You do fucking win at D&D.

[...You Lost Me]

I think people realized "oh he's a troll, put him on ignore."

[Koumei]

I stopped paying attention - the argument just got boring rather than being a hilarious trolling exercise. It simply wasn't interesting enough to follow.

[DSMatticus]

I went to bed and woke up with an entire page to catch up with, and could not bring myself to do so. No biggie: I'm sure we'll have this discussion again. Actually, I think it's already happening in that other thread.

[RobbyPants]

I can't believe I have broken my silence here but the situation ... well, it demanded it. Either GC defines his encounter specifically or he takes a seat next to this barrel I keep hearing about while the rest of you go off and talk about something, anything else.

He won't/can't. It's a lot like the theistic argument of God of the gaps, except this is optimization of the gaps.

It's all there, for real, guys! Just in the gaps that we can't (aren't allowed to) observe.

[Mr. GC]

I think people need to recognize just how epically we've been trolled. Not only is he trying to insult and mis-characterize people so that they'll reply, he's doing it while using clearly terrible examples of CharOp for an added insult to anyone who takes it as fact.

I mean, Creeping Cold or Acid Arrow in a spell-storing arrow is epically bad even compared to other pure damage options in the SRD or Spell Compendium. Blood Wind at a 60' means that the full attack is at three range increments and at a -6 to hit, gets no bonuses, and is shitty even for a dragon even after you consider that it'll only get a few because of spell slot limits. I won't even get into the fact that shadow demons are so awful that you'd ignore them the entire combat until everything else was dead because avoiding even one of it's attacks a round means that it's doing like 3 damage a round (and lets face it, a level 5 Sorcerer probably has the touch AC of 17 to do that to this CR 8 monster).

At this point, he can't reveal any more of these "lunatic difficulty" tactics because he'd cement that he was trying to troll the Den with terrible CharOP.

Blood wind at 60 takes a -4 penalty... 65 would be -6. A dragon doing this from 60 feet straight up is basically immune: melee as even with a Fly spell you can only move up 60 feet in a round if you do nothing else and you're not going to have perfect maneuverability at this level. Meanwhile the dragon still has a to hit of hit on a 2 with PA on so whatever.

If you ignore lots of facts, such as the part where Creeping Cold and Acid Arrow were some dots of many, and where the shadow demon was novaing for 100 and otherwise doing 50 and not in fact doing the lol 3 damage a round K is lying and claiming it is then yeah I could see where you'd go full retard like K.

Protip: Proper names are capitalized. If it isn't capitalized (say, shadow demon instead of Shadow Demon, or troll instead of Troll) you're a fucking retard if you think I'm talking about the specific creature if context would suggest otherwise. So if I'm talking about actual threats and you say LOL 3 DAMAGE, it's safe to say you're intentionally being a moron and then displacing your stupidity onto me.

[Username17]

and where the shadow demon was novaing for 100 and otherwise doing 50 and not in fact doing the lol 3 damage a round K is lying and claiming it is then yeah I could see where you'd go full retard like K.

That is complete horseshit.

A Shadow Demon's claws do 1d6 of damage. Iff they are in total darkness, they do an extra +4 damage per hit. They have a Pounce attack where they get two claw attacks in and then two Rake attacks in. If both claws hit, they get a grapple. If the Grapple succeeds (pretty decent chance at +17), they get to keep making claw and rake attacks on subsequent rounds.

So iff they get total darkness and they get a pounce in and all their attacks hit, then they get to do 4d6+16 damage. Which is 30 damage. If they succeed at the grapple check, they get to do it automatically the next round, and it's vile damage. But it's still 30 damage. If everything works. And they are in total darkness.

But total darkness is not actually that easy for it to get. It only gets to cast Deeper Darkness once per day, and they can't touch objects that aren't made of flesh. So they can't do anything cool like cast Deeper Darkness the day before and hold the stone in their mouth and open it when combat begins or anything - they really can only cast their spell on a corpse and then leave it on the ground somewhere. And that's using the 3e rules it was written for. In 3.5, Deeper Darkness doesn't even provide full darkness, but only "shadowy illumination" where the Shadow Demon doesn't get their damage bonus and their big pounce "nova" is... 14 damage.

The Shadow Demon's one and only good trick is that they have Magic Jar once per week. Of course, plans by Demons that make them automatically lose if the PCs have Magic Circle Against Evil are somewhat sketchy - but it's a legitimately very powerful effect.

It's not even theoretically possible for a Shadow Demon to do 100 damage in a round unless you count stupid shit like "it uses its one damning darkness for the day and then several dozen non-evil tiny creatures crowd into the area of effect" or something. A Pounce with all attacks scoring critical and rolling maximum damage in an area of total darkness (that it has no way of creating or preventing the PCs from disrupting with a candle) would be 80 points.

-Username17

[Seerow]

and where the shadow demon was novaing for 100 and otherwise doing 50 and not in fact doing the lol 3 damage a round K is lying and claiming it is then yeah I could see where you'd go full retard like K.

That is complete horseshit.

A Shadow Demon's claws do 1d6 of damage. Iff they are in total darkness, they do an extra +4 damage per hit. They have a Pounce attack where they get two claw attacks in and then two Rake attacks in. If both claws hit, they get a grapple. If the Grapple succeeds (pretty decent chance at +17), they get to keep making claw and rake attacks on subsequent rounds.

So iff they get total darkness and they get a pounce in and all their attacks hit, then they get to do 4d6+16 damage. Which is 30 damage. If they succeed at the grapple check, they get to do it automatically the next round, and it's vile damage. But it's still 30 damage. If everything works. And they are in total darkness.

But total darkness is not actually that easy for it to get. It only gets to cast Deeper Darkness once per day, and they can't touch objects that aren't made of flesh. So they can't do anything cool like cast Deeper Darkness the day before and hold the stone in their mouth and open it when combat begins or anything - they really can only cast their spell on a corpse and then leave it on the ground somewhere. And that's using the 3e rules it was written for. In 3.5, Deeper Darkness doesn't even provide full darkness, but only "shadowy illumination" where the Shadow Demon doesn't get their damage bonus and their big pounce "nova" is... 14 damage.

The Shadow Demon's one and only good trick is that they have Magic Jar once per week. Of course, plans by Demons that make them automatically lose if the PCs have Magic Circle Against Evil are somewhat sketchy - but it's a legitimately very powerful effect.

It's not even theoretically possible for a Shadow Demon to do 100 damage in a round unless you count stupid shit like "it uses its one damning darkness for the day and then several dozen non-evil tiny creatures crowd into the area of effect" or something. A Pounce with all attacks scoring critical and rolling maximum damage in an area of total darkness (that it has no way of creating or preventing the PCs from disrupting with a candle) would be 80 points.

-Username17

I guess you missed his justification that it's a shadow demon, not a Shadow Demon, and thus it arbitrarily does whatever he says it does because shadow demon can mean anything, no point of reference needed

[Mistborn]

I have a bit more knowledge about the monster GC is talking about. I'm not sure why he's referring to it as a "shadow demon". It's not a demon nor does it have any effect that I would associate with shadow. I'm not saying anything more though since I worry I'm going to get kicked out of his game if break my nondisclosure agreement.

Once again though I'm going to catch some flack from GC for this I'm going to ask that some statblocks be posted. Not necessarily the stat blocks from this example but something representative of the sort of monsters a party in a GC style game would be facing.

[nockermensch]

I guess you missed his justification that it's a shadow demon, not a Shadow Demon, and thus it arbitrarily does whatever he says it does because shadow demon can mean anything, no point of reference needed

I wonder why are people still talking to GC, if it was demonstrated about two days ago that he's just a little idiot that saw other, more intelligent people write about char op and thought it would be cool to troll from a nebulous "king of real D&D" position. The cool thing to do now is to talk about GC, in a mocking way, as people here do about shad or tzor.

[sabs]

I have a bit more knowledge about the monster GC is talking about. I'm not sure why he's referring to it as a "shadow demon". It's not a demon nor does it have any effect that I would associate with shadow. I'm not saying anything more though since I worry I'm going to get kicked out of his game if break my nondisclosure agreement.

Once again though I'm going to catch some flack from GC for this I'm going to ask that some statblocks be posted. Not necessarily the stat blocks from this example but something representative of the sort of monsters a party in a GC style game would be facing.

You sir, are an epic troll. I mean, really, a nondisclosure agreement for playing in a game of 3.5 D&D.

I'm just going to assume my initial idea was correct, and you're either an alternate GC account, or you go to highschool with him and are doing this together, giggling like teenie boppers at a Justin Bieber concert, from his house.

[Mistborn]

I wonder why are people still talking to GC, if it was demonstrated about two days ago that he's just a little idiot that saw other, more intelligent people write about char op and thought it would be cool to troll from a nebulous "king of real D&D" position. The cool thing to do now is to talk about GC, in a mocking way, as people here do about shad or tzor.

You have no room to be talking down to anyone nocker not when you've posted this

One: When the DM has a favorite player and you chose to keep playing with them, you don't even have to worry about optimizing more than the DM's pet. In fact, as you just found, doing that is a liability. What you do in these situations is to behave, in character, as if the DM's pet is the show's protagonist (which is already true). You'll notice that in a lot of shows, the sidekicks seem to have more fun than the protagonist, and now you can be a sidekick. Truly, the party shouldn't ever be in real danger, because the DM won't kill the favorite guy. And if you play a support character that helps the protagonist to perform better (bard, support cleric, enchanter) you're basically immortal in that campaign.

Two: If you suspect you're in a table of basket weavers, in particular, that you have a basket weaver DM, and you chose to keep playing with them, you can still have a good time. Really. Look to the less optimized character in that party that's already an old time player. That's your safe bet for how loony you can be and still survive. Seriously man, the key to thrive in such parties is having style, so you can go crazy: str 5 kobold bard, dual knife wielding ranger, evoker, pick any joke concept and roleplay it earnestly. Experienced basketweaver DMs don't want their campaigns to end in the first adventure, so SOMETHING MAGIC will happen that will keep your clown party alive in every encounter that should by the rules trucidate you. Trust me. It's crazy fun.

Finally, three: DMs that play lose with the rules and feel threatened by class abilities usually tend to care a lot about creating stories and role playing, by some perverse materialization of Stormwind Falacy. Therefore, engage aggressively in roleplaying too. By the end of the first adventure, your character should have at very least: One love interest (be sure this one has levels and/or money and/or some other kind of power), one friend and one "friendly rival" (be sure the DM intends this one to die later) chosen from what you have determined, are DM favorite NPCs. While these NPCs are alive, your character is pretty much immortal.

There, I just did you a favor and told you how to have fun in your current gaming environment.

In comparison to that everything that GC has ever posted looks sane and rational. That shit doesn't even make me rage it just makes me want to ask "where on the doll did the your MC touch you?".

[nockermensch]

<bizarre chants>

Dude, don't drink the cool-aid! Don't! Drink! The! Cool-aid!

[Mr. GC]

and where the shadow demon was novaing for 100 and otherwise doing 50 and not in fact doing the lol 3 damage a round K is lying and claiming it is then yeah I could see where you'd go full retard like K.

That is complete horseshit.

A Shadow Demon's claws do 1d6 of damage. Iff they are in total darkness, they do an extra +4 damage per hit. They have a Pounce attack where they get two claw attacks in and then two Rake attacks in. If both claws hit, they get a grapple. If the Grapple succeeds (pretty decent chance at +17), they get to keep making claw and rake attacks on subsequent rounds.

Protip: Proper names are capitalized. If it isn't capitalized (say, shadow demon instead of Shadow Demon, or troll instead of Troll) you're a fucking retard if you think I'm talking about the specific creature if context would suggest otherwise. So if I'm talking about actual threats and you say LOL 3 DAMAGE, it's safe to say you're intentionally being a moron and then displacing your stupidity onto me.

I am very disappointed in you Frank. You should know better than this. Weren't you just correcting someone for taking one word to mean another? And yet you do this...

So here's the actual situation. The shadow demon (note: lowercase, not a proper fucking name) does 15-22/12-17/12-17 which averages out to exactly 47.5. It also auto hits flat footed AC of 30 down. With its nova it adds 54, but it can only do that once. What is 47.5 + 54? I'm glad you asked. It's 101.5!

7-14 damage? Is that what you think it does?

*checks, sees it actually does around 100 with its nova and half that otherwise*

And you think it's CR 8, that's amazing... Protip: I said shadow demon, not Shadow Demon.

Oh hey, half of around 100 is around 50. It's almost as if I'm right or something...

I also neglected to mention this is unbuffed, with buffs the numbers improve substantially, and since it auto hits flat footed AC of 30 down unbuffed that means it can treat everything a bad group would make as Power Attack bait, further improving the DPS projections.

Against a bad party, such as the sort those here would field it can full PA and still auto hit. That puts its max average DPS at around oh... Let's see... 165.5, and -54 without the nova! Yeah, that's going to faceroll some weak parties. And this is an annoyer, not a direct attacker. It can play against its strengths and still win easily. I'd throw this guy at the party... and a bunch of other shit at the same time. That's what a MISTER Gimp Culler game looks like.

As for why the shadow demon is called a shadow demon? That's due to factors he doesn't know or hasn't considered and I'm not going to spoil.

[Chamomile]

Y'know, Mistborn, I'm GMing a game on Skype right now. I'm not a super-awesome GM or anything, but people generally walk away from my games satisfied and I've never forced anyone to sign an NDA. You can play D&D without joining a cult. Jack Chick lied to you.

[Username17]

I am very disappointed in you Frank. You should know better than this. Weren't you just correcting someone for taking one word to mean another? And yet you do this...

So here's the actual situation. The shadow demon (note: lowercase, not a proper fucking name) does 15-22/12-17/12-17 which averages out to exactly 47.5. It also auto hits flat footed AC of 30 down. With its nova it adds 54, but it can only do that once. What is 47.5 + 54? I'm glad you asked. It's 101.5!

Uh... no. This is completely wrong. The English Language absolutely does not work that way. If you refer to "shadow demons" or "Shadow Demons", you're still referring to something in the game that is in fact a "shadow demon". which is a CR 8 outsider on page 172 of the Book of Vile Deeds. That's literally the only "shadow demon" in all of D&D. Anything else would have some other name and be called something else, whether it was capitalized or not.

Things get more ambiguous when you're talking about something like a "troll", since while there is a CR 5 monster named "troll" that you are probably referring to, there are lots of other "trolls". War trolls, ice trolls, half-ilithid trolls (I wish I was making that one up), giant two-headed trolls, cave trolls, slime trolls, scrags, and so on. The capitalization/non-capitalization thing still doesn't help outside the situation where you have an established "Troll" in your conversation. But I repeat: there is not now and never has been any ambiguity in the word "shadow demon" within the context of 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons.

You're just fundamentally wrong about how language works and you should totally apologize to pretty much everyone for wasting their time by using nouns to mean things that do not mean the things they mean to anyone else anywhere in the universe while in a heated and highly technical argument.

-Username17

[Mr. GC]

Uh... no. This is completely wrong. The English Language absolutely does not work that way. If you refer to "shadow demons" or "Shadow Demons", you're still referring to something in the game that is in fact a "shadow demon". which is a CR 8 outsider on page 172 of the Book of Vile Deeds. That's literally the only "shadow demon" in all of D&D. Anything else would have some other name and be called something else, whether it was capitalized or not.

No, when you say Shadow Demon, you are referring to a specific creature. When you say shadow demon, you might be referring to that specific creature or might be referring to anything else that can be described as shadowy and a demon. This doesn't even have to be an actual Tanar'ri.

In this case context very clearly suggests that we're not talking about the specific creature Shadow Demon, and I also explicitly said multiple times we are not talking about that specific creature. And yet, just like how "a troll creature" was repeatedly taken to mean a literal Troll (note, again proper names) even after my explaining otherwise so too are people making the same dumbass mistakes over and over and over again.

Without context as to why the shadow demon is being referred to as such the term becomes even more vague... for all you know, some dumbass NPC saw something that was very good at hiding itself and evil, and called it a shadow demon, and I'm using that name because that's what the party is using to describe it.

Things get more ambiguous when you're talking about something like a "troll", since while there is a CR 5 monster named "troll" that you are probably referring to, there are lots of other "trolls". War trolls, ice trolls, half-ilithid trolls (I wish I was making that one up), giant two-headed trolls, cave trolls, slime trolls, scrags, and so on. The capitalization/non-capitalization thing still doesn't help outside the situation where you have an established "Troll" in your conversation. But I repeat: there is not now and never has been any ambiguity in the word "shadow demon" within the context of 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons.

And when you say "a troll creature" and the context of the actual post makes it clear that I was talking about an undefined creature that messes with (trolls) the party and not a literal troll of any sort, you are a pants on head retard if you continue insisting it is about literal trolls of any sort after specifically being corrected on this point.

You're just fundamentally wrong about how language works and you should totally apologize to pretty much everyone for wasting their time by using nouns to mean things that do not mean the things they mean to anyone else anywhere in the universe while in a heated and highly technical argument.

Or you could stop being overly literal and pick up some basic reading comprehension and deductive reasoning skills.

Final test: Some kid was hated by his parents and was named Pot. You are talking about fixing some dinner in front of him. Should he, or should he not feel he is being personally addressed constantly?

[MGuy]

Or you could just name the demon you're talking about instead of keeping it purposefully ambiguous in order to incite anger and hatred.

In either case I think the thread as run its course. Depending on your definition of "winning" you likely can find a way to win at DnD so with that established what more is there to say?

[nockermensch]

Or you could just name the demon you're talking about instead of keeping it purposefully ambiguous in order to incite anger and hatred.

In either case I think the thread as run its course. Depending on your definition of "winning" you likely can find a way to win at DnD so with that established what more is there to say?

He can't, the troll is using Creation Scientist logic: He had said that his "shadow demon" deals 100 damage in a nova, 50 otherwise, so when pressed to prove that he pulled some numbers out of his ass that "just happened" to fit his claims. And then he congratulated himself. Again.

GC's walls are full of certificates of excellence he awarded himself.

[Red Archon]

I assume, after LM's hilariously dramatic revelation, that he's not disclosing any details because he's currently running the game and doesn't want LM or the supposed other players to come over here and read their statblocks. Which does beg the question: why the fuck would he then choose this encounter to validate his argument?

[...You Lost Me]

I assume, after LM's hilariously dramatic revelation, that he's not disclosing any details because he's currently running the game and doesn't want LM or the supposed other players to come over here and read their statblocks. Which does beg the question: why the fuck would he then choose this encounter to validate his argument?

Tiny, tiny penis.

[Mr. GC]

I assume, after LM's hilariously dramatic revelation, that he's not disclosing any details because he's currently running the game and doesn't want LM or the supposed other players to come over here and read their statblocks. Which does beg the question: why the fuck would he then choose this encounter to validate his argument?

What is actually happening is that several people, including me are running this scenario and he's wanting to get in someone else's game. As they do use the same statblocks, I am naturally reluctant to post them. However there's no harm in mentioning this sort of thing's damage output as all involved have already directly seen that, so it isn't a spoiler and all involved have already been through the scenario so that isn't a spoiler either... statblocks however are, as not all enemies were killed by all groups.

Were he to join that game it'd be after this encounter, and by the looks of things he'd have to deal with this shadow demon later, so you can see why I'm not interested in showing it... in addition to the whole "More facts for people to ignore"... You know, like when I estimated 100 and 50 and then checked the actual numbers and found them to be very, very close to 100 and 50 and posted those numbers and they got ignored. And "More deductive reasoning fail". Such as thinking I mean some lol 3 damage monster when I clearly don't, or thinking I mean some CR 8 2 thing when I've specifically said I am not talking about that. Several times.

[Red Archon]

Vaguely related to discussion of DM vs. Players: anyone here remember the Iron Siege created by or based on the work of Dicefreaks. It was something like "Make an ECL 70 character, win a CR 70 Dispater who is in an impregnable tower." There were a few DM's for this challenge and it was literally the PC trying to win the DM.

It was, even if ridiculous, a very interesting take on this "winning the game" thingy.

[Mr. GC]

Vaguely related to discussion of DM vs. Players: anyone here remember the Iron Siege created by or based on the work of Dicefreaks. It was something like "Make an ECL 70 character, win a CR 70 Dispater who is in an impregnable tower." There were a few DM's for this challenge and it was literally the PC trying to win the DM.

It was, even if ridiculous, a very interesting take on this "winning the game" thingy.

Most of it was "I forgot he can sense anything in contact with the ground" followed by sudden painful death. A true high level display or a serious competition it generally was not.

[Username17]

No, when you say Shadow Demon, you are referring to a specific creature. When you say shadow demon, you might be referring to that specific creature or might be referring to anything else that can be described as shadowy and a demon. This doesn't even have to be an actual Tanar'ri.

This is literally the opposite of how language actually works. If a noun is capitalized, it means that it is either being emphasized or that it is a proper noun. That leaves "Shadow Demon" ambiguous in that it could be emphasized as the shadow demon on page 172, or it could be the name of something. Maybe an incredibly unoriginally named dwarven assassin or a goblin-owned construction and insurance firm.

But when a noun is uncapitalized, it just means that it is the noun in question. Since there is only one thing in D&D that "is" a "shadow demon" as its actual noun type (the monster on page 172 of the BoVD), that is literally the only thing you could be talking about if you use it uncapitalized. If you said the word "shadow demon" and you didn't mean the actual fucking shadow demon on page 172 of the Book of Vile Darkness, you were wrong. You should accept culpability for that wrongness, because it is literally impossible for you to make an argument on this particular point in which you were not wrong and K was not right.

It's a fairly minor point overall, and it does you no favors to continue arguing it.

-Username17

[sabs]

I thought it was more awesome when he pointed out that when he says Troll. He means someone who harasses the party, and not you know, an actual Troll. A Troll (in D&D) is someone who trolls the party, not one of the many ACTUAL Troll species in the actual game.

He's basically equating Troll and Skirmisher.