D&D Shenanigans

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by krogothwolf

Psionic users always seem to be useless or die in the games I've been involved in with them.

That Wild Table is freakin sweet though!

Ok, see, here's the thing. I generally hear that 'psionics is over-powered', 'psionics is underpowered', 'psionics is broken', etc.

This ISN'T TRUE. It's magic that's broken, but psionics - specifically 3.5 psionics, because its the latest thing - is constantly compared to a system of magic that works but is unbalanced, depending at your spectrum of play. Compare the 'martial' (that is non-magical) classes to the magical classes and the psionic classes. The system pretty much runs on the following curves:
Magic - weak front-game, powerful (virtually necessary) late-game
Martial - powerful (virtually necessary) front-game, weak late-game
Psionics - versatile (but not overwhelming) front and late games

Exceptions: bards (good throughout, weaker end), monks (stronger middle), and rogues (just wow)

Part of the problem is that pre-3.5 psionics kind of sucked, I admit. In 3.0 it was both over powered and under powered, sometimes simultaneously, as it was heavily situational (you suck, ya freakin' mindless pieces of crap! ... not that I'm bitter). In earlier editions (2nd and before) it seems that psionics (if they existed in a given setting) were kind of like having a template: you gain special abilities and brain-blasting power that remains constant regardless of your level. This simply isn't true anymore with 3.5 psionics. Really, unless your psionicists do stupid things, they should be about as safe as a wizard, bard, or rogue - which means they need to be moderately protected by the meat shield and they should do fine. Anyhoo, I'll get to work on my series more, but that's the gist for now.

Also: that wild magic table is, indeed, freakin' sweet.

*I've been working of a series of articles called "In defense of..." and so, yeah. This one wasn't planned until later.

Edit: it's also highly worth saying, that, the most awesome Wild Magic table I've seen aside, krylo's and krogoth's moms both go to college! Ooh! Burn! (also, I'm not really trying to start a "chillaxed flame war" here, per se, but I like that line and have been wanting to use it for a while! So, yeah, I'm walkin' into this knowin' that I've got worse rebuttles comin'.)

EDIT TWO: Double Posts are for Losers and Chumps... like me!
Sorry. I'd forgotten which place I'd posted in last and my message is the only one on the other page... I just kind of checked the bottom, it wasn't mine, and posted. My bad. ANYway, here's what I was writing:
Avoidance Behavior
Now to respond to things I wanted to, but forgot to.

Originally Posted by Meister

...but once a player gets six of them he's got to know he has it coming.

I think it depends entirely upon how much restraint the player uses. Really (by the rules) Wishes aren't the broken spell: Miracles are.

Originally Posted by Meister

My two wishes of awesome.

I love your first wish. Creative and tasteful. Your second probably should never have been granted in a 3.X era, but, hey, I'd roll with it too at that point (a game was finished and would never be referenced again). Also, I want your sword. Mechanically, duskblades effectively get one spell of up to the highest spell they can cast per class level. They max out at fifth spell level - not just their list, but that's the highest level you could normally access. So that leaves us with some basic options (each presumes stacking from the previous unless noted).

LITERAL AND LIMITED
Rules: either the new spells follow their own rules or duskblade rules; but using one of these options, probably the duskblade rules
~ Literal and mean: you can now learn from other classes instead of just yours.
~ Literal and minimalist: you can retrain your current ones to equal or lower levels from other arcane lists
~ Literal and benevolent: you can now replace your currently learned spells with any from any arcane spell list of your highest spell level or lower.
~ Literal and highly generous: you can now replace/learn any arcane spell of any class so you don't exceed the limit of your known spells (15 plus your intelligence modifier, I believe at 15th level)

GAME BENDING
Rules: either the new spells follow their own rules or duskblade rules; but using one of these options, probably their own class' rules
~ Bending and basic: Each time you gain a duskblade spell you can choose another arcane spell of the same level or lower from any list - you can use one or the other in a given day/encounter/round
~ Bending and highly generous: you gain one additional spell from a non-duskblade spell list for each duskblade spell you have of an equal level.
~ Bending and extreme: you gain a number of spells from any arcane spell list equal to the maximum number of spells you can gain.

BROKEN
Rules: it's broken.
~ Rather Broken: You gain all spells from all spell lists and follow their own rules.
~ Totally Broken: You gain all spells from all spell lists and they all follow duskblade spell rules.

So yeah, I'd guess that's about your options (though I might have missed something). I know you didn't ask, but I thought I'd do it for fun and to let you think about it and see how it might work? Anyhoo...

Originally Posted by BitVyper

Next time on D&D: epic romance. I like big buuu... I mean women. I like big women.

You are going to update us on this at some point, yes? I'd be immensly curious to hear how it goes. The same with you EVILness! Keep us updated!

Originally Posted by Krylo

D100 is a necessary component.

Also: my understanding is that a d% is necessary (effectively two d10s), but I thought sync was talking about an actual d100 - a 100-sided dice would be completely crazy. Thus my reaction.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by tacticslion

Ok, see, here's the thing. I generally hear that 'psionics is over-powered', 'psionics is underpowered', 'psionics is broken', etc.

To be fair I never said that (though Krogo kinda did). I just said they were dumb.

Which was mostly hyperbolic/joking, but I do kind of feel like having psionics in a game with magic and clerics receiving power from the gods is just kind of silly, as I'm not sure there's any psionic powers that couldn't be easily folded into mage classes or cleric classes without having to add a whole new source of power.

But then that's why I don't particularly like D&D in the first place. It's a convoluted mess.

Also: my understanding is that a d% is necessary (effectively two d10s), but I thought sync was talking about an actual d100 - a 100-sided dice would be completely crazy. Thus my reaction.

They make them.

[BitVyper]

You are going to update us on this at some point, yes? I'd be immensly curious to hear how it goes.

Everyone's kids had birthday parties this week, so we didn't game. I will most DEFINITELY update you when it happens though.

The funny thing is, I've only been with this group for two sessions, and besides that romance, I've already broken a siege by fueling some kind of techno-magic tank with my barbarian rage, and masterminded a shadow coup. The really funny thing is that I only joined their D&D game so I could get to know them for the Mutants and Masterminds game we're going to be playing, where I will be running a tokusatsu-style hero named Action Mask.

a 100-sided dice would be completely crazy. Thus my reaction.

A d100 is basically a golfball inside a slightly larger see-through plastic ball (at least the ones I've seen are). I find them cumbersome and annoying, but they are around. I think of them more as a display piece.

Edit: I see Krylo posted a picture.

Sounds like a ton of fun! Normally, however, I believe that magic missile only goes up to a maximum of five, right (though you specify it can exceed its normal limits)? Actually...

*goes and reads rules*

... yes, it normally maxes at five, and does need to overcome spell resistance. That said, if I was DM, I'd totally have allowed it the once, probably with a 'never again' caveat because 'the magic-drainer-thingy burned itself out of/on magic missile' or something similar, and possibly just exclusively that spell. Awesome story.

Yeah, that's pretty much what happened. We won a pair of the gems in a contest with a dragon. Not only did it drain all of that one's charges, but it left the wizard a bit loopy for a few days afterward.

Our games (with my other group) largely use the rules as guidelines. We venture outside them pretty much any time someone gets a cool idea. Of course, plenty of horrible horrible things happen to us as well. Like the time my "really cool idea" accidentally got us imprisoned and sequestered in a living vault for five hundred years and we emerged in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

[synkr0nized]

Originally Posted by Krylo

They make them.

Yup, that's about how I remember it (in black).

[EVILNess]

So, the word my character lives in has pretty much warped to the point where it can best be described as high fantasy Mad Max.

Currently, my party has been captured by one of the planar warlords (There are eight major ones in total, of which I am considered one) and is being forced to run a gauntlet of trials and deathtraps for the amusement of the the warlord and his upper level minions.

All the other warlords hate me, which kind of sucks, however they haven't killed me yet. (Not from lack of trying I assure you.)

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by EVILNess

they haven't killed me yet

TheyA completely different group of adventurers (whom you later broke mentally and spiritually) who have no connection to these generals that I know of totally did you liar* (I just can't prove it anymore because the links to your old posts are gone: the perfect crime!)! Nonetheless... fascinating.

ALRIGHTY! Now to the ultimate disco-ball hoop-jump threadjack! By which I mean I'm transferring a discussion from another thread into this one. Specifically an argument about DnD. Sure, this is threadjacking as well, but it's more topical as there is no coherent singular discussion running through this board, so I figure it's less so. Also this is more specifically DnD, while the other wasn't.

The short form of the argument is: there are (roughly) five of us each of which, I've now noted, are making different arguments while dancing around the real (or rather 'original') issue. I submit my own fault so far - just as much as others, I am guilty of attacking minor points, or bringing up extraneous elements in order to 'support' my primary arguments, while creating an escalating effect of making multiple arguments from a singular one.

The participants, and their arguments, as I understand them:
~ Odjin's Arguments: Hold Portal is stupid; mages are the bomb and will always win (I admit, I could be wrong on this, I'm just interpreting)
~SmartyMcBarrelPants' Arguments: Hold Portal is totally a valid spell, because I saved the world with it once; mages are wusses (even though it seems he played one in order to cast hold portal).
~ krylo's Argument(s): Hold Portal is a sucky way to end an epic battle; mages are much more powerful than Smarty gives them credit for; psionics are stupid; more or less trading rules minutae with me.
~ My Argument(s): Hold Portal is a viable spell; don't judge Smarty's GM, as we don't know the full situation; mages can be shut down in a myriad of ways; numerous other nearly off-topic minor arguments; more or less trading rules minutae with krylo.
~ BitVyper: Mordenkainen's Disjunction is an epic spell; any GM that lets me play by RAW (this means "Rules As Written") is either stupid or playing a high-powered campaign
This sound right to everyone? Let me know if I misinterpreted anything. So, then, I now cut to the heart of the matter, by quoting BitVyper:

Originally Posted by BitVyper

Also if you cast hold portal to stop Xykon, he'd just rip the door off its hinges. We've already seen him smack V around with a section of stone wall.

A vanilla wizard whose magic has been disabled and who is alone may be screwed, but a lich? Liches have abilities that can't be countered by antimagic fields. They also have DR that you ain't bypassing once you walk into said field and your godslaying sword loses all its power and starts doing 1d8+5.

...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand here we have the heart of the problem. Comparing (as I myself have) the Wizard In Question (the one Smarty defeated by a judicious use of Hold Portal who seemingly had the power to destroy reality) with a particular build and/or template. So, here's my suggestion. SmartyMcBarrelPants: I'm calling you out! Here, on this thread, I'm daring you to get topical! Tell us your zany story so we can have the facts behind it and judge you like the all-wise and highly and malevolently judgemental quasi-deities (after a very round-about fashion) we are! The ultimate point of this? To see and determine for ourselves if his use of Hold Portal - in a given circumstance - was valid or not.

As to the rest: SWAP TAGS (so most of you don't have to read it)!

Odjin's isn't very long (comparitively), but I'm just as pompous as ever!Odjin: I'd recommend you read my long-winded entirely pompous and arrogant overly-full-of-myself series of rants to krylo, 'cause really, I don't want to write most of that stuff again. Short version: there's a million ways a mage has to overcome Hold Portal; there's a million reasons why a particular mage (even the reality-destroying kind) can't; until Smarty responds, we can't say for sure whether it's a valid circumstance, and even then there are play-styles to be considered.

Talking with BitVyper! Away!

Originally Posted by BitVyper

Isn't the kind of disjunction being discussed already an epic spell?

No, although it's a very high level. It's a "ninth level" spell which, in 3.X rules is as high as you can get without being epic, generally requiring a caster level of seventeen or higher in a given class to acquire. The epic disjunction you're talking about (in the Epic Level Handbook) requires a) you have the Epic Spellcaster feat and b) you have a number of "Spell Seeds" each of which require time and research. It gets complicated from there.

Originally Posted by BitVyper

If you become a god by twelfth level, your GM either isn't being pushy enough, or he's just running a very high power campaign (which there's nothing wrong with).

Oh, I'd usually agree. My point in mentioning this ability at all, however, is the myriad of "a wizard with the power to destroy reality should be unbeatable (by hold portal)" arguments. RAW (Rules As Written) only take you so far. Adjucation is a GM's job and sometimes GMs prefer to go one way or another. If we go strictly RAW, however, I'm a deity (or in a few cases, "deity" in all but the most limited and direct of game terms) by twelth. It all hinges on the highly broken power of sixth level spells, you see.

And now, krylo! WARNING: It's a MONSTER. Click only if you like to read and/or are krylo. He's rather smart, so I get to use lots of words at him.

Originally Posted by Krylo

Range is close, so not so much.

Granted. You'd have to be a really high level to do what I was suggesting. Alternatively, you could just have a Greater Rod of Metamagic (Enlarge), but for the most part, yeah, you're right.

Originally Posted by Krylo

Doesn't. Just kind of annoying that because of this Smarty has the idea that mages are 'pussies' and pointless antagonists.

I didn't get "pointless" from his posts, but I can see it from your perspective too: he was flippant about the power of mages, which could make them seem "pointless".

Originally Posted by tacticslion

(emphasis added)

Originally Posted by Krylo

Emphasis mine.

To clarify, mine wasn't supposed to be mocking, but pointing what you may have missed, highlighting the most relevant (to my thinking) section of the quote. I understand yours was meant to use my own argument against me, however you seem to be presuming that just because a second level spell won, in the end, it can't have been an "epic showdown/battle". Whether that specific instance was or was not, we should (hopefully) know before too long, as Smarty has now been called out.

Originally Posted by Krylo

Nope, but if you're GM I'd like it if fighting the campaign's big bad didn't amount to casting hold portal on a door.

Now this is the real thing I disagree with - it can be very epic. Here are two (off the top of my head) examples:
~ The only thing holding back apocalyptic death is a simple Hold Portal spell, and you and your allies are trying to find a way to escape/eliminate the potential end-of-the-world/etc as the timer ticks on its way to doom unleashed. Or...
~ You've barely survived the onslaught of a give uber mage; you've used almost all of your resources and most of your hit points; he's got far, far too many personal contengencies and remaining hit points to attack him directly; you are forced to call retreat, but you have one, last trick up your collective sleeve - Hold Portal.
Nonetheless, that is a specific example. Our disagreement seems to be more general, based off of what you said here:

Originally Posted by Krylo

A GM has access to the character sheets, they shouldn't have to do it arbitrarily. They shouldn't even have to use OOC knowledge unless this is the first time the mage has ever met the party.

They should be able to make the mage capable of bypassing any player abilities that would result in turning what should be an 'epic battle' into "I cast disjunction, lawl I win."

The latter isn't fun.

I wasn't saying it was. My point in bringing up Disjunction was: there are a million things a mage could do or have up his sleeve to counter Hold Portal in specific and low-level magic in general. There are also a million reasons why a given mage could be shut down before. Any arguments that "a good mage would have done this" are invalid until we know the full situation. We've all been guilty of jumping to conclusions, so that's why I've called Smarty out.

Now, I see your point (in fact, our points partially overlap here), but I think in this case you're missing the possibilities, by only seeing the basics of the Hold Portal spell. "Epic" events don't always need "Epic Magic". We've been using the word "epic" a great deal, however I don't think we're using it in quite the same way. My view of "epic" goes significantly beyond the rule-book definition. "Epic", connotatively to me, can happen at any point in the game play experience - as first level characters or sixteenth or fifty-third, it doesn't matter. What is required varies by the specific circumstance, but a moment when a rush of "that was cool" happens amongst a group, to me that's what an "Epic Moment" is about. And, in various circumstances, winning by the skin of your teeth with your lowest spells against an obviously more powerful-than-you foe can quite easily be "epic". Even sometimes winning "easily" can be "epic" to a group - I've run a game where some of my players worked really hard to set things up so that when the time came, it wasn't so much a battle as a highly one-sided slaughter... and it was pretty cool as the Baddies slowly realized they had been outmaneuvered and overwhelmed by the characters, despite the fact that those characters could never match them in a straight-up fight. Regardless of your own feelings on the matter, obviously this works for Smarty's group - and Smarty as a player - as he's remembered it as "that moment when I did this cool thing". Thus the reason I've jumped to his defense - in general terms his possition is unassailable, although in specific terms it is possible his GM might have been really bad at it - we simply don't know yet.

Originally Posted by Krylo

To be fair I never said that (though Krogo kinda did). I just said they were dumb.

Which was mostly hyperbolic/joking, but I do kind of feel like having psionics in a game with magic and clerics receiving power from the gods is just kind of silly, as I'm not sure there's any psionic powers that couldn't be easily folded into mage classes or cleric classes without having to add a whole new source of power.

But then that's why I don't particularly like D&D in the first place. It's a convoluted mess.

As for psionics: I'll get to its utility in a magical world later (especially 3.5 where it really takes off on its own... until Complete Psionic when they decide "psionics should be more like magic" again), but you've got a valid point - if it doesn't fit with your view of a 'fantasy' trope, it is by no means necesary. As for DnD being convoluted: it's true; I still like it though.

And now, on topic with BitVyper

Originally Posted by BitVyper

Everyone's kids had birthday parties this week, so we didn't game. I will most DEFINITELY update you when it happens though.

The funny thing is, I've only been with this group for two sessions, and besides that romance, I've already broken a siege by fueling some kind of techno-magic tank with my barbarian rage, and masterminded a shadow coup. The really funny thing is that I only joined their D&D game so I could get to know them for the Mutants and Masterminds game we're going to be playing, where I will be running a tokusatsu-style hero named Action Mask.

Nice.

Originally Posted by BitVyper

Yeah, that's pretty much what happened. We won a pair of the gems in a contest with a dragon. Not only did it drain all of that one's charges, but it left the wizard a bit loopy for a few days afterward.

Our games (with my other group) largely use the rules as guidelines. We venture outside them pretty much any time someone gets a cool idea. Of course, plenty of horrible horrible things happen to us as well. Like the time my "really cool idea" accidentally got us imprisoned and sequestered in a living vault for five hundred years and we emerged in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

So, pretty much how I run my 4th Ed games, then?

Originally Posted by krylo

They make them.

Wow. Just... wow. See? It's crazy!

[EVILNess]

Hey, I got better.

I got fail safes* you see.

*(Some of which I keep the bodies of minions who failed me)

[Krylo]

I agree with most everything you said, Tactics.

It's not that he saved reality with hold portal, but the later post of "Mages are pussies" with a list of things that supposedly stop them in their tracks, and his over all flippancy over mages beyond the one specific instance.

If it would have been:

Smarty: Hold portal stopped a reality destroying mage in my game
Odjn: That's stupid.
Smarty: Nah, it was pretty cool.

I wouldn't have entered the conversation.

Instead it was:

Smarty: I stopped a reality destroying mage with disjunction.
Odjn: That's stupid.
Smarty: Nah, mages are a weak class with multiple extremely simple counters.

Ergo, my entrance into the conversation that, no... they aren't. Also my assumption that his GM doesn't know how to build their spell lists at high levels, and that the hold portal thing wasn't a skin of your teeth escape, but rather a flippant end to the mage's plans because mages suck.

And on D100s--Depending on the surge list/D100 table, I'd rather use an actual D100 than two D10s.

The reason?

Prime numbers between 10 and 100. There are 21 of them11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97 meaning that by using two D10s you're actually only getting a D79.

That's just me being anal, though, and would only be something I actually cared about in a custom table where prime numbers are used for effects.

[Julford Hajime]

Originally Posted by Krylo

And on D100s--Depending on the surge list/D100 table, I'd rather use an actual D100 than two D10s.

The reason?

Prime numbers between 10 and 100. There are 21 of them11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97 meaning that by using two D10s you're actually only getting a D79.

That's just me being anal, though, and would only be something I actually cared about in a custom table where prime numbers are used for effects.

What?

...Like no really, what?

Using two d10s is the same as a d100. One of the die is the tens place, and the other die is the singles place. For example, if a green (tens) die rolls a five and a red (singles) die rolls a seven, you've rolled a fifty-seven. A roll of 0/0 is equivalent to 100 if the scale is 1-100 instead of 0-99.

I don't know where primes factor into this.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Julford Hajime

What?

...Like no really, what?

Using two d10s is the same as a d100. One of the die is the tens place, and the other die is the singles place. For example, if a green (tens) die rolls a five and a red (singles) die rolls a seven, you've rolled a fifty-seven. A roll of 0/0 is equivalent to 100 if the scale is 1-100 instead of 0-99.

I don't know where primes factor into this.

Ignore that, I'm not sure what I was thinking exactly.