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rotinaj posted:And this is exactly why I said that the spells from Complete Mage and the Magic Compedium ruin DM's days. Because like 90% of the spells are crazygonuts poo poo like this. Wait till you see the spells in the PHB...
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Apr 7, 2012 17:17
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The only way to balance Wizards is by having the DM deliberately hamstring them at every turn.
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Apr 7, 2012 17:21
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Captain Oblivious posted:The only way to balance Wizards is by having the DM deliberately hamstring them at every turn. Or another wizard.
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Apr 7, 2012 17:22
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Captain Oblivious posted:The only way to balance Wizards is by having the DM deliberately hamstring them at every turn. Oh poo poo, the party found a time hole to the Time of Troubles or homebrew ripoff thereof! WHAT NOW BITCHES As a bonus, this fucks clerics, too 
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Apr 7, 2012 17:31
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You could also have magic be an inherently evil thing that destroys life and is hated and feared by all, thus making low-level wizards paranoid cowards and high-level wizards marked for death by the entire Wastela- wait.
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Apr 7, 2012 19:42
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DrakePegasus posted:You could also have magic be an inherently evil thing that destroys life and is hated and feared by all, thus making low-level wizards paranoid cowards and high-level wizards marked for death by the entire Wastela- wait.
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Apr 7, 2012 19:50
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I never understood what GM in their right mind would let a player use a splatbook race/class/skills/feats/magic/items. All of them basically say to me "Hey let your player use this to munchkin and ruin the game!" (And yes I know vanilla wizards and clerics can still munchkin and ruin the game but it's at least a little easier to deal with.)
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Apr 7, 2012 21:23
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HKR posted:I never understood what GM in their right mind would let a player use a splatbook race/class/skills/feats/magic/items. All of them basically say to me "Hey let your player use this to munchkin and ruin the game!" (And yes I know vanilla wizards and clerics can still munchkin and ruin the game but it's at least a little easier to deal with.) That's where the social element of D&D comes into play. Sure, in a perfect world you wouldn't allow splatbooks...or at least you'd rigorously vet them. But some DMs have a problem telling their friends, or worse, boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/etc, no. Even if it's to the detriment of the game. Part of becoming a good DM is learning when you need to put your foot down and tell your player that it doesn't matter that he spent $30 on that book...he can't use it. That isn't always easy.
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Apr 7, 2012 21:40
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Because a lot of them are actually useful to flesh out interesting character concepts that the core books handle clumsily or not at all. But yeah, no competent GM ever says "you can use anything that's been printed by WotC, no questions asked" unless they're running a joke campaign.
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Apr 7, 2012 21:44
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HKR posted:I never understood what GM in their right mind would let a player use a splatbook race/class/skills/feats/magic/items. All of them basically say to me "Hey let your player use this to munchkin and ruin the game!" (And yes I know vanilla wizards and clerics can still munchkin and ruin the game but it's at least a little easier to deal with.) Most people aren't ridiculous assholes? Core has pretty lovely support for... Everything? I usually play by throwing out the core books entirely and only using the supplements becausethe power level is way more consistent and it gives people who aren't Vatican spellcasters the ability to do stuff. Incarnum/Binders/Tome of Battle are great! Their are few to none splatblook races that are even remotely as good as humans. I like prestige classes that aren't ridiculously terrible at everything ever (what the gently caress every core Prestige class except for Archmage). Its way the hell easier to deal with a raptoran swordsage or a spellscale warlock than it is to try to make a Fighter not feel like deadweight (especially if you force the sucker to stick with the godawful core feats) after level six or come up with contrived conditions why the wizard's million perfect spells didn't solve everything again.
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Apr 7, 2012 21:45
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Zore posted:Vatican spellcasters Edit Never mind, I'm retarded. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Apr 8, 2012 |
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Apr 7, 2012 22:44
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HKR posted:I never understood what GM in their right mind would let a player use a splatbook race/class/skills/feats/magic/items. All of them basically say to me "Hey let your player use this to munchkin and ruin the game!" (And yes I know vanilla wizards and clerics can still munchkin and ruin the game but it's at least a little easier to deal with.) The problem is not splat books. The problem is casters. The problem has always been casters, and while I can grouse on about how a slightly reworded spell prevents Evasion, a class feature intended to counter casters, from working properly, Vitrolic Sphere is no match for Dominate Person, or Feeblemind, or Baleful Polymorph, or Enervation, or Solid Fog, or Confusion. Confusion! There's a spell that ends entire parties. Saying the problem is that I want to take Judicator so I can be an awesome badass who chains up monsters and drags them back to the police is ignoring the fact that Alter Self, a second level spell, lets a third level bard or wizard do pretty much anything.
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Apr 7, 2012 22:48
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Any good DM has house rules on the major abuses of the PHB material, and practical experience with supplement material. If you throw something from an unfamiliar source at them, they should have either the experience to house rule your character concept into something manageable, or the authority to tell you "This would be too much work for me as the DM to handle". It is a hard process, but that's what effective DMing is all about. Personally, I always required wizards to be one step down the moral alignment from the "core" of the group (Neutral in a Good group, Evil in a Neutral Group). This of course, requires a group that can handle alignment as a character influence. Other than a solution this dire, you pretty much have to run an all-caster party to effectively DM.
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Apr 7, 2012 22:56
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Colon V posted:I believe the word you're looking for is "Vancian". Clearly he's talking about clerics here. 
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Apr 7, 2012 23:04
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Make very spell backfire instead of fizzle when the caster rolls a 1. Have very, very fun ideas prepared for each spell she knows. Raise/Create/Turn Undead: Affects caster's own skeleton. Grease: Covers the caster. Dominate Person: Caster can only act when given an order by herself, which is impossible. Someone else has to dispel the effect...unless you're in the mood for time travel hijinx! Prestidigitation: Fuuuuun times.
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Apr 7, 2012 23:47
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Or play 4th edition and don't let the levels get to high.
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Apr 7, 2012 23:50
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Manic_Misanthrope posted:Or play 4th edition and don't let the levels get to high. 4th Edition doesn't have Caster Supremacy. Only Warlords. Warlords as far as the eye can see. Martial Power: The least subtlely named metaphor for social revolution. But drat is it fun.
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Apr 7, 2012 23:55
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DrakePegasus posted:Make very spell backfire instead of fizzle when the caster rolls a 1. Have very, very fun ideas prepared for each spell she knows.
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Apr 8, 2012 00:01
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DrakePegasus posted:4th Edition doesn't have Caster Supremacy. Only Warlords. Warlords as far as the eye can see. I believe you mean Fighter Supremacy. Between 2H Weaponmasters, Brawlers, Battleragers, Knights, and Slayers, they have pretty much everything you'd ever want. Hell, a properly-built Brawler even has a fair amount of Controller built in.
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Apr 8, 2012 00:35
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The problem is this spell-level system that 3.5 and earlier used. You start with a system of spell organization that was a sacred cow from 2nd when 3rd was under development, and a bunch of spells with the same problem. You start by making the old system work in the new rules; wizards gain access to a new tier of spells every two levels. You then shuffle all the old sacred-cow spells into the same spell levels they had back in 2nd. Straightforward damage spells share their spell-level cubbies with save-or-combat-ends spells and highly situational spells that a wizard wouldn't prepare unless they've scryed ahead and know they need it. Power creep happens, and new spells get shoved in to these same ten ill-defined power levels. Another part of it is that all these crap spells are printed out. You have this huge library of crap with more than a few combat-trivializers in there, and the kind of personality that plays a wizard has the patience to read through all of it, find the good stuff, and drop it on an underprepared DM. I say they should have reworked the whole system. Break quick-cast combat spells away from slow-cast utility spells. Make some mechanic to allow more broken spells at a given "spell level" to cost more resources than the straightforward spells. Find a way to solve the low-level wizards problem with how long they're relevant in combat. Encourage wizards to plan ahead, but at the same time give them some way to "do magic at it" if they hit something they are unprepared for; I'm thinking of the way the Use the Force skill worked in the latest Star Wars d20 system.
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Apr 8, 2012 02:17
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Isn't that basically 4e you're describing? At-will / per-encounter / per-day powers to make every class have some daily highlights but never end up with its "batteries drained", and slow-cast rituals handle once-in-a-while crap like divinations, water walking, etc. Not sure about the balance of damage spells vs. save-or-die spells though, I only played a bit of low-level casual adventuring with it.
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Apr 8, 2012 03:15
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There aren't any save or die abilities in 4E. Except maybe the odd ability on a level 30 enemy like say, Orthus, Demon King of the Undead. But there are exactly zero for players.
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Apr 8, 2012 04:06
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Captain Oblivious posted:There aren't any save or die abilities in 4E. Except maybe the odd ability on a level 30 enemy like say, Orthus, Demon King of the Undead.
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Apr 8, 2012 04:26
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Factor_VIII posted:Save or die effects weren't that good in 3E anyway in my opinion. Most were death effects, which meant that constructs and undead were immune to them, and other creatures could become immune to them with the Death Ward spell which was only a level 4 spell. And boss monsters typically had high saves anyway and if a susceptible creature saved, it suffered little to no damage. Yeah, save-or-dies were nothing compared to the vast array of 'save or become completely useless for the rest of the fight's. (save or suck for convenience.) It starts at level 1 with sleep, and they get worse from there.
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Apr 8, 2012 04:55
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Ze Pollack posted:Yeah, save-or-dies were nothing compared to the vast array of 'save or become completely useless for the rest of the fight's. (save or suck for convenience.) girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Apr 8, 2012 |
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Apr 8, 2012 05:00
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A lot of problems with wizards and clerics are solved by not playing with people who are enormous raging assholes. I just wanted to let anyone in this thread that doesn't play DnD know that so long as your group doesn't include one or more douchebags who can only get boners by lining up numbers and dice your games don't really have to worry about this poo poo. Please continue with grognards.txt
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Apr 8, 2012 05:06
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Colon V posted:Sleep, Color Spray, Grease... A creative sorcerer with those three spells can do more to hinder his opponent than a greatsword fighter in full-plate. Maybe if they're third level or lower?
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Apr 8, 2012 05:07
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Who What Now posted:A lot of problems with wizards and clerics are solved by not playing with people who are enormous raging assholes. I just wanted to let anyone in this thread that doesn't play DnD know that so long as your group doesn't include one or more douchebags who can only get boners by lining up numbers and dice your games don't really have to worry about this poo poo. In any case, a wizard can try to substitute for other party members but things won't go that well. E.g. using Charm Person instead of Diplomacy will eventually be discovered when someone with Spellcraft recognizes the spell or someone saves against it and if it's done in a civilized area the wizard should be arrested for it.
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Apr 8, 2012 05:17
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Who'd win in a fight Orcus or Demogorgon, c'mon hit me with it.
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Apr 8, 2012 05:22
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Nilbop posted:Who'd win in a fight Orcus or Demogorgon, c'mon hit me with it. The trick would be to for Demogorgon to find a Commoner with the Pig Bond flaw (from Dragon 330) which states that if the commoner is separated from his pig, it turns into Orcus and skins him alive. If Demogorgon took his demonic host with him and them pulled the pig off the Commoner, Orcus would suddenly find himself alone against a demonic host and would quickly fall.
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Apr 8, 2012 05:31
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Factor_VIII posted:Save or die effects weren't that good in 3E anyway in my opinion. Most were death effects, which meant that constructs and undead were immune to them, and other creatures could become immune to them with the Death Ward spell which was only a level 4 spell. And boss monsters typically had high saves anyway and if a susceptible creature saved, it suffered little to no damage. Death ward was one of the coolest equalizing spells. I remember playing this long forgotten realms module once (can't remember the name) where the end boss was this evil drow priestess trying to create a "greater revenant" or something like that. I was playing a priest of some neutral death god who hated undead, and I specialized in turning undead (feats, headband of charisma, etc.). This was wrecking all the encounters, so everything started turning up with higher and higher resistance to turning. My priest was almost useless except for healing and the occasional banishment or dispelling. We ended up at the final boss, and the whole party was killed except for my priest and a homebrewed bling monk. I happened to have an amulet that protected from death effects, and a wand of deathward, and deathward prepared for 3 or 4 slots. The priestess kept dispelling deathward, and she destroyed my amulet. I kept recasting with the wand. She shattered the wand. We ended up barely meleeing her to death with a backup +1 mace and the bling monk's jeweled gauntlets. There was no way we should have pulled it off, but the prepared spell list for the character was just too heavy on death effects, which that one spell neutralized. It was a lot of fun after being useless in combat for so long.
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Apr 8, 2012 05:35
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Factor_VIII posted:The Savage Tide Adventure Path had stats for both. Orcus is CR 32 while Demogorgon is CR 33. I can quite honestly say this is not the way I expected the battle to go.
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Apr 8, 2012 05:39
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Neither did Orcus.
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Apr 8, 2012 05:49
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Captain Oblivious posted:There aren't any save or die abilities in 4E. Except maybe the odd ability on a level 30 enemy like say, Orthus, Demon King of the Undead. There are, actually. One epic Warlock power can kill instantly if the save is failed something like 3 times in a row. But by that point they're doing so much damage that 3 rounds of hitting pretty much any non-big boss monster is gonna loving die anyways. I think it's called Hurl through Hell.
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Apr 8, 2012 06:26
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crime fighting hog posted:There are, actually. One epic Warlock power can kill instantly if the save is failed something like 3 times in a row. But by that point they're doing so much damage that 3 rounds of hitting pretty much any non-big boss monster is gonna loving die anyways. I think it's called Hurl through Hell. In practice, Hurl Through Hell is still kind of worthless due to the way save mechanics work. The odds of anything that's a significant threat failing their save three times in a row...well they're not good.
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Apr 8, 2012 06:35
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HKR posted:I never understood what GM in their right mind would let a player use a splatbook race/class/skills/feats/magic/items. All of them basically say to me "Hey let your player use this to munchkin and ruin the game!" (And yes I know vanilla wizards and clerics can still munchkin and ruin the game but it's at least a little easier to deal with.) So, splatbooks own. Bad players are bad.
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Apr 8, 2012 06:41
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DrakePegasus posted:Make very spell backfire instead of fizzle when the caster rolls a 1. Have very, very fun ideas prepared for each spell she knows.
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Apr 8, 2012 07:50
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Zereth posted:Most spells in 3.x don't require you to roll poo poo, actually. Just point at where it goes off and then people in it have to roll to not just take the full force of it to the face, unless you chose a spell which doesn't even give them that.
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Apr 8, 2012 08:12
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Zereth posted:Most spells in 3.x don't require you to roll poo poo, actually. Just point at where it goes off and then people in it have to roll to not just take the full force of it to the face, unless you chose a spell which doesn't even give them that. Plus, especially if you're playing core only, good luck fighting most ECL-5 battles or above. Thats when you start dealing with flying/incorporeal/brutish enemies that will usually easily mince the party if played with a modicum of intelligence... unless you have magic. Look at, say, an Allip which is an ECL-3. Unless the fighter has a magical weapon, he can't hit it at all. If he does have a magical weapon, unless it has the ghost touch property, he's going to be missing a flat 50% of the time on top of its good AC. Everything within 60 ft of it must make a DC 16 Will save or be hypnotized for 2d4 rounds(good luck having a halfway decent one as anything but a caster!). Every hit it makes? Drains wisdom making him less likely to resist the hypnotism effect. When he hits zero, which is damned easy considering the thing can just move underground if it wants to, or just fly a bit higher, he turns into an Allip himself. Of course the thing is stupidly easy with a Wizard, Cleric or Druid in the party if they make their save. Unless suddenly their spell hilariously backfires and now everyone is dead! Anything with flight is going to require magic to solve as well, and thats a massive section of the monster manual above the very lowest levels. No, they can't just pull out a bow and deal with it because tickling people with an average of 8 damage per round (composite Longbow, str 18) means you're not even getting through the damage reduction of a Gargoyle. And take less then 10 damage if he just strafes you, or totally ignores you because you can't do poo poo to him. These are monsters designed for fighting level 3 and 4 characters. Core non-magic users are going to be able to deal with them, hell contribute to any fight with them in it, only reliably once they're several levels above that and they're going to need a whole bunch of magical gear. You take away magic, or make it unreliable, and the non-magic users are going to be lucky to deal with things several levels below them, they rely on having magical party members that much. Incidently, this is why the Core books are the worst in the whole of 3.5. Allips can laugh and take out the Tarrasque with no chance of failure, putting him into a permanent coma. And the designers thought that having entire classes totally unable to deal with them was a great idea when the reverse is literally never true. Zore fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Apr 8, 2012 |
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Apr 8, 2012 08:17
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Zore posted:You take away magic, or make it unreliable, and the non-magic users are going to be lucky to deal with things several levels below them, they rely on having magical party members that much. Zore posted:Incidently, this is why the Core books are the worst in the whole of 3.5. Allips can laugh and take out the Tarrasque with no chance of failure, putting him into a permanent coma. And the designers thought that having entire classes totally unable to deal with them was a great idea when the reverse is literally never true.
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Apr 8, 2012 13:53
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