The Gaming Den

virgil wrote:My question is this: am I being arbitrary with this distinction, or even wrong to do this? If I'm not, how would you more eloquently describe this guideline I'm intuitively following?

a thing my group has settled on is basically that if you summon/call a creature, that creature cannot use any abilities that are higher level than the effect that summoned/called them.
chalk it up as being one of the constraints that such magics place on their targets.

ACOS wrote:

virgil wrote:My question is this: am I being arbitrary with this distinction, or even wrong to do this? If I'm not, how would you more eloquently describe this guideline I'm intuitively following?

a thing my group has settled on is basically that if you summon/call a creature, that creature cannot use any abilities that are higher level than the effect that summoned/called them.
chalk it up as being one of the constraints that such magics place on their targets.

That's a neat one.

Could also do that FF style where the summoned fellow can also do a flashy thing but then disappears

deaddmwalking wrote:The thing that makes the cold war work is that the weapons only really allow for utter annihilation (mutually assured destruction). You have normal fighting with normal weapons with every country on reasonably equal footing; if that fighting doesn't do what people want, they have the option of ending it all.

If a powerful outsider can lay waste to a small area, there is more likely to be a general escalation.

Essentially, everyone knew that if you launched one nuclear weapon, the response would be a full nuclear attack; there was no room for gradual escalation.

Indiscriminate killing is also an important aspect - if the cold war powers could have limited their attacks to military targets, they would have been more likely to use them.

Each side having the ability to unleash a demonic invasion might be more similar to what you're looking for. There are portals where each side has to keep the demons at bay. It's essentially a suicide switch, but it will take the other guy, too. Research would focus on how you could release your demons but protect your own side from the resulting wave of destruction.

Alternatively, each side could have a different 'suicide switch'. Both sides would be working to build technology to protect themselves from their own weapon and their opponent's. Only when they have both could they feel secure of victory. That would give each side missions to sabotage developments of the other but also try to steal any advances/capture them for themselves.

Yeah, I was kind of thinking of more of The Godzilla of The Abyss, rather than just normal demons, that sorta thing. Alternatively, it could be a sort of demonic grey goo thing.


I kinda suppose that instead of deciding on the WMD, maybe I should decide on the super powers? And then who the super powers could inform the precise nature of the WMD(s)?

So, I know that, in order for it to really feel like D&D, the super powers should probably be reasonably cosmopolitan, though I suppose one could be fairly homogenous and the other more cosmopolitan, but given that I don't, at least at this moment, have any inclination to make one side "The Good Guys" either actually or textually, it would probably be better to assume both have a major component race, but a number of different races within them. Also, hypothetically they became super powers through conquest/absorbing realms.

Although, that said, since I'm reading the World at War and After the War sections of Races of War as I mull this over, I'm kind of liking the idea that one side has some crazed wizard that figured out they could make giant wooden stakes that when driven into the ground cast a Widened Extended Utterdark and Summon Monster V to just unleash a shadow in an area of darkness that covers over a mile of land for almost two days, and that side is just stockpiling these while also figuring out how to make them better. Not as "suicide switch-y" but kind of a fun idea. So I guess maybe one side is necromancers? That... could actually work. I once had a campaign world where a school of necromancers trained pumpkin kings specifically so they could employ them to spontaneously grow pumpkins to sell, and if the super power is generic wizards, they could have a luxury socialism economy based on magic pumpkins, or whatever.

Let's say you want something like the darkness spell but which creates an area where the UV light spectrum isn't blocked. So basically a magical blacklight.

What level should this be? Is it tactically similar enough that it could just be fluff on a normal darkness spell? Is it tactically different enough to be a level higher or lower?

Like, broadly, it would not hinder any kind of vermin, and maybe white fabric would flouresce, but other than pretty much those specific cases, it would be indistinguishable from normal darkness for anyone who hasn't specifically prepared for it, right?

Is this a game where seeing into the UV spectrum is a defined ability? If so then it's a slightly better darkness (similar to using silent image to make illusionary darkness). If not then it sounds like a needlessly complex and fiddly thing to bolt onto a system.

Standard D&D. And mostly I want it for fluff.

What's a good resource for contemporary, or at least not fantasy and not blatantly Sci fi, character portraits?

Instagram plus a drawing filter?

Pinterest

Prak wrote:What's a good resource for contemporary, or at least not fantasy and not blatantly Sci fi, character portraits?

shutterstock https://www.shutterstock.com/search?sea ... e_type=all

I got the pics sorted, thanks guys.

Though if someone can help me find good images for a sort of "Italian huckster" and a "Desi office worker" character, I'd be greatful

The pics I'm using for them-

indian porn comics are full of desi office workers drawn in a very generic manner

I'm running a pathfinder thing I'm writing set in the Lovecraft Dreamlands. I have a general idea of stuff that I want to happen, along with a beginning, middle, and end. I just was wondering what books are good to read for inspiration regarding encounters and making things more surreal? I've read most of the actual literature, I'm more looking for game-related stuff (even if it isn't d20-based I can probably hack something that works for my group).

Note that I hate the pop-culture "lol, u see tentacles now you're INSANE!" gimmick, I see the "madness" in Lovecraft as mostly being PTSD, combined with the fact that most people during that time were malnourished and fainted a lot when stressed. I'm going for more of a "weird fantasy" vibe.

For more information, I'm running Pathfinder with some aspects of the Pure Steam campaign setting added to up the tech level to roughly steampunk victorian era. The idea is that a mad scientist invented the first bullet train, which crashed so spectacularly that it threw the wreckage and the survivors into the Dreamlands. They have evidence the scientist survived the crash as well, and have to find him. Because my groups is slightly racist, everyone's playing goblins and assuming that the only people that survived were servants of the actual passengers. Considering the pseudo-victorian feel I deemed that an appropriate level of racism.

I'm creating an ability for a 3.5 D&D class and I'm having trouble with the wording. If anyone can think how to put this a little better I'd appreciate it. As it stands it's written

Responsive: If you did not use a swift action on your turn you may use an immediate action in between turns without using up your next turns swift action.

I could also write it something like...

Responsive: As a swift action you cause any immediate action abilities you use before the start of your next turn to not consume your next turns swift action.

Either way it feels kinda clunky to me. Anyone seeing a clearer way to write this that gets it across or is it fine and I'm overthinking things?

Responsive: As a swift action, you gain an additional immediate action until the start of your next round.

As a Swift Action, your responsive noun always allows you to use a Swift Action on your next turn, even after using an Immediate Action between turns.

Whereas the character did not spend their swift action, and whereas the character was not stunned, petrified, dead, or otherwise unable to take a swift action, and whereas the the character's turn has otherwise reached its conclusion, be it so declared that the character may use one (1) Immediate Action as defined on page XX paragraph YY of the Player's Handbook, August 2000, so long as that Immediate Action is used prior to the character's next turn. Any actions not used as defined in this part are forfeited. No action may be transferred to another turn in this way, and...

OK, seriously, we need a 'like' button on here. I nearly sprayed my screen. Since I can't upvote you, here's +1 Internets. Enjoy your day, sir.

Iduno wrote:...Immediate Action as defined on page XX paragraph YY of the Player's Handbook, August 2000...

Swift and immediate actions don't appear in either Players Handbook...

RobbyPants wrote:

Iduno wrote:...Immediate Action as defined on page XX paragraph YY of the Player's Handbook, August 2000...

Swift and immediate actions don't appear in either Players Handbook...

That's what I get for being too lazy to go find the books and look up the reference.

That renders the entire contract null and void. GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR.

Does anyone have a link to the savage species authors saying that they were told to make the LAs unplayably high?

Someone please explain to me how this doesn't contradict the rules of magic in 3e.
Because from what I see it creates complex matter using sorcery, which one of the rules forbids

Trill wrote:
Someone please explain to me how this doesn't contradict the rules of magic in 3e.
Because from what I see it creates complex matter using sorcery, which one of the rules forbids

It creates glob. Which is just a piles of wet carbs or something. That could plausibly be not complex.

Kaelik wrote:

Trill wrote:
Someone please explain to me how this doesn't contradict the rules of magic in 3e.
Because from what I see it creates complex matter using sorcery, which one of the rules forbids

It creates glob. Which is just a piles of wet carbs or something. That could plausibly be not complex.

I always envision the food from The Matrix. Runny snot that has everything the body needs...