Ichigeki's page

The components (somatic and verbal) are not the spell.

When a Wizard prepares a spell, he locks in a complicated structure of patterns, formulae, attitudes and specific energies that sit in his mind. When he casts the spell, the components trigger the activation and release the spell's energies according to the structure of the spell.

For example, lets take true strike, this spell only has a verbal component. If a fighter attempts to learn true strike by repeating the verbal component, it will never work. Even if that Fighter has 18 intelligence and the Wizard teaches him the words, and how to pronounce and accent the words perfectly, it will never work, because the Fighter hasn't learned the spell, and there is nothing for the words to "activate".

Personally, I hate, loath and despise them all (Don't mod me bro, it's just my opinion).

The APG classes weren't so much power creep as they were a power leap imo. Not only that, but they are completely gratuitous. We really didn't need a summoner when there are already conjurers and sorcerers. They are all like that too. The witch is the worst offender here. Whenever I hear about parties of magi, summoners and alchemists I get a little more bitter.

To me, those classes just seem like a cynical ploy, like pay to win in F2P MMOs. Buy our book! Drive your party's Monk to drink and despair!

I hate modern game design in general.

Just wanted to get that off my chest.

Note: none of this usually applies to player characters, because they have a party to keep alive and worry about.

Some people like to complain about "Schrodinger's Wizard" and pretend it's some kind of fallacy. It's not. There is something called the "Magic Game". Some characters have the INT score, spell lists and spells known to pull it off (Typically Wizards). Most don't.

It involves: High level magic, divination, teleportation, abjurations to prevent opponents from locating you, the clone spell, multiple clones and a defensive mindset.

Basically, characters capable of playing the "Magic Game" always go first and attack when their target is most vulnerable, and when they are prepared to the best of their ability to attack whatever target they have chosen because their capabilities allow them to do that.

Whenever this kind of character perceives a danger to themselves, They immediately use their magic to remove themselves from the situation, and begin preparing to eliminate the threat and build up their defenses. Now sometimes danger gets the jump on them, and scores the first blow. If this blow doesn't kill them outright, their contingency spell activates and removes them to a safe location, and they begin preparing to eliminate the threat and build up their defenses.

In a worst case scenario, they are killed outright, and wake up in one of their clones, and they begin preparing to eliminate the threat and build up their defenses.

There are only two ways to defend against these tactics, GM fiat protecting the PCs, and being capable of the same tactics. This is why Wizard lords always rule the world in D&D settings that make sense (See Darksun, and Jack Vance's Dying Earth, on which D&D was largely based), and why Wizard lords have trouble eliminating each other. And why a Lich is a source of Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

Now I agree that the Fighter needs some changes, more class skills, skill points and perhaps just a little something extra.

Please only reply if you read the whole post.

That said, I notice that many complaints arise from people who don't like fiddly little +1s. This is what the fighter is all about. The fighter lives for +1 fiddly bits. Weapon training is the difference between being able to effectively power attack while you're using a tower shield or not.

See what I mean?

For example, say you have two combatants, Gronk and Bob. Gronk has an attack bonus of +20 +15, Bob wields a longsword and has an AC of 31 and 22 strength and likes to power attack, but he's not using his +1 heavy shield (he has greater shield focus), in favour of using his sword two-handed.

So Gronk has a 50% chance of hitting Bob with his first attack, and a 25% chance on the second.

If Bob equips his shield he sacrifices 6 (he's 8th level) points of damage per attack but gains "only" 5 points of AC. How ever Gronk's chance of hitting drops to 25%, and 5%.

Regardless of whether these tactics are sound or not, in my opinion this illustrates quite nicely how even fairly small numbers can add up to have a significant impact on combat.

+7 AC (a +5 heavy shield) doesn't sound like much at 20th level, does it? It seems insignificant until you realize that (as long as you haven't completely dumped your AC) it still represents a 5% reduction per point of AC to your enemy's chance to hit, or in this case a 35% reduction in hit percentage.

The fighter is the king of accuracy, because the system is miserly when it comes to hit chance. it makes you spend a feat just to get +1 with one weapon! But the Fighter gets an additional +5 over anyone else over the course of his career, that is not insignificant, it's a 25% boost in accuracy per attack, because each point represents an additional number on your die that will register a hit. This tends to be obscured by people forgetting about the third and fourth iterative at higher levels, forgetting about the mechanics of the D20 and not thinking in terms of percentages.

A relevant quote:

you know, he'd be a pretty good warrior if he had a better head for numbers

A mechanic I'm interested in sharing (and I have no idea if it would work), is one wherein any attack gained via BAB is tacked on to the first instead. Natural weapon routines and two weapon fighting would be an exception.

Example: A 6th level fighter with an 18 STR, weapon specialization and a +1 longsword wielded in one hand would attack once as astandard action for 2D8+14.

Wielded in two hands while power attacking, would attack once as a standard action for 2D8+30.

A 6th level Ranger with improved two weapon fighting, double slice, 18 STR, a +1 longsword and a +1 shortsword would attack twice as a full round action at a -2 penalty, once for 2D8+10, once for 2D6+10.

I don't really like what happens with power attack under this system, And I would probably nerf it with a heavier penalty than it currently gets. Anyway I submit this for review ;p. Is this mechanic worth refining and possibly implementing in games? Obviously this would be a power boost to "martial" characters, but a double edged one. Any observations? Would this entail unforeseen (by me) consequences?

I've been thinking about how martials fit into the game at high levels. In games which reach high levels the whole system changes. I've only played into the upper levels once, with a loremaster wizard, and boy was it different. Scry and fry, major teleport shenanigans, Contingency spells, two wizards and a cleric casting about 5-6 spells a round between them, clones and so on and so forth.

How does a 20th barbarian/fighter/ranger/etc, deal with the world of high level play? Essentially, according to the game, a party of martials should be able to take on a single 20th level wizard lich, But how could they? consider the following example:

Assume that somehow they find the lich in the first place, They enter the room and then, 1, the casts time stop, delayed blast fireball twice, timed to coincide with time stop ending, casts teleport, arrives, fireballs go off, casts every buff (repulsion, stoneskin, invisibility statue, etc) on himself, casts time stop again, greater teleports back to adventurers, casts summon monster 8 twice, time stop ends, opens with dominate person followed by quickened dominate person and then combat begins.

If they somehow manage to actually injure him, a contingency spell will likely whisk him off to safety, if they somehow manage to kill him, then they have 1d10 IIRC days before he's back and pissed. Since his phylactery is probably on another plane. Either way he can hunt them with magic at his leisure, taking out one at a time when they're least ready for it.

So my question is basically what does a 20th level fighter do in the face of this kind of opposition, from an in character point of view? Do 20th level fighters even exist? How would they see themselves from an in character perspective? How would they protect themselves from these sort of shenanigans?

I've seen so many Rogues get absolutely trashed by retaliating (insert big-hitting monster here) after they've made their standard TWF-ing sneak attack routine that it occurred to me that if they could survive those attacks they'd make great tanks. Could it be done? and would it be worth it?