The Gaming Den

RobbyPants wrote: It's kind of hard to predict what any hypothetical DM will complain about.

I agree. That said, unless you know that a particular DM will rule one way or another, I think that a rogue is usually the more powerful choice. With UMD the device activation (true ultimate power) isn't a problem for either one. With enough wands, a rogue can do just about anything that a bard can do, and he can stab fools, too.

Bards also suffer from MAD more than rogues.

So in Aposimz the lancer dude's lance pierces the protagonist's arm, but he uses it to grab onto the guy's lance.



This entanglement leaves the lancer vulnerable to a ranged attack on the next page.

How would you write core combat rules to pull this off in D&D or Shadowrun 4e or After Sundown? That is a maneuver where the character is hit and definitely hurt but he grapples the opponent and leaves them open for another attack.

It shouldn't be something you do in EVERY combat either.

deaddmwalking wrote:Bards also suffer from MAD more than rogues.

They suffer the same amount of MAD:

Rogues want Dex, Int
Bards want Cha, Int

everyone wants Con

What am I missing?
Bards caring about high Dex is like Rogues caring about high Str. Yeah, it's nice, but not necessary. Don't get me wrong- very high stats compensate for a multitude of weaknesses at low levels, but eventually you have to deal with mediocre BAB, shit damage, shit AC, and shit HD. Bards either put up their numbers in combat with magic/minions, or they fail. And all you really need for that is Cha, and enough Int to get a handful of skills. So no, MAD doesn't play into it.

Rogues get damage, Bards get minions. Even if you release your minions at the end of every adventure, odds are you can snag some servitors mid-adventure.

Bards are no more vulnerable to DM fiat than Rogues. At least mindless creatures are usually easy to kite or otherwise tactically work around. Uncrittable is a larger, nastier category.


For OgreBattle's question, are you sure you want to make a specific mechanic for intentionally impaling yourself? I don't think you need a maneuver for it on the defensive end. On the offensive end I'd say it's a function of a crit/attack result. Your weapon is stuck in the guy and you need to use some sort of action/move to get it back out. In D&D terms I'd probably treat them both as being in a grapple since they don't threaten any other squares and cannot use big weapons without disengaging.

I'd say the impaled guy when he grabs the tip of that lance is attempting to continue a grapple and failing, which leaves him just holding on to keep his arm from tearing off.

Success in a grapple check while impaled might look like this.

But with more wrasslin

What would you make Dorian Gray's portrait in D&D? Is it minor enough to be a feat, if its treated right? Should it be a class feature? Does it need to be a template with a level equivalence?

I guess the original novel version of the painting, where it just hides Dorian's age, and can be used as a proxy for violence against him (he dies when he tries to slash the painting and winds up stabbed in the heart), would be fine as a feat. Or honestly a Pathfinder Trait/Tome Background, possibly.

The adaptational version, where the painting also takes on damage that would be dealt to him, and makes him effectively immortal and invulnerable, is the bigger question here.

It's a phylactery.

Does anyone have any experience with the SHARD RPG?

Prak wrote:What would you make Dorian Gray's portrait in D&D? Is it minor enough to be a feat, if its treated right? Should it be a class feature? Does it need to be a template with a level equivalence?

I guess the original novel version of the painting, where it just hides Dorian's age, and can be used as a proxy for violence against him (he dies when he tries to slash the painting and winds up stabbed in the heart), would be fine as a feat. Or honestly a Pathfinder Trait/Tome Background, possibly.

The adaptational version, where the painting also takes on damage that would be dealt to him, and makes him effectively immortal and invulnerable, is the bigger question here.

For reference, a version somewhere between those two shows up in Champions of Ruin (the gray portrait on page 43) as an artifact that prevents aging and absorbs all negative energy effects. Useful for converting the flavor of the portrait to D&D, if nothing else.

Immortality varies highly in cost in 3e. In Dragon #354, there are two different means of immortality: one is the 9th-level kissed by the ages spell that makes you immortal at the cost of 5,000XP and having to wear the special focus item at all times, while the other is the Wedded to History feat which gives one of several benefits for being very long-lived and grants immortality if your backstory supports it and the DM approves. An expensive minimum-17th-level option and a cheap 1st-level option, right next to each other on the same page.

Several races get immortality for free (elans, killoren, and warforged being the primary examples) and no one particularly cares except for adding "...and 10,000 years later, I'm still here!" to their backstories. So, personally, I'd say the only-non-aging version of the portrait can simply be flavor if you want and should at most be a feat.

The immortal-and-invulnerable version is basically getting a phylactery without going through the lichification ritual, as DDMW said, so paying a moderate one-time gold and/or XP cost is probably fine; making it a template with LA would be paying too much, as even most LA +1 races with actual mechanical benefits aren't worth the level cost.

Hmm... so what about a feat that gives the immortality and no-aging, and basically casts Restoration or Heal at dawn each day?

Like,

Beauty Sustained
Prerequisite: Must have made a deal with a demon
Benefit: You gain some manner of magical item which will take on all flaws that would otherwise build upon your own body.
As you would age, the item does in your stead. You remain the age you are when you take this feat, and take on aging penalties. In addition, at dawn of each day, you benefit from a single casting of Regeneration, except it fully restores your hp.
The magic item, commonly a portrait, depicts all harm that you heal through it.

I suppose another way to do would be to give very low regeneration that can be overcome by damaging the item?

A lich is 'restored' after 1d10 days. So getting 'killed' kinda sucks. If you have an ability that lets you continue fighting indefinitely, that's a bit of a problem.

Conceptually, I don't see how stabbing your 30 hit point character for 30000 damage does anything except mar a painting located 10,000 miles away (or on another plane).

And if stabbing you to death kills you, the painting is probably just flavor. Who lives that long, anyway?

Even if something is immortal, as long as it is not invulnerable it is probably still easy enough to deal with.
Off with the head, tie something heavy to the head.
Kick the head and the anchor over board while sailing over the marianna trench.
Put the body into a volcano somewhere.
Depending on how he gets restored, he either burns to death upon reestablishing or he is still tied to the bottom of the marianna trench.
If he is remade somewhere specific, it is a bit more problematic, as you need to find that place. And then you do something mean to the place.
Something mean enough that the immortality becomes more of a curse.
Like . . sealing it and making a one way entrance for kender only.

Well, for my feat, all it does is regenerate the character once a day. If you kill them, they're no longer a legal target for the spell.

I could see it being a short feat chain, with the second feat giving Regeneration (overcome by attacking the painting), which would make the character essentially invulnerable to harm, but not outrageously so, since, as Stahlseele said, you can knock them out and toss them in a volcano, or whatever.

It's not a bad idea, but I think the implementation misses the mark. There are a bunch of ways you COULD do it, and depending on what you're hoping to achieve you'll want to consider alternatives.

If I were a player, I'd rather get an item that just cast restoration 1/day or something. I mean, if I'm not hurt it's a waste and if I'm dead it's a waste - so most of the time it's a waste. I've never played a campaign that took 50+ years and been a race that cared, so not aging is an NPC only perk. So from a player perspective, why choose this?

If you're trying to make this a thematic power that provides combat utility, you could make it like 'shield other' with the problem that the painting stores all the damage and if it is destroyed releases it all at once. If the painting has protected against 50 points of damage and then is dispelled/destroyed it releases it all at once. That could be a cursed item that is effectively free - it's a nice effect but once it stores more than enough damage to kill you it becomes scary - something that you have to protect at all costs.

Once you nail down the benefit and drawbacks THEN determine a cost.

That sounds like a really nifty idea.

deaddmwalking wrote:It's not a bad idea, but I think the implementation misses the mark. There are a bunch of ways you COULD do it, and depending on what you're hoping to achieve you'll want to consider alternatives.

If I were a player, I'd rather get an item that just cast restoration 1/day or something. I mean, if I'm not hurt it's a waste and if I'm dead it's a waste - so most of the time it's a waste. I've never played a campaign that took 50+ years and been a race that cared, so not aging is an NPC only perk. So from a player perspective, why choose this?

If you're trying to make this a thematic power that provides combat utility, you could make it like 'shield other' with the problem that the painting stores all the damage and if it is destroyed releases it all at once. If the painting has protected against 50 points of damage and then is dispelled/destroyed it releases it all at once. That could be a cursed item that is effectively free - it's a nice effect but once it stores more than enough damage to kill you it becomes scary - something that you have to protect at all costs.

Once you nail down the benefit and drawbacks THEN determine a cost.

Ok, so how's this-

Beauty Untarnished
You have acquired some magical item that acts as a sort of phylactery, protecting your body from aging and harm by taking it onto itself.
Benefit: You have some form of magical art item, a locket, an amulet, a painting, the like, that depicts you. As your body would degrade, due to age, illness, or injury, the depiction of you does instead. You take no aging penalties, and your body does not aesthetically age past your age when you take this feat, nor will you die from old age (though you should roll your max. Age as usual).

In addition, you may spend an hour doing nothing but being in the presence of the item, holding it if man-portable, or sitting within 10’ and looking at it if not, to cast Regenerate, Restoration and Heal upon yourself as a spell-like ability. At the end of this period, the piece shows all the damage that it healed (ie, if it regenerated a missing arm, the depiction of you now lacks that arm). The piece also shows all the age that it has been deferred from you.

Anyone who sees the item has insight into your soul, and thus gains a bonus to Persuasion and Perception checks made to Sense Motive against you equal to your character level. In addition, keep track of all the years the item has taken for you, and all the damage it has healed. If the item is ever destroyed, you immediately take damage equal to the amount it has healed and you immediately age as many years as it has taken for you. If the damage does not kill you, the accumulated years may if you have already lived beyond your natural lifespan.

Help with wording is as appreciated with critiques of the ability.

Is this something you want players to choose?

Even if you give 1 feat/level, the benefit you're offering isn't enough to make it appealing, and the drawback is big enough that you'd still have trouble even if the pros were significantly increased.

If you're setting a feat on fire you might as well take Toughness - it's not a good feat, but at least it is all upside!

From a descriptive perspective there's a problem - if I cut off my left arm and restore it, then cut it off again and restore it the picture can't lise that arm again.

From an in-game utility perspective, if you can't use it in combat you're not going to use it at all . If you have 10 minutes in safety then you ought to be able to 'escape' well enough to heal naturally. It's only if you're on a tight time limit that you might be tempted to use this, but you'll get a lot more mileage out of a wand of cure light wounds through the mid-high levels. It's important to remember that this feat not only has to compete against every other feat, it has to compete against every magical item that can duplicate the effects. Effectively, the feat might have some utility between level 4-8 (early access to a spell) but even then a scroll would be a better choice. If nothing else you can use it on the party member that NEEDS it.

Another point on theme - if anyone did take this feat of course they'd opt for one that they could carry around. If you can go home then you definitely don't need this item.

There's really only one way this gets used. At character creation you take this feat, say you're 'maximum age' for your race and pick up aging bonuses bit not penalties so your wizard starts with a significantly higher starting Intelligence - +3 Int/Wis/Chr - but that's bad - why do humans wait until they're 120 before they give up dirt farming and become a wizard?

If you decide to keep it as a feat I think you need to make the benefit better. I'd say Regeneration 1 would be the minimum. That means the character is largely immune to hit point damage (which WILL impact the game) but they still need to avoid a TPK situation because even if they will recover they could be defeated/looted/captured. Basically they would get to start every combat with full hit points which is SOMETHING. If this is an NPC thing learning that you have to destroy thr Horcrux to permanently defeat your villain that can be interesting, but for players having their item destroyed/killing them through actions 'off screen' will never be 'fair'. At that point your only narrative option with it is to use it as a hostage which is still going to rub some players the wrong way.

Giving a benefit without a drawback is easiest. Giving a benefit with a drawback is harder but if the net cost is 'free' (like a cursed item) it's not too bad. Once you ask players to PAY for a benefit with a drawback (like with a feat) you're not going to see it used a lot unless they're convinced they can ignore or avoid the drawback. If the drawback is 'character death' you're in a Catch-22 where the benefit HAS to be good enough to justify it, but you can't actually use it.

Now you could try to reduce the drawback. Maybe the painting can cast the three spells on you wherever you are (same plane) with the 10 minute casting time and each time the portrait ages 1d4 years. Then when the painting is destroyed you age however old the painting is. You get aging penalties (but not bonuses) and if you use the item a ton you could die, but you might just get a little grayer. Gut says that would thread the needle - players won't use the power if they can avoid it (such as by resting) but they'll benefit by having a 'doc wagon' they can call on.

It occurs to me that the painting/whatever granted by this feat should have another specific benefit- healing in my setting generates taint, and if you still get taint by using your Portrait of Dorian Gray it sort of defeats the purpose, even though the taint will bleed off, so I need to specify that you don't get taint for healing performed by this feat.

Also, I should probably change it so that if the portrait/whatever heals a missing limb, it depicts that limb as obviously scarred rather than missing. It works better conceptually anyway, because otherwise, on a long enough timeline, every Portrait of Dorian Gray will depict an armless, legless, dickless Dorian Gray.

Also, it occurs to me that there should be a Fort save when the item is destroyed, because that's how shit works in D&D.

Edit: What if I just added repeatable, combat time Cure Light Wounds? I'm not sure how often...

Can you make alchemist weapons masterwork and subsequently enchant them; an example being a +3 holy acid flask of distance? Would it price out as ammunition? How would that influence splash damage?

RAW - no.

An alchemical item is not a weapon. There are masterwork tools, and of course armor and weapons and masterwork means different things for those. With the example with armor spikes it's very clear that an item that is both a weapon and armor has two separate qualities that can each be 'masterwork' independent of the other. So, there's no such thing as 'masterwork alchemical fire'.

You could potentially make the flask masterwork. It's not really a weapon in the traditional sense, but getting a plus 1 to attack rolls is totally reasonable. In that case it'd be like shuriken or arrows - +300 gp for 50 of them.

If you did this, then enchanted the item it would not confer any bonus damage to the contents of the flask (ie, it would not apply to splash damage). There could also be an argument that any special properties (like shock) wouldn't apply because the flask doesn't do any damage. It's also a touch weapon, so it ignores armor which is a pretty big deal. So this is an 'ask your DM' type of thing.

Ultimately, it doesn't get you where you want to be. You're better off with something like a necklace of fireballs which does what it does to everyone in the area of effect. One use spell-effects are also much cheaper than weapons.

deaddmwalking wrote:RAW - no.

An alchemical item is not a weapon. There are masterwork tools, and of course armor and weapons and masterwork means different things for those. With the example with armor spikes it's very clear that an item that is both a weapon and armor has two separate qualities that can each be 'masterwork' independent of the other. So, there's no such thing as 'masterwork alchemical fire'.

By the RAW, they are splash weapons which are defined as ranged weapons that have their own rules regarding things like proficiency and other aspects of weapon effects.

Since they aren't defined as ammo, they would use the normal ranged weapon enchantment rules. We all can agree this would be insane in this case, so even a halfway reasonable DM should allow ammo enchantment pricing.

Would my 3.X game be worsened if I changed the level 2 ability buff spells back to the 3.0 model (1d4+1 for 1 hour/lvl)?

It's probably be bettered.

I'd recommend against the 1d4+1, because it forces your players to recalculate things more often than a flat bonus.

If you want a variable bonus, have it change the modifier rather than the ability. Roll 1d3 - you get that number added to your modifier. That eliminates any difference between an odd and even ability score.

Having a half bonus when you use buffs just because you have an odd ability score isn't inherently a bad thing. The odd scores don't have a hell of a lot going on for them otherwise.

Now, the reason they changed it was it sucked a bit to burn a L2 spell and get +1 to some stuff for it, so people tended to dump multiple copies of it at higher levels to get the +2, or maybe empower it for +3, or you know, down the rabbit hole of theorycrafting you go.

It does give you something to do with all your 2nd level spell slots at higher levels, which is probably the real reason they changed it, freed up casters from buffing the party so they could just go win D&D on their own, and made mundane types spend their money on permanent item buffs instead of fun things like weapons.

So it was a terrible change, but you know, rolling low and getting +1 does still suck a bit.

virgil wrote:Would my 3.X game be worsened if I changed the level 2 ability buff spells back to the 3.0 model (1d4+1 for 1 hour/lvl)?

In my tome-brew game, we do +4 to stat for 1 hour per level. We are level 12 and the game has not come crashing down around us yet.

Game On,
fbmf