The Gaming Den

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 5:15 pm**

Previn wrote:Well, no it doesn't require you do it. It requires that someone did it and you got the tuned fork sometime down the line. Really, all you need is Planeshift as a SLA (or a creature with it) to either take you there, or bring back attuned forks since spell-like abilities negates the need for components and focuses.

Except that in this very thread we have an example of a Pthfinder DM claiming that the attunement ritual takes a literal decade of your characters life to get one tuning fork. So get fucked player.

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 5:50 pm**

Kaelik wrote:Except that in this very thread we have an example of a Pthfinder DM claiming that the attunement ritual takes a literal decade of your characters life to get one tuning fork. So get fucked player.

Actually,

Krusk wrote:Ironically, we had this exact scenario come up two sessions ago (late october?). Wonder if my shitty dm is lurking. We had a player attempt to planeshift to hell in a 3.5 game, and the DM asked them if they had a tuning fork. They broke out a character sheet all proud and pointed at the line item "tuning fork for planeshift" on their sheet.

The DM smiled and asked where it was attuned. When they said "what do you mean", he ass pulled a ritual that required decades to do, and then said "but since I'm nice, you can say you attuned yours to a single plane ahead of time".

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 6:01 pm**

ishy wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Except that in this very thread we have an example of a Pthfinder DM claiming that the attunement ritual takes a literal decade of your characters life to get one tuning fork. So get fucked player.
Actually,
Krusk wrote:Ironically, we had this exact scenario come up two sessions ago (late october?). Wonder if my shitty dm is lurking. We had a player attempt to planeshift to hell in a 3.5 game, and the DM asked them if they had a tuning fork. They broke out a character sheet all proud and pointed at the line item "tuning fork for planeshift" on their sheet.

The DM smiled and asked where it was attuned. When they said "what do you mean", he ass pulled a ritual that required decades to do, and then said "but since I'm nice, you can say you attuned yours to a single plane ahead of time".

That seems odd, since 3.5 says nothing about attunement anywhere and explicitly describes how the forks are made of metal of a certain size, and Pathfinder explicitly uses that word. So if this is in fact a guy who DMs Pathfinder, and was going off his memory of the Pathfinder rules, I'm going to still declare victory. God knows I wouldn't realize if I were for some horrific reason using pathfinder that negative levels actually take a month to cure because pathfinder is stupid.

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 8:17 pm**

Kaelik wrote:
Ice9 wrote:So no Plane Shift via summoning at all, you need (Lesser) Planar Binding.
Yes, that is why I said only a Wizard, because only Wizards have access to Lesser Planar Binding. Unlike Clerics and Druids.

Well, a couple domains get it (Void gets it early), but other than that, yeah.

On tuning forks in general, I'm kind of in favor of them - having someone's obscure demiplane be harder to get to than "the plane of fire" sounds like a good thing. "Attuned" is way the fuck too vague though, there should be specific rules, because this is something the PCs could run into from either direction.

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 10:16 pm**

I don't know why people even bother getting all bent out of shape about whether you have a tuning fork. There's no cost listed for the tuning fork, so every caster already has an arbitrary amount of tuning forks by default.

SRD wrote:Focus (F)
A focus component is a prop of some sort. Unlike a material component, a focus is not consumed when the spell is cast and can be reused. As with material components, the cost for a focus is negligible unless a price is given. Assume that focus components of negligible cost are in your spell component pouch.

PFSRD wrote:Focus (F)
A focus component is a prop of some sort. Unlike a material component, a focus is not consumed when the spell is cast and can be reused. As with material components, the cost for a focus is negligible unless a price is given. Assume that focus components of negligible cost are in your spell component pouch.

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 10:40 pm**

Wiseman wrote:I don't know why people even bother getting all bent out of shape about whether you have a tuning fork. There's no cost listed for the tuning fork, so every caster already has an arbitrary amount of tuning forks by default.

Because here on the Den every DM is out to get the players, and/or bad at DMing, so of course if there are nebulous RP requirements for something the DM is going to go out of their way to screw the players.

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:13 pm**

Wiseman wrote:I don't know why people even bother getting all bent out of shape about whether you have a tuning fork. There's no cost listed for the tuning fork, so every caster already has an arbitrary amount of tuning forks by default.

PFSRD wrote:Focus (F)
A focus component is a prop of some sort. Unlike a material component, a focus is not consumed when the spell is cast and can be reused. As with material components, the cost for a focus is negligible unless a price is given. Assume that focus components of negligible cost are in your spell component pouch.

Where is that? Because that contradicts the text of the spell component pouch.

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:15 pm**

Previn wrote:
Wiseman wrote:I don't know why people even bother getting all bent out of shape about whether you have a tuning fork. There's no cost listed for the tuning fork, so every caster already has an arbitrary amount of tuning forks by default.
Because here on the Den every DM is out to get the players, and/or bad at DMing, so of course if there are nebulous RP requirements for something the DM is going to go out of their way to screw the players.

Previn, defending completely worthless unhelpful vague non rules that aren't even RP requirements because they are literally meaningless by insulting anyone who asks for designers to use meaningful words to say what they mean to say since 2008.

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:49 pm**

Kaelik wrote:Where is that? Because that contradicts the text of the spell component pouch.

SRD

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:53 pm**

And for PF

Posted: **Thu Nov 19, 2015 11:59 pm**

Kaelik wrote:
Previn wrote:
Wiseman wrote:I don't know why people even bother getting all bent out of shape about whether you have a tuning fork. There's no cost listed for the tuning fork, so every caster already has an arbitrary amount of tuning forks by default.
Because here on the Den every DM is out to get the players, and/or bad at DMing, so of course if there are nebulous RP requirements for something the DM is going to go out of their way to screw the players.
Previn, defending completely worthless unhelpful vague non rules that aren't even RP requirements because they are literally meaningless by insulting anyone who asks for designers to use meaningful words to say what they mean to say since 2008.

Kaelik, not knowing the rules AND relaying almost exclusively on ad hominem since forever.

Congrats on being the 4th person to make my ignore list, whatever you might occasional contribute is so drown out by crap that it's just not worth it with you any more.

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 12:17 am**

It looks like that just says where you have focuses that you have, not a statement about getting them in the first place, so it looks like the vague spell component pouch "that fit" rule is still the breakpoint.

Previn wrote:Kaelik, not knowing the rules AND relaying almost exclusively on ad hominem since forever.

So you think that changing the focus to an "attuned" object is a GREAT POSITIVE CHANGE TO THE GAME because it's an RP requirement, but having it actually define attune so that the PCs can actually RP anything at all about attuned tuning forks is a terrible travesty. And you think that has anything to do with me apparently relying on ad hominem, because you (still) don't know what that is.

And what rules are you accusing me of not knowing?

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 2:48 am**

He dms 3.5 and claims to hate pf. He has gotten 3.5 rules wrong in the past and used pf rules in their place though so who knows. Asked me to roll a fly check a while back, that stood out.

He is notorious for not knowing the actual rules and just making shit up and swearing its legit. Maybe he read some 2e or 3rd party thing, or even some homebrew thing and just assume it was real.

As for buying one for each plane, apparently "youd have to find someone willing to sell one", and since my level 12 pc with 100k cant buy a 25k item in the most populus city in the world, ill assume thats impossible.

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 3:04 am**

Krusk wrote:He dms 3.5 and claims to hate pf. He has gotten 3.5 rules wrong in the past and used pf rules in their place though so who knows. Asked me to roll a fly check a while back, that stood out.

He is notorious for not knowing the actual rules and just making shit up and swearing its legit. Maybe he read some 2e or 3rd party thing, or even some homebrew thing and just assume it was real.

As for buying one for each plane, apparently "youd have to find someone willing to sell one", and since my level 12 pc with 100k cant buy a 25k item in the most populus city in the world, ill assume thats impossible.

I love having 100k in the bank and rolling skill checks that aren't on the sheet!

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 6:12 am**

Is it any good?

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 2:33 pm**

Is that guy the only GM in town or what

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 4:06 pm**

This comment should probably be split into it's own topic, but it's sort of related to the tuning fork discussion.

How many roadblocks or inconveniences should the MC throw in the way of player plans or declarative statements to create a satisfying experience? How many become just too much pointless time wasting and cock-blocking?

I know that I get annoyed sometimes when I'm playing in a game and I have to slay the ogre to get the money to buy the gift horse to convince the baron to get permission to go to the mine to clear out the ghosts to get the miners to go back to work to get the ore to give to the blacksmith to make the locket to give to the lady to make me the magic rug I need to fly to the place to enter the dungeon to find the ceremonial armor to rally the population to rise up in revolution against the guy in the castle that guards the portal to the underworld I need to go through to get back to whatever I was doing originally.

I've played in a 7th Sea game once where the fluffy RP act of one player wanting to buy a pretty dress led to an entire campaign-derailing side-quest about chasing slavers across the steppes of not-Russia to rescue some NPCs that we were rather fond of and were somewhat necessary. We were in the middle of doing other things in the game. Proactive things that the group was interested in doing and that the quantum slavers were totally unrelated to.

It was like being on your way to kill a demon, and a wizard randomly shows up while you're at the tavern and steals the thing you needed to fight the demon in the first place. Maybe you could get another triple-blessed vial of saint's tears or whatever; but what's the point of the wizard dicking around with you then? If you can't get another one and have to chase down the wizard; then that's still a whatthefuckMC moment.

But...how much of that is actually time wasting MC bullshit and how much of that is the game in the first place?

How few complications, or complications resolved simply with a dice roll, abstract the entire game too much?

I mean, I think most of us would be unsatisfied if D&D battles were resolved with a simple d20 roll where the players only lost if they rolled two 1s in a row. Or if it was just a binary tag of some kind; like by having a sword or magic scroll in your equipment list.

Just saying that you round up 20 or so mercenary horse archers, ride out, and shoot the griffon raiding the town's flocks to death is reasonable; but is it satisfying if the MC just says that it works, you get your reward, pay your soldiers, and move on? There's no real point in dice rolling the combat because the outcome is virtually assured. But then why even mention this event?

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 4:14 pm**

Uh . . . 1? Maybe occasionally 2?

Like, 9 times out of ten, when you have to do X in order to do Y, it is bullshit, and you should be able to just ignore X and go do Y in a different manner. So like, if your DM makes you do X to do Y there is a really good chance that it is time wasting bullshit.

On the other hand, if your DM makes you do X to do Y to do Z, then it goes from a 90% chance that bullshit is occurring to like, a 99% chance that at least some bullshit is occurring. So... don't do that.

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 4:27 pm**

I figure it's a matter of social contract and group expectations.

I don't expect a Fighter to start off with an artifact sword, so a quest to get one is reasonable.

I do expect a wizard to be able to cast any spell they know as spell components are almost always handwaved, so if I say "I cast fireball" and the DM goes "HAHAH THERE ARE NO BATS ON THIS ISLAND GOTCHA" that would feel like the DM is fucking with expectations just to dis-empower my PC.

But if the DM said up front "Hey I treat spell components in a fiddly way so there may be times you can't cast your spells but that's part of the adventure", then I can choose to either participate in this game or not.

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 4:37 pm**

I get what you're saying Kaelik. How broad in scope should Y (or Z) be able to be though?

Does that not matter and the responses should just scale up with the challenge?

To cross the stream, I jump.
To cross the river, I swim.
To cross the sea, I fly.
To cross the ocean, I teleport.
To cross the plane of water, I planeshift?

Should you never have to cross an ocean if you are unable to just teleport over it, for example?

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 4:55 pm**

There's actually two issues there.

If there's a bridge you have to cross and a troll guarding it, as a DM I probably prepared my "The troll wants a pie" sidequest and also the stats of the troll in case you choose to murderhobo it. But if you want to buy a boat to cross instead, well, I just have to adapt (and the sane, and correct, adaptation is to say either "well you're in the middle of nowhere so there are no used boat salesmen around" or "sure, you go out of your way for a day, find a farmstead where they have a canoe, they gouge you atrociously so pay ONE ENTIRE GP and let's move on."

But if my entire adventure for the night is "find the key to the underworld somewhere deep into the Temple of Night" and you say "fuck it, we'll buy a scroll of plane shift", maybe I'll go "well, nobody has one to sell" just so that we actually play D&D that night instead of calling it an early night.

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 5:03 pm**

Verisimilitude is the key here. If you swap out "random wizard stealing shit" with "demon cultists here to stop you from killing the demon" the whole steal back the mcguffin side-quest seems a whole lot less stupid."

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 5:50 pm**

violence in the media wrote:I get what you're saying Kaelik. How broad in scope should Y (or Z) be able to be though?

Does that not matter and the responses should just scale up with the challenge?

To cross the stream, I jump.
To cross the river, I swim.
To cross the sea, I fly.
To cross the ocean, I teleport.
To cross the plane of water, I planeshift?

Should you never have to cross an ocean if you are unable to just teleport over it, for example?

I think the troll example is a good example. The point is that no matter what the problem actually is, the PCs should be able to simplify it down to a specific problem and come up with multiple solutions.

A stupid chain of trades and quests as evidenced in point and click adventure games and (bad) CRPGs is only possible when either the players have no agency or their characters have no abilities. Obviously if you are playing D&D and people aren't playing the stupid all fighter party, then it can't be two, so if you have a chain, it must be because 1, and that is super fucking dumb.

I will now briefly describe a small part of a Piazo adventure path I played, and how it proves my point.

There was a crypt we were investigating, and we reached a certain point where there was like, a pit with a single pole to balance on over it, and a ghost flying around. At the end of the pit is a door that is apparently literally impossible to open from the outside because Piazo has no problems just saying dumb shit like that whenever they want.

The ghost offered a deal where if you go to the bottom of the pit and get his bones and take them back to his family, then he will float through the door and unlock it for you. According to the DMs, apparently if you refuse the deal, the ghost is supposed to kill one of the PCs then make the offer again.

This completely meaningless sidequest to go bury his bones is the only possible connection to the next adventure path, so if you don't do it, the game breaks.

But because I was paranoid about someone else getting into the vault before us, I insisted that we can deliver his bones afterwords, and fuck him. Since we were playing a tome game, all the characters have abilities, although even in a regular game there are hundreds of ways to bypass this problem.

So first off, I was my Spirit Shaman, so I had an ethereal companion who could beat up the ghost, then I also had Spirit Jaws, which straight fucks people who are incorporeal or who are ethereal and can't beat the checks. So we basically told him "Either you can open the door now, and trust that we will take care of your bones later, or you can get murdered and we will go through the door, and not ever deliver your bones, hell, we might just bury them somewhere else while you are dead just to spite you."

Other solutions include: casting stoneshape, power attacking the wall for full with a fighter, opening doors that aren't made of arbitrarium, because doors shouldn't be made of arbitrarium.

The implication that we should have done something else unrelated in order to accomplish our goal is basically just saying that nothing we do matters and we can't address issues on our own. That's fucking shit. And it should basically never happen. Player agency is king. And the players should be able to circumvent any obstacle without going on a stupid sidequest if they want to.

If you need a planar tuning fork, you should be able to conjure or transmute one, or get an SLA planeshift and bypass the whole issue. If it is a one of the regular outer planes on the wheel or an elemental one or ethereal or astral, you should just have that all because those should be a dime a dozen, and if you need one to a specific demiplane the tuning fork itself should be relatively easy (see conjure transmute SLA) compared to the actually more difficult task of finding where on the material plane the demiplane is contemporaneous with.

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:04 pm**

I normally don't like to cheerlead posts, but Kaelik's post should be required reading for anyone who wants to design a campaign, adventure, or game that has more granularity than FATE.

Posted: **Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:34 pm**

violence in the media wrote: Just saying that you round up 20 or so mercenary horse archers, ride out, and shoot the griffon raiding the town's flocks to death is reasonable; but is it satisfying if the MC just says that it works, you get your reward, pay your soldiers, and move on? There's no real point in dice rolling the combat because the outcome is virtually assured. But then why even mention this event?

Currently I'm GMing a large scale war, with the party of PCs that just hit level 13, so there are naturally plenty of cases where I go "oh fuck it, I'm not rolling this fight because the toughest opponent in the vicinity is only level 5, just state what you want to do with them". Not very much verissimilitude in having generals of Hell show up unfailingly wherever PCs want to go to give them a serious battle. But I wouldn't say that those events with no real fights were not worth mentioning, given that most of them resulted from PCs' efforts to avoid genociding their enemies (well, and turning the land they already plan to rule into ruins and piles of corpses).

Unless you run a strict railroad, the nature of DnD dictates that sometimes PCs will just have tools to effortlessly overcome mechanical obstacles and the only question is what they will do with their success.

On the other hand, sometimes what should, narratively, be a significant obstacle, such as reaching the hidden BBEG Dimension, just isn't much of an obstacle mechanically. So I can sometimes empathize with the desire to nerf particular plot-bypassing spells.

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