Our Friend in Darkness's page

which of the house rules above do you think are unreasonable?

1, 5 and 6) the way we have been interpreting it is that you have a new mundane form created on whichever plane you manifest.. magic from your equipment seems through the ether to the minifested form as a two way link (similar to the silver cord). essentially the magic of each item is shared by both real and projected form.

so if your projected sword breaks then it breaks in projected form, but its a copy so thats fine; in the real world the sword is fine and retains its magic as it is no longer sharing it with the astral one. you could get the sword back by returning to the astral then manifesting again (as copies are made of all the items etc)

if you get hit by a disjunction that destroys the magic of the sword though then that is a different matter; likewise if you use the magic in a wand then the material plane one is also expended.

as we have ruled that the body formed is mundane (similar to a major creation non-magic item) it isnt affected by antimagic.. well, it doesnt disappear. of course magic items it is carrying etc are still suppressed.

3 and 4) this seemed logical to all of us; we cannot imagine it being workable any other way

2) most contentious perhaps. we discussed whether mental effects should stay etc but decided it would be easier to state flat out that such things dont stay when you return to normal form.. this may still change though.

OK so we have had yet another rules question come up and are after some RAI feedback..

things we have already ruled in our game (where a character can cast AP at will as a SLA)

1) your body that forms is not affected by anti-magic fields (as if you were a called creature)

2) your body wakes up without any conditions that affected the projection (blindness/feeblemind etc)

3) when your projection ends any projecting items that you had when the projection was first cast disappear. ie, if you projected with a sword then gave that sword away; when your personal AP ends the sword vanishes.

4) non-projecting items you find (loot) do not vanish and instead drop to the floor where you were.

5) consumable items are consumed in both projection and real world. food spoils (beyond use); potions become inert; charges are expended from wands/staves; spell slots are used etc.

6) projecting equipment that is broken IS NOT broken in 'real-life' but a disjunction spell will ruin them.

this is our current issue.. Portable holes/bags. currently we have been ruling that "projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry" means that your bag of holding is copied. of course the bag is just a portal to an extradimensional space and that portal is copied. Therefore any items in that space are the real items (not projecting at all) and to get loot back you can put stuff in your bag of holding. Does this seam reasonable to people?

the reason for asking is this.. the party decided to project before travelling into the abyss. they have traveled deep deep into the realms where even gods cannot see and it turns out gods cannot planeshift into/out of either. Jubilex 'killed' 3 members of the party and another demon (ripper) killed another; we have also rescued a fair few other people. those who were killed have managed to make it back to us (somehow) but there are only two who are still APing (both have their own AP going). until now even though they cannot planeshift out the projection is working properly and real bodies wake up. So the plan for getting people out of the abyss is to climb in a portable hole carried by one of the still-projecting guys, and end the projection.

do people think this SHOULD work; as in; does that seem like a fair interpretation of the rules and a well thought out and reasonable way of exiting the deepest layers of the abyss?

Steady pace = more fun

I say go with the RAW unless it breaks the game. Not all feats have a perfect explanation for why the work the way they do. No doubt there are feats and abilities that you have that don't do things that you think they should do. For instance, you can be immune to cold damage and, nonetheless, take damage from cold weather.

Take the good with the bad for the sake of the speed of the game. Slowing the game down to make a new houserule every other encounter and then remembering the house rule from game to game and then explaining all of your house rules to new players just slows down the fun of the game.

not entirely sure which rule you are using from this. if you have immunity to cold damage you never take damage from cold unless there is some additional funk attached to it (like flamestrike has for fire/sacred damage)

further you never take any ill effects from something with the cold type (like the witches ice based hexes) or from cold weather (unless you are talking massive hail, in which case that is not cold damage but physical damage).

you wouldnt for example be fatigued for sleeping in cold weather where the DM rules that the party has been kept awake etc. if you just had cold resistance 5 then you would likely not be fatigued unless the cold was bad enough to do more than 5 points of damage as well.

also crane wing not being able to deflect incorporeal pretty much is RAW, no house rules needed.

If a magic attack can cause hit point damage I would say it can deflect the attack of an incorporeal monster.
A magic attack somehow connects with them to deal damage.

However I can see where you're coming from on this. Maybe half the damage (obviously a house rule type thing) and ghost touch would fully deflect...?

DM call me thinks despite the RAW intent!

not sure i agree (although not entirely RAW). A ghost touch ability would allow crane wing to fully deflect the incorporeal attack, it never passes through the body. i would have to rule that a magic weapon, whilst still able to partially effect an incorporeal creature, the creatures attack would only partially be blocked, and i would personally rule that if the energy draining touch attack were to hit you at all it would do full damage.

but thats my preference;

for clarity, i think that the ghost touch working on the incorporeal attack is not RAW but should be considered doable by anyone with any sense :p the crane wing not working at all otherwise IS RAW imo as it says 'defect any melee attack' which is overrules by the incorporeal type which says cannot be interacted with.. simples

By RAW you can deflect any melee attack, even melee touch attacks or natural attacks etc, that should not really be questioned as it is fine as it is.

incorporeal is a different matter.. incorporeal explicitly states that there can be no physical interaction, it is physically impossible (without ghostT or similar) to deflect it. As a GM i would rule as such, you try to deflect it, you fail.. nothing else really makes sense unless you have ghost touch (or are incorporeal yourself i guess).

that may be true, but just to confuse matters there is the following things scattered about.. this is from the Vavakia Demon block.

Smoking Wound (Su)

The wounds caused by a vavakia’s fangs result in tremendous and eerie wounds. Rather than blood, wisps of green smoke constantly weep from a vavakia’s bite wound—a grim manifestation of the demon’s effect on a mortal soul. Each time a vavakia bites a creature, it bestows two negative levels—the wounds continue to smoke as long as the victim suffers those negative levels. The smoking wounds cause the victim to become sickened because of the hideous sensation and rank smell of the vapors. An effect that removes this sickened condition only temporarily causes the wounds to stop smoking—they begin smoking again in 1d6 rounds and persist as long as the victim suffers from the associated negative levels. Nonliving creatures bitten by a vavakia are immune to its energy-draining bite and do not exhibit smoking wounds. The Fortitude save to remove these negative levels is DC 25. The save DC is Charisma-based.

this is an effect that 'bestows negative levels' which is then described as an energy draining effect..

i am a god, i am immune to energy drain amongst other things..

i wouldnt feel comfortable playing under a DM that doesnt rule that gods can overcome affects of objects with a spell of their own.. ie, if a god casts restoration, then it should remove the negative level regardless of the item wording.

firstly 'energy drain' doesnt have an initial save (the spell that is)

secondly 'cannot be overcome in any way' yeah that has been overrulled so many times.. gods (i am one) wish spell (can cast it at will with no components) etc etc.

my question is what exactly counts as 'energy drain' mechanically? i cannot actually find a definition anywhere.. as far as i am concerned 'bestows one negative level' is an energy drain effect as much as enervation is. enervation doesnt mention being an energy drain effect, wither does 'energy drain' the spell for that matter.

Hi Guys.

recently come across something; forgive me if it is already in the threads but i couldnt find an answer on a search.

energy drain bestows negative levels, that much is clear.. but are all negative level effects classed as energy drain? for example, if a (my) character is immune to energy drain then enervation/energy drain spells have no effect. but what about the negative level effect my (good) character would suffer from holding an unholy weapon?

not that my character would want to hold such a weapon out of choice, but i grabbed it off the demon that had someone we needed to talk to impaled on the other end of it..

there are other things out there i am sure that just say 'gains one negative level' etc.. do they all class as energy drain effects?

I am always a little confused by people that say that monks are crap. truth be told the monk is one of my favorite classes. played one recently. i rolled stats reasonably well, so i was already quite kickass statwise, albeit with a good belt. Kit i also managed to find/afford included monks robes (but with speed bonus instead of unarmed damage) glove of arrow snaring (bought after first fight) originally started with RoP +2 and bracers of armor +2 cloak of res +2. my skills were a strange mix. but with my speed being 80, and monks getting insane bonuses to jump, i could potentially make 100' jumps.

Feats wise i went through the three crane style feats, dodge, combat reflexes, bodyguard, in harms way, imp trip, ki throw, stand still. these were all possible by tenth level using human bonus feat and four monk feats. i also went for the quingong archetype, and swapped slowfall for being able to cast barkskin.

i decided that my monk was going to try to be a damage soaker, rearranging the battlefield using ki throw, and protecting allies. He doesnt do much damage, just d10+4, but is not that good at hitting as i always fight defensively (for the crane style feats to kick in). what he is good at is not being hit, and tripping people and moving them away from the softer targets.. and even the adamantine full plate fighter is a softer target in our party. when totaled my AC is 34 and on the up. this is before the cleric has buffed my stats (if he ever gets round to it) and the crane style feats essentially let me ignore one successful melee attack a round and get a free AOO against attacker (and the gloves help against ranged). generally i position myself adjacent to the big hitters and trip, or throw enemies over edges etc.

He saved peoples lives on a number of occasions, by pulling enemies off them, or taking damage that would floor an ally.. he worked quite well, and is fun to play. my standard tactic was to stun, trip till they are down, then hit them with remaining flurry.. or trip and throw them so the hitters are flanking them (and i am adjacent to all three).

if they decided they want to eat a caster or the (ranged) rogue i tended to position myself on the enemy opposite my ally and throw them away from ally so they cant 5' to hit them again. this means they had to try to hit me (and usually fail), tumble round me (again, doesnt happen much as CMB is so high), try to move round me or away and attack, if i hit them with the AOO they are staying still thanks to the feat, and have to attack/miss me. if they withdraw they get to do sod all else, and you can bet with my speed 80 i could get to them next round. if they did get round me and get their single attack against my ally, i get an AOO to boost ally's AC by +4 as an aid another (my traits gave me +4 on aids instead of +2, and any of my AOOs get a +1 on attack) if they still hit, then i took the damage for them.

So yeah.. 'walls' dont have to be boring, and monks can be a valuable first/2nd row fighter. of course, i will still get swallowed whole at some point..

Ok so it has got a bit complicated (or at least it is about to be) we are looking for clarification on questionmarked parts..

Say A casts magic jar, and possesses B. they have possession of Bs body. C comes along and casts magic jar, and possesses B as well. now we already figured that it is A that is making the will save here, since they are in Bs body, so thats fine. we also figure that A now gets stuck in Cs magic jar, C is in Bs body, B is in As magic jar, and A and Cs bodies are void. (side note, can C, when in his magic jar, detect Bs soul in As magic jar if present?)

C at this stage is really the only active soul as the others are essentially imprisoned.

if As casting of magic jar ends first then B pops out of As jar but has nowhere to go as its body is possessed by C, so dies? C is fine in the body of B. A is still trapped in Cs jar?

if Cs spell ends first then presumably A goes back into Bs body? rather than B the true owner, as they are still imprisoned in As Jar. but if C has taken his own magic jar and made sure it is out of range of As body, then ends the spell: C goes back to Cs body, A leaves Cs Jar and dies as out of range of his own body. His spell then ends so B leaves As Jar and goes back to it's own body as C has now left this.. or are all movements simultaneous and 'blocking'?

if C has put his Jar well away from the scene (as he doesnt know where As body actually is) but it turns out that A was incorporal, does A reform by Cs jar if not in range of Bs body? does this 'force' an end to As casting of Magic jar?

head -> explode

if you want good combinations for use of the greatsword, i suggest 'monkey grip' this will let you use the greatsword in one hand. along with two-weapon fighting, and then oversized two-weapon fighting.. you can become quite nasty esp if you go straight fighter..