[D&D3ish]Crypts of Chaos: Scouting Interest

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:18 pm

Kaelik wrote:Okay, so... Since the way I originally read it was no Tome stuff of any kind under any circumstances, and now it's something about voting.

Everybody kept asking for Tome stuff!

Was wondering how Totemist would work.

You want to use Tome Totemist, it goes to a vote. If it passes, everything passes. If you don't want that, pick something from the dozens of other 3.5 books. Or Pathfinder. Or Book of Erotic Fantasy. Whatev.

I think someone should just declare that they are "using" MM II-V, Fiendish Codexes, Libris Mortis, ect because I really don't see why you would want to exclude the DM from using monsters from other books.

It does make me get more creative.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:22 pm

Wait, if allowing that weapon proficiency thing means allowing all the tomes, then I change my vote to no.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:27 pm

Ancient History wrote:
Was wondering how Totemist would work.
You want to use Tome Totemist, it goes to a vote. If it passes, everything passes.

That's stupid. If one person wants to use a class that's not even in the Tomes, and nothing else, then suddenly every fight is Tome Fighters and Stone Giants with Tome Combat feats?

That's beyond retarded.

It's fine, I was perfectly happy not playing in this game when I thought I couldn't play anything I wanted, now I know I just can't play anything I want without having to deal with fucking Fighters, so I still can't play what I want. Not playing.

Also, as above, Suddenly Tome Fighter and Tome of Necromancy and Giants with Combat feats are in because one person wants to get exotic weapon proficiency without a feat. Dumbest shit ever.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:27 pm

Tome of Necromancy is kinda a standalone thing anyway. It was released before races of war and the dungeonomicon so still has a lot of 3.5 references. It makes necromancy a lot more... stylish but that is mostly a setting thing. As far as power goes, wizards do already have that kind of power, it is just mostly unique to conjurers and transmuters in default 3.5.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:39 pm

Dominicius wrote:Tome of Necromancy is kinda a standalone thing anyway. It was released before races of war and the dungeonomnicron so still has a lot of 3.5 references. It makes necromancy a lot more... stylish but that is mostly a setting thing. As far as power goes, wizards do already have that kind of power, it is just mostly unique to conjurers and transmuters in default 3.5.

With Tome of Necromancy, any evil PC can take A Feast Unknown and have a posse of loyal ghouls at level 1.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:44 pm

As long as you do not start the game with a following of ghouls. If you rule in that you actually need to work to get said ghouls (spend materials, find a place not touched by the sun, find dying people, spend an actual hour per CR of in game time performing the ritual) rather then assume that you get them off screen then I do not see the problem.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:44 pm

Kaelik wrote:That's stupid. If one person wants to use a class that's not even in the Tomes, and nothing else, then suddenly every fight is Tome Fighters and Stone Giants with Tome Combat feats?

That's beyond retarded.

It's fine, I was perfectly happy not playing in this game when I thought I couldn't play anything I wanted, now I know I just can't play anything I want without having to deal with fucking Fighters, so I still can't play what I want. Not playing.

Also, as above, Suddenly Tome Fighter and Tome of Necromancy and Giants with Combat feats are in because one person wants to get exotic weapon proficiency without a feat. Dumbest shit ever.

Okay, I thought I'd made this clear - which is why I had initially disallowed all fan material, period, exclamation mark. Any player can choose to pick any option, equipment, spell, whatever from any D&D 3.+ book, or even a little beyond if it's a published supplement and they have the approval of the other players. The sole counter to that is as the MC I am restricting myself to those books that PCs are using, which I think is fair.

So yeah, this is why I don't want to use fan material, even Tome stuff. These arguments right here. But I'll let the players decide.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:51 pm

Going by the letter of that, Frank never included the Totemist in any of the compilations he and K released (Tome of Necromancy, Tome of Fiends, Dungeonomicon, Races of War). It appeared in This thread as a teaser from the unreleased Book of Virtue.

So we really would be voting on just the Totemist. But don't let that stop you throwing a fit Kaelik

PS, char. sheet will be up soon.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 7:35 pm

So here we have:

Seiko Kai, LG Human (Fire) Monk 4

When the old Master passed away, the disciples performed their ritual as they always had, and determined the newborn baby that had inherited his soul. And as always the boy was brought to the ancient temple and began his training in the mystical arts, to one day take his place as the Enlightened Master and Defender of the Low Villages. This time, however, there was something different about the child. He was strong, and took to the Way of the Blade well enough, but he never seemed to understand the ancient Wisdom that was being imparted to him. It seemed that he would never gain the spiritual understanding necessary to take the final steps to becoming the Enlightened Master. Finally, in despair, the monks made a prayer to the Gods, any Gods, to take the boy away until he had gained the Wisdom he needed.
Unfortunately, they didn't know which God was listening...

Current appearance: A black, white and grey human missing his left eye, covered in strange tattoos and wearing a Santa costume without the beard.


Str	16	+3
Dex	14	+2
Con	14	+2
Int	12	+1
Wis	10 (9)	+0 (-1) 1 Wisdom damage
Cha	11	+0

Initiative: +4 (including +2 from Tattoo)
HP: 13/29
Speed: 40'

Armour Class: 17 (+2 Dexterity, +1 Monk, +4 Tattoo)
-Flat-footed: 15
-Touch AC: 17


Fort	+6
Ref	+6
Will	+4 (-1 due to Wis damage) (+2 vs. Enchantments)

BAB/Grapple: +3/+10
Attack: Fist +6 melee, (D10+3 Bludgeoning, 20/x2)
Monk's Blade D8+? Melee

Feats:
bImproved Unarmed Strike
bImproved Grapple (Grapple does not provoke, +4 to grapples)
bCombat Reflexes (+2 AoO, take AoO while flat footed)
Power Attack
Flying Kick (+D12 damage to unarmed attacks whilst charging)
Cleave
Leap of the Heavens (Standing jumps with no penalty, +5 if run up)
Battle Jump (Double damage if drop from 5' onto enemy during charge)
(Spring attack)
(Stunning Fist 4/day)
(Deflect Arrows 2/round)

Flaws:
Inattentive (-4 to Spot and Listen checks)
Shaky (-2 to ranged attacks)

Skills:
ACP 0


Tumble	7	+9 (+2 Jump Synergy)
Spot	4	+4 (-4 to roll)
Balance	6	+8
Intimidate	7	+7
Know: Arcana	5	+6
Jump	7	+9 (+4 Speed, +5 Leap of the Clouds, +2 Tumble Synergy)

Skill Tricks:
Twisted Charge

Features:
Flurry of blows (-2 to hit, +1 attack)
Evasion

Fire Immunity

Cold Vulnerability x 1½

Still Mind (+2 save vs. Enchantments)

Ki Strike (Unarmed attacks count as Magic)

Wall Walker (Move 20' up a vertical surface as a Move action without a climb check)

Gear:
Monk's Sword *Magic*
Santa robe *Magic*
iron ring with rough edges inscribed with a snowflake rune *Magic*
crude wooden amulet *Magic*

Carrying capacity: 5/72lb

Other:
Entirely colourless body - grey skin & black hair.
Blue Scorpion tattoos covering body
Missing left eye

XP: 4,440

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 8:22 pm

Ok, for my 2c on the Tome noise:
1. What Red Rob said. Totemist, and many other classes on here, were produced to tome standards, but not linked to tome in any real way, other than later getting vetted in to the Tome pdf.
2. The exploit is just a house rule that I think would be really handy, since it means I don't have to dip fighter.
3. As Dominicus said, ToNecromancy, as well as ToFiends, were standalone works meant to work within the structure of 3.5.
4. There are two parts to Tome: Improving options (class rewrites, new general feats) and Improving the system (scaling feats, etc.). One can use one without the other, which is what I typically do, because my players apparently don't like fun and don't want the feats et al. But, at the same time, that would lead to several people rewriting their characters and delaying things.

Edit: Also, should grids etc become necessary, excel and other spreadsheet programs work well.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 8:24 pm

Edit: Thanks Prak. That explained it better.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 11:00 pm

Korgan0 wrote:
sheet is here- http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.p ... tid=419115 - I'll edit my above post to show it.

Your guy seems to be missing some feats, spells, etc.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:08 am

Ancient History wrote:Okay, I thought I'd made this clear - which is why I had initially disallowed all fan material, period, exclamation mark. Any player can choose to pick any option, equipment, spell, whatever from any D&D 3.+ book, or even a little beyond if it's a published supplement and they have the approval of the other players. The sole counter to that is as the MC I am restricting myself to those books that PCs are using, which I think is fair.

So yeah, this is why I don't want to use fan material, even Tome stuff. These arguments right here. But I'll let the players decide.

Those arguments only exist because you are being deliberately stupid.

First off, the DMG includes Candles of Invocation. So anything about books used is just stupid. If someone wants to use a specific exotic weapon that only exists in Serpent Kindgoms, that doesn't means as punishment they should face pun pun.

Secondly, even ignoring the arbitrary book classification, you are not even following that.

The Totemist isn't in the Tomes at all. The Tome of Necromancy is not the same book as Races of War.

The thing where you say "If any one player uses any fan made material ever, I then use all the Tomes, and all fan made material" is exactly like every "I don't tell people their characters can't summon Pazuzu, it's just that if they try someone else teleports in and murders them."

It's just passive aggressive bitchery to punish the players for doing the thing you told them they can do.

Either don't allow fanmade material, or allow fanmade material on some kind of remotely rational basis where using the Totemist gives you access to the Totemist/Incarnate, and Magic of Incarnum.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:16 am

Kaelik, did you want to play in this game? Because if you do, I'll work with you to address your concerns. If not, I'll ask you to kindly fuck off.

To everyone else, if you don't like the way things are set up - if you have any problem with the restrictions to the game as I've outlined them or how I've tried to implement them - please speak up. I'm trying to run this game to have fun, and I want y'all to have fun too.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:37 am

I'm kinda still hoping to get either the Firemage or the Tome of Necromancy.

Also, Kaelik is only pointing out the inconsistency in the setup, whether he wants to play is not really important.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:52 am

Rule 3 is no fan material. Even really good fan material. Even Tome stuff. Even stuff that isn't technically in Tome.

Enough people talked about wanting Tome stuff that I relented a little, suggested a vote. This is obviously where the mass of confusion set in, because I was trying to be accommodating.

So right now, we're back to Rule 3. No fan stuff, not even Tome stuff.

I'm not pretending the rest of 3.+ is by any means unbroken or perfect. Honestly, I expected at least a couple people to mix'n'match and come up with something bizarre, overpowered, and awesome. Which is okay. I can work with that. It hasn't happened yet. Which is okay too. I can work with regular characters too.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:57 am

Well I guess I really don't have a character I want to play then.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:04 am

And I am sorry about that. I would totally work with you to come up with something acceptable within the vast amount of stuff published for D&D3.+. I tried to be a little lenient and look where that got me.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:15 am

I did want to play in the game if I could play a character I want to play. Since you don't want to let me play a character I want to play, the answer appears to be no.

Ancient History wrote:I tried to be a little lenient and look where that got me.

No, you didn't try to be lenient, that's the point. You said, "Oh you want X, well you can only have X if you agree to be punished severely for having asked for X, and have everyone in the party hate you."

That's not leniency, it's cockheadedness.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:38 am

Maybe an example would help as to how much you're willing to work with people? I mean, I'm happy with my pred as he is, but I might consider going with the other really good way of doing it I found, which is Lycanthropy. The problem is that DR/Silver is odd for a cybertronian, and it locks me into a beast mode that would be quickly eclipsed in power.

So the question is then "would you be ok with hacking the Lycanthrope template a bit?" If energon is put in, or is said to be known by another name, even if it's silver, that solves the first problem. If it's stated that the character can upgrade his beast mode in some way when it becomes necessary, that's awesome, and the last problem would be the whole curse of lycanthropy thing, which is easily fixed simply by taking it out. So would that fly?

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:46 am

I vote no on the ToN, to be honest. Using tome stuff opens up a lot of doors that I don't think we want to go down- I don't think it would end well using the ToN and not anything else, and I don't know if we want a fully fledged tome game.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:55 am

Ancient History wrote:And I am sorry about that. I would totally work with you to come up with something acceptable within the vast amount of stuff published for D&D3.+. I tried to be a little lenient and look where that got me.

It's cool. Maybe some other time.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:03 am

Korgan0 wrote:I vote no on the ToN, to be honest. Using tome stuff opens up a lot of doors that I don't think we want to go down- I don't think it would end well using the ToN and not anything else, and I don't know if we want a fully fledged tome game.

Ok, last post, could everyone please stop with this retarded non-logic? Tome of Necromancy =/= Tomes. It is completely stand alone book that can be used outside of the larger ruleset. And in the end, it benefits the DM as much as it benefits the players since it allows the creation of much cooler necromancy themed adventures. So don't argue against something if you can't actually make a case against it.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 4:13 am

I'm a little surprised at the amount of special snowflake character customization melodrama going on in the prep for this game. It's a level 1 dungeon crawl. Odds are we'll all go through a character or 2 when a single arrow trap could one-shot most practical character builds.

I'm drafting another 2 PCs as backup for when Olaf gets eaten by giant frog mummies. One is a Complete Warrior Samurai. One is a Warblade. Neither of these is going to take more than 20 minutes total to make. And that's because I'm fully prepared to lose them all to traps in room 1.

Until I have a better idea what adventuring in the Crypts of Chaos is like, I'm going to assume that life is cheap and you shouldn't get too attached to a character.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Another reason I'm opposed to Tome of Necromancy for this game:

Of all my 3 prepared PCs, none wouldn't be better off as Swordwraiths taking the Swordwraith Paragon class for the rest of their level-ups.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I'd like to request that Ghostwalk be added to the list of accepted books. If I go through 3 PCs, I'd like the 4th to be Olaf's ghost.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 7:08 am

My 2c - Kaelik does have something of a point, even though he is being a bit of a confrontational asshat about it. For single classes like the Totemist the whole "if you can use it so can I" doesn't really work, as we will only ever face a few Totemist bad guys whereas Kaelik will be rocking that shit 24/7. So if it is bah-roken then it is only one way. I say for single classes its DM's decision - if Ancient is fine with it then it's good, if not then pick something else. It's his game after all.

Tome of Necromancy is a different kettle of fish - it adds chargen options which might lead to other players wanting to redesign their characters, so I can totally see a vote on that.

As a side note, Kaelik can you stop the butthurt and accusations? Let's start from the assumption that everyone involved wants to make a fun game and give people the benefit of the doubt. If you really think that Ancient would pounce on you choosing a certain class as an excuse to screw the party over, why would you want to play anyway? There's plenty of ways to screw the party over in Core if the DM is an antisocial a-hole.