Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Prak]

I'm considering making a 'Mario' class along the lines of the Paper Mario games, with a focus on Jumping and Hammering and maybe some abilities from the other games and Smash Bros. There would be a flower point pool which would be used for special abilities, and you'd get badges as you level, a limited number of equipable badges at a time (based on your badge points which go up as you level), and the option to reselect equipped badges whenever you're able to take 20 on stuff.

Some abilities I'm considering:

1) Being able to break bricks and concrete easily.

2) Picking up large objects and people and throwing them

3) Causing damage just by jumping on people, and this would be only be limited by your move distance (you'd get bonuses to speed and jump as you gain levels), so you can jump on one person several times or on several different people, with bonuses for not hitting the ground in between.

4) Throwing hammers, fireballs and iceballs.

5) In higher levels, causing earthquakes with the hammer.

I'd try to keep lower level abilities more restricted to avoid dipping.

Any suggestions? Also, what would it be called? Also, Maxus's sig would be the flavor text.

Make a Doctor prestige class that cures ills by matching them with specially coloured pills.

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So, I've been considering a houserule that says "wealth by level simply describes the value of magic items you can benefit from at once--not including potions (which have their own limit)" as a way to be able to reward characters with huge mountains of wealth and not break the game. Kind of a middle ground between "By god you better adhere to WBL or you fuck your game/players" and Tome's 8 Item Limit, which some people (ie, my players) find arbitrary.

The problem is, this is completely arbitrary, even if it would be better than nothing, and I haven't been able to figure out a flavour for it. Thoughts?

[ubernoob]

So, I've been considering a houserule that says "wealth by level simply describes the value of magic items you can benefit from at once--not including potions (which have their own limit)" as a way to be able to reward characters with huge mountains of wealth and not break the game. Kind of a middle ground between "By god you better adhere to WBL or you fuck your game/players" and Tome's 8 Item Limit, which some people (ie, my players) find arbitrary.

The problem is, this is completely arbitrary, even if it would be better than nothing, and I haven't been able to figure out a flavour for it. Thoughts?

Well, it doesn't save you any accounting. I'd actually consider that solution to be taking the worst of both parts (you keep an arbitrary limitation where certain items just don't work from BoG, and you also keep the gold piece value accounting of standard WBL).

Having just finished equipping a 17th level character under normal WBL rules, I have to say... fuck WBL. That accounting is tedious. And that was for a wizard. All I bought was some armor (for the death ward +++ in BoED), an animated shield, a magic weapon (because stabbing things), a couple of utility rings(evasion, freedom of movement, a couple low price rings added on per MIC rules), a plus int item, handy haversack, bag of holding, and some metamagic rods. Then I tossed the rest of my money into +1 CL ioun stones. And by the rest of my money, I mean "More than half."

Imagine if I was playing a class that didn't bring the +RNG stuff for free and had to actually give a fuck about things like amulets of natural armor, deflection bonuses, the actual armor bonus of my armor, ranged attacks, sources of flight, etc.

Anyways, you get the point. By mid/high levels, a character can easily have 20+ magic items to keep track of. That shit is a lot of bookkeeping. In my notes I seriously spent 3 pages of word documents keeping track of the WBL accounting. Not the spells, just the magic items.

WBL is awful. I don't know why you would take the worst parts of WBL (caring about how much an item is "worth") and the worst part of BoG (item limits) and put those together.

[Prak]

Because anything from Tome makes my players check out (though they're vaguely ok with scaling items).

[darkmaster]

Well, yes, the 8 items limit is arbitrary, but 8 item limit is also less about the magic items a character has and more about the number they can use at a time. The wish economy is about wealth and that solution is that mundane wealth just can't buy magic items after a certain threshold and it is related to the 8 item limit but only tangentially. The 8 item limit is also about letting a guy have a bunch of magic rings and letting him slot them in and out by taking one off and putting another on or just turning the one's he's not using around on his finger or something. So in reality why the number is arbitrary it's also only 1 less than the usual limit, before you get into bullshit slotless items like Ioun stones and it's less chafing than the defult rules because you aren't limited to one ring per hand despite usually having 10 fingers, each with room for multiple rings.

[Prak]

Four less, actually:

• One headband, hat, helmet, or phylactery on the head
• One pair of eye lenses or goggles on or over the eyes
• One amulet, brooch, medallion, necklace, periapt, or scarab around the neck
• One vest, vestment, or shirt on the torso
• One robe or suit of armor on the body (over a vest, vestment, or shirt)
• One belt around the waist (over a robe or suit of armor)
• One cloak, cape, or mantle around the shoulders (over a robe or suit of armor)
• One pair of bracers or bracelets on the arms or wrists
• One glove, pair of gloves, or pair of gauntlets on the hands
• One ring on each hand (or two rings on one hand)
• One pair of boots or shoes on the feet

And that's really the sticking point with one player of mine, that the limit is two thirds of what you could normally have.

[darkmaster]

Alright, well, the number is arbitrary, let them use twelve magic items instead or ten or eleven. Honestly I just let my players switch out their items quickly to fit the situation, but it's whatever. Also, if you do go with your hybrid method. Do remember that they probably shouldn't be benefiting from their entire WBL in magic swag all at once.

[ubernoob]

Do remember that they probably shouldn't be benefiting from their entire WBL in magic swag all at once.

Can you elaborate on this? With the exception of things like bags of holding/handy haversack/mounts/metamagic rods, almost everything in WBL of any real cost is something you equip all the time.

[darkmaster]

Not really, even under the default rules you can only have so many items on at a time, again ignoring slotless item fuckery. So the default assumption of D&D is that you will, in fact, not have all your magic items active at once and therefore while they probably have a lot of magic items, those items may not be particularly useful to the character, and even if they all are, the character can only benefit from a small number of them at any given time.

[ubernoob]

Not really, even under the default rules you can only have so many items on at a time, again ignoring slotless item fuckery. So the default assumption of D&D is that you will, in fact, not have all your magic items active at once and therefore while they probably have a lot of magic items, those items may not be particularly useful to the character, and even if they all are, the character can only benefit from a small number of them at any given time.

In my experience, that means you get the best +X per slot, then you use some of your chump change on stuff like wands/potions/secondary weapon(bow if you're a melee dude, armor spikes for anyone else). As far as a percentage of your gold being used at a time, in my experience the answer to that is "most of it."

[darkmaster]

*shrug* I have done my best to avoid that headache most of the time, so I suppose that's entirely possible. I was just giving my gut instinct.

[zugschef]

And that's really the sticking point with one player of mine, that the limit is two thirds of what you could normally have.

Difference being that a cloak of resistance, for example, occupies a slot and a resistance bonus with tome rules doesn't. One of your items just provides a resistance bonus on top of its defining magic ability.

[Username17]

The standard wealth by level guidelines don't give you enough stuff for most of your career. They are a fascinating example of ivory tower game design, where they actually work out according to the official treasure tables and encounter guidelines... but fall wildly short of what gear dependent characters actually need to get by.

A level appropriate item has a base cost of (level/3)^2 * 1000 gp. And that's before we factor in harsh realities like how they want you to pay the masterwork equipment costs on top of that, or how magic weapons cost as much as two items because lol fuck fighters. So at 3rd level, a level appropriate item (such as a cloak of resistance) costs 1000 gp. At 6th level, such an item costs 4 grand, at 9th level 9k, at 12th level it costs 16 thousand, and at 15th level (the highest level at which level appropriate items actually exist in non-epic official 3.5 D&D) level appropriate items cost twenty five thousand gold.

Now, enter the wealth by level chart. This is... not encouraging. At 4rd level you get 2,700 gp, at 6th level 13,000 gp, at 9th level 36,000 gp, at 12th level 88,000 gp, and at 15th level 200,000 gp. How many level appropriate items is that? At 3rd level it's two, at 6th level it's three, at 9th level it's four, at 12th level it's five, and at 15th level it's eight. Which is the underlying principle. Eight level appropriate items is as many as you are ever supposed to have over the course of your entire adventuring career according to the WBL guidelines.

Our change was not to the maximum number of items, but to instead declare that characters should get to that maximum number much much faster. Because Rangers and Paladins fucking need magic weapons and armor. It's not really negotiable.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Honestly it sounds like they just want the best of both worlds - the bit where your Magic X provides the right bonus all the time, and also the bit where you spend all this extra cash on stupid cockrings of +1 Cinnamon Bonus to Armour Class and so on.

My suggestion would be to point out what Frank said, or just use WBL but a bigger amount of money and accept that they're a bit dumb.

(Of course, the double-cost for weapons is that it's a +1 to hit and a +1 to damage, and those are completely separate things - that's like getting a +1 to Armour Class AND +1 DR, or +1 to Saving Throws AND +1 to Jump checks! The game would break if we didn't double the price! People should just be thankful they didn't say "Every magic weapon has an even numbered bonus, which is split equally between attack and damage. Your magic sword comes online at a baseline of 4K plus masterwork and base cost, and has a maximum of +2/+2".)

Incidentally, what's the definition/origin of "Ivory Tower" design? I've heard the term before, possibly in reference to a blog post by Monte or Mearls or someone?

[Username17]

"Ivory Tower" is a term that references a passage in the bible. In the 19th century it was made into a term referencing intellectual pursuits disconnected from the world by a French poet. It has pretty much nothing to do with anything any game designer has ever said or did. You can use it to criticize any theory in any context, as the implication is that empiricism trumps idealism. Or if you're being less charitable, that folksy gut wisdom trumps intellectualism.

So for example: you might criticize Real Business Cycle Theory for be "ivory tower" on the grounds that it posits that monetary policy cannot have real effects on employment - but experientially the Volcker Recession actually happened. I would regard that as a fair critique. Alternately, you might criticize Global Warming for being "ivory tower" on the grounds that experientially it still snows in the winter sometimes. I would regard that as an unfair critique.

-Username17

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

There's some debate on the exact effects of the spell freedom of movement, even, unsurprisingly, in Pathfinder.

How does the Den parse this spell? For example, at your table does the spell make the affected creature immune to dazing and stunning?

[Username17]

The sane reading of the spell is that it negates effects that make it difficult to move, but has no effect on effects that take away your actions. So Stunning, Dazing, and Nauseated would all apply normally. You can't even make a terribly convincing argument otherwise.

Of course, there's the additional problem that the examples in the spell allow you to negate web, solid fog, and fucking "being grappled." None of those are actually effects that limit your movement, so much as physical objects that have to be pushed out of the way before you can occupy their space. So that's pretty fucked up. I've never seen an argument that was consistent with those examples that you couldn't use Freedom of Movement to walk through walls. I think it's pretty obvious that the spell was never intended to do that, but there isn't actually any difference between the examples offered of things the spell allows you to walk through and the things that the authors almost certainly never intended it to work against.

So no it doesn't let you bypass the stunned condition, but yes it gives you fucking earthglide. Except it doesn't actually do that, because in actual play St. Oberoni will empower your DM to nerf the fuck out of it. Of course, the basic problem of the examples including being able to walk through physically real solid objects with no explanation has been around since the effect was the ring of free action in AD&D. Of course, the answer back then was just "LOL, DM does whatever the fuck he wants!"

-Username17

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

The sane reading of the spell is that it negates effects that make it difficult to move, but has no effect on effects that take away your actions. So Stunning, Dazing, and Nauseated would all apply normally. You can't even make a terribly convincing argument otherwise.

So although freedom of movement says that it permits the "creature you touch to move and attack normally," the move part is what's really important not the attack part? I mean, yeah, that's the spell's name, but stunned means you can't take actions, and that kind of means if you're stunned you can't attack normally. Admittedly, that way lies madness--maybe even a blind creature can't attack normally?--but so do a lot paths in D&D.

I think its hilarious that this core rules spell was never clarified, and even five years after the world's most popular RPG's line ended a definitive conclusion hasn't been reached. Bizarre.

[name_here]

No, no, it does both but says nothing about actions. So you attack as normal underwater but don't automatically have the actions for a full attack. That's the clear intent of the spell from the given examples and an entirely reasonable interpretation of the wording.

[nockermensch]

The sane reading of the spell is that it negates effects that make it difficult to move, but has no effect on effects that take away your actions. So Stunning, Dazing, and Nauseated would all apply normally. You can't even make a terribly convincing argument otherwise.

So, under the sane reading, FoM would confer immunity to: Slow, Hold Spells, Grease, the movement penalty land creatures suffer underwater and... ?

Would the sane spell still be a valid 4th level pick?

[fectin]

Ivory tower usually refers to theory unencumbered by reality. A better example would be intro physics, where deal with rigid, frictionless bodies. The solutions are absolutely accurate, but aren't relevant to anything.
"Global warming" is also a good example, but only when looking at folks who jump directly from 'solid evidence of climate change' to 'smash all industry and live among the trees'.

[Cyberzombie]

So, under the sane reading, FoM would confer immunity to: Slow, Hold Spells, Grease, the movement penalty land creatures suffer underwater and... ?

Would the sane spell still be a valid 4th level pick?

The only point of FoM is to get you out of the grappling game at mid to high levels, because it's impossible to match the grapple bonus of the larger monsters. So I think it was a quick fix by the 3E designers to compensate for grappling at higher levels.

In AD&D it was mostly there to let you fight underwater and as a counter to low level clerics spamming hold person.

[ubernoob]

Super simple question.

If a creature is blinking and I have see invisibility or similar active, can I still sneak attack it? Blink gives 20% miss chance if you can see invis, but not attack ethereal (which would require ghost touch or force attacks by my calculations), but that's not tagged as concealment.

[TiaC]

If you mean see ethereal, then yes.

[Kaelik]

If you mean see ethereal, then yes.

Seeing invis is seeing ethereal:

"Ethereal creatures are invisible, inaudible, insubstantial, and scentless to creatures on the Material Plane. Even most magical attacks have no effect on them. See invisibility and true seeing reveal ethereal creatures."

[RadiantPhoenix]

Will putting a permanent Antimagic Field over a ghost or other incorporeal undead creature seal it away indefinitely?