D&D Part Deux - Smarty McBarrelpants' D&D extravaganza

[tacticslion]

(alt title was "Deus Ex Tactica")

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

Gosh, since I haven't had the chance to get my D&D on this week I am so tempted, you really have no idea.

I'll put it to you this way, if Smarty was like "Your character can be introduced about a month after things start, and then you can join the party as a late recruit," I'd be down, particularly since I have virtually nothing going on during evenings this summer.

Ahem,

Originally Posted by SmartyMcBarrelBritches

"Your character can be introduced about a month after things start, and then you can join the party as a late recruit,"

... and voila, you may continue on with no qualms whatsoever. Because I speak for Smarty, of course* (the trick here, being that you didn't specify WHICH Smarty needed to say that, so SmartyMcBarrelBritches - whom I made up just now - did, indeed, say that, primarily to get you to make a character).

Originally Posted by Mr.Bookworm

It's a feat from the Eberron book Secrets of Sarlona. Lets you treat one psionic classes levels as Monk levels for the purposes of determining AC, Flurry of Blows, and unarmed damage. Goes very well with Psychic Warrior. The other thing I was considering doing is a Monk/Soulknife/Atavist (Atavist advances unarmed damage and soul blade damage).

This really depends on what level we start at, though.

Of course, one of the books I don't have! I actually really like much of the stuff they introduced in Eberron, though it came late enough that I wasn't able to afford alot of it.
That sounds really, really cool. Better than Fist of Zuoken or Zerth Cenobite* (biggest waste of a cool premise for a prestige class, ever, in my opinion), even.

Also, just to keep up with everything...
-we are an exclusively arcane/psionic/SCIENCE party of 7-to-9 so far-
RUNNING TALLY OF PEOPLE INTERESTED SO FAR:
*Sifright (obviously): engineer who brings SCIENCE to the world (probably rogue, possibly altered artificer, or factotum)
*TDK: Spellthief (sneaky magical buddy!)
*Magic Marker: sorcerer (con-man!)
*DarkDrgon: bard ('cause they're awesome)
*Overcast: wilder, metamind prestige (tk to the FACE)
*Me: Red Light psion (telepath), thrallherd prestige (who wields spellfire to provide healing for group while still using our current resources {my character sheet!})
*Mr. Bookworm: joined team psionic with a monk/psychic warrior/"Tashalatora" (his ALT OTP: Monk/Soul Knife/Atavist)
*BitVyper: who knows or cares? He should be a time lord to make sure it works, regardless!* (I can actually make that build for you, but Smarty wouldn't like me any more* (it's an epic build))
*Solid Snake: sucks to be him, he can't (yet)(sorry, Snake, wish you were here; hey make a character anyway and perhaps you could pop in every once and a while!)

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Holy fuck, I missed a lot. Sorry about not being on to it, had a bit of a mental weekend. I'll go through all the stuff tongiht.
There is a lot of stuff in this thread to go over and I will but for now everyone is welcome and you can play anything you want.
The one restriction is that you got to be from the FRealms somehow. You can be a fire-elemental just visiting though. I'm not too concerned about seeing charater sheets but more concerned with what kind of character you're playing, what abouts you'd be doing when the campaign starts. If you want to write out history and stuff you are welcome and I'll tie it into the campaign (though we tend to do that once we've played characters a lot and got a feel for them) but is not necessary at all, just want to know what you're playing.
If you want to play evil characters I THROUGHLY encourage it, especially if like half of you are good and half of you are evil. It'll be hilarious.
We'll start at level 5, 4d6 best 3, standard gold.
We really need to work out a time, I'm on Europe time- at the moment GMT+1 and you guys have an American timed one so this is the Europe timed one.
My ideal times are like all day Sunday or Monday-Wed nights. Everyone else chuck your times in and somebody can work out the best time to run, though European dudes get preference.

If you need to hit me up my MSN is mr_apple_strudel@hotmail.com or if you only use Skype seen me a pm with your details. I tend to leave my computer on when I'm not there so if I don't respond it's not cause I hate you (probably).

Also I strongly encourages Newbs and things to join, hit me up if you need to learn how to play/build a character.

Edit: Also if anybody remembers the crazy non-mechanical artificer class for Sif that would be useful. I remember we used to have one (it wasn't the magical artificer which is in one of the FRealms book) it was totally science based. I possibly made it up myself however which means I'm remembering completely wrong.
Can always make it upa gain if necessary.

Probably look to get up and going in say a fortnight? Give evryone time to make up characters and me time to plan some things (ie make up horrible deathtraps)

[Mr.Bookworm]

Ah, alright. Sorry for bugging you then.

For times, Sunday afternoon is best for me.

EDIT: Also going to put Throwing on my Necklace of Natural Weapons.

[TDK]

I object to having to wait two weeks to start, but its whatevs.

Times which are good for me (Eastern Standard Time):
Saturdays and Sundays are good any time, so long as it is scheduled ahead of time. Monday and Wednesday night (6-8) I have a class, and other than that I have class during the day (until 3 or 4-ish). Tuesday, Thursday, Friday nights (and mon/wed after 8) I'm good to go up until like, midnight when I usually go to bed.

In my experience, sundays usually work best for online games. For obvious reasons. :P

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Now for quote response

Originally Posted by Magic_Marker

Send me a PM if you have a spot available. I'm interested in being a Sorcerer con-man.

None of you fuckers is getting a PM. There is a spot available. There is always a spot available.

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

SMB, I hereby petition you to consider the opposite possibility: stacking a world with a ton of good guys, then allowing evil-aligned players to run in and wreak havoc.
How is that not a better idea in every conceivable way, I ask you?

DO ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT. DO ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT. DO ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

Originally Posted by tacticslion

On that topic, what if it's not power gaming (per se), until, say, level six? And, you know, voluntarily eliminating the the Pun-Pun and Omnificer builds?

ALSO, also, I'm curious to know your thoughts and interpretations of certain rules. But we could WLM that kind of stuff.

Feel free to powergame but just know you will face challenges appropriate to your skill sets.

Originally Posted by tacticslion

As will Overcast and I, presuming I'm allowed a psion and/or erudite without the SmartyMcBanpants* hatin' on me!

*Smarty hasn't actually banned anything, but his suspicious warning what with the red folder, that I'm hesitant to plunge into without hearing from him first. I don't want to jeopardize the party just because I chose wrong.

Psions are pussies.
In our commoner campaign we met a psion. Beat his head in with a shovel. It was pretty good.

Originally Posted by tacticslion

As to your science-guy, a rogue's pretty good, but, if Smarty's amenable, I'd recommend a variant non-magical/non-psionic artificer. In the Pathfinder (effectively DnD 3.75) there is precedent for various 'magic' devices actually running off of SCIENCE. I remain unsure what the trade-offs would be - perhaps infusions cost valuable stuff (money drain) to use, I dunno - but with a focus on knowledge (architecture and engineering)* (aka knowledge [SCIENCE!!]) and craft (alchemy) instead of arcana and psionics. ALSO, you could have the skill Use Advanced Device which would be worthless for magical or psionic stuff, but be "aces", as Smarty would say, for SCIENCE devices, and maybe even weird alchemical ones.

As for tying yourself to the Forgotten Realms setting, the deities Gond or Oghma come to mind as nearly perfect for your girl/guy, though Denier (poor deluded soul that he is) would be pretty good too.

Yeah that kind of thing is amenable, I have an idea for artificer but I'll hit Sif on messenger cause I live in the 1990s.

Originally Posted by TDK

I did that once. Class called "Factotum", basically a Super Jack of All Trades, gets EVERY SKILL as a class skill and 8+int skill points. Its in Dungeonscape.

I killed EVERYTHING. Later I branched into Trapmaster or Battle Trapsmith or something...Oh, and I toted around a ballista with some random hireling named Mike to operate it for me. And three or so crossbows.

So many things died. So many.

It was like this."Walk ballista up to tower full of orcs, tie tripwire in front of Super-Caltrops (chipped some stone out of the floor and stuck broken-off spear heads in the holes) just in front of door
Fire ballista through door, killing two orcs and destroying door
Remaining orcs come rushing out. First one trips and dies on the spikes. Next one jumps over fallen ally, gets shot in the face with a crossbow bolt. Other orcs come running out, can't get all the way to me.
Next turn, pick up other crossbow, shoot another orc. Orcs come charging, one swings and misses. Rest are lined up behind him.
Next turn, ballista is reloaded.

"FIRE!"

Everything dies.

I heartily endorse skills. Take lots of skills. They are awesome.

Originally Posted by tacticslion

SpellfireSmarty, first I'd like to explain my choice of Spellfire wielder: to be frank, I'm being the cleric (healer). Spellfire is quite powerful, but really we don't have anyone doing anything remotely clerical, and I'm very unfond of egosists (their powers are boring). To that end, I took spell-fire which would, in a pinch, allow me to heal my comrades a bit. This would assist us all and I'm focusing more on my psionics than spellfire (I'm not planning on following the prestige classes unless we suddenly go epic). Further, I wouldn't be able to effectively heal on my own - my allies'd have to cast spells (or if you're using transparancy-rules, manifest powers) at me, let me absorb them, then rechannel them at my friends at the end of the day to really heal us up, so it wouldn't be too off-balance. What's more, though I can't heal much, most of us aren't tanks... at all... so that wouldn't be as much of an issue as normal. To cap the spell-fire thing off, when Red Light was alive originally, Mystra didn't exist, but the Chaotic Neutral goddess Mystryl (who did really crazy crap all the time - this was before she died, and got better as the Lawful Neutral Mystra who ALSO died and was replaced by the current Neutral Good Midnight who took Mystra's name and who pretends to be Lawful Neutral as well as Neutral Good for the sake of the former goddess' clerics) who often granted strange boons and tied anything related to the weave together in unconventional ways. I've also tied a great deal of template-stuff (which I haven't applied yet, pending your approval) to the spell-fire abilities, and wanted you to take a look at them.

Sounds ok so far

PrestigeLast but not least, along the power-gaming track, I'm asking what your reading of Thrallherd is. What kind of creatures can I call as my thralls and believers? Can I choose freely? What's the ultimate in-game effect? What is your reading based off of class level/character level/effective level/thrall called (I'm not planning on calling epic thralls to get that out of the way). The reason I'm asking (as should be obvious) is that I'm thinking of going the route of the thrallherd. That's why I posted my not-yet-taken 3rd level feat: it's the final prerequisite (other than 5th level manifester) for Thrallherd. With the Thrallherd, as written, it's very broken, but I want to understand your reading/understanding of the rules. Further, I don't want to jeopardize the entire party just because I do something rather broken - if there's a penalty, I want to be the only one to suffer (also, I don't actually want to suffer). Even more, although I'll do something broken, I'll voluntarily leave the uber-power running "in the background", so to speak, until it's time to use it for real (see next sentence for explanation). Finally, the build I have planned isn't actually useful by itself. I'll need my fellow psionic user, the wilder, to reach his full potential before I'm able to pull off the Ultimate Broken Effect Of Forever [sic]. Anyway, I'm not interested in harming the gaming experience of my fellow players, but enhancing it. If what I present doesn't do that in your opinion, let me know.

Which book is Thrallherd in again? It's been a while since I played so need to go reread all that stuff.

I AM A TEMPLATE

I'm all for templates, I'll have a peek over it tongiht and get back to you,

SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEE

I'm totally cool with dudes joining anytime.


So I think I covered all the major questions? but seriously, start posting times you'd be free cause no point busting out characters if you not going to be able to play. Also post what timezone you are in fuckers.

RE two weeks to start:
Like if everyone is super organised and I'm superorganised we could ldo it in 1 week but its unlikely

[Mr.Bookworm]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

Which book is Thrallherd in again? It's been a while since I played so need to go reread all that stuff.

It's in the SRD.

But yeah I am totally going to be a Warforged Monk and I'm going to put Throwing on my fists so I can ROCKET PUNCH people in the goddamn face.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

The "psionic" SRD. By which I mean psionics are weirrrrrrrrd

[Solid Snake]

All right. I'm totally joining as an Evil character opposing the party once I have spare time, and it will be awesome.

Note that I haven't even run this by SMB, it is just something I'm going to do.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

DRAMATIC TWIST: SNAKE IS THE BIG BAD ALL ALONG

[Sifright]

I'm curious whats to stop some one going all wand of detect evil and then going WELL YOU ARE OBJECTIVELY EVIL (Stab)

Mixed party alignments don't usually work unless the evil guy isn't actively opposing the party otherwise the single evil dude tends to get ripped a new one. :<