The GM Ruled that since *I* am ghost touch I can grapple/combat maneuver incorporeal creatures. It was pretty cool trying to pin a wraith.
Must have made for one confused mo-fo of a wraith!! ;-D
I like this ruling and thing it would lead to much fun.
AC isn't really an arms race, because it can't be won. The only way to keep up with attack bonuses is to devote almost everything to AC...
...And then you get hit with a touch attack or saving throw.
Health is loved more then AC for a reason.
Stops being good around... level 15 or so usually. First ten levels though? Fun as hell.Kind of a pet peeve of mine. The purpose of a monk is to not need weapons and armor and to avoid materially posessions. I prefer a monk that want his melee combat to be without any weapons or magic items that buff him. But that is a design issue that I feel missed the point of the monk.Which was one thing I loved about the Vow of Poverty from Book of Exalted Deeds.
Unfortunately, you had to be Lawful Good.
Also... almost every DM I knew took one glance and screamed WTFOPLMFAOGTFO!! Which I found somewhat strange when comparing their bonuses to what was available via magic items at similar levels.... not to mention the other disadvantages that came from a Vow of Poverty. *shrug*
Well, there are always the (3.5) tattooed monk and initiate of Pistis Sophia PrCs to increase the VoP monk's versatility. Not to mention other (3.5) feats like Fiery Fist and Ki Blast (and Ranged Smite Evil if an initiate of Pistis Sophia).
As an exercise in "what can I do with this concept," I statted out a (3.5) VoP monk 11/tattooed monk 9/initiate of Pistis Sophia 10 (with some extensions to VoP benefits for Epic levels*, based on the rules for extending class benefits past 20th/10th). The character ended up with an attack bonus of +39/+34/+29 (+39/+39/+39/+34/+29 on a flurry), which is on the low side for a 30th level combat character, but an AC of 62 (touch 44, flat-footed 50), Fort +32, Ref +38, Will +37, and Init +20.
Tattoos: Arrowroot (heal 90 hp/day), Crab (DR 10/magic), Phoenix (SR 24), Tiger (5x/day, +1 attack rolls/+1d6 damage on unarmed attacks for 9 rounds), Wasp (5x/day, Haste for 9 rounds)
Feats (including all bonuses): Deflect Arrows, Endurance, Fiery Fist, Gift of Faith, Holy Ki Strike, Holy Radiance, Holy Smite, Improved Grapple, Improved Initiative, Improved Trip, Intuitive Attack, Ki Blast, Nimbus of Light, Ranged Smite Evil, Sacred Vow, Sanctify Ki Strike, Servant of the Heavens, Stigmata, Stunning Fist, Touch of Golden Ice, Vow of Chastity, Vow of Obedience, Vow of Poverty, Vow of Purity, Weapon Finesse; Armor Skin, Epic Prowess, Exceptional Deflection, Great Dexterity (x4), Reflect Arrows, Superior Initiative
*- Total bonuses at 30th level (starting at 1st): Exalted AC Bonus (+14), Exalted Bonus Feats (11), Endure Elements, Exalted Strike +7 (magic, good), Sustenance, Deflection +5, Resistance +6, Exalted Enhancement (+12/+10/+8/+6/+4/+2; for this character +12 Wis, +10 Dex, +8 Con, +6 Str, +4 Cha, +2 Int), Natural Armor +4, Mind Shielding, Damage Reduction 10/evil, Greater Sustenance, Energy Resistance 15, Freedom of Movement, Regeneration (30 hp/hour), True Seeing, Epic Bonus Feats (5; can be used for Exalted feats)
Monk had damage issues? Wasn't much of a problem for my Monk, his problem was getting ripped to shreds and being able to constantly hit something.
That's a really low AC and a horrible TH bonus for a fighting character at 30th level. It's not as good as most fighters at 20 for TH, and only 10 pts above a fighter's AC.
Plus, almost ALL of it goes away in ANti-Magic, because exalted feats are supernatural...as are all those tattoes.
Sr 25? at level 30????
==Aelryinth
actually Rings are 'universal slots'. YOu can have a Ring of Nat Armor at no cost penalty.
==Aerlyinth
Say what? Can you please cite me where that's stated in the rules?
Go find where they listed out the slot affinity rules. Was suprised to see it myself. Basically, Rings can do ANYTHING...they're an 'open slot' for magic.
And actually, if you look JUST at the PSRD...there's no slot restrictions listed on anything. Basically, as long as an item occupies a slot, it's good. I couldn't find any slot restrictions there.
Hmm. Strange, that.
==Aelryinth
That's a really low AC and a horrible TH bonus for a fighting character at 30th level. It's not as good as most fighters at 20 for TH, and only 10 pts above a fighter's AC.
Plus, almost ALL of it goes away in ANti-Magic, because exalted feats are supernatural...as are all those tattoes.
Sr 25? at level 30????
==Aelryinth
For a character without any temporary buffs, it's not absolute suckage... The AC is on the high side ("only" 10 higher than the fighter? Considering how AC tails off at higher levels, having an AC that high, especially a 44 touch AC, is pretty significant!), while the attack bonus is on the low side (as noted; it's roughly the same as a straight bard, cleric, druid, or rogue counting BAB, ability modifier, and weapon enhancement only).
Considering that anti-magic shuts down just about everyone to a greater or lesser degree (especially spellcasters) at high level, your point is?
25 Dex (with an additional +10 from VoP = 35), using Weapon Finesse. Note that the character was built from a (3.5) 25-point buy; even with inherent bonuses (limited to +5), getting an ability score above 25 pretty much means that's your only focus. With a 20 Wis (plus an extra +12 = 32), that is not the case for a monk; also, some of the feats taken required a 15 Cha, which spread out the ability scores even more than normal.
EDIT: If you mean "Sr" as SR, instead of Str, an SR 24 is higher than many characters can have, even though it's below what a monk 30 could have. Also, it's almost equal to holy aura (SR 25), except it affects all magic, not just from evil beings, and is constantly active. Along with Improved Evasion and Exceptional Deflection, as well as high saves, the monk is tough to affect with magic anyway.
P.S.: It's not as if the "problems" you highlight aren't overall issues with the 3.5 monk...
AC at level 30 should easily be in the 70+ range. Smart people start going for +5 'off' bonuses instead of just +6 or greater stuff...but still, given level 30 wealth, you should have +8's all the way around without much trouble. And don't get me started on Epic Mage armor (+20 Armor for 2 days?)
AC only tapers off if you let it.
SR 25 at level 30 is asking your enemy to roll a negative 5 to land a spell on you. i mean, yeah, it works against level 15's and lower, but still...
Had no complaints on the stats. Looked fine to me.
===Aelryinth
|
AC at level 30 should easily be in the 70+ range. Smart people start going for +5 'off' bonuses instead of just +6 or greater stuff...but still, given level 30 wealth, you should have +8's all the way around without much trouble. And don't get me started on Epic Mage armor (+20 Armor for 2 days?)
AC only tapers off if you let it.
SR 25 at level 30 is asking your enemy to roll a negative 5 to land a spell on you. i mean, yeah, it works against level 15's and lower, but still...
Had no complaints on the stats. Looked fine to me.
===Aelryinth
There is no such thing as level 30 in pathfinder. Saying otherwise would be forcing inclusion and conversion of old 3.5 material, and thus does not hold weight when discussing issues with any particular class inside of the pathfinder RPG system.
AC at level 30 should easily be in the 70+ range. Smart people start going for +5 'off' bonuses instead of just +6 or greater stuff...but still, given level 30 wealth, you should have +8's all the way around without much trouble. And don't get me started on Epic Mage armor (+20 Armor for 2 days?)
AC only tapers off if you let it.
IMO, one of the problems (probably the biggest) with the 3.x Epic rules is the way it required people to use non-standard, munchkin means to have a hope of survival. For AC, +7 mithral full plate (+15 armor, with a maximum of +3 from Dex), a +7 heavy shield (+9 shield), ring of protection +7 (+7 deflection), amulet of natural armor +7 (+7 enhancement to natural armor), and a dusty rose prism ioun stone (+1 insight) only give a base AC of 52.
To go beyond that, you need to start getting creative with various polymorph-type spells to change into a humanoid form with natural armor, use of non-standard/custom abilities/items/spells to grant additional bonus types (insight, profane, sacred, etc.), and otherwise "breaking" the system. And pretty much all of these are subject to anti-magic shutdown, anyway.
One of the biggest complaints of the way WotC implemented high-level/Epic play in 3.x is that it was "mostly just bigger numbers." There were some good ideas, but frankly the execution was pretty poor and relied way too much on upping the mechanical difficulty.
Epic Mage Armor wasn't even the worst of it, either (+20 AC from an epic spell vs. +20 AC from +5 full plate and +5 heavy shield? Meh). Granted, the ability to use your full Dex bonus is nice, but not that big of an advantage when items like armor of the celestial battalion also grant that ability.
AC at level 30 should easily be in the 70+ range. Smart people start going for +5 'off' bonuses instead of just +6 or greater stuff...but still, given level 30 wealth, you should have +8's all the way around without much trouble. And don't get me started on Epic Mage armor (+20 Armor for 2 days?)
AC only tapers off if you let it.
IMO, one of the problems (probably the biggest) with the 3.x Epic rules is the way it required people to use non-standard, munchkin means to have a hope of survival. For AC, +7 mithral full plate (+15 armor, with a maximum of +3 from Dex), a +7 heavy shield (+9 shield), ring of protection +7 (+7 deflection), amulet of natural armor +7 (+7 enhancement to natural armor), and a dusty rose prism ioun stone (+1 insight) only give a base AC of 52.
To go beyond that, you need to start getting creative with various polymorph-type spells to change into a humanoid form with natural armor, use of non-standard/custom abilities/items/spells to grant additional bonus types (insight, profane, sacred, etc.), and otherwise "breaking" the system. And pretty much all of these are subject to anti-magic shutdown, anyway.
One of the biggest complaints of the way WotC implemented high-level/Epic play in 3.x is that it was "mostly just bigger numbers." There were some good ideas, but frankly the execution was pretty poor and relied way too much on upping the mechanical difficulty.
Epic Mage Armor wasn't even the worst of it, either (+20 AC from an epic spell vs. +20 AC from +5 full plate and +5 heavy shield? Meh). Granted, the ability to use your full Dex bonus is nice, but not that big of an advantage when items like armor of the celestial battalion also grant that ability.
You don't even know. I recently ended a long bloody campaign. Took the players to level 24. They had a city of about 5 million people to fight to get to the final freaking thing of the entire game?
I just told them to tell me how they do it. The epics spells made. The insanely powerful character combinations. Course. They were FORCED to munchkin. The things I put them against? They had to think to survive. Even the last thing gave them about twenty rounds to do. I pretty much demanded they describe everything they did, being as epic as possible.
Hell. Even one of them found a way to give people class levels.. and spell casting and.. Jeez.
Never.. Ever again. IT was fun once? But as a dm. Never a gain. Making a villain for them to fight was a pain in the butt. But wow.. Were they hocked when they did a few thousand damage to it, and it kept on smiling. :P
There is no such thing as level 30 in pathfinder. Saying otherwise would be forcing inclusion and conversion of old 3.5 material, and thus does not hold weight when discussing issues with any particular class inside of the pathfinder RPG system.AC at level 30 should easily be in the 70+ range. Smart people start going for +5 'off' bonuses instead of just +6 or greater stuff...but still, given level 30 wealth, you should have +8's all the way around without much trouble. And don't get me started on Epic Mage armor (+20 Armor for 2 days?)
AC only tapers off if you let it.
SR 25 at level 30 is asking your enemy to roll a negative 5 to land a spell on you. i mean, yeah, it works against level 15's and lower, but still...
Had no complaints on the stats. Looked fine to me.
===Aelryinth
I'm replying to someone who is talkinga bout a level 30 character, why exactly are you commenting?
==Aelryinth
AC at level 30 should easily be in the 70+ range. Smart people start going for +5 'off' bonuses instead of just +6 or greater stuff...but still, given level 30 wealth, you should have +8's all the way around without much trouble. And don't get me started on Epic Mage armor (+20 Armor for 2 days?)
AC only tapers off if you let it.
IMO, one of the problems (probably the biggest) with the 3.x Epic rules is the way it required people to use non-standard, munchkin means to have a hope of survival. For AC, +7 mithral full plate (+15 armor, with a maximum of +3 from Dex), a +7 heavy shield (+9 shield), ring of protection +7 (+7 deflection), amulet of natural armor +7 (+7 enhancement to natural armor), and a dusty rose prism ioun stone (+1 insight) only give a base AC of 52.
To go beyond that, you need to start getting creative with various polymorph-type spells to change into a humanoid form with natural armor, use of non-standard/custom abilities/items/spells to grant additional bonus types (insight, profane, sacred, etc.), and otherwise "breaking" the system. And pretty much all of these are subject to anti-magic shutdown, anyway.
One of the biggest complaints of the way WotC implemented high-level/Epic play in 3.x is that it was "mostly just bigger numbers." There were some good ideas, but frankly the execution was pretty poor and relied way too much on upping the mechanical difficulty.
Epic Mage Armor wasn't even the worst of it, either (+20 AC from an epic spell vs. +20 AC from +5 full plate and +5 heavy shield? Meh). Granted, the ability to use your full Dex bonus is nice, but not that big of an advantage when items like armor of the celestial battalion also grant that ability.
At Epic levels, the problem was Armor was capped, but spells and stats were not. Nor was Nat AC.
So, yes, you saw the FIghter permanently Polymorphed into a Firbolg.Yes, everyone dumped their armor +8 for Mage Armor +20...and got unlimited Dex on top of it. Even Bracers +10 were better deals, because of unlimited Dex.
If you didn't get enhanced luck/sacred/insight bonuses, you were pretty silly, because all the enemy had them...and the spells gave them, so why not items?
And yeah, the power creep reliance on magic items is a hallmark of the 3.5 system. It's also part of the flavor. You can't really seperate them. 4E did, and changed the whole flavor of the game. It's also much different from 1E because of the expected graduation of magic. 1E controlled it because of limits on stats. 3.5 doesn't have that. 4E brought it back.
==Aelryinth
given level 30 wealth, you should have +8's all the way around without much trouble.
Something struck me as wrong with this, so I looked at the sidebar and table on pg. 23 of the Epic Level Handbook. 30th level PCs are supposed to have ~4,300,000 gp in equipment. "+8's all around" would be 640,000 gp for the armor, 640,000 gp for the shield, 1,280,000 gp for the ring, and 1,280,000 gp for the amulet. just those four items total 3,840,000 gp; leaving only 460,000 gp for weapons and other items. Ummm, you may have not bothered to follow the wealth guidelines, but that doesn't mean others ignored them.
Also, "your DM may wish to rule that no... character can select any single item that represents more than 25% of that character's... wealth and no more than three items worth more than 10% of his... wealth." Granted, this was stated as a rule for newly starting characters, but I always used it as a rule of thumb for all characters (with only specific exceptions, such as Ancestral Weapon).
Granted, the ability to use your full Dex bonus is nice, but not that big of an advantage when items like armor of the celestial battalion also grant that ability.
One correction. Armor of the celestial battalion grants a +10 max Dex, not unlimited. Effectively, it allows full Dex bonus only as long as your total Dex is 31 or less.
Yes, everyone dumped their armor +8 for Mage Armor +20...
And yeah, the power creep reliance on magic items is a hallmark of the 3.5 system. It's also part of the flavor. You can't really seperate them.
So, everyone had Epic Spellcasting and researched that one epic spell or you had half the party with that one spell and they didn't mind using all/most of their epic spell slots every day on it (duration 24 hours, see d20 SRD)? OK...
There's a difference between reliance on magic items, and reliance on magic items that aren't in the rules and assumptions that everyone playing above 20th level is a hardcore CharOp type who will only play Pun-Pun or other "broken" characters.
If you can make them and they followed the rules, they were fine. Thtt's like saying you can't invent new Epic spells, when they gave the rules explicitly so you could!
And please don't trot out the optimizer vs Role=-player argument. That doesn't justify anything.
==Aelryinth