@somori sounds similar to the argument that "we must protect freedom of religion by enforcing our own particular religious beliefs on everyone else," which gets used quite a lot in some places.

Something like that, yeah.

@somori feel free to pull me into chat again some time. That was enjoyable.

@BESW It certainly was. I know more than I did a couple of hours ago :)

@KRyan I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of NPCs with pre-determined levels; I usually keep that stuff pretty fluid until the PCs run into them, and then set it to whatever's appropriate at the time. What are the pros and cons of fixed level NPCS?

@somori [The More You Know]

@BESW I feel a sudden urge to link a GI Joe PSA....

I think that Arkhosia is a blend of the Roman and Muslim Empires, so my interest in that kind of thing was a definitely plus in building my current campaign (and the war between Arkhosia and Bael Turath is pretty obviously modelled on a mutually destructive version of the Punic Wars).

When I used a poster-sized piece of paper, areas of effect were what you could cover with your hand.

Inch squares look about right for my map.

It's just that the smaller the units are, the more turns it takes to cover the map.

(The number of players is important too, of course.)

@BESW presumably, the idea is that "the world is there," operating separately from what the PCs do. So characters aren't higher level just cuz the PCs are (or lower level just cuz the PCs are). But in the case of Eberron, it's to give you an idea of when the players are "playing in the big leagues" so to speak. An 8th-level PC is world-renowned. A 12th-level PC is one of the most powerful and important humanoids in the setting. A higher-level PC is now fighting monsters that threaten reality.

@BESW Around 6 players, 100 square inches. I think it should be alright :)

@KRyan Ah. I usually operate on how threatening I want an NPC or organization to be to the PCs.

I don't mind about blank terrain showing flat plains.

@somori Whenever I see great expanses of flat grassy plains on a map, my knee-jerk reaction is to fill them with nomadic catfolk tribes.

@BESW I'm sure one of the players will have a similar knee jerk reaction ;)

@somori I approve.

Hey can a totemist shape a soulmeld on his body and wear armor as long as he doesnt bind it? thats how I interperate the text

@Novian I think that would get better exposure as a question on the actual board; I recognize all the words you used and can guess the system you intend but even if I'm right I've got no clue about the answer.

I feel stupid when the most popular question I have asked on these sites ever is about the actual meaning of a single word...

@Undreren It was an interesting question! I'd always sort of assumed the 'sponge' thing, but it was nice to have confirmation.

But then, I'm an amateur language geek.

People make a lot of assumptions about language, and even with an intense immersion in good usage (something most people cannot boast) those assumptions are frequently inaccurate. Asking about these things isn't stupid; one of the greatest assets to learning is recognizing you don't know something.

Just got back from running an epic three-phase miniboss fight based on one of the 4e Tomb of Horrors superadventures.

Is there a way to make dominate NOT fuel for party revolt?

getting complaints from a player that Tome of Battle is broken because of the fact that some maneuvers or whatever heal small ammounts of HP and they can be recovered quite easily. with seemingly no downside.

@Novian Shaped soulmelds block other soulmelds but not magic items; only soulmelds bound to a chakra actually block magic items (and you can use the Split Chakra feat to prevent that).

I have read the book only sparingly and have heard its pretty balanced from others. but it seems that I can do nothing to assure that player that it isnt as bad as he thinks it to be.

@KRyan It took me a while but I found that on my own.

that book likes to hide things

yeah, Magic of Incarnum is notorious for being the worst-laid-out book WotC wrote

but the system itself is awesome, and not all that complicated once you finally figure out how it works

@KRyan it does have interesting stuff in it

I cannot figure out how to assure this player that indeed the tome of battle isnt broken

@Novian well, what are his arguments for it being so? For what it's worth, I think I've established a reputation for a certain level of system mastery with 3.5, and I can say unequivocally that Tome of Battle is the most well-balanced and well-designed book WotC ever wrote for 3.5

its competition in that regard is nonexistent

only Expanded Psionics Handbook and Magic of Incarnum come close, and those have the Soulknife and Soulborn, respectively

or, for example, there was a thing where ~40 well-known and respected optimizers ranked every base class in power, and when the final results were averaged out, the three base classes from Tome of Battle were smack in the middle of the list, and were all together (literally, it went Crusader, Warblade, something else, Swordsage)

out of every base class in 3.5

well the fact that a warblade only needs a swift action to recover and his powers do things like heal 2 hp per hit which to him is a world of difference

he was complaining.

Tome of Battle also has a relatively high "floor" and a relatively "low" ceiling, which means that you don't have to optimize them much, but if you do you can't break the game

also, all of the healing maneuvers are Crusader-only

and 2 HP is tiny after like level 2

it is 2 HP every time he hits something, so it's not nothing

but it's not game-changing, either

he also complains about the lack of an apparent downside to the classes

I cant find one but not every class has onew

they cannot fly, cannot see invisible things, cannot affect incorporeal/ethereal things, only the Swordsage has access to any form of teleportation, etc. etc.

they also tend to do less damage than an optimized Barbarian/Fighter/whatever

in short, they are not magic

I mean, the Crusader and Swordsage have some supernatural stuff

but they are nothing like a spellcasting class

the one caveat I will give you is that from my perspective, it's hard to "screw up" a Warblade, while it's very easy to screw up a Fighter or Wizard

if everyone in the group doesn't know what they're doing, the Warblade can be best just because he's a Warblade

and ultimately, they are better-designed classes than Fighter, Monk, Paladin

which makes them more versatile and flexible, capable of contributing more to more encounters

not getting sidelined as easily

but for pure damage, some kind of Ubercharger is what you want and Tome of Battle's not how you do it

and if a Warblade's pretty hard to screw up, a Druid couldn't be simpler to overshadow everything

1. Take Natural Spell. 2. There is no step two, you've already won.

do that, and you're 1.5 Fighters who also gets full spellcasting off the second or third best list in the game

heh I won with less than that.

at least 1.5 Fighters

summoning spells. there are no steps you win

Frostburn summoning spells.

actually, that's not really true; summons take a long time, can be interrupted, and for the most part the creatures you can summon are weaker than the creatures that would be a fair fight for you

can't speak to those directly

but while you can certainly optimize a Druid's summoning (Greenborn Summoning, mostly), out of the box they're only OK (compared to the other crazy things he could be doing)

a lesser rod of rapid spell and Greenborn Summoning go a long way to making them amazing though

I pretty much use them for crowd controll and damage output while my character itself is the teams medic because everyone thinks OH A HEALER LETS NOT buy other sources of healing

sigh

Its sad I know

but really, you shouldn't be healing in the middle of combat unless it's an emergency anwyay

but I do my job because I have to

you can prevent a lot more damage by killing enemies than you can heal by healing

usually is when I do it

and then you can just use a wand of lesser vigor to top them off between fights

unless you're really running through a gauntlet it should be good enough

GM Ruled that in such a small town that we started off in there wasnt some sort of wand vendor

i had forgotten WoLV

sigh

it was pretty backwoods too. had more booze than people

while I probably wouldn't have let you buy one either, not if it was supposed to be a small town

I definitely would have included one in the loot you got off a pretty early fight

that's part of the DM's job, to make sure you get the WBL you're supposed to get -- and it doesn't count as wealth if it's not useful

or hell, a cache of Healing Belts

I still wanna know how that troll got a pair of "Eyes of the eagle" or whatever that item was called

best thing I ever squeezed out of a GM was that he let me permanency detect magic and identify on myself.

constant detect magic occurs on a few classes; it's nifty

identify is interesting

I'm in favor though

I hate the identify minigame