Doug Bragg 172's page

Edit: Uh... what happened to the post I was responding to? someone had written up a brief critique of the halfling in Alpha 3, complaining that the Charisma bonus and bard class preference were essentially duplicating the gnome.

--- my comments ---

Personally, I really liked the halflings in alpha 2. Halflings are your typical rogues, so Int was a logical choice (regardless of whether it was redundant). I can certainly see Wisdom being a good choice for the common sense/practical nature of them.

Charisma and Bard feel wrong to me... that's a gnome, and really that's what distinguishes a gnome from a halfling.

As for favored class... I liked the wizard. Primarily because I play halfling wizards a lot, I admit. But the race and class do work very well together. Halflings don't strike me as crusaders or entertainers generally, so I'd vote no to paladin and bard. I don't typically play a druid, so I really don't have much of a thought on that either way... although it does seem closer to the wild nature of halflings than a cleric. A ranger might also make sense for the same reason.

On Sunday my group was largely AWOL. So, the few that remained decided to try a core group of 4 v. a Colossal Red Dragon. The two players each made 2 characters using the DMG, Player's Handbook and the Alpha 2 rules. The Colossal Red was from the Monster Manual.

I made a halfling Rogue and a halfling Wizard... so, my comments at level 20.

The Wizard:

I went with a generalist... because the metamagic mastery was too good to pass up. I generally don't mess with metamagic feats because I hate to sacrifice spells for guessing I'll need a quickened something or a empowered something else. As it turned out, I did have a couple spell slots free to do that, but not many. Being able to cast Mage's Disjunction (which my GM wasn't sure about it's application... if it required a dispel check for each spell effect in the area as a targeted dispel (so CL 10 v. 11+CL to dispell the effect) or if the effect just ends. He ruled that it was like dispel magic, so I had to make the checks. As it was, I was able to dispel a few things including Fireshield... so then a quicken empower a cone of cold to take advantage of that worked out fairly well. Looking back on it, I should have used Polar Ray... but I forgot I had the spell until later (problem with level 20 1-shot characters).

The other abilities... I used Shield (had 10 uses of it, so that was a given) to get the AC up. As it was, with the bonded staff (staff of power with defending and +3 added to it for a +8 to my AC), I think the wizard's AC was higher than anyone else in the party.

I also used Fireball as a school power due to the low reflex save... to burn off mindfog that had surrounded the party... the low reflex save plus the resistance 30 we had for fire guaranteed no one took damage, but the mind fog was gone. (For those interested, the DC for the Fireball was 13... Charisma of 7, plus 2 from Mastery of all schools).

I was also able to use the crafting rules to great effect. This is the first Wizard I've played were I've taken a craft feat... and thus was able to buy most of my gear at half price.

Wish - I used Wish on both of my characters (thus the 7 charisma on the Wizard). I'm not sure that the -1 to one stat is a particularly good idea... it really is just telling the players to take their dump stat and drop it 1 to 2 points. (for both the wizard and the rogue, charisma was the choice).

Magical Items - Neither of my characters used every magical item slot. On the wizard I had 2 gloves of storing, a headband of Int/Wis +6, a Belt of Dex/Con +6, Bracers of Armor +8 (kinda' kills the evocer's special ability), a Cloak of Resistance... and the Robe of the archmagi (which was basically for the bonus against SR). No boots, no hat, no goggles or things on my eyes. I did have a couple rings, and an amulet of natural armor. My point of bringing this up is that I have 4 stat boosts that could have been placed on any number of items and left me with the exact same equipment choices.

The Wizard spent a lot of time dispelling the Dragon's magical effects. Looking back on it, I should have prepared more dispels. I needed a 5 to get over the SR... and couldn't do it more than twice the entire game.

The Rogue:

Biggest problem of going up against something colossal is getting around him to flank. The Rogue spent a lot of time moving into position to have the dragon teleport away (the wizard's attempt to lock the dragon wasn't of a big enough area to have any practical effect). When the Rogue was able to sneak attack, some questions came up.

With the crippling strike, is that -2 strength every sneak attack or just once?

With Bleed does that increase every sneak attack or just once? For example, if I was sneak attacking with a full round action, would that be bleed 10 for each hit (of potentially 6 hits) or only the first hit?

The Slow Reactions was a great addition. Between Slow reactions and Mobility, the Rogue never took an attack of opportunity.

The Opportunist ability worked out fairly well also... most of the time I would hide behind a rock, then run out and attack... the Barbarian would then move up to attack (and flank for me), giving me 2 chances to hit/sneak attack in 1 rnd, where otherwise it would only have been one attack.

I had gone with two weapon fighting... but only used the second attack once in the entire game. I was tempted to take one of the 2-wpn fighting feats from the Alpha rules... but I didn't want to lose the AC bonus from Dodge for the slight bonus to hit, so I passed.

The Dragon focused its attacks on the barbarian... and after about 7 rounds of combat, dropped the barbarian. The Wizard, Cleric and Rogue had taken some damage but not much. The problem was the Wizard was running out of spells over 4th level that could do anything and the Dragon had a globe of invulnerability up that survived the last dispel attempt (I used the staff to cast a second Mage's disjunction...but only dispelled 2 effects).

The dragon decided to cast Feeblemind on the cleric... whose Reflective Shield sent the Feeblemind back at the Dragon... who then made his spell resistance check, and then failed his will save. At which point, the dragon had an Int and Cha of 1... and the GM called the game.

I'm confused by he crafting magic weapons limitations on pg. 112.

The specific passage is as follows:

The creator’s caster level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus of the weapon. If an item has both an enhancement bonus and a special ability, the higher of the two caster level requirements must be met. A magic weapon must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus to have any melee or ranged special weapon abilities.

According to the SRD, a Magic Weapon with the equivalent of a +10 bonus costs 200,000 gp. This is well within the price range of a level 20 character with 760,000 gold. In fact, such a character might have 2 weapons with bonuses up to that amount.

However... who would be able to craft such a weapon?

According to the crafting rules the "creator's castor level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus of the weapon". So, a +10 equivalent enhancement requires a level 30 Wizard...?

But the next bit, "If an item has both an enhancement bonus and a special ability, the higher of the two caster level requirements must be met." Does this mean a +5 Bane of Dragons (+1) Wounding (+2) Icy Burst (+2) Shortsword requires someone who can craft the +5 or the combined +5 of the special abilities? Or does this require the Wizard level 30?

So a +3 Shortsword can be made by a caster of at least level 9. But a +1 Icy Burst Shortsword can be made by a caster of level 6?

Do I have this right? And, if so, what's the reason for this distinction? Are the special abilities not as good as the base enhancement?

Just a point of clarification here.

Both of these feats require proficiency with Medium Armor. The first requires a Caster Level of 3 and the second a caster level of 7.

So, it seems that the feats were intended for wizards and sorcerers (only classes I can think of with the arcane spell failure chance).

But... neither of those classes have armor proficiency to start. So, to take Arcane Armor Training as a Sorcerer or a Wizard, you need to take Armor Prof (light), and Armor Prof. (Medium). As a Human, you could take both of those feats and then do the Arcane Armor Training at 3rd level... but that seems like a steep requirement to start.

Was it supposed to have been a requirement for light armor prof.? Or perhaps light armor for the Armor Training, and then medium for Armor mastery?

I'm just not sure if I, as a caster, would spend my first level feats on armor that I would suffer a penalty for... for the next 2 levels.

None of the subforums deal with magic items... but it seemed closer to the GM Tools section, so I'm putting my thoughts here.

I don't care much for the way stat boosting items are handled. Having the headband of Intellect give a bonus to skill points is a nice change. But making it so you only get 1 mental boost and 1 physical boost seems unnecessarily restrictive.

I realize that the Magic Items Compendium is not Open Source... but I thought that book did a fairly decent job of handling the various stat boosting items. Instead of reducing the number you can have, they put in fairly simple rules to add those stats to whatever cool item you happened to pick up.

In fact, it appears a similar formula appears in the Craft Magic Items section of Alpha 2. So... why not just allow players to add their stat bonuses to magic items? If the DM populates the encounter with equipment that isn't stat boosting, the party can modify it as appropriate later on. It seems this would achieve the same goal, without stopping players from having their Gloves of Dex, belt of strength, cloak of charisma, and headband of intellect.

And a related question. The bonus from stat boosting items stops being "temporary" after 24 hours... what does that mean? Is it still an enhancement bonus? Is it permanent? How long do you need to be separated from your Headband of Int. to lose that permanent bonus? Mechanically, why was this distinction put into the rules?

I know I asked these questions in the Alpha 1 section, but I'd rather the issues not get lost in the confusion and excitement of the new release.

1) Cost for bonded items is 1/2 price - the text does not specify if this is half the cost to make or half the cost to buy (both being listed as "costs" in the magic item section).

Comment: I saw a post in the Alpha 1 section indicating that this means 1/2 the cost to make, so that is how I am treating it.

2) The Replacement Ritual - does this replace the bonded item in its entirety, or merely give you a new bonded item? The text also still specifies that it is 200g / wizard level to replace, while the benefit (cast any spell the wizard knows) does not appear to be limited to spells gained in wizard levels. Thus, a wizard 3/ Master Specialist 10 would only need to pay 600 gold to replace a bonded item.

3) Can a bonded object be a staff that is also a weapon and thus enhanced as both? (thinking about the Staff of Power here)

Comment: Considering the Staff of Power was redone for Alpha 2, I'm assuming the two can be combined in a bonded object as well.

4) Aside from having the ability to cast the required spells, are there any other limitations (such as caster level) that apply to enhancing a bonded object?

5) Can anyone else use the bonded item?

Comment: I'm assuming no.

6) What does the following mean:

A bonded object can be used once per day to cast any one

spell that the wizard knows,

Can the Wizard cast any spell out of his spell book (known spells) or can he only cast spells prepared for the day?

Comment: I'm using "spells known" to refer to spells in the wizard's spellbook.

I'm currently testing out the rules for a Wizard lvl 3 and a Wiz. 3/Master Specialist 6/Initiate of the 7 Veils 2, and thus answers to these questions would be most helpful to make sure that I'm using the bonded item correctly.

I'm confused about this passage:

Some abilities and spells (such as raise dead) bestow

permanent level drain on a creature. These are treated just
like negative levels but they do not allow a new save each
day to remove them. Level drain can be removed through
spells like restoration. These permanent negative levels
remain after a dead creature is restored to life.

So... if a character dies, is brought back through Raise Dead, they continue on with 1 negative level. Let's say a couple levels down the road, the Cleric learns Restoration. Can the Cleric cast Restoration on that character to remove the Negative Level? The above quote suggests that restoration can be used to do that; and suggests that the loss is permanent. Thus, my confusion.

I'm not sure if there's another thread that's dealt with this, so I'm starting this one...

For the last several weeks I've been playing a Universalist Wizard (lvl 1-3). I've made use of the Hand of the Apprentice ability fairly frequently... but during tonight's game I found that it was almost the exclusive attack available to me. I used the Hand of the Apprentice to slash at skeletons, gnomes, a giant, and a necromancer...

... and it didn't feel wizardy in the slightest. It really hit me in a fight against a golem. With my knowledge (arcana) skill I was able to determine that it had a weakness for fire or cold spells. The cleric, with his fire based touch attack was able to make use of this information. But the wizard... he used a longsword to hack at the golem like the fighter.

I like the idea of having an at-will ability that can deal damage for a wizard. I think that the ability should be more of a pure magic based ability rather than the swinging of a sword.

I'm not sure if anyone else has had a similar issue with the feel of this ability, but I wanted to comment.

I've read through this section... and I had a few questions... I didn't see anyone else discussing them, so hopefully what I have to say isn't redundant.

Basically... I love this idea... but I have some questions about how it is supposed to work. If there are answers out there already, if someone could point me to that section, that'd be great!

1) The replacement ritual... there are a number of prestige classes for Wizards, and some have pretty low entry requirements (I entered Master Specialist at level 4)... I think WotC realized that a straight up Wizard sucks. Anyway, the ritual to replace is 200 gp / Wizard level. Not character level. Thus, a Wizard 3/Master Specialist 10/Arch Mage 7 who lost his bonded staff would only spend 600 gold to replace it... yet could use that staff to cast 1 9th level spell/day. The cost to replace should be revised to add all arcane casting levels or all class levels granting increase casting progression or something to that effect.

2) The Replacement Ritual. Let's say you had a bonded dagger that was a +1, Defending, Spell Storing dagger... and you lost it. The Replacement Ritual, would this return you the exact dagger you lost (or an exact duplicate of it?) or does it merely give you a new dagger w/o enchantments that you are bonded to?

3) The enchantments - The "normal cost" is this the normal cost to make,or buy? If it is the normal cost to make, then do you also pay 1/2 of the exp cost?

4) Are there limits to the enchantments? Could one have a Quarterstaff at level 1, enchant it to be a +1 Defending Quarterstaff around level 3, and then around level 15, enchant it to be a +1 Defending Quarterstaff of Power? Could the Wizard also enchant it with the bonuses granted by a Ring of Evasion or Ion Stone?

5) The Bonded Object says that the Wizard is presumed to have whatever craft feats are necessary to create the bonded object... so I presume this means that the Wizard must still know the spells needed to craft the item? If the Wizard is a specialist, and a required spell is prohibited, can the Wizard have another Wizard assist in modifying the bonded object?