Cudmaster's page

Not that wizards are really that much different. Sure, you can take their books away, but are you sure they've used up all the spells they had prepared?

True, there used to be rules about losing memorized spells when bashed unconscious, not sure if they still exist... so that's a solution (that could be applied to spontaneous casters as well with a somewhat enhanced number and frequency of blows). ...slapstick!

I think a case can be made that taking away a spellbook can make the captors feel safer, even if it doesn't actually make them safer in all cases; not everyone knows how stuff works/has knowledge(arcane).

On the frontier though, or when captured by orcs, ain't nobody gonna have time to be nice to a spellcaster.

A gm could fix the problem by requiring all casters to have some sort of thing they need to cast spells... which could be taken away and replaced with some difficulty, but not too much.

For a wizard that could just be "the book", for a psionicist it could be some crystal focus thing, clerics obviously their holy symbol... Nothing really fits for sorcerers though so just kill em. :)

I suppose if you are a bleeding heart GM it could just be a wand/staff/rod for all arcane casters, sorcerers included. :(

Belief in god(s) really does nothing to settle my inquisitiveness, if I given evidence of the existence of, for example, the Christian God, I'd immediately ask, "Who created him?" and/or "Why did he spontaneously pop into existence?" and even upon an answer to that, I'd keep asking for the next level. "It's Gods all the way up.", is no more satisfactory to my mind than, "It's turtles all the way down."

This is the source of my atheism in the real world, and so to me it is fairly straightforward to be an atheist in a world with powerful divine beings that provide miracles to their worshipers on a daily basis.

It is even possible to be one of those worshipers and an atheist.

Most of the time, the gods presented are not the creator(s), their powers are limited, they are not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent.

Most gods in fantasy settings don't even CLAIM to be any of those things, let alone all of them.

The gods are presented as beings just as lost and confused as mortals, and some gods are probably even more confused than particularly well informed mortals. (I actually feel sorry for them, to have all that power/knowledge and still be fundamentally in the dark, must be frustrating on a level outside mortal ken. Still, somehow they overcome their depression and go along doling out miracles and seeing that souls find their reward, so bully for them.)

It is also possible in most game worlds for mortals to acquire or be granted the same divinity... further undermining any concept of the gods being anything special or distinct. Gods are just powerful souls doing the jobs that they either appointed themselves to, were given by other gods or forced into by the world (fate?) itself.

Their immortality isn't even particularly special, since generally all creatures have souls that live on forever in the heavenly domains of their gods/alignments.

In some ways the gods are the only mortals, the lore of a thousand worlds is replete with tales of gods being killed, sometimes, they come back from it, but most times they don't. Mortals seem to always get an afterlife though, and I've never heard of someone killing a soul in heaven or ending the suffering of a soul in hell. (Though it is probably possible, and probably easier than permanently ending a deity, I don't know. I suspect it is just a situation where no one talks about it because... reasons.)

So, these beings called gods are certainly powerful enough that all mortals should respect/fear them, and depending on the specifics they may even be worthy of worship/idolization, but they should be seen as fundamentally peers (by anyone with enough arcane or religious knowledge), as there is nothing they have or do that a properly motivated (or unfortunate) mortal can't achieve (or bumble into).

You might ask, "why do archers need arrows?"

Ammo was removed from world of warcraft for much the same reasons as you might suggest spellbooks be removed from D&D.

Personally, I don't mind glossing over ammo in D&D, I figure as long as there are like 40 arrows on the character sheet, I'm just going to assume that they are being recovered/repaired/replaced at whatever rate is required (along with other mundane upkeep like rations). But if there is some huge battle that goes on for a hundred rounds, or a thief sneaks into camp and runs off with the arrows, I'm not going to not tell the archer... "you are boned". (and of course magic arrows are an entirely separate matter.)

Spellbooks are similar, I'd gloss over them most of the time, but when the group kills a NPC wizard, the book(s) are part of the loot, and can be sold or learned from. They could also be taken away from the PCs in the same sort of circumstances as a warriors weapons... to my mind that makes spontaneous casters/psionics overpowered, there is no way for a the town guard to put them in chains and take away their ability to fight.

So, the downside for them is, if they are arrested/captured, and the "authorities" suspect them of being a spontaneous caster, they get to die right away instead of getting stripped and locked up for a bit (before the next bad thing) with everyone else. (unless the authorities have an antimagic cell, but what government is going to pay for that when executions are so fun and affordable!)

Honestly taunt mechanics to me seem silly, but, giving a universal attack of opportunity opportunity to anyone (monsters, wizards, anyone) in melee reach of an opponent who attacks someone other than them makes total sense.

It then changes from "attack me or get hit" (silly, but not as silly as other taunt/marking mechanics that all remove all agency from the attacker) to a more sensible question of "would you rather turn your back on the plate monstrosity wielding a zweihander, or the frail old man with a stick?"

You could also allow these opportunities to be used for things other than attacks, as in, monster rushes up to wizard, gets to attack the wizard that round, fighter gets there, monster decides to not ignore fighter (implicitly ignoring wizard), wizard uses the opportunity to move 30 ft away without drawing an attack of opportunity for movement > 5ft step.

I mean if a single melee attack is a standard action, and you can trade a standard action for a move action, and a single melee attack is also an attack of opportunity action, an attack of opportunity action must be enough time for a move action, though maybe not any standard action, I can't see using an AoO to cast a spell, maybe others can though. If that seems too much movement, make the wizard in the example give up his next turn's move action as well. (this also has the cool effect of giving a wizard a reason to even have an attack of opportunity in the first place, possibly enough to make him consider a feat to get more.)

You could also encourage (as others suggested) the high AC players to look into flexible weapons/polearms for tripping, look into combat maneuvers for pinning, have the other low ac characters look at spells and abilities to get away or waylay the opponents (entangling roots, etc) and whatever other tactics are already in the rules to control the battlespace, rather than just some carte blanche zero thinking type taunting/marking rule. "Agro" works in MMOs because MMOs have other interesting non role play elements, like positioning and complex button rotations, for dps characters to focus on mastering... video games are a physical/visceral/visual thrill, rolling dice to hit isn't (for me). A threat mechanic in a tabletop rpg removes all the mental/thinking fun of small unit tactics and replaces it with an "I win" button that becomes boring, quickly.

For the monsters' parts though, the guy in the armour isn't their problem, the armour is their problem... as other have suggested, they should attack their problem directly, sunder, heat metal, and other similar nonsense, or use maneuvers/spells/whatever that ignore armor (if they defeat the guy in the armor they defeat the armor indirectly), or have them counter it with attack bonus buffs just as players might... after a round or two of missing, have the baddies step back and rub magic oil on their blade. Your high AC players will have the satisfaction of seeing their high AC tactics work against them by causing the npcs to burn a magic oil of phasing weapon or potion of dexterity or whatever that could have otherwise been part of the loot; even if the NPC still can't hit, the players still feel the sting of less loot.

Potentially the most humbling thing to do (that I haven't seen mentioned) is to have opponents use lassos or nets that target touch AC/CMD and bind them up, once they are helpless, coup de gras don't care about their ACs. (or you could just have them captured and/or stripped, if you have a problem with dead pcs.)

This might be a step too far though, as no one pours that much effort into defense stats and then doesn't fly into a full nerd rage when you kill them with a bit of deadly deadly yarn.

That doesn't mean every monster should have a net on them, that would be contrived, but having someone every so often after a round or two of missing, step back, pull out their default 50 ft rope (and bit of wax) that everyone caries in fantasy role play worlds and make a use rope check over the course of a full round action to make a lasso, should be fairly believable and possibly the new most frightening thing an NPC ever does.

If your players start surrendering to any NPC that might have a rope in their backpack, you'll know you've gone too far.

Or, assuming the armor is magical, attack the magic... dispel, anti magic zone, etc.

Obviously you gotta mix it up, sometimes they'll encounter something stupid that will just attack them and miss a lot, and other times they'll encounter something smart that has it's minions effectively remove the high armour guys from the fight by swarming them and missing a lot, but the point is, sometimes someone is going to do something smart and ruin their day by targeting their weakness and the other characters will have a chance to do something smashingly clever to save their bacon...

Nothing wrong with letting them enjoy being "invincible" now and again, and nothing wrong with opponents saying "this isn't working" and changing strategy, sometimes that new strategy will be "screw it kill that other guys first", but the point is, that isn't even close to the only option, and shouldn't really be a common one because the NPCs goal is (usually) to win, not just do as much damage as possible before losing to remaining player characters that they still can't hit.

All that said, there is no reason you can't house rule a 4e style marking mechanic into your 3.x games if that's what makes you and your players happy. I'd think you were dumb, but if I were you, I wouldn't care too much what random internet people thought of my good times.

What does Psionics mean to you?

I look at psionics in two ways.

Wild talents/X-men style mutants... otherwise ordinary characters, that possess some sort of gift that they hardly understand, but can learn to control, it should NOT start as overpowered or at all reliable, but should get better and more genuinely useful.

Aura Sight: Getting "vibes" from people -> mind reading
Telepathy: Hearing surface emotions -> 2 way communication / thought suggestion

Precognition: That little tingle that says "don't step there" -> visions of possible futures

Postcognition: Item Reading (this dagger was used by goblins in dark rituals) -> being able to solve puzzles/know the layout of dungeons by having visions of their creation

Psychoportation: Vanishing out of the dragon's breath and appearing a few feet away instinctively when you would otherwise have died and being somewhat "stunned" by this not knowing wtf just happened -> full on Nightcrawler bamping through walls, moving around combat to get flanking bonuses at a whim.

Body control: Ignoring pain/fatigue/not bleeding out -> Full on regeneration

Psychokinesis: Bull Rush people from a distance/fling small objects -> Knock down buildings, fling people into the air (falling damage) / fly

Pyrokinesis: Start cooking fires without tinder or flint -> turn people into living torches

Cryokinesis: Shatter glass & stone / chill your beer -> create ice bridges

etc...

A true psionicist, would be able to do many of these things, and eventually get to do things like psychic surgery, memory replacement, full on domination, tear holes in reality and call forth creatures from the far realm, disintegrate people by ripping apart their molecules, shapeshift, etc...

How can I get you to buy a psionics book and use it in your campaign?

Print one, and make it work like divine/arcane magic, the differences should largely be the "means" not the "ends" obviously there should be some differentiation as there is between arcane and divine magics, but you don't HAVE to reinvent the wheel for every "spell" and they should scale in similar ways. The difference should be in the "look" not the mechanic.

A cleric lays his/her hands on a wounded comrade, a prayer to calm his fellow and convince himself of his god's power, a flash of heavenly light and the wounds have knited perfectly...

A psychometabolist on the other hand first takes the pain of the wound into himself, then convinces the flesh of his fellow to heal itself, leaving a scar as would natural healing.

A wizard proclaims himself to the world around him, the trees bend close to listen, then recoil in horror, the ground shakes and splits as he calls forth a creature in an explosion of smoke fire.

Where as our Xenoportive adept simply focuses his mind and perhaps slices the air with his hand, rending reality in twain... in a great gout of protoplasm a monsterous many tenticled thing pulls itself free before the universe can repair the breach.

also item creation should work the same, a +1 magical weapon and a +1 psionic weapon should be a +1 weapon, detect magic/psionics should detect all the same stuff, anti-magic/psionic fields should do all the same things...

Power Points are FINE, in theory, but in practice but the flexibility tends to be VERY overpowered... The way I look at it is that "spell level" is a logarithmic scale, a the requirements of a level 1 "spell" isn't even significant to the power required to "cast" a level 2 "spell" and so on.

I could imagine a psion class that "casts" like sorcerers and one that needs to "meditate" on their abilities beforehand like a wizard, but they SHOULD get SOMETHING for their lack of spontaneity (like the wizard does, namely access to MORE "spells").

What is an absolute deal-breaker?

If similar divine/arcane magic can't counter / interact with psionic "magic" in a similar way, for "spell" disruption/countering/detection/etc.

If psions use different "skills" such as psychology instead of spellcraft, you will never convince me that the gandolfs of the world would FAIL completely to "grock" psionics. It should be at least as understandable to them as divine magic... they might slightly misinterpret ongoing effects if they don't KNOW they have a psionic source as being the arcane analogs, but they should UNDERSTAND the effects, and have a good idea how to deal with them.

Also, some powers in 2nd edition particularly were OVERPOWERED, for example in one Dark Sun campaign I once managed to link minds with a colossal lizard that was serving as a troop transport, to "roll over" crushing hundreds of soldiers. A scale of destruction that despite the fact that I had to "roll amazingly well" several times in a row, really should NOT have been in the ballpark of what a 2nd level wild talent could do. This was largely due to the way the "spells" were structured in 2nd ed, as not having a "level" so I doubt it would come up in 3.x

If wild talents don't "scale" perhaps you need to spend more "feats" to make them "scale" so as to not just be unbalanced "free" stuff that only some people could do... nor should they be wimpy garbage that was a complete waste of that 1st level feat when you are 20th level... something similar to how "spellscars" scale in 4.x Forgotten Realms would be where I'm going with this.