Sophismata's page

Inventing new terminology not covered by the rules purely to disallow an edge-case scenario is both confusing and bad practice.

Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

The entire conjuration subschool is a gaming table nightmare

Pits have been banned from all my campaigns - not explicitly, but as soon as one of my players puts that on his spell list, suddenly every spellcaster they encounter has a slightly tweaked spell selection that includes that spell. Fight fire with fire. The game grinds to a halt and the other players tell that player to stop using that crappy spell.

Isn't that really passive-aggressive and a bit dickish? "I won't ban this option, but if you pick it I will go out of my way to ruin your gaming experience as punishment!"

It's better to just ban it, so everyone's on the same page.

Anzyr wrote:

Zardnaar wrote:

Sophismata wrote:

Zardnaar wrote:

I more or less only allow the core rule book these days and maybe some limited stuff from Ultimate Combat/Magic. Doesn't bother me if a player throws a hissy fit because I will not allow stuff from the races or classes book.

Core is the most broken book.

True but it gets even more broken with certain things layered on top of it. Its not to hard jsut to say no to natural spell and metamagic rods or even wands of CLW.

If you think those are the only or even worst broken things in Core, I think I understand why you do not see the problem.

Well there are multiple other things such as Druids, certain spells and saving throws being screwy.

Remove all core classes from the game. Allow all the tier 3 classes introduced afterwards, instead.

Or take the DSP books, change "power points" to "mana" and re-fluff the powers.

Natural spell, metamagic rods and the like aren't the problem. The issue is a massive power and versatility gap between all the classes - a gap that is continually expanded upon with new books because of the fundamental problems with spells vs feats.

Yes, it seems to vary greatly from table to table. At our table, the Fighter is still far and away the most powerful PC, even unto 14th level.

Now yes, I played high level 3.5, and about 17th level, when the spellcasters get 9th level spells- they can certainly marginalize the martials then.

I regularly see the fighter marginalised from level 1. By level 12 you need to ask yourself what they're even doing in the party.

Quote:

Starting at 1st level, a monk can make a flurry of blows as a full-attack action.

When doing so, he may make one additional attack, taking a –2 penalty on all of his attack rolls, as if using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat. These attacks can be any combination of unarmed strikes and attacks with a monk special weapon (he does not need to use two weapons to utilize this ability).

What does this bolded line mean?

I think the rules assumption here is...

I believe the citing of the Two-Weapon Fighting feat also implies the use of the two-weapon fighting rules that the Two-Weapon Fighting feat modifies. While there is some rules ambiguity with the actual wording, fighting "as if using" the Two-Weapon Fighting feat does not make any sense without the implication that you are also using the two-weapon fighting rules themselves.

Provided you can accept that implication, it then follows that you cannot use the two-weapon fighting rules a second time in conjunction with flurry, as you are already treated as using them.

Akerlof wrote:

FAQ wrote:

Armor Spikes: Can I use two-weapon fighting to make an "off-hand" attack with my armor spikes in the same round I use a two-handed weapon?
No.
Likewise, you couldn't use an armored gauntlet to do so, as you are using both of your hands to wield your two-handed weapon, therefore your off-hand is unavailable to make any attacks.

Lame FAQ is lame. The whole point of armor spikes is to be able to do something exactly like that. Conceptually it makes sense, and it has even been mathematically proven that it's not even an efficient fighting style several times on these boards.

It's like the designers are limiting options just for the sake of limiting options--especially when it comes to martial characters.

Agreed, and the rules should be updated if an arbitrary decision like the above has to be made. FAQ's are for clarifying existing rules, not making up new ones. (Nothing in the TWF rules has anything to do with "hands". It's a blind ruling.)

Anyway, I'd still allow the cestus thing. I wouldn't play it, though, as I'm personally not a fan of characters that rely on specific equipment pieces.

While I do think Wild Warden is stronger than Shapeshifter mostly due to the ability to take your animal bonus to +4, I'm not as psyched about the hand size part. Personally I think that 6 hand size is about perfect, 7+ is just asking to lose a lot of life if something goes bad. This is especially true for a character like Lini who doesn't start with armor, so all she's probably got in an emergency is one of those loot Medallions to protect her hand from damage. I might change my mind on that later depending on how the rest of the adventures go but at least for now the only character I've taken above 6 hand size (or intend to) was Ezren because you basically have no choice with him.

When you can cast Cure, damage is meaningless. I will often reset 4+ cards at end of turn with no concerns, because they shuffle right back into my deck. 7 cards in hand increases your options, and allows rapid cycling to ensure you get the cards you need. You can guarantee any specific card in hand within two turns, and with proper deck management you are an effective contributor during that time, as well.

Armour remains one of the worst card types, and in Lini's case even the items that mitigate damage are pretty bad. Masterwork tools or items that remove themselves are better options (eg Holy Candle).