The Gaming Den

Only if they have a pocket wizard to cast dispel magic for them. Really, this doesn't help fighter-types at all, it just means they have one more area in which they're completely reliant on having a spellcaster on their side. Well, this isn't really a fighter versus wizard situation exactyl, so muc...

At that rate why not just have abilities have a level appropriate chance to bloody a target and a level appropriate chance to drop a bloodied target? The whole pile of hit points is completely unnecessary, especially in the 4e style where there are hundreds and hundreds of them in piles. Boss monst...

Well, why not compromise? Allow it to be an area debuff, but force a caster level check? Or maybe make it targeted only? I was thinking maybe normal dispel could be targetted only, and greater dispel would be area. The caster level check honestly just seems to slow down play and I generally don't l...

That solution is pretty much the same as not having buff spells at all, as everybody starts a fight with quickened dispel magic. (usually through a rod). Except, it makes non-spellcasters even more useless, because they can't get rid of the spellcaster's buffs. So not only can they not be uber, the...

Fwib wrote:You probably want to explicitly use the [petrified] condition for being turned to stone, 'cos that's what it does - otherwise all good.

Yead definitely. I was just too lazy to look up the actual condition in 4E when I wrote up the power. PDFs take forever to skim for crap.

Personally I'd just change dispel to always be an area effects with the description : "All spell effects in the area have their duration instantly expired (even permanent durations)." Get rid of the item suppression thing which is kinda pointless anyway, and just merge targetted and area d...

If it were based on a more common tactic, it would be fine. For instance, in our campaign, we have a Conduit of the Lower Planes that took the Venom sphere and a person that is using the Combat School combat feat. They use these together nicely in that the Conduit will make a Poison spell (lose 1d1...

As for common tactics, we don't know. There's really no way to tell. As far as a possible tactic that can be employed, then it's absolutely dangerous. I mean most gamers, some even power gamers, just don't bother to read up on spells like planar binding or polymorph because the wording is so complic...

So... like the Power Word spells? Yeah, pretty muich, only they basically require an attack roll. So like you could have something like Flesh to stone: Attack: Int vs Fortitutde Hit: If target has 50 or fewer hp, target is turned to stone. Otherwise, target is slowed (save ends). IF target fails hi...

Also, allies don't have to step through the wall to disbelieve it. Especially if they are in the part of a known illusionist, the tactic has been used prior or explained prior to use, and it has the word "ILLUSION" written in big red letters on the side that faces that party ;). Well, to ...

Paladins may want con so they can spend surges to heal other people, but that's about it. I mean, given that the 5 minute workday hasn't been fixed, it's just a matter of resting whenever your shit gets low, unless your DM explicitly forbids you from doing that. Also anyone notice that it's totally ...

Basically. most of the feats suck. There are about a half a dozen that you'll want for any given character, and if you're making a <build> of <class> you'll always want those feats. Yeah, The weapon focus versus dwarven/eladrin weapon training feats are really odd. They both give feat bonuses (so t...

Having a Charm ability that isn't game breaking is totally easy. You just have to not have it do what it does in 3e, which is have the monster switch sides on an essentially permanent basis once you've talked to them for an entire minute. Yeah, pretty much. The problem is that people will still com...

RandomCasualty2, it depends on DM ruling. For most campaigns a crenelated wall illusion provides total cover (if you are behind a crenelation, which you are because someone on your team made it). If not, screw it and make a total wall and just have the parts that people walk through break down like...

Minions are an abstraction mechanic. Very similar to swarm mechanics for the most part. There's a point where you just have a lot of monsters and you simply want to abstract them in some fashion. You aren't going to roll 100 attack rolls for a hundred rats, you're going to call it a swarm. Not becau...

Actually, the save replaces durations. And for some things, you do have to track the source- if you can impose a save penalty, you have to know that *that* daze condition comes from the wizard, rather than the fighter. You also have to track the source so you know that *that* blind condition has a ...

I don't really respect the idea of minions as defined in 4e. I mean, a level 1 kobold skirmisher has 27 hp, and any minion has 1 hp. They could be useful in some situations I guess, but if your troops have 1 hp while you are fighting enemies with hp in the hundreds... I rather like the minion conce...

But all those new powers by definition have to be on the same scale as the previous powers. That means that almost everything is an attack with a shift or 1 round status effect or whatever. You can't have Charm Monster, Animate Dead, Silent Image, grappling, great cleave, or anything at all like th...

I know what you are talking about here. Death effects, charms, ability damage, incoporealness, etc, all can be one shot effects. I think a combination of 3 things can fix most of those problems. -Alter or ban stupid stuff. You shouldn't allow Shivering Touch. -Allow players to wade through monsters...

Yes. That is why you use groups of monsters that are all still individually a credible threat. Yeah, just saying that it's a pretty narrow window in 3.5. WTF? You've just fucking defined battlefield control as defending your allies. The difference wtih most battlefield control is that you also prev...

I think 4e takes it to an extreme, however. Its too transparent and the system fails to obscure the fact that all the leveling in the world doesn't change the game from: you hit on a 12+, now do that 2 more times (and +2 times if its 'paragon tier' and an additional +2 times if its 'epic'). Those n...

I think the expendability of a creature can and should be set by the relative offensive output vs. defensive prowess. While having a never ending arms race of damage vs. hit points reaches untenable numbers very quickly, having a much smaller damage test modifier against a damage soak modifier scal...

You don't have to make every aspect of a monster able to withstand every angle of assault, because there are only so many actions that can be brought to the table against them. The name of the game becomes surprise attacks, and we just let the monsters not survive long, acknowledging that combat is...

I definitely like the idea of having monster base stats be X + level, or X+ level *2 or some permutation there of. It's alot easier to be able to do that in your head and have it be simple instead of having some crazy table you've got to look shit up on. The roles should then provide some modifiers ...

That specific change was shit however. It removed grappling from the game. A better change would have been something like "You gain a +1 bonus (or whatever) per caster level to resist grapple checks." The best change would be to give fighters nice things and get everyone on the RNG. As it...