The Gaming Den Glossary

[Judging__Eagle]

Lago, there is no opposed skill to Diplomacy.

Basically, you go against the target value, which means that if you can always get 30 or so, you win Diplomacy. Always.

[tzor]

1192221708[/unixtime]]Lago, there is no opposed skill to Diplomacy.

Actually there is it's just not the normal way you do things. Diplomacy in some cases opposes diplomacy.

In negotiations, participants roll opposed Diplomacy checks, and the winner gains the advantage. Opposed checks also resolve situations when two advocates or diplomats plead opposite cases in a hearing before a third party.

So basically the only way to defend yourself against a diplomat is to be attacked by your own diplomat. If he is better than the diplomat of the enemy you win.

Sort of like the star trek epidose where the greek gods were turning the short guy around in circles trying to stab Kirk and vice versa. Only without the psionics.

[ckafrica]

By the time your mage armor is basically lasting all day, what else of importance to you have to cast first level slots on anyways? On the otherhand casting a boatload of energy immunity spells the day before we go adventuring into the salamanders pit so I have my level 6 slots free is going to have my DM casting the same thing by their 3 equal level clerics he will throw in just for me trying to be an smart-ass. You are doing an end runner on the expected allotted number of resources and intentionally trying to push the game indirections it would not appear was truly intended. I don't like the gaming table turning into a legalistic discussion of what is reasonable or not.

[shirak]

Gaming Den Book Names:

• 
  
• "It's Cold Outside" = Frostburn
  
• "It's Hot Outside"=Sandstorm
  
• "It's Wet Outside" = Stormwrack
  
• "D&D Joke Book" = Epic Level Handbook
  
• "Races of Rabbit Fucking" = Races of the Wild.
  
• "Races of Short" = Races of Stone
  
• "Tome of Wet Tissues: Book of Nine Papercuts" = Tome of Battle: Book of 9 Swords
  
• "Calamari Cooking!" = Lords of Madness
  
• "Skip Hates Sorcerors" = Tome & Blood
  
• "Sticks & Stones" = Masters of the Wild
  
• "Lute and Loot" = Song and Silence
  
• "It's Not Outside" = Dungeonscape
  
• "It's Crowded Outside" = Cityscape

These are the most commonly used. Many people have their own shorthand for various other books (namely the Completes) but these have not gained enough popularity for me to add them.

[CalibronXXX]

I've never seen anyone use that name for the ToB in an actual discussion.

[Crissa]

Long before your time, Calibron, but that is its name. Heck, was Skip even still at Wizards when you started reading here?

-Crissa

[Koumei]

People laugh whenever I tell them about the alternate book names here. The current favourite is "It's Not Outside".

[shirak]

"It's Not Outside" is everyone's favorite. It's made of awesome and win.

I habitually refer to ToB as "Book of Nine Papercuts" here and in RPG.net

[Koumei]

Does that name imply that ToB is weak, not achieving what it sets out to do? Because in all fairness, it's a huge step up, coming from Wizards. They actually had the testicular fortitude to say "Fighters suck" and do something.

Sure, they still have fundamental weaknesses (only Shadow Hand lets you escape Force Cages, for instance) and even when doing what they're good at, casters do it better, but it's a massive improvement.

[Bigode]

Crissa, it appears you're thinking about Tome and Blood (which'd be TaB, if anything) - Calibron refers to Tome of Battle (I suppose).

[CalibronXXX]

Correct. TaB was indeed way before my time, but ToB discussions were still on the front page when I came here.

[Fwib]

1192267801[/unixtime]]Does that name imply that ToB is weak, not achieving what it sets out to do? Because in all fairness, it's a huge step up, coming from Wizards. They actually had the testicular fortitude to say "Fighters suck" and do something.

Sure, they still have fundamental weaknesses (only Shadow Hand lets you escape Force Cages, for instance) and even when doing what they're good at, casters do it better, but it's a massive improvement.

Only the barred cage version, though - unless you're thinking of something other than the the teleportation effects?

[clarification] I mean the three [teleportation] 'move 50 feet' Shadow Hand maneuvers, rather than other teleport effects. You need line of effect for those maneuvers, so the windowless cell forcecage blocks them, as does stuff like unsmashed glass windows.

[Judging__Eagle]

1192263990[/unixtime]]I've never seen anyone use that name for the ToB in an actual discussion.

Rofl, I think I came up with that one too.

Unless someone else said it and I parroted them and didn't realize it.

I know that I used that on WoTCs boards.

Koumei, it was an improvement. At an idea level.

In implementation it was well... Everytime you got something, it wouldn't scale or it would be outdated in a level.

While casters get broad ranges of scaling powers for taking their class levels.


Draco Argentum made a review of it here that was quite scathing.

[Koumei]

Ah, I didn't realise Forcecage blocked teleportation effects.

[Fwib]

1192349574[/unixtime]]Ah, I didn't realise Forcecage blocked teleportation effects.

It doesn't, but the three teleportation maneuvers require both line of sight and line of effect, the latter of which the windowless cell version of Forcecage blocks.

[Koumei]

Wow, so they really only scratch the very basics of what a character should be able to do.

[shirak]

1192361378[/unixtime]]Wow, so they really only scratch the very basics of what a character should be able to do.

They don't even do that very well. Initiators fails at blasting, fail at battlefield control, fail at buffing/healing, fail at SoDs and they fail on countering enemies too. There is literally nothing they do well.

The Tome of Wet Tissue was a step in the entirely wrong direction of "good enough to make a lot of people shut up but not good enough to actually matter". Its a direct statement that Wizards no longer needs to care about problems.

[Koumei]

Yeah. Wizards seriously can make money out of the stupidity of their buyers (well, that's often an easy way to make money) - and as the WotC forums show us, that's an infinite resource for them to tap.

[RandomCasualty]

I thought ToB was pretty good. It let you play a decent support character. Obviously you weren't great at the highest levels of play, but it made you pretty decent from 1st to around 14th or so.

If you were playing in a high cheese game, white raven tactics alone made it worthwhile to have a warblade in the mix, and you had very impressive saves thanks to diamond mind. You also have some always stun effects (white raven hammer and swooping dragon strike).

So every battle, you can cause two foes to lose their turns and you can also give one of your allies an additional turn. Couple that with the fact that they're rather tough to kill and you've got a decent control/soak character.