If he is lucky!
The title should have just been "Ashiel appreciation thread".
People are acting like there's a real job opening.
It probably should have been in the off-topics area. Mostly only serious things are posted here, and less sensible things have been posted here when the poster was completely serious.
Gotcha. My bad.
I still miss Cartigan.
What happened to him? Rabies?
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Can I first start off to say, I love this thread. Why didn't I think of it? @Wraithstrike, I agree, Ashiel is approaching divinity.
@Loyalist - Based off the things Ashiel has posted though, I think even the Avengers would have a hard time countering him, he knows the rules too well.
For instance, this post:
It is my honest belief that the game only gets harder as you gain levels. There's a reason why stuff like Raise Dead and Resurrection are so easy at high levels. Everything wants to kill you, and most of it can. :PMine too. A CR12 creature has much larger chance to kill a character in a level 12 average party than a CR 1 has in an average level 1 party. But an appropriate average encounter for a level 12 party - appropriate by the games standard - is CR12.I think the biggest detriment to gaining levels past 20th is simply the sheer difficulty vs reward of extremely high level encounters. I posted a CR 20 encounter on the boards a while back. I've spoilered a copy of it below:
CR 20 Demon Horde:The few individual monsters who can actually take on a party do so because they have the means to prepare, and many of them have powerful summons. For example, solars are excessively powerful and could take on an entire party, but they can also gate more solars, chain-spam summon monster VII to call in celestial Tyrannosaurs to swallow PCs and their minions whole, etc, etc, etc, etc.
High level combat is NOT like low level combat. It is a tactical game of dropping nukes and bio-weapons on your enemies while shielding yourself with your star-wars program and hazmat teams. A high level encounter where enemies are using their full resources is a terrifying ordeal. A 20th level party vs a Solar for example is akin to the freakin' Ragnarok on the scale of extreme terror that it would incite in normal humans, as on this scale you are literally hurling meteors at people, calling upon earth shattering storms, and cracking the land and sundering buildings, while the legions of heaven and hell descend or crawl up from their realms to join the battle.For example...
CR 20 encounter = 307,200 XP
Succubus x 4 (CR 7) = 12,800 XP
Shadow Demon x 4 (CR 7) = 12,800 XP
Nabasu x 6 (CR 8) = 28,800 XP
Glabrezu x 2 (CR 13) = 51,200 XP
Marilith x 1 (CR 17) = 102,400 XP
Vrock x 15 (CR 9) = 96,000 XP
Dretch x 5 (CR 2) = 3,000 XPThis is a demon horde led by a Marilith, who commands their fiendish legions. The entire horde can greater teleport at will, and works together. Most of them can summon more demons as spell-like abilities. Here is a quick rundown of the types of things these demons might do.
Marilith uses telekinesis at range to hurl objects or even other demons at the party, or uses it to grapple an enemy magician. If she sees an opening, she will get in and attack an opponent with her tail and constrict them. Anyone who is constricted must make a DC 25 fortitude save or fall unconscious for 1d8 rounds. At this point she moves on to the next foe, as one of the succubi coup de grace the unconscious character with a caster level 12 vampiric touch, likely killing the victim and buffing the succubus to hell and back with temporary HP. Blade barrier controls the battlefield and makes moving around a pain for those without teleportation.
The Nebasu wander around spamming enervation at targets, especially those in heavy armor, inflicting 1d4 negative levels with each ray that hits, no save. There are 6 of them, so that's a potential for 6-24 negative levels. Every negative level inflicts a -1 penalty to all saving throws. When they are out of rays, they will spam telekinesis to hurl objects at the party, or force DC 19 will saves or be hurled about like a rag doll.
The shadow demons seep through the floor and attack anyone who is on land using their blind-fight feat to ignore the miss %, and since they have cover you can't make AoOs against them, and retaliating against them is something of a pain, since you can't ready a full-attack against them. Your best bet is to take to the air. Each shadow demon of course attempts to summon another shadow demon with a 50% success rate, so 4 demons becomes 6 more than likely. They too can also stand back and spam telekinesis.
The succubi screech about the battlefield charm-bombing enemies and taking pot-shots at downed foes with vampiric touch when they're down. Of course, they all attempt to summon Babau demons with a 50% chance, so that adds another 2 acid-coated demons into the mix as cannon fodder. They also will not hesitate to dominate animal companions, mounts, and similar creatures. They're not difficult to kill, but they will generally spread out and distract the party, and can turn ethereal at-will, allowing them very good tactics. If desired, they can fly around and drop nets on the party to entangle them, as they can comfortably carry plenty of them and still greater teleport around the field.
The vrocks all begin a dance of ruin, spreading out into groups of 4 vrocks for maximum effectiveness. Every 3rd round, each group unleashes a 20d6 blast of lightning in a 100 ft. radius, which all of the demons are immune to. So if you don't break up or crowd control the vrocks, you will be eating up to 4 instances of 20d6 electricity damage, which is an average of 280 damage anywhere the radius's overlap. Alternatively, they can keep flying around the party screeching hellishly, forcing DC 21 saves vs stun for 1 round. Becoming stunned can easily mean death in this battle, and you can get hit by up to 15 of these at once, making saving a harry business. That's not counting the auto-damaging spores they can shake every 3 rounds.
The Glabrezu play hell with the party's counters. They possess at-will mirror image, making taking them out difficult, and they can function as spotters for the team, utilizing their constant true-seeing ability. Each can cast power word stun to screw over any foe with 150 HP or less. All can cast reverse gravity and dispel magic, and won't hesitate to shut down the magic items of the party, since a CL 16 dispel magic can shut down the vast majority of magic items easily. Finally they can drop unholy blight every round without fail, dealing 8d8 damage to all good creatures in an area and forcing saves vs nausea. If pushed into combat, they have a 15 ft. reach and decent natural attacks.
Dretch simply skulk about the battlefield dropping stinking clouds into the fray. All the demons are immune to the cloud, but it forces a 5% chance per round to become nauseated for 1d4 rounds, potentially causing some PCs to lose several rounds worth of actions. They also use it because the 20% concealment it provides to people inside the cloud completely negates sneak attack, and thus ruins any chance a rogue has to sneak attack their bosses. With five of them, they should also be able to summon an additional dretch, allowing up to 5-6 stinking clouds throughout the battle.
All of the above is assuming, of course, that none of them are using any of their treasures themselves (such as the marilith using any superior weapons, or clad in armor, or any of them wearing rings or cloaks or anything cool like that, which may indeed be part of their treasure and thus added to their statblock by the GM).
A CR 25 encounter would be a truly heinous thing to behold. The difference between a 20th level character and a 25th level character is not so large in the core rules (you've gained about 2-5 points of BAB, some more HP, +2 to good saves, +1 to poor saves, 10-40 more skill points, up to 14th level spells (hooray metamagic), and some new feats feats. Some class abilities have gotten marginally better. But a CR equivalent encounter at this point will likely wipe your party, unless you were fighting really, really dirty.
Also, I personally believe Ashiel is a male, though I won't how I came to that belief. I do, however, feel secure in that belief.
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I actually like the fictional employment contest premise. It leaves space for us to say who might not fit as a first-party designer, but to highlight their strengths also. Not just an up or down vote.
I guess I am relaxed. Huh. I do tend to cut loose in the OTD, but that's never about rules.
I'd be a poor choice to design for a new character option book, but I would love to be in on a "patched" or "light" set, like the beginner box. Or to manage playtests. It's like what I said up thread about Ash: my style of play might not work for the designs that bring people to the game.
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Ashiel's probably a guy, but if the avatar is Seoni, and the name sounds kinda feminine, I can see why everyone would assume otherwise.
But whatever, wouldn't you do the same thing in WoW or similar, even if you know it's probably a dude sitting in front of his computer somewhere?
On the other hand, Ashiel seems content to remain ambiguous on the subject. Does that sound like a guy? Dudes are usually insecure and jump to correct anyone who takes them for a female.
Contrast that with a woman, who may be comfortable with the ambiguity, as it protects her contributions from skewed perceptions due to gender biases, or for a number of other reasons.
So maybe Ashiel is female.
Anyway who cares I guess.
Sorry I couldn't pass up on an Ash thread without making a cameo.
We seem to have buried the hatchet a while ago though,
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
*Gasp*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Books full of Glowing stealth rocks, Genie Simulacrums, Diplomacy replacing charisma.....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Whooo...Good one!
Why not hire me for public relations while we are at it!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Why not hire me for public relations while we are at it!
Sorry thats MY job.
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Could be worse.CoZilla/Roy?
THIS UNIT HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY ASSIGNED AS A SUBSTITUTE.
I have to admit, I reckon there should be a 'Feat' to let you chop-shop 10 shot wands or multi-use scrolls, or Potions you can either drink as '2 CLW or 1 CMW'. That would be the shizzle.
I use partially filled wands all the time for NPC's and treasure hoards. Think about it, they would be out there right? Why would every wand be shrink wrapped with the original packaging and the owners manual.
Not so different for a build either. The character has a past. Maybe they used some charges or acquired it that way.
Oh sure they could well be out there with a few charges blown off (the wands that is, no so potion/scrolls) and with x charges left, I'm suggesting it would be nice to have capcity for the budget conscious adventurer to have a few other options. Like a 10 shot wand freshly minted.
Similarly the multi-use scroll/potions could be handy.
Multi-use potion = 3 potions in a bigger bottle. Done.
Multi-use scroll = 3 scrolls written on one long piece of paper.
*shrugs* While I don't allow for creating wands with less than 50 charges (actually, if you insist on it, you may... but you'll still pay full price), I have no problems with putting partially depleted wands into treasures, on NPCs... or into magic shops.
However, those thingies are not subject to the 'below base price, so it's readily available' rule. In second hand shops, there's no build to order :)
Multi-use potion = 3 potions in a bigger bottle. Done.
Multi-use scroll = 3 scrolls written on one long piece of paper.
None of which has much of an advantage compared to the single-use items.
The large scroll is not likely to fit into your standard scroll case, the large potion is a single item that gets destroyed if some sunders it; and you still won't be able to take multiple gulps in less time.
Shifty, sorry I just read your post, I was replying to celulose and yours showed up while I typed. I get where you're going with the chop-shop thing now.
I probably wouldnt allow for crafting partial wands either but I think I would allow them for a player to come in under the WBL budget when creating a character at whatever level.
Good point about the availability & base level, I hadn't thought about that. Makes sense.
I can think of ONE advantage for the gallon jug of CLW's, or the typewriter feeding scroll though...
You don't have to rummage for another one if you want to use it again next turn.
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Did Carty get perma-banned?
I rather enjoyed his snark.
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Seems so and good riddance. The board has been a much friendlier space since.
Umm... is this 'carty' someone I should know? *confused*
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Umm... is this 'carty' someone I should know? *confused*
He's a banned poster.
Let's drop the discussion of banned posters, the mods really don't like it. On top of that, it's poor form — we're talking about them and they may read it, but they are unable to defend themselves. Regardless of their attitudes, they should have a chance to respond, or we should just let the matter rest.
Haven't been to OT boards much I see...
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Cartigan was a former poster here. Very antagonistic, and extremely convinced that his way of playing the game was the ONLY way of playing the game.
I never did exactly figure out WHAT game, however. He flat-out admitted several times he didn't play Pathfinder, he had nothing but disdain for 3.X, and outright hatred for any of the pre-d20 editions. If I had to guess, I'd say he played 3.5, since he seemed to have less blatant hatred for it than for any of the other editions.
Thanks for the info.
I can think of ONE advantage for the gallon jug of CLW's, or the typewriter feeding scroll though...You don't have to rummage for another one if you want to use it again next turn.
Yep.
No move actions between shots, keep on chugging/reading etc.
Ok its minor and situational, but hey its the little things that make it fun :)
Midnite Angel what do u think about what I said about multi-use scrolls/potions?
Worth it?
Edit: Ninja'd by a Ninja!
So if you're banned, you can't log in, but you can still read posts? I figured you wouldn't even be able to load the website...
That would be pretty hardcore. How do they permaban you anyway, IP? It's not like IP is hard to spoof, many routers dont have static IP anyway right?
You know this is probably not a good area of discussion.
Bad form, as the former president has pointed out.
I'm quite proud of how well I managed to derail this one. :)
Well done, oh toothy grab bag.
*tosses a cookie*
That would be pretty hardcore. How do they permaban you anyway, IP? It's not like IP is hard to spoof, many routers dont have static IP anyway right?
You know this is probably not a good area of discussion.
Bad form, as the former president has pointed out.
Best left a mystery so that people don't exploit it.
I do know that it is not easy to fool the Postmonster with new accounts, etc. People generally receive "second chances" if they start a new account and they stop the infringing behavior, but the Postmonster is aware of who they are (at least, I've seen examples).
Correct as usual EL. Consider it dropped.
SOMEONE GET THAT BAG OUT OF MY THREAD!!
Multi-use potion = 3 potions in a bigger bottle. Done.
Multi-use scroll = 3 scrolls written on one long piece of paper.
I use this kind of thing a lot. Also worth noting, the Pathfinder modules and APs will often feature partially charged wands and multiple-spell scrolls. I also use "consumable" spell effects created with brew potion for things that aren't potions or oils at all, if I can make sense of it. Likewise for wands, I will have a charged item be just about anything that tickles my fancy.
For a little while, I even banned "wands" and replaced them all with more interesting objects. I think it may have been that illustration of the guy with the wand and the dracula cape in the CRB magic chapter that put me off wands completely. It was interesting, though laborious, to come up with different physical forms for the charged spell completion items to take.
Wands are incredibly silly looking.
I've seen illustrations of fairly stately looking wands that Druids were supposed to have carried historically but I think in game terms those would be rods.
Wands in DnD/PF are Tinkerbell status.
I'd like to know what you came up with. Anything I can think of right now would either use a slot, or would seem to be a wondrous item.
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Of course, the solution is to make them cartridges in a rifle-like contraption. </that's sarcasm>
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For looks I always liked psionic dorjes. Something about a spell-flinging rod or chunk of energized crystal appeals to me. Heck just make it a glowing fist-sized rock that the caster can point at an enemy and unleash hell, it works out to the same thing.
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Cheapy would be a good choice in general as well. I tend to hit poor form after about 11:00pm and my fourth time repeating myself.
Though this does remind me that some day I want to do a page of links that I can go to for quick responses to questions that come up again... and again... and again.
I think part of what makes someone good with the rules and such is a willingness to play with the rules. Almost like a musician at a jam session, you just put them out there and see where the music (or rules) lead. I did this with my average joe is a commoner thread, and I've seen Ashiel, Rovingdork, Cheapy, and Evil Lincoln do things like this before.
Also I think the aforementioned names and myself have a bit of an advantage on our side in that we've been talking to each other on these forums for a while now. We are settled into each others methods of posting and can articulate to each other what we intend better for it.
I have seen each of us get put off our sorts by newer posters that come in more aggressively or are unused to our posting styles.
Another part I think is key in this regard is being able to hit the tangent rules as well -- not just a 'here is your answer' but 'this is where you would find this answer' and 'these are some key side issues you'll need to note when applying this answer'.
Those points help build system mastery in other people so as to help people find their own answers and think about how changes can affect other areas that they might not have realized.
I think any such position shouldn't be a single person position either -- there is too much for one person to see, and somethings that might be fine to one person won't be for another. As such having a pool of people to work together can help form a broader and much more relaxed consensus -- kind of like how the supreme court is supposed to work.
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How about bandages of CLW's? A spoon of restoration? An aspergillum of disrupt undead, or create water? I'm not sure I love any of these.