Utility Magic

[erik]

1172662861[/unixtime]]I may be wrong about this

Yep.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/ma ... uote]Magic items produce spells or spell-like effects. For a saving throw against a spell or spell-like effect from a magic item, the DC is 10 + the level of the spell or effect + the ability modifier of the minimum ability score needed to cast that level of spell.

Staffs are an exception to the rule. Treat the saving throw as if the wielder cast the spell, including caster level and all modifiers to save DC.[/quote]

As for the notion that nobody plays gnomes, or that spell focus is a feat never to be taken, I respectfully disagree... because you're crazy.

I especially enjoyed reading that notion since I mentioned earlier in this thread my wife's gnome wizard summoner/battlefield controller who has augment summoning along with it's spell focus pre-req... so far that character has been fantastically effective in Living Greyhawk.

[User3]

The actual method is to get a scroll of Glibness, decipher* it (Spellcraft check DC 23), spend a day studying it (Spellcraft DC 18), then scribe it into your book. And by "scribe" I mean "Secret Page."

...I must be a masochist to jump into this...but does anybody here play with a DM who just doesn't allow this kind of stuff, by using "Rule Zero"??

I mean, I love reading all the advice, but in my campaigns, including the one I'm currently running I routinely disallow all these 'tricks'! Granted, I'm more into running a social game with friends, and we're not trying to use the RAW to 'break' things, but we still manage to have fun. I was just wondering if anyone here also DMs that way...

[RandomCasualty]

1172673513[/unixtime]]
I mean, I love reading all the advice, but in my campaigns, including the one I'm currently running I routinely disallow all these 'tricks'! Granted, I'm more into running a social game with friends, and we're not trying to use the RAW to 'break' things, but we still manage to have fun. I was just wondering if anyone here also DMs that way...

In my games, I commonly cut out all the really cheesy exploits. No wraithstrike, no polymorph mechanics, ubercharge multiplications are nerfed, stuff gets a reflex save against falling or thrown object damage, etc.

And in general, I try to stick to the spirit of the rules as opposed to the literal text. While rules lawyer arguments are fine for online message boards and discussions, I try to keep them away from the table.

If someone feels a class is underpowered, I'm fine with them coming to me and asking me to change it, but if they're going to try to pull a fast one with rules interpretation, I'll probably shoot it down.

[bitnine]

1172673513[/unixtime]]...I must be a masochist to jump into this...but does anybody here play with a DM who just doesn't allow this kind of stuff, by using "Rule Zero"??

Sure, plenty of games run with different setups and limiters. It could be anything from freeform house-ruling, a gentleman's agreement not to collectively aim to avoid certain things, or a simple lack of knowledge of rules interactions. Myself, I don't denigrate those types of games, that's fine.

But we can have a discussion on how the rules work and trust you - and anyone else who has taken the rules set into their own hands - to adjust appropriately for their campaign. It might be different if a given individual is asking for advise on character building within the context of a specific game or within certain caveats. But here are the spells and rules, and here are how things work.

I myself run a homebrew setting that contains a large number of houserules and different elements that significantly changes the flow of play and how many of these things interact. However, I'm not going to put my head into the sand or chide people for discussion "too powerful" tricks. Among other things, I want to know these things so I can better implement well-founded adjustments, as I don't too much care for houserule-a-minute gaming when it can be avoided.

If you want to limit discussion like that in general topics, it's really not feasible. No matter what scope of power you use you, when post your combat tactics some crazy self-righteous nasal dude will show up and talk about the roleplaying and how you should only use commoners with dull forks and the things you mention are gamist and broken. Um, though not comparing you to that guy - saying that guy would show up somewhere down the line.

[Username17]

Spell Focus does not apply to scrolls you write, but it does apply to scrolls you read, so if you are writing your own scrolls you get the full benefit of your Spell Focus feat (though not your min/maxxed attribute).

Functionally, a Wizard (or Archivist) has 2 spells per level from their specific spell-list, plus an additional variable number of spells that are "whatever the DM says you get".

Sure, an Archivist could find a pile of Shugenja writings and get a bunch of spells, he could also get a tablet of arbitrary divine writings of spells the DM made up himself. A Wizard could decipher a scroll of a Naga or frankly any scroll that the DM throws in there. But it's all house rule territory, because honestly noone just lets players get Artificer cohorts and then have their cohorts dumpster dive through bullshit spell-lists and turn over their creations to Wizards who then reverse engineer them into Wizard spells. It's in black-and-white that you can totally do that if you live in Eberron, but Eberron is retarded and noone cares.

And that's why spells that a Wizard could learn off a scroll are not on this list. This list is only the spells that you can get for going up in level - not the spells that you can acquire in game. That's because the spells you acquire in game don't have to conform to a list and are basically just a personal agreement you have with your DM - I can't help you with that.

-Username17

[Brobdingnagian]

I agree Eberron is retarded. After all, thanks to Eberron rules, my Changeling Rogue3/Marshall1 was getting... let's see... seven ranks... +3 Charisma... +3 from Motivate Charisma... another four from synergies... or was it six? Can't quite recall, but I was getting either 27 or 29 on my Diplomacy checks. I mean, every time, without fail. That's just too awesome. Now I'm three levels higher and hitting 39. Eberron is retarded, partly because Changelings should own the world and don't.

And my DM's usually just let people casting spells off scrolls use their own stat for it. It never occured to me to check otherwise.

Also, as a DM, and this is just me, I encourage my players to find every way possible to break the game. It's that much more fun to find a way to stop them from doing it in a completely legitimate fashion. But that's just me.

[RandomCasualty]

1172689899[/unixtime]]I agree Eberron is retarded. After all, thanks to Eberron rules, my Changeling Rogue3/Marshall1 was getting... let's see... seven ranks... +3 Charisma... +3 from Motivate Charisma... another four from synergies... or was it six? Can't quite recall, but I was getting either 27 or 29 on my Diplomacy checks. I mean, every time, without fail. That's just too awesome. Now I'm three levels higher and hitting 39. Eberron is retarded, partly because Changelings should own the world and don't.

Well really, the diplomacy skill is the thing that's in error here if you ask me. Skills really weren't made to be very balanced, they were just extra crap you could do that nobody cares much about, like disarming traps and climbing walls and stuff. Yeah, some of them can be remarkably useful but they're just support they don't win adventures.

Diplomacy on the other hand is actually the skill that wins adventures. It really shouldn't use the skill system at all, because you only use the skill system for stuff you don't care about.

[Judging__Eagle]

1172690264[/unixtime]]

1172689899[/unixtime]]I agree Eberron is retarded. After all, thanks to Eberron rules, my Changeling Rogue3/Marshall1 was getting... let's see... seven ranks... +3 Charisma... +3 from Motivate Charisma... another four from synergies... or was it six? Can't quite recall, but I was getting either 27 or 29 on my Diplomacy checks. I mean, every time, without fail. That's just too awesome. Now I'm three levels higher and hitting 39. Eberron is retarded, partly because Changelings should own the world and don't.

Well really, the diplomacy skill is the thing that's in error here if you ask me. Skills really weren't made to be very balanced, they were just extra crap you could do that nobody cares much about, like disarming traps and climbing walls and stuff. Yeah, some of them can be remarkably useful but they're just support they don't win adventures.

Diplomacy on the other hand is actually the skill that wins adventures. It really shouldn't use the skill system at all, because you only use the skill system for stuff you don't care about.

I'm pretty sure that a group of adventurers who had to .... wait, adventurers almsot never have to climb or balance; that's what flying spells and gear is for.

Okay, so skills are important to low lvl games.

And lvl 6 missions where you face CR 7-10 traps.

Yeah, Eberron is retardedly stupid in power, but it's also retardedly hard at times.

And, Click; sure, I know that the SoD from a scroll might not be that good; but I'm not aiming to use SoDs on that character to begin with.

The scrolled SoDs are for when I think that they might be useful. Mostly since the spells I prep I get more benefits from having one more round or hour of Duration; since I'm playing a combatant self-buffer who has a damage output larger than any other party member (save the now uber-tweaked ninja) and more AC than anything we'll ever meet and not a squishy wizard who relies on SoDs to kill stuff.

I already make the melee chars feel small in pants as it is, but at least I do it their way, and they know that I'll drop group buffs as well.

Really, the cost becomes negligable if you have the magical [whatever] feats that reduce gp and time to nearly nil; combat and rp xp I can earn, the first two are a pain to get at times.

[User3]

"Nearly nil"? I hope you aren't stacking those 25% reductions.

[Judging__Eagle]

1172704308[/unixtime]]"Nearly nil"? I hope you aren't stacking those 25% reductions.

No, the reductions only apply to one component of crafting; so one feat is -25% of time for all crafting; an other is -25% gp for all crafting.

I also took the -25% xp/gp/time feat for scrolls so that I can churn them out at 1/4 of their total buy cost; 1/50th the base GP in xp and roughly 2000 gp crafter per day.

Of course, most of my feats are tied up in crafting; so no spell focus or spell penetration.

So I'm making up for relative power for definate quantity.

Higher DCs (of, 3 points more, maybe 5 more if you've also got spell focus and greater spell focus) don't mean your 1-2 prepped highest lvl spells will do anything, since a save can always be made.

However, in a relatively large group: 7-10 Good Hope, Haste and Prayer 2 scrolls will give a definete edge to a group. Especially since I give the Good Hope scrolls to the Divine
Bard and the Prayer 2 scrolls to the cleric, while I cast Haste.

Of course, SoDs are more a wizard thing than a divine caster thing.

[User3]

Okay, good. The table has a typo that makes people think they can take the same -25% feat multiple times, which is incorrect.

[NineInchNall]

1172689899[/unixtime]]I agree Eberron is retarded. After all, thanks to Eberron rules, my Changeling Rogue3/Marshall1 was getting... let's see... seven ranks... +3 Charisma... +3 from Motivate Charisma... another four from synergies... or was it six? Can't quite recall, but I was getting either 27 or 29 on my Diplomacy checks. I mean, every time, without fail. That's just too awesome. Now I'm three levels higher and hitting 39. Eberron is retarded, partly because Changelings should own the world and don't.

Well, you don't really need Eberron to break the Diplomacy skill. It just gets less costly because of the changling Rogue sub. level. Add in the fact that Marshall is the diplomat's holy grail dip, and you're gettin' into the territory of silly.

27 or 29 at fourth level? Pshaw.

1. Half-elf bard 1 -- Bind Vestige
2. Warlock 1
3. Marshall 1 -- Skill Focus (diplomacy), Practiced Binder

Ranks: 6
+2 racial
+6 unnamed (beguiling influence)
+6 unnamed (synergies)
+3 unnamed (Skill Focus)
+4 Cha
+4 circumstance (motivate charisma)
----
+31 Total

Can always take 10 on Diplomacy checks and makes such checks as a standard action at no penalty due to binding Naberius. Thus, he always gets a 41. At level 3. All day.

[User3]

Does that mean that wizards could develop the low level cure spells if their bard buddy made a scroll?

[erik]

That's the notion.

Or they could just independently research some spell which let you do pretty much exactly the same thing and could call it Lesser Biological Repair or whatever else they darn well pleased... Bigby's Healing Hand (I), Evard's Soothing Tentacle, you get the notion.

There are plenty of genres where this healing magic isn't out of the question at all for wizardly types.