[D&D 3.5] The Unconventional Wisdom of the Den

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 6:21 pm

In my various searches and browsings of the den, I've come across places where things that are taken for truth on most other gaming forums are contested or disbelieved. An example of what I'm talking about is the notorious Pun-Pun, which is accepted almost without question on other boards, but many mentions of it here are followed by assertions of why it doesn't actually work that way.

So now I'm curious, are there other things like that here, such as, what is the opinion on the validity of the Shadow Miracle trick often employed with the Shadowcraft Mage? What other things that are taken for granted elsewhere are viewed a bit differently here?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 6:46 pm

The Shadow Mracle "exploit" comes entirely from reading failure. Here's the quote:

SCM, Races of Short, p. 122 wrote:...mimic any sorcerer or wizard conjuration (summoning), conjuration (creation), or evocation spell...

The reading where "any" applies to evocation spells and "sorcerer or wizard" doesn't is too tortured to take seriously. There is another thing where people do funky bullshit to put Miracle on their personal list ad then try to duplicate it. That one has more plausibility. But even so, getting a spell on your list does not change the sorcerer or wizard list, which is what that ability actually copies off of.

-Username17

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 7:00 pm

Other stuff includes the Factotum class. If you go to BG, anyone who talks about it will go on about how great the class is. People here don't agree.

Edit:
Also flask rogues. They hate flask rogues over there.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 7:19 pm

Tome of Battle is beloved most places except on the Den.

I've never bothered to really learn it for mainly one reason:

If I'm playing a martial character, it's because I don't want to deal with spells and spell lists and spell effects and durations. And trying to give warriors their own brand of 'I Can't Believe It's Not Magic' is a nifty idea, but doesn't do much for me personally. I don't want to learn -another- complex resource management system.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 7:27 pm

TGD generally accepts wish cheese at face value and that anything that can be wished for with magic is worthless to anyone who is level 9 or higher (as that is the point where you can cast plane shift to go somewhere with efreets and make an adventure out of beating them up until they grant you free wishes)

Archmage Joda · Post by **Archmage Joda** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 7:42 pm

Well, as per the Shadow miracle thing, the usual line is that if you're a sorcerer/wizard, adding the spell to your list counts as adding it to the sorcerer/wizard list. However, the more I put actual thought into it, the more I can't help but feel that there's something....off...about that logic.

Re: Factotum: I'm curious, what is the beef with it here, asking purely academically, as I am in no position to be arguing about it.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 7:52 pm

bg/charops are cancer just ignore them and play the damn game

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:03 pm

Archmage Joda wrote: Re: Factotum: I'm curious, what is the beef with it here, asking purely academically, as I am in no position to be arguing about it.

Factotums have only one good trick: which is that they can buy extra actions with inspiration points. However, they get insufficient inspiration points to actually do anything good until very high level. There is a completely unofficial feat on the fucking internet called "font o inspiration" that gives them more points. It gives them one extra point per feat expended. However, it's worded kind of poorly and says this:

Special: You can take this multiple times. Each time you take this feat after the first time, the number of inspiration points you gain increases by 1 (for example, you gain 2 inspiration points if you take the feat a second time). The maximum number of times you can take this feat is equal to your Intelligence modifier.

So the people who wank over factotums claim that not only will you be allowed to use this feat, despite the fact that it appears in no book and is not in the SRD, but that your DM is going to necessarily use the obviously incorrect reading that when it says that your inspiration point gain is 2 they actually meant 3 inspiration points were gained, even though nothing else in the game actually works like that.

In general, at the Gaming Den we like to talk about what the rules actually say and contrast them with what they should say, rather than trying to come up with extremely convoluted logic to try to justify secret readings of the rules. In places with less emphasis on "writing it your own damn self", there is generally a lot more emphasis on incredibly tortured readings of rules. And these things just snowball, because most people don't actually do their own dumpster diving for charop and just accept whatever other people say happens.

Another thing is that at TGD, we generally don't fap to incredibly complicated builds. We have mostly internalized the fact that a tainted mage can get Save DCs in the mid fifties without even really trying, so what we actually do is sand bag. After The Wish and The Word, there's really no point in more hyper fiddly builds that are "over powered".

-Username17

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:08 pm

Also, we hate that complete warrior rule that you lose PrCs if you lose a requirement. That's what I've seen over here anyway.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:22 pm

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Also, we hate that complete warrior rule that you lose PrCs if you lose a requirement. That's what I've seen over here anyway.

Mostly because Ur Preist is a Divine spellcasting PrC with a prerequisite that you not have any Divine Spellcasting.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:28 pm

Which somehow appears on all the CharOp boards espousing this rule.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:30 pm

Also because it inhibits roleplay opportunities and generally screws over the fighter-types while not doing much to deter dedicated powergamers.

Of course the biggest unconventional wisdom of the Den is the prevailing idea that 3.5E was an improvement to 3.0E; 3.5E IS IN ALMOST EVERY WAY A WORSE EDITION THAN 3.0E. There are some exceptions on this board, but this mindset mostly holds.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:44 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Also because it inhibits roleplay opportunities and generally screws over the fighter-types while not doing much to deter dedicated powergamers.

Of course the biggest unconventional wisdom of the Den is the prevailing idea that 3.5E was an improvement to 3.0E; 3.5E IS IN ALMOST EVERY WAY A WORSE EDITION THAN 3.0E. There are some exceptions on this board, but this mindset mostly holds.

I don't think that 3.5 being an improvement is really believed most places. They just accept that 3.5 printed more books, and they use those books.

It's not like JaronK doesn't rely on "everything published in a 3.0 book is also 3.5" in all his arguments anyway, so 3.5 is very fucking similar to 3.0 for most char opers.

No, I think the main Den wisdom is "I can make 40 builds that instantly break the game in half, so sandbagging to the appropriate level is more important than random Char Op for more power based on silly interpretations."

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:03 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:bg/charops are cancer just ignore them and play the damn game

Speaking of which, TGD is also unusual in that open hostility is tolerated (and tacitly encouraged), and people are expected to ignore trolls on their own.

wotmaniac · Post by **wotmaniac** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:06 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: So the people who wank over factotums claim that not only will you be allowed to use this feat, despite the fact that it appears in no book and is not in the SRD, but that your DM is going to necessarily use the obviously incorrect reading that when it says that your inspiration point gain is 2 they actually meant 3 inspiration points were gained, even though nothing else in the game actually works like that.

a couple of points of contention, here:
1) it's not in the SRD because it only appeared on the WoTC website (thus falling outside of the whole "fair use" thing) -- but don't make it sound like it's some 3rd-party b.s.
2) you would only get 3 points upon taking the feat a 3rd time (giving you a total of 6 points gained from the feat). It works just like Psionic Talent.
I've never seen that interpretation that you've just given ..... ever.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 10:28 pm

yeah going to have to go with wotmaniac on this one. the feat is poorly-worded but I'd rule in favor of the factotum

Aharon · Post by **Aharon** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:09 pm

I also agree with that interpretation.

It still doesn't make the class that great. It's ok, I think, better than a lot of classes, and if you pull crazy stunts with Iaiutsu Focus and Item familiar and so on, you can probably get it to perform on par with a rogue, but it's nowhere as versatile and useful as some BG regulars, primarily JaronK, think.

Oh, and what does sandbagging mean in that context? (Non-native speaker here, and an online translator didn't spit out anything useful)

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:22 pm

Aharon wrote:I also agree with that interpretation.

It still doesn't make the class that great. It's ok, I think, better than a lot of classes, and if you pull crazy stunts with Iaiutsu Focus and Item familiar and so on, you can probably get it to perform on par with a rogue, but it's nowhere as versatile and useful as some BG regulars, primarily JaronK, think.

Yeah, JaronK has this weird hard on for Iajutsu Focus and Item Familiar is plain broken period so that's not even something in favor of the Facto. I think he get pissed on time when someone else used Item Familiar during a "contest" against the Facto. I say that it doesn't even matter which way you interpret the feat it either make the class just barely okay or a waste of feat slots.

Oh, and what does sandbagging mean in that context? (Non-native speaker here, and an online translator didn't spit out anything useful)

Pretty much it means to keep your head just above water. You just get abilities that will ultimately get you were you want to be but not screw you in the mean time.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:28 pm

RobbyPants wrote:Other stuff includes the Factotum class. If you go to BG, anyone who talks about it will go on about how great the class is. People here don't agree.

Maxus wrote:Tome of Battle is beloved most places except on the Den.

I don't know about others, but I personally dislike factotum and ToB because they're too damned complex. I can follow them if I put forth some effort, but it's stupid for them to be so complex.

Frank wrote:So the people who wank over factotums claim that not only will you be allowed to use this feat, despite the fact that it appears in no book and is not in the SRD, but that your DM is going to necessarily use the obviously incorrect reading that when it says that your inspiration point gain is 2 they actually meant 3 inspiration points were gained, even though nothing else in the game actually works like that.

If anything, I could see it meaning each taking of the feat gives n^2 points, where n is the number of total times you've taken it (1 feat: 1pt, 2 feats: 4pt, 3 feats: 9pts. etc.). I have no clue if this would be broken.

One facet of the Den is that most people here will accept a player written class, feat, w/e (so long as it's balanced) or such pulled off the internet, which one starts getting used to (namely a philosophy of "I want a class that does this, the published classes that do it suck, and only sorta do it. I'll fucking make my own class! With Blackjack! and Hookers!"), while a lot of people I've actually met and play with have a serious aversion to that.

Bobikus · Post by **Bobikus** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:28 pm

Most time I see Factotum mentioned on other boards it's been in the context of gestalt builds ( I honestly don't even know what gestalt variant is).

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:30 pm

Gestalt is a variant in which a character levels simultaneously in two classes, taking the best of each (the better HD, skill points per level, BAB, Base saves) and all the class abilities.

jadagul · Post by **jadagul** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 12:44 am

Factotum--as far as I can tell--is really good in gestalt builds (as silly as gestalt is in the first place). Because the big advantage of the Factotum is that he gets (some number of) extra actions. And the big disadvantage is that he doesn't have much to do with those actions. So if you gestalt him with a wizard or something, that means you can take wizard actions but more of them.

In contrast, if you gestalt a wizard with a cleric, there's lots of stuff you can do. You can do all the stuff a wizard can do and all the stuff a cleric can do. But you can't do more stuff total than an ungestalted wizard or cleric could do, and since a straight wizard or straight cleric almost always has something sensible to do, the extra options don't help as much as they seem like they should.

Sandbagging: My guess as to what Frank means is attempting to patch the system so it doesn't fall apart completely. When an area is getting flooded and/or invaded the stopgap measure is to pile up bags of sand as a barrier or fortification.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 1:08 am

Gestalt classes are a niche optional rule that exists outside the CR system. They aren't an especially useful measure for why any class is or isn't balanced.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 2:58 am

Kaelik wrote:
CapnTthePirateG wrote:Also, we hate that complete warrior rule that you lose PrCs if you lose a requirement. That's what I've seen over here anyway.
Mostly because Ur Preist is a Divine spellcasting PrC with a prerequisite that you not have any Divine Spellcasting.

Even in core, the (entirely 100% shit) Dragon Disciple requires you to not be Half-Dragon/the Dragon type (despite Half-Dragon not having this requirement) and at level 10 makes you a Half-Dragon. With the Dragon type.

So either
A. you ignore the dumb rule and still suck anyway
B. you use the rule as written and lose the PrCl because of the PrCl
C. you use the rule with a caveat of "If you start meeting the requirements again, you regain it" and create a paradox loop, destroying the world

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 3:04 am

Thought that the whole point of Ur-Priest was giving atheists a way to play Clerics.