The Gaming Den

The elf, out of everyone, was the one most offended by the guy because he wouldn't shut up and at one point had stolen his ring of mindblank and replaced it with a ring of fire immunity. Though the switch ended up accidentally saving both of their lives when they got separated later on. The "n...

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So fighters are just like Artificers except that they're incompetent and lazy since can't acquire their own class features without outside help some way in the chain?

The guy who makes the fighter's stuff is one of his class features. For example, Q and MI5 are part of James Bond's class features.

Psychic Robot wrote:You could give some lame fluff justification like "wizards are magic; the magic they wield competes with the magic in magic items," but that's pretty lame.

We cope with 3e Arcane Spell Failure, which is much the same lame fluff justification.

Judging__Eagle wrote:they will often try and find a way so that they aren't using as many resources as possible to achieve their goal.

Alternatively, "they will often try and find a way so that they are using as few resources as possible to achieve their goal."

How long should a montage take to play out? Is it just a case of rolling the dice and seeing if you manage to steal a van? Is it a series of one minute (game time) scenes? The text seems inconsistent to me.

If it is only lead to gold, than I have to ask what is so special about those two elements. Something boring to do with the nuclear structure, just like Uranium-235 is the most practical isotope for sustainable nuclear fission, and Carbon is the most practical element for building life. If the game...

So, say you can magically apply one pound/square inch of pressure, up to a maximum of five pounds, with an accuracy determined by pointing your finger, restricted by line of sight. Sure, you can gouge someone's eye out, but what do you do against someone wearing shades? In war there were plenty of w...

The most recent 4e/penny arcade/pvp podcast explains that players can use Aid Another to make a Stealth check. Because everyone knows that it's easier to sneak an army into Mordor than a couple of hobbits.

Most of my favorite game systems and worlds treat magic as a matter for scientific study--because if magic were real and obeyed consistent laws, that's what would happen. I like this too. However, if I'm looking for a more traditional flavour, I prefer magic as an art. It is real and obeys consiste...

Actually, I can guess why for axemen. In the very early game they've got a major jump in power as compared to previous units, so you can manage to easily overwhelm other civs before they have many or any axemen. Also, they have a prerequisite resource. If you pick on a civ without that resource, or...

I've had good experiences waging war with Trebuchet. The supporting troops can be anything, but Elephants, Macemen, Musketmen, and Knights all work. Weakening axes would make attacking with swords more effective.

If you hate axe rushes, it's pretty easy to mod civ so that axes are less powerful. It's an interesting game balance exercise: what's the smallest change you can make so that axe rushing isn't as overwhelming without messing the early game up in other ways.

Have you tried setting up an AI match between humans and orcs to see who wins? Well, you could point out that in actual Civ 4, a civ is never denied a unit in exchange for a unique, their unique is a slightly better (even if only conditionally) version of a standard unit. Except for Dog Soldiers, wh...

cthulhu wrote:It's the same reason the israeli's beat the arabs in 1973 despite being massively outnumbered and having equal technology.

Equal technology? The Israelis had nukes...

It's always the same thing -- moaning that magic item stores don't make sense. Well, duh. It's not just that they're senseless. They're also pointless. What exactly is the purpose in having magic item shops in a fantasy campaign? So far, the main reasons seems to be: Players should have some contro...

NativeJovian wrote:If it costs 2000 gp to make some Marvelous Pigments, then you can't get more than 2000 gp worth of stuff out of it. No harm, no foul.

So, say that I'm dying of thirst, and would pay 10,000gp for a cup of water. Suddenly, I can no longer create a cup of water with my Marvelous Pigments?

Doom314 wrote:Of course, folks complained because this paradigm meant that healing potions actually cost a surge, so WoTC got rid of it (complaining isn't fun, after all).

Healing potions don't cost a surge any more?

So, even totally optimised, even at level 6, even with everyone going for speed, 45 minutes is as quick as it gets?

That's way too slow.

Consider what Chess programs are like now, as opposed to 30 years ago, by comparison. Those early programs were quite capable of stupidity in odd scenarios, but now? Not so much, no. That's mostly because chess programs today are vastly more complicated, and running on vastly superior hardware. If ...

Psychic Robot wrote:I think Rust Milking is pretty creative and not really broken.

If your creative idea is in a WotC book, it's probably not very creative.

MM2: page 179, "A guide to using rust monsters": Be wary of PCs who try to abuse a rust monster's powers to their advantage by using rust monsters to consume items the PCs would otherwise sell for one-fifth value. In such cases, you should reduce the resulting residuum to one-fifth value, ...

I don't see that animal companion rangers are more broken than healing clerics. Both are immune: damage at level 30. The cleric is theoretically more vulnerable, but makes the whole party immune: damage, and doesn't need to be level 30. rust milking Incidentally, I picked up MM2 recently. Since the ...

By defining "enemy" or "target" in such a way as to scale with a character's level. (If necessary, by creating a derivative of the term "worthy enemy" or "worthy target" to describe this condition.) That's precisely what the 4e DMG rule does. The term is &quo...

What I do have a problem with is the idea that certain attacks only work if the person has the 'enemy' flag on them. It's ok for powers granted by patrons, such as Divine powers or Warlock powers. Bahamut doesn't grant extra healing for smiting rats, and that's fine. For other classes it's an issue.

It's just that when you go to unconscious from wounds, it should take something magical to bring you back. Warlords can't have nice things? Or are we proposing that they can throw healing potions into the open mouths of their dying comrades? (there may be other martial healers, but that's the only ...