The Gaming Den

Your description of the breath weapon makes all kinds of no sense.

Short isn't a range, I assume you mean close.

Lines don't have widths. They have a line, that you draw. And if you did use those width rules, you'd end up with a line that was much wider than 3/4ths of the cone, rendering the cone less than stellar.

On White Mage offense vs. no offense: provide it as an option.
The role itself doesn't necessitate any offensive beyond a backhanded slap or Bones-style verbal jab. It's full support.
They make other people better at killing while avoid being the target. It's buffing and healing magic, I ain't gotta 'splain shit.


On Dragon: Needs to be less complex from Bigode's version. Something a DM can whip out and slap together a brood and parent within minutes if needed.
By complexity I mean brevity, and by brevity I mean WORDS.

Koumei wrote:I might tackle Warmage, pending an answer on what we want: a tactical/strategic mage who does some artillery but also handles walls, conjuring food and shelter and so on or someone who just really enjoys making things go splat.

I'd go with the former. For a start its more interesting. Second theres only so many splat abilities you can give a class, 20 levels of it would be boring. Third Splat is a subset of the broader role, if anyone wants to be splat dude they can do it and get some utility on the side so they can be interesting when splat is not an appropriate response.

we also need the "this is a chromatic dragon" "this is a metallic dragon" type stuff

I have a draft of an Abjuration paladin almost ready to be torn apart.

e: It's up in IMOI.

Prak_Anima wrote:we also need the "this is a chromatic dragon" "this is a metallic dragon" type stuff

We do? Don't know about anyone else here but I personally seek to avoid Faerun/Greyhawk tropes.

Recombinant dragon parts that I can shuffle like a small deck and play as desired is another matter.
I would like custom dragons on the fly:
• A flimsy, boney dragon with 10 kinds of breath
• A huge land-wyrm with only claws and teeth as weapons, incredibly tough armor
• A smart puzzle-monster dragon with crappy physical abilities but good "screw the party" SLAs, like Puff but more devious.

Okay, I'm about to edit the Snowscaper, because Kaelik does have a point. However, the Dragon class is not mine; It's something of Bigode's (Ironically, I found it by searching for Tome of Tiamat. That's the name of the thread it's in. Might want to ask him about that, in light of this flurry of activity) that I formatted up and posted here. I like the class--it's a very workhorse sort of way to work a dragon. I concede that it could go a little further, like Sig's suggestions.

sigma999 wrote:

Prak_Anima wrote:we also need the "this is a chromatic dragon" "this is a metallic dragon" type stuff

We do? Don't know about anyone else here but I personally seek to avoid Faerun/Greyhawk tropes.

Recombinant dragon parts that I can shuffle like a small deck and play as desired is another matter.
I would like custom dragons on the fly:
• A flimsy, boney dragon with 10 kinds of breath
• A huge land-wyrm with only claws and teeth as weapons, incredibly tough armor
• A smart puzzle-monster dragon with crappy physical abilities but good "screw the party" SLAs, like Puff but more devious.

I'm just looking at what K and Frank had put forward:

First of all, we know that the Dragons in the Monster Manual make you sad. They make us sad too. Not just because they are all color coded by philosophy and that's really dumb, but also because Dragons are way too small. Seriously, the proper challenge for most adventurers is a Dragon the size of my dog, and you just can't ride around on those things at all. Most characters want to ride around on a dragon that is at least two sizes larger than they are, and under the normal rules that's just not available until epic levels (by which time you no longer care).

Naturally of course, complete rules for making a Dragon that is scaleable and a decent challenge while being substantially larger than my cat will be introduced in the Tome of Tiamat. But since we know that won't be out for a while, let's throw in a preview mount for Vayn to have when she's an 11th level character:

Mitzraicha
Dragon (White) 7 / Metallic Paragon 2

Okay, so, once people in general are happy with the Warmage and the Knight Prestige Classes, I intend on moving on to (in no particular order):

*Diseases (so I'll do it the way Frank suggested, more or less, but this raises an issue: should the Strength be "Fort DC X, if you fail you take Y ability damage" or should it be "Fort DC X, if you fail you take ability damage equal to the amount you fail by" (meaning that d20 roll can be the difference between shrugging it off 100% and taking so much ability damage you explode) or a staged effect thing with DCs X, Y and Z? Or perhaps it just deals X ability damage, minus your bonus to Fort saves / saves against Disease?)
*A few more Prestige Classes (a few for the Sohei, one for the Warmage)
*Maybe some work on generic monster progressions

May I make a suggestion?

It seems you have several people all working on blasting powers and related effects, with no actual collaboration before hand. It would probably be a really, really good idea to make a general "Blasting powers" thread first, list all the changes and all the new powers for blasting powers, and THEN fix up the warmage and metamagic feats to match.

Quite probably, but I don't like working with other people, and it seems everyone has a different idea of how they want it to work (I want more "get around resistances" and "it's not just damage, it's Save-Or-Suck as well, bitches!", whereas Sigma just wants "HUGE DAMAGE, I KILL YOU" and the option to spam the exact same move over and over again).

Right. And that means if one of you rewrites the spells, and one of you rewrites a class, both with different goals, you end up with something that fulfills both roles, and is flat-out overpowered. Something has to be done about it.

Well, nothing's stopping the class (with the spell-altering powers and a few of their altered spells) from using stuff from the PHB and the PHB classes using someone else's altered spells. Just like despite the existence of Tome feats, someone could still take PHB feats.

While that's not a bad call DC, I don't think anyone here is really up for design by committee. Without someone to make the final call and move past road blocks, things just go around in circles with no one deciding which way to proceed. Or the group decides to proceed in ways that frustrate the motivated creative people. Either way nothing happens.

I'll stick with what we've got now actually. Between Koumei's inhuman class production facilities (mercifully directed this way instead of Dungeon Crusade for now) and everyone else's contributions we've gotten way more out than I expected we'd have by this point. I sorta expected we'd still be arguing about something largely trivial. And once we've got an even larger volume of stuff and the individual books start shaping up, it'll be easier to reconcile by committee than having done it from the beginning (or, for those of us who suck at actually building classes but can analyze all day, we'll have stuff to do). And because people are working on what they want and less on what others decided we want we'll get things out faster.

So yeah, something needs to be done about it. Something will be done about it. Just not at the beginning.

---

Diseases. I likey the staggered DCs and effects idea, but I can't really see putting lots of work into fixing them when they just don't really matter after 5th level. Were we going to put "Min CL to remove" tags on new ones or also tweak Remove Disease?

TarkisFlux wrote:Koumei's inhuman class production facilities (mercifully directed this way instead of Dungeon Crusade for now)

That's mainly because as far as I can tell, DC is seriously finished. Like, it could be made into a pdf then shown to the creator of Dungeonhammer/Dragonhammer, just to be a dick.

So yeah. I'd still produce DC material if I thought there was anything left for me to produce.

Koumei wrote:

TarkisFlux wrote:Koumei's inhuman class production facilities (mercifully directed this way instead of Dungeon Crusade for now)

That's mainly because as far as I can tell, DC is seriously finished. Like, it could be made into a pdf then shown to the creator of Dungeonhammer/Dragonhammer, just to be a dick.

So yeah. I'd still produce DC material if I thought there was anything left for me to produce.

Working on that.

I think the outline will go...

Introduction/Character Creation
Assault Classes (Including PrCs)
Siege Classes (Including the same)
Non-Imperials (As in, the extra Assault Class stuff)
Feats
Equipment
Vehicles

Works for me. Remember that tiny bit on skills ("what the fuck is Class Skills?" and Repair + Pilot) and the vague rule on requisitions.

Come to think of it, some of the feats I made for that (particularly, the ones later on, close to the last post) could be general Tome ones. Although I'm not happy with Counter Attack for reasons that should be quite clear once you picture how a combat round goes... especially if a pair of TWF people have that and attack each other....

"I make a full attack, so, eight attacks!"
"Right, well, that provokes eight attacks of opportunity, and for each one I make a full attack action, so 8^2 = 64 attacks from me...."

"That's okay, because I can make ten AoOs per round, so I make another 10*8=80 attacks..."

"I wish I had some bullshit secondary natural weapon here..."

Uh, yeah. Anyway, that'd be awesome, Maxus, to have a proper pdf of it.

Koumei wrote:Quite probably, but I don't like working with other people, and it seems everyone has a different idea of how they want it to work (I want more "get around resistances" and "it's not just damage, it's Save-Or-Suck as well, bitches!", whereas Sigma just wants "HUGE DAMAGE, I KILL YOU" and the option to spam the exact same move over and over again).

Mmm! You can taste the pretention. Thanks for putting posts in my mouth, I'll return the favor sometime.

As for spam, you are partially correct, I do want that. I also want everything else in... which includes your crap too.
Yes, my intent for RPG cohesion includes your designs even while yours does not include mine.
Ultimately, an overarching integration is needed, and without solid direction it ends up being an entropic mess.
... Like TNE, or those old racial scaling feats.

sigma, I know this is apparently something you don't want to hear, but 400 damage in an area save for half from a third level spell at ranges over a thousand feat is not good for D&D.

That's a disturbing concept, Kaelik. It works if everyone has at least 1200 HP but the snark has no actual value beyond continuing Koumei's jab. Strawman, yadayada, I'm getting bored.

My calculations result in 60 damage from the Blaster Mage feat I made if used alone, more if in combination (illegal or otherwise) with certain other spell feats. Compare with SoDs in Tome vs. a target's available buffed resistances, extra HP, etc.
Where are you going with this that pertains to design intent?

I was being a bit unfair, but hitherto this point, it seemed that your design goal was in fact "I want to be able to cast (damage spell) every round and just have the enormous damage do the work. No tactics, no clever tricks or abilities, raw damage only, FINAL DESTINATION"

Which sounds really friggin' boring to me. But I can't actually say that's all you've put forward/worked on over time. It's just what stood out in my mind the most, like the various attempts at the "Your spells do more damage" feat.

I've been pushing for simplicity support in opposition to an overabundance of exotic status effects.
No combat routine should be forced to go the route of combo chain, CharOp setup, and hypothetical Rule 0 defiance.

Sometimes, sometimes, a player just wants to get a person dead.
No tricks. No debuffs or sucks. No Fox. No destination at all.
Just dead.

Now, balancing it with a game is another matter. I haven't specifically supplied for Tome, but have at least tried to comprehend the non-Euclidean paths it takes.
While X damage can't be directly compared to Y or Z debuff or SoD, one can plot the number of turns until defeat.

I don't want 1-hit K.O. powers. Never did.
However, if a Tome spellcaster character focuses in damage, they should at least be able to beat the output of, say, a Samurai scythe crit.

I redid the feat recently because upon reading an old incarnation I was dissatisfied. Having altered it once more I move on.
If you have any recommendations I could attempt others, but my confidence for designing RPG things has mostly been destroyed following the failure of Feybook.

FrankTrollman wrote:Tome of Virtue

• Alignment Discussion: Good, Evil. Fanaticism.
• Compromise, Coexistence, and Conversion
• [/b]Paladin (think: full BAB abjuration/healing Warmage caster)[/b]
• Cleric (think: a lot more like the Archivist/Wizard)
• Bonus Core Classes (Sohei, Celestial Conduit, White Mage)
• Prestige Classes
• Feats, Spheres, and Spells
• Miracle Rewrite
• Celestials
• Gods and Divinity
• Revised Diplomancy Rules
• Celestial and Precelestial Economics
• High Adventure on the Upper Planes

Tome of Trees

• Nature/Biology/Plants
• Food, Disease, and Resources
• Bard
• Druid
• Ranger
• Bonus Core Classes (Spirit Shaman, Witch)
• Prestige Classes
• Feats and Spells
• Enchantment in D&D
• Fey
• Plant Type Monsters
• Wilderness Adventure

Tome of Tiamat

• Power Sources
• Magic Physics
• Warlock
• Warmage
• Bonus Core Classes (Elementalist, Firemage, Puppeteer, Snowscaper)
• Prestige Classes
• Feats and Spells and Spheres
• Dragons
• Elementals
• Genies
• Evocation Overhaul
• High Adventure on the Inner Planes

-Username17

The bolded lines are things that have been done--or at least attempted (to my knowledge).

There's also some Knight PrCs written which go in all three categories. And then there's Surgo's material...

Lizardfolk Variant and Paragon [Tiamat. Or maybe Trees.]
Lich Paragon [Tiamat? Tome of Necromancy?]
Shadowdancer [Not sure. Tiamat?]

Then there's the stuff I put up the DnD Wiki and on here...

Mummy Template (Tome of Necromancy bonus, I guess)
Mummy Paragon (Same)
Mummy Lord (Need to work on it some more)
Dragoon (Fairly happy with it, though it could stand some polishing)
Drunken Master (Need to dig that thread up and revise the class. Dungeonomicon bonus?)
A trio of Monk PrC's I don't consider worthy of inclusion
Manual of Making Things (Craft overhaul, Craft feats)
Some half-assed ideas on Celestials and Celestial feats and spheres.
An attempt at the Shifter and Warforged races. Schpeelah has a try on the Warforged in the same thread

So it looks like this:

The Den isn't afraid of writing classes (Or, well, Koumei isn't. At the rate she's going, people are going to be calling this F, K&K material...or, wait, Koumei, what's your first initial?). Feats are in the works, but the metamagic feats will be iffy until the magic physics and evocation overhaul are written as guidelines. And when we can decide what a scaling, multi-benefit metamagic feat should look like.

As for the big spills on environment and ethics and the like...Well, we'll see. I'd be iffy on defining Good and Evil in the Tome of Virtue anyway, since there's a lot of disagreement about that (although not as bad as Law vs. Chaos) and there's no point in upsetting people over some guidelines in a game ("OF COURSE she's an Evil goddess! She sluts it up with mortal men all the time! She totally flakes out on her obligations!"...Remember Cassia on the DnD Wiki?).

You won't believe this, but my middle initial is K. Anyway, I know you were kidding, it's just Den stuff.

And classes are easy. Perhaps I could put thoughts into Spheres or Feats or stuff, but doing the lengthy spiels isn't for me. I just can't work up the effort to write a bunch of stuff when we know most people are going to tl;dr it and skip straight to the mechanics.

Especially seeing as I couldn't make it as funny as the existing ones.

Spheres would be good. I had a list of Good or Neutral-aligned spheres, with names like...

Healing (Special Ability: The cap on bonus HP from caster level is removed. Yes, there's Cure spells, but there's also the remove afflictions (restoration, remove disease, etc.)

Protection (Special ability: Er...No idea. Maybe you have a pouch which will always have a fresh condom in it, or something. Anyway, general Abjuration)

Land

Sea

Sky

Light

Good

Piety (Sort of the anti-heresy sphere)

Summoning (Well, duh)

Strength (Buff spells in general. Can throw down Mass versions as a special ability)

Also, that's convenient on the middle initial.