The Gaming Den

One of the criminal associations is approaching a leadership crisis. The current leader is not truly strong enough to hold his position. Perhaps he was propped up by a powerful backer who just died. Perhaps he has weakened recently due to age, illness, or injury. Regardless, normally he would be gone by now. However, his lieutenants have closed ranks around him, none of them willing to risk making a play for power just yet. His power fades by the day as he is forced to ceed more and more to his lieutenants and pay them ever larger bribes. The rank and file grow restless, and begin to doubt their leaders. Ambitious youths see a chance to win it all if they can only get enough support for their claim.

The PCs might be hired as deniable pawns in the jockeying for power, they might be roped in by an opportunist, who wants all the support she can get.


The secondborn's faction has been approached by a shadowy group of scholars that promises support if they could just have access to a few tomes in the royal library and some help recovering items of historical significance. At first, they are not taken seriously at all and they get the PCs. After the first task goes well, The PCs become the go-betweens, as many of the items they seek will have to be stolen. As the group ingratiates itself with the secondborn, the PCs rise in prominence. Of course, they are actually a nefarious group, gathering the pieces of their ritual for great power. When this all blows up, the PCs will be in the middle.

Prak wrote:What other fantasy STDs would people actually care about in a D&D game?

I'm pretty sure I've seen you reference Oglaf in other threads, and I think it was you who came up with a cumsprite spell. If you're not using that as a spell, it could be a particularity weird STD. If nothing else, it might exist solely to spread the virus. Maybe that's too dark.

Stealing from Penny Arcade, there's always Snakedick. As Tycho puts it, how bad this is depends largely on what you want to do with your dick.

You could have ethereal warts that make boy/girl parts gradually become ethereal, leaving the person looking like a Ken/Barbie doll, unless they're on the ethereal plane.

You could have something that turns the infected person into a nympho for a three day period around the full moon (Will DC X to turn down an opportunity), which, of course, would spread the disease. Makes you question the motivation of that person unexpectedly hitting on you in the tavern.

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DSMatticus wrote:What's some good ol' fun criminal cloak and dagger shit for them to get caught up in?

I second Whiysper's fixer suggestion.

Blackmailing someone higher up the ladder (but not at the top) could involve a lot of PC-related and unscrupulous activities.

DSMatticus wrote:Barring anything else, what are some cool ideas for gangs and iconic criminals they'll be interacting with? Imagine that seedy characters are pouring in from all over the kingdom (and beyond) as money changes hands to make all these illicit schemes happen. So there are established criminal organizations and opportunistic thugs and they're butting heads sometimes for the sake of butting heads and sometimes because it's part of some convoluted plot one noble is carrying out against another.

In the game I'm currently running, I had a succubus who had replaced about three people in the city running around setting up her own power structure. You could refluff this how you want, but you have a villain who can read minds, look like other people, charm/suggest, and teleport. This gives you a lot of latitude for shenanigans.

RobbyPants wrote:

Prak wrote:What other fantasy STDs would people actually care about in a D&D game?

I'm pretty sure I've seen you reference Oglaf in other threads, and I think it was you who came up with a cumsprite spell. If you're not using that as a spell, it could be a particularity weird STD. If nothing else, it might exist solely to spread the virus. Maybe that's too dark.

Actually, that might be pretty funny as a disease, potentially a disease you catch by fucking a person who was cursed by the spell.

That said, I'm pretty sure there are at least a couple of fantasy STDs in Oglaf that I should look up and stat.

Stealing from Penny Arcade, there's always Snakedick. As Tycho puts it, how bad this is depends largely on what you want to do with your dick.

I've done one like that, Tentaculosis, which is less "ribald humor" and more "yeah, this is a thing that might exist in D&D that you catch by wading around in aberration lairs"

You could have ethereal warts that make boy/girl parts gradually become ethereal, leaving the person looking like a Ken/Barbie doll, unless they're on the ethereal plane.

Solid idea.

You could have something that turns the infected person into a nympho for a three day period around the full moon (Will DC X to turn down an opportunity), which, of course, would spread the disease. Makes you question the motivation of that person unexpectedly hitting on you in the tavern.

Also a damn good idea.


Edit: Decided to put up what I have on here. Link

excited for the Fuck-Sorceror prestige class

I decided last night there will be a Pelvic Sorcerer PrC, which will be Con-based, and use spell-like abilities, such as those gained by Spell Diseases, and a Charm sphere.

Gender changing Sexually Transmitted Curse

Children. But they pop as teenagers the following morning.

I mean, I am already using disease rules to model pregnancy...

Is there a standard rule in 3.5 about what happens when an attack deals multiple types of energy damage, in an unspecified ratio, to a target that has resistance or immunity to one but not all of them?

Prak wrote:Is there a standard rule in 3.5 about what happens when an attack deals multiple types of energy damage, in an unspecified ratio, to a target that has resistance or immunity to one but not all of them?

This would be a case where very specific details would be helpful. I think there are situations where damage is both vile and fire where it is like duality of light - it's both at once. If you have 100% resistance to fire, you still take all the damage and it is considered vile. If you have resistance to vile damage it is considered 100% fire and you take all the damage. If you have resistance to BOTH only then do you avoid damage.

This is similar to having DR 15 good and piercing. If a weapon does one or the other, the DR applies; only if it does both do you bypass it.

Are you using the massive damage rules? No? Then your blast of X fire, Y cold, and Z mushroom damage can be resolved in a similar fashion to three separate and simultaneous blasts of those types of energy damage.

...oh wait, the ratio is unspecified. That implies "all the damage is both fire and cold and mushroom".

The comparison case my amateur brain is aware of for this is weapons, which can be "bludgeoning AND piercing" or "bludgeoning OR piercing" or the like. I generally assumed that 100% of such damage had 100% of the tags for all purposes good and bad - so a spiky mace both bypasses DR X/bludgeoning and does less damage to enemies that specifically take less damage from piercing attacks.

I'm working on a Christmas one shot where Doom-style Space Marines have to save Santa Claus from Hell. To that end, I'm using Koumei's Dungeon Crusade stuff and a lot of the weapons in that do, like, 5d6 Fire/Electricity.

Given that the players are going to be fighting various demons and some demonic reindeer represented by nightmares with horns glued on... yeah.

What level do you think an animal-only version of Enlarge Person should be for 3.5? Currently, there's already Animal Growth, which is 5th level, but it affects multiple targets, making it closer to Mass Enlarge Person. It also gives bigger bonuses and DR.

But what level would an exact copy of Enlarge Person, but animals be?

My first thought is, at low level, its likely weaker than Enlarge Person, due to the way size categories work in 3.5. Most animals are "long" instead of "tall", meaning they don't get the same reach a humanoid does. So, when a humanoid goes from medium to large, they get reach. This doesn't happen for animals (typically) until they go from large to huge. Is 1st level fine, or am I missing something?

Depends on what you want to use it on and for what purposes i guess?
Will an enlarged animal keep its size even if killed? Because that would make world hunger a non issue immediately. Farm mice, enlarge them to cow, slaughter, feed town.
Have a Cat? Enlarge to Bear Size. Instant apex predator. Hopefully on your side. Seeing how normal cats can kill commoners already . .
Have a Turtle? Instant float for crossing bodies of water!
Have a Falcon? Enlarge, now you have a flying mount!
Have a really fast small rodent? Enlarge, now you have a really fast mount that can also climb really really well.

That is the main problem with magic. If you use it in a smart way, it needs to be on higher level characters only. Because you can break the world.

Stahlseele wrote:Depends on what you want to use it on and for what purposes i guess?
Will an enlarged animal keep its size even if killed? Because that would make world hunger a non issue immediately. Farm mice, enlarge them to cow, slaughter, feed town.
Have a Cat? Enlarge to Bear Size. Instant apex predator. Hopefully on your side. Seeing how normal cats can kill commoners already . .
Have a Turtle? Instant float for crossing bodies of water!
Have a Falcon? Enlarge, now you have a flying mount!
Have a really fast small rodent? Enlarge, now you have a really fast mount that can also climb really really well.

RobbyPants wrote: But what level would an exact copy of Enlarge Person, but animals be?

Enlarge Person:

SRD wrote: ...
Duration: 1 min./level (D)
...
This increase changes the creature’s size category to the next larger one.
...

The duration would be 1 minute per level, so there would be no permanent size increases. The size increase would be one size category, so there'd b no apex cats. Every single scenario you posted would not be possible with the spell I proposed.

So, what level would an exact copy of Enlarge Person, but animal-only be?

Hmm, i think i was thinking of and getting this confused with another spell . .
In my defense, i am hopped up on painkillers right now so i can deal with work.

That sounds appropriate for a level 1 spell.

Stahlseele wrote:Hmm, i think i was thinking of and getting this confused with another spell . .
In my defense, i am hopped up on painkillers right now so i can deal with work.

I forget the exact name, but there's on in Complete Arcane (and the SC?) that makes you colossal. That might be pretty sweet on animals, too, but I haven't given it any thought.

Stahlseele wrote:Hmm, i think i was thinking of and getting this confused That sounds appropriate for a level 1 spell.

That was my thought. I was wondering if I should make it 2nd because of some shenanigans I'm missing, then I remembered the likely reach restriction.

Related question:

What would be the level of an "Actually Enlarge Person" spell that applied the proper size increase modifiers to the target creature?

I think it's hard to gauge, because the effects vary based on the size of the creature. If you look at the biggest changes, you're looking at modifiers that are better than 4th level spells. You're getting +8 Str, +4 Con, +5 NA, although it's offset by -4 Att/AC. You're also probably getting the biggest bump in damage dice.

But even medium to large is +8 Str, +4 Con, and +2 NA. That's gotta be better than 3rd level.

If there is no 4th level spell that can give the same effects, it is clearly overpowered for level 4.

Polymorph can do some pretty crazy shit.

Spell Compendium offers the Bite of the X spell line. At Druid 4/Wizard 5, Bite of the Wereboar gives +4 Str, +6 Con, +8 Natural Armor, a 1d8 primary Bite attack, and the Blind-Fight feat. It only works on You, and only for 1 round per level.

It should also be noted that the Bite spells are hot garbage and people do not cast them.

-Username17

Yeah, so put it at that level somewhere.
I think that is the easiest way to implement new stuff at the appropriate level.
See if there is something in there that can do what you want to do or at least close and if so, put it at the same level. If there is genuinely nothing to do what you want or even remotely close, then you need to look at what level you would need to be to do what you want to do with a combination of other things and put it at that level then.

5th level seems acceptable for the "Actually Enlarge Person" spell, specially because it gives size bonuses to the attributes, so the cheese potential is there.

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It's still not something a typical wizard will want to prepare, but I've been playing a "war wizard" that by a series of campaign shenanigans is becoming Saitama: It started with the DM handing me a "War Wizard" class that's quite buff: Like a SRD wizard, but with d8 hp and medium BAB. I thought I had the "wizard, but stays in melee" bases already covered by coming to the game as a Str 14, Con 16 "elf" ("elf" for this DM: +2 Dex, +2 Int) elven generalist wizard with a sword and a toad familiar (aiming for that delicious +6 HP!) but I was told to upgrade my character to the brainy equivalent of a Battle Sorcerer sans drawbacks, so I was obviously wrong. This DM doesn't like prestige classes or multiclassing, therefore he "buffs" base classes so that people will play them 1-to-20. Figuring I had enough hit points already with d8s and the toad (the toad would absolutely stay as I had drawn the character portrait) I swapped her Str and Con: Str 16 wizards, yay!

Things were briefly back to quasi-normality as I picked the Fist of Stone spell for the sheer hilarity of a Str 22 "elf" wizard punching for 1d6+9 damage, but I still played her as a Wizard anyway: being the MVP by casting Grease and Color Spray on the first couple of encounters and being the knowledgeable nerd out of combat. However, the situation spiralled completely out of control at the culmination of our first quest: to enter a ruin and fix something there that was "attracting evil". Once we got to the end of that dungeon we found an orb on a pedestal, in an ominous room that seemed to be "leaking" the ethereal into the material plane: You could just step into the ethereal plane by approaching the furthest wall, and ethereal monsters were there, feeding from the Orb's energies: these monsters seemed completely out of our 1st level asses' league (the DM described "huge insubstantial oozes", so he probably created something) so the plan became "try to get the Orb and run". We spent a Daylight beacon that had been gifted to the party to attract the oozes' attention elsewhere then the Bladesinger ran in, got the orb and ran out. (Bladesingers are required characters in our games, this is not optional).

Once we exited the room, the DM described how the ethereal leaking stopped, but then the ethereal oozes started to manifest, as if they were forcing their way into the prime. He was probably just trying to create a dramatic cutscene, but what happened was that the party panicked at the risk of those things getting loose at their home plane and tried to destroy the McGuffin: As the group consisted on a werewolf fighter (has wolf companion, attacks with claws), archer cleric (half-celestial), bladesinger (armed with elven courtblade) and my wizard with a sword, we had a severe lack of bludgeoning damage sources. The DM said that our non-magical weapon attacks were "glancing off the orb" and in retrospective I totally believe he said that because he wanted us carrying the damn Orb. However, at the moment I noticed the unspent Fist of Stone spell on my sheet, casted it and said I'd attack the fucking thing: Natural 20, then I rolled a 10 for 28 damage. The DM blinked and said the orb cracked. Then he asked me to roll a Fort Save against being fucked by the magical backlash: Natural 20.

Then the DM said that because the wizard resisted "impossibly well" (actually, she did it as well as 5% of the general population would), she absorbed the Orb's essence, with the following effects: Her arm became a +1 anarchic weapon, she gained a strong chaotic alignment aura (her actual alignment being LN) and she gained some powers out of a short list, like "manifest mind blade" or "Protection From Law", that she can activate by spending power points (3 PPs/day).

Now these powers were all redundant or weak for a wizard ("Ghoul Touch, charisma based DC") with one exception: "Chaos Sacrifice", a chaotic flavored, weaker Divine Sacrifice: 1PP and 5hp drain for 3d6 extra damage on the next weapon hit, swift action activation, 1 round duration. Finally, on the roleplaying front, the wizard's entire arm became instantly covered by badass tattoos and she got a flash of insight showing that some eldritch abomination was probing the material plane hunting for orbs like those, except that now it also wants the wizard's arm.

In other words: the DM had prepared a "collect the Dragon Balls" campaign, only for the PCs go of the rails and destroy the first ball they found. DM then went full bearworld by turning my decisive success at getting rid of the artifact into an "you're the artifact now, dog" moment.

All this insanity happened on the first game, so I decided to roll with it: "+1 arm" + Fist of Stone + "Chaos Sacrifice" means she could hit for 4d6+10 when it mattered, which at second level is a kind of a big deal. So she became the motherfucking Punch Wizard and after leveling up and learning Nystul's Magical Aura just to hide her own aura, she immediately scribed some Fist of Stone scrolls and proceeded to go to town on people's faces and kidneys.

Her third level feat was Power Attack and she learned such general purpose spells as Enlarge Person, Wraithstrike and Bladeweave (also Mirror Images because surviving is important). Her bonus feat at fifth level was Sudden Maximize and she learned Combust. Sixth level feat is Knowledge Devotion, because it's a way to turn Intelligence 20 on another +1 or +2 to hit/damage and my objective right now is to wring out the max amount of HP damage by punching stuff. As shown with Combust, I don't even care if this is actually fire damage or whatever, as long as the visual effect is that she fists something, and then it dies, explosively if possible. Her best moment so far has been Tekken jugling a very young red dragon to death with Bladeweave, but provoking a mixed bunch of humanoids to charge her, escaping the attacks via Mirror Images, stepping back, Color Spraying the whole bunch and having the rest of the party finish them up before she got to act again was a close second: Sandbagging with style is very important when playing wizards.

TL;DR: I was planning to play a 3.5 gish but I had the Eldritch Knight / Divine Disciple:Hero / Abjurant Champion route in mind. Instead, I got rail-roaded into becoming the punchmastermistress. I'm not even mad.