The Gaming Den

The goal of the +1 ability was to make it exactly what TWF is, just with a single weapon, using TWF as the balancing point. Perhaps it could be worded so as to eliminate the TWF(armor spikes) loophole?

I'll admit the +6 steps on Combat Looting's toes, but there needs to be something so the feat doesn't de-activate itself.

+11 - I consider this superior to "Make a feint attack before each attack".

+16 - admittedly I don't know what the game is like at this level. I was expecting a character to Power Attack away that bonus, and then multiply it by 3 or so with the critical hit for a 20*2*3=120. This makes it better than the ToB maneuver, but still not that great.

Bump!
Sticky?

Yeah! Cmon. Why not? At least give a reason.

I thought we were going to pin this with the rest of the tome material?

Would a vampiric weapon be a lesser quality, under the Book of Gears rules (negative energy based effect, wielder heals an amount equal to the damage he deals)?

Looks like a lot of the material was cut off in the board transition...

Was there any material concerning magic item creation that was lost in the transition?

virgileso wrote:Was there any material concerning magic item creation that was lost in the transition?

A fvcking lot. Look at the .pdf, it has all.

Found it. But that's more along the lines of statting up magic items. What happens if you have a player that wants to take a feat in Craft Magic Arms and Armor? What's the timeframe to make a magic item, especially if it's something like a wand of shout? Heck, what level do you have to be to make a lesser/moderate/greater magic weapon?

virgileso wrote:Found it. But that's more along the lines of statting up magic items. What happens if you have a player that wants to take a feat in Craft Magic Arms and Armor? What's the timeframe to make a magic item, especially if it's something like a wand of shout? Heck, what level do you have to be to make a lesser/moderate/greater magic weapon?

Nothing of that was done (or posted)?

It would seem so. 'Tis a shame.

One thing I thought of, is using Leadership in a off-beat manner. Instead of having a normal PC-style cohort, what if your cohort was some really awesome magic item (maybe sentient)? You could have your followers be the literal pit crew that performs maintenance & installs upgrades on this magic item, having it float in the center of a magic circle while they 'technicians' cast their spells and precisely weave their spells together to do their job.

This is sort of a D&D/fantasy analog to a gundam, which allows our magic item to range from a golem to a dagger or to whatever other magic item exists (especially since 'normal' people can perform the role of mobile siege tank).

Should magic items from the Book of Gears that go beyond simple bonuses avoid mixing additional abilities? As in, should you avoid having a single magic cloak that improves both saves and charisma? This would indicate that once you add the basic bonus, any bigger items will have the basic bonus, and have other abilities that expand upon that theme; such as a +saves item granting Mettle/Evasion.

I'd avoid combining basic magic item types in general, as that seems to go directly against the idea of having 'slots'. With greater magic items, just go with what makes sense and hope it won't need damage control later.

Your idea of expanding basic magic items with appropriate non-bonus abilities seems like a great way to get 'special' magic items. Most special magic swords should probably be 'magic swords' with a few specials attached (adds poison, deals fire & slashing damage, can talk, turns into an eagle, etc).

I've wondered about the fact that you have the Eight Item Limit and how potions/scrolls "fist game balance" under that system. What if you just have something like the Two Potion Rule, where you can't be under the influence of more than two consumables at a time?

Healing potions are exempt because they're instantaneous in duration, and thus limited-use activation items and aren't even a concern in the Eight Item Limit, as the real balance concern was the whole 'free buffs' angle w/potions.

A substantially less satisfying but possibly workable rule is also the n consumable rule, where for no reason whatsoever when you add an n+1st consumable to your person it explodes.

Okay, maybe that's not such a good idea after all as I can already think of ways to get around it. You're probably on the right track.

You could very easily have a flavor of potion toxicity like in "The Witcher" or something. Your body can only take so much magic crap running around in your body before it's just too much and it's no longer good for you.

I was just figuring it would work in a manner not unlike the Eight Item Limit, further potions are inert when entering a system that's already 'full'.

Not to say you couldn't have arbitrary/unique plots where potion miscibility renders an otyugh (lives in sewer below a wizard) sterile, fire breathing, and dangerously allergic to silver.

Considering that casters could have 6-8 real buffs (in 10/level and hour/level spells) up all the time that weren't limited to being low level, I don't feel that potions have ever been a problem.

Caedrus wrote:You could very easily have a flavor of potion toxicity like in "The Witcher" or something. Your body can only take so much magic crap running around in your body before it's just too much and it's no longer good for you.

Make sure to also deal with potion addiction.

"Cleric Hovel, what's your diagnosis for this patient who is slowly turning into an ooze?"
"...I NEED MORE POTIONS!"

ubernoob wrote:Considering that casters could have 6-8 real buffs (in 10/level and hour/level spells) up all the time that weren't limited to being low level, I don't feel that potions have ever been a problem.

I'd claim that the buff layering was a problem in the first place.

Scrolls in a Wish economy can quickly turn into the "everyone casts a level 9 spell this round" game pretty quick, where class abilities are meaningless and whoever has the most Spellfu to find NoSave/NoSR spells wins the quickdraw.

SunTzuWarmaster wrote:Scrolls in a Wish economy can quickly turn into the "everyone casts a level 9 spell this round" game pretty quick, where class abilities are meaningless and whoever has the most Spellfu to find NoSave/NoSR spells wins the quickdraw.

In other words, Gate spam comes 6 levels early?

But seriously. Having large numbers of buffs on your person is called 'being level appropriate' at the levels where you can actually afford to do that. Potions are overpriced bits of Fail anyways, so who cares?

Scrolls become a problem with infinite cash + Gate spam but otherwise aren't that big a deal.

It isn't just a problem with Gate, but any spell higher than the ones you can normally cast. In a Wish economy, you can literally have ∞ scrolls (as written). As a full caster, you may as well not bother preparing any spells in your spell slots. What use is your 5th level teleport when you can Wish Greater Teleport (or scroll)? What use is your Summon Monster 5, when you have ∞ scrolls of Summon Monster 9? Why bother doing damage to monsters when you can Power Word Kill them. People seriously start to enter the Wish economy around level 11, and anyone with "Casts Spells" or UMD on their character sheet can standby and spam Elemental Monoliths or whatever.

Obviously, this never really sees play (because it is fairly far from fun, even in a CRPG), but serves to illustrate the point of having ∞ scrolls.

I always though that the 'combusting scroll' idea was stupid, so I have no problem altering scrolls to work otherwise. Currently I'm treating them like spells in a spellbook, save that a character can use a held scroll to castvert the scribed spell spontaneously.

It's still quite powerful when you can get them in unlimited quantities, but they don't allow for obscene prebuffing.