The Gaming Den

The future book Tome of Tiamat is mentioned here. Is it going to let us play as monsters from the monster manual easily? Will most (if not all) monsters be playable?

The other tomes are on hiatus indefinitely.

Unfortunately true. I live in Prague, Czech Republic, where I go to Medical School. Keith no longer lives on my couch and now lives in Santa Clara, California Republic, where he goes to Law School.

-Username17

Aw don't give up on it! Why aren't you corresponding long-distance on the projects? Or are you and/or Keith not the type to do that?

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1195090730[/unixtime]]Aw don't give up on it! Why aren't you corresponding long-distance on the projects? Or are you and/or Keith not the type to do that?

Because medical school and law school are rather time consuming and they have lives and other obligations? Maybe?

Calibron at [unixtime wrote:1195094459[/unixtime]]
Because medical school and law school are rather time consuming and they have lives and other obligations? Maybe?

come on, how hard can it be to med and law school be? AND WHAT IS LIFE WITHOUT D&D. Seriously, next you'll be suggesting that we should all get out of our rooms and have productive jobs and relationships and... um what else do normal people do?

Exercise and pursue life goals? And by normal do you mean averagel, or awesome, yet normal enough for most people to relate to? 'Cause average people waste their lives, may not have productive jobs, and usually don't have healthy relationships.

Was joking. Short of a slowly expanding waistline, work taking up a bit too much of my time, my D&D group being a bit fickle and, of course, not being able to make D&D really do what I want it to; I'm living the good life in a tropical country with a beautiful girlfriend, cheap beer that is available at all times and I'm saving more money than I ever could in Canada.

Glad to hear it.

ckafrica at [unixtime wrote:1195102760[/unixtime]]Was joking. Short of a slowly expanding waistline, work taking up a bit too much of my time, my D&D group being a bit fickle and, of course, not being able to make D&D really do what I want it to; I'm living the good life in a tropical country with a beautiful girlfriend, cheap beer that is available at all times and I'm saving more money than I ever could in Canada.

Hey! Same here, without the fattening, tropics, cheap beer (it's $5-6 on average in bars, hard to find fresh nearby in this bumfuck woodsy place), and... Canada.
I've lately been rounding up old friends that did their "I'm out of college so I'ma go wild and go everwhere until my money runs out, then wonder where my old friends went" have settled down. Got a few old high school gamers' new cell numbers, so all I need now is either to summon the will to DM, or find someone that will sometime before year-end.
Latter goal preferred.
And while it might be a bit too soon, I'll try to introduce them to the Tome series and compare opinions, posting them here when relevant.

Hey Sigma, you live in Maryland don't you? Because I do and my group's a might small currently. I DM and so does my best friend; I'm familiar with the tomes of course and he's passingly familiar with them as well, at the very least aware of the power discrepancies and willing to power up the weak classes rather than nerf the casters.

Sorry to hear that. Don't suppose anyone else is making a reasonably-balanced book to let you play as most of the monsters without tons of guess work?

Has anybody played with Frank's armor rules yet? How did it work out?

I'm starting up a campaign in a couple of weeks, and that's the part I'm most nervous about...

I get that random weird armors can be introduced as the game goes on, but I feel like I need a list of genereally available equipment before we begin... and I'm not sure what should go on it, or how many choices we need.

Adamantine armour is really hawt for most barbarians and tanks

But Spider Silk and Rime Hauberks give interesting options for sneaky or mobbing tank-type characters (and since almost all PCs pack adamantine weapons, adamantine armour is teh suck for NPCs).

Rogues will wear camo clothing even though it gives no AC.

Actually, all of the armours are pretty decent.

Put in all the 'normal' and special material armours in early on (normal armours at lvl 1, special material armours at lvls 5-7; most of the magical armours come in at 7+ imo).

Just some things that I've seen.

Calibron at [unixtime wrote:1195106094[/unixtime]]Hey Sigma, you live in Maryland don't you? Because I do and my group's a might small currently. I DM and so does my best friend; I'm familiar with the tomes of course and he's passingly familiar with them as well, at the very least aware of the power discrepancies and willing to power up the weak classes rather than nerf the casters.

Yes, not far north from Baltimore. But... I thought you couldn't stand me.
Or perhaps the interbutt is a poor medium for revealing true character?

I'm willing but can't drive more than an hour away, my car won't survive.
Got a friend or 2, one a fantastic roleplayer but not so much on the balance aspect (powergamer, possible sore loser) and the other is a brilliant strategist, also looking for a group since each of us don't want to DM if it's possible not to.

So in short I'll join ya if distance allows. Gimme a PM if you want me/my pals.

I guess my concern is about adding new armors and how that's supposed to work.

For instance, is the small number of available clothings design intent or lazyness?

I figure I should just make up an armor/clothing for each PC... though then the idea of basing each armor on a skill becomes mostly a formality...

Not all pants are full of magic

But if you want to come up with new 'armor' types, I'd like to see them. That's one section of the book which could definitely use more fleshing out.

Some of the armors aren't very balanced as written, so be careful. For the most part nothing is game breaking, but there are some choices which most players wouldn't make. I actually tried to go through and come up with a slightly more systematic scheme, but it's hard work trying to come up with and balance that much stuff. I'm impressed that K and Frank did as much as they did.

One thing I'd like to see is 'piecemail' armor, which relies on one's ranks in Craft (or something like that but less reputable) and gives abilities based on what you hack it out of. I'm not sure how balanced that would be, though. It's one of those min/maxer baits that could easily become a must-have.

Piecemeal armor should give basic abilities of whatever you make armor out of based on your craft check.

Kill a blink dog? Crazy Ranks in Craft? Hooray, you can dimension door as a standard action!

Kill a dragon? Shitty ranks in class? You can make a breastplate that give +1 better than normal breastplate.

Kill a dragon? Crazy ranks in craft? You gain crazy armor and fire resistance! \/\/007!

I just like the idea of harvesting the body parts of whatever you kill. Of course, you can only have any 3 pieces of piecemeal on you at any given time and it takes a "donning armor" amount of time to switch it out. Fuck yea my leggings are made out of red dragon and give me +2 armor and fire resistance! Fuck yea my breastplate is made from a displacer beast and gives 20% concealment and +5 armor! Fuck yea my helmet is made from goblin scalps and gives me darkvision!

Bah that's it, I'm posting my old piecemeal armor idea, flaws and all, right now.

http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewth ... thread=166

I PMed you about getting a game together.

Received, HQ.

I've been thinking about an FnK Monk for when we play (if possible)
All that's left is to 1) contact both friends, and get replies, and 2) see just how far away we are.
Oh, and of course, make sure the flu epidemic has died down. I'm recovering, but more people are catching it every day.
Another delay is that this is the weekend of Black Friday, don't forget. Traffic is ... painful.

STW: Hmmm What would armor made of human flesh do? Feats/skill plus?

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1195720473[/unixtime]]
STW: Hmmm What would armor made of human flesh do?

Smell terrible.

Count_Arioch_the_28th at [unixtime wrote:1195748574[/unixtime]]

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1195720473[/unixtime]]
STW: Hmmm What would armor made of human flesh do?

Smell terrible.

Grant more and more Ghastly! powers based apon your ranks in Knowledge (Necromancy).. er... based apon your highest level known necromancy spell.

the taken wrote:Grant more and more Ghastly! powers based apon your ranks in Knowledge (Necromancy).. er... based apon your highest level known necromancy spell.

Really? I'd think they'd make rebelling adolescents try to stay in your company, because you're such a badass you're in CLOTHING MADE FROM HUMAN SKIN and are therefore infinitely cooler than anyone that lives around their home village..

That's not a bad bonus, come to think of it. If you really ARE a vile badass, you have a constant supply of fresh young humanoids that you can ship off to the slave markets.

You get free mooks. All of them are depraved.

Go nuts with lvl 1 NPCs. Rather... not.