Questions regarding The Tome Series

[Libertad]

http://code.google.com/p/awesometome/downloads/list

I am planning on implementing rules from the Tome series into my next D&D game. I have some questions about some of the rules.

Due to the size of the document, I only plan on implementing a few rules to test things out. They are:

LA 0 Drow

-5 on all full attacks.

Combat and Skill feats

Scaling Armor in chapter 8 by skill ranks and BAB

Scaling Magic Items in the Book of Gears

Is there anything I should be aware of? Feats, classes, or rules changes which don't work as advertised? Loopholes and seemingly innocuous abilities that can tear apart the game?

1.) The Edge: Can two opponents have The Edge against each other? Example: Gorrusk the Barbarian is fighting an Adult Red Dragon. Gorrusk has Giant Slayer, so he has the edge against the Huge Dragon. But the dragon has a higher Base Attack bonus than Gorrusk. I ask this because the term "Edge" implies a hidden trick or ability that the other opponent does not have.

2.) Why a 15,000 GP limit on magic item prices, as opposed to another value like 12,000 or 20,000?

3.) The Blitz feat's +1 BAB ability allows the user to add their BAB to damage at the risk of provoking an AoO. This can be a risky move in melee, but this feat can be pretty sweet for ranged attackers outsider the threatened square. Can someone with Blitz and Point Blank Shot add double their BAB to damage if they're within the first range increment?

4.) Can the Power Attack variant in the Advanced Combat section be applied to ranged attacks and ray spells?

5.) Does the +3 bonus on Reflex saves from Lightning Reflexes apply to your Balance modifier if you substitute your Balance for your Reflex Save?

6.) Does Insightful Strike's +16 BAB ability have a cap on the maximum enhancement bonus it can provide from a high Wisdom modifier?

Thanks in advance to anybody who can help!

[Kaelik]

Answer to general questions:

You should read the thousands of pages of commentary we have on it here.

You also really shouldn't be implementing just the limited changes you are as the a sample of Tome. If you like those particular changes, them implement them. If you don't like others, don't implement them. But don't pretend that those select changes are in any meaningful way helping you play a Tome game, that's just a 3.5 game with some tiny changes.

Also, you might want to be clear on what exactly the item rules you are going to play under are. For example, scaling items, but no 8 item limit, is retarded. Book of Gears makes no sense with WBL. Book of Gears is incomplete, and everyone has their own method of finishing it, figure out what yours is, or steal someone elses.

1) Yes they can.

2) Because it's the actual limit in the Wish spell in 3.0. You are also going to be changing the cost of items anyway, because, see the thing about having to invent your own items to finish Book of Gears.

3) Yes.

4) No. Some people will tell you yes. They are idiots, and you should stab them in the eyes.

5) Not by RAW, but give it to them, who cares, by the time you are rolling balance checks, you are a god of reflex anyway, if you have been ranking the skill.

6) No, except the physical one by your inability to obtain a higher Wisdom. This makes it one of those things that helps some monsters more than people, but that's fine.

[Libertad]

Thanks for the answers.

If the rules I'm going to implement are too limited, what would you recommend adding as options?

[CatharzGodfoot]

If the rules I'm going to implement are too limited, what would you recommend adding as options?

The rules that you planned on implementing would give you a good overview of some of the Tome options, and almost certainly improve the game. However, it won't give you a full idea of how the Tomes play, because so many options are additive.

A 3.5e Barbarian or Fighter with Tome combat feats will play a lot better than one without. With the Races of War versions of the classes, however, the power level gets amped up even more -- and that's the intended level of power. Which balance point is more appropriate for your game will partly depend on how adept your players are at playing sorcerers and druids.

You could also benefit from allowing Jesters, Monks, Summoners, Elementalists, and Warmages, regardless of whether you allow RoW classes. The monk will be better than the core warrior classes, but otherwise the monk is just too terrible of a trap option.

Although the +1 BAB ability of Blitz applies to ranged weapons as written, I wouldn't allow it. Ranged weapons are already incredibly good in the Tomes. It's not that huge of a boost over everything else that archers get, but that doesn't make it right.

In any case, I would take Kaelik's advice on the 8 item limit.

[Josh_Kablack]

Is there anything I should be aware of? Feats, classes, or rules changes which don't work as advertised? Loopholes and seemingly innocuous abilities that can tear apart the game?

Yes.

see the thread: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51121& ... sc&start=0

for most of the issues other people have found and some proposed fixes.

there are some other threads around too, a quick search turns these up:

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51904
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51771

and then there are issues which come up in odd places, off the top of my head, I have disagreed with Kaelik (and other knowledgeable posters) about how armor movement reductions (they say no reductions, I say it doesn't explicitly overwrite that part of core) and two-weapon fighting work (he says dual longswords is no penalty, I say no penalty requires offhand weapon to be light) and how to count consumable items (he says use attunement times for everything, I say ban bullshit bonuses but let PCs have a zillion Cure potions) in tome.

It's also worth reading through the responses to the original tome threads (all linked from: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50239 ) to see if other people have noticed and proposed fixes for issues your group is having.

Edit: to clarify that one difference of opinion was not actually with Kaelik.

[Archmage]

Power Attack
You leverage your combat skill into devastating attacks at the expense of accuracy.
Requirement: You must make an attack action and have a BAB of at least +1.
Effect: Before making an attack roll, you may voluntarily take an attack penalty of up to your BAB, and inflict two times that amount in extra damage with that attack. You may take this option on any or all of your attacks if you wish.

As written, why wouldn't you be able to apply this to ranged attacks?

Why shouldn't you be able to apply this to ranged attacks is a different question, though I wouldn't mind having it answered.

[Kaelik]

Kaelik and I disagree about how armor movement reductions (he says no reductions, I say it doesn't explicitly overwrite that part of core)

I believe you actually summarized our other differences of opinion correctly, but this is someone else, I have no opinion on Tome Armors reductions whatsoever, and I specifically avoid thinking about trying to fix Tome Armors, because it's like crafting, something terrible that scares me.

As written, why wouldn't you be able to apply this to ranged attacks?

Why shouldn't you be able to apply this to ranged attacks is a different question, though I wouldn't mind having it answered.

It's a houserule, everything in a set of houserules also has to pass the should test.

[Archmage]

No PA with flasks and rays I can get behind for balance reasons, but is there some compelling reason not to let archers have it that has come up in someone's play experience?

[Kaelik]

No PA with flasks and rays I can get behind for balance reasons, but is there some compelling reason not to let archers have it that has come up in someone's play experience?

Yes, Archers already have more attacks than other people at higher accuracy. Allowing them to turn that increased accuracy into more damage is a mistake, especially when Tome already makes Archers significantly more damaging as well.

A Knight with a shield is something we want to at least not feel like total shit for not being an Archer.

[Libertad]

I'm considering implementing some of the classes as recommended in a previous post.

One more question: in regards to magic item gathering and the economy, the Tome series assumes that the setting is pre-industrial where most people are uneducated peasants and the truly powerful dudes live in crazy places like citadels on the Elemental Plane of Fire. Is there anything I should keep in mind if I want to adopt the "Wish Economy" stuff to unorthodox settings like Dark Sun and Eberron?

[Blicero]

Is there anything I should keep in mind if I want to adopt the "Wish Economy" stuff to unorthodox settings like Dark Sun and Eberron?

Dark Sun would prolly work fine as is. But Eberron is more or less unplayable out of the box, since it relies way too much on there being no highlevel characters around, when it takes less than a year for a party to reach level 20. But if you do some handwaving, then the proliferation of minor magic items fits Eberron really really well.

[Archmage]

Subtle Cut says "whenever you deal damage, that damage is increased by 1." Does that include ability damage? Damage caused by spells and other non-weapon attacks?

[Josh_Kablack]

Subtle Cut says "whenever you deal damage, that damage is increased by 1." Does that include ability damage? Damage caused by spells and other non-weapon attacks?

As written, yes and yes.

In play there's really just not a problem with giving a fire mage or muskleteer a +1 damage bonus on their fire bolts or musket shots, and even multi-target damage spells like magic missile, and scorching ray aren't really bent at all with +1. Compared to what melee characters are doing with their +2/+2 from tome Combat School or what archers are doing with their frequent +3/+BAB from tome Point Blank Shot or even what casters could be doing with save-or-lose spells that's a minor bonus so the feat is only really taken for characters who

1. get it for free (samurai)
2. want the dex or movement reduction attacks
3. have +11 BAB and the Book Fragment of Gears version of Wounding
4. expect to be mixing up what kind of attacks they use (melee, ranged, spell) frequently

However, I'd worry a tiny bit about allowing it to add to ability damage, when Dungeonomicon monk (or anything else that allows PCs to deal small amounts of ability damage with less than a standard action) is available. Monk 1 can give you a style that adds 2 points of con damage to your slam, and lets you apply slam bonuses to any weapon you use. Combine that with Tome 2 Weapon Fighting and Subtle Cut and you're dealing 6 con with a swift + attack action, and with 6+ BAB you're potentially dealing 15 Con on a swift + full attack action. However, even without Subtle Cut adding ability damage, those only drop to 4 Con and 10 Con, which still might be problematically good. Thus it probably would make more sense to let Subtle Cut increase ability damage but nerf some other part of that combo - maybe give the monk's Con damage a save and/or limit it to once per round per target or turn it into a temporary penalties or somesuch.

[Libertad]

One more question:

The Wish Economy puts hard limits on purchasing magic items in an attempt to separate wealth from personal power. The intent is to get PCs willing to spend items on things like fortresses, fancy art, and other stuff.

But since souls can be used to bypass the 15,000 gp limit on magic items, what's preventing adventurers from exchanging gp for souls trapped in gems and then going somewhere like Sigil to buy 15,001+ gp magic items? I'm aware that the soul trade is dominated by Lower Plane Fiends, and thus would be something the heroes won't have access to in my games. But this question could come up about why to even have such a limit if it can be bypassed this way. And what about animal and plant souls instead of human(oid) souls? Since animals are "owned" as property by many non-evil entities, would trading their souls be any less icky than human souls?

[Josh_Kablack]

The concept of the Wish economy is that there is a point in the game where PCs can have access to arbitrarily as-large-as-they-want large piles of magic items, so long as each and every individual magic item has a value of 15000 GP or less. But it puts a bright line on magic items and currencies with a price of 15001 GP or more - those cannot be purchased with anything which can be created via wish (at least the 3.0 version the original Wish economy was based on).

So if you are implementing it as written, then a set of four matched soul gems each with a 4000 gp value does not actually add up to the purchasing power to buy a 16000 GP magic item.

Instead it's like you or I trying to buy our groceries with Monopoly money - even though there is a mathematical conversion rate, no sane merchant is going to accept half a million in play money in place of a $50 bill and we might be arrested for even trying.

[Libertad]

Really? I didn't get that vibe from the sourcebook. It said that fancy magic items like Soul Gems and raw Chaos can be bartered for major magic items.

[Maxus]

So if you are implementing it as written, then a set of four matched soul gems each with a 4000 gp value does not actually add up to the purchasing power to buy a 16000 GP magic item.

Instead it's like you or I trying to buy our groceries with Monopoly money - even though there is a mathematical conversion rate, no sane merchant is going to accept half a million in play money in place of a $50 bill and we might be arrested for even trying.

Really? I didn't get that vibe from the sourcebook. It said that fancy magic items like Soul Gems and raw Chaos can be bartered for major magic items.

To paraphrase, there's no number of cabbages that would be worth trading the Red Diamond Sword of Kormon the Sand Emperor for.

There's two big reasons souls are traded around:

1) You can use them to power magical workings of various kinds

2) You can make sure souls go to the right place. This is why Celestials participate in the soul economy--the souls of saints and heroes who deserve to go to their rest. You can totally be Good (TM) and participate in the soul trade, swapping good soul for magic items and loot of equivalent value.

A pile of tree souls =/= the soul of a legendary paladin or wizard, in the same way that a hill of onions isn't worth your magic sword. You'd have to have a mountain of them to approach the metaphysical mass that one soul gives. No one's going to bother with carting around mountains of gemstones for souls that are of less value, magically speaking, than the stones they're in. Not to mention the time and effort of capturing all those souls (and the gemstone sources).

[Josh_Kablack]

Really? I didn't get that vibe from the sourcebook. It said that fancy magic items like Soul Gems and raw Chaos can be bartered for major magic items.

Yes, the Post-Wish economy uses post-wish currencies, which have values in excess of 15000 gp, meaning that they cannot be wished for.

here are a couple relevant quotes from the Dungeonomicon:

Powerful Creatures Have a Powerful Economy:

The amount of gold it takes to get anywhere as a land lord is very large. The question that arises then, is why awesome architecture exists at all. It's a valid question, the listed costs to put things like pit traps and thrones made of bone into your dungeon are stupendously large and actual magical swag can be made available for much less than that. The answer is that:

People don't actually pay all that gold to have their homes remodeled (see the peonomicon below).
Powerful artificers and adventurers don't even want your gold. If something has a value of 100,000 gold pieces, it can't be purchased with gold pieces at all – because that's an actual ton of gold that you'd have to plop over the counter and the merchant you're dealing with won't take your money even if you have it.

The realities of the wish based economy ensure that gems can simply be obtained in large numbers by anyone who really cares enough to dedicate a conjured earth elemental to collecting them. Magical items that cannot be created with the application of spells (that is, magic items valued at more than 15,000 gp) cannot be purchased on the open market with mundane currency, not even gems. That isn't to say that you can't cheat a goblin out of a staff of power with some shiny rocks, you totally can (heck, you could also stab the goblin in the face and take that staff of power), but doing so is not considered a "fair trade" and requires a bluff check on your part.

In addition, many D&D worlds posit the existence of magic gems, which can be used to make magic items, increase personal power, make a snazzy grill with the bottom row made of gold, and all kinds of stuff. In addition to getting hot women to ask you to smile, these magical gems are magical and are actually considered fair exchange in the near-epic economy. You can't wish for Eberron Dragonshards or Planescape Planar Pearls, so those things have real value to Efreet and other creatures participating in the Big Pond. Rules for using magic gems appear in the Tome of Tiamat.

And yes, re-reading it, I see that the section does list souls as a post-wish currency and gives them a value (totally different from Trap the Soul) such that souls of creatures under CR 13 are less than 15000 GP, so it looks like a potential loophole -- but here's the thing, the entire post-wish economy schtick of "your money is no good here" was written as a way to prevent characters from turning every decoration, tapestry, doorknob and nail in the setting into cumulative tiny fractions of another +1 to a combat number, and the instant you decide that there is a way for "oh, I'm sorry this money is okay afterall" it no longer accomplishes that goal and there is no point to using it instead of any of the prior ideas of wealth-by-level, xp-by-gp, unlimited wealth or daily plagues of rust monsters and disenchanters.

[Libertad]

I know that the Tome class replacements are more powerful and versatile than their PHB counterparts, but how versatile are they in terms of role dependency?

What if nobody wants to be a spellcaster? What if nobody wants to do the standard "Divine/Arcane/Sneak/Tank" set-up? Is a Tome Barbarian/Fighter/Samurai/Rogue party viable?

[Red_Rob]

In the core D&D experience you need someone to kill the bad guys, someone to prevent traps from killing the good guys, someone to heal up after combat and someone to detect and identify the magic loot and deal with puzzle monsters. The Tome martial classes don't really add much apart from the "kill the bad guys" schtick until fairly high levels. They are a lot better at the killing side than the core classes, and much more resilient, but don't expect one to replace the wizard. Of course Use Magic Device will allow the Rogue to handle some of this at higher levels, but at levels 1-3 things will be difficult.

If you want to run an all warrior & rogue party either hand out healing potions liberally and provide some kind of 1/day Identify magic item or give them a Cleric cohort/NPC would be my advice.

[Josh_Kablack]

Well, Tome Samurai and Barbarian are not especially versatile. Those two are exceedingly good at hitting enemies so hard that they go down. The Barbarian is a little better at staying up, the samurai is a little better at going first and cutting through unusual defenses. But for the most part their actions in combat are "attack, a lot, mostly melee, but here's one nifty bow trick".

However the Tome Fighter and even the Core Rogue can be incredibly versatile with the other tome rules in place. The primary thing I'd worry about in a tome Barb/Ftr/Samurai/Rogue party was that the "medic" role was somehow covered (this can be healing potions, or the rogue using a Cure wand, or someone with a cohort, or some other option). I'd also have minor concern that the party should have be able to field adequate long ranged attacks - although this is fairly likely to happen organically with the Tome feats and some of the bow tricks available to those classes.

[CatharzGodfoot]

What if nobody wants to be a spellcaster? What if nobody wants to do the standard "Divine/Arcane/Sneak/Tank" set-up? Is a Tome Barbarian/Fighter/Samurai/Rogue party viable?

Rogue is an 'advanced' (read 'difficult') class in Tome games, because you really need to abuse it to keep up. At low levels you need to use flasks, and at mid-high levels you need to Abuse Magic Device and the rogue feat special ability.

That said, yes. A Barbarian/Fighter/Samurai/Rogue party is viable. The barbarian can heal herself, the rogue can UMD cure light wands, the samurai can do divination, and the fighter can craft items. Reach and feats like whirlwind allow the above characters to do area attacks pretty well too.

Where you'll suffer is wizard utility powers. But Tome-style armors pick up some of the slack there too, and it's more an issue of getting the items for the rogue to UMD than not being able to teleport at all.

[Libertad]

Something I noticed:

The Assassin gets Full Death Attack at 7th level, when he has a BAB of +5 and can't make Full Attacks. Was this class feature meant to be 8th level when the BAB is +6, or can a 7th level Assassin make a Full Death Attack at +5/0?

Some Armors (such as chainmail) are on the list in Money & Equipment, but do not provide any additional abilities. Is this a deliberate decision, or is the armor section still unfinished?

[Lokathor]

Even without iterative attacks you could TWF, for example. Or you might have jumped into Assassin from another class and have BAB from that.

[Josh_Kablack]

Some Armors (such as chainmail) are on the list in Money & Equipment, but do not provide any additional abilities. Is this a deliberat decision, or is the armor section still unfinished?

Neither. It's an error of omission due to interruptions in the writing, formatting loss due to the forum change and handoffs in design. Feel free to add your own ability sets for any such armors.