New game, Newer DM

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Thu Sep 30, 2010 4:57 pm

They are aberrations. This makes them useful in the King of Smack build (any version that involves rapidstrike).

But yeah, aside from that there's never been a reason to use them.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Thu Sep 30, 2010 7:37 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Elans are just really, really terrible. And giving them access to a feat that they can buy for normal price is just not going to make up for that. They get -2 to a dump stat, which is a lot like getting no stat mods. And they get 2 extra psionic power points - which is a lot worse than getting a bonus to a relevant casting stat. And then they get the special ability to spend an Immediate Action and power points to get various defensive bonuses. Which are basically collectively inferior to what Halflings or Dwarves get just for waking up in the morning.

Elan suffer from the fact that they are stupid and ugly and no one likes them. hey don't bring anything interesting to the table and are an effective race to use for zero builds.

-Username17

Up until now I believed that Elans were good early game when you have those extra immediate actions to spend on boosting your saves or absorbing damage and only late game do they become useless when you have better options at your disposal and all their features become a complete liability. Which is why I made the feat.

But now that you look at it from another angle, elans don't give anything that would make you pick them rather than a dwarf or a grey elf, even if you do decide to go full manifesting.

I'll give them something that players would actually care about regardless of whether they decide to take the feat or not.

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 5:14 am

Totally give them +2 Int instead of the bonus power point bullshit. Then give them flavorful "don't need to eat" abilities for free, hand them all the good aberration abilities (60' DV and all), and maybe give some free AC bonus or something.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 8:43 pm

Posted up the genasi and the half-dragon feat. The genasi turned out pretty gimmicky but tell me what you think anyway.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 9:03 pm

just looking at the half dragon feat, it seems a bit much. Hell, the flight alone is worth a feat, by Tome Precedence. Most of the rest isn't too much beyond what product of planar dalliance type feats do, but the flight is basically taking Product of Infernal Dalliance and adding in Wings of Evil as a 1st level feat.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 9:34 pm

Flight at level one as part of a feat sounds pretty good. Have you seen the Tome Half Dragon Racial class? It takes 2 levels investment in that to get flight, which bones casters and is a pretty heavy investment for other characters. When we were looking at magic item rarities I remember Frank suggesting Wings of Flight should be a Major item. Lots of enemies don't have ranged attacks, so flight is auto-win a percentage of encounters.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 10:04 pm

Yea, I've changed flight to dragons breath, still impressive but less powerful.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 10:39 pm

The Air and Fire genasi become amazing with only minimal sphere use. Water genasi has a nice benefit for walking around in a wet tshirt contest, which can be easily triggered.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Sun Oct 03, 2010 12:30 pm

Letting you guys know, I have posted the advert for the game.

Here is the link.

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 4:58 am

I just need to point out the bit about half-dragons... eating 50% more to avoid starvation means burning A LOT of calories. I'm imagining dragonic bulemics who eat a bunch and then breath fire to get rid of all the calories.

It's entertaining.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 2:51 pm

For Valor wrote:I just need to point out the bit about half-dragons... eating 50% more to avoid starvation means burning A LOT of calories. I'm imagining dragonic bulemics who eat a bunch and then breath fire to get rid of all the calories.

It's entertaining.

Have you read the book of Dragon Wank? They state it outright that dragons almost never get fat as all excess food that they eat is converted into elemental energy to be used for their breath weapons.

Some writer over at dragon magazine thought that this was so neat that they added a little extra mechanic where dragons that go on an all out eating spree can use their breath weapons every round.

Meh.

Anyway, I got another question. What is a good number of days or weeks to give players for crafting items before the game start? Or should it be: "if you take a crafting feat, you start with an x number of extra magic items"?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Oct 04, 2010 9:42 pm

alright, so what are we doing about magic item pricing? Are we assuming that 7th level characters have hit the point where they just summon efreets and spam wishes so we get +5 to all abilities and all our slots filled with minor items?

How much do you want moderate and greater items to cost?

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Tue Oct 05, 2010 1:50 am

woah, you can do that at 7th level?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Oct 05, 2010 2:04 am

For Valor wrote:woah, you can do that at 7th level?

No, you can't.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Oct 05, 2010 2:16 am

actually you can. You can easily buy a scroll of planar binding or gate, and grab an efreeti, the CL of the scroll, or even just your HD, controls it, and you get it's wishes, just use one for wealth and keep buying scrolls.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Oct 05, 2010 3:11 am

Prak_Anima wrote:actually you can. You can easily buy a scroll of planar binding or gate, and grab an efreeti, the CL of the scroll, or even just your HD, controls it, and you get it's wishes, just use one for wealth and keep buying scrolls.

No, you can either present a level 7 build that can reliably make a DC 29 UMD check, immediately followed by two DC 37 UMD checks, or you can't use a scroll of gate.

And scrolls of Planar Binding don't fucking do anything you retard. Seriously, Planar Binding an Efferti has a less than 50% chance of turning two scrolls into a single item and nothing else. You can't difference engine with Planar Binding in Tome rules.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Oct 05, 2010 3:35 am

ok, whatever.

I'm just trying to figure out what the fuck dom wants us to do for equipment.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Oct 05, 2010 3:56 am

Prak_Anima wrote:ok, whatever.

I'm just trying to figure out what the fuck dom wants us to do for equipment.

He already said:

1 lesser magic item, 4 minor magic items, 3000gp on non magic/consumables.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Oct 05, 2010 4:38 am

huh, missed that. I feel dumb. thanks.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 9:59 am

I'm having a bit of problem right now with multiple players wanting to go lycanthropy yet not having a playable lycanthropy write-up. Let's try to fix that.

Contacting Lycanthropy - works just like in the DMG, a character gains no benefits until nightfal where he transforms into an animal and loses control of his character. The character then changes back at dawn.

Lycanthrope Paragon (TBD)
"I will turn my curse into my greatest weapon."

Characters who have decided to embrace their state instead of looking for a cure start by taking levels in this class, allowing them to become far more powerful. Characters that were born as lycanthropes need to take this class at first level

Hid die: 1d12
Saves: All Good
BAB: 1/1
Skill points: (4+int) per level, x4 at level one
Class skills: Athletics, Acrobatics, Handle Animal, Survival, Heal, Stealth, Awareness, Sense Motive.

1: Transformation, Speak with Animals
2: Terrible Transformation, Improved Form.
3: Were-Lord.

Transformation: A lycanthrope character can now turn into his animal or hybrid form at will as a free action on his turn. These forms do not provide any bonus hit die but bestow the lycanthrope with any special attacks the animal has while he is in animal form. The character also gains one bite, two claw attacks, low-light vision, scent, DR 5/silver and moves 10 feet faster while in both forms.

In addition, the character gains an enhancement bonus to one ability score equal to +1/3 per character level while either in animal or hybrid form (minimum 1). The ability score is determined by selecting the highest ability score the animal has.

Speak with Animals: The character can freely speak with the type of animal that he can transform into and gains a +4 bonus to charisma checks while doing so.

Terrible Transformation: When a lycanthrope transforms all that see him do so must make will save (DC is charisma based) or panic for 1d6 rounds, those that save are instead shaken for 1 round. A creature can be affected by this ability only once every 24 hours.

Improved Form: The lycanthropes claws and bite now count as being a minor magic item and provide an 1/3 per level enhancement bonus to attack and damage.

Were-Lord: The character has unlocked his full potential. He can freely cast spells in both his animal and his hybrid form. His DR improves to 10/silver and he gains fast healing 1.

In addition, he retains all the benefits of his animal and hybrid forms even while he is in his human form with the exception of his claws and his bite attack.

Tell me what you think.

Also, I was hoping that Roy would be interested enough to apply but that's neither here nor there.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 5:41 pm

Dominicus, that's not especially balanced between animal types (compare weretiger and werebear). Your best bet might be to figure out what specific lycanthrope types players are interested in and coming up with something from there.

If you stick with the current setup, transformation should probably be an immediate action or a free action 1/round.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 8:16 pm

Dominicius wrote:Also, I was hoping that Roy would be interested enough to apply but that's neither here nor there.

I refuse to have anything further to do with MW, and I also don't play Tome games. System analysis is free though.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 8:55 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Dominicus, that's not especially balanced between animal types (compare weretiger and werebear). Your best bet might be to figure out what specific lycanthrope types players are interested in and coming up with something from there.

If you stick with the current setup, transformation should probably be an immediate action or a free action 1/round.

I see your point. I'll probably need to create separate bonus for animals.

Could limiting the number of special attacks the lycantrope can gain in animal form to one help diminishing the problem? Of course, some special attacks will still remain quite a bit better than others (weretiger-wererat for instance).

I refuse to have anything further to do with MW, and I also don't play Tome games. System analysis is free though.

It's really not too bad as long as you stay away from Gaming Discussion. That place is terrible.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Oct 06, 2010 9:49 pm

Dominicius wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote:Dominicus, that's not especially balanced between animal types (compare weretiger and werebear). Your best bet might be to figure out what specific lycanthrope types players are interested in and coming up with something from there.

If you stick with the current setup, transformation should probably be an immediate action or a free action 1/round.
I see your point. I'll probably need to create separate bonus for animals.

Could limiting the number of special attacks the lycantrope can gain in animal form to one help diminishing the problem? Of course, some special attacks will still remain quite a bit better than others (weretiger-wererat for instance).

IMO less the lycanthrope has in common with the animal (and with real lycanthropes), the less interesting it is. Generic abilities that can be flavored into a whole host of aesthetically different options are great for some games, but generally not D&D.

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Thu Oct 07, 2010 3:00 am

Dominicius wrote: Were-Lord: The character has unlocked his full potential. He can freely cast spells in both his animal and his hybrid form. His DR improves to 10/silver and he gains fast healing 1.

In addition, he retains all the benefits of his animal and hybrid forms even while he is in his human form with the exception of his claws and his bite attack.

Tell me what you think.

The relevant quote from Tomes you want is this one:

Tomes wrote: If you take part of your character – any part of your character – and part of a monster from one of the many monster books in D&D, and you put them together into a single Voltron-like body, you have broken D&D.

I'd say this isn't on par with the crackpot madness that is 3.X Polymorph or Wild Shape, except it is.

Edit: Meh, posting without giving it more thought leads to insipid posts like that. Ignore. On further thought, it's not as big a deal as I thought. Carry on.