The Gaming Den

Kaelik wrote:

fbmf wrote:

Illusion Magic: I Don't Believe This Crap

<SNIP>

In the end, it's a mess because the current rules can be made to do amazing things by creative people, but those amazing things break the level system and that means that DMs are forced to punish players for their creativity, thus hurting everyone. That being said, here are some playable rules regarding illusions that won't cause you to stab out your own eyes.

Anyone want to speculate on what this would look like?

Game On,
fbmf

I guess I'll put that in the queue for Tome Errata.

That'd be cool.
...
How long is this queue?

Game On,
fbmf

sigma999 wrote:

fbmf wrote: Anyone want to speculate on what this would look like?

Game On,
fbmf

You may only duplicate the sensory effects of another spell of the same level or less, or copy the image of a monster with HD and CR no great than caster level.
I don't know. Illusions are storymode.

That...leaves a lot to be desired.

Game On,
fbmf

Two quick questions about the Book of Gears magic items...

Does the +1/3 bonus to Ability scores apply to just one ability score or all ability scores? Same question in regards to the saving throws items.

DeadlyReed wrote:Two quick questions about the Book of Gears magic items...

Does the +1/3 bonus to Ability scores apply to just one ability score or all ability scores? Same question in regards to the saving throws items.

One ability score.

All saves.

Pardon the thread necromancy, but it looks to me like some things are missing. If you notice my first post in this thread, there's me thanking Frank for a bit on the Turnip Economy and calorie counting, yet that part is missing now. What happened?

the_taken wrote:Pardon the thread necromancy, but it looks to me like some things are missing. If you notice my first post in this thread, there's me thanking Frank for a bit on the Turnip Economy and calorie counting, yet that part is missing now. What happened?

Yes, this has happened to mutliple Tome threads, I assume a lower word count max per post on the new board.

Notice that Tome of Fiends cuts off with Boatman of Styx half way through, and Unfinished Materials is missing pretty much the entire item section that people talk about in Tome games.

How can such things be found?

darkmaster wrote:How can such things be found?

I think this is relatively up to date: http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Tome_Material

Also you can get the latest version of the complete Tome material along with selected other Den regular classes and additions here: http://code.google.com/p/awesometome/downloads/list

Well, as long as its somewhere. Thanks.

Looking at magic items, what does buying a sword with a property actually cost?

The magic item section was from an unfinished work and as such a lot of the concepts aren't fully finalised. For example, the item power lists are rather short, there are no costs for any items, and there are no guidelines for how to handle expendable items.

In our game, we have Lesser items at 2,000gp, Medium at 16,000gp and Major at 50,000gp. We don't use Minor items which only provide a bonus as these are boring. This puts anything other than a lesser item as Wish Economy gear, tradeable only for other items of Medium or greater power, or Wish economy goods (whatever form these may take in your campaign world.)

fbmf wrote:

Illusion Magic: I Don't Believe This Crap

<SNIP>

In the end, it's a mess because the current rules can be made to do amazing things by creative people, but those amazing things break the level system and that means that DMs are forced to punish players for their creativity, thus hurting everyone. That being said, here are some playable rules regarding illusions that won't cause you to stab out your own eyes.

Anyone want to speculate on what this would look like?

Game On,
fbmf

I guess this is heavy thread Necromancy, but since the thread is up here, let me take a shot at this...

I just ran a session as DM where two wizards took on a gadgeteer by creating a Major Image of a small town on fire with people in it, leading him into a house to administer medical attention, illusioned closing the door and creating darkness while using Wall of Stone to trap him in a half-sphere (he chose not to jump out the "door" so I ruled he got no reflex save to escape the Wall of Stone prison), and also throwing a Cloudkill into the area. He eventually got out using the Teleport Pump.

I think that might be stretching what a 3rd level spell should do (especially compared with, say, Mirage Arcana). Since plot powers leave much to be desired, and a combat spell needs limitations (no leaves fluttering around opponents that can't be interacted with, for example), how about this:

Minor Image
Illusion (Figment, Mind-Affecting)
Level: Brd 1, Sor/Wiz 1
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close
Effect: Visual figment that cannot extend beyond one 10-ft. cube
Duration: Concentration
Saving Throw: Will disbelief
Spell Resistance: No

This spell creates the visual illusion of a single object or creature, as visualized by you. You can move the image anywhere within range. If a person believes the illusion is fake for any reason, they get a will save to disbelieve it, after which the illusion appears transparent to them - they can focus on the illusion to see it, or not, as a free action.


Moderate Image
Illusion (Figment, Mind-Affecting)
Level: Brd 2, Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium
Effect: Visual figment that cannot extend beyond one 10-ft. cube per caster level
Duration: Concentration + 1 round
Saving Throw: Will disbelief
Spell Resistance: No

This spell creates the visual and audible illusion of one object or creature per caster level within the are of effect, as visualized by you. You can move the image anywhere within range. If a person believes the illusion is fake for any reason, they get a will save to disbelieve it, after which the illusion appears transparent to them - they can focus on the illusion to see it and hear it; or not, as a free action.


Major Image
Illusion (Figment, Mind-Affecting)
Level: Brd 3, Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S, F
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long
Effect: Visual figment that cannot extend beyond one 10-ft. cube per caster level + five 10-ft. cubes
Duration: Concentration + 3 rounds
Saving Throw: Will disbelief
Spell Resistance: No

This spell creates the visual, audible and partially tactile illusion of a single object or creature per caster level within the area of effect, as visualized by you. If touched, the illusion feels real, but the effect is completely in the mind of the person touching the illusion, and it cannot actually cause harm to anyone. You can move the image anywhere within range. If a person believes the illusion is fake for any reason, they get a will save to disbelieve it, after which the illusion appears transparent to them - they can focus on the illusion to see it, hear it, and feel it; or not, as a free action.

I realize it's far from perfect, but I hope that it's better than what we currently have. This is a nerf, but it's what I imagine the image spells are actually supposed to do. PEACH.

darkmaster wrote:Looking at magic items, what does buying a sword with a property actually cost?

Frank's original suggestions can be found in This thread

A number of people who aren't Frank think that things should cost somewhat more.

Was there ever a satisfactory solution for consumables, like scrolls, potions, cure light wounds wands etc.?

ishy wrote:Was there ever a satisfactory solution for consumables, like scrolls, potions, cure light wounds wands etc.?

Yes.

Not really, but here's my attempt:

my current houserules wrote:
I. The Eight Item Limit

Firstly, lemme "clarify" that eight item limit. Anything at all which provides an Enhancement bonus to anything, or a Resistance bonus to saves, or a Competence bonus to skills, or a Deflection bonus to AC - anything which does any of those counts against the limit. It doesn't matter if it is a multi-charge spell-trigger use activated wand of Shield of Faith. a constant Ring of Protection or a single-charge anyone-can-drink this potion of Protection Vs Evil - since each of those provides a Deflection bonus to AC, each of those counts as one of your eight items. And in the case of charge-based stuff like wands, scrolls and potions, they count against the eight-item limit so long as the duration of the benefit lasts. Even after you've quaffed such a potion it still counts against your limit until the effect wears off or is dispelled. Edit: Important to note that "your" refers to the beneficiary of the effect, not necessarily the caster of the effect, otherwise everyone in the Wish economy gets a pile of UMD capable minions, a pile of Scrolls and rides around with 8 buffs spells active per each minion

Next, items of spells which provide "bullshit" bonuses do not exist anymore. I'm too lazy to rewrite the spell list so that all such spells are gone, But I'm not stupid enough to allow you to put them into items which skate around the eight-item limit. So no wands of Bless, no potions of Heroism, and no scrolls of Foresight anymore. Tough.

Finally, wands scrolls and potions of other stuff - still doesn't count against the eight item limit -golden. You can use as many as you can afford, carry and spend actions on. So not only can you carry around a wand of Cure Light and potions of negating status ailments without limiting your other options for items, but if you really do you want to layer up on buffs that don't detract from your daily spell slots, you still can. I do not care if you go nuts with Water Breathing, Freedom of Movement, Invisibility, Fly, Stoneskin, Flame Arrow, False Life, Keen Edge, and so on and so forth. Doing so is a potentially powerful use of character wealth and while it does strengthen ambush tactics - none of that sort of crap pushes anybody's modifiers up to the point where the d20 roll becomes irrelevant, and none of that crap makes Josh have to recalculate enemy stats factoring in multiple different sets of sometimes stacking bonuses

Edit:and here's a link to Kaelik's solution.

ishy wrote:Was there ever a satisfactory solution for consumables, like scrolls, potions, cure light wounds wands etc.?

They don't exist.

Though what you meant by "satisfactory" could be anything.

Hmmm, thanks Josh