Inkleth's page

Oh I really like that idea.

Ooh I wonder if you could make a thermite engine by putting a Remorhaz and a Rust Monster in the same chamber. Combination Remorhaz rust monster flesh golem constantly getting healed by an electrical feedback loop from the power it generates?

Nice, this is just the kinda BS I has hoping for.

yeah, perhaps. I was hoping to conjure up something a little more technologically improbable, like when players create a black hole by dropping a bag of holding into a portable hole. I suppose a highly unorthodox sounding elemental might fit the mad science theme, like a grease fire elemental, explosion elemental, uranium elemental, or a steam elemental.

So I've set up a long term side quest for my party in witch they assist a mostly insane artificer in making a sentient combat automaton for fun and profit. So far I've decided they need a Protean Deep Crystal Cluster for its brain, and a metric ass-load of Vibranium for its frame/skeleton as well as a few other lesser trinkets. But I have yet to think of something really cool for its heart / power core. I was wondering if you guys had any ludicrous ideas for a perpetual motion/ infinite energy machine using general D&d lore. So far the only one I've thought of involves putting a chunk of scrag vampire tissue into a decanter of endless water and hooking it up to a steam engine in direct sunlight, but something that bootstrapped seems more suited to the prototype(the party's fighter). Were not running pathfinder for our system, but general D&d lore flies in most circumstances. And this particular dilemma really made me think back to all the stupid ass ideas I would cook up with my pathfinder artificer when it came to solving problems. So, thoughts?

This is really good feedback, I honestly expected to get more backlash from the other stuff, but If the flail thing is an issue I should probably avoid it. As is they can already be used to disarm or trip, tho I like the use it to bypass at the risk of staggering you're self ... maybe some kind of martial feat. And thank you petty alchemy, those were my thoughts exactly, I feel martial characters shouldn't be feat taxed to death when other classes get their gimmicks for free. But to clarify, I consider the martial classes to be fighter, rouge, ranger, and warlord. I think cavalier counts too, and maybe the monk, tho with the ki pool they have a bit more of a spiritual vibe, and they get a lot of fun gimmicks as is, so maybe not. But I would not consider the barbarian a martial class, as their abilities are specifically referred to as a inner reserve of primal fury, and are more exceptionally gifted savages than actual trained warriors. Plus I like the PF barbarian as is, the rage power gimmicks they added look fun. and I like Jinx's idea about the armor check penalties, maybe I could let players reduce their ACP by their combined strength and Con modifiers?

That's an interesting point Leo Negri, That had never occurred to me. Perhaps there is such a thing as too much realism. It had occurred to me that it might cause flails to be a little OP, but part of it is circumstantial, if it bothers me I can just stop having the bad guys use shields, maybe substitute natural armor bonuses for some enemy types. tho if you guys think its a bad idea perhaps I should tred carefully, maybe a play test or trial period. I like the idea of giving other weapon types an edge, again a means of leveling things for martial characters. averaging hit dice seems fair, and I like the swift channel feat tax idea.

So maybe I'm just poking a bear with a stick here, but let me preface this by saying that I'm a long time DM and player who's primary focus has been 4th edition. Now I can see why 4e pissed a lot of people off, and how its cookie cutter class layout doesn't leave a lot of room for specialization or choice. I do however like how its balanced and how every class is fun to play. Its especially nice for introducing new people to the game since they don't have to worry about picking a "underpowered" or "wrong" class, and I find PF can suffer from over complicating things from time to time. However I like Pathfider's improvements from 3.5 and what I have played of it I enjoyed. It's open ended build process, its capstone abilities to encourage single classing, not to mention it's mathematical system really speeds up encounters whereas at my 4e table were lucky if we can squeeze in 2 much less 1 large one. That having been said I've been working on a set of house rules to try and reconcile the 2 systems and arrive at a sort of middle ground. A large part of this is making the martial classes less dull by giving them more options and less crappy in comparison to certain other classes by beefing them up a bit, because I hate the idea that "Full casters trump everyone." and just because someone decides to play a wizard, cleric or druid, that automatically makes them better than other people at the table. So here it is I guess, take note that I'm not asking peoples opinion on why somethings are the way they are, or if they should be changed, I simply want a more experienced opinion on problems that could arise due to these changes, like what kind of powergaming bullshit this could enable that will then bite me in the ass.

Rule #1 - Racial penalties to ability scores are banned. (this one seems self explanatory, it enables more freedom of choice, and I think just because someone wants to play lets say, a drow shouldn't mean that they can't also play a barbarian (hilarious by the way))
#2 - Maximum armor check penalties on medium armor is -3, heavy is -5 and shields (except tower shields) don't incur a penalty. (This just bothered me, whats the point of being a beefed up a bad-ass if you automatically get turned into an asthmatic wuss the second you don armor?)
#3 - Any spells that detect alignment or that have the word wish in the title are banned, along with alignment penalties. (This is something I'm pretty adamant about, because the wish spell just leads to trouble, and as far as I'm concerned the alignment system is more of a rough guideline and not law. I also don't care that this hamstrings the paladin, since "shoot hole in plot" should not be a class feature, and people are not simply black and white, good or evil. as far as I'm concerned they can have some bonus ranks in sense motive and that's it.)
#4 - Playing a divine character only obligates you to follow you're deity's code of ethics/morals to retain you're powers (again I feel this is self explanatory, you should be able to play and evil or chaotic paladin if you want)
#5 - Martial characters can make CMB checks without provoking aoo's (I realize there are feats that do this, but each maneuver has a separate feat, and I feel if you're job is "professional martial combatant" you should be able to pull of these maneuvers without inuring massive penalties. this is part of my attempt to give martial characters more options early on, as well as an effort I'm attempting to trim some of the feat trees, since it seems stupid to me that in the 3or so levels it takes for you're "investment feats" to pay off in the form of one nifty gimmick, a dedicated caster got 10-7 nifty gimmicks in the form of spells. And don't mention how feats are always active and spells are finite because as soon as a 3rd level caster busts out hold person all that martial expertise goes out the window over a single failed save.)
#6 - Healing abilities like the Warlord's shout or the cleric's Chanel energy are reduced to a swift action. (This is another bit of 4e influence, as I tend to play a lot of leaders and rather enjoyed not having to spend my entire turn in combat healing my idiot allies, I thought about adding an addendum about only when its used to heal, since the cleric can weaponize their ability as well but I'm pretty sure the wizard can do the same thing with the quickened meta-magic feat so Idk. This might be a little OP, but really It just means I can throw tougher encounters at my group, and I particularly have had a bad experience with being a 3.5 rouge bleeding out on the floor while the cleric and barbarian fight the bugbear after responding to the DM's request to heal me with "screw that I wanna fight shit")
#7 - Take Max on you're hit dice. (this one I feel like alot of people do, I know the one group I played with did, and worst comes to worst, I can just do the same to the monsters :)
#8 - If you roll a natural 20 on an attack roll it is automatically a confirmed crit, however any threat range below 20 still has to be confirmed. (this one again 4e influenced, but I feel like if you flat out roll a 20 you should be rewarded, and I can't tell you how many legit crits I got robbed of because I rolled something lame like a 2 to confirm, but this I feel still leaves room for balanced play for people who like to go crit fishing with their keen weapon of choice.)
#9 - There is no such thing as a d2 or a d3, just use a damn d4 (I get you are supposed to use a coin or d6, but I just think its f+&!in stupid)
#10 - Flails ignore shield bonus's to AC (Part of this is me and my thing with flails, but also because that's what their designed for.)

That's all I got so far, I'd like to get peoples opinion on these, but mostly I'd like to know of anything game breaking they might enable.