Proposed Game: Desire and the Dead (Tome)

[koz]

Akula, you just made my day. Seriously, I haven't laughed so hard in a while. Especially thanks to that picture.

[Kaelik]

Anyone know any good feats for a spell user that doesn't use spells or SLAs?

Char

Aasimar Totemist 3
1
3

Soulmelds

Ankeg +Resist Cold
Corrolax +enhance Dex
Blood Hawks +SR
Mephit +enhance Con
Harpoon +Natural Armor
Stirge +Resist Acid
Rust Monster +Resist Fire

Currently Showing:
Corrolax
BloodHawks
Mephit

Items
+Cha
Chitin Carapace
Resistance to saves
Bunch of nets.

Wishlist:
stuff that makes me hear better/hide better

Race and Type: Medium Outsider (human)
Class: Totemist 3
Speaks: Common, Celestial, Infernal, Terran, Abyssal
Allegiances: None

Stats
12
14
16
16
12
19

Skills: Listen, Search, Survival, UMD, Hide, MS, Handle Animal, Climb

BAB/Grapple: +2/+3 (3 bab, 8 size, 5 str)
AC: 17, 15 flatfooted, 12 touch (10 base, 5 armor, 2 Dex)
Speed: 30ft
Initiative:+2
Hit Points: 31/31
Saves: Fort +5(1 base, 3 con, 1 resist), Ref +4(1 base, 2 dex, 1 resist), Will +5(3 base, 1 wis, 1 resist)

[koz]

Anyone know any good feats for a spell user that doesn't use spells or SLAs?

Elusive Target is always a good thing to take in my opinion.

[Prak]

hmm... looking at Warlock, a lot of it's features don't matter for a tiefling/aasimar. Would going Conduit instead be kosher?

That would be fine. You might want some kind of combat potential for when you run out of SLAs, though.

Yeah, I'm thinking about grabbing Adv. Fire for attack options, using feats to grab basic to Violation and Seduction. That'd give me a good number of attack options, my gestapo abilities, usable a few more times per day due to Enhanced Sphere Access, plus I can always carry around assorted sharp objects designed to cause great pain.

Has anyone created a tome Dark Speech feat?

[Avoraciopoctules]

I'm tweaking my concept to fit a bit better with my ideas of how this character would behave, and I came up with a problem.

How the fuck are the overrun rules supposed to work? As written, it seems to be that you can't combine them with charging (which is stupid) and if the enemy doesn't get out of the way you use up your standard action to overrun them (instead of trampling them as you move). It seems with the 3.5 rules you can't overrun more than one person (due to it taking a standard action to overrun).

Can we make overrun just be part of movement or something that isn't headache inducing?

Sure. You can try to move through an enemy's space. If they don't let you, you can make an opposed Grapple check. If you win, they are shoved aside and you can move through. They normally get an AoO, but not if you've got the Edge.

How's that? I'm starting simple, but we could add additional movement cost or other stuff into the system. My first inclination is to keep down complexity. This also makes it pretty easy to model you plowing through a wall of multiple opponents, particularly with the Edge.

[koz]

Has anyone created a tome Dark Speech feat?

I could be persuaded.

Dark Speech

You can speak in ways that makes people want to stab themselves in the face. A bit like Elennsar.

This is a [Skill] feat that scales to your ranks in Perform.

Perform 0 ranks: You can implant dark words of power into your ordinary speech, pushing others towards actions against their nature. You receive a +3 competence bonus on social skill use whenever you try to convince someone to do something against their basic nature, or to do something they ordinarily wouldn't.
Perform 4 ranks: By speaking a forbidden word, you can force all those whom you want to harm in Close range to make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 ranks in Perform + your Cha modifier) or be dealt 1 point of sonic damage per rank in Perform that you have. This is a [Sonic] ability.

Dunno if this is what you were after, though. What aspects of Dark Speech do you want to replicate?

[ubernoob]

I'm tweaking my concept to fit a bit better with my ideas of how this character would behave, and I came up with a problem.

How the fuck are the overrun rules supposed to work? As written, it seems to be that you can't combine them with charging (which is stupid) and if the enemy doesn't get out of the way you use up your standard action to overrun them (instead of trampling them as you move). It seems with the 3.5 rules you can't overrun more than one person (due to it taking a standard action to overrun).

Can we make overrun just be part of movement or something that isn't headache inducing?

Sure. You can try to move through an enemy's space. If they don't let you, you can make an opposed Grapple check. If you win, they are shoved aside and you can move through. They normally get an AoO, but not if you've got the Edge.

How's that? I'm starting simple, but we could add additional movement cost or other stuff into the system. My first inclination is to keep down complexity. This also makes it pretty easy to model you plowing through a wall of multiple opponents, particularly with the Edge.

That works pretty smoothly. Grapple mods are a workable indicator of how hard it is to bumrush somebody. I assume that juggernaut sidesteps the requirement for edge to avoid the AoO?

[Prak]

I just like the idea, and have found the corruption usage to be particularly useful (drains hardness from objects). The Dread ability could be useful too (shaken non-evil 10- HD characters, 4- HDs flee, draw aggro on 11+ HD non-evils; 1-4 HD evils are flatfooted and cannot act for 1d10 rounds, 5-10 HD evils are charmed for 1d10 minutes, 11+ HD evils are impressed and future attempts to improve attitude get a +2 bonus).

By RAW a fiend (any evil outsider) automatically knows the dark speech, and non-fiends need to pick up a feat to use it, so I technically should get it, but that's up to Avoraciopoctules.

It's also kind of the universal Newspeak of Evil.

edit: oh, and the Dark Unity usage (create hiveminds) is OP and awesome.

[koz]

I could try and get those, but I couldn't cram all that into a feat - not even a scaling one! I'll see what I can think up, assuming Av calls for a feat.

[Prak]

k. It would actually lend itself to a scaling feat fairly decently... just off the top of my head, each part is one of the uses, so, like, 4 ranks: Dread, 8 ranks: Corruption, 12 ranks: Power, 16 ranks: Dark Unity. And the 0 rank ability would be a +3 intimidate bonus when used while conversing with non evils, +3 diplomacy bonus when conversing with evils.

but I don't know if that's too powerful or what.

[koz]

k. It would actually lend itself to a scaling feat fairly decently... just off the top of my head, each part is one of the uses, so, like, 4 ranks: Dread, 8 ranks: Corruption, 12 ranks: Power, 16 ranks: Dark Unity. And the 0 rank ability would be a +3 intimidate bonus when used while conversing with non evils, +3 diplomacy bonus when conversing with evils.

but I don't know if that's too powerful or what.

No, actually, that seems quite in-line. Some of the abilities might need to be scaled up or down to fit those levels, but otherwise, it seems fine. Let's see what Av has to say.

[Prak]

yeah, I'd love to get Dark Unity sooner than that, but... no... it's a pretty over powered thing RAW, since there's nothing stopping a level one character from just creating a bunch of hiveminds. Well. ok, strictly speaking, not much stopping them... they only create a 100 creature hivemind, and can give it one suggestion, and each use of Dark Unity deals 1d4 Con damage.

[ubernoob]

Dark speech effecting good and evil creatures (alignment, not subtype) differently is fail from a fundamental level. Dark speech is as vile as you can make speech. Unless something is made of Vile, it wouldn't like dark speech. Here's the analogy:

Dark speech is like when somebody screams really fucking loud and high pitched. It is straight up unnerving. Yes, if you are used to a higher level of stress you won't show that you don't like it (because you're hardcore like that), but that doesn't make it 'sweet' or 'impressive'. It makes the person screaming fucking annoying.

So yeah, Dark Speech could just be straight up +intimidate. Being an evil vile enough being to actually use it around humans (aka your party members) makes you evil and a massive jackass that nobody wants to adventure with.

Now, the idea of words as power is cool. The idea of dark speech is strictly in "I'm a massive jackass" territory.

[Nicklance]

Yo Av, sorry for getting so excited about playing a vamp. There might be a total reshuffle for my character concept. Will get back to you soon.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Regarding Dark Speech:

I am down with the idea of words of power that are also super-mega-evil. Not so sure about an actual language. There are already Power Word spells, and this fits into the same general niche. There are also like half a dozen existing languages of evilness.

Hive Minds don't feel like the sort of thing the PCs should be interacting with at this level, particularly given that the archetypical Sigil Hive Mind involves cranium rats. Also, that effect seems more like something a specific ritual of evilness should achieve.

I think that a Dark Speech feat sounds like one of the best approaches. You know a bunch of words that are each individually equivalent to a post by E who must not be named. Some fiends know a few, but you actually have enough to fill a page, and have built up enough tolerance to use them for something worth putting down on your character sheet. Probably want to avoid randomly blurting out words of dark power while standing next to people you like, though.

[Prak]

Alright, cool, I'm sure some reasonable feat can be worked out.

Regarding hive minding: I figured on it being the very last thing you get from the feat, around 15th level (I didn't do that right in my last post, but that's obviously where it should be), so there's no way in hell Akarchin would be doing it in this game anyway. Though, ideally, I think Dark Unity would be best handled similar to a necromantic feat.

but I digress. And I need to remember that there's no reason I can't use one of the existing languages of evil like Abyssal or Infernal.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Looked at the Tome of Prowess rules on dungeons.wikia, and they seem unfinished. Also going to mean more complexity in all the NPC stats.

I find myself tempted to go with my very lazy skill houserules for this game. They go as follows:
1. You have the same skill list as in regular 3.x
2. For each skill, if it looks like something your character would be good at, give max ranks. If it looks like something your character would be competent at, give a number that reflects how well you think they should do with it.
3. Try and keep things reasonable.

[ubernoob]

Looked at the Tome of Prowess rules on dungeons.wikia, and they seem unfinished. Also going to mean more complexity in all the NPC stats.

I find myself tempted to go with my very lazy skill houserules for this game. They go as follows:
1. You have the same skill list as in regular 3.x
2. For each skill, if it looks like something your character would be good at, give max ranks. If it looks like something your character would be competent at, give a number that reflects how well you think they should do with it.
3. Try and keep things reasonable.

So, we're just giving +unlimited skill points? I honestly don't see a problem with skills as is since most of the classes used are at least 4+int (exception being possibly cleric and that has the 'cloistered option') and we're allowed to just give ourselves whatever int we want.

[Avoraciopoctules]

You're probably right. I just like giving my PCs a bunch of minor background skills at 2-3 ranks and that tends to chew my skill points up pretty quickly. But I'm pretty open to suggestions for skill system. I'll stick to the default rules + the Tome and knowledge houserules if nobody wants something specific.

[ubernoob]

You're probably right. I just like giving my PCs a bunch of minor background skills at 2-3 ranks and that tends to chew my skill points up pretty quickly. But I'm pretty open to suggestions for skill system. I'll stick to the default rules + the Tome and knowledge houserules if nobody wants something specific.

+2/3 points in a skill is pretty minor on almost every skill. There are a few things (like synergy) where you'd be spreading out your points and might have +2/3 at one point, but there's a reason that you can put 4 points into a class skill at first level - a tiny +2/3 doesn't matter much.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Hence "Minor Background Skill". When I make PCs, I like to set a bunch of skill points on fire in a manner I find aesthetically pleasing. I don't always do this, but it happens frequently enough that many of my in-person games involve large piles of bonus skill points.

[Nicklance]

My new concept involved a Veteran of the War Swordwraith monk 1/ barbarian 1/ swordwraith paragon 1.

Is this ok?

[Akula]

I'm not the DM, but he has let me get away with crazier shit, so you're probably good.

[Nicklance]

I'm not the DM, but he has let me get away with crazier shit, so you're probably good.

Heh that's good news then.

[Avoraciopoctules]

My new concept involved a Veteran of the War Swordwraith monk 1/ barbarian 1/ swordwraith paragon 1.

Is this ok?

Acceptable.