The Gaming Den

1189284529[/unixtime]][br]* Eschew Materials[br]* Improved Initiative[br]* Skill Focus (Concentration)[br]* Spell Focus (Illusion)[br]* Extend Spell [br][br]Thumbs down on Eschew Materials and SF (Concentration). Seriously, if someone pulls that sunder idiocy on you just spend more cash on spell co...

1189271449[/unixtime]]Change "8 hour of time" to "pray for spells at a certain time." Time flows normally on all planes in my games in order to avoid crazy loopholes. In RAW, simply go to a fast-forward time plane for a Cleric to get the spells that you want at the time you need...

1188678160[/unixtime]]And what if said opposition appears really often (not that level-appropriate stuff wouldn't appear too)? That's one of the situations where you'd rather have this kind of option, right? [br][br]No! If you're facing opponents that far below your level, you can seriously just ab...

1188665648[/unixtime]]That's the core issue and the part I so far fail to understand: that's exactly what power points bring (one can have everything be made level-appropriate and yet break stuff down into multiple instances of weaker stuff); and aren't there situations where you'd rather have mult...

1188311443[/unixtime]]No, Earth Sense lets you spend a move action to get a crappy version of tremorsense that can't pinpoint anything.[br][br]Earth Spell does some of what you describe (when standing on earthen surfaces, and not using an Air, Fire or Water spell). +1 level when you use Heighten Sp...

1188313788[/unixtime]][br]Druids, Bards, Fey, Enchantment. The Druid revision was giving me headaches. The spells alone are filled with super awesome. [br][br]I've been working with a druid revision too, and it's also been giving me headaches. Straightening out the mechanics for wild-shape alone is...

1188058524[/unixtime]]The major one lets you cast without components 3/day. [br][br]Not to mention that one of the really great abusable things about illusionists is that they can use shadow conjuration and evocation to mimic spells with normally annoying material components, like miracle and force...

ECL isn't, per se, a bad idea: some abilities are more powerful in the hands of PCs than in the hands of NPCs. (Though, as usual, WotC has wrong-headed ideas about what, exactly, those abilities are.) However, WotC's implementation is so awful that CR+1 is in almost all cases a much better approxima...

The Book of Exalted Deeds is, unfortunately, the poster-child for the phenomenon of people injecting Christianity into D&D. Until WotC stops putting out books like that, it's going to be hard to avoid the topic of real-world religion, especially Christianity, when writing about good and evil in ...

1184679564[/unixtime]]On the Animal Affinity feat, the top tier ability is a bit silly on multiple fronts. Too many dice, and no such thing as CR 14 animals.[br][br]CR=Level -2 on an ability gained at level 16 is a little silly since there are no animals with a CR in the double digits unless you ru...

If someone pulled any of those stunts on me, I would walk in a heartbeat.

1186747406[/unixtime]]I was unawares of a specific connotation for spread that meant instantaneous duration in d20/DnD. [br][br]Is there a reference for it or is it implied/induced from its usage with other obviously instantaneous effects? [br][br]From the SRD, Magic Overview, Area Spells:[br][br] ...

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49378[br][br] There's an interesting and highly off-topic point I'd like to bring up regarding that. I have an uncle, Jon Pickens, who worked at TSR and WotC during the late 80's, 90's, and until just after 3.0 was released. I've asked him about play b...

"Hey, guys, it looks like some other people here (namely, Aktariel and Captain Bleach) share my interest in a D&D lower-powered than the Tomes (at a lower balance level than that of the monsters)"

The question, I think, is: what do you use for opposition in those circumstances?

Despite WotC's claims about playtesting, the evidence of the rules shows that 3rd edition's playtesting was wholly inadequate in several respects. Do we have reason to think that 4th edition will be any better? (I strongly suspect, given the economics of the situation, that it will be worse.)

My very first D&D character (3rd edition, observe) involved levels of monk. However, at least I did have the sense to multiclass like 10 classes in 20 levels: I still sucked, but that's because all meleers suck at 20th-level. My second, entirely theoretical character, was a caster, after I start...

The others are from the Spell Compendium.

You're a cleric? In FR? At 12th level? You can seriously make the game cry if you want to.[br][br]In particular, you want to look at the initiate of Mystra feat (PGtF), which allows you to cast in an AMF, and the Magic domain, which lets you you cast an AMF as a 6th level spell; standard Divine Meta...

A good ECL 5 party will be composed of mostly casters, so between wild shape and the spell they'll be able to fly and pick it off. There's still a good chance of casualties, but it's not nearly as dangerous.

Despite valiant efforts, I've never been warned on the WotC boards. I feel like I've missed out on something.

1181966613[/unixtime]][br]Permanent level loss is painful on so many different levels. Not only does it set you back a ton, but it makes you more likely to die in the future. Basically, the penalty for dying is dying more often? Sweet. That's a great move there. :ohwell: [br][br]In the case of leve...

It's not even hard to make a sorcerer that's a better fighter than a fighter.

1179689262[/unixtime]] Hide [br][br]As mentioned in the Dungeonomicon, Hide should not require cover or concealment to function. [br]That's great, but does neither cover nor concealment give you any bonuses then? It seems like being half hidden should give some sort of circumstance bonus. [br][br]I...

If a villain is about to destroy the city (or the world) and a deontologist refuses to kill said villain because they believe in a duty not to kill, the utilitarian will call the deontologist's action evil. Likewise, when the utilitarian kills the villain in the name of the greater good, the deontol...

You're assuming deontological ethics, which is kind of begging the question in these circumstances.