On the casters of spells

[fectin]

I'm playing in a 3.5ish game now. There are me (not especially optimized wizard) fiancee (not especially optimized druid), barbarian, and rogue.

Barbarian and Rogue have each dipped fighter and made not-terrible feat and equipment choices, but basically, at fifth level, ar looking forward to a couple more +1s.

Fiancee has realized that she can turn into a dinosaur, and intends to rampage around in a hat of magic mouth (until that gets boring, obviously).

That's the fighter problem in a nutshell: the barbarian gets to choose what axe to use. The druid instead decided that it was time to be this:

[Stahlseele]

at least your fiance is the right kind of crazy.

[fectin]

She is the best kind of crazy.

[sake]

That's the fighter problem in a nutshell: the barbarian gets to choose what axe to use. The druid instead decided that it was time to be this:

Not quite, the fighter problem is that you have too many people who *want* the barbarian's only choice to be what kind of axe they use and will bitch and moan if you do anything that gives them options as crazy as turning into Sir Snarl the talking Gentleman Raptor.

[Prak]

Sir Snarl the talking Gentleman Raptor.

Someone play a druid with ranks in Perform (Chap Hop) now.

Edit: congratulations, I just had to name my (puppy) dog companion in Neverwinter and this was literally the only name in my head at my moment, so there's now a Damaran Shepherd puppy in Neverwinter named Ser Snarl (Ser because ostensibly the character is an rp character from a barbarian tribe...)

[Longes]

Why is there any name option for Damaran Shepherd other than "Wrex"?

[fectin]

Ok. So this just took a potential downturn.

As described, the other players are a barbarian, a rogue, and a druid.

The MC has just today indicated that he would like to play too, and would I mind tagging in sometimes? I don't mind at all.

He is a 2E player who has been trying to run RAW 3.5, and mostly succeeding (well within the bounds of good faith), but is not really about to do any serious optimizing. He would like to play a duskblade (failing that, a ranger or a monk). What advice can I give/what actions can I take that will end without fiancee's dino-druid outshining the party?

[Prak]

Pleading and copious, judicious application of oral sex to your fiance?

[TiaC]

Awesome artifact weapons, definitely.

(It's a little weird to see a DM attempting to favor everyone else over their significant other.)

[Prak]

Why is there any name option for Damaran Shepherd other than "Wrex"?

Because I don't understand that reference.

[fectin]

Awesome artifact weapons, definitely.

(It's a little weird to see a DM attempting to favor everyone else over their significant other.)

Well, given their life choices, they will probably need huge favorings just to compete.

[OgreBattle]

Turning into a dinosaur or an octopus is a numbers boost. If the barbarian has a "Rage of the tyrannosaurus" or "Rage of the 8 armed tentacle monster" then mathmatically he'll be fine compared to a transformed druid, yeah?

[Prak]

I think the Duskblade is the bigger concern at this point.

Maybe drop custom consumables that allow Duskblades to channel different spells than normal through their blades? Does that make sense? I've looked at duskblade only once or twice...

[Seerow]

Honestly if you're worried about the Duskblade keeping up, give him access to a wider spell list. Having some actual versatility with all those low level slots they get goes a fairly long way.

Or if you're stuck with the RAW no houserules, then dropping custom loot to help him is the customary way. Though if what you're worried about is cries of favoritism there really is no solution.

[Seerow]

Honestly if you're worried about the Duskblade keeping up, give him access to a wider spell list. Having some actual versatility with all those low level slots they get goes a fairly long way.

Or if you're stuck with the RAW no houserules, then dropping custom loot to help him is the customary way. Though if what you're worried about is cries of favoritism there really is no solution.

[RadiantPhoenix]

What do you call those items that let you prepare specific spells you don't know? Runestaves?

Also, non-Wild magic armor with magic powers seems good for all the not-druids.

[hyzmarca]

Run a City Beyond the Gate conversion. That way your finace will be a hate-wearing dinosaur in modern London.

[ubernoob]

What do you call those items that let you prepare specific spells you don't know? Runestaves?

Also, non-Wild magic armor with magic powers seems good for all the not-druids.

A runestaff lets you burn a spell slot/prepared spell in order to cast one of the spells in the staff as long as that spell is on your class list. It doesn't let you cast spells off your class list. Unless you open up the fucking UMD rules and realize its only a DC 20 UMD check to emulate another class.

Of course, a runestaff is still a staff, which means it's not really a low level item. You can't have anything under a third level spell in a runestaff, which kind of bones the duskblade because he has worse than bard casting.

[NineInchNall]

I've considered rewriting the Duskblade to have 9th level casting off a specific list (where most of the "9th level" spells are actually something like 5th or 6th level Sor/Wiz spells, plus things like foresight) but I keep running into the snag of how to handle all the PrCs and feats that add to spell lists. 'Tis annoying.

Then I just say, "fuck it," and do it anyway.

[Kaelik]

What do you call those items that let you prepare specific spells you don't know? Runestaves?

Also, non-Wild magic armor with magic powers seems good for all the not-druids.

A runestaff lets you burn a spell slot/prepared spell in order to cast one of the spells in the staff as long as that spell is on your class list. It doesn't let you cast spells off your class list. Unless you open up the fucking UMD rules and realize its only a DC 20 UMD check to emulate another class.

Of course, a runestaff is still a staff, which means it's not really a low level item. You can't have anything under a third level spell in a runestaff, which kind of bones the duskblade because he has worse than bard casting.

You can have any level spell in a Runestaff. Most Runestaves contains tons of spells, including lower level ones.

And in practice, spells lower level then the highest in the staff add negligibly to the cost, so that a staff with one second level spell and 12 first level spells costs less than just the 12 first level spells.

[ubernoob]

What do you call those items that let you prepare specific spells you don't know? Runestaves?

Also, non-Wild magic armor with magic powers seems good for all the not-druids.

A runestaff lets you burn a spell slot/prepared spell in order to cast one of the spells in the staff as long as that spell is on your class list. It doesn't let you cast spells off your class list. Unless you open up the fucking UMD rules and realize its only a DC 20 UMD check to emulate another class.

Of course, a runestaff is still a staff, which means it's not really a low level item. You can't have anything under a third level spell in a runestaff, which kind of bones the duskblade because he has worse than bard casting.

You can have any level spell in a Runestaff. Most Runestaves contains tons of spells, including lower level ones.

And in practice, spells lower level then the highest in the staff add negligibly to the cost, so that a staff with one second level spell and 12 first level spells costs less than just the 12 first level spells.

OK, runestaves are fucking weird. There's shit like shield on the already printed ones, but the guidelines on creating runestaves say this:

If you want to create a runestaff of your own design, it should have two to five arcane spells associated with it, and the spells should be thematically linked in some way. The lowest-level spell in a runestaff should be at least 3rd level. Crafting a runestaff requires the Craft Staff feat, along with any spells held by the runestaff. You don't need to supply any mate­rial components or foci required by the spells in a runestaff, nor do you need to pay any XP cost required by the spells, since the wielder of the staff pays those costs. To set the price of a runestaff, multiply the level of the high­est-level spell in the runestaff by itself, then by 400 gp. For each additional spell in the runestaff, square that spell's level and multiply by 200 gp. Add the values together to find the final price of the runestaff. If a spell can be used less than three times per day, reduce the gp multiplier for that spell by 100 per use below three (or 50 per use below three, for spells after the first).

Now, it says should there, which is a suggestion and not a hard rule. Anyways, I guess I'm wrong. Runestaves are even better than I thought.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Some stuff from googling:

• There's a feat in Drow of the Underdark that lets you turn your Dancing Lights spell-like ability into a Silent Image that lasts 3 rounds after you stop concentrating.
• Once you have 6 or more spell slots of a level, Rings of Wizardry give you more spell slots than the druid gets from them

But, magic armor that has a bunch of command-word spells on it is something the rogue and barbarian can use too, although each can only wear one at a time, and it takes a while to take armor off and put new armor on.

[sake]

I've considered rewriting the Duskblade to have 9th level casting off a specific list (where most of the "9th level" spells are actually something like 5th or 6th level Sor/Wiz spells, plus things like foresight) but I keep running into the snag of how to handle all the PrCs and feats that add to spell lists. 'Tis annoying.

Then I just say, "fuck it," and do it anyway.

There's a degree of munchkin proofing a class which it is sensible to do and then there is a degree in which you can accidentally go too far and cripple the class in the process.

Besides it's usually the reverse that's the problem, the regular casting classes grabbing spells off of weird and obscure class spell lists that got spell x at a much earlier than standard level.

Though frankly, all I recall the Duskblade's spell list really needing help with was more damn touch spells so it wasn't still using Shocking Grasp at level 11 as it's main tactic.

[Prak]

Some stuff from googling:

• There's a feat in Drow of the Underdark that lets you turn your Dancing Lights spell-like ability into a Silent Image that lasts 3 rounds after you stop concentrating.
• Once you have 6 or more spell slots of a level, Rings of Wizardry give you more spell slots than the druid gets from them

But, magic armor that has a bunch of command-word spells on it is something the rogue and barbarian can use too, although each can only wear one at a time, and it takes a while to take armor off and put new armor on.

You could make a suit of modular armour which has a bunch of pieces it breaks into while still counting as 1 set of magical armour so you can swap out your armguards of fireball for armguards of lightning bolt.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I was imagining something like a staff in armor form (but with per-day limitations instead of charge limitations)

Actually, if you just handed out piles and piles of spell-duplication items, I wonder if that would work...

"Chalk of Planar Binding" (well, actually, Magic Circle plus Planar Binding, but I think you get the picture)