TRPG General Chat

Aaron

12:00

@BESW Pathfinder. Most creatures wouldn't attack a limb specifically but intelligent creatures might.

BESW

Because in most games that'd be too much extra bookkeeping (I love that word because it has three double letters in a row) to be worth the effect on play.

Aaron

Hmmm. I suppose.

BESW

A handy rule of thumb is that the complexity of mechanics and the amount of time dedicated to them in play should be commensurate with their importance to the point of the game.

kadu

@Aaron one of the GMs I played with used to keep track of damage to individual limbs of characters only when it happened.

BESW

If you're playing Highlander without a decapitation mechanic, that's bad. If you're playing MLP with a decapitation mechanic, what's wrong with you?

Aaron

12:02

@kadu Yea. I wouldn't use it very often so it wouldn't be much bookkeeping

@BESW What's wrong with some headless ponies?

BESW

@Aaron Ask Scootaloo; she had a whole episode about it last season.

Aaron

You could have the Headless Horse instead of the Headless horseman.

BESW

@Aaron But when it does come up, will the game grind to a halt?

Aaron

@BESW Is that one of the ponies?

BESW

(See: grappling.)

@Aaron Yes, one of the fillies.

Aaron

12:03

@BESW Probably not. Just say X limb takes this damage. If disabled you take this debuff.

The end

kadu

@Aaron But he didn't have hp bars or anything that fancy—just kept track of how bad was the damage whenever someone had a limb attacked. and then he'd just remind the players that no, they can't throw a punch with a broken humerus.

Aaron

@BESW Grappling doesn't take that long either. You roll your check and either grapple them or not. Does it normally take a long time?

BESW

Yes, because it's not that simple.

Aaron

Oh. Maybe we missed something then.

BESW

D&D 3.5 grappling: To initiate a grapple you make an attack, which provokes an attack. If your attack succeeds AND the provoked attack fails, you then get to make a grapple check opposed by their grapple check.

So that's four rolls just to see if you've been able to start the grapple.

Aaron

12:07

@BESW Oh. In pathfinder it's simpler.

kadu

@BESW That's why I like polearms.

Aaron

It still provokes an attack of opportunity but after that just 1 roll to see if you grapple.

And you can take a feat that makes it so you don't provoke the AOO

Then it is one roll on your round and the grappled person's round to maintain the grapple or escape it.

BESW

@Aaron There is that in 3.5, yes. But that means you have to spend a very precious character resource in order to reduce the number of rolls to start a grapple by 1/4.

@Aaron [amused] In 3.5 you can make multiple grapple checks as if making a full attack.

Aaron

We have never really had an issue with it. It doesn't take any longer than a normal turn in our group.

@BESW In PF you get only one chance.

BESW

For every attack you'd make in a full attack action, you can grapple to deal damage while you're dominant in the struggle.

And it gets even more complicated depending on what kind of weapon you're using and so forth.

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:10

@GMNoob welcome back to the stack

BESW

So in many D&D 3.5 games, grappling just never happened by silent group consensus because it was too much of a pain and slowed combat down too much.

Aaron

Shrugs I don't know what we do different. My group follows the grappling rules but never found it dragged on or anything. It might take a few extra seconds but that isn't too bad.

BESW

[pulls out 3.5 PHB] The grappling rules go from the bottom of page 155 to the first 1/4 of page 157, and refer you to related rules on pages 146 and 155.

Aaron

@BESW Pathfinder.

BESW

4e made it really simple, and I loved them for it.

Aaron

12:13

d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Grapple

BESW

(Does Pathfinder have the "pinned" condition for grappling?)

Because 3.5 has four separate lists of "things you can do while grappled" depending on your condition in the grapple.

Aaron

Read the rules I linked. They are rather strait forward. If you maintain the grapple you can take these actions.

Zachiel

@BESW In some other games it did always happen because it was so effective. In even different ones it never happened because it was so effective that everybody spent resources to be immune to it.

BESW

Ah, yes, they have a link to the "pinned" condition with two paragraphs about it.

@Zachiel Yup, been in those too.

Aaron

I would say if you are just doing attacks with weapons and nothing else it would probably take 1 minute. Grappling Might take 2

BESW

12:16

The half-ogre with girallon's arms was one of the reasons I finally tried 4e.

@Aaron [shrug] My point stands, which is that overly complicated mechanics for things which aren't really important to the point of the game are bad.

I'm not saying anything about grapple in your games, just using 3.5 grapple as an example.

Zachiel

@BESW First area boss we met in our D&D level 17 campaign was a guy with a weapon that lowered the target's to hit with each of his hits, and high BAB to profit from it. Having to escape a grapple every round completely prevented him from doing even a single full attack.

Aaron

@BESW Lets just agree to disagree about the mechanic?

BESW

Sure, but I'm not seeing you disagreeing about 3.5 grapple, which is what I'm talking about. I'm seeing you saying "Pathfinder grapple is different," which... I'm not contesting at all.

Zachiel

I really like grappling and close contact barehand acrobatic fighting, but D&D 3.5 mechanics aren't really working with me.

And I mean I like the concepts, the fiction.

BESW

Agreed.

Aaron

12:21

@BESW Oh. I was kinda confused as to why you kept bring up the 3.5 as they are quite different. I mean they have similarities but considering they are the same action they are different mechanically.

I agree with your point in 3.5 though it sounds way too complicated

BESW

@Aaron I specifically brought up grappling at all as an example of a too-complicated mechanic in 3.5.

Aaron

@BESW Ah. Right this started out with my limbs thing

BESW

I try to keep my conversations somewhere roughly near the primary topic.

Aaron

One thing I have started doing that helps when it comes to conditions is I will make a list of the actual effects. It eliminates all of the unneeded text and fluff that is the main thing slowing down stuff.

BESW

Yeah, both D&D and PF have this "mixing fluff and crunch" thing where it's often hard to actually sort the two out--sometimes the fluff is the crunch.

DFRPG suffers the same problem, because while its writing style effectively conveys the tone of the game it's kinda hard to read for the mechanics sometimes.

Mourdos

12:24

My DM tried to kill my gnome summoner with grappling.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@besw let us play a sad song for 4e and its once and future ability to separate fluff from crunch

Mourdos

Tried to drag him off the side of a ship and drown him.

I did kind of like the concept of powers in 4e, I think as time goes on I appreciate them more and more

But I still don't like the layout

Zachiel

@BESW Ah I hate this. Some of my players are just like "let me read the rules aloud and let's follow them", then starts reading even the fluff with people asking them to get to the point and them being unable to find what the point is and being offended if you wrestle the book out of their hands.

Aaron

@BESW Summary of pinned condition without all the fluff

No dex bonus
-4 AC
Only actions allowed
Attampt to free itself
No spells that require somatic or material
Concentration check DC 10+grappler's CMB + spell level

Mourdos

Is that 3.5 or pathfinder?

Aaron

12:26

Maybe I should make a quick summary of each condition

@Mourdos PF

Mourdos

d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Grapple

I like the diagrams

Aaron

How many people would use it do you think?

Mourdos

But the defender getting to full attack is hilarious

The diagrams also list the statuses for the conditon

BESW

...flow. charts.

Mourdos

Hehe

You disapprove @BESW?

Zachiel

12:29

At least it's clearer than the flow chart for Polaris or Trollbabe

BESW

If I felt like it actually improved the game experience, I'd be totally on board with it. But instead it looks like needless complication for its own sake.

Mourdos

Actually, it makes it really easy to reference what is going on.

Zachiel

And I mean we could use a flow chart even for Do:PotFT, but the problem with 3.PF is that you shoud get a lot of different charts to map all of combat

BESW

Mm, sorry. I mean the fact that flowcharts are apparently something people think the grappling rules need.

Mourdos

Grapple is really the only complicated thing I've come across, and it still simpler than 3.5

Everything else is CMB vs CMD to cause an effect

BESW

12:31

A subsystem for an alternative combat mechanic that most players will rarely--if ever--use should not be complicated enough to justify flow charts. It means the mechanics are disproportionate to the action's importance.

Mourdos

I think its more the number of options you have that nobody ever commits to memory, combined with the penalties

BESW

I feel like it shouldn't be more complicated than the default combat mechanics, period.

Mourdos

The system itself is fairly simple. Roll CMB vs CMD, if you win, opponent is grappled and you move next to them.

Zachiel

I guess the problem is that people want grapple to be an option, and a grapple plays completely different from regular combat because of people being, well, grappling

BESW

This is a problem systemic to 3.PF, really, and not restricted to grappling, though grappling is very representational: the notion that every different thing needs its own subset of rules.

Zachiel

12:34

If grappling did not change your options, what would be the point of grappling?

BESW

It's exception-based rules gone mad: Spells, attacks, psionics, spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities, diseases, poisons, grappling, everything gets a new set of exceptions to make it special, whether it needs it or not, whether it improves the game experience or not, and whether it's balanced or not.

Zachiel

Of course it all stems from the way D&D tries to model combat, detailing every single strike

Joshua Aslan Smith

@zachiel 4e handled grappling very well, because 1 you would almost never want to do it normally because it was a suboptimal choice, but 2, if you had powers associated with it then you REALLY wanted to do it

Zachiel

By comparison, 4e lists what you can't do while grabbed. All the things you can do do not suddenly change into something different

Joshua Aslan Smith

the Executioner and free-hand fighter we're all about grapples

*melee executioner

BESW

12:36

Trogdor made a free-hand fighter thri-kreen that was like something out of a horror movie.

doppelgreener

Something 4e also does that 3.x and Pathfinder don't is that most things just re-use the same base mechanics.

BESW

It was an off-tank who picked someone on the battlefield and said "He's mine, I'm dragging him to a corner and eating him."

doppelgreener

Grappling is an action that imposes a condition. We can handle those! It's not its own rules system, it doesn't use stuff that wouldn't be there if grappling wasn't there.

BESW

@JoshuaAslanSmith, @doppelgreener You're both hitting close to the core difference in 4e: its exception-based rules were centred on the characters rather than on the actions.

doppelgreener

And the fact it re-uses condition mechanics means we don't need new, exceptional things to deal with it. We have things which remove conditions! Nothing needs to specifically target grappling.

Mourdos

12:38

Actually, I think the only special action you can do during a grapple is to impose a pin

which is just another condition

Joshua Aslan Smith

@BESW yep that free hand fighter had a lot of cool abilities to super lockdown 1 person at a time

MrLemon

@doppelgreener that does sound pretty sensible

Joshua Aslan Smith

I always thought of it as a kevin sorbo hercules kinda build

BESW

4e made the characters the focus of the rules. The character created rules exceptions, so the rules themselves didn't need to have exceptions.

@JoshuaAslanSmith I introduced him to the group as he picked off a pack of goblin minions in a dark room.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Right this is what made the different class builds and the subclasses able to stand out very well

doppelgreener

12:40

@MrLemon it's a thing i've been noticing some systems with manageable mechanics do. magic, for instance, has loads of cards, and most of the abilities are unique, but they just re-use the base mechanics every other ability uses, and everything only cares about the base mechanics, so the game doesn't sprout new exceptions.

fate does something similar by telling you to go make up your own thing, which re-uses the base mechanics of aspects and so on.

Joshua Aslan Smith

yep

Mourdos

Although MtG does have one of the most comprehensive rules systems out there.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I like the MTG example as a non-rpg exdample

Mourdos

I mean seriously, have you seen the thing?

doppelgreener

@Mourdos i have seen the thing, i am actually beginning to comprehend parts of it

BESW

12:40

A blur of claws and mandibles would reach out of the dark, grab a goblin and drag it screaming into the shadows. Crunch, snap, thud, and it would be back for another goblin.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@mourdos its pretty simple in excecution

MTG insert year here releases on PC are a great way to learn the game

doppelgreener

@BESW What do you mean by the exceptions being focused on the characters?

Mourdos

In execution yes, in technical detail, nope.

I had to explain to some people at my last place of work how the stack worked.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@doppelgreener I think he mean class based exception

BESW

@doppelgreener Okay, so you've got standard conditions like "marked" and "grabbed." They don't have fancy rules or subsystems, they're really simple and universal.

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:42

@mourdos theres no reason to ever read the MTG rulebook

Mourdos

One of them got very upset when he counter spelled a spell with replicate and I just made copies of it. "But I countered it!"

I have a friend who is a judge

And was ranked 16th in the UK (youth section) at one point

BESW

But when your character marks someone or grabs someone, he introduces unique character-specific exceptions to the grab or marked condition based on his class, feats, and items.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@mourdos right, so for him yeah he needs the nitty gritty but playwise its knowing the 3 phases, and that every single phase and action has an option for the opposing player to counter/respond

BESW

At its simplest, it's the difference between a paladin mark and a fighter mark.

Mourdos

You mean 5+ phases?

BESW

12:43

And then the fighter takes feat X while the paladin takes feat Y, further individualising their own personal rule enhancements to the "marked" condition.

Mourdos

untap, upkeep, draw, play phase 1, combat phase, play phase 2?

Joshua Aslan Smith

Untap/draw and end phase are technically phases but they arent "action phases"

BESW

4e PCs are walking bundles of "I take the basic rules and make them awesome in ways only I can do; no one else can bend and enhance this action like I can."

Joshua Aslan Smith

I was referring to main phase 1, combat phase, main phase 2

Mourdos

I don't know, its kind of important for activating abilities before you untap

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:44

or whatever the proper terminology is now

Mourdos

But I see your point

BESW

...I'm ten years behind on MtG rules.

Mourdos

I haven't played in a few years :P

doppelgreener

@BESW There was a big shift in 2010.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@besw if your ever interested and have a PC (which I assume since youa re in teh chat room here) MTG 2015 is 15 bucks and it avoids the money pit problem

because you are just buying a set of digital cards and all the "decks' From this release year to play against bots and people online with

Mourdos

12:46

Or you can use "Magic Workstation"

BESW

Nah, I liked MtG primarily for the social aspect of playing with my friends.

Joshua Aslan Smith

so you lose out on the deck building/collecting part

Mourdos

which lets you play online

Joshua Aslan Smith

ah gotcha

I pick up the yearly releases because it scratches the magic itch for the cost of a few boosters

doppelgreener

@BESW Ah, right. So the individual characters delve into their own realms of distinctiveness.

Mourdos

12:46

I liked playing at the prerelease events

BESW

Someday I'll put the finishing touches on my Masque of the White Death deck, because I love it so.

Joshua Aslan Smith

I have this insane sliver deck from a few years ago that white, red, green and mixes in some other non-sliver things going on too. Very, very interesting deck

doppelgreener

My friends and I went nuts during RTR/Theros and wound up with some pretty competitive decks, then stopped playing for a while after it became too hard/expensive to change decks and still be able to beat each other. :P

Joshua Aslan Smith

every sliver gains the abilities of any other slivers on the board, you can see how this could be crazy]

Aaron

I knew a guy who had 2 shoe boxes full of Mtg cards. He had about 10 different decks and then a bunch of loose cards that were not in any specific deck

doppelgreener

12:51

We're starting again with M15, but we've formulated a gentleperson's agreement in order to keep the power levels manageable and low - we'll see how it goes.

I'm looking forward to running with it, 'cause it's already the case that we can use fun cards that aren't remotely competitive.

BESW

One problem I had with MtG was that as soon as you got into competitive play it turned into nuclear proliferation while I preferred long drawn-out games.

Zachiel

@Mourdos "but my duplication acts before your countering it."

BESW

My primary deck is designed for extended multiplayer games.

It's also very much a social engineering deck.

Zachiel

@JoshuaAslanSmith except when talking about priority and who gets it when and when do effects that get triggered simoultaneously happen, I guess.

doppelgreener

@BESW You might have been playing at a time where decks were very aggressive and play was fast and games were won early. In the past ~2 years apparently, aggressive play has slowed down a bit in the standard format.

BESW

12:54

@doppelgreener That's nice to know.

Mourdos

@Zachiel Yeah I know, still upset them.

Zachiel

@Mourdos which is not legal.

BESW

I wonder if my central mechanic would still be buildable with currently legal cards.

doppelgreener

In the current standard format, one of the best aggro decks is a blue deck, too. :D

@BESW What is it, sit back and heal?

BESW

Heh. Kiiiinda.

I'm trying to remember the names of cards.

doppelgreener

12:55

I vaguely remember you explaining your cleric deck...

you'd sit back and heal and defend and do little, then wipe people out at the end.

Zachiel

If you're looking for long, drawn out games, you need a moneydraining draft tournament.

BESW

It was a solid white cleric deck focused totally on damage prevention, with just enough denial-type clerics to be able to interrupt particularly deadly offences.

It was designed to automagically absorb damage based on the number of clerics I had in play, and midgame I was able to do so for other players as well.

Which let me form allegiances in multiplayer games.

doppelgreener

@BESW Current damage preventers

(The very first on the list possibly being of great interest to your tactic.)

BESW

Then I played a card which made all my lands also count as swamps, and Pestilence, and dealt massive amounts of global damage to everyone. But my clerics and I were designed to absorb massive amounts of damage, so we never got touched.

Zachiel

@doppelgreener "don't deal me damage in great chunks. It might be unhealthy for you"

Joshua Aslan Smith

12:59

love me some White art

doppelgreener

@Zachiel well, if you can get your devotion high enough to manage it :D

Zachiel

oh, wait, it's damage to creatures.

I mean, I'd still return you lots of damage even if you dealt more than my devotion, late game, but it does nothing to prevent a nuke directed at a player.

doppelgreener

Consider combining that with Hundred-Handed One

BESW

I had a lot of social engineering going on underneath my deck's design.

doppelgreener

Turns into a 6/8 that can defend against 100 creatures.

BESW

13:02

For example, I never attacked and I wouldn't ever prevent you from casting a spell or attacking me; I'd just make it not matter that you did.

I wasn't a denial deck, because "I stop you from taking an action" draws attention.

I was a "your action doesn't bother me" deck.

doppelgreener

@BESW Does the term 'Esper' mean anything to you?

BESW

No.

doppelgreener

It's a white/blue/black control deck, and it was on my mind until I realised it would definitely get you noticed. :P

BESW

I was totally defensive and inward-looking.

doppelgreener

Esper is 100% effects that counter spells and exile things and wipes the board.

BESW

13:07

...until I played Pestilence, which I didn't do until I had enough mana to wipe out threats instantly.

doppelgreener

and then one creature: magiccards.info/dgm/en/11.html

BESW

Heh.

doppelgreener

@BESW You had black mana in there too? :O

BESW

Of course not! That would give the game away too early.

I had Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

And a cleric which let me search for land.

doppelgreener

@BESW Nice. :)

BESW

13:09

Urborg let me play an all-white deck with an endgame that required all the black mana I could possibly get my hands on.

Even players who'd played against me before could easily get too complacent about the deck.

I was designed to be totally harmless and non-offensive. Even when they knew my end mechanic, they'd often delay too long because the deck seemed so meek.

Zachiel

Wasn't pestilence too easy to counter, for blue decks?

BESW

Counterspell decks were going to kill me before I got anywhere near the Pestilence combo anyway.

But I did have clerics which let me retrieve cards from the graveyard.

@BlueAirlines Hi! You'll need at least 20 rep on any one Stack Exchange site before you can type in chat rooms, but you're welcome to hang out until then.

Zachiel

There even was a cleric that played an enchantment from your deck (or was it from your sideboard?) when it died.

BESW

My deck was not invincible. Counterspell and land destruction decks were particularly brutal.

But it was fun.

And in multiplayer games I'd team up with decks I knew I could beat--horde decks, for example--against decks I knew were legit threats.

doppelgreener

@BESW \o/ that's the kinda thing i want us to be able to do

BESW

13:16

I crafted it carefully to never tell another player he couldn't use his deck's awesome stuff; I just wanted to say it would be more effective to use on Mister Counterspell Deck over there than on me.

This was both so that we could both have fun playing, and so that I wouldn't draw aggro.

I did have another kill mechanic, actually, but it was tedious.

I could sacrifice clerics to cause loss of life based on their power, and then return them to my hand to play again.

Revolving door martyrdom.

Zachiel

@BESW that's the kind of thing I can't stand about multiplayer. When you're a threat everyone tries to get you down and in the end they do it. When the other player is stacking StarCraft Cruisers, you gang up and you still lose.

BESW

@Zachiel I've heard of various formats to mitigate this, but I've never played them.

One of my friends was very interested in designing Emperor decks with my deck in the middle.

Zachiel

Leaving now, but I might be back to ask for 4e character building tips: I have a new player in my game and he never heard about 4e before.

BESW

An Emperor game has six players, three on either side. The central player on each side is the Emperor and defeating him wins the game for the other side, but you can only target the players immediately next to you.

So the game looks like this:

Zachiel

Oh I know the Emperor format, I always wanted to try it but never found willing people

BESW

13:27

1a - - - - 1b
Ea - - - - Eb
2a - - - - 2b

1a can target only 1b and Ea, but when 1b goes down then 1a can target Eb.

My friend felt that a "prevent damage to other players" deck with a Pestilence Surprise at the bottom would be perfect for an Emperor.

Zachiel

What worries me is that this guy has a 3.5e character concept in his mind and I don't know if it's gonna mesh well with the existing cast or campaign.

BESW

@Zachiel Duly noted.

Zachiel

I don't know, can you as Ea target spell effects cast by 1b? Or would prevention only work on 1a's creatures?

@BESW Also, it's a tiefling, and tiefling lore changed quite a bit

BESW

@Zachiel Right, Ea can only target 1a and 2a until one of them goes down.

Joshua Aslan Smith

@zachiel whats the concept

BESW

13:30

So the Pestilence Surprise is for endgame when the Emperor is exposed to the other side.

Suddenly a deck that's looked totally defensive all game explodes.

Zachiel

@JoshuaAslanSmith We didn't have time to discuss it yesterday, so I need to talk with him to know

BESW

Meanwhile we'll think if there's any 4e race with a background more like 3.5 tieflings....

Vryloka, maybe?

Zachiel

@BESW we already have one in the party - and a paladin of the god of "you won't mess with undeath", which is great since we're fighting against Orcus, but might become troublesome if the Vryloka gets ever discovered.

BESW

14:12

[yawn]

Barest beginning of a notion for 3.5-style tiefling in 4e: take a multiclass feat like warlock and play it as having been given to a demon by your parents or something.

Maybe there's some background or the like which could help.

Joshua Aslan Smith

oh there is totally a background

one second

Sorry not background but Theme

Devil's Pawn

What do you mean, those cultists seemed to know me? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Throughout Faerûn’s history, the North has ever been a breeding ground for cults, whether they serve devils, demons, or any of a thousand other dark masters. The last decades have grown progressively darker, presenting a great opportunity for cultists that promise protection from the terrors of the frontier—at the comparatively small cost of eternal loyalty and secrecy. Or so the stories and tales go.

Devils pawn or the demon spawn themes

BESW

Excellent.

Joshua Aslan Smith

Demon Spawn

"Am I evil? It’s in my blood. But let my actions, rather than my appearance, show you my true nature."
Encounters between demons and mortals end almost always in swift death for the mortals. Demons live to destroy everything they can until they are destroyed themselves. This violent behavior makes it rare for demons to consort with mortals, yet here and there across the planes, one can find mortals who have demonic blood flowing through
their veins. Called demon spawn, most such creatures display wild, destructive evil similar to that of their demonic sires.

BESW

Now I'm going to bed. I'm sure I'll wake up to irate comments in my inbox.

[sigh]

Joshua Aslan Smith

also infernal prince

@besw goodnight

@zachiel checkout my big copy and paste jobs

Infernal Prince

"Within me burns the might of an infernal lineage. Those who stand against me face the wrath of the Nine Hells."
Eager to extend their influence into the world, the lords of the Nine Hells have long mingled their essence with those of chosen mortals to create bloodlines tainted with infernal power. Although the link between an infernal progenitor and his or her fiendish scions might stretch over many generations, the strength of the bloodline persists, and those “blessed” with such a legacy are potent tools of evil. Inheritors of a hellish strength, these infernal princes c…

BESW

14:26

Joshua Aslan Smith

hahaha

wax eagle

lol, if you open your notifications, badge notifications use the native site's icons no matter which site you earned your badge on. So if I open my notifications on C.SE, I get fish instead of d20s

Joshua Aslan Smith

hah

I just got the bronze dnd-5e badge today

wax eagle

14:49

very nice

5e is quickly climbing up our popular tags list

tied for 16

MrLemon

Makes sense. 5e is something new to figure out, after all.

Mourdos

Well, I'm glad our 5e questions are getting better

MrLemon

PHB is still not out though, right?

Joshua Aslan Smith

15:04

its out for WOTC affiliated retailers

aka gameshops and peeps who run events

wider release is next week

MrLemon

Ahh, okay.

I kind of like the new simplified approach of 5e (compared to 3.P), but skill usage seems kind of... gimped

I always liked playing characters with skills all over the place

Does anyone here know of a non-linear skill point system for D&D? I.e. skills with less ranks cost less to improve?

Das Schwarze Auge 4 has that, and though they completely botched the progression by not implementing any formula at all, making you add table entries everytime, the concept was nice

Mourdos

There is a feat in 3.PF called dilettante

+2 to knowledge when you have between 1 and 5 ranks in them

can make DC 15 Knowledge checks untrained

Plays well with bard in P6

MrLemon

15:19

d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/dilettante

Mourdos

Yep, that's the one

MrLemon

interesting... but only for P6^^

Mourdos

Or low level play, you can always retrain it later

MrLemon

Ahh, right, retraining

Mourdos

Traits were useful for getting up to two cross class skills to be a class skill

Also, I found a fun gombination

Gunsmithing + Gnome alternative trait

Joshua Aslan Smith

15:21

@MrLemon thats what the bard is for

and anyone can take any background

so as far as character concepts go any class could potentially have any 1 or 2 skills via background

Mourdos

Was there any official ruling on the sound striker and multiple/single targets?

I'm playing a level 2 Zen Archer Monk at the moment. Allowing monks to flurry as a standard action is a fun houserule.

I don't know how it will work with multiple attacks from BAB, need to work that out with my GM when I hit 6

MrLemon

Wait... your GM is new to the game, right?

Mourdos

Nope

Been running games for 10+ years

MrLemon

Did he read Zen Archer?

Mourdos

Yes, but he made the rule for monks generically.

and PF is a more recent switch over for us.

We have a trip based polearm fighter, a witch with slumber, swamps grasp, etc, and my ZAM

So far it works well

Only realised in his game that the Witch in my other PF game has been using swamps grasp wrong

in the other game, they have been using it as a 10 foot by 10 foot

not a one 10 by 10 per level

Need to find out if they have to be contigious

MrLemon

15:28

Sounds like a decent setup you got there. Lock everything down and fill it with arrows :)

Mourdos

Yep

And of course the witch has enlarge person, and the polearm fighter has a lucern hammer and a bite attack

So threatens all squares within 20 feet

and can drop his hammer if he doesn't want to take a -5 on his bite when someone provokes within 10 feet

( We are all tieflings, using the varient bloodlines)

Lowly tiefling noble house, with orc slaves all around. Not come across and humans or dwarves or elves yet

MrLemon

Bite attack, not bad. Though a spiked gauntlet would work as well I think

Mourdos

True, he dropped his SLA (which was DC based and he has 7 cha) for it

d20pfsrd.com/feats/racial-feats/fiend-sight-tiefling is an amazing feat

I'm considering taking it twice so that I can just see as well at night as I can at day.

Take THAT ambushes

We use maptools, so it has some quite nice uses :P

I love the fact that as a ZAM, I can hit people at 110 feet away, when their darkvision is only 60

Flatfooted ftw

Also, I have a feeling this is one of the more broken traits in pathfinder

d20pfsrd.com/traits/religion-traits/deadeye-bowman

It gives you most of a feat that normally requires BAB +11

So our tank doesn't get in my way

LessPop_MoreFizz

15:53

@Mourdos Can't use Enlarge Person on a Tiefling!

(Of course, there's no reason to inform your DM of this if he wasn't aware! :P )

MrLemon

@Mourdos reading the trait What the hell?

Inner Sea Gods seems to have several weird things

I'm just waiting for Alchemists with d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/potion-glutton

Tritium21

That book title sounds kinda new age hippy

Zachiel

@BESW @JoshuaAslanSmith His concept was basically "I spent a lot of time with the fey, I am a tiefling and I like ranged attacks". You can easily guess both class and pact.

Joshua Aslan Smith

ah

lol

super easily done as feypact warlock lol

LessPop_MoreFizz

@MrLemon That feat is several Errata waiting to happen.

Zachiel

16:07

@JoshuaAslanSmith the daily power that basically says "hey people! Get in pairs and attack each other" seems both fun and dangerous

It will play great with our sorc with his small area, large damage AoEs

Joshua Aslan Smith

lol nice

MrLemon

@LessPop_MoreFizz I mean, sure, you need to worship a God of Undeath, but wasn't Accelerated Drinker strong enough already?

LessPop_MoreFizz

@MrLemon So, a few things

1) The whole premise of the feat is wrong

> Normal: Drinking potions is a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity.

No, it's a standard action. So you're moving it by two categories, not one, as the feat claims, which is absurdly strong to begin with.

2) Accelerated Drinker is a trait, it reduces from a Standard to a Move, and it explicitly only works with Potions. Not with Extracts or Mutagens or anything else. Which means that for Alchemists, it's only really great for pairing with/improving the action economy of Alchemical Allocation. Which is great, but not that great.

The whole feat is just a mess, and needs several errata to clarify both it's intent and it's effect.

And that's before you even get into the Urgathoa nonsense.

MrLemon

I agree with you there.

LessPop_MoreFizz

Much more problematic, in that it isn't the result of a complete design brainfart/massive writing error, is the Evangelist prestige class.

Which, for any 3/4 BAB class, basically amounts to trading away your capstone level 20 ability for tons of other goodies, and giving up basically nothing else.

And for 1/2 BAB classes, you actually gain BAB and HP by doing it.

And again, literally all you give up is the capstone.

MrLemon

16:24

and a feat

LessPop_MoreFizz

And you get +2 to your AC, any two skills you want added as Class Skills (along with a few others that you don't get to choose), +4 to all untrained skill checks, oh, and also you can grab a +4 bonus to any stat you want and grow wings or a natural attack or whatever as often for a large number of minutes per day.

@MrLemon Yeah, but it's a good feat anyway, and it's an even better feat in combination with the class.

MrLemon

But yes, that class does sound kind of too good

LessPop_MoreFizz

And all of that is before you even get into the meat of the class itself, which is the three Divine Boons you get access to, which vary by deity, and vary from 'pretty boring' to 'awesome for very specific classes/builds' to 'mindbendingly good'.

MrLemon

hm... those aren't listed in the SRD

because the deities are IP I guess

LessPop_MoreFizz

Yeah.

Archives of Nethys has 'em I think.

MrLemon

16:27

I like that they reprinted d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/spear-dancer

LessPop_MoreFizz

Yeah, it does: archivesofnethys.com/DeityDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Erastil

MrLemon

it sucks, unless you just happen to be a d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/cavalier/archetypes/… with a bird (See lvl 3)

LessPop_MoreFizz

Look at the Evangelist boons for Erastil.

You literally get a second animal companion, and then, for good measure, add your Wisdom to your Hit and Dmg with a bow.

MrLemon

...

How would that interact with Zen-Archers?^^

double Wisdom to Hit?

LessPop_MoreFizz

Meanwhile, Rovagug evangelists get this bit of fun:

> 2: Destructive Spell (Su) By calling on the rage of the Rough Beast, you gain the ability to deal terrific damage with your spells. You can use this ability when casting a spell that deals hit point damage and has a casting time of 1 standard action or less. You can choose to cast the spell as a full-round action to gain a +4 bonus to its save DC. In addition, you treat all 1s rolled on your damage dice for the spell as 2s instead.

Note the complete lack of restrictions on that.

MrLemon

16:38

Were they even trying to have any kind of balance with these?

LessPop_MoreFizz

@MrLemon I don't think so. Inner Sea Gods is a pretty great fluff book, but the rules info is horrifyingly bad.

MrLemon

yeah, I figured

all right, I'm off here for today I guess. Guardians of the Galaxy opens in French Switzerland today :)

Aaron

17:00

test?

wax eagle

@MrLemon enjoy. The Soundtrack is amazing

Aaron

17:47

So bored

This day is dragging on forever

wax eagle

going too quick for me actually...part of that is that I'm trying to puzzle out some stuff with something of a time restriction

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