Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Prak]

What would you do to make grafts in D&D not suck? There's really no set rules for their prices, and I don't particularly feel like dissecting a bunch to try to determine a formula that probably isn't actually there in the first place. Without a formula, a player is limited to the "pile of crap with a few nuggets of gold" in the books and mother-may-I.

I'm looking at maybe statting up a grafter as a back-up character for the game I'm playing in, so this has to gel with pretty standard D&D rules (ie, "have a graft take up one of your eight slots" doesn't really work). So far, the to-spec thing I'm writing starts by making Graft Flesh a normal Item Creation feat that basically is an alternate form of Craft Wondrous Item that has a skill prereq instead of caster level, and adds in a "heal people by playing chirurgeon" aspect. This has the benefit of piggybacking on normal item creation rules that, while all over the place, at least function, and means that once I figure out the price increase for "this cannot be removed from you without force, and isn't magical in the normal sense" I can at least just pull up random items and say "I want this in a body part."

Thinking on it, maybe there doesn't even need to be a price increase. The aesthetic of grafts in D&D is pretty full on stitch-punk, so you could just say that grafts are considered exceptionally well-secured items that necessitate pinning the "wearer" and give them a +8 or whatever bonus to resist being, er, disarmed.

Then they just need to have their prices increased to not take a standard slot (but you can always say the magic of your stitched on arm prevents you from wearing bracers to avoid that), and maybe a price increase to not be subject to AMFs. And even then, you could honestly probably just say that in an AMF, grafts function as normal for their body part, but any special powers are subject to the normal rules for magic items, with maybe some exceptions for physical wings and shit.

[Username17]

Grafts have the unfortunate lot to be in the rnage of magic items you might want between 7th and 12th level. That is coincidentally the low end of the curve as far as wealth by level interacting with rising equipment costs. Simply put: the WBL chart does not output level appropriate piles of gold during those levels.

As you go up in level you need to have more magic items and the cost of level appropriate items rises quadratically. The wealth by level rises exponentially, but before about level 12 or so it doesn't keep up.

Level	WBL	Cost of Equipment*	deficit
1	150	135	None**
2	900	2135	1235
3	2700	2135	None
4	5400	7135	1735
5	9000	7135	None
6	13000	22135	9135
7	19000	22135	3135
8	27000	22135	4865
9	36000	47135	11135
10	49000	47135	1865
11	66000	47135	18865
12	88000	82135	5865
13	110000	82135	27865
14	150000	82135	67865
15	200000	127135	72865

*: Assume just armor, sword, shield, and at levels 4+ a cloak of resistance.
**: At first level you are looking to get non-masterwork equipment and you're wearing a chain shirt instead of plate because lol 1st level.

The wealth chart simply does not leave space for people to have boots of speed or grafted on dragon wings or any of that shit until some time after 10th level. Keeping on the sword and shield treadmills takes all of your gold and more at the levels people normally play. And even at the levels where you can afford to have a level appropriate pointed stick and a discretionary item, you can't really afford for that item to be itself level appropriate until about 13th level.

And lets be honest: there's nothing discretionary about the fifth item that you can't afford at 9th level. You need stat boosters to stay on the RNG. You need a funky mount if you want to have your camel not die every time an AoE goes off. You need travel powers, healing tricks, and a fucking ranged weapon. By ninth level, you probably need about 8 level appropriate basic items. And you can afford three and a half.

This is a known problem with the mathematical progression of the WBL numbers in 3rd edition. It means that any and all magic items or magic item analogs you write up for the levels players normally play are automatically going to be shit no one cares about unless they supplant the need for other basic items (ex.: Ring of Blink) or are wildly under costed (ex.: Amber Amulets of owning you in the fucking face).

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I think we all agree that wealth by level is stupid. However, I have a serious question (as in I'm going to be doing this in a game I'm running and not just theorycrafting here).

Is it less stupid to just give characters the +'s they need to function and ignore wealth by level entirely?

Here is what I will be using in a pathfinder game:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/o ... rogression

I'm not really going to give a shit about wealth per level, and if the characters want to take a month off adventuring to get a job they totally can (although I will object if everyone rolls elves and be pig farmers for the next century. Because I would consider that silly even if it is effective). I expect that to have its own problems, but would ignoring wealth per level and just giving players the +'s they need make things less stupid or more stupid?

[Ice9]

Do you mean not being able to buy items, or still being able to buy items and just also getting the automatic progression?

In the former, I think there are some utility effects that will start hurting non-casters at mid level onward if they can't buy them. The latter seems fine - it might be a slight-moderate power-up due to having more money for other gear, but probably not more than a one level difference. And it probably helps the classes that need it more the most anyway.

[Prak]

*Stuff*

Well shit. I suppose my idea to just toss the vast majority of actually printed grafts and just do refluffed wondrous items helps somewhat. Other than that, I think if it comes up I can also lean on the other party members, and the fact that I'm pretty sure the GM is not throwing particularly high-power challenges at us with two and soon three of the party members being noobs.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Do you mean not being able to buy items, or still being able to buy items and just also getting the automatic progression?

Valid question, I intend to let players buy items (doing a blend of existing rules and less stupid rules, what's available right now is randomly determined and limited by how wealthy the community is, but anything in the book can be commissioned. As I am allowing lots of downtime that should be less of a factor).

[Username17]

Giving out the basic bonuses for the cost of a +1 Sword or a +2 Belt of Strength does an immense amount of good for the upper ends of playable levels. Enhancement bonuses to stats and AC and shit eat a huge amount of your WBL as per the basic rules, when really that shit is required but not interesting in the over 6 levels.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

That's exactly what I was thinking, when playing I get frustrated when I have to spend gold on better numbers when there's spider and bat cloaks and underwater tanks shaped like lobsters and magic cabinets that will prevent my meat and veggies from spoiling.

[Prak]

So something like "all adventurers get level appropriate bonuses as part of leveling?"

[hyzmarca]

The other solution is to simply murder other adventuring parties, though underhanded means such as coup de gracing them in their sleep, or poisoning their food at the local tavern, therefore doubling your WBL with little risk to yourselves.

Go full Gygaxian and break WBL with convoluted wealth farming schemes.

[RobbyPants]

That's exactly what I was thinking, when playing I get frustrated when I have to spend gold on better numbers when there's spider and bat cloaks and underwater tanks shaped like lobsters and magic cabinets that will prevent my meat and veggies from spoiling.

I did that in my last set of house rules along with getting rid of all "plus" items and letting everyone craft (to an extent). It worked out nicely.

[Ferret]

I toyed with doing this by giving everybody the beneficial effects of Vow of Poverty behind the scenes; never got to play with it, though, so not sure how it would have gone.

[Mord]

This is more of a "Den question" than a "game question;" apologies...

But can anyone tell me what "CAN" stands for, as in the context of a "CAN damage system?"

Likewise, can anyone tell me what "SAME" is? Here is a post that uses both of these terms if context would help.

Thanks!

[OgreBattle]

Combat Advantage Number

It's a system where having low/no CAN means you only scratch your target, but a high enough CAN will cause a serious wound to a 1 hit KO.
Ex: Odysseus's men encounter a cyclops and can't scratch it. Later on the cyclops is asleep, giving a human who attacks it enough of a CAN bonus to inflict a critical blinding hit.

Strength: physical damage and resistance
Agility: physical accuracy and evasion
Moxy: special damage and resistance
Elan: special accuracy and evasion

Any of these terms can be substituted for more relevant ones in your game, I think Moxy and Elan were purposefully chosen to be weird.

[allanlerouge]

Hello,

I don't know if it's the correct thread to ask, but here we go :

In D&D (whatever edition), are the Inner and Outer Planes shared between all the Material Planes ? Do the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Krynn, Greyhawk, Darksun, and all the other settings share the same Not Material Planes ?

I remember having read it somewhere, but it struck me as kind of a whole basket of crazy ...

[Grek]

Ask your DM. But in Planescape, yes.

[allanlerouge]

@Grek: I am the DM, so I search for advice on the Den, before deciding.

On the one hand, all Alternate Material Planes (AMP) sharing Inner/Outer Planes is an idea i find tremendously interesting in sheer potential.

On the other hand, it sort of fucks up some part of my current setting (Forgotten Realms), because then, that means that all the gods coexist in the same planes. The Lolth / Corellon of the FR, the one of Greyhawk, etc., are not supposed to be the same, and Ao the "über god" of FR is very protective of his own kindergarten plane.

[Schleiermacher]

I ran a game where that specific issue became a plot point actually.

I decided (probably in contravention of some obscure bit of canon) that the reason why the Realms are called "Forgotten" is that Toril and the planes that connect to it are basically AO's jumbled toybox, cordoned off from the wider multiverse by cross-planar barriers created by him -like a much more ambitious Ravenloft. Places like Dweomerheart or the Supreme Throne are actually regions of planes on the Great Wheel that have been stolen away (or possibly copied) by AO, and gods from other worlds, like Corellon, Tiamat and the various real-life pantheons, are either refugees or fragments of greater entities - in neither case are they aware of what's outside the Realms, although some of them are aware of the barriers. The only people in the Realms who know the full truth are Shar and Oghma.

In my game this whole thing came crashing down because of an invasion from the Plane of Shadow that ultimately caused the barrier to be broken, which lead to a lot of gods up and leaving, massive planar chaos and cats and dogs living together, but the game ended before the PCs could go full Gotterdammerung on the setting - the last session we played effectively triggered the end of the world, but we never got around to playing through the apocalypse itself or exploring the new status quo.

If you don't want to make this sort of cosmic arglebargle the focus of your game of course, it can easily stay deep background and never be discovered at all. But then you at least have a possible explanation, if you're satisfied with AO being kind of a bastard.

[Chamomile]

While it is strictly true that the lore of Forgotten Realms and Krynn's supergods don't mesh together very well, the supergods are both fairly obscure and it's unlikely anyone will be upset if you write them out of a shared setting by just never bringing them up. The same applies to most similar lore conflicts. There may be source books that claim that FR Lolth is not the same as Greyhawk Lolth, but they're extremely similar so people are very unlikely to complain if you say that actually they are the same person.

[allanlerouge]

@Schleiermacher : I like your solution very much, I'm probably stealing it !

@Chamomile : considering I'm playing post- Time of trouble (supergod putting all the gods in physical form in the Material Plane).

Maybe the gods of Material Planes that are not under the rule of a "Supergod" are the same person, but each god wanting to "exist" (or spring into being by gaining followers) there would be some sort of copy / clone (perhaps conscious of a "greater picture", perhaps not).

[Prak]

Thinking about running a "Dracula et all run around punching villains in the face" game, sort of like Hellboy/BPRD but with Frankenstein and his monster taking the place of Bruttenholm and Hellboy.

After Sundown isn't exactly a combat game, but at least broadly works. Mutants and Masterminds fits the two-fisted action thing and can replicate the monsters. But is there an "ideal" system for this sort of game?

[angelfromanotherpin]

I'd use champions. I did a Dracula vs Luchadors game in that and it worked very well.

[Schleiermacher]

I would use M&M because I know it better than Champions, but from what I do know of Champions it might be the better system.

Another option is Feng Shui, although you'd have to do a bit of up-front work.

[hyzmarca]

What's the easiest way to make a low-level Colossal PC in 3.5? Preferably that doesn't involve Wishing to be Colossal.

[deaddmwalking]

If you're a Wu-Jen and you have access to a 7th level spell cast at 19th level, you can be Colossal. I'm not sure how you could make the effect permanent or near-permanent, but that might be a good place to start.