Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:02 am

Prak wrote:buying feats for 4 skill points each

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:05 am

Oh yeah, I'm totally aware of that feat. I make very sure to not bring it up, because I don't want him to decide that feats cost five skill points.

There's no way I'd get the infinite feedback loop past him.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Thu Sep 01, 2016 1:07 pm

Prak wrote:Actually, that raises a question- what's the best balance of spell selection and skill points available at 6th level? I mean, if there was a reasonable way to get good combat spells on, say, a bard, that would be amazing.

Have you considered Beguiler? Int based and 6 skill ranks 1.5 bonus feats per level. You could see if you can get approval for using Apprentice to get any three 1st level spells, any 2 2nd level spells and any 1 3rd level spell you want by level 6. Also, Arcane Disciple if you have any leftover points for Wisdom or can get a wis booster item or something.

Nymph's Kiss at level 1 seems like a no brainer in this game, but that's arguably not kosher what with being free skill ranks (just 2 extra at level 6 though).

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Tue Sep 06, 2016 9:07 pm

Let's say you were developing an action economy similar to 3.x that includes a 'full action' equivalent to 'standard' plus 'move' and an additional 'move' action. What would you siggest for terminology since a 'full' action isn't all you could so.

Example: move + move + standard OR move + full

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:05 pm

I would think renaming standard action might be better?

* Full is now called Standard
* Standard is now called Basic

Full might now even take up ALL the things. ( no extra moves possibly not even a quick )
E.g..
* full action, done
Or
* standard action, move, done
Or
* basic action, move, move, done

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:08 pm

I have no idea what you're talking about because it seems like the full action is taking up all of your partial actions and you have not delineated any further partitions of action, but: Complete, Complex, Concerted, Double, Invested, Slow, Committed.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:37 pm

Does someone still have the original cleric archer thread?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 10:31 am

What good cyberpunk games are there? Aside from Shadowrun and Cyberpunk2020. Preferably more rules-light than Shadowrun. I know about Technoir, but it's more of a noir game with cyberpunk aesthetics.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 7:59 pm

I remember back in 3.0 when saving throws didn't have automatic failure on natural 1s. I remember it so hard, that it's not uncommon for me to forget that they changed this in 3.5 and beyond. Was there ever a good reason why they made this change? It makes design frustrating, because you can never safely be immune to something because it's too weak, only by being immune to the effect itself.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:20 pm

virgil wrote:I remember back in 3.0 when saving throws didn't have automatic failure on natural 1s. I remember it so hard, that it's not uncommon for me to forget that they changed this in 3.5 and beyond. Was there ever a good reason why they made this change? It makes design frustrating, because you can never safely be immune to something because it's too weak, only by being immune to the effect itself.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Honestly, I mostly look at it this way:

The DM has perfect information, the PCs don't. Being immune to things because you can't fail the save is harder to figure out, if you even can figure it out, if you are the attacker.

So unlike flat effect immunities, saving throw RNG immunities would never be figured out, and the PCs would just keep casting a useless spell.

Now, is the always fail on a 1 actually a good fix, of course not, but that's my best guess at the problem they were trying to fix.

Truthfully, I'm not sure that incentivizing people to push their saves off the RNG is a thing that is actually good at all.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 11:06 pm

Agreed. I'm on the fence for good vs. bad on saves having an autofail. I'm thankful that they didn't make autofail on 1 for skills though because that would be shit. I like having a point where I can expect a skill to autosucceed.

GnomeWorks · Post by **GnomeWorks** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 5:27 am

So I know I've read about the idea of a necromancer class that uses essentia for resource management, but has one actually been written?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 5:49 am

GnomeWorks wrote:So I know I've read about the idea of a necromancer class that uses essentia for resource management, but has one actually been written?

Koumei has one for her almost 3.5 but for new players material.

Fourth class down: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=55977& ... r+essentia

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 7:09 am

Longes wrote:What good cyberpunk games are there? Aside from Shadowrun and Cyberpunk2020. Preferably more rules-light than Shadowrun. I know about Technoir, but it's more of a noir game with cyberpunk aesthetics.

It's very likely not what you're looking for being super rules lite, but there's a fan made Blame! 'cyperbunk dungeon crawl' game:
https://desu-usergeneratedcontent.xyz/t ... 984679.pdf

essentia

This strikes me as a mechanic you could make the core part to a fantasy heartbreaker, like a summoner allocating essentia in a similar way to manifest an angel, a pyromancer spending essentia on a big blast an enchanter/cleric putting essentia into allies for a buff, etc.

It also works as a just-as-planned mechanic where the cunning rogue has his essentia placed on two enemies flanking him so when one of them attacks he spends the essentia to have them hit one another.

Call it something like "Chi" or "Focus".

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 11:55 am

Kaelik wrote:OH GOD INT BONUSES GIVE YOU MORE FEATS, BE AT LEAST OLD!

So, my kind of absent minded Old Grey Elf Elf-Paragon3/Elf-Wizard3 with a "noble elven tree octopus" (octopus with amphibious template) familiar grapplemancer is done.

He has 18 fucking feats, 61 hp, psionics, incarnum, and spells, and a 25 Int. I'd give him 27, but I need to keep my Con up for the Incarnum feats.

The fluff is that he found an old tome of teachings from a martial cult of Merrshaulk and started studying it out of curiosity, gaining magical tattoos that he can prepare spells from (spell mastery), the ability to manifest ghostly blue snake scales that make him better at grappling (Girallon Arms soulmeld), super-flexible limbs (aberrant blood), and the ability to become Huge (hidden talent-expansion, a dragon feat that adds your CL and ML for a pair of school and discipline, and bonus PP from incarnum and psi feats).

He has a fucking +21 grapple without spells. When he blows his psi load on round one, that goes up to +31. The only downside to using Expansion instead of Enlarge is that he can't share it with his octopus. But all his buff spells he can, so that octopus is getting greater mage armor, balor nimbus, fearsome grapple, and fist of stone.

God this is going to be amaze-surd.

Edit- does anyone know of a way to get Int bonus to grapple? I will love you forever if you can point me to that.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 3:25 pm

The only way I know if 3 levels of Factotum, but that's more work than it is worth.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 3:38 pm

If Pathfinder is allowed, there's this: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-cl ... s-power-ex (Arcane discoveries are basically feats only wizards can take). Could ask for it to apply to stuff cmb applies to in pf.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 7:10 pm

If you are interested in preparing spells via literal navel-gazing, there are rules for spellbook tattoos in Complete Arcane (page 186) which don't require a feat.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 9:19 pm

So, I missed that you can't buy feats with skill points at first level (because that's crazy). Which means I'm trying to find a way to salvage my build without losing feats or spells or grapple bonus.

What I've worked out is being a Fire Grey Elf (-2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Con, +4 Int, -2 Cha, Unearthed Arcana), and going Arcane Disciple (variant Cleric, 4 skill points per level, no domains, loot a spell from Wizard list each level, but it has to be a level lower than your highest spell available).

This... seems to mostly work. Spell selection is kind of wonky now.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Sep 10, 2016 5:42 am

The first session of playing my grapplemance went down pretty well. I've got to figure out my casting routine, but it looks like I should focus on casting something that will give me a to hit bonus first, then grapple effects.

The campaign started with us having been captured and stripped of gear. I was aware this would be the start, because Mister Cavern's run the same campaign before. He likes having a portion where goofy shit happens fighting goblins and such without the threat of a kill from a lucky shot. That's fine, I suppose, since it's short. I walked in with a character that didn't need a weapon and had Spell Mastery, so I'm not really fussed about it.

When I was able to hit to start the grapple, things went fine. I have Clap of Thunder for all around damage and cast Balor Nimbus before entering an area I expected to be enemy heavy. One of my mastered spells is Greater Mage Armor, so I have an ok AC. Faerie Mysteries Initiate and a 25 Int gives me 61 hp.

So, I'm figuring what I should do is open by casting Fist of Stone, which will help somewhat in the attack for initiating grapples and increase my familiar's damage, which has no problem with the initial to-hit, but has a low grapple and low natural weapon damage. Clap of Thunder is doing 3d6 a round, so it's fine for most incidental fights, and I'll keep my other prepped Balor Nimbus for when I really need to put out 6d6.

But what I want is some idea of where to go from here. Obviously I could do worse than just continuing with wizard. In my mind, though, he picked this stuff up from a dusty old tome from the Yuan-Ti, so I'd like something that thematically fits psionic/arcane acid-spitting constricting snake-people. Does anyone know of published (preferably) stuff that sort of fits, or could be made to fit that? I'm considering going into Rainbow Servant.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sun Sep 11, 2016 5:55 am

Faerie Mysteries Initiate wrote:Passions: You alone engage in an exuberant sensual act. The ritual leaves you invigorated, allowing you to use your Intelligence modifier instead of your Constitution modifier to determine total bonus hit points for the day.

So by elf-fapping for four hours you get more HP just by being smart?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Sep 11, 2016 6:02 am

That's a slightly different version than the original, but it works out the same. The original version published in Dragon requires a partner, but lasts until you perform a different ritual.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 2:45 pm

Why Rainbow Servant? It's mostly useless before 10 for non full list spontaneous casters. If you can't think of anything else, you could go Ruathar (3/4 BAB, full casting, entry requirement is 9 skill ranks in anything (unless your GM is a stickler for fluff prereqs, in which case 'you must have performed a great service to an elf community, such as participating in the defeat of a monster of at least CR 10, recovering a valuable elven magic item, or risking death in order to save an elf's life.') ) till your BAB is high enough for Abjurant Champion.

spongeknight · Post by **spongeknight** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 4:06 pm

radthemad4 wrote:Why Rainbow Servant? It's mostly useless before 10 for non full list spontaneous casters. If you can't think of anything else, you could go Ruathar (3/4 BAB, full casting, entry requirement is 9 skill ranks in anything (unless your GM is a stickler for fluff prereqs, in which case 'you must have performed a great service to an elf community, such as participating in the defeat of a monster of at least CR 10, recovering a valuable elven magic item, or risking death in order to save an elf's life.') ) till your BAB is high enough for Abjurant Champion.

It's just trading power now for power later. Sure, the first 9 levels give you didly dick, but after that you become both a wizard and a cleric, limited only by spells per day and actions per combat- a lot of which you can get around since the cleric spells are now on your spell list and you can use wands and scrolls and shit of cleric spells.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 4:14 pm

spongeknight wrote:
radthemad4 wrote:Why Rainbow Servant? It's mostly useless before 10 for non full list spontaneous casters. If you can't think of anything else, you could go Ruathar (3/4 BAB, full casting, entry requirement is 9 skill ranks in anything (unless your GM is a stickler for fluff prereqs, in which case 'you must have performed a great service to an elf community, such as participating in the defeat of a monster of at least CR 10, recovering a valuable elven magic item, or risking death in order to save an elf's life.') ) till your BAB is high enough for Abjurant Champion.
It's just trading power now for power later. Sure, the first 9 levels give you didly dick, but after that you become both a wizard and a cleric, limited only by spells per day and actions per combat- a lot of which you can get around since the cleric spells are now on your spell list and you can use wands and scrolls and shit of cleric spells.

Uh....

No. Just no.

Like, can you list every single Cleric spell you would ever even think of casting? I can.

It's Commune and Heal (and Mass Heal?) And that's it.

It gives a few down time spells you might ever want for utility, and the Heal spell if you really really really need that in combat healing.

Things on the Cleric list are generally just not better than the things on the Wizard list, because one of them knows all the spells on their list, has d8 HD, has two good saves, and has 3/4th BAB, and the other one is the Wizard.

A Wizard PrC that just gave 4 bonus feats over 10 levels and nothing else would be better than Rainbow Servant. Much less the tons of PrCs that actually have class features to go with their bonus feats.