3.xth Edition House Rules

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 11:57 pm

It's still doesn't help that your a jerk about it.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 12:16 am

God_of_Awesome wrote:It's still doesn't help that your a jerk about it.

Actually, it totally does. It allows me to weed out people who are incapable of logical analysis and who rely on gut feelings.

Since everyone's "gut feeling" is that I'm a meany, and therefore obviously wrong, only people who can take an abstract post, form it into logical arguments, and then evaluate them, will ever say anything worthwhile to the conversation.

That way, I can just write off stupid people when I'm pressed for time.

Granted I'm not pressed for time right now, but it's there if I need it.

Not to mention, by this tactic admission of my correctness in a post where I called you an idiot you proved yourself smarter than anything I had yet seen from you, and this actually means I might be willing to go out of my way to help you on your Paladin thing, where before I would not have.

This way I avoid wasting my time on people like Mguy, but can still help people with genuine projects.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 2:06 am

I never said better than anyone, especially not out of the box. At that point, everyone just plays the Adventurer class, because that's what they are, adventurers. I just said that they can't be completely shut-out when the group faces something.

If the group needs to pull a sneak around scene... like say this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwP_iWPF9J0

If the scene calls for moving silently, then the characters need be able to move silently, all of the characters.

I don't want "We're spell-casters, and you're our retinue"; I shut down a game that I was a player in because it was annoying to see the other players suck.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 3:31 am

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 4:00 am

ubernoob wrote:JE, every Tome Fighter I've ever built has been better at the specialties of at least 2 other tome classes (barbarian and samuria at every level; monk past six on all of them at least if not more skilled than the jester and crap as well). This is a problem. Tome fighter is better than the other classes at their specialties and this is a problem.

Seriously, "Master of Everything" is not a valid character type in a party game. At all. That's where your entire argument is invalidated.

This is a better less jerky argument.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 5:29 am

God_of_Awesome wrote:This is a better less jerky argument.

No, that's my argument restated. Less Jerky. But A cannot be better than A.

@JE:

Or, maybe the Cleric just casts silence and you all go through. You don't have to be doing everything.

But as I already said, you didn't say, "I want my character to be able to contribute to everything." You said: "I want my character to contribute as well as everyone else to everything."

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:52 am

/sigh.

I had this post desconstrucring, and anylzing what happened when I first introduced the Tome stuff, and noticed what the RoW fighter did.

I also noticed that Ubernoob's post is an example of what pretty much only a TGD person would be able to pull off.

I talked about the first fighter that I built, and how I wasn't happy with the build for about 18 months of weekly play that my group was playing in a Tome game I was running, before figuring out something that I liked about the class.

I talked about what happened when I made the notorious character for Ubernoob's CO Challenge game. A combination of factors contributed from turning a somewhat decent character into a super optimized character that broke past any reasonable goalposts.

I talked about what super shenanigans the original character got up to.... being able to add Hide to their class list; being able to TWF with bastard swords, and able to deal acceptable damage with darts before using the bastard swords. That was level 7. Everything that came after was the result of doing everything possible to max out the character, or advice handed in from other sources.

I talked about how the situation for the creation of the character for Ubernoob's game resulted in my changing my character, and the resulting effects; occured in an other game.

Right now I'm doing a redux of that build, but I'm doing something completely different. The last two times, the fact that the GMs didn't realize what I was doing, or why I was doing what I was doing led to situations where 1) a campaign was ended, at my request, b/c the DM kept ratcheting up the difficulty of challenges, but only 3-4 out of 7 PCs could keep up, and 2) my building a character that demonstrated just how insane the Tome material can get. Liiterally, PHB Wizard levels of crazy; on the other hand, the RoW Fighter is described as being the marital version of the PHB Wizard class. It just took a lot of stressing, restriction and pressure to turn a moderately flexible martial class into something that is now notoriously considered to be overpowered.

This time, I'm doing something completely different, and I'm able to focus more on RP than the mechanics; which is really good for me, since I'm not stressing over something that should be a game.

Finally, Ubernoob, the fighter you discuss, what sort of things did you pick for it, and how did it work out? I've often considered lots of variations on the build that I go for, and have found that talking to the DM a lot about goal-posts is a good way to figure out what is alright, or not, for their game. Of course, the less I'm restricted, or pressured, by the campaign in terms of what I can do with a character, the lazier I get, and the less powergaming I do.

Restrictions, and limitations, on a character, or in character building, tend to force me to try to do everything possible to climb out of power-deficiency valleys. In the process of trying to climb out of those power-deficiency valleys, other things get stumbled upon, that weren't part of the original valley I was trying to solve. Since I don't like to ignore things that I think are handy, the result is that everything just snowballs, and aggregates into some massive juggernaut of craziness.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:19 am

Probably more to the point in my original question: could you elucidate how a Tome fighter equals/exceeds the samurai, barbarian, monk, knight, & rogue simultaneously?

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 12:35 pm

Out of the box, it doesn't. If you go for a build that has a mix of classes, with a lot of Fighter, then it's got enough potential options to deal with a lot of things.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:37 pm

Judging__Eagle wrote:I had this post desconstrucring, and anylzing what happened when I first introduced the Tome stuff, and noticed what the RoW fighter did.

I also noticed that Ubernoob's post is an example of what pretty much only a TGD person would be able to pull off.

I talked about the first fighter that I built, and how I wasn't happy with the build for about 18 months of weekly play that my group was playing in a Tome game I was running, before figuring out something that I liked about the class.

I talked about what happened when I made the notorious character for Ubernoob's CO Challenge game. A combination of factors contributed from turning a somewhat decent character into a super optimized character that broke past any reasonable goalposts.

I talked about what super shenanigans the original character got up to.... being able to add Hide to their class list; being able to TWF with bastard swords, and able to deal acceptable damage with darts before using the bastard swords. That was level 7. Everything that came after was the result of doing everything possible to max out the character, or advice handed in from other sources.

I talked about how the situation for the creation of the character for Ubernoob's game resulted in my changing my character, and the resulting effects; occured in an other game.

Right now I'm doing a redux of that build, but I'm doing something completely different. The last two times, the fact that the GMs didn't realize what I was doing, or why I was doing what I was doing led to situations where 1) a campaign was ended, at my request, b/c the DM kept ratcheting up the difficulty of challenges, but only 3-4 out of 7 PCs could keep up, and 2) my building a character that demonstrated just how insane the Tome material can get. Liiterally, PHB Wizard levels of crazy; on the other hand, the RoW Fighter is described as being the marital version of the PHB Wizard class. It just took a lot of stressing, restriction and pressure to turn a moderately flexible martial class into something that is now notoriously considered to be overpowered.

This time, I'm doing something completely different, and I'm able to focus more on RP than the mechanics; which is really good for me, since I'm not stressing over something that should be a game.

Finally, Ubernoob, the fighter you discuss, what sort of things did you pick for it, and how did it work out? I've often considered lots of variations on the build that I go for, and have found that talking to the DM a lot about goal-posts is a good way to figure out what is alright, or not, for their game. Of course, the less I'm restricted, or pressured, by the campaign in terms of what I can do with a character, the lazier I get, and the less powergaming I do.

Restrictions, and limitations, on a character, or in character building, tend to force me to try to do everything possible to climb out of power-deficiency valleys. In the process of trying to climb out of those power-deficiency valleys, other things get stumbled upon, that weren't part of the original valley I was trying to solve. Since I don't like to ignore things that I think are handy, the result is that everything just snowballs, and aggregates into some massive juggernaut of craziness.

JE, what did I jsut say about this? You didn't defend your design principles at all. You literally just posted a huge as rant about how great your character is again.

Is this In the Trenches? No. Therefore every single time you post that it is entirely irrelevant to the discussion, whatever it is. This is getting ridiculous.

Stop posting boring ass rants about how much you love your character. No one else cares. At all. Stop doing it. Stop. Seriously. No more.

virgileso wrote:Probably more to the point in my original question: could you elucidate how a Tome fighter equals/exceeds the samurai, barbarian, monk, knight, & rogue simultaneously?

Okay. A knight either does lots of damage, or directs enemy attacks at himself.

A Barbarian does lots of damage and is durable.

A Monk has status effects and other techniques to manipulate combat

A Rogue has lots of skills. And does lots of damage.

A Samurai does lots of damage, clears hordes, and has a few other situational tricks like parry and AoO monkeying.

A Tome Fighter:

Has so many Tome feats that by spending half of them on anything he does more damage than a comparable Samurai/Knight/Rogue/Barbarian.

Foil Action is like making them attack you, but strictly better. Foil Action is like being durable (Which the Fighter is, what hit great HP, All good saves, and Tome Armors) but better. Foil Action is like a situational parry, only better.

A Tome Fighter has 8+int skills, and can be Int based if he wants.

A Tome Fighter can use Combat School, and Str is the easiest stat to pump, so his save DCs are much higher than the Monks.

A Tome Fighter with longer reach and more feats can AoO monkey better than a Samurai.

A Tome Fighter can use Problem Solver and UMD as a class skill, and various other abilities to pull out the right technique for any situation.

And most importantly of all:

All of that can be the same Tome Fighter.

A collection of level 10 classes has basically:

Damage/durability/tanking/status effects/skills/problem solving.

A level 10 Tome Fighter has Damage/durability/tanking/status effects/skills/problem solving.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 3:13 pm

To return to the OP...

Permanent magic items are spontaneously created by your badassness. Wealth-by-Level is an explicit value of magic items you have, separate from any other measure of wealth. Consumables and 0th level spells-as-wondrous items are the only magic items that can be created.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 6:06 pm

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:41 pm

It hardly matters, but it's 6+int mod per level.

Also, the status effects is one of the few things that I've been unable to fit into a Tome Fighter build. Partly b/c I use Wis, Int or Dex as the to-hit stat; and tank Str.

I... actually like to Tank str on most of the melee builds that I use, with Barbarians, I pump Con and Int, with Monks it's Wis and Con; Paladins Cha, and Knights Dex and Con; the system has enough variables and alternates for Str as to-hit and damage, that I don't really care to max str.

Also, like I said in my previous post, the reason that I spent a ton of time on the fighter class was that players in my group made fighters, and all of them.... well... they sucked. Like badly.

Out of the whole group, the Tome Fighters were always at the bottom in terms of dealing with enemies, dealing damage, "solving problems". Only in terms of 'durability' and 'tanking' did they show any sort of promise. Because they seemed to suck so much, I wanted to see what the problem was with the class; really, it's the write-up for the class showing up. The RoW fighter was meant to be played by the players who know that a Roper's tentacles are 50' long, and it is slow as hell, and how to deal with that to win the encounter (ranged attacks, keep moving backwards, you can kite it no problem).

Really, the Tome Fighter is like the PHB Wizard; and that was right in the write-up and description of the class. The Tome fighter drives into crazytown and becomes mayor in the same scale that the PHB Wizard can. A badly made Row Fighter is going to suck; because they have very few "failsafes"; things that are automatically good. The class relies a lot on player mastery, so the player who can make a Wizard that makes the DM cry at level 1 onwards will probably do the same with the Fighter.

It's a class with lots of 'potential'. Potentially, it can really suck, if you choose feats at random, just the same as a Wizard that prepares Magic Missile, or Fireball; instead of Colour Spray or Web. It's been demonstrated here that the class can also do things that aren't good for a game, like shove the goalposts very far back.

The ultimate question is... Should players be allowed to use their mastery of the game? Should the PHB Generalist Wizard and the RoW Fighter be removed?

The goal posts aren't the other characters, but rather the monsters. Remember, the goals of the Tome stuff is the monsters, and being able to beat them 50% of the time if played without too much work.

Ultimately, I'm not sure. I like them both, but they're a lot of work, and they can be hidden traps for a novice, or a headache for everyone if powergamed. Really though, any class can be powerful with a lot of research and planning.

A Barbarian can be an ambush monkey more powerful than an Assasin, right out of the box, since they aren't held back by "single" target special damage pools.

A Samurai or Knight can make for really cheesy ranged builds that are really effective (in fact, I think most of the highest damage Knight builds involve ranged combat, and flying)

Monks... well, Monks can seriously do things that no other class can do. Trying to deal 'damage' with a monk is like saying "I'm going to play a Bow-using Barbarian"; it misses the point of the class. Monks are supposed to be mobility and bizarre abilities machines; shooting arrows that drain blood; headbutting and groin-kicking for AoE damage; throwing Shuriken that Disintigrate enemies; or hitting enemies so hard that they fly into an other dimension. They win by not dealing damage, but by changing the rules that a fight was being fought.

Jesters.... are meant to be de-buff kings, with a small amount of SA damage, and some spells to give some bonuses. Watching Danny Kaye in the The Court Jester is a good example of what a Jester can do.

Rogues, chukkers, it's their most viable build; most variations will use chucking of something to make them better. A warforged, or warforged scout with Lifedrinker daggers, and gloves of Tarnhelm the Vigilant is also an interesting build for higher level play. Can't touch UD and Constructs though; but able to deal with things that no form of precision damage is currently able to deal with, Oozes.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:07 pm

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:44 pm

So what can we do to tone down the fighter? If feat chains (lots of synergistic feats) are bad b/c Tome feats are feat chains unto themselves, I propose the following: a) restrict the list of bonus feats, b) divide the list into synergistic "Combat Styles" or whatever and restrict the number of feats from any one Style you can take (as I understand, Fighters are supposed to be "good enough" at a large number of tasks, but only second best at any of them), c) nerf overpowered feats: Combat School gets the save DC attribute changed to, say, Con or "highest mental attribute" and restricted to attacks from BaB, Blitz +1 has the damage reduced (maybe by not stacking with Power Attack?) and/or gets restricted to melee so opponents actually have a chance of making those AoOs.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:49 pm

I actually forgot something regarding the Barbarian. They have a speed bonus. Their speed bonus is a hidden buff in terms of their damage per round. Not all, but many, Barbarians seem to pick up Whirlwind, and then proceed to use their rage dice on nearly everything within walking distance.

I think that with the exception of say, Knights, the other Tome Classes can do their specialty better than a Tome Fighter could. The problem is a matter of time investment.

With extreme time investment, nearly all of the Tome Classes can look ridiculous; the Fighter is just a class that can branch off into areas that are held by other classes.

A maxed damage per round, whirlwind/TWF barb (assuming that Rage dice applies to TWFing; something that I didn't consider being legal until a few months ago) will just clear a room; often a massive room, due to their very high speed. Failing that, they'll have dealt more damage in a round than the fighter will, merely due to distance travelled. The Barbarian's Saves are potentially much higher than other peoples, even the Fighter's; before buffs are taken into account.

A Knight can kill a Dragon of their CR (listed CR, not real CR) every round (Even at lvl 20, a Tome Fighter needs 2 rounds to drop a CR 20 Great Wyrm Red). Of course, what Knightly PrC you pick will also change that around.

I'm not super familiar with Sam's.

Honestly, I think this more of a question for each group to ask on their own. Personally, I don't believe that the other classes will lose out in their specialties to a Fighter. The Fighter does step on a lot of toes though, and it wears some pretty heavy boots as well.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:10 am

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:41 am

New topic.

Refurbishing the Knight class into a Fighter class to fit my psychological need for such. It seem pretty easy. The 'Call Out' ability is replace with something more wacky oriented, or simply renamed 'Taunt.' Code of Conduct is disposed of. The Knighthoods become Fighter Schoo-

Wait, didn't I say all this already. I should just go do it.