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Gold dragons can specifically assume any animal or human forms available through polymorph. I think it's an exception to the usual change shape rules (kind of like how lycanthropes have an exception).
Or it's an oversight.
Or huge humans. :3
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As someone who mostly lives a hermits life and struggles to talk to people he doesn't already know... how do I find new people to play D20 Legends with? 'Cause I'm pretty sure nearly 100% of my group won't want to give it a try.
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We'll have to do a PBP I reckon.
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As someone who mostly lives a hermits life and struggles to talk to people he doesn't already know... how do I find new people to play D20 Legends with? 'Cause I'm pretty sure nearly 100% of my group won't want to give it a try.
Well depending on my schedule when the game is ready, maybe we could just play a game over Maptools or something sometime.
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I suspect there will be more than a few groups worth of people wanting to play in either fashion. I certainly do.
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Ashiel: Are you excited about Fuller House? Are you excited about the new Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon movie? Do you plan to write cross over fanfiction about those two? and if so- How would I obtain it?
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Ashiel: Are you excited about Fuller House?
I'll need to look it up. I'm not familiar, I don't think. :o
Are you excited about the new Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon movie?
There's a new one? :O / :D
Do you plan to write cross over fanfiction about those two? and if so- How would I obtain it?
Dunno; I've usually only written fanfiction about people's D&D characters at request, but if I did, all you'd need is ask. :P
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Fuller House is the Full House sequel show.
Apparently DJ is all growed up with 3 boys and her husband (Mr. Fuller) dies! Leaving her to raise the boys with the help of her sister Stephanie and childhood friend Kimmy... It gets released 2/26/16 on Netflix.
The SAME day the new Crouching Tiger (I believe it is called: The Sword of Power) movie gets released...
I imagine the combo of those two would look something like: The Michelle's (yes, there are TWO!) went missing and Mr. Fuller started investigating to learn that they became involved in a Hellraiser-esque plot surrounding a mysterious Chinese sword of ancient and incredible power (with a mythology similar to the Spear of Longinus or the Witchblade... but... more Asian-y).
DJ gets a call one day that MR. Fuller has been killed in what COULD be viewed as totally normal circumstances (car accident, falling off a cliff, heart attack, crashing toilet seat from a space station... what have you) but with the recent missing of her sister (she thinks there is only ONE michelle... that won't get revealed until later) and NOW her husband she is paranoid.
She gets her other sister Stephanie and her best friend Kimmy to move in with her and solidify her resources. A package arrives at her place shortly after holding... THE SWORD! It is marked for delivery from her husband and dated for a day AFTER she gets the call he is dead (and has confirmed the body and everything).
Now she juggles the responsibilities of motherhood while fending off random ninja attacks. She fight in a chun-li-esque style using powerful leg attacks because her hands are full of the babies. Kimmy is an inventor/weapons type of fighter using MacGuyver ingenuity and specializing in using her horribly smelling socks/shoes to incapacitate her foes. Stephanie has been studying the path of the shrine maiden and uses spiritual forces to protect the house and can utilize sutras and ofuda in order to handle the more supernatural forces sent after her family.
Like there is a LOT of action but every episode ALSO has to layer in the NORMAL life drama like one of the boys likes a girl but the girl likes a different boy and then ninja demons attack the school and he is torn between asking his aunt Stephanie to use charms to protect ALL the students because if ninjas eat (I imagine they are some sorta pseudo-onis in stereotypical ninja garb) his romantic rival then he has a better chance of getting the girl...
Something like that is what I imagine, but I haven't put much thought into it.
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Nice. I'll have to look into it. :)
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Something like that is what I imagine, but I haven't put much thought into it.
Seriously, I can tell. I mean, there's so little thought put into this, it's almost like half a summary of a teaser trailer for a movie. Ugh, 1/10, would not read.
:P
I'm pretty sure I've seen an anime with something like this at one point, either that or they've just begun blending together in my mind to form one super anime.
[Edit]
Spear of Longinus
Oppai-dragon reference?
My Japanese is covered in rust monsters but...doesn't that translate to Boob-dragon, or something to that extent? (O_o)
As an aside, the Spear of Longinus is a legendary spear, supposedly the one that pierced the side of Christ during the crucifixion. It's also know as the Spear of Destiny, is a plot point in the movie Constantine, was supposedly sought by Hitler, wielded by...uhh...Lancelot? It's said that having it makes you invincible/unstoppable/unbeatable in battle. Or something like that.
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Yes. Heath Ledger had a cute little Xena/Hercules series called "Roar" that was Irish/Celtic themed and centered around The Spear.
Ashiel is correct to the general mythology but the item is also cursed... because it killed a god. So the immortality/invincibility is connoted as NOT being the cool/fun kind... I don't know what that means exactly, but I feel like it is sufficient enough reason to avoid the relic.
In the Justice League Unlimited cartoon Gorilla Grodd has Lex Luthor steal the spear in order to join the Legion of Doom :) It is one of those lesser known relics that still pops up occasionally in pop culture on occasion.
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Now that I have seen the first 3 episodes of Fuller House I have to adjust my script. Mr. Tanner 'died' in a fire. DJ is a vet (or something similar) so instead of Monk she now has to be a Ranger (is there a Monk archetype that works with animals?, Kimmy is a Party planner (so the improvised weapons still work... they are just more decorative) and Stephanie is a DJ (so... I guess she is maintaining Balance with priestessly duties- She rocks all night and meditates all day... or something)
These are things that I am confident you can iron out.
I look forward to your finished product.
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My Japanese is covered in rust monsters but...doesn't that translate to Boob-dragon, or something to that extent? (O_o)
As an aside, the Spear of Longinus is a legendary spear, supposedly the one that pierced the side of Christ during the crucifixion. It's also know as the Spear of Destiny, is a plot point in the movie Constantine, was supposedly sought by Hitler, wielded by...uhh...Lancelot? It's said that having it makes you invincible/unstoppable/unbeatable in battle. Or something like that.
Nobody can stop boob dragon. The aura is less fear and more general confusion.
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Oh, I'm aware of what the Spear is and the mythology behind it, it's just, it's rare these days for it to be referred to as the Spear of Longinus. Last time I heard it called that was in a light novel called Highschool DxD.
Which is where the Oppai-dragon thing comes from. Yes, it does translate to boob dragon. It's from a light novel/anime called Highschool DxD. The premise of the show is that the main character, Issei, is a devout pervert. As a character, he's specifically designed to be a, basically, immoral hero. Like, where most anime/manga heroes gain power through friendship and the love, Issei gains powers by groping boobs. Issei has an artifact, essentially, embeded in his soul that allows him to wield the power of the Red Dragon Emperor, who is one of the Two Heavenly Dragons, each dragon of which, is powerful enough to kill the Abrahamic God. So instead of using the nickname Red Dragon Emperor, because of Issei's perverted nature, he gains the nickname Breast Dragon Emperor, or Oppai-dragon.
Anyway, the anime itself has proven to be surprisingly popular because it doesn't even pretend to be anything other than what it is. The show is all fanservice, and it glorifies in being such. For example, Issei gains two special abilities, Dress Break (strips the clothing from females) and Bilingual (allows him to speak to boobs and hear the secret thoughts of females). Definitely a NSFW series, but the plot for the series, combined with the utter ridiculous amount of fanservice has built this cult following for it.
The author of the Light Novels constantly talks about, how, they keep pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable for the series. Every time he feels he's gone too far, his publisher or editor tells him to push even farther. They want to see exactly how far they can go, before people become unwilling to carry the light novels in their store. So far, they've done some really crazy things and no one seems to have even expressed a hint of being unwilling to carry it.
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Ahhh, cool. I watched the anime inspired by the book. It was pretty great and while fanservicey, not to an extent that was painful to watch (I tried to watch Queen's Blade but gave up a few episodes in). DxD was very enjoyable. :)
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Would you rather fight 100 cats (each 5kg) or one cat (tiger, 500kg)? What if you had to do that as a lv 3 wizard in Pathfinder?
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Would you rather fight 100 cats (each 5kg) or one cat (tiger, 500kg)? What if you had to do that as a lv 3 wizard in Pathfinder?
In real life? Neither, but 100 cats would probably fight each other as much as me, and I at least have a slim chance of escaping them, or using a door to stop them. Tiger gives no f#@+s.
As a level 3 wizard? Oh I'm probably screwed either way, but uh... 100 cats. Tiger one shots me from ambush, 100 cats I might be able to escape using invisibility or levitate.
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Also, what adventure path would you recommend for a new GM to run?
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Why do you think some classes have a LARGE amount of archetypes and others are more restricted in that area?
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Would you rather fight 100 cats (each 5kg) or one cat (tiger, 500kg)? What if you had to do that as a lv 3 wizard in Pathfinder?
In real life, assuming they were angrily frenzied and without fear it would depend on how armed and armored I was I think. I'd probably take the tiger if I felt like I had a way to effectively wound it (such as stabbing it with a really big knife), since as a cat owner I feel a horde of moderately sized house cats would be harder to fend off and the death would be both horrific and slow (but they'd be doing things like climbing all over you, tearing at your ears, eyes, etc), whereas at least if I failed to kill the tiger at least I'd probably die semi-quickly after it bit my throat out.
If they were just hostile but otherwise acted like you'd an animal to expect...the cats. Mostly because chasing or spooking them would be fairly trivial even in large numbers.
As a 3rd level wizard...mostly depends on the wizard and whether or not the animals are unusually frenzied or acting normal. If acting normal, either, since conjuring a bit of fire should be enough to get them to back down. If frenzied, then it would depend on my spell options.
In either case, the ideal scenario would be having summon swarm prepped with either invisibility or levitate since either of those would for the most part make it impossible for them to effectively fight you and they can't really do anything except get eaten by a swarm of spiders (who are immune to their weapons and last as long as you keep concentrating).
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Why do you think some classes have a LARGE amount of archetypes and others are more restricted in that area?
Several reasons.
1. Some classes are more generic than others and have less fluff to get in the way of tweaking them without becoming something entirely new.
2. Some classes have a wider variety of abilities that are good choices for trading out into archetypes.
3. Some classes are felt to need more help and so they get things to dress them up or trade out less useful abilities. The level of success is to be determined.
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Also, what adventure path would you recommend for a new GM to run?
That's a hard question to answer since I've ran or played in few adventure paths, fewer still to their conclusions, and the quality of each tends to fluctuate from book to book (for example, when my friend Aratrok was running Reign of Winter, we loved the first book but with the latter books could have found something more fun - like punching each other in the gut - and abandoned that campaign as a group decision), presumably from being written by different authors.
Generally speaking, it's difficult to recommend a particular adventure path because most I've dealt with needed heavy editing or revisions to actually provide a good game. Jade Regent, for example, I found was littered with incorrect statblocks and nonsensical NPCs (some spoilers below).
One of the guard captains was violently killed in the process of the keep being taken over. Said captain rose as a wight and for no apparent reason remains in the keep just chillin', helping his murderers because...well there is no reason. No one in the keep, nor their masters, has any means of controlling or compelling the former captain to serve them. If anything, this wight should be as anxious to kill all the badguys as much as the party - moreso even.
Meanwhile, the weight wanders around in plate armor. Since the weight doesn't have proficiency with the armor proper, the book says to just ignore the armor for all purposes, running it as just a normal naked wight. That's just stupid. He also mindlessly attacks and attempts to murder the PCs like some common zombie, making this one of the most embarrassing NPCs in the book. What could have been a good insight into the events leading up to the occupation of the keep and a chance for some skill checks (such as reasoning with the vengeful captain) for an "enemy of my enemy" scenario.
Similarly, there's a group of ogrekin who explicitly are chillin' in the keep just because nobody's kicking them out, and they're lead by this female ogrekin lady who's motivations are described as being completely uninterested in the rest of the inhabitants of the keep - the bad guys - and their machinations, caring only for the safety of her family. Naturally this means that they attack on sight and fight to the death for - get this - not wanting to have to move again.
In Reign of Winter...
I recall that some NPCs had spells prepared at the wrong levels (I forget which onces though). Stuff like that.
I've run the beginning book of Curse of the Crimson throne and enjoyed it a lot but didn't have anymore of those in hardcopy (I was running it tabletop). It's 3.5 and needs to be updated to Pathfinder (I had some updates for it on my old PC but I don't have them on hand).
The best advice I could give is skimming through some of the APs and finding something that's fairly simple, uses few weird subsystems (avoid anything with mythic, technology rules, etc) and keep it as simple as possible when you need to make revisions.
Or check out some of Paizo' adventure modules. You can often create a campaign by using a few different adventure modules with a little filler here than there. It also allows you to focus more on the PCs and it's far more open when it comes to the "rails".
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Also, what adventure path would you recommend for a new GM to run?That's a hard question to answer since I've ran or played in few adventure paths, fewer still to their conclusions, and the quality of each tends to fluctuate from book to book (for example, when my friend Aratrok was running Reign of Winter, we loved the first book but with the latter books could have found something more fun - like punching each other in the gut - and abandoned that campaign as a group decision), presumably from being written by different authors.
Generally speaking, it's difficult to recommend a particular adventure path because most I've dealt with needed heavy editing or revisions to actually provide a good game. Jade Regent, for example, I found was littered with incorrect statblocks and nonsensical NPCs (some spoilers below).
As someone who has played most of the APs, I can safely say that's pretty standard. Avoid subsystems, most of them are busted or silly, and those that aren't often are only fun for people who like micromanagement or building things.
Quality is pretty variable overall. APs suffer from the double edged sword thing. The multiple writers mean consistency suffers book to book, but to get them out in any timely fashion, they sorta have to do it that way.
Curse of the Crimson Throne is probably one of the best ones, though conversion required. Technically I played that one during the original pathfinder beta so it's not that difficult to play with barring a few things.
But otherwise, mmm... Ignoring a rather obvious failure they brought up in book 6's foreword, Carrion Crown is probably one of the best ones. Though some YMMV for book 4 and 5. (Historically I find book 5 of almost every AP to be the weakest one.) The biggest flaw could be argued that it throws consumables out like candy but you see VERY few actual magic items, yet it's not one where you can do much crafting (You're chasing some dudes around.). You could also easily stop the adventure at book 3's end too which is kinda weird but eh? And there's a confusing flaw in book 4's plot logic that they just sorta forget about beyond a one note thing going into book 5.
But yeah, AP's suffer from some pretty serious logical flaws. Most undead you see are evil because. Which can be okay sometimes but often it's nonsensical reasons. I'll never fathom the logic that has undead always working with their murderers with no forceful control being applied. And that happens ALL the time. And while several enemies have morale stats for when they run away, usually named npcs, too many fight to the death for no reason.
And sometimes the plots can be a bit derp too. Sometimes it results in hilarious results. The overarching plot of Legacy of Fire for example. It's just... Wow. It's so absurd as to be hilarious yet I can't help but enjoy it for the sheer insane logic of it. It is greek myth level of wat.
Probably the other decent one to start with is Rise of the Runelords anniversary edition. They've toned down the TPK machines a good bit in it (Too much so in my opinion) And bridged some of the aps together a little better and removed some of the suddenly subsystems from it. It's a lot tighter cus of it.
I wanted to mod wrath of the righteous and run that one at some point but I've been so busy lately I haven't had any time to do any serious GMing. :(
And I want to see those changes cus I ran that one. Plots nice enough, but oh god the mythic...
Course I ended up with a hell of a mess over it, cus some players wanted the utter cakewalk that it was and others wanted the challenge. Course I've come to the realization that most of my group doesn't know what they're doing. Probably too many pulled punches.
I mean, hell, the last AP I played was Iron Gods and we only passed that due to said pulled punches, going up against cr 20+ enemies at level 15 and winning. With no arcane casters. With the wealth of level 8ish chars, ignoring artifacts.
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And I want to see those changes cus I ran that one. Plots nice enough, but oh god the mythic...
Course I ended up with a hell of a mess over it, cus some players wanted the utter cakewalk that it was and others wanted the challenge. Course I've come to the realization that most of my group doesn't know what they're doing. Probably too many pulled punches.
I mean, hell, the last AP I played was Iron Gods and we only passed that due to said pulled punches, going up against cr 20+ enemies at level 15 and winning. With no arcane casters. With the wealth of level 8ish chars, ignoring artifacts.
I need to look into Carrion Crown. It seems like the sort of campaign that's right up my alley. As an aside, I almost played a shadow sorceress in a carrion crown game (the GM I was playing under was a friend of mine who wasn't spooked by such a bizarre character) but he ended up running a different game instead so I scrapped the character to do something more on theme.
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Re RoW
I recall that some NPCs had spells prepared at the wrong levels (I forget which onces though).
I'd like to note that I've gone through the majority of NPCs in my own preparations, and this is not true, from what I can tell. The most glaring "errors" seem to be witches who end up getting early access on several spells from their patrons.
My group is having fun so far, but they haven't gone through book three yet, though. I am likely going to have to spend a lot of time changing the dungeon around. I do not like book 4 at all, so I might switch it out entirely. Regardless, I don't think the AP is a good "first time GM" adventure.
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I need to look into Carrion Crown. It seems like the sort of campaign that's right up my alley. As an aside, I almost played a shadow sorceress in a carrion crown game (the GM I was playing under was a friend of mine who wasn't spooked by such a bizarre character) but he ended up running a different game instead so I scrapped the character to do something more on theme.And I want to see those changes cus I ran that one. Plots nice enough, but oh god the mythic...
Course I ended up with a hell of a mess over it, cus some players wanted the utter cakewalk that it was and others wanted the challenge. Course I've come to the realization that most of my group doesn't know what they're doing. Probably too many pulled punches.
I mean, hell, the last AP I played was Iron Gods and we only passed that due to said pulled punches, going up against cr 20+ enemies at level 15 and winning. With no arcane casters. With the wealth of level 8ish chars, ignoring artifacts.
It has flaws. I ran that one. It has a really big flaw they didn't catch til book 6, but then I personally think it's only slightly more egregious than the usual.
Otherwise, I think it's pretty good overall. Outrageously lethal at certain points. General consensus is book 1-3 is really really good. Book 4-6 is... A little more finicky, but I can't actually discuss it without spoilers. Book 5 suffered from my usual problem with Book 5's in that they often feel like if removed the plot wouldn't change too much. Main exception being Kingmaker, where it was Book 6 that felt like that.
I've previously written about how WotR implemented Mythic poorly, and how it isn't all due to negatives of Mythic, just the way it was (mis)used in WotR.
Honestly though, I don't see what's worth trying to salvage about that AP. I'll admit I haven't had the (mis)fortune of playing all the way through it, but from what I've seen the plot seems ABYSALLY dull. The fact that the writers couldn't design encounters worth a darn was just extra vomit on the already-smelly dung pile.
Paizo definitely didn't know how to build encounters for mythic. Even so, half the stuff in mythic almost felt like it should be normal stuff, other parts felt like it was just pushing rocket tag up, and I never had the feeling that any of this really made me go wow, these guys are amazing so much as wow, he's a wizard. I mean, there's some pretty fun things there. Were I playing it I'd totally take the Divine Source thing and have my own clergy. But mostly I watched Paladins annihilate things and what not. Then the Wizard do so. And so on, so forth. Even with completely rewritten statblocks.
As for the plot... Going to be honest, this is one of those AP's where it's not the writing that's good, it's the set up then let the pcs go. There's a lot of npcs that can have a variety of things, there can be vast time gaps in it (It's possible to take in game years to complete book 5, simply due to the nature of where it happens) That allow for a fair bit of interesting work and things to happen. The plot is solid though maybe not exceptional, but there's enough wide spaces and time frame to play in that, if your players are into that stuff, can allow for a lot of stuff to happen. It's a YMMV as always, but I'd rather enjoy playing in it, with the right dm and players anyways.
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Well I haven't read that one myself, it being third party and all. Not that that's meant to be disparaging, I just had never heard of it until now. It may well fix all the problems for all I know.
As for the plot, well the plots there. And admittedly, what else are you going to do with the demons? Well, a bit. I can't really tell you much without spoiling it, but not every demon is an opponent. And not just the one everyone hyped over.
But overall your goal is basically to save the world from an apocalypse. It's not too surprising a lot of your time is fighting demons. I do think they did need more variety in opponents, mind. While it's not all demons, the number of double smite damage opponents is very very high.
But it's far from endless fighting mind you. You'll have to do a fair bit. But how much you do is, well, dependent on how fast you want to move through the plot. Barring a very specific point there is no immediate rush to the timeline, giving the pcs time to do things, make relationships, and do projects. And there is some very interesting places to do such in at times.
But it's true that there's a lot of killing. It is a war after all. But not always killing. And redemption tends to be a prominant part of it. Not enough I think, there's a few outlined as possible, and one kinda with giant neon signs (That my pcs still didn't do), but one can do others. Amusingly mine mostly just made friends with evil rather than trying to redeem em.
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I'm not suree what people wanted out of the plot for WotR, I mean, the whole premise is that you are thrust dead center into a war between a nearly unstoppable demonic horde and the mortal world. In order to end the war, you will travel into the Abyss to slay the Demon Lord behind it all. Paizo pretty much delivered the plot they said they were going to do. I think alot of people just had differing expectations for the plot of a war and were disappointed they didn't get what they expected.
I'm not saying it's a great plot, just that they didn't deliver something other than what they promised.
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So Ashiel (or anyone really) I am watching this anime: Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash (I just call it Grimgar)
If you aren't familiar with it:
It deals with- what I am interpreting as- a bunch of teens getting transported into a DnD-esque world where they all have to figure out how to live (choose class, go out into the world and risk life and limb to earn gold and buy food and stuff).
A LOT of the aspects are things that I am overtly familiar with being a gamer: danger, loot, skills, guilds, etc.
However, the interesting thing comes from the experiences and personal accounts of these 'people' when they go about it. Their first goblin kill is SO visceral and powerful (the shaking fear is palpable on several of the characters, the loot seems oddly out of place for the MURDER that has to happen to achieve it, and one girl throws up). I had never really thought about THOSE implications when playing dnd before. It was pretty engrossing to watch.
ANYWAY- this is all set up for my real question. In the show 6 people sorta make up their team which consists of 2 warrior types (an assaulter and a defender), a thief, a ranger, a mage and a priest.
So I am asking YOU- if you had an ideal team of 6 'adventurers' to make up your party group what would you pick? Why?
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Is there anywhere where one can find all the things currently finished in the D20 legends system? I am mostly interested in the concentration checks, if those are finished by now.
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So Ashiel (or anyone really) I am watching this anime: Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash (I just call it Grimgar)
If you aren't familiar with it:
It deals with- what I am interpreting as- a bunch of teens getting transported into a DnD-esque world where they all have to figure out how to live (choose class, go out into the world and risk life and limb to earn gold and buy food and stuff).
A LOT of the aspects are things that I am overtly familiar with being a gamer: danger, loot, skills, guilds, etc.
However, the interesting thing comes from the experiences and personal accounts of these 'people' when they go about it. Their first goblin kill is SO visceral and powerful (the shaking fear is palpable on several of the characters, the loot seems oddly out of place for the MURDER that has to happen to achieve it, and one girl throws up). I had never really thought about THOSE implications when playing dnd before. It was pretty engrossing to watch.
ANYWAY- this is all set up for my real question. In the show 6 people sorta make up their team which consists of 2 warrior types (an assaulter and a defender), a thief, a ranger, a mage and a priest.
So I am asking YOU- if you had an ideal team of 6 'adventurers' to make up your party group what would you pick? Why?
I think about those things a lot myself, but it rarely comes up in my characters since they actually do live in such a world, and most of mine are used to having to fight for things they believe in/protect others etc. Most dnd worlds are very very violent places.
I'd do in a group of 6... Well there's tons I'd do but for the most ideal? Hmm... Well, going off my innate sense of this would destroy all things, Summoner, Wizard, Cleric, Paladin, Ranger, Bard. The Summoner can do basically anything and can handle dropping disposable meatshields/flankbuddies/freespelllikes for days, freeing up the wizard to handle his other god wizard jobs or dump his own critters if he likes, or buff everyone including the summons if there's room. The cleric does as clerics do, dumping more free bodies, removing debillitating effects, or buffing and bashing. Paladin's are defensive bricks and are fairly self sufficient. Ranger can handle many skills that an eidolon/wizard/bard don't have covered and is good in most fighting roles, and can either provide yet another free body or take the Ally Bond and toss out half his favored enemy bonus to all the free bodies. The Bard meanwhile is buffing the s%## out of everyone and mixing it up or tossing arrows or what not.
The net result is you don't so much have a party as a mobile army of destruction with very few vulnerabilities to exploit. Those that exist are covered by another member, and even confined spaces and such aren't a big deal as even without 20 summons/undead all but the wizard is capable of holding their own in direct combat and the wizards a wizard.
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How would you manage traps?
Are traps something WORTH managing?
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Basically anyone with Perception can spot most traps. Non-magical traps can be disabled by bothering to sink a few ranks into Disable Device (assuming they're good traps that are hard to just ignore- often they're just pit traps or whatever you can disable by throwing something heavy at them), and resetting magical traps rarely give you the time to stand close to them and use Disable Device anyway- usually you'll need a more creative solution or the use of dispel magic and a big hammer.
Is any of that effort worth it compared to just brute force and tanking? Well... it depends on the GM. Stock traps from books are usually pretty trivial (there is a pit here, you will spot it and take 10 for an easy jump, lay something over it, or trigger the bypass residents use to get past it). Their perception DCs rarely scale to the point where you won't see them coming after the earliest levels.
Occasionally (especially if your GM builds their own traps) you might encounter something where spotting it doesn't so much solve the problem as set up the puzzle you need a solution for (like a trap set in the ceiling that shoots energy drain at anyone walking through the room it's in every round- CR 10). Actually dangerous traps like that mostly just require either a clever solution or spellcasting that renders the issue null (like casting fly and death ward on someone tough to go beat up the energy drain trap with aforementioned big hammer), so you don't really need anyone dedicated to dealing with them.
In my opinion, by-the-rules traps in pathfinder are boring. Any encounter with a trap is the same as the other one. First, the party either spots the trap or they don't. If they don't, trap is probably triggered and does something bad to the party, unless they are paranoid and are using 10ft poles on Mage Hands to check everything they would interract with first. Basically a coinflip to see if the party takes damage. Boooooring.
If they do spot the trap, they either disable it or they don't. Same thing, usually a coinflip, and if the party rogue loses, he/everyone takes some damage/ability drain/whatever. That is assuming the party didn't fall asleep from this amasingly engaging gameplay first.
A good trap should either not be the main threat (e.g. an encounter in a place littered with pit fall traps, where traps don't as much threaten the party directly as provide interesting pathing/positioning challenges) or be an Indiana Jones-style trap:THIS IS A TRAP written all over it in 10ft tall glowing letters, requiring the party to find some way through the trap by being clever and using various tricks at their disposal. In both of these cases you don't really need someone special to manage the traps. Really, having a challenge in a team multiplayer game where only one of the players gets to participate is just bad game design.
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In my experience, traps on their own are exactly as Klara says. They're boring and ineffectual and binary. Sure, they waste some resources if you f!~% up, but generally they aren't that big a deal.
What makes Traps good is when you combine them with existing monsters who can make use of it to their advantage. Dealing with a trap that shoots half a dozen negative energy rays all over a room every 3 rounds is mostly an exercise in Death Ward or a skill check with a dispel magic.
Fighting a lich in said room at the same time starts becoming more interesting. Having Death Wards still an excellent idea, cus lich, but the trap is healing the lich and he might dispel the death ward right off of you.
A pit trap by itself is mostly annoying. A pit trap with kobolds on the far side with some cover and some grease vials and alchemist fire is something ashiel came up with and suddenly it's a lot more irksome.
Treat Traps like terrain that the pcs can viably do something about, but if ignored will be a consistent threat. You can't disarm a volcano, and barring having maybe 4 of those geyser bottles of infinite water, you're not making it less volcano-y anytime soon. But you could disarm a trapped forge that's designed to constantly increase the heat levels in an area when activated. Which can be quite the nasty thing to face some salamander clerics amidst.
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So Ashiel (or anyone really) I am watching this anime: Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash (I just call it Grimgar)
If you aren't familiar with it:
It deals with- what I am interpreting as- a bunch of teens getting transported into a DnD-esque world where they all have to figure out how to live (choose class, go out into the world and risk life and limb to earn gold and buy food and stuff).
A LOT of the aspects are things that I am overtly familiar with being a gamer: danger, loot, skills, guilds, etc.
However, the interesting thing comes from the experiences and personal accounts of these 'people' when they go about it. Their first goblin kill is SO visceral and powerful (the shaking fear is palpable on several of the characters, the loot seems oddly out of place for the MURDER that has to happen to achieve it, and one girl throws up). I had never really thought about THOSE implications when playing dnd before. It was pretty engrossing to watch.
ANYWAY- this is all set up for my real question. In the show 6 people sorta make up their team which consists of 2 warrior types (an assaulter and a defender), a thief, a ranger, a mage and a priest.
So I am asking YOU- if you had an ideal team of 6 'adventurers' to make up your party group what would you pick? Why?
If we're talking Pathfinder, probably 1 Paladin, 1 Ranger, 1 Bard, 1 Cleric, 1 Druid, 1 Wizard. The Ranger and Bard have most of the skillmonkeying on lockdown, there's a ton of party synergy (bardic performance improves Paladin, Ranger, Bard, Druid, and animal companions / summons), the party has a lot of utility (even the martials bring utility spells to the group such as delay poison and lesser restoration), all of them can craft magic items, etc. Cleric and Wizard can support the party in major ways and can shift their spells around daily to have combat and out of combat loadouts (so the mages can cast various summon plot hook - that is divination - spells then go back to killing trolls later) and druids are druids (they have a lot of good anti-caster and major CC spells in addition to being competent at pretending to be martials too).
Also, that anime sounds right up my alley. I'd love to see it. :)
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In my experience, traps on their own are exactly as Klara says. They're boring and ineffectual and binary. Sure, they waste some resources if you f##* up, but generally they aren't that big a deal.
What makes Traps good is when you combine them with existing monsters who can make use of it to their advantage. Dealing with a trap that shoots half a dozen negative energy rays all over a room every 3 rounds is mostly an exercise in Death Ward or a skill check with a dispel magic.
Fighting a lich in said room at the same time starts becoming more interesting. Having Death Wards still an excellent idea, cus lich, but the trap is healing the lich and he might dispel the death ward right off of you.
A pit trap by itself is mostly annoying. A pit trap with kobolds on the far side with some cover and some grease vials and alchemist fire is something ashiel came up with and suddenly it's a lot more irksome.
Treat Traps like terrain that the pcs can viably do something about, but if ignored will be a consistent threat. You can't disarm a volcano, and barring having maybe 4 of those geyser bottles of infinite water, you're not making it less volcano-y anytime soon. But you could disarm a trapped forge that's designed to constantly increase the heat levels in an area when activated. Which can be quite the nasty thing to face some salamander clerics amidst.
Pretty much this. One of the issues I see a lot with traps in D&D (and this is a mistake I made a lot in the early days) is that people try to make the trap the encounter but that's frequently very boring and not very climactic.
In more recent years, I've learned that traps are like super-environment effects. Things that change the dynamics of a situation so that tension or creativity can be produced. Sometimes it's fun to place traps and hazards that neither "side" in an encounter is aware of, or that both are aware of, which can result in doing things like Mortal Kombat style area-fatalities by knocking orcs and goblins into big machinery that grinds them up, or knocking folks into spike pits, or avoiding the boiler steam spurting from pipes around the room, etc.
I generally favor magic traps, mostly because they're more strait forward to create than nonmagical traps. Nonmagical traps have some issues when it comes to their build mechanics, both in being overly complicated and also offering little in the way of options. You can't, for example, have a nonmagical trap with a CR lower than 1, which is pretty goofy (because a trap could literally be a bell on a string that if not noticed makes a loud noise to alert people to your presence, and such a thing shouldn't be CR 1).
Generally, I'd recommend treating traps as super-environment effects or additional challenges or creatures in an encounter. Doing so will usually produce much more appreciable results than simply dropping a pit in a hallway (and pit traps are among my favorites).
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Is there anywhere where one can find all the things currently finished in the D20 legends system? I am mostly interested in the concentration checks, if those are finished by now.
Here's the mostly finished Magic chapter (see below for a summary of organization). The magic chapter explains the basics of magic abilities, info on level, durations, targeting, stacking, multiple magical effects, concentration, etc. Actual spellcasting rules will be in their own location (because spellcasting is a tradition, much like psionics is a tradition).
The text in red is subject to be removed from the system entirely pending further consideration.
As for the layout in the final PDF/SRD, it'll basically go something like
- Magic Chapter
- Spellcasting
- Psionics
- Chakra Magic
Stuff like that.
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In my experience, traps on their own are exactly as Klara says. They're boring and ineffectual and binary. Sure, they waste some resources if you f##* up, but generally they aren't that big a deal.
What makes Traps good is when you combine them with existing monsters who can make use of it to their advantage. Dealing with a trap that shoots half a dozen negative energy rays all over a room every 3 rounds is mostly an exercise in Death Ward or a skill check with a dispel magic.
Fighting a lich in said room at the same time starts becoming more interesting. Having Death Wards still an excellent idea, cus lich, but the trap is healing the lich and he might dispel the death ward right off of you.
A pit trap by itself is mostly annoying. A pit trap with kobolds on the far side with some cover and some grease vials and alchemist fire is something ashiel came up with and suddenly it's a lot more irksome.
Treat Traps like terrain that the pcs can viably do something about, but if ignored will be a consistent threat. You can't disarm a volcano, and barring having maybe 4 of those geyser bottles of infinite water, you're not making it less volcano-y anytime soon. But you could disarm a trapped forge that's designed to constantly increase the heat levels in an area when activated. Which can be quite the nasty thing to face some salamander clerics amidst.
Pretty much this. One of the issues I see a lot with traps in D&D (and this is a mistake I made a lot in the early days) is that people try to make the trap the encounter but that's frequently very boring and not very climactic.
In more recent years, I've learned that traps are like super-environment effects. Things that change the dynamics of a situation so that tension or creativity can be produced. Sometimes it's fun to place traps and hazards that neither "side" in an encounter is aware of, or that both are aware of, which can result in doing things like Mortal Kombat style area-fatalities by knocking orcs and goblins into...
Makes me think of one thing I really hate that pathfinder sometimes uses. Mundane traps that are not traps so there is literally nothing you can do about it. Like putting a string to the backdoor with a bunch of bottles to make noise if opened. It has no dc, so it's not a trap. If you open the door, you make noise. No way to detect it, find it, whatever. Even if it was, can't disarm it cus it's on the other side of the door, so if you open the door you trigger the trap.
The game has something like this in the Hazards section. Like there's no way to disarm a weak ceiling in a cave. You go in, it collapses, rocks fall etc. You might get a chance to detect it, but you can't do anything about it because it's not a trap. Well unless you're a spellcaster anyways, because they can solve anything.
Honestly, it's kind of annoying. I mean environmental factors are a thing, and you can't disarm an active volcano or whatnot. But things that clearly should be considered traps, aren't. Instead I get ruled they're hazards thus there is nothing I can do about it except shrug, take my lumps and move on with a bad taste in my mouth. I don't really enjoy dealing with things I can't do anything about. Kinda like traps with the Proximity sensor bigger than the trap itself.
But, it's a spellcasters world and so forth. Dispel and disarm, sure, but it's just... Irritating. Also, why do traps have no hp? Or break dc? This became relevant at one point when we were being shot at by gun turrets, and I wanted to shoot back at em. But they have no hp or break dc.
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...In my experience, traps on their own are exactly as Klara says. They're boring and ineffectual and binary. Sure, they waste some resources if you f##* up, but generally they aren't that big a deal.
What makes Traps good is when you combine them with existing monsters who can make use of it to their advantage. Dealing with a trap that shoots half a dozen negative energy rays all over a room every 3 rounds is mostly an exercise in Death Ward or a skill check with a dispel magic.
Fighting a lich in said room at the same time starts becoming more interesting. Having Death Wards still an excellent idea, cus lich, but the trap is healing the lich and he might dispel the death ward right off of you.
A pit trap by itself is mostly annoying. A pit trap with kobolds on the far side with some cover and some grease vials and alchemist fire is something ashiel came up with and suddenly it's a lot more irksome.
Treat Traps like terrain that the pcs can viably do something about, but if ignored will be a consistent threat. You can't disarm a volcano, and barring having maybe 4 of those geyser bottles of infinite water, you're not making it less volcano-y anytime soon. But you could disarm a trapped forge that's designed to constantly increase the heat levels in an area when activated. Which can be quite the nasty thing to face some salamander clerics amidst.
Pretty much this. One of the issues I see a lot with traps in D&D (and this is a mistake I made a lot in the early days) is that people try to make the trap the encounter but that's frequently very boring and not very climactic.
In more recent years, I've learned that traps are like super-environment effects. Things that change the dynamics of a situation so that tension or creativity can be produced. Sometimes it's fun to place traps and hazards that neither "side" in an encounter is aware of, or that both are aware of, which can result in doing things like Mortal Kombat style area-fatalities by
I take the opposite stance, I like those kinds of things as long as it makes sense to be there. A weak ceiling in a worn down, rotting building? Sure, completely reasonable, but not if it's a well maintained building. Many things should still grant a roll though, like a knowledge (engineering) check to notice the weak ceiling.
Also, traps do and don't have hp/break DCs, not listed in their statblocks sure, but the material they are made of do have those stats elsewhere. Wood, for example, has hardness 8 and 5 hp per inch of thickness if I recall correctly.
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Yeah, that's what I wanna encounter, the hp/hardness of a swinging metal scythe trap that encompasses a 30ft room :p. Hardness 10, 10800 hp. 5ft square gun turret trap, adamantine, 6000 hp.
Unless we're hitting the individual spikes in a wooden spike trap or something, it's simply not feasible to destroy traps by damage in such a manner then. I guess that's why they've no break dc, it's not feasible. Unless you're a cryptbreaker alchemist anyways, but they use a bomb as a disable device check.
As for Break Dcs, they give examples of what dcs might be for some things but they never tell us how they come to that conclusion. How much tougher than an iron door is an adamantine door? How hard is it to break an adamantine gun turret compared to that?
I agree rolls should be granted, but they often aren't. They're traps that you need to have specific knowledges and to preroll them and to know to expect them. For every condemned building that my collapse, I have walked through a cave and suddenly had the floor collapse under me and dump me into green slime. It's not man made so it's not a trap. And that seems to be the difference and thus the deciding factor.
But there's nothing you can really do about it after. It's an even less interactive trap most the time. Well, some mages can do something about it. Stoneshape, wall of stone, etc. Because that's what we need more of, more problems only a mage can solve reasonably.
I dunno, it's a weird feeling. I can accept having to use magic to handle a volcano's heat and situation, but I feel cheated when I have to deal with walking through a tunnel and suddenly the floor collapses naturally because it's thin there with no reasonable reason for that to have been expected and suddenly you're up to your knees in green slime.
But then I also get annoyed by the various traps that can only be solved by a wizard too due to giant proximity sensors or being on the other side of doors thus there's no way to disarm them without triggering them even if you know they are there. I mean makes sense to make traps to not be able to be disarmed, but why have it be an option then?
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Is there anywhere where one can find all the things currently finished in the D20 legends system? I am mostly interested in the concentration checks, if those are finished by now.Here's the mostly finished Magic chapter (see below for a summary of organization). The magic chapter explains the basics of magic abilities, info on level, durations, targeting, stacking, multiple magical effects, concentration, etc. Actual spellcasting rules will be in their own location (because spellcasting is a tradition, much like psionics is a tradition).
The text in red is subject to be removed from the system entirely pending further consideration.
As for the layout in the final PDF/SRD, it'll basically go something like
Magic Chapter
- Spellcasting
- Psionics
- Chakra Magic
Stuff like that.
Thanks. Also, I think there is a typo there: "The base Concentration DC is equal to 5 + 5 per tier
(DC 10 for Tier I, DC 15 for Tier II, DC 20 for Tier III, and DC 25 for Tier IV), plus twice the level of the ability being concentrated on (so the DC of a 1st
level ability would be DC 11, and the DC of a 10th level ability would be DC 35)."
Should probably be 12 and 45.
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Yep. That's a typo! (^~^)"
It's just supposed to be spell level, not twice spell level. That way if you meet the minimum ability score requirements for the spell in question you can safely take-10 on it if you're in a relatively safe/easy situation.
At 1st level mage is more or less assured to be able to cast a 1st level spell if not distracted, and a 20th level mage is more or less assured to cast a 10th level spell in the same conditions (the concentration modifier for a 20th level caster with the minimum ability score needed to cast a 10th level spell is +25, which when taking 10 = DC 35).
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We're Removing Natural Armor sort of
After discussing it with Aratrok at length, in D20 Legends we'll be removing Natural Armor as its own armor bonus. Instead, natural armor is exactly what it says - a naturally occurring armor bonus. It doesn't stack with armor, and as a result armoring up is good only for cosmetic purposes/armor enhancements or if your armor is better.
The RNG will be kept more or less safe because we'll be replacing the amulet of natural armor with an item that grants a dodge bonus, which will keep touch-AC more relevant and keep the ACs of people pushing AC identical to how it is in PF.
The issue is that it throws the RNG off kilter when you start adding in other sources of armor class, such as a pit fiend that drinks a potion of mage armor, or wears bracers of armor or whatever. Lizardfolk and troglodytes also spring to mind as troublesome since those are also likely candidates for PCs races that really throw off the RNG.
So now, natural armor pretty much is an armor bonus you just have. Most mundane animals and mounts have reasons to use barding because something like a horse or dog might have a +1 or +2 natural armor but wearing armor would actually provide a better AC bonus.
Monks will also receive a natural armor bonus when I get to writing up the monk class. Similar to how you can watch videos of shaolin monks bending spears on their necks and stuff, a monk will be able to have a natural armor bonus that makes wearing armor fairly pointless for them.
Barkskin gets a slight nerf in this respect because it's no longer super useful for most characters (animals, druids, monsters, and monks sure, but casting it on your party's fighter isn't going to do much except make them less fearful of taking off their armor) but barkskin is essentially the flesh equivalent of magic vestment now.
Speaking of Armor (and shields)
Armors have been merged into having shared statistics based on their type. In Pathfinder, there are generally clear winners in all of the armor types that make them the go-to armor and their price differences are more or less pointless after the lowest of levels.
Because of this, we've just shaved it down to pretty much just the goods. This means how you dress your character aesthetically is mostly up to your personal taste, and you don't have to worry about the minutia. The type of armor is what's important.
Shields are also getting a bit of a remastering. They scale more now, with tower shields being the big boys on the block and bracers covering things like wrist-bracers, bucklers, dastanas, etc; and the differences between the shields in terms of what sorts of things you can do and wield being spelled out a bit more clearly (bracer-types give you a completely free hand but can't be used to make attacks, light shields are the middle ground allowing you to shield bash and hold objects but not weapons, heavy shields and tower shields take up your full hand and are able to make shield bashes). Tower shields are subject to some serious (and currently unfinished) revisions in design (because they suck in PF) which will make them more distinct from heavy shields.
Here's a early screenshot of armor and shields.
Where's Spell Failure?
Spell-failure is a mechanic that has been - sort of - removed. Instead of a flat % chance to lose a spell with a somatic component (a mechanic that is kind of ass, because it only applies to arcane spells and only most arcane spells with lots of little exceptions here and there), we wanted something a little more universal, streamlined, and encouraged more casty-folk to wear lighter armors (if any).
As a result, your check penalty applies to those concentration checks I mentioned a few posts ago. Wearing heavier armors and heavier sheilds makes channeling your magical energies more difficult than it normally should be. For more militant mages, this is rarely an issue (see below for an example as to why) but it's a strong incentive to not bounce around in plate mail if your name is Gandalf.
Martial vs Magical
Mages pretty much suck at everything except magic in this system (but hey, magic rocks so no reason to cry :3) so they generally want to be able to cast their cutting edge spells as much as possible. Well, as noted before, the DC to cast level-appropriate spells is usually pretty easy for a naked mage in a nice environment, but a few penalties quickly make it an unsure thing.
Because your Concentration is equal to 1d20 + level + stat, and the DC gets more difficult as spell level rises. Mages are dealing with high spell levels faster and at lower levels, meaning they have to be really sharp on their Concentration checks if they want to be able to burst out that beautiful physics spanking we know and love.
For example, an 8th level magician is casting 4th level spells, the base DC of their spells is 19. With a 22 in their casting stat (+6), they're sitting at +14 Concentration. That means they only fail 20% of the time (1-4 on the d20) if they're forced to roll (such as if an orc's near them). Wearing light armor and a light shield would give them a 40% chance to fail the same check. Wearing full plate and a heavy shield would actually make it impossible for them to cast the spell while taking-10. It gets worse the higher the level of the spells intended to be cast, and the worse your situation is (like being on fire, casting defensively, etc).
Meanwhile, a more martial character like a Paladin? Well they're sporting low-level spells for their level, so the DCs to cast those spells are typically in the realm of trivial for them. I mean, an 8th level Paladin with an 18 in their casting stat (+4) has a +12 Concentration check with no feats or anything. The DC to cast their highest level spell (2nd) is DC 12. They pretty much auto-succeed unless something weird is going on.
So if they're wearing full plate and a heavy shield would knock them down to a +3, which is still enough to take-10 and cast their highest level spells if they're not in active combat.
Now if the mage just wanted to focus on casting lots of low level spells while wearing heavy armor and be more of a battlemage throwing around craploads of magic missile and scorching ray level spells, power to them. They can totally do that if that's the sort of character you want to play (though most people don't play full casters so they can cast low level spells a lot, they want those juicy game-changers and armor hinders that pursuit).