Getting butfvcked by Planescape(no vaseline)

[josephbt]

So anyways, I got me a new bunch of people after some fallin outs with the last group I played with. The guys said "Sure, cmon, we need another player. You know, we play Planescape."
Oh? Never played it. Heard bout it in the AD&D days, but nobody bought the books, so nada. I had a vague clue of what was going on in that setting, so I told them that. You should have seen the happy faces. "He's a berk! Great, you're gonna have sucha good time. We already know everything, so the novely(it's a 10 year old game!) has worn off. You're clueless."
Okay, says I, what does the party look like? A water genasi ranger, a thiefling rogue, a thiefling sorc, human wizzo. Well, I guess, an archer cleric is the way to go.
AAAAAAA, wrong.
See, nobody told me bout the moronic divine spellcaster rules. Seems that if you are a cleric and you live in Isgaard(or something) and you merilly go arround and wind up in Aheron, you LOSE 5-7 spellcasting levels!!! WTF!?
See, it's because your god doesn't have influence there, right. But, it's a god, dude. It has influence everywhere. Nope, said the DM, not here. So, whats the point of playing a cleric when he gets screwed over whereever he goes?
Roleplaying, says the DM. Okay, but i wanted to play a mighty preacher, engorcing the will of god through his bow, not somebody who literally got kicked in the face by a bloody warrior! A fvcking hobgobo warrior beat me up so hard and i couldn't do jack shit. Why?
My bow doesn't work on Aheron for some reason(plane, yadda, yadda, i really didn't understand) so rarelly hit. I dont cast spells(- fvcking hard 7 SL), i have no class abilities. I'm a warrior with a bad BAB. So, after the combat, I got revived by a potion(those work, but weapons don't?).
This is roleplaying, I asked? Yes, it is, in the Planescape, replied the DM. You're supposed to feel like a small fish in a big pond.

Epilogue
I play a wizzard now. I feel like a shark in a big pond and I own hobgoblins everywhere and anywhere. Planescape, on the other hand, still blows.

[RandomCasualty]

Yeah, planescape pretty much hated clerics. A lot.

[User3]

In older editions of AD&D, weapons lost a plus for each plane they needed to travel through between the plane they were created in and your current location. It blew then (especially since certain enemies were, you know, totally immune to weapons of under a certain plus) and still blows now if you choose to bring it back, which it sounds like they did.

And yeah, Planescape pretty well hated Clerics. But that's okay, because it was back in 2e AD&D. There's a reason people didn't play Clerics then, which led to them making CoDzilla for 3e.

So the answer is indeed "Play a Wizard and feel like a shark instead of a guppy." Best of luck with that.

[User3]

Actualy, the 3.xe Cleric Archer should be the priest least affected by the wonky influence rules. That's because you cast your hour/level & Persistant buffs on your home plane (or god's plane of influence), and then planeshift or take a gate back.

Or, Hell, get a wand of Rope Trick. For some reason, your god has normal influence over non-dimensional spaces. Unless your DM is just messing with you.

But yes, trying to play 3e 'Planescape' with 2e Planescape rules is not the best idea. 2e was horribly unbalanced, but with a fairly flat power curve, meaning that Planescape crazyness didn't make anything worse.
Also, gods were supposed to be much more active in planar cleric's lives, making them more of a 'Deus ex deus' sort of character. Meaning that they should be DM/NPCs.

Anyway, 3e has rules about godless/philosopher clerics, and provided you choose a philosophy like 'magic' rather than 'Baator,' you should do O.K.

The reason your bow lost enchantment is that it was probably forged on the upper or prime material planes. Weapons loose something like +1 for every 'planar step' away from where they were forged. Meaning that a +5 sword made on the inner planes, but being used on the outer planes, is ruined something like this:
Inner->Ethereal= -1, Ethereal->Material = -1, Material -> Astral = -1, Astral -> Outer = -1, meaning that you now have a +1 sword ;_;
I think there is some messed up stuff with swords forged on certain outer planes too, don't really remember. Basically you want your weapon to be a Sword of the Planes (!!!), or made on the Astral.

Oh, and a warning: IIRC Wizards get fucked too, as they approach the "Spire" (That thing which Sigil sits on at the center of the multiverse)

[PhoneLobster]

Am I the only one in the universe that is convinced planescape just sucks big time as a multiverse setting?

I mean sure, most multiverse settings are juvenille mish-mashes of the endless dimensions of stupidness...

But what is it about planescape that just inspires utter disgust and contempt in the heart of my very soul?

Because for some reason I can't even begin to describe how much I hate plainscrape. I hate it more than forgotten realms AND dragon lance combined... which is confusing because it literally IS more than forgotten realms and dragon lance combined... AAAAAAAAAAH!

[josephbt]

The reason your bow lost enchantment is that it was probably forged on the upper or prime material planes. Weapons loose something like +1 for every 'planar step' away from where they were forged. Meaning that a +5 sword made on the inner planes, but being used on the outer planes, is ruined something like this:
Inner->Ethereal= -1, Ethereal->Material = -1, Material -> Astral = -1, Astral -> Outer = -1, meaning that you now have a +1 sword ;_;
I think there is some messed up stuff with swords forged on certain outer planes too, don't really remember. Basically you want your weapon to be a Sword of the Planes (!!!), or made on the Astral.

WHAT THE FVCK? That makes absolutely no sense at all. Is there a reason behind this screwing? Is it some balance crap so that fighters aren't "overpowered"?
As far as buffs are concerned, we're a this Aheron place all the friggin time. I couldn't cast jack, let alone buffs. And being 7th lvl, no Gate or Planeshift.
As i said, right now i'm a wizzo and i'm not going nowhere near that Spirethingey. I'm guessing Sigil is that ring city?

Am I the only one in the universe that is convinced planescape just sucks big time as a multiverse setting?

No. I despise it also.
Right now, i'm so confused when we're playing like i've never been. Some of the partymembers are in some clans, spells and abilities sometimes work and sometimes work wrong(no explanation is ever given), magical items seem to have a life of their own and everything is bloody infinite. I feel like im in that game Pandemonium. AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

[rapanui]

Planescape: Torment was a bitchin' game though.

[Username17]

WHAT THE FVCK? That makes absolutely no sense at all. Is there a reason behind this screwing?

The AD&Dtreasure tables were incredibly random and incredibly Monte Haul. There wasn't some sort of table for "pissant magic items" and another for "awesome magic items" - there was just a big old table with everything on it and most of it was crap and you pulled it in big time all the time.

And people stopped caring about treasure. They really didn't give a shit. In order to get a +2 Ring of Protection you had probably just reached around in a trunk filled with (mostly) +1 Rings of Protection. And people got jaded. They found a ring and they didn't give a shit.

So Planescape had a mechanic by which characters had to get new sets of equipment for each plane they travelled to - essentially starting their quests over again every time they went to a new universe. And that was fine, because the treasure tables were set up to deck you out in minimal bullshit and the occassional piece f awesome almost immediately.

---

Of course, if you tried to pull that in 3rd edition it would just suck. 3rd edition has an entirely different and incompatible method of forcing people to care about continued treasure accumulation.

That seems to be the problem right there. The people you are playing with are hamhandedly taking some - but not all - 2nd edition rules and forcing them into a 3rd edition game. The result is something that doesn't have the checks and balances of either and makes no sense.

Planescape: Torment was a bitchin' game though.

Hellz yeah it was. Actually, Planescape was I think the most successful attempt to address 2nd Edition AD&D's perplexities and extrapolate a viable game world from the rules of that game. It was probably the best attempt to make a really playable high level campaign world given the restrictions of actually using the rules pretty much as written.

But that's what it was. With a different rules set you'd have to radically adjust the universe or it will just come off as arbitrary and insane (not to mention unbalanced and unstable). What had before been carefully constructed checks and balances on a system out of control became essentially randomly assigned nerfs and cookies when transplanted directly to a new paradigm.

When treasure goes from "too common" to "too scarce", convoluted world setups to prevent treasure accumulation overload become a painful kick in the nuts for people who don't need it. Really, what your friends are doing is no different from implementing Alan Greenspan's economic adjustments from 1996 and using them in 2006 - the needs are different and there's no guaranty that you aren't sparking a recession.

-Username17

[Catharz]

Torment was the first D&D game to implement instantanious Con-based HP changes, right? The item slot system was pretty standard for a CRPG, but an improvement on AD&D's. The tatoos were a very nice touch.
But it also had that wonky dual-class system for The Nameless One, which was a mistake. It would have been better as a simple tri-multiclass, or (if that didn't fit with the whole 'fractured personality), something which required one class at a time but still acrued XP and advanced them all.
Of course, everyone probably just switched from Fighter to Rogue, gained the XP, and then stayed a wizard except when they needed to be another class to use something. Ultimately that was a minor issue.

It also didn't use the crazy Planescape magic item rules, so there you go.

Anyway, I think Planescape makes a lot more sense when you realize that you're starting with a 'multiverse' model which makes very little sense, tweaking it, and then saying that it works that way because a bunch of crazy fanatics all have different ideas for how it works. And the balance of those incompatable and crazy ideas is the form the Outer Planes take.
Am I seeing a metaphor for design at TSR?

Oh, and there is an Athar prestige class in one of the older Dragon magazines which, although it looses (2?) caster levels, would make for a pretty bitchin' cleric.

[Lago_AM3P]

Oh, and there is an Athar prestige class in one of the older Dragon magazines which, although it looses (2?) caster levels, would make for a pretty bitchin' cleric.

How could you say something that blatantly contradictory?

[Catharz]

1165542801[/unixtime]]

Oh, and there is an Athar prestige class in one of the older Dragon magazines which, although it looses (2?) caster levels, would make for a pretty bitchin' cleric.

How could you say something that blatantly contradictory?

Because in a context where one might loose seven caster levels for no good reason, only ever having to deal with the loss of two is acceptable. Plus, Athar get a bunch of immunities to the abilities of outsiders and divine spellcaster which are significantly more useful on the outer planes than anywhere else.

[Lago_AM3P]

If your only choice is to lose two caster levels, then seriously don't even play a cleric. If you want to play a cleric archer, be anything else at all. Archivists, while having a weaker chassis, are still competent enough at the task. You can even be a wizard and pick up arcane disciple a couple of times if you really want to. Or you can just be a druid. Druids make rather decent cleric archers, especially if you can hook them up with divine power.

[Catharz]

1165591983[/unixtime]]If your only choice is to lose two caster levels, then seriously don't even play a cleric. If you want to play a cleric archer, be anything else at all. Archivists, while having a weaker chassis, are still competent enough at the task. You can even be a wizard and pick up arcane disciple a couple of times if you really want to. Or you can just be a druid. Druids make rather decent cleric archers, especially if you can hook them up with divine power.

Don't quote me on this, but I think druids might be even more screwed.

[User3]

The spells working wonky thing goes all the way back to 1st edition where magic worked weird on the other planes. In particular, some spells didn't work on some planes, and some spells worked differently on some planes. There was a huge table somewhere (probably manual of the planes) for each plane that told you which spells got the shaft.

Now, this is even pre-planescape. This is the original 1e rules for other planes.

And you know something, I don't mind the "some spells work crazy here" at all. It gives each plane a little charm, and, if you're in a *sensible* campaign, you should have the time to research the plane beforehand and discover at least some of the bizarre oddities. Of course, I haven't bought a Manual of the Planes since I got my 1e copy - nothing non-obvious has changed that I care about. I can fix any rules issues on my own, and I like having the *real* plane names (rather than someone's sterilized version of them). And none of the flavor has really changed.

Now, the magic items getting the shaft is totally a 1st/2nd artifact that doesn't work with 3/3.5 treasure dynamics.

And I don't know about this hating clerics thing - that must be unique to planescape. But shouldnt you never lose more than 2 Caster levels? Because the shortest path will generally go right through Concordant Opposition (or whatever they renamed it to in Planescape, I seem to recall they did...).

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Actually, when it came to losing cleric caster levels, you weren't allowed to path through the Plane of Concordant Opposition. You were required to slog through each plane wheel-wise.

Magic items went through the PoCO. Clerics did not get that. (So, a cleric of Heironeous in the Abyss would lose 7 levels by going through Arcadia, Mechanus, Acheron, Baator, Gehenna, Hades, and Carceri to get to the abyss.)

I would personally recomend being a cleric of some sort of neutral god, such as Obad-hai. You only lose 1 caster level anywhere on the Great Wheel.

[josephbt]

I would personally recomend being a cleric of some sort of neutral god, such as Obad-hai. You only lose 1 caster level anywhere on the Great Wheel.

I have recomended to myself a wizzard. That way i dont lose caster levels. Damit, I'm a 7th lvl char. I wanna do 7th lvl character stuff.

[Lago_AM3P]

Arbitrary rules that randomly screw people over who choose to roleplay hypocritically in the name of roleplaying?

Sign me up for this shit. This looks amazingly fun and fair. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with a game where ideas were thrown out without even the minimum amount of foresight put into them?

It's a roleplaying game, not a rollplaying game.

[MrWaeseL]

I would personally recomend being a cleric of some sort of neutral god, such as Obad-hai. You only lose 1 caster level anywhere on the Great Wheel.

You know a setting sprays fecal matter everywhere when you make statements like this about it.