Rhavin's page

So this community was central to my becoming fascinated with EvE online over 4 years ago now.

I was wondering if any of you lot were still flying about or not? If you aren't, you should be.

I know that's not very convincing, but it's late, I'm tired, and I'll respond more in-depth if anyone is curious about the game.

Oh, before I forget, my character name is Tiberius Rhavinia.

I'm venting this online because I can't do it in real...

So.... after a long and sucky day I'm finally having a nice evening when it all goes to hell.

Long story short I ending up needing to give dating advice to a female friend. I happen to "like" said female friend though I keep that to myself and she doesn't seem to know. I happen to hate the guy she needed advice on. I happen to be a selfless enough person that I didn't bring my feelings into the advice I gave. I happen to be good enough friends with her that I gave her useful advice. The guy in question is so clingy that even though they aren't dating yet he interfears with my normal friendship with her.

Now I want to go beat something up...

Not that I can do anythign about it or influence the people who come onto these boards, but I need to know if I'm sugar-coating my memories when I think of the paizo boards pre 4-E announcement as a nicer and more polite environment.

I remember being stunned at the civility of the boards when I first started having come from the flaming troll-pool of the WoTC boards. Lately it's seemed to me that people are taking 4E and Pathfinder as excuses to be arrogant and rude for no reason other than that there are no real consequences. I remember being stunned at the literacy of the posters who treated these boards as what they are: a forum for the literate and civil discussion of a mutually enjoyed hobby.

So where are those glory days of yesteryear? Are they only in my memories or did they never actually exist?

Just to make my social and financial system worse I've been looking for a new MMORPG and came across Age of Conan. Before I dive in head first I want to know if anyone here plays it or has played it and if so what their analysis of the game is.

So... not really a constructive post at all, just a "get-it-out-there" rant. I have had Wildblue as my wireless ISP for four moneths now, how many days of those four months have we had full, active service? Maybe one month yet, like saps we've been payng for four months of service. After barely any internet useage whatsoever and little downloading with no uploading our internet useage was throttled siting "Violation of the fair access policy." Now, ten days after returning to normal we had a rainstorm last night' 14 hours later and the internet still is not running though the modem is blinking steadily indicating that it CAN access the satellite, it just doesn't want to or the satellite doesn't want to talk to it. Right now I sit at home using my dialup which, sadly, has turned out to be far mor ereliable and worthwhile service than the advertised "lighting fast speeds" of wireless. Mind, I didn't expect miracles and when it's going fine it does great... but it hasn't been going fine for three-quarters of the time we've had it.

/end rant

As the title asks:

Are special monk weapons really necessary? For the most part they seem based off of stereotypical weapons from asian martial arts films. Why can't my monk have been trained in the use of the longsword in his pseudo-european monestary or the spear as part of a remote sect of aztec militant priests?

I appreciate the monk class and what it represents but I see the focus on asian martial arts as needless, especially when it can limit diversity. So esentially what I ask is why? Why have special monk weapons at all? Monks from different backgrounds and cultures will have been trained with different weapons unless there is a mysterious monkish covenant to only use a specific set of weapons, not matter the geography, culture, or time-period of the monks in question.

This is less a thread asking for advice and more of a vent off steam rant. So, apologies for errors in grammar, spelling, etc...

So I feel burnt out from D&D and really most everything else to do with role-playing. I recently realized how little pleasure DnD gave me these days. The group I play with are all good friends but my play styles and theirs are completely different. More than half of them like a "pen & paper first person shooter" game whereas I require roleplaying to derive the maximum satisfaction... well, actuallyy, I require it to derive any satisfaction from the game. Otherwise I might as well be playing Halo or Ghost Recon both of which I enjoy playing more than DnD currently.
/end: first paragraph of ranting, inititate: sencond paragraph
Now it's all fine and good to say "talk to them about it" unfortunatly because we are all firnds outside of the game and their individual personalities they sweep problems under the rug and ignore them where they fester and rot. It's come to the point where, because I was the foudner of our group, they bend over backwarsds in attempts to satisfy my play style yet the end result is that none of us have fun. While I never asked for the attempts at satisfaction they seem to have come to see me as the "controlling whiner".
As such I recently informed them of my resignation from the group on the grounds that it was making me a nast irritable jack@ss amound other reasons. Now they all claim "oh yeah, we noticed those and we weren't having much fun either" to which my response is to ask why the hell they never mentioned it? Indeed the entire affair has cause intense strain in those friendships with all but one of the other members.
It was this member ("Rob", we'll call him) who proposed the splitting of the 10 person group into two separate 5 person groups based around different playing styles. Whielin my opinion Rob's idea is excellent it is possessed of two specific problems. The first of these is that the nominated leader of the other group feels that we picked who we wanted and dumped him with the rest, he personalizes the issue and seemingly refuses to see the commonality in role-playing styles among those chosen for the gorup that would include Rob and I. The second problem is my own despair for the game and my current lack of any enjoyment of it.
To whit, I feel stuck and haven't had anything that truly caught my attention or stirred my imagination in eons. I find myself simply sitting at my computer for hours doing jack squat.

This is something I've though about for awhile now and have seen pop up sporadically in discussions on these boards.

I am all for sneak attack being expanded to affect more creature types, however I have never been fond of the syndrome wherein a Rogue can accurately sneak attack his enemy an infinite number of times in a single round despite when should be the changing conditions of combat.

As such, I propose changing sneak attack to a standard action: it would not cut back on their helpfulness in combat, nor would it detract from the abilities advantage. The fact that it takes a standard action would reduce the rogue’s capability to out-damage the front line melee fighters and would cleanly represent the time taken for lining up such vital strikes.

Admittedly, the damage output by rogues would be significantly nerfed by this so a related fix to sneak attack damage might be in order; though I don't see it as necessary.

I've set up this thread in opposition to the "Don't change the rules" thread.

I personally believe that small changes to the rules are necessary for the survival and growth of pathfinder as a product. Many people are switching to 4th Edition out of the belief that 3.5 is too damaged to salvage, if pathfinder wishes to compete they need to be able to cater to this crowd in more than mere lipservice. I love 3.5 but have seen many, many flaws with it as I have played it; I am amoung those who belive these need fixed, just not in the radical, world altering way that 4E does it. Changes need to be small, so as to still be compatible, but they should still happen; otherwise Paizo will simply be publishing a campaign setting for a dying brand.

Yes, they have changed classes; this is a good thing, it allows for fixes to previously undesirable classes and downgrades to previously hyper-desirable classes. It also allows for the emphasis on taking a class all the way throuh to 20th level, something that I have never seen done in normal 3.5E play. The changing of feats is good, it allows for more interesting, yet not more time-consuming combats and as long as the basic idea behind the feats stay the same, compatability remains a nonissue. Finally come the grapple, trip, disarm, etc rules; these do not affect how feats worked in the past nor how abilities work in any sourcebook that I have seen. Yes, some abilities may rely on pinning an opponent, something that would be quite difficult under these rules but text can easily be adjusted. While not the cure for cancer, these things are good and not to be loathed, people fear change but this is not, in my opinion change, it is evolution. Rather than 4th editions destruction and reconstruction on the ruins of 3.5, Paizo inteads to add on to 3.5 while adding on to the substructure to enhance and support the construct as a whole.

As the title says.

I was reviewing the wizard options and took a nice long look at the universalist; after looking at it I though "whoah, why would anyone not play one?" (other than purely RP reasons)

It gets wish and limited wish free of charge. It gets essentially spontaneous metamagic with any metamagic feat they have and a free metamagic feat by 8th level. To add to this, their other spell-like abilities are not shabby either. Now, removing the wishes and changing them to something else would help, it might even be balanced against the others if the caster had to give up 2 school of magic daily to use the abilities.

As it stands however, they get +2 on all saves and +4 to overcome spell resistance, the equivalent of 18 feats (spell focus, all, both spell penentrations). Albeit at 20th level, but it still blows away things like the evokers overcome energy immunity (cast a different type of spell for same effect) or the necromancers conversion to undead (not nearly as wonderful now that they can be sneaked).

So, while I don't want to seem like a flamer, the uiversalist is sending my "munchkinmeter" off the charts.

With the changes in sneak attack to affecting undead and constructs it's versatility has increased exponentially. Now, hopefully the rogue won't be forced to sit in the corner crying as his friends battle such creatures. This does however create a problem, sneak attack was balanced by this limitation; now, it would not be unheard of to simply skip out on a front-line warrior in favor of numerous rogues as it has become nearly too effective.

I propose to lower sneak attacks either from 1d6 to 1d4 or cut the progression in half. Damage is maintained against nearly all creatures yet cannot overrun the front-line bruisers for power.

A more complex fix would be to split backstabbing (where the target is flat-footed) and normal sneak-attacking (flanking etc...) into different categories, for example a 20th lvl rogue could deal only 5d6 on a sneak attack whereas a backstab would deal the normal, full 10d6.

The title indirectly says it all:

I'm looking for advise on how to build a mad scientist wizard whose constructs and creations don't absorb the majority of his exp while remaining formidable in his own right. Artificer is out of the question, I won't touch the class.

Has it been done and if so to what success? IF not does anyone think it possible and if so how would you go about introducing balanced classes into a "racial classes" style of game?

anyone?

Well, I have never been very conformist and so, for my Senior Prom I am looking for an elegant and truly old-school suit. If anyone has seen "Enchanted" the ensemble that the lawyer wears to the ballroom scene would be nearly perfect.

As it stands I have been able to discover very little that is truly elegant or not some cheap Halloween costume. If anyone knows a distributor of such clothing please point me in that direction as I have been tearing my hair out trying to ascertain if such a thing even exists.

Please note that I am male.

My Dm enacted a rule for his campaign that all players must be using characters with either at least +1 LA or at least one level of a racial paragon class.

In the course of play I have come to realize that neither he nor the other players seem to understand that Racial Hit dice are not factored into LA and do in fact ECL. As such one character is playing a Lizardfolk monk 4 while treating it as if it were a 5th level character.

I have played my characters knowing and understanding ECL and LA the way they are in the RAW. I am now in the process of creating a new "back-up" character in case my current one dies and am faced with a conundrum: abuse the system in the hopes of making the group come to their senses, use the system to balance myself on par with the others, or remain as I have been playing it as the rules were written to be played.

I'm thinking of making a sniping character and was looking for a way to extend the range on my sneak attacks out beyond the 30ft limit to somewhere around 100ft+. I already know about the crossbow sniper feat but that only extends it out to 60ft. The sniper's shot spell from the spell compendium essentially makes the range infinite but I want this to be the skill of my character and not that from a magic item or spell.

Does anyone know additional feats or PrCs that further extend the sneak attack range?

Rather than continue a threadjack elsewhere I decided to post this here:

Who likes the proposed new covers and who dislikes the proposed new covers for the 4e core rulebooks? Also why do you have the opinion that you do?

My opinion is that they look like the covers to a cartoon or paperback novel, not like the covers of a "professional" manual. I think that one of the strengths of the 3 and 3.5e core books was that they didn't look like anything else on the shelves; people could look at them and automatically see that they weren't just hardcover DC comics. This is not to bash the art at all, I like it immensely but to quote Fake Healer, "it should be IN the books, not on the cover"; first impressions really do count.

I didn't want to put this in the "other rpg's" forum as that seemed somewhat insulting to them and could not figure out if there was a proper forum in the "arts and entertainment". So I pose the question here:

What, in your opinion, is the best MMORPG out there and why? I have been running on a 28.8 kbps modem for a decade and am only now getting dsl. Due to my internet connection, the only MMO I've been able to play is Runescape so I now want to "graduate" on to another game.

Here is what I have looked at (but not played) so far:
-Wow (reviews claim it is easy to learn but has a bad community)
-Lineage 2 (one review claimed it is essentially a bot-fest)
-LoTR (unknown)
-Guild Wars (unknown)

I am looking for a game based on how fun it is, endless grinding or endless combat bore me.

I have read on numerous posts and messageboards that the tiefling will be a core race. Does this strike anyone else as a bad idea? Th entire point of tieflings is that they have demonic or fiendish blood in their viens, while this can be played any way a character wants, how many parents will look at the book see "half-fiend" as a playable race and just outright refuse to allow the kid to play? I enjoy playing such brooding hero characters, yet to place a race so blatantly based around evil in the core book itself simply strikes me as a bad move, especially if they are dumping an already core race in favor of it.

I had already tried to post this, I do not know if it was eaten or if it will appear again out of the vast gloom of the internet, I am reposting it and apologize if it endup being a duplicate

So, I’m currently working on creating a new campaign world for the players. The world's details are unimportant all I am looking for is a critique of the campaign's "plot":

Roughly twenty years ago a hedge wizard was found attempting to create undead and was then beaten and hung by an angry mob of villagers. His sorceress wife, convinced of his innocence was driven mad by the death of her beloved husband. Using stealth, her murderous rage, and her husbands stock of magic items she soon killed every man, woman, and child within the village raising them as undead out of her twisted sense of irony.
Unsatisfied with slaughter and still vengeful she then turned her rage towards the destruction of the entire human race and the resurrection of her husband. Despite the capture and torture of many powerful clerics she has so-far failed in the resurrection of her husband (his soul is appalled at her actions and refuses) and now turns to an ancient artifact in an attempt to bring him back. This artifact is known simply as the soul-stone and has the ability to harness the power of sentient souls which are collected soon after the creature’s death and stored within the stone's magical matrix.

This is when the character's enter the story.

Fast-foreward into the future of the plot; characters discover plot, attempt to stop her, fail, entire city is destroyed and harvested (think full metal alchemist. She then uses the stones power to create a new body for her husband forged around and protected by the souls-tone before forcibly dragging her husband's soul back from beyond the grave. This forceful action twists his soul however and he returns as a malevolent mirror of her own thirst for revenge coupled with his long-standing grudge against other mages who looked down upon him when he was a hedge-wizard. The wife, seeing what her husband has become as a result of her actions is distraught, the shock gives her a moment of clarity in her madness, she confesses sincere repentance for her actions and kills herself. Now the characters must, piecing together bits of prophesy and old lore face an insane being of god-like power protected by the energy of, by now, a nation's worth of souls.

The stat out I have for him is thus:
Souls protect against all physical attacks, require successful turn undead and mordenkainens disjunction cast nearly simultaneously (readied action). Then he must be "poisoned" with the blood of his mortal form (cue, rogue sneak-attack to overcome massive dodge bonuses and dex bonuses to AC). After that he will finally be brought down to a power-level suitable to the characters and the death-blow must be using an old holy-weapon. The quests for all respective aspects of this will occur; I simply have not planned them out yet.

I made that overly-complicated layering of weaknesses on my BBEG for the reason that I want every class to feel necessary in his defeat with none excluded or given an "inferior" roll (I have a very balanced party of 4 players).

Anyway... what do you all think of the plot?
and please tell me I used the correct section of the forums.

So, I’m currently working on creating a new campaign world for the players. The world's details are unimportant all I am looking for is a critique of the campaign's "plot":

Roughly twenty years ago a hedge wizard was found attempting to create undead and was then beaten and hung by an angry mob of villagers. His sorceress wife, convinced of his innocence was driven mad by the death of her beloved husband. Using stealth, her murderous rage, and her husbands stock of magic items she soon killed every man, woman, and child within the village raising them as undead out of her twisted sense of irony.
Unsatisfied with slaughter and still vengeful she then turned her rage towards the destruction of the entire human race and the resurrection of her husband. Despite the capture and torture of many powerful clerics she has so-far failed in the resurrection of her husband (his soul is appalled at her actions and refuses) and now turns to an ancient artifact in an attempt to bring him back. This artifact is known simply as the soul-stone and has the ability to harness the power of sentient souls which are collected soon after the creature’s death and stored within the stone's magical matrix.

This is when the character's enter the story.

Fast-foreward into the future of the plot; characters discover plot, attempt to stop her, fail, entire city is destroyed and harvested (think full metal alchemist. She then uses the stones power to create a new body for her husband forged around and protected by the souls-tone before forcibly dragging her husband's soul back from beyond the grave. This forceful action twists his soul however and he returns as a malevolent mirror of her own thirst for revenge coupled with his long-standing grudge against other mages who looked down upon him when he was a hedge-wizard. The wife, seeing what her husband has become as a result of her actions is distraught, the shock gives her a moment of clarity in her madness, she confesses sincere repentance for her actions and kills herself. Now the characters must, piecing together bits of prophesy and old lore face an insane being of god-like power protected by the energy of, by now, a nation's worth of souls.

The stat out I have for him is thus:
Souls protect against all physical attacks, require successful turn undead and mordenkainens disjunction cast nearly simultaneously (readied action). Then he must be "poisoned" with the blood of his mortal form (cue, rogue sneak-attack to overcome massive dodge bonuses and dex bonuses to AC). After that he will finally be brought down to a power-level suitable to the characters and the death-blow must be using an old holy-weapon. The quests for all respective aspects of this will occur; I simply have not planned them out yet.

I made that overly-complicated layering of weaknesses on my BBEG for the reason that I want every class to feel necessary in his defeat with none excluded or given an "inferior" roll (I have a very balanced party of 4 players).

Anyway... what do you all think of the plot?
and please tell me I used the correct section of the forums.

So... bracers of armor +8 cost 64000 gold. according to the rules for creating magic items in the back of the book bracers that give BOTH continual shield and continual mage armor cost a mere 21000 gold for +8 AC and protection from magic missiles.

post responses if I misentermpreted the rules and similar magic item anomalies that you have noticed.

While perusing my unearthed arcana book I took onemore look at the ideas of vitality and wound points and my question is this: how do vitality points heal, at what rate and why does DR not affect wound points?

While I like the concept yet I find it somewhat confusing, have any of you ever used this system within your game and if so, how did it turn out?

Yes, thats right, the paladin prestige class.

Personally I dispise the Paladin, why does a holy warrior have to be a paladin? why is someone not a good enough holy warrior if he is not a paladin? why is the "holy warrior" class reserved for LG?

oh and heres my big question: Why is the blackguard a prestige class and the paladin isnt? The greatest holy warriors for evil must be uber strong (relativly speeking) before gaining the blackguard prestige class while paladins can begin at 1st level.

Solution: a good-variant blackguard named the "paldin" smite good, cure disease istead of neak attack, divine grace, lay on hands instead of poison use... etc

comments?

in a completly unrelated issue the monk class has been disintegrated and "monks" are now pacifist clerics this was due to nothing other than tat they didnt fit into my campaign.
if a character insists on the monk they better have good backstory

Greetings everyone, I have been a d&d player for around 5 years now, untill last month however I never had a gaming group. This has changed as i am now the dm to several "noobs" who have never played before and i am also a new player to a long established gaming group.

With this basic information I now lay down my Dilemma: The players for whom I dm are not into it as much as I am, its very much a hack n' slash campaign with the only npc they remember being a downright scoundrel who acts as the tieves guild's go-between. I am wondering how I can get them involved in the role-playing aspects as well rather than "lets go kill things and take the stuff".

I would also like to have advice on how to get them into the campaign itself, it's the forgotten realms but none of them own the sourcebook and I cant let them borrow it when i worry about its dissapearance.

Am I asking to much if i also ask for advise on how to ft in with a group thats been playing for years with each other and I have never played a live group before.