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Hex is Neutral and unlikely to cause any more problems then a normal adventurer in town. Your basically just throwing things out that are so vague that no conclusion can be reached. Any Class' tactic can be adapted to by the campaign world so that's a pretty meaningless argument.I'm not the one reading the runes (in fact the caster is literally the one person who CAN'T set them off). All anyone without See Invisibility on is going to see is three party members and 2 Skeletons that look awfully bloody. Then the opponents would have to have sufficient Spellcraft to identify Explosive Runes and know that the Divine Caster isn't the source (unless of course they have the Rune Domain). I'm still waiting on that CR 9 encounter by the way.And after the last few months of spontaneously detonating skeletons, anybody with a knowledge: local is going to know exactly what they are.
Word spreads. Campaign worlds are not static. Frequently used tactics are adapted to.
I also hope you never enter a town or encounter any innocent travelerss.
The first person to read the runes causes an explosion. Runes you have stated are glaringly obvious.
You cannot safely take your walking bombs anywhere near an inhabited area.
Random encounters with non-hostile NPC's, even in the wilderness, are a common occurrence in any campaign. NPC's what WILL detonate your bombs.
Fabricate requires crafting skills.the wizard in his example doea not have any rank in craft. He uses high INT and a spell to fabricate masterwork full plates
You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate
10 Base from Taking 10, +7 Int, +5 Crafter's Fortune = Craft Check of 22. Masterwork stuff is in fact... pretty nice metal!
So wizards are overpowered, because they can invest in mundane skills?
The wizard is going to have a full skill investment in everything else he may ever wish to fashion with fabricate?
Or are you playing Schrodinger and just assuming the character has full skill progression in all skills?
Craft skills can be used untrained. You lose this one.
There is a reason I argue this spell is dumb.
Fabricate requires crafting skills.the wizard in his example doea not have any rank in craft. He uses high INT and a spell to fabricate masterwork full plates
You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate
10 Base from Taking 10, +7 Int, +5 Crafter's Fortune = Craft Check of 22. Masterwork stuff is in fact... pretty nice metal!
So wizards are overpowered, because they can invest in mundane skills?
The wizard is going to have a full skill investment in everything else he may ever wish to fashion with fabricate?
Or are you playing Schrodinger and just assuming the character has full skill progression in all skills?
So... one of two things happened here. You either one know what Fabricate does and intentionally just posted incorrect information about it to support your argument. Or Two, you didn't bother to look it up to and just posted what you thought it was without taking the short time to look it up. Please let me know which.
Let's see what Fabricate has to say the matter:
"You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship."
Huh, we gotta make an appropriate Craft Check, better make sure we can do that untrained. Oh hey look at that its an untrained skill. Well we better look to see what the rules are for doing that untrained huh?
"Untrained = 1d20 + ability modifier + racial modifier"
Boy... that looks exactly like the numbers I was using in my post... weird that.
With a competent DM, I've never had the problem.
Ah, "the rules are fine because the DM can fix them." There's a name for this, that got thrown around a lot during the Pathfinder playesting -- as often as "Schroedinger's Wizard" does now, but by people in the opposite camp. Pepperoni Phallus, or something like that. It could get obnoxious, but it was also a valid point. As someone pointed out, "Good GMs can always patch bad rules. Good rules don't need to be patched. Why give the poor guy more work?"
Hex is Neutral and unlikely to cause any more problems then a normal adventurer in town. Your basically just throwing things out that are so vague that no conclusion can be reached. Any Class' tactic can be adapted to by the campaign world so that's a pretty meaningless argument.I'm not the one reading the runes (in fact the caster is literally the one person who CAN'T set them off). All anyone without See Invisibility on is going to see is three party members and 2 Skeletons that look awfully bloody. Then the opponents would have to have sufficient Spellcraft to identify Explosive Runes and know that the Divine Caster isn't the source (unless of course they have the Rune Domain). I'm still waiting on that CR 9 encounter by the way.And after the last few months of spontaneously detonating skeletons, anybody with a knowledge: local is going to know exactly what they are.
Word spreads. Campaign worlds are not static. Frequently used tactics are adapted to.
I also hope you never enter a town or encounter any innocent travelerss.
The first person to read the runes causes an explosion. Runes you have stated are glaringly obvious.
You cannot safely take your walking bombs anywhere near an inhabited area.
Random encounters with non-hostile NPC's, even in the wilderness, are a common occurrence in any campaign. NPC's what WILL detonate your bombs.
Ummm... I take the capes off and fold them up when I am in town. The capes are a combat tactic, for you know combat. If combat is going to take place in town in a non-remote location, I rely on Summon Monsters to take the Explosive Runes directly to the enemy. Since the monster won't open these until it reaches the target these are much safer in a populated area.
While I suppose there is a risk of non-hostile NPCs in the wilderness being in a 10 ft. Radius of my Bloody Skeletons that would be pretty unusual. (I willing walk up to the undead with no hostile intent... yup this sounds likely.)
And they run arround with detect thoughts or detect evil all the time? Everyone on the island registers, to detect evil, despite requiring 5th level to have an aura? Why do they cast it in the first place? Unless they suspect something is wrong, they wont cast the spell.
As written by default in the adventure, yes. Keep in mind this is a level 15 adventure. "Only 5hd have an aura" isn't really an issue.
It's a magical island, made of cristals, full of extraplanar creatures (like 4 winged birds of paradise). The only habitants beyond the dragon and his consorts are cristal people (oreiads).
The sprites in the garden have constant detect magic.
If your doing it right, they shouldn't suspect anything until something is very wrong and your ready to spring your trap. As for hiding magic items, Magic Aura is a first level spell you can trivially put on a wand.
as i said, you need magic. You can use the nondetection spell, or a scroll of non detection, or a magic item that gives you a constant nondetection. But without it, you won't cut it with mundane skills.
Sure, at lower levels you might do it. But once you level up, equal CR monsters have a ton of SLA. And then things go harder for mundanes.
When did I argue mundane skills were better than magic? I said the could be better, as in situationally.In your first post on page 7?
In my games, skills tend to outshine the wizards.
Yes, with the qualifiers in my games and tend to. Followed by my second post
I specifically didn't say they can compete with speed or efficiency. But many times, they are more effective, use fewer resources, and allow for things that spells alone would not allow. When combined with magic, you can often amplify the power.
There are definetely places where magic flat out wins. Crafting is a big one. But in my experience, other situations like stealth or information gathering cause more problems for characters reliant on magic than those using skills.
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I've never died in a plane crash. Guess what? That doesn't mean the laws of physics prevent planes from falling out of the air. It just means it hasn't personally happened to me, thanks to the hard work of the engineers, mechanios, navigators, and pilots. It takes a lot of effort to keep a plane from falling.Presuming that the airline passengers are the wizards, and a plane crash is a "god-wizard," then this isn't a very good analogy.
A better analogy would be "people keep talking about how awful plane crashes are, but I've never actually experienced one...has anyone here ever experienced one?" and getting a bunch of chirping crickets in reply.
Yes, planes crash sometimes, but so fantastically rarely that if you want to see one outside of a news report, you'll pretty much need to work hard to go against the existing mechanisms of flying to deliberately make that happen.
...which is also like a god-wizard.
Exactly. We've seen 3 builds.
One was shown to be fragile and based on fundimental understandings of how a spell works that were innaccurate.
One was even more fragile when adjusted for level, and while useful, not particularly godlike because of the fragility.
And one was a sorcerer who had a spell that they agree is kind of broken from one of the setting books. Not saying they are wrong, but without that spell they are more a very good 20th level sorcerer than a god of any kind.
It is like the citing the Loch Ness Monster. Everyone has heard of it, there are some blurry pictures...but...
If the God wizard exists, I want to see it, in part so we can slay it and fix the problems. Like we did bloody money, and we probably should with emergency force sheild and possibly things like persistant metamagic rods.
That is, IMHO, productive.
Fabricate requires crafting skills.the wizard in his example doea not have any rank in craft. He uses high INT and a spell to fabricate masterwork full plates
You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate
10 Base from Taking 10, +7 Int, +5 Crafter's Fortune = Craft Check of 22. Masterwork stuff is in fact... pretty nice metal!
So wizards are overpowered, because they can invest in mundane skills?
The wizard is going to have a full skill investment in everything else he may ever wish to fashion with fabricate?
Or are you playing Schrodinger and just assuming the character has full skill progression in all skills?
as others have said, it doesnt need craft "ranks". It needs a craft "roll". And any wizard able to cast fabricate is able to beat the masterwork DC without ranks, just with Int and using spells. Because spells ar e awesome and all that.
I've never died in a plane crash. Guess what? That doesn't mean the laws of physics prevent planes from falling out of the air. It just means it hasn't personally happened to me, thanks to the hard work of the engineers, mechanios, navigators, and pilots. It takes a lot of effort to keep a plane from falling.Presuming that the airline passengers are the wizards, and a plane crash is a "god-wizard," then this isn't a very good analogy.
A better analogy would be "people keep talking about how awful plane crashes are, but I've never actually experienced one...has anyone here ever experienced one?" and getting a bunch of chirping crickets in reply.
Yes, planes crash sometimes, but so fantastically rarely that if you want to see one outside of a news report, you'll pretty much need to work hard to go against the existing mechanisms of flying to deliberately make that happen.
...which is also like a god-wizard.
Exactly. We've seen 3 builds.
One was shown to be fragile and based on fundimental understandings of how a spell works that were innaccurate.
One was even more fragile when adjusted for level, and while useful, not particularly godlike because of the fragility.
And one was a sorcerer who had a spell that they agree is kind of broken from one of the setting books. Not saying they are wrong, but without that spell they are more a very good 20th level sorcerer than a god of any kind.
It is like the citing the Loch Ness Monster. Everyone has heard of it, there are some blurry pictures...but...
If the God wizard exists, I want to see it, in part so we can slay it and fix the problems. Like we did bloody money, and we probably should with emergency force sheild and possibly things like persistant metamagic rods.
That is, IMHO, productive.
Hex is not based on an inaccurate fundamental understanding of how spell works. JJ may rule Blood Money doesn't work, but that is in no way a FAQ answer or actually rules of the game. It does certainly indicate that a FAQ may rule against it being used with spells with a duration of greater than 1 round, but until then I hold that Blood Money is valid with spells with a casting time greater than 1 round and posted the rules that support me. I have marked this question for FAQ, so we will see.
In the meantime, even if you discount Blood Money + Permanency and Symbols. Hex is still capable of being Spell slot independent and is absolutely capable of trivializing encounters. You've seen the God Wizard.
Exactly. We've seen 3 builds.
One was shown to be fragile and based on fundimental understandings of how a spell works that were innaccurate.
One was even more fragile when adjusted for level, and while useful, not particularly godlike because of the fragility.
And one was a sorcerer who had a spell that they agree is kind of broken from one of the setting books. Not saying they are wrong, but without that spell they are more a very good 20th level sorcerer than a god of any kind.
It is like the citing the Loch Ness Monster. Everyone has heard of it, there are some blurry pictures...but...
If the God wizard exists, I want to see it, in part so we can slay it and fix the problems. Like we did bloody money, and we probably should with emergency force sheild and possibly things like persistant metamagic rods.
That is, IMHO, productive.
Which kind of "god wizard" do you want to see? Because Treatmonk's definition isn't exactly "godly". It's a monicker because it "pulls the strings" as an invisible god, letting "mortals" do the stuff.
I wouldn't mind to bring a build to critique. What level do you want it? And what kind of expectations do you have? (ie: what do you consider "god"). When I build "real" wizards for "real" games, I often sign the "gentlemen's agreement" to leave out the cheesy stuff like chained-planar-binded-Djinns, the free-simulacrum-factory, and other stuff which is obviously broken, or is not "working as intended". So my builds do not bring dozens of explosive blood skeletons. But they tend to do fairly well in published AP.
So tell me a level and a goal, and I'll try to help you
but until then I hold that Blood Money is valid with spells with a casting time greater than 1 round and posted the rules that support me. I have marked this question for FAQ, so we will see.
You didn't post any rule that shows the ice statue (or the ruby powder, for that matter) material component is only needed in the first round of the 12 hours casting of a simulacrum spell. With or without JJ making the "mistake post", that doesn't work and doesn't hold any water. A strict RAW reading won't allow it, and a RAI reading wouldn't either. Only you see it working. And your DM (if this character actually exists beyond Theoryfinder)
Exactly. We've seen 3 builds.
One was shown to be fragile and based on fundimental understandings of how a spell works that were innaccurate.
One was even more fragile when adjusted for level, and while useful, not particularly godlike because of the fragility.
And one was a sorcerer who had a spell that they agree is kind of broken from one of the setting books. Not saying they are wrong, but without that spell they are more a very good 20th level sorcerer than a god of any kind.
It is like the citing the Loch Ness Monster. Everyone has heard of it, there are some blurry pictures...but...
If the God wizard exists, I want to see it, in part so we can slay it and fix the problems. Like we did bloody money, and we probably should with emergency force sheild and possibly things like persistant metamagic rods.
That is, IMHO, productive.
Which kind of "god wizard" do you want to see? Because Treatmonk's definition isn't exactly "godly". It's a monicker because it "pulls the strings" as an invisible god, letting "mortals" do the stuff.
I wouldn't mind to bring a build to critique. What level do you want it? And what kind of expectations do you have? (ie: what do you consider "god"). When I build "real" wizards for "real" games, I often sign the "gentlemen's agreement" to leave out the cheesy stuff like chained-planar-binded-Djinns, the free-simulacrum-factory, and other stuff which is obviously broken, or is not "working as intended". So my builds do not bring dozens of explosive blood skeletons. But they tend to do fairly well in published AP.
So tell me a level and a goal, and I'll try to help you
Hey now! It's 2 Bloody Skeletons (14 HD each) and Explosive Runes may be "cheesy" (Subjective as all hell), but its very much how the rules work. Why would you ignore a powerful tactic, that the rules work for, when trying to demonstrate something is well... powerful?
You didn't post any rule that shows the ice statue (or the ruby powder, for that matter) material component is only needed in the first round of the 12 hours casting of a simulacrum spell. With or without JJ making the "mistake post", that doesn't work and doesn't hold any water. A strict RAW reading won't allow it, and a RAI reading wouldn't either. Only you see it working. And your DM (if this character actually exists beyond Theoryfinder)
but until then I hold that Blood Money is valid with spells with a casting time greater than 1 round and posted the rules that support me. I have marked this question for FAQ, so we will see.
I did SO! I know reading my posts takes time, but please... do it if your going to respond.
"A material component consists of one or more physical substances or objects that are annihilated by the spell energies in the casting process."
Once you start casting Simulacrum you are "in the casting progress" and thus the Blood Money rubies for Simulacrum are annihilated as part of casting the spell.
And they run arround with detect thoughts or detect evil all the time? Everyone on the island registers, to detect evil, despite requiring 5th level to have an aura? Why do they cast it in the first place? Unless they suspect something is wrong, they wont cast the spell.As written by default in the adventure, yes. Keep in mind this is a level 15 adventure. "Only 5hd have an aura" isn't really an issue.
It's a magical island, made of cristals, full of extraplanar creatures (like 4 winged birds of paradise). The only habitants beyond the dragon and his consorts are cristal people (oreiads).
I'm not familiar with the adventure path but:
Disguise self will allow you to be an oreiad. They are class level creatures of neutral alignment, so you can disguise yourself as one and not having an evil aura shouldn't be out of place (unless only high level cultists are there, in which case you should know that and be taking extra precautions). So unless they are cycling through what alignment aura you might have, which takes 3 rounds each, you have no issue.
The sprites in the garden have constant detect magic.
Which is why you use a 750gp wand of a 1st level spell to disguise all the magic auras you don't want them seeing and create new ones that you do. No need for much more costly nondetection to fool this. It wont work against true sight, but then again neither will most of your other magic defenses. You have to rely on them not having it active all the time and not being suspicious of you.
If your doing it right, they shouldn't suspect anything until something is very wrong and your ready to spring your trap. As for hiding magic items, Magic Aura is a first level spell you can trivially put on a wand.as i said, you need magic. You can use the nondetection spell, or a scroll of non detection, or a magic item that gives you a constant nondetection. But without it, you won't cut it with mundane skills.
Once again not actually rebutting my argument, which doesn't say you don't need magic. My argument is that magic isn't necessarily better than mundane, it just augments it. And most of the magic that you need is easy to get on items and equipment.
Sure, at lower levels you might do it. But once you level up, equal CR monsters have a ton of SLA. And then things go harder for mundanes.
In my experience, mundane characters can easily pick up magic items necessary to offset those SLA.
With a competent DM, I've never had the problem.Ah, "the rules are fine because the DM can fix them." There's a name for this, that got thrown around a lot during the Pathfinder playesting -- as often as "Schroedinger's Wizard" does now, but by people in the opposite camp. Pepperoni Phallus, or something like that. It could get obnoxious, but it was also a valid point. As someone pointed out, "Good GMs can always patch bad rules. Good rules don't need to be patched. Why give the poor guy more work?"
Yes, but if we listen to everyone who has issues because of a bad GM, then we will be nerfing rogues to only get sneak attack on the first attack of the round, not allowing Paladins to use bows with smite, nerfing monk grappling, ect.
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That... isn't at all logical to conclude from Kirth's position. He is arguing that rules that instead having GM's fix bad rules, the rules should be good. A Bad DM is going to make Bad houserules, but please explain why that means the rules should not be good?
Issues with Casters being overpowered is not an issue caused by a bad GM, its an issue caused by a rule-set that makes them so.
I'm not familiar with the adventure path but:
Disguise self will allow you to be an oreiad. They are class level creatures of neutral alignment, so you can disguise yourself as one and not having an evil aura shouldn't be out of place (unless only high level cultists are there, in which case you should know that and be taking extra precautions). So unless they are cycling through what alignment aura you might have, which takes 3 rounds each, you have no issue.
All the players have hats of disguise. They actually deceived the oreads (and then killed them and dominated one). They couldn't do so with the consorts, as 2 of the 3 had constant true seeing.
Which is why you use a 750gp wand of a 1st level spell to disguise all the magic auras you don't want them seeing and create new ones that you do. No need for much more costly nondetection to fool this. It wont work against true sight, but then again neither will most of your other magic defenses. You have to rely on them not having it active all the time and not being suspicious of you.
The sprites in the garden have constant detect magic.
Sorry, I made a mistake. The sprites have constant detect evil.
You didn't post any rule that shows the ice statue (or the ruby powder, for that matter) material component is only needed in the first round of the 12 hours casting of a simulacrum spell. With or without JJ making the "mistake post", that doesn't work and doesn't hold any water. A strict RAW reading won't allow it, and a RAI reading wouldn't either. Only you see it working. And your DM (if this character actually exists beyond Theoryfinder)
but until then I hold that Blood Money is valid with spells with a casting time greater than 1 round and posted the rules that support me. I have marked this question for FAQ, so we will see.I did SO! I know reading my posts takes time, but please... do it if your going to respond.
"A material component consists of one or more physical substances or objects that are annihilated by the spell energies in the casting process."
Once you start casting Simulacrum you are "in the casting progress" and thus the Blood Money rubies for Simulacrum are annihilated as part of casting the spell.
Food becomes crap in the digestive process. Fortunately, it doesn't do so in the first round of the 6 hour long digestive process, or it would be quite unpleasent for your saliva.
You have proved that the materials components are destroyed "in the casting process", but you haven't proved that they are destroyed "in the first 6 seconds of a 12 hours long casting process, and then you play with your thumbs for 7199 rounds in a row with no material components at all"
I, and 1 other player in our home games, are no longer allowed to play wizards. After a few games it became clear we didn't need the party unless the adventuring day went more than 10 encounters. As such wizards tend to be rare at our tables. This post encapsulates wizards to me. Either they're so powerful due to system mastery that breaking the game takes effort to prevent or they're not so broken but still powerful.I was barred from playing wizards once.
After playing a fighter for a while, it was requested that I stick to wizards.
Yeah, I can see where people would rather have the all-powerful god Wizard than the not-so-powerful Fighter.
Better to pull your own weight AND everyone else's than not even pull your own, after all.
Never GMed for it, but I've seen the beginnings of the god <Insert caster here> at work once it starts to kick in around level 10+.
I never had too much of a problem with it, but never particularly liked it either. Might've had to do with the fact that the PLAYER was a bit of a doucheweasel though more than anything.
Encounters were doable without him. They were roflstomps with him.
I feel like these posts sum up the idea perfectly. Any class can be cheesed to make events laughable for the players. It depends on the players themselves more than the classes they play, in my opinion.
That... isn't at all logical to conclude from Kirth's position. He is arguing that rules that instead having GM's fix bad rules, the rules should be good. A Bad DM is going to make Bad houserules, but please explain why that means the rules should not be good?
Issues with Casters being overpowered is not an issue caused by a bad GM, its an issue caused by a rule-set that makes them so.
Yes, but how do you define bad rules?
By what is causing people issues?Because then you have to deal with the fact that people routinely come here to complain about Rogues destroying their campaigns, or the Cavalier that just 1-shots everything, or the Oracle that can't be stopped, Fighter DPS being too high to challenge, or any of the hundreds of class complaints I have seen on these boards over the past 5 years. The routine response is to tell the GM why they are wrong and how they bring the challenge back into their campaign. Why are Wizards different? Because they take more system mastery to bring into line when someone with system mastery starts abusing them?
You act like casters are the only classes being complained about. That isn't true, and pretending like it is will just give the games that have problems with the other classes more issues.
All the players have hats of disguise. They actually deceived the oreads (and then killed them and dominated one). They couldn't do so with the consorts, as 2 of the 3 had constant true seeing.I'm not familiar with the adventure path but:
Disguise self will allow you to be an oreiad. They are class level creatures of neutral alignment, so you can disguise yourself as one and not having an evil aura shouldn't be out of place (unless only high level cultists are there, in which case you should know that and be taking extra precautions). So unless they are cycling through what alignment aura you might have, which takes 3 rounds each, you have no issue.
And if they weren't relying on magic, the true seeing wouldn't have worked :)
Mundane disguises FTW
Which is why you use a 750gp wand of a 1st level spell to disguise all the magic auras you don't want them seeing and create new ones that you do. No need for much more costly nondetection to fool this. It wont work against true sight, but then again neither will most of your other magic defenses. You have to rely on them not having it active all the time and not being suspicious of you.
The sprites in the garden have constant detect magic.Sorry, I made a mistake. The sprites have constant detect evil.
Which is only really helpful if they expect everyone they come accross to have a noticable aura. I've never had to fake an aura before, so I will have to look to see if there is a low level spell that could be used.
False analogy, there is no digestion process material components go through. They are annihilated under the rules in the casting process. The material components exist during the casting process, which once you start casting a spell you most certainly are in the casting process. IF you could cite a rule that you must have the material component available at for all rounds of the casting that would help your case, but I can find that nowhere. Believe me I follow the rules when I make a character so if there is some rule that says you need to have the component at all steps I truly would like to see it.
That... isn't at all logical to conclude from Kirth's position. He is arguing that rules that instead having GM's fix bad rules, the rules should be good. A Bad DM is going to make Bad houserules, but please explain why that means the rules should not be good?
Issues with Casters being overpowered is not an issue caused by a bad GM, its an issue caused by a rule-set that makes them so.
Yes, but how do you define bad rules?
By what is causing people issues?
Because then you have to deal with the fact that people routinely come here to complain about Rogues destroying their campaigns, or the Cavalier that just 1-shots everything, or the Oracle that can't be stopped, Fighter DPS being too high to challenge, or any of the hundreds of class complaints I have seen on these boards over the past 5 years. The routine response is to tell the GM why they are wrong and how they bring the challenge back into their campaign. Why are Wizards different? Because they take more system mastery to bring into line when someone with system mastery starts abusing them?You act like casters are the only classes being complained about. That isn't true, and pretending like it is will just give the games that have problems with the other classes more issues.
Balance is kind of easy to figure for damage. There are numbers that can be compared. Yes, if something is doing significantly more damage then something else, that should be fixed as it is also a Bad Rule. However, the spellcasting rules have a number of Bad Rules that need to be fixed and I have never claimed they were the only Bad Rules or the only Bad Rules that need fixed.
The ruling here would have an impact on what happens to material components for spells with a casting time > 1 round when the spell gets interrupted. If we go with the position forwarded by Anzyr, then since they were consumed when the spell started to be cast, they are gone. If we go with an alternate position, then it is either left up to the GM or they are not consumed until the spell is successfully cast.
Exactly, I don't think anyone would argue that once someone started casting a spell, then got interrupted they wouldn't lose their material components. Or what is interrupting after the 1st round special?
False analogy, there is no digestion process material components go through.
No. they go through a casting process. You claim that the destruction happens in the *begining* of the process, but you have nothing to prove it. It might happen in the begining, in the middle, in the end, random, in a slow motion, in a flash... The rules don't say, and you *need* they are destroyed in a very precise moment (in the first round). Any other of the 7200 rounds, and it won't work
They are annihilated under the rules in the casting process. The material components exist during the casting process, which once you start casting a spell you most certainly are in the casting process. IF you could cite a rule that you must have the material component available at for all rounds of the casting that would help your case, but I can find that nowhere.
I can't. But I don't need to. The burden of proof is on you, it's you the one who is trying to do something with a spell that isn't allowed in a fair and fast reading. The Blood Money spell SAYS that the material component dissapear in one round (it doesn't say "at the end of the casting"). So it's you who need to prove that 1 single round of 7200 is enough.
You don't have any RAW for it, you don't have any developer stance for it (other than a "mistake post"), and RAI it doesn't seem you are covered either. The description of simulacrum, for example, seems to indicate that the ice sculpture is there for the whole process. That's why you make disguise rolls on it, while you sculpt it, and that's why it takes 12 hours.
EDIT: Simulacrum also have somatic components and verbal components. Let's suppose you get silenced in round 2 of the 7200. Are you able to cast the spell? Let's suppose you are paralized on round 2 of 7200. Are you able to cast the spell? Assuming you said no to both... if you need to have the V and S components for the whole casting... why do you think it's different for the M component or the F component? If a cleric is stealed from his Foci in the 2 round of a Greater restoration spell... can he cast it anyways just because he had it in the first round?
Which is only really helpful if they expect everyone they come accross to have a noticable aura. I've never had to fake an aura before, so I will have to look to see if there is a low level spell that could be used.Planar Bind a relatively weak outsider, something like a Dretch. Then cast Misdirection. It only lasts one hour per caster level mind.
I'm trying to think of low level spells that non-casters could reasonably have access to without having to rely on a wizard. Animate Dead would be a better fit for misdirrection, as it is only 3rd level and you don't need its cooperation, if you are only concerned about the evil alignment. Or you could just pay for the services of a local cleric of Asmodeus.
False analogy, there is no digestion process material components go through.No. they go through a casting process. You claim that the destruction happens in the *begining* of the process, but you have nothing to prove it. It might happen in the begining, in the middle, in the end, random, in a slow motion, in a flash... The rules don't say, and you *need* they are destroyed in a very precise moment (in the first round). Any other of the 7200 rounds, and it won't work
They are annihilated under the rules in the casting process. The material components exist during the casting process, which once you start casting a spell you most certainly are in the casting process. IF you could cite a rule that you must have the material component available at for all rounds of the casting that would help your case, but I can find that nowhere.I can't. But I don't need to. The burden of proof is on you, it's you the one who is trying to do something with a spell that isn't allowed in a fair and fast reading. The Blood Money spell SAYS that the material component dissapear in one round (it doesn't say "at the end of the casting"). So it's you who need to prove that 1 single round of 7200 is enough.
You don't have any RAW for it, you don't have any developer stance for it (other than a "mistake post"), and RAI it doesn't seem you are covered either. The description of simulacrum, for example, seems to indicate that the ice sculpture is there for the whole process. That's why you make disguise rolls on it, while you sculpt it, and that's why it takes 12 hours.
EDIT: Simulacrum also have somatic components and verbal components. Let's suppose you get silenced in round 2 of the 7200. Are you able to cast the spell? Let's suppose you are paralized on round 2 of 7200. Are you able to cast the spell? Assuming you said no to both... if you need to have the V and S components for the whole casting... why do you think it's different for the M component or the F component? If a cleric is...
Actually Simulacrum helps my argument. Why bother saying you need to craft the Ice Sculpture through the whole process if the default wasn't that material components were annihilated at the start? You absolutely need the Vocal and Somatic Components, but neither of these are annihilated in the process. A focus also is explicitly not consumed. Are you going to seriously argue that if someone interprets a person casting Restoration, they get to keep the 100 gp diamond?
That... isn't at all logical to conclude from Kirth's position. He is arguing that rules that instead having GM's fix bad rules, the rules should be good. A Bad DM is going to make Bad houserules, but please explain why that means the rules should not be good?
Issues with Casters being overpowered is not an issue caused by a bad GM, its an issue caused by a rule-set that makes them so.
Yes, but how do you define bad rules?
By what is causing people issues?
Because then you have to deal with the fact that people routinely come here to complain about Rogues destroying their campaigns, or the Cavalier that just 1-shots everything, or the Oracle that can't be stopped, Fighter DPS being too high to challenge, or any of the hundreds of class complaints I have seen on these boards over the past 5 years. The routine response is to tell the GM why they are wrong and how they bring the challenge back into their campaign. Why are Wizards different? Because they take more system mastery to bring into line when someone with system mastery starts abusing them?You act like casters are the only classes being complained about. That isn't true, and pretending like it is will just give the games that have problems with the other classes more issues.
For myself, bad rules are generally those that trivialize the game or cause arguments over the table as to what can be accomplished.
Like I consider Prediction of Failure to be a bad rule. Same with Energy Drain and Enervate. No save spells that trivialize an encounter. Bad rule design that allow a caster to completely overshadow an entire party. No save abilities should be completely eliminated from the game given the sheer number of rolls an opponent has to make at high level against an entire party, each of them having abilities that require a save or have a major negative effects. The reality of probability make even a high save creature likely to miss a save against a key powerful ability that will render it trivial. Why incorporate no save spells that make this likelihood that much, much greater?
That is bad rule design that makes being a DM no fun at all. Such spells and effects should be completely eliminated, especially so in high level play given it is usually four or five on one or two enemies. This is the case even with Adventure Paths. Most end game enemy encounters are trivial if ran as designed due to a major enemy fighting a party with little to no worthwhile backup while being assaulted by no save abilities that render their defenses weak. Then there is the fact that the damage output of a major BBEG usually isn't enought to threaten a PC's life if they have even a somewhat competent healer.
It just seems to me not much time has been put into making high level play viable. It shows in the final product. It's not impossible to run a fun high level game. You really have to think outside the box to do it and be aware of strange spell combinations that will render the enemy you spent hours preparing trivial.
Actually Simulacrum helps my argument.
It does not, for every other person in the multiverse but you ;)
Are you going to seriously argue that if someone interprets a person casting Restoration, they get to keep the 100 gp diamond?
I'm going to seriously argue that if someone steals the 100gp diamond on round 2 of the 3 needed, the spells fails. You need to be able to use all components during the whole casting. There is NO rule that says you only need to use Verbal and Somatic components during the whole casting, and material components during the first round.
Really? Planar bind some angels and tell them to go forth into the countryside, heal the injured, cleanse the afflicted and generally do good works. Oh and tell people I sent you..."
That is an unreasonable request to make of a Good outsider? I dont think it is and it's far more likely to have a real effect on the beliefs of the populace than one muundane character trying to use diplomacy.
There are very few wizards or priests that powerful.
If they are doing things of this nature, they are usually opposed by equally powerful wizards, priests, demons, and most especially gods that won't sit idly by while their affairs are meddled in.
Whereas a guy using his Diplomacy and Oratory skills might pass unnoticed due to his lack of calling upon powerful celestial servants that serve gods as well as the wizard calling. In the context of the game, it is irrelevant that the wizard can by "RAW" call the angel. Because by RAW that angel serves a higher power and if the wizard is using a celestial servant to spread words that god does not want spread, he may have a problem.
It's up to you as a GM to take that into account in your world. That's the reality that wizards, priests, and casters who want to do crazy powerful things with magic have to deal with. There are no hard fast rules for this, but no player can also argue with you when the Marilith Rogue shows up protected by the will of a god and decides to catch the wizard alone and sneak attack him to death with six or seven attacks.
If it is possible to make adventures for Superman, it's possible to make adventures for god wizards.
The problem is you're not designing an adventure for JUST Superman, or even Superman and the Justice League (a group essentially made up of 3 "Wizards", 2 extra beefed up "Fighters", and a "Monk" with infinite WBL).
No, you're making an adventure for something like Superman plus the Teen Titans, and while the Titans might be powerful in their own right, Superman kinda obsoletes them in many ways.
Right, because those problems are only because of the overpowered wizards...
Seriously, any ranger (or anyone with decent survial really) could trek that distance and bypass most encounters or trivialize the others by altering the environement they happen in to be favorable to the party. The only difference is that would take time, both in and out of game.
I don't think you understand how Survival works. It can, in order:
-Remove the need to find food in the wild (never an issue anyway)
-Halve your speed to give a +2 bonus on Fort saves vs weather (somewhat helpful if anyone has huge issues with weather saves I guess).
-Stop from getting lost (very good)
-Predict the weather (situationally kinda useful)
-Follow tracks (situationally VERY useful)
None of it allows you to "bypass most encounters" or "alter the environment to be favorable". None of it trivializes the trek.
If you design your party with stealth in mind, most things will never even be able to see the party traveling.
Creatures have Perception scores, y'know (though assuming you're in a forest, there is a range limit on this). Also, parties that use Stealth all the time. Will be, again, moving very slowly.
And even if you were correct, none of it is as trivializing as "I cast Teleport."
But people tend to ignore these basic benefits of skills and say they are worthless by those levels. In my games, skills tend to outshine the wizards.
Most of the physical skills (Climb, Swim, Stealth, Acrobatics for Jumping, etc.) are obsoleted entirely by certain spells (Spider Climb, Fly, Dimension Door, Greater/Invisibility Water Breathing/Walking, etc.).
Some of the mental stat skills are ever useful (Perception, Knowledges, Diplomacy/Intimidate though they have Charm Person muscling in on their territory, and yes Survival) but a Wizard (or any other spellcaster, really) shouldn't be able to just obsolete a skill like that.
Fabricate requires crafting skills.
It requires a Craft CHECK, there's a difference. Craft can be made untrained last I checked so his 24 Int (+7 mod) and +5 from Crafter's Fortune (a...1st level spell I believe?) allows him to instantly create a masterwork X by taking 10 (which you can do on Craft checks).
Really, my major gripe is with these utility spells. If skills were as good as spells (Climb/Swim actually giving you a listed speed past a certain level/bonus would be a good start, for example), or there were less spells that were like "Lol. Skills." I'd have less issues with casters.
Yeah they can still roflstomp some individual encounters, but at least they wouldn't require entire CAMPAIGNS to be built with that shenannery in mind.
I'm not even worried about "Unlimited Simulacrum man" or whatever at this time (mostly because the devs would never change that, I feel certain, because they think casters are SUPPOSED to be gods) as much as that.
At least you can say "Well a gentleman's agreement prevents that cheese" for most tables, but it's hard to say "You're breaking the gentleman's agreement!" when they're using a single spell exactly as intended, no rules twisting or anything.
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It just seems to me not much time has been put into making high level play viable. It shows in the final product. It's not impossible to run a fun high level game. You really have to think outside the box to do it and be aware of strange spell combinations that will render the enemy you spent hours preparing trivial.
Yes. Unfortunately, the counter-argument seems to be "the DM doesn't have to think of problems, because there aren't any," and apparently a "good" DM is one that will arbitrarily and one-sidedly fiat the hell out of things solely to maintain that illusion. In other words, the whole game boils down to a Story Hour that very carefully avoids the problematic rules while pretending they're not there. This works because the DM enforces it and the players don't look too closely at it.
What these people fail to see is that, if the problematic rules are fixed, they can still keep playing Story Hour as they are now. Nothing changes for them. However, those DMs among us who prefer to be referees, rather than Sole Authors, will have a much easier time doing our job and will appreciate the repairs in the rules.
This isn't a zero-sum thing.
1. Good rules + Good DM = Good game.
2. Bad rules + Good DM = Good game.
3. Good rules + Bad DM = Mediocre game.
4. Bad Rules + Bad DM = Lousy game.
There's no reason we shouldn't strive for #1, and strive to avoid #4, except for all the people who are convinced that, in fact, the rules as written are perfect and cannot be improved in any way -- and as "evidence" of this they repeatedly present Case #2 as an anecdote.
Balance is kind of easy to figure for damage. There are numbers that can be compared. Yes, if something is doing significantly more damage then something else, that should be fixed as it is also a Bad Rule. However, the spellcasting rules have a number of Bad Rules that need to be fixed and I have never claimed they were the only Bad Rules or the only Bad Rules that need fixed.
Define "significantly more damage". I suspect if you asked 20 people that question, you'd probably get about 20 answers. And that's the problem with trying to balance too much with respect to RPGs. Chances are you end up ruling away the way some people like to play the game - and that means they won't buy the new edition or whatever product "fixes" what they didn't think needed fixing in the first place. This means that fixes or issues like "significantly more" x need to be carefully considered.
For myself, bad rules are generally those that trivialize the game or cause arguments over the table as to what can be accomplished.
Like I consider Prediction of Failure to be a bad rule. Same with Energy Drain and Enervate. No save spells that trivialize an encounter. Bad rule design that allow a caster to completely overshadow an entire party. No save abilities should be completely eliminated from the game given the sheer number of rolls an opponent has to make at high level against an entire party, each of them having abilities that require a save or have a major negative effects. The reality of probability make even a high save creature likely to miss a save against a key powerful ability that will render it trivial. Why incorporate no save spells that make this likelihood that much, much greater?
That is bad rule design that makes being a DM no fun at all. Such spells and effects should be completely eliminated, especially so in high level play given it is usually four or five on one or two enemies. This is the case even with Adventure Paths. Most end game enemy encounters are trivial if ran as designed due to a major enemy fighting a party with little to no worthwhile backup while being assaulted by no save abilities that render their defenses weak. Then there is the fact that the damage output of a major BBEG usually isn't enought to threaten a PC's life if they have even a somewhat competent healer.
It just seems to me not much time has been put into making high level play viable. It shows in the final product. It's not impossible to run a fun high level game. You really have to think outside the box to do it and be aware of strange spell combinations that will render the enemy you spent hours preparing trivial.
And my point is that just because you have something making your game trivial it does not make everyone's game trivial. There are valid criticisms here, but more frequently than not they are overbloan and can be dealt with in game, just like the complaints of the "OMG ROGUE OP" GM.
I like that you are giving specific examples. When you talk about specific examples of abilities, they can be compared to others to determine where the breakdown actually is. I agree with you on those 3 spells, and feel they are all overpowered.
If it is possible to make adventures for Superman, it's possible to make adventures for god wizards.The problem is you're not designing an adventure for JUST Superman, or even Superman and the Justice League (a group essentially made up of 3 "Wizards", 2 extra beefed up "Fighters", and a "Monk" with infinite WBL).
No, you're making an adventure for something like Superman plus the Teen Titans, and while the Titans might be powerful in their own right, Superman kinda obsoletes them in many ways.
Right, because those problems are only because of the overpowered wizards...
Seriously, any ranger (or anyone with decent survial really) could trek that distance and bypass most encounters or trivialize the others by altering the environement they happen in to be favorable to the party. The only difference is that would take time, both in and out of game.
I don't think you understand how Survival works. It can, in order:
-Remove the need to find food in the wild (never an issue anyway)
-Halve your speed to give a +2 bonus on Fort saves vs weather (somewhat helpful if anyone has huge issues with weather saves I guess).
-Stop from getting lost (very good)
-Predict the weather (situationally kinda useful)
-Follow tracks (situationally VERY useful)
None of it allows you to "bypass most encounters" or "alter the environment to be favorable". None of it trivializes the trek.
Follow Tracks also involves identifying tracks, what made them, and their age. From that you identifying predators in the area, where their hunting grounds are, how long it has been since they have been in an area, what numbers they exist in. This also works for intelligent enemies like bandits, or with military patrols. It also allows you to navigate and find places to spend the night, defensible locations to camp, avoid likely ambush locations by finding alternate routes.
Sure, you may may need to follow it up with some Proffession Soldier or Knowledge Nature for some of these, but this is standard stuff in the purview of common skills for martial classes.
If you design your party with stealth in mind, most things will never even be able to see the party traveling.Creatures have Perception scores, y'know (though assuming you're in a forest, there is a range limit on this). Also, parties that use Stealth all the time. Will be, again, moving very slowly.
And even if you were correct, none of it is as trivializing as "I cast Teleport."
ANd if you have the survival to know when you need to stealth through an area, you can greatly speed up your travels by only stealthing when necessary.
But people tend to ignore these basic benefits of skills and say they are worthless by those levels. In my games, skillsMost of the physical skills (Climb, Swim, Stealth, Acrobatics for Jumping, etc.) are obsoleted entirely by certain spells (Spider Climb, Fly, Dimension Door, Greater/Invisibility Water Breathing/Walking, etc.).
All of which have limitted durations and require you to spend or dedicate significant resources including time. The spells may present an immediate convienience, but relying on them continuously is hazardous in my experience.
Some of the mental stat skills are ever useful (Perception, Knowledges, Diplomacy/Intimidate though they have Charm Person muscling in on their territory, and yes Survival) but a Wizard (or any other spellcaster, really) shouldn't be able to just obsolete a skill like that.
Charm Person is more of a hazard than a benefit in my experience. Way too easy to for them to pass the save and for you to be in way more trouble than the spell was worth.
I wouldn't say significant resources. For the most part, when I've had to Climb or Swim somewhere it was for a quick "Go here, look around" or "Grab that thingy" not a requirement to actually get somewhere we needed to be. And even when it was, there's always the ol' "Tow people with a rope while Flying" thing which is likely to be much faster than everyone climbing anyway.
As well, using your character's skills intelligently (I use Survival to find the enemy, and then find a route around them that even the non-sneaky members can go through undetected) is much more tense and exciting because there IS a possibility of failure and discovery, and makes for a better game session than "I cast Teleport" where the worst thing that will usually happen is "We got conked on the head and ended up 100 feet further away from our target, no biggie".
It just seems to me not much time has been put into making high level play viable. It shows in the final product. It's not impossible to run a fun high level game. You really have to think outside the box to do it and be aware of strange spell combinations that will render the enemy you spent hours preparing trivial.Yes. Unfortunately, the counter-argument seems to be "the DM doesn't have to think of problems, because there aren't any," and apparently a "good" DM is one that will arbitrarily and one-sidedly fiat the hell out of things solely to maintain that illusion. In other words, the whole game boils down to a Story Hour that very carefully avoids the problematic rules while pretending they're not there. This works because the DM enforces it and the players don't look too closely at it.
What these people fail to see is that, if the problematic rules are fixed, they can still keep playing Story Hour as they are now. Nothing changes for them. However, those DMs among us who prefer to be referees, rather than Sole Authors, will have a much easier time doing our job and will appreciate the repairs in the rules.
This isn't a zero-sum thing.
1. Good rules + Good DM = Good game.
2. Bad rules + Good DM = Good game.
3. Good rules + Bad DM = Mediocre game.
4. Bad Rules + Bad DM = Lousy game.There's no reason we shouldn't strive for #1, and strive to avoid #4, except for all the people who are convinced that, in fact, the rules as written are perfect and cannot be improved in any way -- and as "evidence" of this they repeatedly present Case #2 as an anecdote.
I agree.
When I design high level games I have to put lot of extra work in. I don't mean just the NPC and monster design.
I have to do a damage analysis which includes damage output per round, hit probabilities, and crit probabilities to get an idea of how fast a party can kill an enemy. Then I have to analyze the spell strategy of the casters to design counters since I always use the assumption at high levels that immortal demons, thousand year old dragons, and ancient liches have a ton of experience fighting and will anticipate what players will do. I figure how else would they have lived as long as they have without being able to anticipate the most powerful spell combinations and tactics of an enemy and acquiring the means to counter them. Otherwise the Abyss and Nine Hells wouldn't produce very scary enemies.
Then I fashion the encounters to get the feel I want. As an example during Kingmaker I gave a few of the legendary monsters 2000 hit points to give them the feel of legendary monsters. I boosted their damage output because it was trival to the Invulnerable Rager Barbarian (another combination that falls into the "GOD" class that Paizo didn't think out very well category). One of the creatures still died to a natural 1 save. It was a cool, memorable killing, so I didn't mind it so much. The other monster put up a great fight, but didn't output enough damage to put any fear in the party.
The damage output of high level creatures compared to a party is a joke. Their hit points might be ok if they could at least dish out enough damage to scare the party. But with DR and spells like mirror image, displacement, and stoneskin, parties of adventurers usually laugh at Balors.
I love the whole "Oh look at the Balor swinging his little sword. 2d6+13 tickled me a little. It didn't penetrate my DR sadly."
A Balor does an average of 20 points a sword hit. He'll maybe hit one or two times. At high level that is one channel maybe. Players that aren't playing paladins or clerics of good gods tend to choose neutral alignments to avoid unholy and smite good attacks. The Balor usually has no buff spells from other sources. Maybe a few demons he summons in to fight. But the Balor is generally a weak enemy dealing trival damage for a high level party. That just seems wrong to me.
I'd just like to point out that the Balor's damage includes only his Str mod, not Power Attack. So with Power Attack he's adding another +12 to each of his attacks, which is quite a significant number since he can TWF with his Whip and Sword, as well as a quickened Telekinesis for a bit of extra.
But the Balor isn't really meant to be a melee beast I don't believe, he's supposed to summon help, cast spells from the back, and only wade in when necessary.
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All the players have hats of disguise. They actually deceived the oreads (and then killed them and dominated one). They couldn't do so with the consorts, as 2 of the 3 had constant true seeing.I'm not familiar with the adventure path but:
Disguise self will allow you to be an oreiad. They are class level creatures of neutral alignment, so you can disguise yourself as one and not having an evil aura shouldn't be out of place (unless only high level cultists are there, in which case you should know that and be taking extra precautions). So unless they are cycling through what alignment aura you might have, which takes 3 rounds each, you have no issue.
Hey, I was just reading that module last night. :D
Balors really should not be closing to melee against most parties. They should be flying at maximum range flinging at will Dominate Monster, Power Word Stun or grappling/disarming people with Telekinesis. Melee is for its minions to slow the party down.
I think Balors should be wading into melee able to go toe to toe with the fighter while using free or swift actions to Power Word Stun and Dominate Monster. It is a Balor,one of the Lords of the Abyss. Demon armies cower in fear of them. The mightiest angels face them on the battlefield. A mortal party should have their hands full taking on a single Balor in combat. One swing of his mighty blade should easily equal the fighter in damage, one powerful word of command should match the wizard, and his skin should be resistant to the mortal blows of the most powerful warriors.
The Invulnerable Rager barbarian shouldn't carve him to pieces in a single round using Come and Get Me while taking minimal damage because of his DR (which is much better than the Balor). The wizard shouldn't hit him with an energy drain followed by a quickened enervate to render him effectively useless. A simple communal protection from evil spell shouldn't render Dominate Monster a joke on the entire party. All his minions shouldn't be quickly eliminated by the cleric using a holy word so that the Balor is fighting alone against four other people, each one of them nearly as powerful as he is.
That's not a Balor in my book.
Calibrate those expectations. A Wizard that can Energy Drain and quickened Ennervate is intended to be the same level of threat as that posed by the Balor. A Balor isn't supposed to be a scary monster to high level characters, its supposed to be a CR appropriate speed bump.