Why was a thread with some terrible opinions bumped :|
Also I've never even HEARD of delay death and yet it's supposed to be a giant game changer? Um yeah ok.
I don't really get the glee in killing off PCs left and right. Having a character dying doesn't make you scared, it makes you annoyed. Revivify or Delay Death gives you the feeling of "Oh crap, it's on now" without giving you the feeling of "Jesus now I need to spend HOW long making a new character / Awesome, guess I'll go play video games while the rest of you have fun since there's no resurrection nearby."
Also the idea that a Favored Soul would lose one of their oh so few spell slots to learn Delay Death is hilarious. Seriously nothing makes me laugh harder then people talking about "powergaming" when they know nothing about it. It reminds me of when 3e first came out and people were angsting that the monk was too powerful and that nobody would ever choose human again because "really it's not like a feat is worth anything."
Delay Death is game breaking in some ways, IF you misinterpret it. People thought that it meant that you could keep fighting as much as you want regardless of your HP for as long as the spell continued. Not actually how it worked. Still it was one spell in one book so you had to read the spell, misinterpret what it does and then bring it into use in the game for it to matter.
As for why the thread was resurrected, no clue.
As for why the thread was resurrected, no clue.
Someone cast a permanencied delay death on it, and its natural healing has finally brought it back to positive hp? >_> <_<
Also I've never even HEARD of delay death and yet it's supposed to be a giant game changer? Um yeah ok.
Agreed. It doesn't really do a whole lot. It keeps the character from actual death, but he would still be unconscious and unable to do anything. No big deal, and certainly no game breaker.
Revivify is much better, and that is still no game breaker. At least it never was in my games.
As for thread resurrections, I never understand why they happen :)
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Also the idea that a Favored Soul would lose one of their oh so few spell slots to learn Delay Death is hilarious. Seriously nothing makes me laugh harder then people talking about "powergaming" when they know nothing about it. It reminds me of when 3e first came out and people were angsting that the monk was too powerful and that nobody would ever choose human again because "really it's not like a feat is worth anything."
Funny story, I did the math and realized a Favored Soul could select the entire Healer's spell list by 20th. So you could be a Healer with medium BAB and all good saves that casts spontaneously while trading in your class features.
Healer was an awful class. Never saw any reason to be a Healer as opposed to any other full-casting divine class, even if all I'd ever want to do all day was to heal.
If the cleansing abilities actually scaled with level (so you could do them more than 1/day), then it might have been a decent class. Poor BAB would still hurt though.
Weapons of Legacy - Another cool concept that falls flat on its face.And that's really about it from the books I own. I'm sure there's a few third-party books that I have that I doubt have ever seen use, but I can't think of any at the moment.
Weapons of legacy tried to take the Thread weapon idea from Earthdawn and bring it into d20...the penalties far outweighed the bonuses making ALL of the weapons pretty worthless.
Weapons of legacy tried to take the Thread weapon idea from Earthdawn and bring it into d20...the penalties far outweighed the bonuses making ALL of the weapons pretty worthless.
The weapons and backstories are actually quite cool though.
You're right about the penalties. I'm not even sure the weapons would be unbalanced if the penalties were removed entirely.
It makes a great DMPC.
That's true. If you think of the class as an NPC class alongside Adept, it actually is pretty good :)
Weapons of Legacy read like something that was originally a small web supplement that was turned into a full book, but they didn't really have any material outside of the small web supplement.
Also, healers get a unicorn! Totally worth it!
Weapons of legacy tried to take the Thread weapon idea from Earthdawn and bring it into d20...the penalties far outweighed the bonuses making ALL of the weapons pretty worthless.
Weapons of Legacy - Another cool concept that falls flat on its face.And that's really about it from the books I own. I'm sure there's a few third-party books that I have that I doubt have ever seen use, but I can't think of any at the moment.
I'm actually diggin Weapons of Legacy, but only the last quarter of the book. The pre-made weapons are pretty garbage, but have some neat backstories. The real gem of this book are the tables in the back that allow you to build your own customized Weapons/Armor of Legacy. I've got pages and pages of WoL I've made up from those tables I'm saving for a rainy day.
As for what I consider crap though, it's gotta be Wheel of Time d20. This setting is horrid. We're playing the Prophecies of the Dragon adventure and I want to claw my own eyes out it's so boring.
The game itself uses these horribly under-powered classes instead of the ones from the PHB. Ok, fair enough, they're campaign specific. But, as the adventure goes on, at every critical story part where we, as the players, are supposed to be accomplishing something, a higher level npc(easily twice our group's average) just runs in and steals the show. This has happened at least 3 times and we're only 3rd level. I called the DM out on it, and he says its written in the book as part of the adventure.
So, we get to spend an entire campaign playing as glorified commoners, sitting on the sidelines watching a bunch of powerful npc's hoarding all the magic powers and items in the land, achieve things we'll never even get close to. I could watch a movie and get more involved than this garbage.
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Weapons of legacy tried to take the Thread weapon idea from Earthdawn and bring it into d20...the penalties far outweighed the bonuses making ALL of the weapons pretty worthless.
Agreed to a point. The implementation behind Weapons of Legacy was horrid, the concept was good. Once you remove the feat requirements and start tweaking here and there, it wound up being a pretty reasonable supplement. The rules for creating your own were fairly strong, and I built an entire campaign around "Items of Legacy" including armor, amulets, and other do-dads. It went over pretty well, but it did require a lot of customization.
For fear of being stoned to death, I'll flat out admit I absolutely hate Mongoose Games products.
Weapons of legacy tried to take the Thread weapon idea from Earthdawn and bring it into d20...the penalties far outweighed the bonuses making ALL of the weapons pretty worthless.Agreed to a point. The implementation behind Weapons of Legacy was horrid, the concept was good. Once you remove the feat requirements and start tweaking here and there, it wound up being a pretty reasonable supplement. The rules for creating your own were fairly strong, and I built an entire campaign around "Items of Legacy" including armor, amulets, and other do-dads. It went over pretty well, but it did require a lot of customization.
For fear of being stoned to death, I'll flat out admit I absolutely hate Mongoose Games products.
I think Weapons of Legacy gets a bad rap because nobody seems to realize you don't need to take the Legacy feats separately, you get them as a bonus once you complete the ritual associated with the feat. It says so on Page 9 in plain text:
"A Legacy item's wielder who completes a given ritual immediately gains a bonus Legacy feat; Least Legacy, Lesser Legacy, or Greater Legacy..."
But I think that was one of the failings of the book; this is pretty crucial information, and it's never mentioned again in the book.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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It's been a while, but with the legacy weapons, didn't you have to complete a task (often solo) and pay money (while your friends were buying their own toys) and take penalties to HP/Stats/Saves/Spells just to power the weapon up to par with what your friends were buying?
I felt the Ancestral Weapon feat (book of exalted Cheese) Ancestral Daisho (Oriental Adventures) both were better ways of doing the 'weapon that grows with you' schtick.
Also I've never even HEARD of delay death and yet it's supposed to be a giant game changer? Um yeah ok.
Agreed. It doesn't really do a whole lot. It keeps the character from actual death, but he would still be unconscious and unable to do anything. No big deal, and certainly no game breaker.
Revivify is much better, and that is still no game breaker. At least it never was in my games.
As for thread resurrections, I never understand why they happen :)
The problem is (and I've been on the recieving end of this) people thought it meant the character wouldn't fall unconcious, wouldn't drop and would simply keep going for however long the spell was active. The GM let the NPC get to over -100 HP before revealing this. Left a very bad taste in my mouth.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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The problem is (and I've been on the recieving end of this) people thought it meant the character wouldn't fall unconcious, wouldn't drop and would simply keep going for however long the spell was active. The GM let the NPC get to over -100 HP before revealing this. Left a very bad taste in my mouth.
You'd need to combine it with some sort of "active while dying" ability. Like Diehard, or, in Pathfinder, the Orc Ferocity racial trait.
IIRC, Healers had to prepare the spells. If this is right, then it was why they sucked at their healing job. Clerics could spontaneously convert spells to healing, and the favored soul was a spontaneous caster, but the healer was stuck with its choices for the entire day. Again IIRC.
IIRC, Healers had to prepare the spells. If this is right, then it was why they sucked at their healing job. Clerics could spontaneously convert spells to healing, and the favored soul was a spontaneous caster, but the healer was stuck with its choices for the entire day. Again IIRC.
That is correct, yes. Also, Healers used both WIS and CHA for spellcasting (WIS to determine highest-level and for bonus spells, CHA to determine save DCs).
I don't really get the glee in killing off PCs left and right. Having a character dying doesn't make you scared, it makes you annoyed. Revivify or Delay Death gives you the feeling of "Oh crap, it's on now" without giving you the feeling of "Jesus now I need to spend HOW long making a new character / Awesome, guess I'll go play video games while the rest of you have fun since there's no resurrection nearby."
So what's the alternative? A videogame-like environment where death has no meaning?
"Nah it's cool. I'll just respawn over there if I die".
I really hope you're not suggesting DMs avoid killing their PCs at all costs. To me, a game without the fear of death becomes a yawn-fest real fast.
I'm sure there's some sort of compromise somewhere in there...
Death happens. It sucks but it happens. I've had to wait an hour after a PC died until the group could get back to town and resurrect me. Did I complain about it? Heck no. That's always been a potential scenario in D&D.
I don't really get the glee in killing off PCs left and right. Having a character dying doesn't make you scared, it makes you annoyed. Revivify or Delay Death gives you the feeling of "Oh crap, it's on now" without giving you the feeling of "Jesus now I need to spend HOW long making a new character / Awesome, guess I'll go play video games while the rest of you have fun since there's no resurrection nearby."So what's the alternative? A videogame-like environment where death has no meaning?
"Nah it's cool. I'll just respawn over there if I die".
I really hope you're not suggesting DMs avoid killing their PCs at all costs. To me, a game without the fear of death becomes a yawn-fest real fast.
I'm sure there's some sort of compromise somewhere in there...
Death happens. It sucks but it happens. I've had to wait an hour after a PC died until the group could get back to town and resurrect me. Did I complain about it? Heck no. That's always been a potential scenario in D&D.
Character death is part of the game - part of the challenge as a player is trying not to get killed while stomping on the enemies. Part of the challenge as a GM is giving those characters stomping on their enemies foes worthy of the time to stab / boot to the head / chuck fireballs at / what-have-you.
I don't really get the glee in killing off PCs left and right. Having a character dying doesn't make you scared, it makes you annoyed. Revivify or Delay Death gives you the feeling of "Oh crap, it's on now" without giving you the feeling of "Jesus now I need to spend HOW long making a new character / Awesome, guess I'll go play video games while the rest of you have fun since there's no resurrection nearby."So what's the alternative? A videogame-like environment where death has no meaning?
"Nah it's cool. I'll just respawn over there if I die".
I really hope you're not suggesting DMs avoid killing their PCs at all costs. To me, a game without the fear of death becomes a yawn-fest real fast.
I'm sure there's some sort of compromise somewhere in there...
Death happens. It sucks but it happens. I've had to wait an hour after a PC died until the group could get back to town and resurrect me. Did I complain about it? Heck no. That's always been a potential scenario in D&D.
Yes, because there's clearly no middle ground between "Everyone just keeps dying" and "VIDEO GAMES"
I like how your big argument is "Dammit, sometimes in game you should just stop having fun!!!"
There's plenty of fear of death without just murdering PCs left and right. Drop the "lol respawn" garbage because you aren't doing your argument - what little of it there is - any favors.
I don't really get the glee in killing off PCs left and right. Having a character dying doesn't make you scared, it makes you annoyed. Revivify or Delay Death gives you the feeling of "Oh crap, it's on now" without giving you the feeling of "Jesus now I need to spend HOW long making a new character / Awesome, guess I'll go play video games while the rest of you have fun since there's no resurrection nearby."So what's the alternative? A videogame-like environment where death has no meaning?
"Nah it's cool. I'll just respawn over there if I die".
I really hope you're not suggesting DMs avoid killing their PCs at all costs. To me, a game without the fear of death becomes a yawn-fest real fast.
I'm sure there's some sort of compromise somewhere in there...
Death happens. It sucks but it happens. I've had to wait an hour after a PC died until the group could get back to town and resurrect me. Did I complain about it? Heck no. That's always been a potential scenario in D&D.
Yes, because there's clearly no middle ground between "Everyone just keeps dying" and "VIDEO GAMES"
I like how your big argument is "Dammit, sometimes in game you should just stop having fun!!!"
There's plenty of fear of death without just murdering PCs left and right. Drop the "lol respawn" garbage because you aren't doing your argument - what little of it there is - any favors.
Boy did you catch me at the wrong time, pal.
Are you even capable of posting without sounding like a pompous prick?
Please drop the pomposity garbage and stop treating your fellow forumites like they're beneath you. Heads up. We're not.
Incidentally, I like how your big argument seems to be "Dammit, my character died. How -annoying-... how dare the DM not pull punches despite the dice not going my way? Now I have to sit here and actually wait until I can get resurrected... despite that having been a fact of the game since 1st edition".
See? I can do it too.
If your character dies and you can't wait an hour for a resurrection, make a new character! Wow, that takes time to do... so?
It makes a great DMPC.
I will have to look into that now. I wonder how long it would take my players to figure out they have to kill the guy in the corner before they will the BBEG, assuming the class works like I remember anyway.
I don't really get the glee in killing off PCs left and right. Having a character dying doesn't make you scared, it makes you annoyed. Revivify or Delay Death gives you the feeling of "Oh crap, it's on now" without giving you the feeling of "Jesus now I need to spend HOW long making a new character / Awesome, guess I'll go play video games while the rest of you have fun since there's no resurrection nearby."So what's the alternative? A videogame-like environment where death has no meaning?
"Nah it's cool. I'll just respawn over there if I die".
I really hope you're not suggesting DMs avoid killing their PCs at all costs. To me, a game without the fear of death becomes a yawn-fest real fast.
I'm sure there's some sort of compromise somewhere in there...
Death happens. It sucks but it happens. I've had to wait an hour after a PC died until the group could get back to town and resurrect me. Did I complain about it? Heck no. That's always been a potential scenario in D&D.
Yes, because there's clearly no middle ground between "Everyone just keeps dying" and "VIDEO GAMES"
I like how your big argument is "Dammit, sometimes in game you should just stop having fun!!!"
There's plenty of fear of death without just murdering PCs left and right. Drop the "lol respawn" garbage because you aren't doing your argument - what little of it there is - any favors.
Are you saying don't kill the players ever or don't go out of your way as a DM to make sure they die?
Going out of my way=over CR'd opponents, spamming SoD's knowing a low roll will eventually come up, and other things some DM's do to show off/annoy players.|
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It makes a great DMPC.I will have to look into that now. I wonder how long it would take my players to figure out they have to kill the guy in the corner before they will the BBEG, assuming the class works like I remember anyway.
Ooo, never thought of that. A cohort spamming Heal on the villian would be a heck of a nuisance. I've only used it as a PC I could run while DMing without having a risk of overshadowing the players. Well, except when I cast Heal on the undead.
I don't really get the glee in killing off PCs left and right. Having a character dying doesn't make you scared, it makes you annoyed. Revivify or Delay Death gives you the feeling of "Oh crap, it's on now" without giving you the feeling of "Jesus now I need to spend HOW long making a new character / Awesome, guess I'll go play video games while the rest of you have fun since there's no resurrection nearby."So what's the alternative? A videogame-like environment where death has no meaning?
"Nah it's cool. I'll just respawn over there if I die".
I really hope you're not suggesting DMs avoid killing their PCs at all costs. To me, a game without the fear of death becomes a yawn-fest real fast.
I'm sure there's some sort of compromise somewhere in there...
Death happens. It sucks but it happens. I've had to wait an hour after a PC died until the group could get back to town and resurrect me. Did I complain about it? Heck no. That's always been a potential scenario in D&D.
Yes, because there's clearly no middle ground between "Everyone just keeps dying" and "VIDEO GAMES"
I like how your big argument is "Dammit, sometimes in game you should just stop having fun!!!"
There's plenty of fear of death without just murdering PCs left and right. Drop the "lol respawn" garbage because you aren't doing your argument - what little of it there is - any favors.
Boy did you catch me at the wrong time, pal.
Are you even capable of posting without sounding like a pompous prick?
Please drop the pomposity garbage and stop treating your fellow forumites like they're beneath you. Heads up. We're not.
Incidentally, I like how your big argument seems to be "Dammit, my character died. How -annoying-... how dare the DM not pull punches despite the dice not going my way? Now I have to sit here and actually wait until I can get resurrected... despite that having been a fact of the game...
Except I've never said that.
Fact: The basis of the conversation was that spells that delay death were "too powerful." It was seen as gamebreaking to have characters only fall unconscious rather then die, or to be revived with a small time limit, despite the spell slot used to do so or the limitations on these spells.
The basis for this was the belief that players need to die in order to force a "fear of death" on them.
Fact: My post was that this was not too powerful, as you can still give players the "fear of death" without actually killing them. Knocking them out of the fight is plenty to convince a player that "This just got real." Nerfing spells and demanding characters die is nothing more then overbearing and bad DMing.
This isn't about pulling punches, it's about wearing boxing gloves made of lead. And knives. And them punching your player in the face.
Except I've never said that.
The implication was there though. You want to specify now, fine... but I'm not the only one who thought you may have been espousing that DMs avoid killing PCs altogether. That's what I was arguing against.
Fact: The basis of the conversation was that spells that delay death were "too powerful." It was seen as gamebreaking to have characters only fall unconscious rather then die, or to be revived with a small time limit, despite the spell slot used to do so or the limitations on these spells.
The basis for this was the belief that players need to die in order to force a "fear of death" on them.
Characters don't need to die, but the threat should definitely be there. If I play in a game where from level one to 10 no PCs ever die I'm going to wonder if the DM is pulling his or her punches.
Fact: My post was that this was not too powerful, as you can still give players the "fear of death" without actually killing them. Knocking them out of the fight is plenty to convince a player that "This just got real." Nerfing spells and demanding characters die is nothing more then overbearing and bad DMing.
Again, that's not the impression you left, hence my initial comparison to video games and death being meaningless. I really don't care about that spell... just what I saw as an assertion that character death was "annoying" and "shouldn't happen".
This isn't about pulling punches, it's about wearing boxing gloves made of lead. And knives. And them punching your player in the face.
I agree that "killer DMing" is a bad thing... I just don't like the idea of the exact opposite extreme either.
As a side note, though I regret the tone of my previous post and wish I had said what I said in a more civil manner, I stand by the general gist of it.
I commend you Professor for not responding in kind though and I hope in the future we can have more pleasant interactions on these boards.
Well, I stand by my initial statement that character death is typically less "fearful" then it is "annoying." It generally falls into one of three catagories:
1) You're high level, you didn't want to die. You get to sit out until you're resurrected. Get your DS out.
2) You're low level, you didn't want to die. You can't really get resurrected, so start making a new character if you don't have another one ready to bring up.
3) You wanted to die and went out in a blaze of glory. This is where character death is neither annoying nor fearful, but awesome
My biggest problem is that, due to how combat, health levels, attack levels, and SoDs work, death in 3.5 is often not avoidable, as combat is often decided before the actual battle even begins. 3.x combat has been called "rocket tag" for how fast and deadly it is. Especially when SoDs come into play, this leads to situations where players will walk into a situation and then bam, they're dead. You can't really be afraid of that kind of death. Fear comes best from suspense, and with the quick wham whams that typically cause death, there's little to no suspense.
That's why spells like revivify or delay death are better for building fear. They build suspense. Pathfinder's move to increase the "bleeding to death" level past -10 was a wise one as it opened the window for suspense. If you suddenly die, then the cleric quickly hits you with a revivify, you just had all the "fear of death" you would've had normally, except now you're saved just barely in the nick of time. Delay death prevents you from dying from HP loss, but you're still unconscious...which means you're still out of the game.
Both of these spells count as being a "death" in the eyes of the player. Death doesn't have to include rerolling a new character or sitting out for an hour. The emotions you feel there aren't ones of fear, but much mroe metagamed emotions of annoyance - I have to sit out and do nothing, I have to make a full new character, I have to wait for someone to resurrect me while the rest of the party does cool things.
It makes a great DMPC.
An old Healer with a mule is a stock low-level ally NPC in my games.
So what's the alternative? A videogame-like environment where death has no meaning?
"Nah it's cool. I'll just respawn over there if I die".
...
Death happens. It sucks but it happens. I've had to wait an hour after a PC died until the group could get back to town and resurrect me. Did I complain about it? Heck no. That's always been a potential scenario in D&D.
You're not seeing the irony? "Nah, it's cool. My friends will just rez me in an hour if I die."
Death's long been trivial in D&D. Heck, at higher levels, losing your sword is more crippling than dying. That there is a resource that can be spent in-combat to skip the trip to the diamond shop to do the trivial rez is no big deal, since death is hardly significant to begin with.
And when you need to wrap a fight up right now so that you can get to pile on a lot of healing on your ally before Delay Death wears off and they die, that's a good kind of tension. More than death actually brings to the game.