OK, so, I have the 3.5 trinity (PHP, DMG, MM). I do not have anything FR and only have an inkling of the setting from the various video games (Baldur's, NWN). Is there anything I should know for character creation?
Having played a wild halfling druid in a town and having had problems in properly roleplaying him, my doubts are on the narrative side. Wild elf in city? Ok. Druid in city? Ok. Both? Needs a really strong reason not to be here but to stay (As I already said I can work around it but a "I hate this place" character could be problematic)
@Zachiel Not all druids hate cities. They of course prefer not to be in big cities but perhaps he could hear a rumor an ancient druidic artifact is in the city where the module is.
how strange. No felines in the standard druid list. I think we can refluff any other animal with the most similar abilities and attacks distributions until you get to an appropriate level
O_O I got an idea. An evil idea. A completely unrelated idea but... animal companions take feats right? And they have all the requirements needed for takin' Leadership, right?
@BESW Hmm? I am sorry as I talk to you guys I realize I was taught many incorrect things please elaborat as I am realizing most of what I know is incorrect.
compare with familiars, they don't get bonus HD (even if they're treated as having as many as the class level of their master for many things). So they don't get new feats.
wands hold 50 spells, easier things to use with use magic device, costs are good for the single spell but you usually buy them full and it costs a lot.
staffs and wands... I should check which one is which. One has different effects each costing 1 to 3 charges and a limited numer of chargees, the other usually has special effects
@Zachiel Only a few sessions years ago. I'm more familiar with Pathfinder currently, though technically it should be very similar eh? I'm mostly overwhelmed by people mentioning options from the zillion supplements XD. And I'm still pondering what class to take. I'm a slowpoke :|
Staves have 50 charges and a handful of spells attached to them. You can cast the spell out of the staff by spending charges (more powerful spells cost more charges).
I know. options from a zillion supplements is **the** thing I usually solve by going core only - but KRyan did a pretty good speech on why that is bad. Maybe we could hear the character concept from you and build it here to be a non-overpowered but reasonable character
@BESW Ah yeah it was staffs and rods, not wands (which I already detailed)
@leokhorn I'm a little biased against rogues... Unless you get your hands on things that help you deal damage to undeads or constructs
Actually, what kind of hook/blurb can you give for the adventure so I can see if that brings up something? It's hard to know what kind of character would fit without somewhat knowing what we're going for ;)
@BESW Speaking of alternate classes and such... is there a complete resource of all OGL content for 3.5 somewhere? àla d20PFSRD for Pathfinder? Considering I only have the core books and whatever PCGen throws at me (mostly 3rd party stuff), I think I'd need that if I want/need something outside of core.
Barbarian could be an unruly fighter, a guy that fights alongside animals and casts spells that summon animals and plants is... way harder to refluff in my mind. I'm a little bit more committed to race fluff and society
(though I technically don't need anything out of core personally... I'm not looking for uber-optimization or anything, as long as I can somewhat useful, if only for the party's sake)
@leokhorn And I don't want you to. I think it's fine if I'm sharing knowledge with you of the things that are in manuals I own or I have physical access to
Aaron, how can I send you a link to roll20 in a place where it isn't publically searchable, provided I can't get on touch with you on IRC? Same for you Leokhorn
@waxeagle I could understand that, I suppose. Although I may just use point buy 30 without allowing the equivalent, since past a certain point it tends to help MAD characters much more than SAD characters.
> At its most basic, the Xanatos Gambit assumes two possible outcomes for the one manipulated — success or failure. The plan is designed in such a way that either outcome will ultimately further the plotter's goals.
Lex Luthor engages Superman in a public debate on anything: collateral damage fighting the Reach, whether Batman looks too bishy in the new animated series, which pretzel stand is best.
Superman thrashes Luthor far too easily, forcing Luthor to take several mild consequences (you know he's got the skills to have multiple mild consequence slots for social damage) like Dropping stocks and Publicly humiliated.
But Lex dropped the Superman is a bully aspect on the crowd, and then conceded with a handful of Fate points.
Lex will recover from his minor stock drop and public humiliation by the next session, but meanwhile he's turned public opinion against Superman and has the Fate points to do some nasty work while Superman's distracted by the bad press.
Lex is deliberately taking consequences when he could be absorbing the blows with his social stress track, in order to set up justification for making the crowd think Supes is a bully.
(The rules do account for deliberately taking blows by not defending, and also for taking consequences despite not needing to.)
I guess there's a way to get assistance through the site without calling them by phone but if they decide to send someone at my home it costs even more
I get it the guy that comes at your home is to find the better place to put your wi-fi antenna (and ok it's something they have the right to make you pay)
of course I don't expect you to be on the first line since you have a companion. By the way, choose one of appropriate size from the list, we'll change it to a Leopard as soon as you hit level 3
Interesting question. Are the "stereotypes" part of the established setting?
@shatterspike1 Dear Wizards: While I admire your firm commitment to alienating your D&D clientele in every fashion imaginable, I can't help but notice that you still have a relatively large number of loyal, paying D&D fans. You can't even get that right, can you?
(And the argument that D&D has a system designed to allow you to intuitively ad-hoc rules for situations instead of looking them up in the book? Is also rather belied by the page count.)
@Pureferret Is your question more like "I want to improve the group's storytelling by reducing cliches" or more like "The way they do things right now actively makes me uncomfortable?"
@BESW One example was that we had 'Life goblins' (as they were dubbed) who had been in a strongly Life (our systems version of ~Neutral Good, heaped with pacifism) aligned location. I did some roleplay with them, and partly sided with them as my Druid character
Druid's have a roleplay restriction to 'hate all goblinoids' which is normally fine
Except I hadn't done that, so faced a trial in game
but I don't think that was the specific example I was thinking about
@BESW If your entering an established group who knows how to play the barrier to entry is low (you don't need to read the rules and there is relatively little to explain. However if you're starting from scratch then yeah, the barrier to entry is huge
"over 38 deductive abilities to overcome their foes," "avoid their blows with danger sense," "seek out the adventurous life for the sheer sake of knowledge and discovery of the unknown," and so forth.
@AlexP "Hat of d20" gives a +5 enhancement bonus to Knowledge (pedant) checks, and an Aura of Superiority (as the Internet Troll supernatural ability).
> Characterscan can gain new abilitys over time by adding them to sheet when the D02 Master isn't looking. Get new items by killing people and taking their stuff.
That is actually a 100% accurate representation of that one time my friend tried to play BESM D20 with a GM who had no idea what he was doing.
He ended up changing his character sheet to "8." Just... 8.
@waxeagle My introduction to RPGs was "Hey, you'd make a great GM, but nobody's got much experience with D&D. Here are my books, read them over the break, and teach us next semester."
So I read all 800+ pages in a month, built a campaign, and taught a group of people who generally had minimal experience with RPGs.
(One guy had experience with L5R and Mage.)
This was the year 3.5 had just come out.
From then on, though, I made a conscious effort to learn how to quickly and easily introduce people to the system. Most of them were new to RPGs entirely.
There are people in this chat who will fight me tooth and nail on this, but my practical experience has been that a properly-constructed fighter (3.5) or slayer (4e) is ideal for introducing an RPG newbie to D&D.
I always kept a pre-con character sheet at the party's level in the binder, ready to hand to a new player.
"Welcome to the group! This is a pretty straightforward character for your first session, and we'll work together to build your own character over the week."
By "properly constructed," I mean that feats and items should give flat non-conditional bonuses instead of introducing variables that have to be tracked.
> In the end, d20 is too many rules, and not enough rules at the same time.Has too many strick rules, while leaving many feild wide open with no reason.
