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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

Prak wrote:
While "how hard is it to stand on a pile of gold" has probably not been asked and answered on it's own, "can you swim in a vault of gold" has probably been asked and answered on the internet a lot, and it probably has some side piece about standing on it.
The Beagle Boys have tried to dive into the coins and badly hurt themselves before, Scrooge says there's a special trick to doing it, so it's more an (EX) ability of the billionaire duck than it is a matter of just physics
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Post by Stahlseele »

As for standing on it:
effectively, it is hundreds and thousands of slippery little things under your lower digits, that all slip and slide all over each other.
So, standing still, only pressure going downwards should be easy enough.
Actual movement may end up like walking on ice or on an avalanche of pebbles.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Voss wrote:Well, a pool playing dragon (and friends) was a staple of Dragon magazine for most of its first decade of existence.

Wormy:
https://sites.google.com/site/wormycoll ... on-issue-9
I think that I never read Wormy as a collected comic, because I lost all memory of Wormy's 1970's underground comic inspired glory. Such a comic wouldn't have been possible in the '80's or onward. Cultural art sensibilities have simply moved on from there.

Going through the pages the setting and backstory seem like they might add interesting things to fantasy settings; like Huge/ Colossal+ size creatures who take part in (illegal) competitive "wargaming", using medium-large sized creatures as their "playing pieces"
https://sites.google.com/site/wormycoll ... n-issue-88
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Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Thu Nov 16, 2017 6:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Voss »

Judging__Eagle wrote:
Voss wrote:Well, a pool playing dragon (and friends) was a staple of Dragon magazine for most of its first decade of existence.

Wormy:
https://sites.google.com/site/wormycoll ... on-issue-9
I think that I never read Wormy as a collected comic, because I lost all memory of Wormy's 1970's underground comic inspired glory. Such a comic wouldn't have been possible in the '80's or onward. Cultural art sensibilities have simply moved on from there.
It started in '77, but ran for almost the entire duration of the 80s- the last comic was 1988. The only reason it stopped is because the artist went weird and refused to send any more.

The art style wasn't even unusual for the 80s.
Last edited by Voss on Thu Nov 16, 2017 3:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Wormy's a good read, really well drawn too
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Post by virgil »

Current campaign: Planescape. Pathfinder rules + splats

The players are level 9 each, with above average WPL (by about 25%). On top of that, they each have a single Tome Medium magic item. They consist of a Warforged Fighter w/TWF, Human Oracle with a big sword, Human heal-bot Cleric, & an Aasimar Arcanist with a preference for fireballs (dropped spell research notes for a few lower level evocation spells, like cantrip polar ray & shocking grasp, 3rd level delayed blast fireball & shout, etc).

I've introduced an NPC antagonist a few levels ago. To save on time, I just used a tiefling Tome Assassin two levels higher than the APL, used PF-only feats/spells, equipped them with less than half the standard wealth of their level (only consumable was Elixir of Hiding), and went from there. Well, the NPC is a freakin' TPK, so I've adjusted the motivation to be "mild extortion" instead of "murder."

They've been harassed a couple times by this NPC (nicknamed by the party as Black Spot) over the last four levels, muttered about putting him on their "To Kill" list, and got distracted by other plots without putting in any actual effort to find him. I've since decided to have him make one more appearance, and I suspect the party will put in the effort this time around - which means I need to set up what they will find. I'm currently tempted to have Black Spot harass a noble to the mental breaking point, killing his family slowly, and eventually just killing the noble and disguising himself as the bereaved noble gone mad in his hunt for Black Spot - getting the noble's wealth funneled to himself and giving him the chance to set up a reputation for himself for future contracts. It also means I can drop all manner of red herrings on the players when they come to the noble for clues.

I'm having a legit problem with how to handle what Black Spot would do in this scenario. He only wants to kill when paid, has an obviously dark sense of humour, and also wants to survive the PC's wrath.
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Post by SlyJohnny »

Sounds like the kind of guy that would have another bolt hole/reserve identity set up, that he can jump into after this one, a more minor noble, maybe. Maybe if there's rumours that Lord Soandso has been really reclusive lately and was looking pale and haunted the last time anyone saw him alive, then the PC's might figure it out and set up a trap for him.
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Post by deaddmwalking »

What would really get him off is if he was hired to do the assassination and used the PCs as his weapon. He finds some way to accuse the noble of being the Black Spot (maybe a servant dismissed that saw this distinctive man hanging about before a radical persoanlity shift). If the PCs 'succeed' they become wanted and need to prove that he was behind it before they are executed for the crime.
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Post by hyzmarca »

Prak wrote:Actually, that gives me an idea, Josh.

While "how hard is it to stand on a pile of gold" has probably not been asked and answered on it's own, "can you swim in a vault of gold" has probably been asked and answered on the internet a lot, and it probably has some side piece about standing on it.

So off to XKCD's What If archives I go.
It honestly depends on how tightly the coins are packed.

In a proper container, where the coin pile is supported by the walls of the container, it isn't going to be that much different than fighting on a container full of loose dirt. Meaning that your weight on the coins will be distributed though the pile to the container walls, and as long as you don't move fast you'll be okay.

Without supporting walls, it won't be that much different from climbing a pile of loose dirt. Which is to say that the outer layers will immediately crumble off due to your weight. Pressure caused be standing on them will make the pile try to spread out more, and any movement will break off pieces of the pile.

In both cases, the important thing is to minimize pressure and maximize friction, spread your weight around as far as possible. Maximize your contact area. You're not going to sink into the coins, but you will slide around on them and they will come off the pile if you apply enough lateral force to them, and enough isn't much.

Basically, a pile of coins works on the same physics as every other pile of loose particles. In coins, the particles happen to be bigger, is all.
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Post by virgil »

Does a Sleight of Hand check break invisibility?

Can you use Sleight of Hand to expose someone to contact poison?
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Post by deaddmwalking »

virgil wrote:Does a Sleight of Hand check break invisibility?
No.
virgil wrote: Can you use Sleight of Hand to expose someone to contact poison?
No.

The reasons for this is all arbitrary, but if you want the full explanation, let me know. I'm bored, so I'm going to pontificate.

By a strict reading of Sleight of Hand, you can't use the skill to plant an item on another character. You can hide something on yourself or take something from someone else or use it for the purpose of entertainment. Of course, that's probably simple oversight and I imagine that most GMs would allow a player to 'unpick' a pocket the same way they pick a pocket. In any case, sleight of hand is not used as an 'attack'.

The spell description for invisibility has special language regarding what constitutes an 'attack'. If you cast cure light wounds on a foe, that's an 'attack'. If you cast the same spell on an ally, it is not. If you try to 'touch' someone, you make an attack roll (a touch attack) not a sleight of hand check. Thus, if you try to directly touch someone with contact poison, you would be making an attack roll and you would become visible. On the other hand, you could invisibly place the poison on an object that they then touched (such as a doorknob that they were approaching) because the spell explains that indirect harm doesn't count. Since you're not making any attack rolls and/or casting any spells that target a foe/a foe's area you're good.
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Post by virgil »

How much information should speak with plants give?
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

It's a 3rd level spell with some pretty sharp limitations, so I'd be generous within those limitations.
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Post by virgil »

This is for a personal spell design idea for 3.X. I've got most of the framework, but a couple major points are undecided.
Spell Effect wrote:Your next attack with a weapon (melee or ranged) will, if it hits for damage, will strike one of the target's eyes. The damage is permanent, but can be restored with remove blindness/deafness or similar regenerative magic. This deals 1d6 bleed damage. A successful Reflex saving throw reduces this to 1d4 hours of loss of sight in that eye and eliminates the bleeding. The victim also gains a -2 penalty on Spot checks and treats all targets as having concealment for a 2d6 minutes.
As you can tell, the specific goal is generate a spell that creates an eye gouge effect.
  • What school? Divination is a likely suspect, but Necromancy is a nice thematic choice.
    What spell level? I'm guessing 2nd level, mainly because of the bleed.
    What duration? Should it work like true strike or holding the charge?
Last edited by virgil on Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by RobbyPants »

virgil wrote:This is for a personal spell design idea for 3.X. I've got most of the framework, but a couple major points are undecided.
Spell Effect wrote:Your next attack with a weapon (melee or ranged) will, if it hits for damage, will strike one of the target's eyes. The damage is permanent, but can be restored with remove blindness/deafness or similar regenerative magic. This deals 1d6 bleed damage. A successful Reflex saving throw reduces this to 1d4 hours of loss of sight in that eye and eliminates the bleeding. The victim also gains a -2 penalty on Spot checks and treats all targets as having concealment for a 2d6 minutes.
As you can tell, the specific goal is generate a spell that creates an eye gouge effect.
  • What school? Divination is a likely suspect, but Necromancy is a nice thematic choice.
    What spell level? I'm guessing 2nd level, mainly because of the bleed.
    What duration? Should it work like true strike or holding the charge?
What's the casting time? Swift?

That seems like a fairly strong 2nd level spell and an okay 3rd level spell. Comparing to Blindness/Deafness, the range is somewhat variable (compared to Medium), and it's triggered on an attack vs AC instead of a Fort save.

Does the target get SR to resist? If yes, this sounds like a Necromancy effect (but it should probably be Fort: partial). If no, then it might be a divination effect. It could be Transmutation if the weapon is being altered to hit like this.
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Post by virgil »

It's technically an attack roll and a Reflex save. And no, the idea was for there to be no SR.

I've considered it being a Swift action cast with one round duration. I've also considered it a standard action cast time, with it being either a longer duration or a held charge. In both cases, it'd be discharged whether the next attack hits or not.
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Post by nockermensch »

virgil wrote:It's technically an attack roll and a Reflex save. And no, the idea was for there to be no SR.
Because the difference between "partial blindness" being permanent and merely lasting for 1d4 hours makes such a huge difference for a combat spell, right?
Also, what happens you use this spell again on somebody who already lost an eye? On a cyclops? On a beholder?

Since attack rolls can be True Striked so that you'll be hitting on a 2+ vs all but the most hardcore of the foes and since the Reflex Save is there just to negate bullshit bleed damage, I'd make this spell level 3, because it's a hefty debuff that you get to inflict with no save on pretty much anyone.

Finally, it's probably a Divination.
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Post by erik »

virgil wrote:This is for a personal spell design idea for 3.X. I've got most of the framework, but a couple major points are undecided.
Spell Effect wrote:Your next attack with a weapon (melee or ranged) will, if it hits for damage, will strike one of the target's eyes. The damage is permanent, but can be restored with remove blindness/deafness or similar regenerative magic. This deals 1d6 bleed damage. A successful Reflex saving throw reduces this to 1d4 hours of loss of sight in that eye and eliminates the bleeding. The victim also gains a -2 penalty on Spot checks and treats all targets as having concealment for a 2d6 minutes.
As you can tell, the specific goal is generate a spell that creates an eye gouge effect.
  • What school? Divination is a likely suspect, but Necromancy is a nice thematic choice.
    What spell level? I'm guessing 2nd level, mainly because of the bleed.
    What duration? Should it work like true strike or holding the charge?
A no-save, no SR blinding spell, and you can put it on the entire party before a fight. I think this needs tweaking.

Reduce the result of a successful save to either +1d6 damage with no penalty or 1d6 damage+1 round duration of the penalty (made you blink!)... and make it level 3. Level 2 if it has to be fired off in the next round like True Strike.

Divination sounds fine.

Compare to other level 3 no SR attack spells.

• Flame Arrow, makes lots of projectiles give 1d6 fire damage, and can only use them probably only in 1 battle thanks to duration.
• Sepia Snake Sigil (10 min casting time, reflex vs long duration paralysis, no effect on successful save, difficult to trigger and has 500gp material component)

I think with my tweak (a successful save is meaningful in combat) it falls somewhere between those two.
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Post by virgil »

That works, thanks. As an aside, I didn't mean for the spell to be grantable to others. I think inflicting a single round of concealment on a successful save should be fine.
When traveling the Astral Plane, natural healing is paused. Would this include "natural" fast healing as you see on trolls? When all spells & spell-likes gain Quicken, does this mean you largely can't cast two spells per round because you can't opt out of making them Quickened?
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Post by Schleiermacher »

virgil wrote:When traveling the Astral Plane, natural healing is paused. Would this include "natural" fast healing as you see on trolls?
Trolls have Regeneration, not Fast healing -the rules are different. But both work on the Astral Plane. They are Extraordinary abilities, not natural healing.
(This is a legalistic answer, naturalistically it does perhaps make more sense for Regeneration and Fast Healing to also stop because the cause is the plane's "timeless" trait and both do rely on the passage of time. House rule as desired.)
When all spells & spell-likes gain Quicken, does this mean you largely can't cast two spells per round because you can't opt out of making them Quickened?
Yes. All spells means all spells, and you can't opt out of having planar traits apply to you. It's not necessarily intended to be a benefit.
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Post by virgil »

Related Astral question - I feel like there's been a rule in 3.X that extradimensional spaces don't function while in the Astral. Am I just imagining things?
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Post by RobbyPants »

virgil wrote:Related Astral question - I feel like there's been a rule in 3.X that extradimensional spaces don't function while in the Astral. Am I just imagining things?
The Bag of Holding and Portable Hole have very specific interactions with each other, but there are no listed interactions for things like Heward's Handy Haversack.

I think this is an issue of the first two were items from older editions, where these weird astral rules were created, but the HHH was something new, and... they just sort of forgot to add any rules to it.

Also, I don't remember any general case rules for the astral plane. I thought it was just two weirdly specific rules about those two items, period. The bag in the portable hole makes a rift that destroys both. The hole in the bag makes a gate that draws everything in within a 10 foot radius, then the two items are destroyed. And that's just it. You could try to extrapolate something broader from this, but I don't think there are any specific astral rules regarding "extra dimensional space".
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Post by virgil »

If your party, currently living in Sigil, wants to go hunting for astral diamonds - what's a good setup for this goal? Just let them start digging into whatever god corpse they find, raid a githyanki mining fortress, turn tricks in the back alleys of Tu'narath?
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Post by OgreBattle »

virgil wrote:If your party, currently living in Sigil, wants to go hunting for astral diamonds - what's a good setup for this goal? Just let them start digging into whatever god corpse they find, raid a githyanki mining fortress, turn tricks in the back alleys of Tu'narath?
Dangerous monster infested mines and space pirates
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Post by deaddmwalking »

virgil wrote:If your party, currently living in Sigil, wants to go hunting for astral diamonds - what's a good setup for this goal? Just let them start digging into whatever god corpse they find, raid a githyanki mining fortress, turn tricks in the back alleys of Tu'narath?
Most of the best sources are secured - they have the option of taking out a Githyanki fortress and capturing what's already there and/or setting up shop themselves. Or they can attack the next shipment. Or if they want to take the 'easy way' there is a Tropical Astral Island populated by vicious beasts that is rumored to have them. Getting to the island, recovering the diamonds and then getting away (without having their haul taken by pirates) is an option.
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