
Caedwyr |
Caedwyr wrote:PEE-SHAW. THIS AM WHY BARBARIAN EXIST. EVERY PROBLEM CASTY PRESENTS AM NAIL IF HAMMER AM BIG ENOUGH.Andy Ferguson wrote:Because the wizard is Schroedinger's Wizard. His position, spell load-out, and capabilities are not fixed until required.Divergent wrote:And why is that?
It's also a shame you would never get any wizard in a grapple to begin with. . .
So, what you are saying is that you are capable of 'fixing' wizards?

TarkXT |

Andy Ferguson wrote:Because the wizard is Schroedinger's Wizard. His position, spell load-out, and capabilities are not fixed until required.Divergent wrote:And why is that?
It's also a shame you would never get any wizard in a grapple to begin with. . .
So he's going to spend an hour during combat to memorize spells to beat the monk? Cmon now, the Masked Lichbreaker is an honorable lucha but he's not stupid.

AM BARBARIAN |
5 people marked this as a favorite. |

So, what you are saying is that you are capable of 'fixing' wizards?
BARBARIAN AM SAYING MANY THINGS. AMONG THEM AM MAKING SURE TO HAVE YOUR CASTY SPAYED OR NEUTERED. AM DECREASE STRAY CASTY POPULATION.
BARBARIAN NOT SURE WHAT SPAYED OR NEUTERED MEAN, BUT AM LIKE 80% SURE IT INVOLVES HITTING CASTYS IN FACE WITH LANCE FEW TIMES.

Atarlost |
Schroedinger's Wizard has a bonded item instead of a familiar. Of course grease is not unlikely to be actually prepared and can be used for a long lasting +10 to avoid or escape grapples as well as making 10' corridors dangerous. Or there's freedom of movement. Wizards are probably going to start preparing that if grapplers are common in their experience. It's up there with preparing energy resistance if the GM loves elementals.

Ed-Zero |

Schroedinger's Wizard has a bonded item instead of a familiar. Of course grease is not unlikely to be actually prepared and can be used for a long lasting +10 to avoid or escape grapples as well as making 10' corridors dangerous. Or there's freedom of movement. Wizards are probably going to start preparing that if grapplers are common in their experience. It's up there with preparing energy resistance if the GM loves elementals.
Tetori/Qigong Monks can grab the dimensions door ability they give up with Tetori so they can dimensions door as a move action for 2 ki points. Move, grapple, wizard down.

TarkXT |

Schroedinger's Wizard has a bonded item instead of a familiar. Of course grease is not unlikely to be actually prepared and can be used for a long lasting +10 to avoid or escape grapples as well as making 10' corridors dangerous. Or there's freedom of movement. Wizards are probably going to start preparing that if grapplers are common in their experience. It's up there with preparing energy resistance if the GM loves elementals.
Someone has no idea how a Tetori works I see.

Andy Ferguson |

Atarlost wrote:Schroedinger's Wizard has a bonded item instead of a familiar. Of course grease is not unlikely to be actually prepared and can be used for a long lasting +10 to avoid or escape grapples as well as making 10' corridors dangerous. Or there's freedom of movement. Wizards are probably going to start preparing that if grapplers are common in their experience. It's up there with preparing energy resistance if the GM loves elementals.Someone has no idea how a Tetori works I see.
Monks cant have nice things. Reading rules is for suckers.

AM BARBARIAN |
7 people marked this as a favorite. |

BARBARIAN REMEMBER SCHRODINGER. HE AM PUT CASTY IN BOX, AM ACTIVATING 50/50 CHANCE OF DEAD THING. AM THEN STATING CASTY IN BOX AM SIMULTANIOISLY IN STATE OF BEING DEAD AND BEING PREPARED FOR TRAP, AND THUS AM ALWAYS ALIVE.
BARBARIAN PROCEED TO FULL ATTACK BOX, MUCH CASTY BLOOD AM SPILL OUT. BARBARIAN TELL SCHRODINGER BARBARIAN PRETTY SURE CASTY AM DEAD REGARDLESS NOW.
THAT AM STORY OF WHY SCHRODINGER NOT EVER INCLUDE BARBARIAN IN THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS ANYMORE.

![]() |

Has anyone talked about how the foe makes a difference as well?
I currently play the only fighter, and non-spellcaster, in a party of five. There are combats where I have been the MVP, and combats where the most focused spellcaster was the MVP. The reason was the foe in each case.
Why? Two defensive abilities names spell resistance and damage reduction.
In playing Curse of the Crimson Throne we have noticed more and more monsters with SR as we near the end, and it has been frustrating the spellcasters to no end. In just about every situation with SR my fighter ruled the fight and killed the foe.
DR on the other hand only slows down my fighter, who uses power attacks to help make up for the lesser damage. In cases where there is DR but not SR the spellcasters generally own the battle.
But wait, there's more!
My fighter? He has fallen below 0 more times then anyone else. Why? He is in the front lines and even with his high AC takes damage more often then the others. There is also the fact that higher level foes deal damage in ways other then a normal attack. Spells, breath weapons, abilities that give conditions to enemies, are all things my fighter has to deal with often, while most of the spellcasters can move and use range as a defense.
And yet there is still more to consider. Equipment makes a huge difference. I currently have the best equipped character in the party. With the equipment I have I can take the other party members in one-on-one duels, which would be challenging but not difficult to win. Take away all of the equipment and replace it with mundane stuff? I am pretty sure I would lose most of the time.
Funny enough and on a side note my character is the only one currently able to fly and still have all of his fighting ability. We are at level 14, and only one other person has a spell consistently prepared to give him a fly speed and it's elemental form. Why? Celestial Plate can let you use the fly spell once per day.
Continuing on my babbling rant.
So I read the informative post above about the class/skill/spell system D20 is, and I realized the poster forgot that it is also a system that relies on being well equipped. So the system not only causes an imbalance from class/skills/spells, it will cause one with poorly, or overly, equipped characters. However, there is a system that attempts to tackle all these problems and does a halfway decent job at doing it. I would be lynched if I uttered its name here, but lets just allude to the fact that it may or may not have a 5th edition in the works.
Where was I? Oh yes, fighter vs spellcaster.
To be honest, I think that if the fighter was optimized, either generally or to take on spellcasters, well equipped with the right stuff that buffed him in a wide variety of ways (SR is a must,)as well as gave him access to a few spells, and he was played by a good player, then he could take on a spellcaster. Provided the spellcaster didn't expect to fight him, didn't put too much effort into optimizing, and was moderately well equipped.
end random thoughts and rant.

TarkXT |

So making my Sohei "Most Honorable Retainer of Pointed Oaken Death".
So far we've been able to accomplish the following.
1. He wins initiative.
2. He can move and Flurry while mounted with bow OR lance. So we need a stinkingly fast mount.
3. His mount will be able to shrug off a lot of punishment. Mounted Combat rolls twice a round, Monastic Mount. Not bad.
What else can we do to Most Honorable Retainer of Pointed Oaken Death to make him awesome?

Atarlost |
Atarlost wrote:Schroedinger's Wizard has a bonded item instead of a familiar. Of course grease is not unlikely to be actually prepared and can be used for a long lasting +10 to avoid or escape grapples as well as making 10' corridors dangerous. Or there's freedom of movement. Wizards are probably going to start preparing that if grapplers are common in their experience. It's up there with preparing energy resistance if the GM loves elementals.Someone has no idea how a Tetori works I see.
Tetori is the one that references nonexistant feats. Why bother reading something with broken dependencies? Until it's erratta'd into a valid archetype it doesn't matter any more than the beta test rules.

Trinam |

So making my Sohei "Most Honorable Retainer of Pointed Oaken Death".
So far we've been able to accomplish the following.
1. He wins initiative.
2. He can move and Flurry while mounted with bow OR lance. So we need a stinkingly fast mount.
3. His mount will be able to shrug off a lot of punishment. Mounted Combat rolls twice a round, Monastic Mount. Not bad.
What else can we do to Most Honorable Retainer of Pointed Oaken Death to make him awesome?
Put him in a party with AM.

TarkXT |

TarkXT wrote:Tetori is the one that references nonexistant feats. Why bother reading something with broken dependencies? Until it's erratta'd into a valid archetype it doesn't matter any more than the beta test rules.Atarlost wrote:Schroedinger's Wizard has a bonded item instead of a familiar. Of course grease is not unlikely to be actually prepared and can be used for a long lasting +10 to avoid or escape grapples as well as making 10' corridors dangerous. Or there's freedom of movement. Wizards are probably going to start preparing that if grapplers are common in their experience. It's up there with preparing energy resistance if the GM loves elementals.Someone has no idea how a Tetori works I see.
Considering that's a guarantee with it actually reaching print (unlike the ebta test rules) I think it's fair game for discussion regardless of your feelings on it. Ignore it if you choose but it does exist and many GM's have already simply substituted different feats for the oens that don't exist. Eventually errata will come out replacing those feats with the UC FAQ.

Robb Smith |

Atarlost wrote:Or there's freedom of movement. Wizards are probably going to start preparing that if grapplers are common in their experience.Wizards are going to start preparing spells that aren't even on the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list? Damn, those Wizards are crafty little buggers...
Sure. Lots of high level ones do it every day, it's called Wish and Limited Wish.

Andy Ferguson |

TarkXT wrote:Tetori is the one that references nonexistant feats. Why bother reading something with broken dependencies? Until it's erratta'd into a valid archetype it doesn't matter any more than the beta test rules.Atarlost wrote:Schroedinger's Wizard has a bonded item instead of a familiar. Of course grease is not unlikely to be actually prepared and can be used for a long lasting +10 to avoid or escape grapples as well as making 10' corridors dangerous. Or there's freedom of movement. Wizards are probably going to start preparing that if grapplers are common in their experience. It's up there with preparing energy resistance if the GM loves elementals.Someone has no idea how a Tetori works I see.
This statement doesn't make your previous statement seem any less clueless.

![]() |

Or there's freedom of movement. Wizards are probably going to start preparing that if grapplers are common in their experience.
Wizards are going to start preparing spells that aren't even on the Sorcerer/Wizard spell list? Damn, those Wizards are crafty little buggers...
Sure. Lots of high level ones do it every day, it's called Wish and Limited Wish.
Actually, Atarlost said said that wizards would "start preparing" freedom of movement if grapplers are common, which makes it pretty clear that he's not very familiar with wizard spell lists.
Also, at a level where casters are tossing off wish or even limited wish, I would expect them to have an item granting freedom of movement, just to keep from being hosed. But that's just me...

![]() |
This thread has inspired me. I'm heavily considering using a barbarian as my next pbp character. If I do so, it will be the first non-spell caster I've ever ran as a pc. (Well, if you count psionics as spell casting at least.)
How important is the +2 con and raging while unconscious feat (I can't remember its name)? I'm really not a fan of buying up that 15th point of constitution with a limited (20) point buy. I'm currently considering power attack and combat expertise as my 2 starting feats and using a reach weapon to trip early on and then giving that up when it seems no longer feasible.
Its important to me to keep this playable at low levels because we're starting at 1 and its a pbp so I'll probably be low level for most (all) of the character's life span. However, I do want to shoot for come get me, pounce, and spell sunder.

Andy Ferguson |

Raging Vitality (the feat you can't remeber) is pretty important at higher levels. At level 7 you will (without the feat) receive 14 bonus hitpoints, so if something knocks you to negative hitpoints, you stop raging, and lose those 14 bonus hitpoints, moving you 14 farther in negative, killing you. So without Raging Vitality, being knocked into negative hitpoints becomes an instant death sentence.

Shuriken Nekogami |

I need to refresh myself on what RAW has to say about commishioning an item. Can you provide a link to it in the SRD?
you don't need a link.
you find somebody (most likely an NPC) with the desired item creation feats, arrange with them to craft the item for you. pay them the Full market price for the item (including any adjustments for additional powers). and wait for them to craft it for you.
RAW has nothing to say about commissioning items. because they feel they didn't need to explain this form of purchase.
it's like purchasing, but you have to wait for the crafting time to pass.
hiring an NPC to craft a pair of Bracers of Ogre power +2 for 4,000 gold pieces is no different than hiring an NPC to craft a Belt of Giant Strength +2
the Same could be said about a wand of enlarge person with 5 charges per day for 750 gold pieces instead of 50 charges "ever." for that same 750 gold pieces
or even a +1 ring of protection that doubles as a ring of sustenance and a ring of feather fall at the same time for 8,800 gold pieces instead of spending 6700 on 3 rings and swapping them.
commisions are still practiced in the real world as well.

![]() |

AM BARBARIAN wrote:PEE-SHAW. THIS AM WHY BARBARIAN EXIST. EVERY PROBLEM CASTY PRESENTS AM NAIL IF HAMMER AM BIG ENOUGH.So, what you are saying is that you are capable of 'fixing' wizards?
I am perfectly capable of "fixing" wizards. Inspired by my kinswoman, Amiri, I cary the warhammer of a frost giant. I find that is it a sufficiently large hammer to "fix" any nails/wizards that I come across.They soon find that all the shadow puppets, owlbear dung, and chanted nonsense in the world cannot help them when their skulls are caved in.

STR Ranger |

Actually, given the Massive to hit of a Max Str Barb, with reckless abandon, it might be worth Trinam noting in his guide that perhaps ALL said barbs should carry LARGE weapons and just suck the -2 to hit.
The extra dice are nice and such a build could easily take the penalty.
Given that what would be the best 2handed weapon (Greatsword)?
2handed reach weapon?
(Especially when you get Enlarge Person cast on you and youre weapon becomes huge.)
Imagine the Damage AM BARBARIAN and batty bat would do with a spirited charge, pounce with a LARGE Lance.

insaneogeddon |
Thalin wrote:Are you fighters and wizards and such still babbling? Clearly us middle classers are the way to go. We have a better-than-your-fighter melee monster, 2 actions each per turn, battlefield control, buffing, and healing all rolled up. Our party of 2 Druids 2 summoners would crush your standard adventuring party, putting out more damage and more battlefield control than anyone. We would miss no classes, and since I'm so lovable I can even use the wands of other classes if I need to (I have no idea why I would though; my own spells are so great).
So wizards may need fighters, and fighters certainly need casters. But us pet classes can take the dungeon on our own, thank you very much.
BARBARIAN AM SEEING PARTY LIKE DIS ONCE.
BARBARIAN AM HAVE OWN STANDARD ADVENTURING PARTY.
AM BARBARIAN/BARBARIAN/FIGHTY/FIGHTY. USED TO BE DRUID OVER OTHER BARBARIAN, BUT BARBARIAN SMASH AFTER HE AM AWAKENING BATTY BAT. AM NEVER ENOUGH BARBARIAN.
AM THE BEST PARTY. ONCE FOUGHT BUNCHA SUMMUNYGUYS. THEY AM CASTY BLOWY MAGIC WALL THINGY.
BARBARIAN AM SMASH BLOWY MAGIC WALL THINGY WITH RAGELANCE ON BATTY BAT.
THEY AM NOT HOLD UP SO WELL WHEN FIGHTYS AM SHOOTY ARROWS IN FACE. THINGYS THAT AM FULL ROUND ACTION SUMMON AM NOT HOLD UP WELL AGAINST POUNCE WITH LANCE. BEST PARTY AM CLEARLY BARBARIAN PARTY.
There are few classes you NEED in a party.
Cleric, Oracle and Inquisitor are neeeded - not for healing but for all the condition/level/stat drain spells- restoration is key.Then a front liner/big damage thing.
Rogues/Arcane Casters etc etc are all extra, fine witches have healing spells and infinite hexes to save spell slots so are better all round arcane casters, and a detective sound striker bard is better in a party than a rogue but none are essential.
Without at least one of the first group your dm is just spoon feeding.

![]() |
What group would work out better, one with only pure martial PCs or one with only pure full casters?
The problem is defining what is a pure full caster?
The cleric is too good at melee to be one in my book.
He's got nine full levels of spells which are nothing to sneeze at.
He's a full caster. Purity is irrelevant.

Umbranus |

Umbranus wrote:What group would work out better, one with only pure martial PCs or one with only pure full casters?
The problem is defining what is a pure full caster?
The cleric is too good at melee to be one in my book.He's got nine full levels of spells which are nothing to sneeze at.
He's a full caster. Purity is irrelevant.
For a caster vs martial discussion he's not, because he can be as good at melee as many other classes. A group with nothing but clerics can work out fine, while a group of only non-melee pure casters will not.

![]() |
What group would work out better, one with only pure martial PCs or one with only pure full casters?
The problem is defining what is a pure full caster?
The cleric is too good at melee to be one in my book.
A lot of this is "what level are they playing at" and "what is the play style like" and "what constitutes passing the challenge"?
If we stereotype martials and casters both: Early on a party full of martials will do well. However, they will be surpassed by the party full of casters after only a short while under most circumstances, at the least by level 7 - 8 when 4th level spells come on line.