More Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both

[Username17]

My issues with the Wish/Word are:

1. K's justification for the Wish creating the custom item himself is a nauseating expression of lawyering. One might as well say that a ruler who hires a man to make him a sword has made the sword himself with that logic.

I don't follow you. The Word has the power to grant any mortal a wish if he so much as looks at an Efreet. The Wish can summon an Efreet. A granted wish can create any custom magic item of any cost, regardless of needed feats (for free). And any item which just casts spells has a specific cost. The item in question doesn't even fall under the guidelines for epic items.

While the whole thing is a nauseating expression of rules lawyering, it's incredibly cut and dried.

2. Ur-Priest caster levels are specifically based upon the level of the spellcasting class, not the caster level--there's a big difference there.

Caster Level is defined as your "level of a spellcasting class." Caster level and level are the same thing when you are calculating caster levels. In order to differentiate it, they'd have to specify "character level" or "class level." If they just say "Level" it can mean any of those three things, and if it says it in a caster level calculation it damn sure means caster level and not any of those other things unless otherwise specified.

But of course we answered both those things at the time, with page citations. Both the ones which explicitly say what we're saying and the mocking ones where we apply the same logic as our opponents to such things as spell notation (most durations and many spell effects are given in terms of "level" which likewise in context means "caster level") and prestige classes (Ur Priest is hardly alone when referencing "level" when it means "caster level").

Both of those objections were raised, neither of them hold water.

---

The specific builds are now illegal, as several of their feats have been specifically errataed to no longer work that way. You can do basically the same thing of course, but the specifics were done away with in what I can only imagine was a deliberate attempt to undermine those builds. Why or how anyone could look at those builds and decide the problem areas were with turning Spell-likes into Supernatural abilities is beyond me.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

In retrospect, they would need to get 2, then 3, then even more as certain benchmarks for spellcasters were passed, and even then they would still be assbitch to the power of a simple Wall of Force.

Not if the feats allowed it not to. Before you say I'm committing a fallacy by proposing feat changes, remember they need that anyway; Greater Weapon Specialization and Shock Trooper are, IIRC, specifically in relative positions inverse of what their prerequisites would tell you, to give a quick example; i.e., if feats are problematic without taking the fighter into account, the fixes for them might fix the fighter with just 1 feat/level.

Dude I only accuse others of fallacy openly on /tg/, mostly because they need a crash course in D&D/RPG enlightenment. On most other forums I wait until a person comes to their own realization.
So, yes your point is certainly applicable and valid. I agree totally; fix the feats because it's better to have quality over quantity when it comes to class abilities.

I'd rather have 1-2 abilities at each level that match the power and utility of many Arcane spells, rather than a classlist crammed full of subpar shit that can be nullified by most other classes *coughbardcoughpuke*

[Absentminded_Wizard]

To be fair, there are severe problems with the Wish and the Word. Yes, the rules abuse is very, very clever, and it demonstrates how much fail the developers are made of, but they don't hold up under RAW. Really, I didn't see any issue with a "you're outsiders so we don't want you!" mentality, but legitimate complaints.

The complaints that they said broke the builds were:

• Wish can't work the way it explicitly says that it works in the PHB because no DM would allow that. (I'm not kidding, this was the biggest complaint, which is insulting on the face of it)
• Caster Level doesn't multiply out on Ur Priest because it shouldn't.
• Thought Bottles save your specific level configuration despite the fact that they don't say they do that and explicitly say that they save your XP totals instead.

The problem that I had was that the things people were hammering on were just pathetic as cock block attempts. I mean, there was some question about using Warlock levels to qualify for prestige classes which was eventually errataed against us, so technically the builds aren't legal anymore. And that nitpickery, while meaningless, would at least be honest and a potential way to get the things disbarred from the contest.

But people went on tirades dozens of posts long on the subject of Wish, Caster Level, and Thought Bottle - and those just weren't arguments that they could win. Part of it really is that the people they have (had?) over there as rules lawyers weren't nearly as good as they thought they were. Seriously, being the best rules lawyer at your game store doesn't necessarily make you hot shit or even passable on a world stage. But the problem was that the regulars closed ranks around these complaints despite the fact that page citations had been provided to the first barrage of complaints.

---

Because let's face it: Pun Pun is not a legal build and never has been. The actual text in Serpent Kingdoms is fucked up, and it's an unbounded method of gaining Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution for anyone with access to shapechange. But it never says that you can dumpster dive through sourcebooks granting yourself abilities. Hell, it doesn't even allow you to give the ability to give people abilities to yourself (which is the core of Pun Pun in any case).

But Pun Pun, which is an illegal build made by a regular, gained instant acceptance; while The Wish and The Word, which is a then-legal build made by foreigners, was angrily rejected on downright laughable charges.

-Username17

Well, you forgot the charge that the Word gets killed by his own Holy Word spells because he "suffers effects according to [his] actual alignment." That one's marginally stronger than the case against the Wish in the sense that you can't say "RTFM; here's the quote that specifically says you're wrong." (Not that that seemed to work in the original thread). However, it's still weak. The idea that you check your subtype and original alignment separately isn't forbidden by the text, it's convoluted. Your interpretation is simpler and thus should be favored by rational people.

[Psychic Robot]

I don't follow you. The Word has the power to grant any mortal a wish if he so much as looks at an Efreet. The Wish can summon an Efreet. A granted wish can create any custom magic item of any cost, regardless of needed feats (for free). And any item which just casts spells has a specific cost. The item in question doesn't even fall under the guidelines for epic items.

While the whole thing is a nauseating expression of rules lawyering, it's incredibly cut and dried.

I would disagree. Again, it's like me forcing someone to make me a sword and saying, "Look, I made a sword myself!" While perhaps that sort of reasoning might work for some people, I am not convinced. (By that reasoning, one could take the Leadership feat with an artificer cohort, have him make any number of customer magic items, and claim that one has made them oneself. It just wouldn't fly.) To make an item oneself is to assemble it oneself.

Caster Level is defined as your "level of a spellcasting class." Caster level and level are the same thing when you are calculating caster levels. In order to differentiate it, they'd have to specify "character level" or "class level." If they just say "Level" it can mean any of those three things, and if it says it in a caster level calculation it damn sure means caster level and not any of those other things unless otherwise specified.

That's not true.

--Practiced Spellcaster boosts your caster level by +4 without adjusting your class level.
--Ioun stones raise your caster level by +1 without adjusting your class level.
--Paladins and rangers have a caster level equal to half their class level.
--There are prestige classes that reference caster level rather than "levels in a spellcasting class."
--The apostle of peace specifically says that you add half his caster levels in other spellcasting classes (setting a precedent).

Now, what you could do is use the apostle of peace class for the same thing. Take the Extra Spell feat, select holy word, and you're good to annihilate all evil things with less than a hundred-odd HD. (Note that the Vow of Nonviolence says that you lose the benefit of the feat if you break it...not that you lose the feat. So you still qualify for apostle of peace.)

EDIT: GOOD GOD, that monk thread is made of fail and AIDS.

1. How can clerics end up with a higher to-hit bonus than monks?
2. Monks can't enhance their unarmed strikes.
3. Changing the monk's BAB ruins backwards compatibility.

It burneth like fire.

[Username17]

I would disagree. Again, it's like me forcing someone to make me a sword and saying, "Look, I made a sword myself!" While perhaps that sort of reasoning might work for some people, I am not convinced.

No one is forcing anyone to do anything. The item is created with one free wish. The Word can grant a wish to any other person. There's no bargaining, no coercion, no nothing. The Word simply looks at an Efreet and gets the Efreet's power to grant a wish. The Efreet doesn't even lose anything.

It's exactly as if one of the brothers has supplied an item creation feat and the other supplied a spell. Only in this case the entire process took two standard actions. Hell, getting free wishes is even the Ur Priest example.

Practiced Spellcaster boosts your caster level by +4 without adjusting your class level.

So? Yes, caster level and class level are different. But Ur Priest does not say "class level", it says "level." And "level" can refer in-game to caster level, character level, spell level, or class level. If it doesn't specify, you have to check from context which it means. Since the calculation is a caster level calculation, it is an extremely weak argument that the "level" reference refers to spell level or character level for example.

There is flat no reason to believe that the caster level calculator is referring to anything other than caster level in that sentence. Especially because that sentence actually uses the full title "caster levels" before the comma and does not use the full title "class levels" at all. Thus, page 73 can be read as a standard English implied common adjective for the word "caster" but not for "class."

It's just a weak argument all around. An argument which is reaching, and quite pathetically so. If it wasn't part of a directed temper tantrum, no one would have given it more than three posts of consideration.

-Username17

[Harlune]

Things like this is why I wish they had just made the Ur Priest a base class instead of a prc.

I love the whole stealing magic from the gods flavor of it but because of the horrible way the prc was made it's impossible to take it without being branded a min/maxer even if you're not trying to cheese it with another prc.

[Psychic Robot]

No one is forcing anyone to do anything. The item is created with one free wish. The Word can grant a wish to any other person. There's no bargaining, no coercion, no nothing. The Word simply looks at an Efreet and gets the Efreet's power to grant a wish. The Efreet doesn't even lose anything.

It's exactly as if one of the brothers has supplied an item creation feat and the other supplied a spell. Only in this case the entire process took two standard actions. Hell, getting free wishes is even the Ur Priest example.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the Wish, then. I was thinking that the Wish used the gate spell to call an efreet and then told it to make him a ring of deity wishes. If that were the case, then it would be coercing the efreet to do so:

If you choose to call a kind of creature instead of a known individual you may call either a single creature (of any HD) or several creatures. You can call and control several creatures as long as their HD total does not exceed your caster level. In the case of a single creature, you can control it if its HD do not exceed twice your caster level. A single creature with more HD than twice your caster level can’t be controlled. Deities and unique beings cannot be controlled in any event. An uncontrolled being acts as it pleases, making the calling of such creatures rather dangerous. An uncontrolled being may return to its home plane at any time.

A controlled creature can be commanded to perform a service for you. Such services fall into two categories: immediate tasks and contractual service. Fighting for you in a single battle or taking any other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round per caster level counts as an immediate task; you need not make any agreement or pay any reward for the creature’s help. The creature departs at the end of the spell.

But I'll have to go back and re-read the build.

So? Yes, caster level and class level are different. But Ur Priest does not say "class level", it says "level." And "level" can refer in-game to caster level, character level, spell level, or class level. If it doesn't specify, you have to check from context which it means. Since the calculation is a caster level calculation, it is an extremely weak argument that the "level" reference refers to spell level or character level for example.

There is flat no reason to believe that the caster level calculator is referring to anything other than caster level in that sentence. Especially because that sentence actually uses the full title "caster levels" before the comma and does not use the full title "class levels" at all. Thus, page 73 can be read as a standard English implied common adjective for the word "caster" but not for "class."

It's just a weak argument all around. An argument which is reaching, and quite pathetically so. If it wasn't part of a directed temper tantrum, no one would have given it more than three posts of consideration.

-Username17

Again, the apostle of peace sets the precedent. Even without it, it is arbitrarily deciding that "levels in spellcasting classes" means "caster levels," which is just as arbitrary as saying that it means "class levels." Furthermore, taking levels in a class is referred to in the rules; I have never seen text refer to caster levels in a class aside from the apostle of peace.

Anyway, while the CO Boards are filled with jack-offs, I'm not really seeing it in that particular example. I think they were less arguing about you and K being "outsiders" and more arguing about the validity of their builds. And, if it's any consolation, I would have argued with the CO regulars over either build anyway.

[K]

No one is forcing anyone to do anything. The item is created with one free wish. The Word can grant a wish to any other person. There's no bargaining, no coercion, no nothing. The Word simply looks at an Efreet and gets the Efreet's power to grant a wish. The Efreet doesn't even lose anything.

It's exactly as if one of the brothers has supplied an item creation feat and the other supplied a spell. Only in this case the entire process took two standard actions. Hell, getting free wishes is even the Ur Priest example.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the Wish, then. I was thinking that the Wish used the gate spell to call an efreet and then told it to make him a ring of deity wishes. If that were the case, then it would be coercing the efreet to do so:

If you choose to call a kind of creature instead of a known individual you may call either a single creature (of any HD) or several creatures. You can call and control several creatures as long as their HD total does not exceed your caster level. In the case of a single creature, you can control it if its HD do not exceed twice your caster level. A single creature with more HD than twice your caster level can’t be controlled. Deities and unique beings cannot be controlled in any event. An uncontrolled being acts as it pleases, making the calling of such creatures rather dangerous. An uncontrolled being may return to its home plane at any time.

A controlled creature can be commanded to perform a service for you. Such services fall into two categories: immediate tasks and contractual service. Fighting for you in a single battle or taking any other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round per caster level counts as an immediate task; you need not make any agreement or pay any reward for the creature’s help. The creature departs at the end of the spell.

But I'll have to go back and re-read the build.

I'm confused.

A gate can be used to make an efreet grant an "immediate task" of granting wishes(three wishes in three rounds, for example). Nothing in that text block says otherwise, and "coercion" never even comes into play as an issue.

[Psychic Robot]

I'm confused.

A gate can be used to make an efreet grant an "immediate task" of granting wishes(three wishes in three rounds, for example). Nothing in that text block says otherwise, and "coercion" never even comes into play as an issue.

My example was that, using the sort of logic that makes the Wish viable by the contest rules, I could force a blacksmith to make me a sword and claim that I had made it myself. Which, of course, goes against the spirit of the rules, common sense, and probably the dictionary definition (which I am absolutely not going to argue). Outside of the contest, though, the Wish works fine...demonstrating the brokenation of wish.

[K]

I'm confused.

A gate can be used to make an efreet grant an "immediate task" of granting wishes(three wishes in three rounds, for example). Nothing in that text block says otherwise, and "coercion" never even comes into play as an issue.

My example was that, using the sort of logic that makes the Wish viable by the contest rules, I could force a blacksmith to make me a sword and claim that I had made it myself. Which, of course, goes against the spirit of the rules, common sense, and probably the dictionary definition (which I am absolutely not going to argue). Outside of the contest, though, the Wish works fine...demonstrating the brokenation of wish.

Considering the Wish can get his ring in six seconds by casting one of his own spells, I'd say it's very different from your blacksmith example.

[JonSetanta]

Things like this is why I wish they had just made the Ur Priest a base class instead of a prc.

I love the whole stealing magic from the gods flavor of it but because of the horrible way the prc was made it's impossible to take it without being branded a min/maxer even if you're not trying to cheese it with another prc.

That is a good idea. They did cram 20 levels of spellcasting into 10 PrC levels, when it would have worked better as a full-progression "Anti-Cleric".
WOTC gave Blue Mage-like spellstealing to daggercasters of all things, and not to any actual full casters.

[Psychic Robot]

Considering the Wish can get his ring in six seconds by casting one of his own spells, I'd say it's very different from your blacksmith example.

That manages to completely avoid the argument, K.

[PhoneLobster]

casting one of his own spells

It is explicitly a class feature to be able to summon a wish granting genie.

It is the literal intention of the rules set that characters with that class feature get wishes.

And wishes happen to explicitly include certain things.

I can't even begin to imagine how you equate it to robbery short of having a class feature of "steal shit" that explicitly says "you can use this to get a sword", 'cause that's what's going on with wishes.

[Username17]

Considering the Wish can get his ring in six seconds by casting one of his own spells, I'd say it's very different from your blacksmith example.

That manages to completely avoid the argument, K.

Of course it does, it's a non-argument. The objection is equivalent to bitching about a druid using his animal companion to carry extra treasure or objecting to a fighter counting the magical bonus of his armor.

An Efreet pulled in by a gate grants a wish. It doesn't bargain for a wish, it just does whatever you want it to for longer than it takes to grant the wish. You literally control the efreet as part of your own abilities, to an even greater extent than a ranger controls his wolf or a lancer controls his pegasus.

But beyond that, if for some reason your DM was being a dick and claimed that despite the fact that you automatically and without rolling dice or having a conversation got to control every single thing that efreet did for 17 combat rounds that the efreet would somehow be able to dick you over on your wish because that's what it would do if hypothetically you weren't controlling it right now - it still doesn't matter because in this case The Word is on hand to copy the power to grant wishes and then he becomes the wish interpreting entity.

So in this example, The Wish chooses whether and how the efreet grants wishes, and the The Word can just be the Efreet for these purposes in any case.

---

The Wish and The Word have a more complete control over wish granting than anyone else in D&D can in this instance. And th wish they are granting themselves is firmly within the admittedly completely insane guidelines that cover the automatic wishes that are not subject to review or DM interpretation.

All the cards start on the table. No shuffling, no drawing, no face downs, no bluffs. The Wish and The Word have four aces and a wild card on this issue and the only reason it even gets debated is sour grapes.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

I'm sorry, but I would rule against the validity of both builds. The Wish isn't making his own custom magic item; he's having an efreet do it for him. If I mind-controlled an artificer and made him make me magic items, I would not be making those items.

You might claim that my argument is a non-argument, but that is dismissing a perfectly valid argument for the sake of preserving your own. The time taken to create an item has no bearing on the argument. If a wizard casts fabricate on a pile of materials and makes a sword, he has made the sword himself. If a fighter takes a wizard cohort and has him cast fabricate on the materials, the fighter has not created the sword himself--the wizard has.

Allow me to quote myself regarding the Word:

Again, the apostle of peace sets the precedent. Even without it, it is arbitrarily deciding that "levels in spellcasting classes" means "caster levels," which is just as arbitrary as saying that it means "class levels." Furthermore, taking levels in a class is referred to in the rules; I have never seen text refer to caster levels in a class aside from the apostle of peace.

The Word falls under the realm of ambiguous text that can be interpreted either way, but the apostle of peace sets a precedent that goes against the Word's would-be ruling. I would disqualify him on these grounds, even without the apostle of peace's precedent.

I have no "sour grapes" regarding either build. I have no love for the CO board regulars any more than I do the CO board newbie. Like I said, the Wish works outside of the contest no matter what, and the Word can be replicated with the apostle of peace (and there is no ambiguity there).

If you'll notice, I'm not arguing against the ioun stones multiplying caster level thing--though that would be another ambiguous ruling, I think, that would be a valid argument against the Word's existence--and I'm not arguing about whether or not the Word is affected by his own word spells, as I don't think he would be.

[K]

I'm sorry, but I would rule against the validity of both builds. The Wish isn't making his own custom magic item; he's having an efreet do it for him. If I mind-controlled an artificer and made him make me magic items, I would not be making those items.

Mind controlling an artificer is an adventure....one which you may or may not be allowed to have by DM fiat (maybe no powerful artificers exist, or they have mind control protection, or they are backed by powerful organizations or friends, or a great threat looms and you don't have time for item creation, etc).

The Wish creating his ring is not an adventure. He can do it as part of any adventure, and unless the DM decides to change the rules of the game itself he cannot stop him. He can do it in the middle of a cage match fight, during a surprise attack, and he can do it several times a day on any plane in the default DnD universe.

He summons monsters that provide services. Those are his abilities.

You might claim that my argument is a non-argument, but that is dismissing a perfectly valid argument for the sake of preserving your own. The time taken to create an item has no bearing on the argument. If a wizard casts fabricate on a pile of materials and makes a sword, he has made the sword himself. If a fighter takes a wizard cohort and has him cast fabricate on the materials, the fighter has not created the sword himself--the wizard has.

The cohort IS one of the Fighter's abilities. Again, there's no adventure here where a DM has to grant you his permission to get the item.....your own class features provide the item. In fact, since as a player you control the wizard it is part of your character in all ways.

--------------------------------------------

But that's all irrelevant because regardless of the rules of the contest about starting equipment, The Ring of Infinite Wishes would still be part of the character since on round one of any game or scenario in which the character is played he'd have the Ring, so any discussion of the character's strategy or abilities or playability must take into account his Ring. By any test where the character would be used, the Ring will be there.

By the same token, a Necromancer character can call powerful outsiders using planar binding, kill them, and turn them into a strike team of zombies or skeletons. Just because he can't write it on the character sheet doesn't mean that you shouldn't take it into account when evaluating the character.

In fact, the Ring is survives any rules about equipment that can be given the character because it comes from his spells during adventures. It is not starting equipment by any criteria. Make all the rules about starting equipment that you want because as long as the Wish has access to his memorized spells he can go from completely naked to having any equipment he wants in a few rounds.

[Psychic Robot]

The issue has nothing to do with starting equipment. The issue has to do with the contest's rules about custom magic items. You can argue until you're blue in the face that having an efreet wish for a magic item and then give it to you, but you, yourself, are not making that wish and thus you, yourself, are not making that item. If you cast the wish spell and created the ring--God knows how much experience that would cost--then you would be creating the ring. As it stands, the efreet is creating the ring via his spell-like ability, and then he's giving the ring to you.

[Username17]

The issue has nothing to do with starting equipment. The issue has to do with the contest's rules about custom magic items. You can argue until you're blue in the face that having an efreet wish for a magic item and then give it to you, but you, yourself, are not making that wish and thus you, yourself, are not making that item. If you cast the wish spell and created the ring--God knows how much experience that would cost--then you would be creating the ring. As it stands, the efreet is creating the ring via his spell-like ability, and then he's giving the ring to you.

But they have the ability to personally act as Efreet for the purposes of casting free wishes! If for some reason you object to having the ability to summon a monster that casts a spell on your behalf (a truly bizarre complaint considering that summoning monsters is a character ability), it does not even matter because the characters can cast the Wishes themselves through the power of the Ur Priest class feature.

For the last fucking time: getting free wishes is in the Ur Priest example text!

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

OH.

I see what you're saying now--I'm sorry, I didn't understand that you were talking about the steal SLA ability of the ur-priest. Yes, you're right then.

[Talisman]

With all due respect to those involved, could we table this discussion and get back to mocking other peoples' threads? The Wish and the Word are an interesting intellectual exercise, but this seems to have gone rather far afield.

[Leress]

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pa ... ChestWound

Monks still suck

Later on in the thread (Page 5) Jason is think of adjusting SoH

Well, since we are off topic, I am changing the +20 makes it a free action bit. It will now be a +20 to make it a move action. I am also going to put in some language that prevents you from removing armor or clothing. Gear seems fine to me, but pulling off someone's boots seems just wrong.

[virgil]

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pa ... FeatOption

Ah, actively arguing against fixing rules.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

No, really, we should leave it at that, people will understand what the INTENTION is without us stating it explicitly.

*sigh*

[Jerry]

I don't think that you're going to convince them. Many D&D designers and groups do not give a rat's ass about game balance, only if the concept looks "kewl" on paper. Not to mention that all but the most rules-intensive of players consistently play-test material. Many gaming groups that I've met don't want to spend hours testing rules inconsistencies; they just want to sit down and play, right out of the box.

[Cielingcat]

I just realized it's been so long since I've played D&D that I actually forget where the rules on general bonus feats are.