The Gaming Den

I always just assumed that Hierophant was intended for Epic play, where you don't get any spell progression anyway.

1170112873[/unixtime]][br]It actually sounds more like batman is a rogue with maxxed UMD and an unlimited budget for scrolls and the like. [br][br]In actual practice it could be either one. In terms of pulling crazy special effects out of thin air, the difference between a wizard and a rogue with a...

He's not very smart, either. :) [br][br]I'm not sure exactly how much of a prat you have to be to be disqualified -- e.g., Julian isn't exactly the friendliest of people, but he does turn out to be a fairly decent guy (this isn't a spoiler even if you've never read the Amber series, and if you have ...

[br]Heavily armored fighters in modern fantasy who are awesome (going through my bookshelves):[br][br]Julian (from Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series)[br]Sturm Brightblade (from "Dragonlance")[br]practically anyone from John Boorman's film "Excalibur"[br]practically any of ...

1169869703[/unixtime]]I see your point about Evocation, but in play, all the effective Wizards I've seen are Evokers. Not to mention the Warmage in a game I'm currently running that happened to acquire a Wand of Fireball at 2nd level (the party knocked over a magic item shop). [br][br]In fairness, ...

Blindness is quite nice at low levels, mostly because it's one of the earliest ranged spells that targets Fort; c.f. my comment above about wanting to have spells that can hit any save. In general, though, Necromancy is one of the schools that benefits the most from having the ability to do researc...

1169770405[/unixtime]][br]How did it work back then?[br][br]Were you able to move and attack people as you ran past or did you have to go somewhere and then you could attack everyone around you on your next round? [br][br]You were permitted to attack everyone within 10 feet of you (note: AD&D u...

Endovior, let me try and explain briefly why, around here, spells that do actual damage are viewed as being inefficient:[br][br]In short, opponent hit points in 3.x have increased radically, and spell damage has not. The common example here is the Troll. In AD&D a Troll was a 6+6 HD monster who ...

In a very real sense, despite looking very much like a Rogue, Batman is the Wizard in the context of his campaign. He's a guy who is often not physically a match for the raw destructive power of his opponents, and who has access to a large arsenal of special attacks and special effects whose effecti...

Abjuration has Mind Blank. Unimportant unless you're playing at very high level, but it's something to keep in mind.[br][br]I would rank Transmutation and Necromancy somewhere above the second school of the Illusion/Enchantment axis, mainly because they tend to have good spells that target Ref and F...

I remember "Wind From the East" specifically declaring that Genghis Khan was not a vampire, so apparently some of WW's authors felt much the same way. Of course, he probably turned out to be Kinfolk or whatever in a later supplement.[br][br]Personally, I rather liked pre-rev Mage for prett...

Judging__Eagle at [unixtime wrote:1168892715[/unixtime]]
Although, you do lose a bit of your sheilds defense since Animated is a +3 enchancement.

Only if you can't talk the Cleric into casting Magic Vestment on it.

--d.

1167916952[/unixtime]][br]Meanwhile, Katanas: The Ultimate Weapons of War is just plain silly... but is there really anything else, at least as RPGs go, where Japanophilia even comes up? [br][br]Let's not forget ninjas.[br][br](Even WoD has its own issues with this -- remember "Land of Eight M...

Is the text different between the PHB and the SRD?

Whoops! That's what I get for responding without checking a reference.[br][br]Technically the question is whether "losing your Dex bonus unless you have n ranks of Balance" is the same as "Balancing", but yeah. Have to look through some books to see if I can locate a ruling; it d...

Because the Knight isn't permitted to attack people who are denied their Dex bonus.

The whole notion of dealing with dumb animals is a red herring. If you're permitting ghosts in your campaign, there's good odds you're permitting something as basic as horse archers , which will kill a dire wolf just as dead without any supernatural nonsense at all.[br][br]Dumb things aren't challen...

It's not hard to guess which one you prefer. (That's also the one I prefer, as is surely obvious.)

Crissa seemed to be leaning in the other direction.

--d.

The difference between "give lots of things the ability to attack incorporeal creatures" and "tone down ghost incorporeality so more things can affect it" seems to me to be pretty small.[br][br] The mere fact that most of your challenges can be defeated by a single status effect ...

Ghosts are playable characters in Feng Shui , which is somewhat similar in feel to the D&D style of adventure. They get a couple of different powers from a selection of appropriate ghost-like abilities, and have the disadvantage of requiring someone with a very specific skill to heal them. To th...

Since publishing Frank and K's work would be tantamount to admitting just how horribly they screwed up 3.x, I can't see it happening, certainly not until they're ready to incorporate it into 4.0.

--d.

Wait, Lago -- so being into Dungeons and Dragons isn't enough to make you a target of ceaseless mockery, but liking Anime is beyond the pale?

I always found that one of the easy and fun ways to play WoD without completely breaking the game was to be The Diviner. I don't know if this still works in nWoD, though.[br][br]Particularly in Mage, but to a lesser extent in the other games, a lot of the low-level powers just resolved to "noti...

I haven't played in an FTF game in years, and I don't even play in any online games any more. For a while after I stopped, I kept buying material anyway, because I'm a little bit of a packrat and I had the extra money and nothing else to spend it on.[br][br]I don't bother any more. I'm not planning ...

D&D is a game about getting into fights. A D&D game where you never get to flourish a magic sword heroically, cast a Fireball, smite the undead with the holy might of Pelor, or stab someone in the back isn't much of a D&D game. If engaging in heroic melee is something you're expected to ...