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Gerdalti posted:I haven't read OotA yet, but they had to see that coming and have written in a spell book to find right? Or your DM saw it coming and wrote in a spell book to find. Mention to him/her that without the spell book your character has no abilities, hopefully he will fix it
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Mar 24, 2016 17:23
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I think OotA is meant for first level characters, not sure why your DM is running it after Mines. It also tells the DM to "give wizard characters some leeway in determining which spells they had prepared before being captured". Apart from that, it looks like you're hosed unless you can find a way up. Shouldn't have jumped that waterfall before recovering your gear I guess. If your DM isn't a poo poo he'll let you find a way back up, or at the very least give you a new spellbook.
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Mar 24, 2016 17:45
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CaPensiPraxis posted:In all seriousness: Don't use spell scrolls. Use scrolls with spells enchanted onto them. The difference is that spell scrolls are free (slotless/resourceless) spell casts for spellcasters for whom that spell is on their list only. Scrolls with spells can be used by anyone who can read. You want the latter, to even the field a little for non-spellcasters. Spell scrolls just make the utility gulf more massive by making the spells not cost anything meaningful to cast. Suddenly it's not just solving the dungeon that falls to spellcasters, the loot (or what you buy with the loot) is all about spellcasters only also! So, is this a "natural language" loophole, or are their actually two different items which share way-too-similar names?
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Mar 24, 2016 17:48
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CaPensiPraxis posted:In all seriousness: Don't use spell scrolls. Use scrolls with spells enchanted onto them. The difference is that spell scrolls are free (slotless/resourceless) spell casts for spellcasters for whom that spell is on their list only. Scrolls with spells can be used by anyone who can read. You want the latter, to even the field a little for non-spellcasters. Spell scrolls just make the utility gulf more massive by making the spells not cost anything meaningful to cast. Suddenly it's not just solving the dungeon that falls to spellcasters, the loot (or what you buy with the loot) is all about spellcasters only also! I was looking at it more for the purposes of expanding my spell book beyond just picking two when levelling up. Besides, as I'm the only pure spell caster in the group I'm more than satisfied remaining the most powerful and useful character 
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Mar 24, 2016 17:55
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Scyther posted:I think OotA is meant for first level characters, not sure why your DM is running it after Mines. It also tells the DM to "give wizard characters some leeway in determining which spells they had prepared before being captured". I didn't want to leave without my stuff because of course my character wouldn't want to do that but we were not allowed to go back. This was the DMs way of making it harder since we were above level 1 starting the adventure. I assume I will be able to get a new blank spellbook but it feels pretty lovely to lose everything I didn't already have prepared
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Mar 24, 2016 17:58
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Thelonius Van Funk posted:I didn't want to leave without my stuff because of course my character wouldn't want to do that but we were not allowed to go back. This was the DMs way of making it harder since we were above level 1 starting the adventure. I assume I will be able to get a new blank spellbook but it feels pretty lovely to lose everything I didn't already have prepared By any chance does your DM have this book on his shelf? http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/gradenko2000/bill-webbs-book-of-dirty-tricks/
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Mar 24, 2016 17:59
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Thelonius Van Funk posted:I didn't want to leave without my stuff because of course my character wouldn't want to do that but we were not allowed to go back. This was the DMs way of making it harder since we were above level 1 starting the adventure. I assume I will be able to get a new blank spellbook but it feels pretty lovely to lose everything I didn't already have prepared Remember this stab in the back and when you get a new spellbook show him the true might of the wizard. 
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Mar 24, 2016 18:03
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There is a sage advice on the topic of spell scrolls versus scrolls with spells outlining the difference between them, I'm 100% not making that up. They even suggest that Scroll of X be used as a naming convention for spell scrolls and then proceed to cite an example of a scroll-with-a-spell... Scroll of Protection. Which doesn't use spell scroll rules. Because gently caress you. My impression was that you were the gm looking to making a pricing chart. Just pick up a pricing chart from 3.5, it's what the designers would have done.
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Mar 24, 2016 18:14
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Thelonius Van Funk posted:I didn't want to leave without my stuff because of course my character wouldn't want to do that but we were not allowed to go back. This was the DMs way of making it harder since we were above level 1 starting the adventure. I assume I will be able to get a new blank spellbook but it feels pretty lovely to lose everything I didn't already have prepared I think your game is at the point where the DM thread would invoke the "be grownups" style of tabletop resolution. Ask the DM upfront if he thought that move out before it spirals into a rules lawyer arms race that puts the group on indefinite hiatus.
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Mar 24, 2016 18:18
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Razorwired posted:I think your game is at the point where the DM thread would invoke the "be grownups" style of tabletop resolution. Ask the DM upfront if he thought that move out before it spirals into a rules lawyer arms race that puts the group on indefinite hiatus. It can't be said enough, but if you feel like the DM is dicking you over, unintentionally or otherwise, no in-game rule is going to fix that.
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Mar 24, 2016 18:39
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Declare one of your spells to be "contact other plane" (does that even still exist?), sell your soul to a greater power, immediately retrain as a warlock.
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Mar 24, 2016 18:42
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CaPensiPraxis posted:There is a sage advice on the topic of spell scrolls versus scrolls with spells outlining the difference between them, I'm 100% not making that up. They even suggest that Scroll of X be used as a naming convention for spell scrolls and then proceed to cite an example of a scroll-with-a-spell... Scroll of Protection. Which doesn't use spell scroll rules. Because gently caress you.
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Mar 24, 2016 18:47
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ImpactVector posted:I could be wrong, but I’m actually pretty sure you're incorrect. Scrolls of X are explicitly spell scrolls as of that Sage Advice, as long as X is a spell name. The reason a Scroll of Protection isn't a spell scroll is because "Protection" isn't actually a spell. What happens when a splatbook names a spell 'protection'?
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Mar 24, 2016 19:19
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What's incorrect about my statement, that's a factually correct representation of what they said: They say "Anything named scroll of x is a spell scroll. Except Scroll of Protection, which follows different rules for magical scrolls.". I mean, it does the same effect as 'Protection against Good/Evil' smashed with Antilife Shell and is a pretty logical midway point between those two cleric spells. I would not be shocked if it became a spell effect. Anyways, you manifestly can have and create 'Scrolls of Magical Effect' that (just like the scroll of protection) offer a boon that works just like a spell would without having to gently caress around with spell scroll rules designed to remove the one limiting factor on spellcasters.
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Mar 24, 2016 19:41
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goatface posted:Declare one of your spells to be "contact other plane" (does that even still exist?), sell your soul to a greater power, immediately retrain as a warlock. If it was an oversight by the DM and they're quick on their feet some kind of pact with a spirit/diety like that would be a great way to recover and inject a little side story for the character.
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Mar 24, 2016 19:53
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CaPensiPraxis posted:What's incorrect about my statement, that's a factually correct representation of what they said: They say "Anything named scroll of x is a spell scroll. Except Scroll of Protection, which follows different rules for magical scrolls.". i mean you can also just say anyone can cast spell scrolls by being literate.
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Mar 24, 2016 20:01
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CaPensiPraxis posted:Anyways, you manifestly can have and create 'Scrolls of Magical Effect' that (just like the scroll of protection) offer a boon that works just like a spell would without having to gently caress around with spell scroll rules designed to remove the one limiting factor on spellcasters. But the original context was that of a player. Can they make non-spell scrolls at all? Or do more exist than just the Protection one? I'm honestly asking. I haven't seen the item creation rules or the treasure tables (because gently caress buying more than the PHB for this silly game that I will never run).
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Mar 24, 2016 20:11
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Literally the last page was a big discussion about scrolls and spell scrolls
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Mar 24, 2016 20:52
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Scyther posted:By any chance does your DM have this book on his shelf? That's amazing. Gradenko's extracts make it sound like you could learn to run a fun game by taking this guy's advice and then doing the exact opposite of what he says. Seriously, the group I used to run Hackmaster for would look at half that stuff and go "dude, don't be dick". Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 21:03
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Honestly it's not that bad. I looked through it recently, and it's a good book for the specific style of play Frog God and Bill Webb advocate for in their other products. If you don't like it, that's okay, but it's a good toolkit if Slumbering Tsar or Sword of Air go off the path or whatever. Bill Webb and Skeeter (his assistant) actually spend a lot of time talking about the hows and whys of a lot of the advice, and explain when it's appropriate and when it's not.
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Mar 24, 2016 21:46
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ImpactVector posted:Can they make non-spell scrolls at all? Or do more exist than just the Protection one? I'm honestly asking. I haven't seen the item creation rules or the treasure tables (because gently caress buying more than the PHB for this silly game that I will never run). The only non-spell scroll I see in the DMG is the Scroll of Protection. There are rules for crafting any magic item, so you could make one.
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Mar 24, 2016 22:11
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Thelonius Van Funk posted:So my group just finished our first adventure (Lost mines of phandelver) and started the next one (Out of the Abyss). I am playing a wizard and the first thing that happens is that we are captured and all of our gear is taken. We've managed to escape and find our backpacks but my spellbook and component pouch is gone as well as all our magic items and we've basically been told that we are not getting them back (We were forced to jump down a waterfall out of where we were kept prisoner and we're not going to be allowed to return). I'm pretty much hosed right? I have spells prepared but most have material components so I can't use them anyway. If I find a new spellbook I can copy down the ones I have prepared(assuming I'm given the time to do so, plus our gold is gone as well) but all the other ones are lost, correct? I also had some scrolls (which are now also gone) that I had been planning to copy into my spellbook and was going to make a secondary spellbook for safekeeping but we weren't given any time between adventures so I wasn't able to. The other characters in the party are an unarmed monk, a ranger, and a war domain cleric so it's mostly me that got really screwed over. I feel like my game just got incredibly less fun for no particular reason and I don't really know how to proceed in character either. Reminder that you don't actually need a component pouch; an arcane focus (orb, wand, staff, etc.) also satisfies the material requirements for a spell (except for materials with stated gold costs, but then you'd need those specific components and the pouch wouldn't help anyway). So next opportunity drop 5gp on a stick and you're good. The real kick in the balls is losing the spellbook, which RAW is as you say, you have to basically play dm-may-I to get the rest of your spells back. I mean at level 5 you should have 9-10 spells prepared out of 14 (cantrips don't go in the spellbook and aren't prepared, you just know them), so depending on what you had you'll probably be fine. Remember, you only need the book to change your prepared spells, you regain all your spell slots after a long rest regardless. It's an impact on your versatility, but in the long run probably won't be as bad as it looks/sounds. Still pretty lovely for it to happen for no reason by dm declaration.
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Mar 24, 2016 22:18
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bewilderment posted:This thread is as good as any since there isn't a SotDL or 'generic fantasy games' thread besides the TG chat thread: I picked this up and while a lot of its mechanics are neat, a lot of this stuff is pretty flatly untrue. While it's true that only rogues and warriors can crit on weapon damage rolls, a reasonable sampling of attack spells have crit damage as well. There's also a ton of wacky poo poo in the spells here, and the spells per level table for this game is per spell, so if you get a decent selection of spells and good power you can just go nuts. I'm also really disappointed in the standard "fighting" abilities, because pretty much the only one that seems worth a drat is Charge, and that's basically just paying a penalty to make up for the fact that you're not using ranged attacks. The basic warrior stuff is boring as hell, and it doesn't get too much better later. Like, the expert path Fighter gets a neat table of Fighter talents to choose from... of which you only get one. If you pick Warrior -> Fighter you basically make one choice the entire time and almost all of your abilities are entirely passive "I hit him with a sword" bonuses. Out of the four warrior-intended expert paths the only one that stays non-magical and is interesting at all is the Ranger, which is only really interesting compared to the 5e one because at least your wilderness bonuses don't have to be chosen in advance. The other ones are Spellbinder (swordmage, essentially) and Berserker, which is nice that you can use that as your concept, except I hope you're ready for gaining Insanity to use your one real class feature that lets you attack at a penalty to do slightly more damage. A lot of the mechanical concepts are okay, like boons and banes, the simplicity of the challenge system, and some of the enemy stuff. But there's almost more of the 5e style "spellcasters get to have options, warriors get to go 'I attack'" a lot than there is in 5e. The only difference is that this game has a lot more forks to get out of that path, by adding some other type of class to your character. Some setting elements are pretty cool, and I really like the titular concept of the Shadow of the Demon Lord, where there's some overarching threat to the world that changes the base game somehow. But the game itself is just another slight d20 variation, in my opinion. Edit: To tack a little more on to my rant, this also has 4e levels of cruft without expanding options significantly said cruft does in 4e. Like the fact that there are something like 20+ classes in 4e is not so horrible because each of those classes is fairly mechanically distinct from the others. The 64 master paths are actually largely pretty dull because there's one for most magic schools, some generic "you're good at archery" or "you take less damage in heavy armor" ones, and a few weird outliers. Zarick fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 22:28
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Zarick posted:I picked this up and while a lot of its mechanics are neat, a lot of this stuff is pretty flatly untrue. While it's true that only rogues and warriors can crit on weapon damage rolls, a reasonable sampling of attack spells have crit damage as well. There's also a ton of wacky poo poo in the spells here, and the spells per level table for this game is per spell, so if you get a decent selection of spells and good power you can just go nuts. It's true that the game absolutely expects that somewhere along one of your paths you'll pick up a spell or two, and I mentioned in the earlier past that yeah, warriors don't get much in the way of interesting stuff, and the game still contains some caster supremacy at the higher levels,but at least casters are required to specialise rather than be good at everything. edit: Actually I mapped it out because spellcaster scaling is non-intuitive. Below is an 'average' spellcaster who is choosing to stick to only two schools as much as possible, and always chooses to learn the most advanced spell possible rather than generalise. You can form your own conclusions based on that.  :end edit Someone earlier asked about the 'weapons and powers': Well, if you're not a spellcaster of any kind you don't get many cool powers, just passive bonuses. It's true. Spells are... kind of 4e-ish? Divided into attack and utility? They're what you mostly expect from RPG spells, really. Weapons/armor are gated not but proficiency but by the old-school requirement of the good ones being expensive (so you're more likely to strip them off a corpse than buy them) and that they literally have Str requirements (or an Agi requirement in the case of a couple of Finesse weapons). For a human to even wield a greatsword normally (and they're 'cumbersome' and give a bane just for wielding one, so you probably want to be a Rogue or Warrior anyway) they'd need to increase their Str by 1 at game start, and then spend all their level up points on Str to hit 13 by level 3 at the earliest. Magic items are expected to be relatively rare, in terms of equipment. On the other hand, healing potions and scrolls are more common. bewilderment fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 23:12
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I talked it out with my DM prior to our session and I'll be able to recover my own spellbook soon in some way since he hadn't really thought about how large an impact it would have on my character compared to the rest of the party. Being without a component pouch or focus until the story lets me get one naturally is a good enough wrinkle but not being able to prepare different spells might have been a bit too difficult.
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Mar 24, 2016 23:18
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Basically, I just want a game that lets me play high fantasy D&D adventure that has some middle ground between 4e's extreme crunch and option bloat, and 5e's handwavy lack of balance and option disparity. So far, I haven't found much. I just want to use a +1 sword and mess up some skeletons and not be less mechanically interesting than the other characters.
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Mar 24, 2016 23:26
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Zarick posted:Basically, I just want a game that lets me play high fantasy D&D adventure that has some middle ground between 4e's extreme crunch and option bloat, and 5e's handwavy lack of balance and option disparity. So far, I haven't found much. I just want to use a +1 sword and mess up some skeletons and not be less mechanically interesting than the other characters. You'll want older editions of D&D (pre-3E).
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Mar 24, 2016 23:28
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Thelonius Van Funk posted:I talked it out with my DM prior to our session and I'll be able to recover my own spellbook soon in some way since he hadn't really thought about how large an impact it would have on my character compared to the rest of the party. Being without a component pouch or focus until the story lets me get one naturally is a good enough wrinkle but not being able to prepare different spells might have been a bit too difficult. I'm glad talking about it worked out. It's the obvious way to deal with problems like these, but many people are incredibly unwilling to just say "hey, I feel like XYZ screwed me over / changed the game for the worse, can we work something out?"
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Mar 24, 2016 23:42
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Zarick posted:Basically, I just want a game that lets me play high fantasy D&D adventure that has some middle ground between 4e's extreme crunch and option bloat, and 5e's handwavy lack of balance and option disparity. So far, I haven't found much. I just want to use a +1 sword and mess up some skeletons and not be less mechanically interesting than the other characters. 13th Age probably. Still has some high-level option imbalance though, and makes the choice to have non-spellcasters be less complicated, although there are well-regarded fan alternatives, like the Vanguard and the Stalwart.
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Mar 24, 2016 23:46
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Zarick posted:Basically, I just want a game that lets me play high fantasy D&D adventure that has some middle ground between 4e's extreme crunch and option bloat, and 5e's handwavy lack of balance and option disparity. So far, I haven't found much. I just want to use a +1 sword and mess up some skeletons and not be less mechanically interesting than the other characters. Play a 3e warblade, pretend the tome of battle and, I dunno, tome of magic and incarnum are the only books that exist?
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Mar 24, 2016 23:48
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Thelonius Van Funk posted:I talked it out with my DM prior to our session and I'll be able to recover my own spellbook soon in some way since he hadn't really thought about how large an impact it would have on my character compared to the rest of the party. Being without a component pouch or focus until the story lets me get one naturally is a good enough wrinkle but not being able to prepare different spells might have been a bit too difficult.
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Mar 25, 2016 00:15
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Ages ago, I played in a game where the spell memorisation worked in a way where you could memorise spells (of levels you're capable of casting) out of any spellbook, so the book would get stolen or burned or soaked or lost or whatever all the time but it didn't matter because every single enemy caster necessarily had their book (scrolls, crystal, flayed tattooed skin, whatever) nearby. The DM would re-skin the spell effects depending on where you'd got that particualr book from, so you might end up shooting bright blue fireballs or your magic missile might be a miniature flaming head that yelled obsscenities as it flew towards the target. A few little sub-plot things happened where someone would recognise their master's spell being cast by someone else, and know that their master was dead, and so on.
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Mar 25, 2016 01:16
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Thelonius Van Funk posted:I talked it out with my DM prior to our session and I'll be able to recover my own spellbook soon in some way since he hadn't really thought about how large an impact it would have on my character compared to the rest of the party. Being without a component pouch or focus until the story lets me get one naturally is a good enough wrinkle but not being able to prepare different spells might have been a bit too difficult. Glad it worked out. The bolded part is funny because OotA specifically warns DMs about this: "What equipment and treasures the characters claim during their escape depend on how much of the outpost they are able to explore before fleeing. For some characters it might be a fun challenge to escape into the Underdark with little more than the clothes on their backs. For others (including spellcasters who need spellbooks or components), consider placing the party's captured equipment..." [REMAINDER REDACTED FOR POSSIBLE SPOILERS]
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Mar 25, 2016 01:23
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AlphaDog posted:your magic missile might be a miniature flaming head that yelled obsscenities as it flew towards the target. I never knew how much I wanted this. Soylent Pudding fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Mar 25, 2016 |
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Mar 25, 2016 01:28
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Soylent Pudding posted:I never knew how much I wanted this. It's my go-to example for telling a new player that they can and should describe their spells however they want.
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Mar 25, 2016 01:36
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Elfgames posted:i mean you can also just say anyone can cast spell scrolls by being literate. I know we did this in our game and it made things more interesting. The paladin got a scroll of fireball when we were level 3 and used it to save our asses from a ghoul horde that had gotten out of control. It's like he grabbed a rocket launcher as we were being overwhelmed by a zombie horde, which was very cool.
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Mar 25, 2016 01:45
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Whenever my charater's Hunger of Hadar ends, it collapses into hundreds of dead moths covered in letters in a language that has yet to be invented.
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Mar 25, 2016 01:49
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Pretty much every other RPG I'm familiar with uses scrolls as "a stored spell that anyone can use, at the cost of the scroll being consumed on use, and not being as effective as a spell directly cast by a dedicated spellcaster" D&D limiting scrolls to only the spellcasters themselves (or to people with high Use Magic Device or whatever) as a gold-sink way of squeezing out more spell slots for themselves is about as specific to this one game system as using Vancian casting when everyone else uses Mana.
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Mar 25, 2016 02:02
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gradenko_2000 posted:Pretty much every other RPG I'm familiar with uses scrolls as "a stored spell that anyone can use, at the cost of the scroll being consumed on use, and not being as effective as a spell directly cast by a dedicated spellcaster" I could've sworn that you could use scrolls and other magic items with stored spells fine as any literate character in 2nd edition but its been over a decade since I played it last.
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Mar 25, 2016 02:20
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Rannos22 posted:I could've sworn that you could use scrolls and other magic items with stored spells fine as any literate character in 2nd edition but its been over a decade since I played it last. Pretty sure it's just wizards (and higher level thieves) in 2nd ed.
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Mar 25, 2016 02:49
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