Tome of Fiends

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Count Arioch the 28th
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

I'm not evil, but I wish I was. Evil people seem like they have more money and better sex than me.
In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.
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RadiantPhoenix
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Post by RadiantPhoenix »

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Evil people seem like they have more money and better sex than me.
That's probably a result of a biased sample.
Last edited by RadiantPhoenix on Sat Sep 24, 2011 9:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Prak
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Post by Prak »

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I'm not evil, but I wish I was. Evil people seem like they have more money and better sex than me.
crap, does that mean I'm not evil?
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
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Count Arioch the 28th
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

Prak_Anima wrote:
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I'm not evil, but I wish I was. Evil people seem like they have more money and better sex than me.
crap, does that mean I'm not evil?
I'm afraid so, but I can help.

First, eat this:

Image

After that, we go to step 2.
In this moment, I am Ur-phoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my int score.
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Guyr Adamantine
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Post by Guyr Adamantine »

Image

Pic related.
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Chamomile
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Post by Chamomile »

Count Arioch the 28th wrote: First, eat this:

Image

After that, we go to step 2.
Eh, you should do it, Prak. He already looks all sad, you'd probably be doing him a favor.
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Post by RiotGearEpsilon »

Eat a baby chick. That raises your Evil score by +2. You can cancel it out with a slab of tofu.
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Archmage Joda
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Post by Archmage Joda »

Blicero wrote:
Archmage Joda wrote:Something I've been curious about re: tome base classes. Is it ever worth it to use them in tandem with WotC made "official" prestige classes, such as for example taking malconvoker levels as the summoner presented in this particular tome?
That's really going to depend on whether or not the given WotC PrC is shitty. A lot of them are, like that random one that turns you into a green robot or something. But some of them aren't, like Initiate of the Seven Veils or Shadowcraft Mage. But there have to be like 7000 of them in all the various books. And quality is srsly variable. Especially for casting PrCs.

So if you pair a Tome class with an interesting, good PrC, then that'll be good. But if you pair a Tome class with a shitty PrC, then the results will be less than ideal.
.

Ok, I get that it's a highly variable question in general, but I'm moreso interested in the specific case of is Malconvoker worth giving up features out of tome Summoner for?
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Post by CapnTthePirateG »

Create a mindless entity from something gross. Congratulations, you're super evul!
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Post by RadiantPhoenix »

Spinach Golem, I choose you!
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Post by Username17 »

Ok, I get that it's a highly variable question in general, but I'm moreso interested in the specific case of is Malconvoker worth giving up features out of tome Summoner for?
Malconvoker blows. It's complicated and the major attraction is the fifth level ability where you make a Bluff vs. Sense Motive check to get two evil creatures when you summon one. That's interesting, but actually not that impressive considering that you're half a spell level behind and if you just cast a bigger Summon spell you could get a d3 creatures without making a skill check.

Remember, the big cherry ability comes online at level 11 if you jump into Malconvoker at the ealiest possible time. That allows you to get two monsters out of a Summon Monster V, which the pure Summoner would not get until the next level. But the pure summoner also straight up has Improved Summoning, which gives them a 100% chance of being followed around by a CR6 outsider if they want.

The Malconvoker gets +2 damage on their summons, but the Summoner would have gotten Master Tactician which essentially adds +2 to hit, which is better.

Level 6+ of Malconvoker are just insulting. Deceitful Bargaining is basically a flavor ability, wince you can already force the monsters to agree to anything you want when they are in the trap. Compared to having a better version of planar binding by being a 12th level Summoner it's laughable.

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Post by Archmage Joda »

Just the kind of informative answer I was hoping for. Thank you very much, Frank.
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Re: Tome of Fiends Draft Copy

Post by Josh_Kablack »

Shokatsuryou wrote:
Extra Arms [Fiend]


How does this feat interact with Two Weapon Fighting from Races of War? Does a character have to take Two Weapon Fighting for each set of arms? Is there a Multiweapon Fighting feat.
This came up in a post game discussion last night. Yours is the only prior mention I can see of it, so I'll ponder towards an answer that doesn't actually exist.

Lemme start with the Core rules:

Here's the SRD for multiweapon fighting which, whether its exists in Tome or not is valid, for two reasons.

Firstly it has a pointer that states the mulitweapon penalties are the same as the Two-Weapon penalties, that is -6 with primary hand, - 10 with all offhand weapons, reduced by this feat and presumably reduced further if all offhand weapons are light ( although you could get anal retentive about the use of the singular and the vague pointer, let's not and just cluck or tongues at the Marilith having the ability to ignore the core rules on multiweapon fighting )

So in core, multiweapon fighting lets a character on a full attack have a routine where they get their full iterative attacks with their primary weapon, and one additional attack for each offhand weapon at the following penalties:
circumstances primary weapon offhand weapons
Nothing-6-10
Offhand Weapons are all Light-4 -8
Mutliweapon Fighting -4-4
Both Feat and Light weapons-2-2

Now the second issue reason we care about Core multiweapon is the Special text at the end. "This feat replaces the Two-Weapon Fighting feat for creatures with more than two arms. " That's potentially important and potentially adding confusion when it's being used to modify a version of the Two Weapon Fighting feat that works very differently.

However, in core, characters can take the (not-really) Epic feats Improved and Greater Multiweapon fighting to get a first and second iterative attack with each offhand weapon, effectively spending a feat to multiply their number of attacks each time, held from getting too crazy by the feat entry requirements and the iterative penalties stacking with the core multiweapon fighting penalties


Now, moving on to Tome 2wf:
Races of War wrote: Two Weapon Fighting [Combat]
When armed with two weapons, you fight with two weapons rather than picking and choosing and fighting with only one. Kind of obvious in retrospect.
Benefits: You suffer no penalty for doing things with your off-hand. When you make an attack or full-attack action, you may make a number of attacks with your off-hand weapon equal to the number of attacks you are afforded with your primary weapon.
+1: While armed with two weapons, you gain an extra Attack of Opportunity each round for each attack you would be allowed for your BAB, these extra attacks of opportunity must be made with your off-hand.
+6: You gain a +2 Shield Bonus to your armor class when fighting with two weapons and not flat footed.
+11: You may Feint as a Swift action while fighting with two weapons.
+16: While fighting with two weapons and not flat footed you may add the enhancement bonus of either your primary or your off-hand weapon to your Shield Bonus to AC
If we just assume that "armed with two weapons" is a minimum and not a precise limit, then the +6 and +11 abilities flat out applies when armed with more than two weapons. The +16 ability gives us a bit of an anal-retentive parsing problem due to singular nouns, but I'm pretty sure the intent is that you can add the best enhancement bonus you happen to have to the shield bonus and you can choose any weapon when you have more than 2 - if not, a player can weasel around that to get the exact same effect by just moving their best enhancement bonus weapon into their primary hand - so it's not really complicated.

Where things get sticky is with the basic and the +1 BAB abiltiies.


Even the +1 BAB ability isn't too bad, just a bit weird
"While armed with two weapons, you gain an extra Attack of Opportunity each round for each attack you would be allowed for your BAB, these extra attacks of opportunity must be made with your off-hand"

Literally, that interacts with extra arms so that you get to chose which offhand makes the extra attack.

But replacing it with a wishful thinking overwrite of a Multiweapon Fighting that doesn't exist doesn't break anything. If you get an extra offhand AoO once per offhand per iterative, that's on par with the basic ability of the Tome Horde breaker, giving 3 extra offhand AoOs at level 6 BAB <6, six extra offhand AoOs at level 6 BAB 6 or greater, and doesn't get crazy with 15 AoOs until level 12, BAB 11+, where Samurai are already pulling Iatijutsu Omnislash combos anyways. Even there, I have to ask if 15 AoOs limited to offhand weapons is outright better than the +8 AoOs with anything that a Dex-whoring Tome character can get via Horde Breaker.

Neither interpretation is terribly concerning to me

"You suffer no penalty for doing things with your off-hand." doesn't change anything if you have more than one offhand.

" When you make an attack or full-attack action, you may make a number of attacks with your off-hand weapon equal to the number of attacks you are afforded with your primary weapon."

Now when read literally, this does not synergize with extra arms at all. On a single attack, you get one extra attack with an offhand weapon. On a full attack, you get a number of attacks equal to your iteratives with an offhand weapon - and the number of offhands has no bearing. Oh an by the way, if this feat isn't applying, the core penalties are, so your attacks are at -4 primary -8 offhands whenever you have more than two weapons out. This is so asstastic that the option shouldn't even exist.

When presumed to be replaced by a nonexistant tome version of Multiweapon fighting (due to the core multiweapon fighting text) where "your off-hand weapon" becomes "each of your offhand weapons" you get a crazy blender character who makes four attack rolls with no penalties on a single attack, and is making 8+ attacks in a full attack at 6th level. This is too powerful, banned from use

One of these makes extra arms nearly worthless and one of these makes extra arms way too strong, even by Tome standards, so what's needed is a middle ground.

It's tempting to go the literal route, but assume that RoW 2wf overwrites the multiwielding penalties for the first two weapons, but not any beyond those. Thus a character gets the full benefit of Tome 2wf, but then makes additional offhand attacks only on a full attack and is at -8 (or worse if the weapons aren't light). I mean, that does make both 2wf and Extra Arms have some benefit over either alone. However, that's still subpar when compared to other available alternatives like taking the other [Fiend] feat of Large Size, or Petrifying Gaze or something.

It's also tempting to allow the generous option, but impose a feat tax on it, such as "one selection of 2wf per pair of arms". However that's ass and very untomelike, as it's requiring a character to throw at least a third feat on top of two feats they already have, meaning that the character becomes one-dimensionally focused and still ends up brokenly good. so that's out.

Or you could go a different route, where tome two-weapon fighting lets you fight with exactly 2 weapons as specified, but extra arms lets you do wacky things like wield a pair of 2 -handed, or 3-handed weapons (in core it's +1/2 str bonus per each arm). This runs into literalist problems when the offhand weapon is not light and also isn't supported much in the source material - multiarmed monsters generally fight with a lot of weapons, not just a pair of big weapons.
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Post by Kaelik »

There is no Tome reason to have offhand weapons be light.

So TWFing with Greatswords or Longbows is totally okay, and is exactly what you should make them do.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

My take on multiple arms and TWFing in the tomes is that TWFing only works for two weapons. You have to take TWFing and MWF to use more than two weapons effectively, and you don't get iteratives with your 3rd+ weapons.

However, as Kaelik says, there is no Tome reason to not wield a greatsword in two of your four arms and another greatsword in the other two. And the Arrow Demon route of two longbows is indeed an absolutely devastating tactic.

IMO the best interpretation is that your greatsword wielded in your primary and an offhand gets 1.5*Str, while the one wielded in two offhands gets 1*Str. Furthermore, a greatsword wielded in all four hands would add 2.5*Str.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

There's also this bit:
Frank in Races of War wrote: Bonus Attacks and BAB
The bonus attacks that characters get for hitting a BAB of 11 or 16 are not good. I don't know what that was about, but I can only assume that it had to do with a fundamental lack of playtesting past level 10. Anyway, the penalty for taking a bonus attack in a Full Attack action should never rise above -5. So if you have a BAB of +17, your attack routine should look like this: +17/+12/+12/+12. Really.
That actually gives a fairly reasonable middle ground, so things should probably look like

Extra Arms [Fiend]
You have more arms than normal.
Prerequisite: Character level 6 (per extra pair).
Benefit: You have two extra humanoid arms. Each arm counts as another off hand for purposes of attack bonuses and adding Strength to melee damage. Thus during a full attack action, you may attack once with each weapon wielded in your additional arms. Such attacks are made at -5 less than similar attacks made with your primary arm. Each additional arm used to wield the same weapon adds 1/2 your strength bonus to the melee damage dealt by that weapon,
Special: You may take this feat more than once, its effects stack. You must have a minimum of 6 levels for each iteration of this feat (so a 12th level character may have 2 sets of extra arms).

Two Weapon Fighting [Combat]
When armed with two weapons, you fight with two weapons rather than picking and choosing and fighting with only one. Kind of obvious in retrospect.
Benefits: You suffer no penalty for doing things with an off-hand. As an attack, you may attack with both a weapon in your primary hand and a weapon in your off hand at no penalties. If you are afforded multiple attacks due to high BAB, or other circumstance, you may attack with two weapons at no penalties once for each such attack you are afforded.
If you have multiple offhands, or additional secondary natural weapons any such attacks beyond the second are still made at -5 during your full attack actions.
+1: While armed with two (or more) weapons, you gain an extra Attack of Opportunity each round for each attack you would be allowed for your BAB, these extra attacks of opportunity must be made with your off-hand.
+6: You gain a +2 Shield Bonus to your armor class when fighting with two (or more) weapons and not flat footed.
+11: You may Feint as a Swift action while fighting with two (or more) weapons.
+16: While fighting with two (or more) weapons and not flat footed you may add the enhancement bonus of any weapon you wield to your Shield Bonus to AC.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Wed Nov 02, 2011 6:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Aryxbez »

My apologies should this have been thoroughly explained in this thread, or elsewhere otherwise.

A friend of mine, for the longest of time, been wondering how to optimize the True Fiend class, that makes them truly awesome, and worthy of "Wizard" level of balance. Comparatively, looks at the Genie class,seems they progress similarly, but this one get more, and thus could understand that being tagged in that level range. Can probably also add the question, of why they're considered the "Wizard" level of power?
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Post by Maxus »

Sphere and feat combinations. Summoning is nice, too.

An old favorite is to take the Venom Sphere and the Breath Weapon feat for "Finger of Death" so you have a Death Breath Weapon.

Also, work out what happens when someone takes the Dominion sphere three times.

I double-dog dare you.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Maxus wrote: Also, work out what happens when someone takes the Dominion sphere three times.

I double-dog dare you.
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Post by Kaelik »

I think the point is that literally none of the reasons people have claimed the True Fiend as Wizard level are things that the True Fiend can do even half as well as the Conduit.

So yeah, spheres are good, and taking Dominion 3 times can be pretty cool, but the True Fiend gets it's first sphere at level 4, and can't get Expert Access until level 12, where the Conduit can have expert access at level 5.

Yeah, synergizing feats with Spheres can be fun, but the Conduit gets at least two bonus feats before level 10, and an extra one for every sphere he gets Expert Access in, the True Fiend gets one bonus feat at level 11.

In reality, the True Fiend isn't at Wizard level and never was, because he is actually the PHB Monk of the Tomes. Seriously, look at every ability that the True Fiend gets that no one else does, what do you have:

Summoning, so one fight a day you have a percentage chance of being level appropriate.

Dark Power: cool, you can break the RNG on SR at level 15, this slightly boosts your offensive power way to late for anyone to make a big deal about it.

Defenses: Wow, you sure are hard to kill, I wonder what happens when we kill the rest of the party instead. Oh, you have no offense.

A level 1-3 True Fiend is basically just a Warrior for how well he actually attacks you. Then he gets access to a single sphere, so once per day he has a level appropriate spell, then he has a leadership spell, ect.

True Fiends need a buff to be anything close to Wizard level, I buffed them in the errata, and I still think they need a lot more. The problem is that their offense always needs to be less than conduits, because their free defenses are pretty damn good.
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