see's page

This is victory.

Seriously, in theory they might, in ten years, try to kill the OGL 1.0a again. But what would be the point?

The 5th edition SRD is now irrevocably available under CC BY 4. This means killing the OGL 1.0a will not allow them to protect the brand from people making compatible-with-5e product or advertising it as compatible with D&D. (They politely ASK that people not make compatibility claims, but CC BY 4 doesn't let them enforce it).

Heck, now whatever is done under ORC can, if ORC is properly drafted, directly incorporate everything that's in the SRD5.

All killing the OGL 1.0a from now on would do is get them the same bad publicity they just got, with far less upside. And they backed down this time in less than a month of publicity.

Victory is ours.

Even if they walked back all the way and said they considered OGL 1.0a holy writ until the end of time, how could anyone trust their word on that after all they tried to do?

Their word, no.

A slight revision to the OGL (an OGL 1.0b) that adds legally-binding text that declares that authorization is irrevocable, the license offer is irrevocable, the rights granted are irrevocable, and the license can only be terminated for breach, followed by releasing the SRD (3rd), MSRD (d20 Modern), RSRD (3.5), and SRD5 (5th) under this slight revision?

Well, then I don't have to trust their word.

"Walking things back" is accordingly something that requires action.

I mean, I don't know what the experience of the rest of you was, but when I submitted stuff for publication to game companies back in the 1990s, both TSR (in a submission to Dragon Magazine) and Steve Jackson Games (a book proposal) required me to include a disclosure form that included rather similar "we can publish this without paying you" clauses. I think the stuff I actually got published later, submitted in open calls to White Wolf's Swords & Sorcery Studios, had a similar term governing submissions, but my memory is fuzzier.

That wasn't because TSR, Steve Jackson Games, or White Wolf was interested in stealing stuff that was sent to them; that was because they didn't want to have to deal with lawsuits over independent inventions of things they were already planning to publish, or might publish five years later, or whatever.

Indeed, the editor of Dragon, in issue #170 (June 1991), mentioned a case where

We once received module proposals from two authors (one in Texas and one in England) who each wanted to create a dungeon in an iceberg populated by people called "bergmen" -- in each case led by humans named Ingemar and Ingrid. One thought we had stolen his idea and given it to the other author (which we hadn't), and in frustration we dropped the whole project.

And, well, let's consider that in the RPG Superstar contests, the initial magic items were posted here on these boards, and "Users posting messages to the site automatically grant Paizo Inc the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, sublicense, copy and distribute such messages throughout the world in any media."

Which means Paizo secured a right to take whatever magic items of those it liked, compile them, and sell them in a book, without paying a dime to the creators . . . not because they were planning to do that, but to avoid being liable to a lawsuit on the chance that something Paizo later published resembled something posted to these boards.

So, from my perspective, as someone who had submitted stuff to game companies for publication (two decades ago, really? Man, I feel old), that clause in the "OGL 1.1" didn't look like a big deal on its own. What made it sketchy wasn't language similar to that I'd seen many times before, but that it was part of a license that indicated a general breaking of faith with the 23-year community of OGL users.

Also, I don't think I would want any merch for ORC that took such a hostile, destructive tone as "an orc killing a wizard".

As long as it's a gnomish wizard, I'm cool with it.

Note that the EFF statement got updated today, with a suggestion that the OGL 1.0a is NOT revocable.

There's not much new analysis needed; we've had the mystic theurge to kick around for ten years. The basic lesson of MT analysis is that caster level and high-level slots are persistently better than "versatile" low-level slots with lower caster level. Any MT build is automatically a worse spellcaster than a pure build of the better of its two caster classes. What keeps the MT out of the "never" bin is that full-progression spellcasting is good enough at high levels that you can still have a viable MT character built around a full-progression class.

So, MT-centered paladin, ranger, and inquisitor combinations with 3/4 BAB arcane classes are consistently, persistently inferior to the 3/4 BAB arcane classes alone, which have better spellcasting before you go into the better class features and equal or better BAB.

MT-centered paladin and ranger combinations with full arcane casters could be viable since they're built on the base of a full-progression caster, but they are completely crushed by deliberate Eldritch Knight/Arcane Archer types of builds. There just isn't enough paladin/ranger spell power to justify any significant degree of MT when you could take full-BAB levels that also level your arcane spellcasting. If you're replacing some pure wizard advancement with MT near the top end in a EK build, okay, but it's minor filler.

Any combinations of 3/4 BAB divine class and a full arcane caster winds up with lousy BAB and HP, because that's what arcane and MT classes bring to the table. They can be mighty casters, but they shouldn't use weapons against anything with a CR in the neighborhood of their level.

Full divine caster MT combinations with 3/4 BAB arcane classes can be viable, though they start behind the 3/4 BAB progression. Holy Vindicator can fill in to boost that BAB; that puts you further behind in cleric spellcasting, but cleric spellcasting is good enough the result might come ahead of a 6-level caster anyway. If you want a "fighter/mage/cleric", a magus/cleric/holy vindicator/mystic theurge can scratch that itch and not be a total write-off. But it'll be a pain to build.

*(Come on, the metric system is all based on multiples of 10.

Well, yes, if you use the parochial, human-centered base ten number system instead of the far more fundamental and basic binary system seen in, for example, nearly ever computer ever made.

If you use the binary system, the only measurement units that even approaches easy usability are US units, which at least has a sensible system of fluid volume. In binary, 1 gallon = 100 quarts = 1,000 pints = 10,000 cups = 100,000 gills = 10,000,000 ounces = 100,000,000 tablespoons = 10,000,000,000 drams.

Neither the bag of devouring nor animate dead would work. Given that even disintegration and wishes do not stop the Tarrasque from spontaneously reforming, lesser magics are unlikely to succeed.

So, how'd you come to the conclusion that a bag of devouring is a lesser magic? If you yank out any of true resurrection, miracle, or wish to try to bring back someone consumed by a bag of devouring, what happens? Oh, yeah, 50% chance of permanent failure. Looks like it's literally evenly matched with those spells to me, and certainly a lot mightier than a mere disintegrate (which would be overcome by any of them).

Feeding the Tarrasque to a bag of devouring would result in spontaneous reformation either next to or inside the bag. (resulting in a destroyed bag)

Actually, reformation, if possible, would happen inside the extradimensional creature for which the bag of devouring is a mere "feeding orifice". You're invited to guess at what chance the tarrasque would have there, but, since we don't have any information that's PF canon beyond that a wish only gives a 50% chance of bringing something back, it's hardly certain the tarrasque can manage it.

As far as the bag, you are right, that probably won't work. It needs an hour to digest.

That's what happens with ordinary matter. With creatures, a bag of devouring pulls them in as a free action, and then the creatures drawn within are consumed in 1 round.

I would suggest gnomes have the best chance of defeating the tarrasque, and only if we run out of them should other beings be tried.

I do not know what you are, but your "mouth" seems too small for the task,

Yep, it looks small. But there's nothing that says I have any limit on the size of creature I can swallow in one gulp. And you regenerate . . . where? You don't have any body left, not anything, not even the bit of stuff left after after a disintegrate. You're just gone. Even effects that don't need a body only have a 50% chance of allowing recovery from me.

To get rid of the tarrasque, FEED IT TO ME.

"Creatures drawn within are consumed in 1 round. The bag destroys the victim's body and prevents any form of raising or resurrection that requires part of the corpse. There is a 50% chance that a wish, miracle, or true resurrection spell can restore a devoured victim to life. Check once for each destroyed creature. If the check fails, the creature cannot be brought back to life by mortal magic."

Formians? As in originally from the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus?

No, as in originally just another inhabitant of the material plane (AD&D Monster Manual II, 1983), and then from Arcadia (Planes of Law boxed set, 1995). They were only moved to Mechanus in 3e (2000).

6 gnome adventurers walk into a bar....

And then what? Does it have a happy ending, or do the adventurers survive?

James Jacobs wrote:

like rust monster licks.

So hw many licks does it take to get to the middle of a Iron Golem?

The world may never know.

There will likely be people looking to dig up all those abilities to get as many attacks as possible right now

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting . . .

COME WITH ME IF YOU AM WANTING TO LIVE.

I suddenly have this overpowering urge to build a gnome pally. :p

You'll want to optimize. The ideal array for a 15-point buy gnome paladin is:

STR: 7 (5 after racial mod)
DEX: 8
CON: 7 (9 after racial mod)
INT: 18
WIS: 16
CHA: 8 (10 after racial mod)

Put your favored class bonus into a skill, and be sure to take lots and lots of Professions, because you want to be able to do anything. Your feat should be Skill Focus in one of the professions, so you're really good at it.

Now you're ready to go into the first-level dungeon to fight kobolds with your mighty, uncovered gnome paladin fists.

Letting a gnome live.

(Or at least it should.)

On the one hand, baby goblins are disgusting creatures.

On the other hand, maybe they'll eat the paladin.

I don't know. Is the paladin a gnome?

I feel that 4E was an honest attempt to address a few of the major concerns that many people have had with almost every Edition of D+D all the way up to 3.5, in particular the quadratic/linear disparity of spellcasters vs combat classes.

Which is why they put dragonborn and warlocks in core, adopted a core cosmology that looked like nothing else in D&D history, redefined archons from lawful good angels to chaotic evil elementals, made halflings taller, et cetera, et cetera? That was all to end class disparity and fix math?

Yeah, I've got to amend my previous explanation. There are three reasons as to why 3.x is still around:

1) The OGL made it easy for third parties to keep it alive.

2) The GSL and non-cooperation on the part of Wizbro gave third parties a financial reason to keep it alive.

3) The designers of 4E didn't even try to make a new edition of what you might call "Greyhawk-style" D&D; they decided to make their own vision of D&D, substituting their own story elements from the ones that had sustained D&D for 30 years. This left the market of people who liked "Greyhawk-style" D&D (as opposed to "a fantasy roleplaying game that I can find other players for") wide open for the first time ever.

Previously, there had been no way to reliably distinguish the "Greyhawk-style" market from the "likes fantasy roleplaying, plays D&D because it's easiest" market, because they both bought the same thing. A major problem Wizards ran into was that they didn't realize they were separate markets.

They could have hedged their bets by making a "Greyhawk-style" setting, but not realizing they were making a bet they should hedge, they instead blew up the Forgotten Realms.

They could have accidentally avoided making the market split also a system split by having worked with the 3PPs and using the OGL. There's a decent chance that Golarion would have been basically implemented under 4e rules in such a case, with lots of in-the-setting-book "classic flavor" rules. (In this second case, Wizards could have then noticed that split, and could have moved to recapture the market without changing editions by mating a "Greyhawk-style" Essentials release with a Greyhawk campaign setting release).

But, with all three elements in place, you get what happened.

How to make a Mystic Theurge:

Play a gnome. Take 8 levels of ranger. Add 4 levels of bard. At 20th level, you'll be casting as a 16th level ranger and 12th level bard!

Yes, yes, please boycott our lairs. That'll show us! In fact, set up picket lines to stop adventurers from entering them! At least for the next few weeks.

Also, I need . . . 17 crossbows. For my giant wa—um, Completely Peaceful Purposes machine.

You know, these claims it could regenerate after I ate it? They're giving me indigestion.

Two damage rolls is a disadvantage in the case that your target has energy resistance (quite common) but that's really missing the point.

Snowball deals the same or more damage than the Scorching Ray at level 4-6 AND has an excellent bonus effect on a failed save AND no SR AND it's a level lower AND it's a less resisted element.

If you have Intensified Spell it's strictly better for a few more levels on top of that.

And, again, it's a druid spell, which does not get fixed by just changing the school. "Oh, hey, we're going to give druids a better blast spell at first level than the benchmark 2nd-level wiz/sorc blast." Seriously?

eeding Big T (in bite-sized chunks) to a Bag of Devouring is a surprisingly viable solution, actually, if Big T can be cut into enough pieces rapidly enough

Nah, forget pieces. Big T is one creature. When he's helpless, stick his toe in me, and there's a 60% chance I suck him down, consume him in one round, and he's gone. If not, stick a different toe in me next round.

Yeah, it might seem silly that I can consume one creature without any statement about size, when I've got a limited capacity for objects. But, really, I'm that good with living prey. And I like my interpretations like I like my food - RAW!

SIMPLE QUESTION, SIMPLE ANSWER. CLERIC AM CLERIC. NOT SHOEHORNED: AM WEARING SANDALS.

Beat on it until it can't move, then feed it to me.

There is a reason they call it META-physics, after all.

Yes. Because Aristotle's book on the subject was traditionally placed immediately after his Physics in collections of his writings, thus getting the name, "after Physics". Just like afternoon is called that because it's after noon.

You want to play etymology games, first learn actual etymology.

Yeah, pearls of power give you another casting, beyond your normal limit. They were doing that in the game for 25 years before spontaneous spellcasters were added to the rules.

(The Black Pearl and Gold Pearl were magic items in the 1975 D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor that allowed casters an additional casting depending on class; spontaneous casters didn't come along until D&D 3rd Edition in 2000.)

Please don't assume how long I have been playing.

So, you're saying you were in either Dave Arneson or Gary Gygax's pre-publication games? Because, even if your entry to the game dated back to buying the very first copy of D&D off the press, and immediately sitting down and playing, you started playing after evil PCs, monster PCs, non-evil orcs, and vampire PCs were all already in the game.

Yes, they were discouraged in later books. So? That doesn't change that they were already there.

Well see this is a problem that results from changes in the game... over the years.

[ . . . ]

This why Evil alignments weren't allowed. Why Giants weren't PCs, why all orcs were evil and if you became a vampire you were an NPC.

Original D&D couldn't ban evil alignments, because it didn't have evil alignments. Same with B/X, BECMI, and Rules Cyclopedia. None of those had bans on chaotic characters in their three-alignment system, either. Holmes Basic had LE and CE alignments, and didn't ban PCs of those alignments - it specifically said, "Players may choose any alignment they want and need not reveal it to others." AD&D 1st Edition shipped with an evil-only class in the PHB, and not a word in either the PHB or DMG against evil PCs. The AD&D 2nd edition PHB in its alignment chapter explicitly says there is no prohibition on playing characters of evil alignment.

So, evil PCs being allowed isn't remotely new.

Now, on the subject of giant characters, let me quote the 1974 D&D's Men & Magic booklet, page 8:

Other Character Types: There is no reason that players cannot be allowed to play as virtually anything, provided they begin relatively weak and work up to the top, i.e., a player wishing to be a Dragon would have to begin as let us say, a "young" one and progress upwards in the usual manner, steps being predetermined by the campaign referee.

Yep, right there in the very first booklet for the very fist published version of the game, we've got a section saying it's fine to play "virtually anything", with a dragon as the example. Giants seem tame by comparison.

Just as obviously, orcs weren't all evil, because there was no evil alignment. But that's not all; they weren't even all of the "bad guy" chaotic alignment. Yep, over on page 9 of Men & Magic, orcs are established as being either chaotic or neutral.

And, finally, the cleric class was invented as a reaction to a PC vampire, Sir Fang, in Dave Arneson's game. That's right, PC vampires have been around longer than PC clerics.

You don't like evil PCs? You don't like "monster" PCs? You don't like non-evil orcs? You don't like PCs who are turned into vampires remaining PCs? Fine, you're fully entitled to your opinion. But they aren't a result of the game changing; they've all been in the game longer than you've been playing.

He's been called a wizard AND a rogue before, but one of those is wrong (unless he's multiclassed, which is possible). He could well be a wizard, but my research for Inner Sea Magic suggested that route was not correct and that we actually wanted him to be a rogue. We'll sort it out some day.

Pfft. It's obvious. Gyr is an arcane trickster.

Hmm.

The way to exploit the new rulings, I think, is to have a monk who uses one highly-enchanted temple sword with both hands.

This gives you an interesting hybrid of the two-weapon fighter and two-handed weapon fighter approaches. This monk makes the the same number of attacks as the two-weapon fighter, but is getting his full Str bonus on every blow (instead of half Str damage on half the attacks, because flurry means full Str on all blows), and a 3:1 Power Attack ratio on damage (because Flurry of Blows doesn't do anything to Power Attack's increased damage for using two hands on the weapon).

This monk doesn't even think about the AoMF; he's using an enchanted weapon to do damage like a standard two-handed-weapon fighter, not unarmed strikes.

I know of no official developer clarification.

My personal view is that since quinggong is quite specifically presented as an archetype, not merely a list about generally substitutable monk abilities, it should be construed as an archetype that modifies all of slow fall (4th), high jump (5th), wholeness of body (7th), diamond body (11th), abundant step (12th), diamond soul (13th), quivering palm (15th), timeless body (17th), tongue of the sun and moon (17th), empty body (19th), and perfect self (20th) by making them swappable, and thus is incompatible with any monk archetype that touches any of those features.

MSRPs over time:

AD&D 2E Dungeon Master's Guide (192 pages)
Price in 1989 dollars: $18.00
Price in 2003 dollars: $26.71
Price in 2012 dollars: $33.59

AD&D 2E Player's Handbook (256 pages)
Price in 1989 dollars: $20.00
Price in 2003 dollars: $29.68
Price in 2012 dollars: $37.32

D&D 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide (320 pages)
Price in 1989 dollars: $20.18
Price in 2003 dollars: $29.95
Price in 2012 dollars: $37.67

D&D 3.5 Player's Handbook (320 pages)
Price in 1989 dollars: $20.18
Price in 2003 dollars: $29.95
Price in 2012 dollars: $37.67

Paizo Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook (576 pages)
Price in 1989 dollars: $26.79
Price in 2003 dollars: $39.75
Price in 2012 dollars: $49.99

I seem to recall that back in 2000, Necromancer Games did an incorporate-by-reference for the OGL in one of their products (with the OGL itself on their web page with a URL ion the product? It's been a while, I'm not 100% certain on the details), and it was talked about, and the resulting consensus on the mailing list was that it was not actually an acceptable approach, and I don't recall anyone doing it since.

On the other hand, there's a moderately common case of multi-file downloads where the collection of files as a whole was treated as the work, and the complete OGL with full Section 15 was one separate file among the multiple files.

Cost? A sling has a cost of —.
Encumbrance? A sling has a weight of —.
Ammo? You can use scavenged rocks, for Ghu's sake.

Just mark it down on your character sheet right now. Seriously, right now. At absolute worst, you'll simply never use it. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you need a (backup) ranged weapon with a not-horrible range increment, it'll be there, having had no negative effects on you at any point.

This, really, is where the Ultimate Equipment class kits screwed up. There should have been a sling in every one of them (with maybe an exception for the wizard, since they alone are not proficient).

I'm sure all these non-rogue ways of dealing with traps work, but my mental picture of a Rogue is a guy with lockpicks jammed between his teeth muumbling "Red Rune or Blue Rune?"

RED RUNE, BLUE RUNE, CLERIC AM THE ONE WITH THE GOD.

CLERIC AM WISE, AM HAVING AWESOME PERCEPTION. CLERIC AM HAVING "FIND TRAPS". CLERIC AM HAVING "DISPEL MAGIC". LEAVE SNEAKY ROGUE IN TAVERN. ROGUE AM BEST HOME PICKING POCKETS, HIDING FROM GODS' WRATH. GO TO TEMPLE, GET PARTY SECOND CLERIC. GODS LIKE CLERIC, CLERIC AM WINNING.

I missed that too. Where is it listed as racial HD only? Huh.

Under "Creating a Skeleton" in the Bestiary:

Hit Dice: A skeleton drops any HD gained from class levels and changes racial HD to d8s. Creatures without racial HD are treated as if they have 1 racial HD. If the creature has more than 20 Hit Dice, it can't be made into a skeleton by the animate dead spell. A skeleton uses its Cha modifier (instead of its Con modifier) to determine bonus hit points."

Under "Creating a Zombie" in the Bestiary:

Hit Dice: Drop HD gained from class levels (minimum of 1) and change racial HD to d8s. Zombies gain a number of additional HD as noted on the following table.

Damn...born five years too late...but i am older then when the internet began to acutally be used by a lot of people...does that count?

Hmmmph. I have graph paper maps of dungeons that are older than you. Now get offa my lawn.

Ryan Dancey explained this a number of years back. The only creatures from the 3rd edition Monster Manual that were declared PI were monsters that Mr. Dancey, the Brand Manager at the time, thought:

1) WotC had good title to, and
2) WotC could actually make money from by licensing for non-game products (t-shirts, plushies, et cetera).

The only monsters that, in the opinion of Ryan Dancey in 2000, met both those criteria were "beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti". So they were reserved, while everything else in the 3rd edition Monster Manual was released.

Eventually, of course, WotC started putting out monster books without releasing anything into the SRD, and so it looked like the monsters they released were the special exception, rather than the reverse. But originally, the approach was release everything except for a handful.

Githyanki fighter/magic-users of 4th/4th level were specifically called "gish" back in the original Fiend Folio (page 43). The githzerai had their own fighter/magic-users of 3rd/3rd level called "zerths" (p.45).

Millions of wizards prancing around in their haramaki's, curiously all from eastern themed nations.

Thank god I don't have to allow everything :-D

You don't, but they're PFS legal . . . which the armored kilt at least has the grace to not be.

Eh. Wands of mage armor are cheap and, until you can afford to enchant the haramaki to +4 or so, at least as effective.

There are cases where the wand works better, yes. But compare bracers of armor, and the haramaki comes out ahead almost everywhere. The haramaki is cheaper for the AC than the bracers the whole way up. It uses a slot your wizard would otherwise have open (so if you want spellguard or arrowmaster's bracers, for example, nothing's in your way). It can accept flat gp amount special abilities (like the hostelling property to protect a familiar, witches take special note).

The bracers aren't strictly obsolete (they can give +7 or +8 to AC, they're cheaper as de facto ghost touch armor), but they sure approach it.

Wait, does the Armored Kilt reduce your movement speed to 20 ft? I've been playing that wrong all this time!

Combined, an armored kilt and light armor (like a haramaki) counts as medium armor. You're still -0 armor check and 0% ASF, but speed (at least arguably) drops to 20.

Yeah, you can't use any of that in PFS.

For pricing custom magic items, though, that's the implicit cost in the item prices as published. GMs always should use their judgment as to whether to allow a custom item at all, and then use it again on the pricing.

I note the Dispelling weapon power (+1 bonus equivalent, UE p.140) adds "an additional bonus equal to the weapon's enhancement bonus" to "a barbarian's spell sunder or sunder enchantment combat maneuver check".

You might not need the extra bonus, of course, but since it's easy to overlook that it benefits spell sunder, I thought I'd point it out.

The just-posted yesterday guide to AM BARBARIAN

The Dunning-Kruger is strong in this thread...

Yes, when someone comes in and based on second-hand restatements of incomplete information declares something "sounds like a train wreck", the Dunning–Kruger is strong with him, and he infects the thread where he posts with it.

Actually, I know that we're starting in a desert region and that we'll be up against undead. How long it will last I don't know, but if that sways opinion at all it's something to consider.

CLERIC.

CREATE WATER, BURN UNDEAD, BUFF ALLIES, HEAL SICK, STAND STRONG BETWEEN SHOOTY-GUYS AND FOES.

Also, the powers have manifestations that say "Hey something is up over here."

A display takes a mere DC (15 + power level) concentration check to suppress.

So, a ninth-level psion wants to use a 5th level power without any display. He accordingly totals up his +9 from level, +6 from ability score (starting 15 allocated, +2 racial bonus, +2 from level stat bumps, +4 from appropriate item = 23), and +4 from taking the Concentration feat, and rolls 1d20+19 versus a DC of 20. Hey, he succeeds on a 1 or higher, and can't roll lower than a 1.

So, yeah. Silent and still equivalent, every single time, at no cost in metamagic rods or casting time or spell power or feats — except one feat any caster benefits from anyway.