The Gaming Den

Stop right there. Surgo, are you whining in defense of spells in non-core referencing material in general, or just in this thread specifically?
I seriously hope you haven't underestimated me to this degree.

So in conclusion have an example of what should not be done:

Tome of Fiends at [unixtime wrote:1149050648[/unixtime]]
Carnage
Special: All of your damaging spell-like abilities do vile damage.
Level, Benefits
1 Seething Eyebane
3 Blade of Fear and Pain
5 Lahm’s Finger Darts
7 Blade Barrier
9 Fleshshiver
11 Disintigrate
13 Flensing
15 Horrid Wilting
17 Mass Harm
19 Implosion

The spells here in bold would, to anyone without the appropriate (read: extraneous library) splat book, remain unknown.
As a reader, the player simply wouldn't have a clue what these mean in intention or purpose without the right book(s).
What could be done is, next to each non-core spell, place a similar spell found in the PHB or SRD.
Doing this would make such game material more accessible to a larger audience.
Moving on now.

Considering how this is in the thread about spells that fvcking kill people (not the thread for the Tome of Necromancy), and your post was in response to someone talking about how they were intrigued by the inclusion of non-core spells in said list of spells that fvcking kill people, and that the Tome of Necromancy was not specifically brought up until Bigode said something about it after the posts in question, it was a pretty safe assumption that this was all talking about the list of spells that fvcking kill people.

If you want to talk Tome of Necromancy though, I fail to see why the end-user could not, if they do not have access to said books, find a spell that was level-appropriate and seemed to cause carnage and substitute that in instead. Pretending that outside material doesn't exist and refusing to use it is every bit as bad as using it occasionally. Worse, I'd say.

That lpost inside a post thing looks bizarre.

Oh, I just noticed that stupid "Ray of 1d4+1 Int Damage" isn't on here. That'll take out a surprisingly large subset of monsters in one hit (Animals and many Magical Beasts have Int 2).

Now that is one weird looking post.

Jacob_Orlove at [unixtime wrote:1200687608[/unixtime]]That lpost inside a post thing looks bizarre.

Oh, I just noticed that stupid "Ray of 1d4+1 Int Damage" isn't on here. That'll take out a surprisingly large subset of monsters in one hit (Animals and many Magical Beasts have Int 2).

Isn't it called ray of stupid?

CatharzGodfoot at [unixtime wrote:1200695991[/unixtime]]

Jacob_Orlove at [unixtime wrote:1200687608[/unixtime]]Oh, I just noticed that stupid "Ray of 1d4+1 Int Damage" isn't on here. That'll take out a surprisingly large subset of monsters in one hit (Animals and many Magical Beasts have Int 2).

Isn't it called ray of stupid?

No it's called a ray of WOTC game design. Those who are hit by it leave combat and start designing 4E.

(Those who hit by it twice are given the positon of head of WoTC Customer Management.)

In the Tome noncore referencing issue: yeah, I know any GM could insert core material in, but that's an hilarious instance of Oberoni Fallacy; of course, I think just source listing like in this thread would do the trick, no need for anything else.

Except that the Oberoni fallacy is about bad mechanics, not bad indexing/cross referencing.

A brief definition of it is "there's no problem because the GM can fix it", where the fact that "it" is "a problem" is glossed over. I may be missing some detail, but what I say above's exactly what Surgo said.

In the case of using material or not using it, every DM who uses the material will be sad if you don't include it and every DM who does not use the material will be sad if you include it.

While it certainly would be possible to rewrite everything so that people who use It's Cold Outside by not BoVD; Spell Compendium but not Complete Arcane 2; or PHB2 but not DMG2 could all automatically have the appropriate material presented for them - that's really hard. And we didn't do it because it's a very large amount of effort for relatively little return.

We mostly ignore the Races of... series and completely ignore the second Complete series. The environmental books get referenced out to It's Wet Outside (but only barely), and I think the only reference to It's Not Outside or It's Crowded Outside is a disdainful offhand joke or two.

BoVD gets referenced but Book of Exalted Deeds material is only brought up as a straw man because that's all it is good for. Heroes of Horror gets props and Champions of Valor does not. Heroes of Battle only gets the briefest nods and it is marked (in the Uttercold Assalt Necromancer as I recall).

---

In short, we very explicitly use the same non-core material that the people who wrote Dungeon Magazine did when it was a magazine. Because that is he closest approximation of "actual play" that we are likely to see.

If you use more or less material than that I'm sure you can figure out how to integrate that. But people turn to the Tomes for ideas on integrating non-core material into the world and the game at least as much as they do for replacing non-core supplements.

-Username17

But simply referencing which books they're from would've been enough - anyway, since everything's going to hell now, that hardly matters ...

Yeah I'd at least like a source notation next to each non-core spell so that when I or another gamer comes across some unusual spell, searches SRD for it only to draw a blank, aren't left pondering "what the hell is this supposed to be?"

SERIOUSLY, quit your fucking bitching. Jesus, do we have to do fucking everything for you now?

http://www.imarvintpa.com/dndLive/FindSpell.php

I don't see it as too far fetched to at least note the source for non-SRD stuff.

-Crissa

We also wrote this based on the actual rules, not the SRD. So we talk about Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion and Mind Flayers. Searching the SRD won't always help you, and I don't really care that much because it's written as an adjunct to the rule books.

-Username17

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1200990560[/unixtime]]I don't see it as too far fetched to at least note the source for non-SRD stuff.

-Crissa

Thanks for mentioning. I was beginning to think maybe Bigode and I were crazy for even suggesting.

Yea, it would be nice. But they didn't. Deal with it. If you search the SRD and it ain't in there, search the internets for the book that it is in. If you want it mentioned in the F+K SRD, discuss it in that thread. Offer to help the people that make it.

Is there any particular reason why Slow is not part of this list?

zugschef wrote:Is there any particular reason why Slow is not part of this list?

Because it doesn't kill people. Most real monsters and characters can respond by still casting spells, so that is not a very impressive kill spell, unlike say Stinking Cloud which stops spellcasting.

At the levels it first comes online, it doesn't even stop any attacks, and melee chargers can just charge you still.

Kaelik wrote:

zugschef wrote:Is there any particular reason why Slow is not part of this list?

Because it doesn't kill people. Most real monsters and characters can respond by still casting spells, so that is not a very impressive kill spell, unlike say Stinking Cloud which stops spellcasting.

At the levels it first comes online, it doesn't even stop any attacks, and melee chargers can just charge you still.

Yeah, forgot about that and it's SR:yes on top. The only thing this spell has got going for it is the target selection, but this is seriously restricted by the short range. Now I actually wonder, why so many people love this spell.

slow is something you cast to get by when the mc has swamped your beguiler with bugs and undead because he hates you and routinely dicks your illusion spells.

Whipstitch wrote:slow is something you cast to get by when the mc has swamped your beguiler with bugs and undead because he hates you and routinely dicks your illusion spells.

I thought that mindless monsters are totally fvcked when confronted with figments...

Oh, they definitely should, but a lot of dms will basically rage quit or make some shit up for that not to happen.

Slow is loved because it was the bomb in AD&D. Good range, large area, selectable targets so you could cast it into melee (back when that mattered), and a duration of 3 rounds +1 round/level. And of course, back then enemies just straight up only attacked every other turn while slowed, meaning that you could do bizarre Tekken juggle bullshit. Also, it fucking stacked (somehow, that was not clear in the PHB).

People are simply used to loving the spell because it was so brutally effective in AD&D land. The fact that it's really kind of crap in 3e is one of those things that people just haven't fully adjusted to even now. Like how people still don't fully understand on an intuitive level that Magic Missile is a piece of shit.

-Username17

B-b-but Frank, it CAN'T MISS! OF course it's awesome!