The Gaming Den

Schleiermacher wrote:It's not so cool if it's something that only one or two of the thirteen classes in your collaborative fantasy RPG can aspire to. Which is why I want everyone else to get equally cool toys as well. (NB! Not necessarily the same toys.)

Well in 3.5 you just needed to be a 11th level caster to go lich(there was even a Druid Lich in one of the official adventures). Also

I don't see why Paladins can't be liches too.

One of the 3.X sourcebooks (libris mortis) actually included an option for good liches. Also wouldn't fighter types become death knights instead of liches? I could see that working in the same manner, achieving it on your own power, like forging your own magical armor and weapon to bind yourself to.

Lord Mistborn wrote:Well in 3.5 you just needed to be a 11th level caster to go lich(there was even a Druid Lich in one of the official adventures).

Red Hand of doom right?

There was also an actual druid lich in Champions of Ruin. The RHoD guys is a blighter.

Wiseman wrote:One of the 3.X sourcebooks (libris mortis) actually included an option for good liches.

Good liches date back to AD&D. Granted, non-evil liches were described as the exception rather than the norm, but so are PCs anyway.

But yeah, it's the kind of revelations that make me go "fuck that noise" with Mearls' 5 months' long blind date with 5E.

nockermensch wrote:This just in, fresh from the GitP forum: The Tarrasque is still totally an epic monster because it can make improvised ranged attacks if you try to kite it.

There's a similar thread on the WotC forums that is likewise full of Oberoni.

Dogbert wrote:

Wiseman wrote:One of the 3.X sourcebooks (libris mortis) actually included an option for good liches.

Good liches date back to AD&D. Granted, non-evil liches were described as the exception rather than the norm, but so are PCs anyway.

But yeah, it's the kind of revelations that make me go "fuck that noise" with Mearls' 5 months' long blind date with 5E.

Well the alignment chart Gygax made for OD&D had good liches.

I like that chart, @ishy. Replace the inner ones with "often" or "usually" like 3e, draw in some Neutral blocks: you've got "Often Lawful" Liches, with "Usually Lawful" Dwarves and werewolves, and "Always Lawful" unicorns, treants, and mummies.

Maybe add an "extremely Chaotic Evil" for Red Dragons, and "extremely Lawful Good" for Paladins. Black and White dragons that are "Often Evil" and Brass that are "Always Chaotic" are interesting.

I like that the Treants aren't on the Elf's team. It's not green vs not-green.

NineInchNall wrote:

nockermensch wrote:This just in, fresh from the GitP forum: The Tarrasque is still totally an epic monster because it can make improvised ranged attacks if you try to kite it.

There's a similar thread on the WotC forums that is likewise full of Oberoni.

OMG THAT THREAD IS RETARDED.

The law of the morons:

some retard wrote:the only problem with this would be in the hands of an inexperienced DM. Inexperienced DMs should not be running epic level adventures, as a general rule.

Hell, even the Barbarian has a conceptual hook for immortality. Something something spirit totems, something something burning rage, you could go a few ways. You could do worse than a barbarian ritual that replaces the character's heart with a glowing ember which meant the only way he could be killed is if the ember died out (yes, like Charizard's tail fire).

Some dude on that thread wrote:Do you honestly think the Tarrasque cannot pick up a horse, cart, building, etc and fling it at the flying cowardly wizard because he doesn't have a power that says he can? Can your rogue never pick up a handful of rocks and throw them in the face of the big orc because he doesnt have a feat that allows him to do it?

I really don't know why these people keep insisting that kiting a giant murderball melee machine is "cowardly". "It's a giant scorpion, dumbass, don't melee it!" is legit advice.

Does the Terrasque have thumbs, and what's its Int score.

Edit: Intelligence of 3. That's still "Barely sapient", right?

Maxus wrote:Does the Terrasque have thumbs, and what's its Int score.

Edit: Intelligence of 3. That's still "Barely sapient", right?

Int 3 in 5e is now the int score that intelligent animals (like Wolves) get. There is no clarification anywhere as to what this means for player characters with 3 int.

And I found the 5e art for it. It doesn't have thumbs and the arms aren't hooked on right for throwing, being like velociraptor arms.

I think we can put the tarrasque as "not a tool-using creature." Certainly not a rock-throwing one. It's also questionable whether throwing would occur to it.

Ravengm wrote: I really don't know why these people keep insisting that kiting a giant murderball melee machine is "cowardly". "It's a giant scorpion, dumbass, don't melee it!" is legit advice.

It's the same complaint they often have with players' trying to rest in between fights, and they levy it for the same reason: kiting is not a tactic that jibes with their conceptions of how the game should play out. The fact that it's an effective tactic (and clearly so in character) only makes it more intolerable to them, probably because of some sort of cognitive dissonance about their own play being awesome.

NineInchNall wrote:

Ravengm wrote: I really don't know why these people keep insisting that kiting a giant murderball melee machine is "cowardly". "It's a giant scorpion, dumbass, don't melee it!" is legit advice.

It's the same complaint they often have with players' trying to rest in between fights, and they levy it for the same reason: kiting is not a tactic that jibes with their conceptions of how the game should play out. The fact that it's an effective tactic (and clearly so in character) only makes it more intolerable to them, probably because of some sort of cognitive dissonance about their own play being awesome.

I read an argument where kiting was declared to be a "video game tactic" that would be shut down by any REAL MAN DM. Apparently, no D&D party has ever chased after a guy who shot at them and ran down a dark alley, so why would NPC's ever do such a thing?

The closest thing I've seen to real argument for getting in front of Big T is "Sure, you can nuke it from orbit, but it's barrelling right towards the orphanage... heroes."

Ravengm wrote:I really don't know why these people keep insisting that kiting a giant murderball melee machine is "cowardly". "It's a giant scorpion, dumbass, don't melee it!" is legit advice.

I'd never accuse neckbeards of making sense.

Stinktopus wrote:

NineInchNall wrote:

Ravengm wrote: I really don't know why these people keep insisting that kiting a giant murderball melee machine is "cowardly". "It's a giant scorpion, dumbass, don't melee it!" is legit advice.

It's the same complaint they often have with players' trying to rest in between fights, and they levy it for the same reason: kiting is not a tactic that jibes with their conceptions of how the game should play out. The fact that it's an effective tactic (and clearly so in character) only makes it more intolerable to them, probably because of some sort of cognitive dissonance about their own play being awesome.

I read an argument where kiting was declared to be a "video game tactic" that would be shut down by any REAL MAN DM. Apparently, no D&D party has ever chased after a guy who shot at them and ran down a dark alley, so why would NPC's ever do such a thing?

The closest thing I've seen to real argument for getting in front of Big T is "Sure, you can nuke it from orbit, but it's barrelling right towards the orphanage... heroes."

I'm stealing this, its good and makes people act good since most of my group act like they're lawful evil all the time when they have some form of good written.

It's not good it's still retarded. If there are a thousand people in town and the party hurls itself into melee to be quickly murdered then the Tarrasque murders 1000 people. If the party kites it to death successfully after 100 combat rounds then the Tarrasque only murdered 100 people. So a character who kills the Tarrasque through kiting is not a coward, he is a great hero who saved 900 people. The complaint being levied at the Tarrasque is that it can be killed by a level 1 character who kites it. It is not an option for a level 1 character to kill it in melee so no one would critique the character for dooming everyone by pointlessly dueling it.

If a Doctor performed a risky operation on you that saved you from cancer you wouldn't call that Doctor a coward because he didn't cure everyone's cancer.

I remember on the Iron Kingdoms boards I posted a character that could chain 16 attacks in a row. When their attempts to find rules that made the character illegal all came up dry they went with telling me that they would just throw way MORE than 16 men at the party and have enemies shoot at me exclusively after I killed the first 16 and that everyone in my party would get mad at me cause I kept getting KO'd in fights. I really appreciated the separation from reality that showed because the reaction from an actual party would be "Thank God Dean's guy saved us from that otherwise unbeatable foe" and not "Dean's guy should be built shittier"

It isn't that a Tarrasque rampaging and crushing houses while ignoring kiting isn't a good idea to force PCs to engage in melee - disagreeing with Dean here - it's that (as noted in the thread) the Tarrasque is massive and generally slow, and doesn't burrow.

The interception and kiting will happen long before the thing gets to a town, and the town will have a decent amount of time to evacuate as well.

The Tarrasque, as printed, is dumb. I like the idea of forcing mega PCs to engage it in melee, but as its printed that thing will still maul them, I imagine... making the Tarrasque either unusable for its offensive TPK-DM-hand-jobbing, or unusable for its total lack of defenses. Throwing massive clods of dirt, or trees or whatnot as improvised attacks (and its only real functional offensive power) is just sad.

The tarrasque has a glaring weakness, making it a puzzle monster like a gelatinous cube right? If you want a big giant clawed monster that can also fly, deal with flyers, and be tricky, just roll up a really old dragon.

So I guess the main problem is that the monster manual presents it as threat that has to be faced head on instead of showing that it has glaring weaknesses that could be shored up by other villains.

Like an evil guy takes advantage of the tarrasque's emergence to go do evil in other parts of the kingdom, or some giant hellwasps build a nest on its back, feeding on the corpses in the tarrasque's wake and also swarming anything that hurts the tarrasque.

I certainly think that D&D has enough conceptual space to have a giant dumb animal with a ton of hitpoints that can't fly.

Holy fuck that thread (http://community.wizards.com/forum/prod ... 36?page=13) is fucking awful. PAGES of that back-and-forth bullshit on the Tarrasque.

Holy fuck. The relentless desire to argue must intoxicate those people.

It's just the same mindless fanboy defense that always happens. If it says epic on the label, it's epic. If you find a way to make it not epic, you must be missing something. If you aren't missing something, then the DM is supposed to stop you. If the DM can't stop you without having to do something stupid and pointlessly punitive, it's your fault. It is absolutely 100% not bad monster design to design an epic level threat that can be trivially killed by adventurer-wannabes. It is absolutely 100% not bad DMing to use a shitty monser and expect anything other than a shitty encounter. It is always, always, always the player's fault for interfering with the DM's preconceived notions of how they wanted the encounter to go.

It's like they hate you for disabusing them of the notion that the rule system is totally perfect.

mean_liar wrote:It isn't that a Tarrasque rampaging and crushing houses while ignoring kiting isn't a good idea to force PCs to engage in melee - disagreeing with Dean here - it's that (as noted in the thread) the Tarrasque is massive and generally slow, and doesn't burrow.

Yeah. but to be fair "big T does his best Godzilla impression" is pretty much the only imaginable scenario that the Tarrasque is something more than a roadblock or a XP pinata.

An actually functional version of big T would probably need burrowing and some kind of ranged attack. Sort of like Behemoth in Worm.

Dean wrote:It's not good it's still retarded.

You is the dumbest evar. Why else would someone actively in Godzilla if not to save lives. Also thanks for attributing someone elses argument to me. I mean, say one sentence in this entire thread about how I like a way to engage the pcs and that means doctors are cowards.