrix and any other prestige class because pure wizard gives no incentives not to presitge out every level you don't have to. Hell, start at level 3 with Specialist (Evocation) and Master Specialist (Evocation) and maybe throw some Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil in there or literally anything else V qualifies for. Warmages somehow manage to be worse at blasting than straight Wizards and anything that allows for more metamagic, especially free metamagic, is always amazing. Also, if you can change the banned school, ban evocation and keep Conjuration because Conjuration spells are actually better at blasting than Evocation spells. Also pick up Celerity and use it. Belkar... um. gently caress it, make him a Tiger Claw Warblade or Swordsage with a dip in Barbarian for rage/pounce and give him the one feat that lets him get a slightly weaker animal companion so he can still have Mr. Scruffy. Hell, Mr.Scruffy will actually be stronger and might contribute to combat in that case because the feat gives you an animal companion that manages to be better than a Ranger's. Zore fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Mar 28, 2012 |
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Mar 28, 2012 23:07
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Cabbit posted:If she gets her hands on a copy of Complete Mage and the Spell Compendium, watch out. Seriously, all any mage needs to absolutely ruin the DM's day every time is using Complete Mage and Spell Compendium.
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Mar 29, 2012 03:48
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rotinaj posted:Seriously, all any mage needs to absolutely ruin the DM's day every time is using Complete Mage and Spell Compendium. Or, you know, the core rulebook. Spell compendium/Complete Mage only really gets you Celerity and Craft Contingency for really broken stuff. The worst spells are always things like glitterdust, grease, haste, Time Stop, polymorph, Shapechange, Contingency, Overland Flight, Ennervation, Charm Person, Dominate, Mindblank, Wind Wall, True Strike... etc. which are all Core spells. Zore fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Mar 29, 2012 |
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Mar 29, 2012 03:56
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Grease? What can grease do other than provide lubrication for pratfalls and be the word?
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Mar 29, 2012 03:58
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Nilbop posted:Grease? What can grease do other than provide lubrication for pratfalls and be the word? Lock down anything without ranks in Tumble. So almost everything. Its an amazing crowd control spell and one of the most powerful level 1 spells ever printed.
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Mar 29, 2012 04:01
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Nilbop posted:Grease? What can grease do other than provide lubrication for pratfalls and be the word? It's a level one AoE control effect save or suck that lasts several rounds, or can be used to disarm people or ruin any escape route or disable many traps and devices.
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Mar 29, 2012 04:01
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That's completely stupid. So people will just fall over and over again like Tom chasing Jerry over ice?
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Mar 29, 2012 04:07
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Zore posted:Or, you know, the core rulebook. Spell compendium/Complete Mage only really gets you Celerity and Craft Contingency for really broken stuff. The worst spells are always things like glitterdust, grease, haste, Time Stop, polymorph, Shapechange, Contingency, Overland Flight, Ennervation, Charm Person, Dominate, Mindblank, Wind Wall, True Strike... etc. which are all Core spells. I'm just saying, go read every spell in Spell Compendium and CM and tell me there's not some fun stuff in there. I mean, hell, Stick alone is worth lugging SC to the table and it's a cantrip. Nilbop posted:That's completely stupid. So people will just fall over and over again like Tom chasing Jerry over ice? If they don't have five ranks in balance, a good reflex save, or flight yeah. If they don't have the balance ranks, they're flat-footed too. Coincidentally, rogues have a lot of ranks in balance, good reflex saves, and love flat-footed opponents. Edit: SC is actually even better if you're a non-Wizard. It's where they stuck all the awesome 24 hour duration ranger spells, for instance. Cabbit fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Mar 29, 2012 |
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Mar 29, 2012 04:14
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Prestidigitation is still the best cantrip. Do anything, so long as you actually don't do anything? There's a lot of leeway there, and it's also handy for making your hands blaze with mystic fire when people give you lip about not believing you're really a mage.
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Mar 29, 2012 06:23
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Zore posted:Elan's actually probably fine as is I think, though he could utterly replace his prestige class with the feat Snowflake Wardance, do some crazy Inspire Courage stacking shenanigens, and discover his amazing Sonic Dragon ancestry so he could pick up Dragonfire Inspiration. Give him one of those crystal blades, or the lingering song feat, and every combat could give the party both +10/+11 to hit and damage and another +11d6 sonic damage with some pretty casual optimization. Keep him as pure Bard and rock face. Does any of that involve puppets? I'd track down a class that focused heavily on puppeteering, mystical or otherwise.
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Mar 29, 2012 06:36
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Jimbone Tallshanks posted:Does any of that involve puppets? I'd track down a class that focused heavily on puppeteering, mystical or otherwise. Unfortunately, for all the really weird an varied stuff you can do with 3.5 nobody ever wrote a good way to deal with puppets or puppetry. Though since Elan is a Bard he could dump a ton of skill points into Perform (puppetry) and use that for his inspire courage! Or become an Exemplar of Perform (puppetry), which would let him make a Perform check instead of a Diplomacy check to influence people.
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Mar 29, 2012 13:02
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Isn't there a light telekinesis spell at like level 1? Mage hand or something? I seem to remember reading it and noting that it wasn't technically stated not to be able to influence parts of people, so you could pop out peoples' eyes and poo poo with it
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Mar 29, 2012 14:19
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V. Illych L. posted:Isn't there a light telekinesis spell at like level 1? Mage hand or something?
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Mar 29, 2012 14:25
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I don't know if you are thinking of Unseen Servant or Mage Hand, but neither of those can do that. Unseen Servant explicitly cannot perform any attacks of any kind, and Mage Hand can only target an 'unattended object'. Meaning that you can't even use it to pick pockets, much less pop eyeballs.
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Mar 29, 2012 14:33
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Back when I played Living Greyhawk I had a bard with ranks in Perform (Puppets). The first module we played had a magic puppet that could Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Suggestion 1/day. Good times had. LG is at its best when you're breaking the whatever lovely metaplot the writers had planned, and just loving around with puppets. Anyways, what i'm saying is Banjo really needs to become magical.
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Mar 29, 2012 16:15
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Question: can you light the grease on fire? Because if some enemy's slipping around on it...
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Mar 29, 2012 18:15
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Verr posted:Back when I played Living Greyhawk I had a bard with ranks in Perform (Puppets).
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Mar 29, 2012 18:29
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Speedball posted:Question: can you light the grease on fire? Because if some enemy's slipping around on it... Not explicitly (Web, for instance, says that it will burn and cause damage to creatures in it) but you could probably get a DM to go for it.
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Mar 29, 2012 18:33
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Speedball posted:Question: can you light the grease on fire? Because if some enemy's slipping around on it... By the book, no. The killer combos back in the day were some form of entangle/web and then stinking cloud/cloudkill while the rest of the party just parked and unloaded arrows and darts at any poor SOB who made their saves. I've played Baldur's Gate far too much...
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Mar 29, 2012 18:38
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They did release a flammable version of Grease as a second level spell in, wait for it, Complete Mage.
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Mar 29, 2012 18:42
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And the third level spell, grease lightning.
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Mar 29, 2012 18:58
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I might as well ask this here; I did a little bit of reading up on D&D lore back in the day mostly because I love a good bit of world-building, but never explored the game in any sense. Something that always seemed strange to me in a game that awkwardly imposed the alignment system on you was that you'd never seem to attack the good places. You know, the big ones. You could plunder the Nine Hells and snag King Devil's Ruby Rod but I never saw an option about raiding the gates of Heaven and taking down uh, whoever was king of Mount Celestia. This may or may not be a cosmology that doesn't exist. Anyway my question is is there even an option to do this, and how deep does that rabbit hill go? Like what do they let you do and what are the ramifications for it? Seems to me like sacking heaven would have a much greater impact than having a war in hell.
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Mar 29, 2012 23:34
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Nilbop posted:I might as well ask this here; I did a little bit of reading up on D&D lore back in the day mostly because I love a good bit of world-building, but never explored the game in any sense. Something that always seemed strange to me in a game that awkwardly imposed the alignment system on you was that you'd never seem to attack the good places. You know, the big ones. You could plunder the Nine Hells and snag King Devil's Ruby Rod but I never saw an option about raiding the gates of Heaven and taking down uh, whoever was king of Mount Celestia. Almost all of the published adventures for D&D assume that the players are the heroes. You do occasionally get to encounter Solars, Deva, and Planetars (the D&D equivalents of angels,) and even fight them (although they are brutally powerful.) I know for a fact that the old editions of D&D had actual stats for gods, both Good and Evil. A high-level party could gank them no problem. I think they moved away from this with the more recent editions, though. "What do they let you do" and "what are the ramifications" aren't really good questions to ask, because it's really up to your DM. I don't think there's any specific canon for what happens if you slaughter Heironeous. Sounds like a fun, offbeat idea for a campaign, to be honest.
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Mar 29, 2012 23:56
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People run evil campaigns all the time, but unless you have a good group it usually devolves into "I slit John's fighter's throat as he sleeps" and stuff like that. I ran an evil campaign once that was just basically a flavor change of a normal campaign. Instead of demons, angels. Instead of cultists, priests of Pelor and so on, but we only played three sessions. An evil endgame would be world domination through gaining the means, and ransacking heaven and killing all the good gods would be pretty rad.
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Mar 30, 2012 00:02
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