Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Nanashi

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 19
1
Pathfinder's Contagious Spell metamagic references identifying it. "A contagious spell can be identified normally" seems to imply, at least in Pathfinder for this one Metamagic, it was intended that you can identify metamagic as part of iding a spell (but Pathfinder content has a nasty habbit of assuming rules work in ways they absolutely don't. Not that it's unique to PF mind you: Every WotC writer missed how d20 Modern changed non-lethal damage and wrote it as though it were D&D 3E's system.).

2
Honestly, that's the least of the problems. The whole thing is extremely unfocused and all over the place and lacks a coherent thread. Arcanist are weak because they're higher floor but lower ceiling, Fighters are seen as good because they're easy to build, wizards are broken because they can do anything, so every caster has to be judged in comparison to Wizard, so we need to change what Wizard is?

Even the ultimate conclusion is odd. d20 Modern (where a character can't be a caster till level 4, and spells are generally worse than their 3E counterparts, and being a competent damage dealer requires little investment because guns exist) showed it's not so much that Wizards can do so much, but that non-wizards have comparatively poor versatility options open to them (as the casting classes still far outpower non-casters in d20 Modern) and no amount of making non-wizards better at their one thing will save them.

3
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: [3.PF] Favorite non-core spells in thematics?
« on: September 29, 2023, 01:50:08 PM »
They really over-valued the sharks part of Walk the Plank. Yes, the sharks are each Summon Nature's Ally 4 equivalent, but they have lost 90%+ of the appeal summoned monsters are supposed to have and the spell has half the point of create pit.

4
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / [3.PF] Favorite non-core spells in thematics?
« on: September 29, 2023, 02:46:14 AM »
The really good spells get a lot of talk, even if they make no sense thematically. How about the flip side: Spells you think are neat, even if they don't necessarily work well (spells that are cool thematically as well as mechanically are fine). If a spell is multi-purpose and "cool", even better.

3.5
Extract Water Elemental is a really fun idea, but it's just single target damage with a very conditional bonus. If it made the target exhausted (fatigued on successful save)  and the damage couldn't be cured until the victim hydrated, like the actual thirst rules, it still wouldn't be a great spell for the level, but it would be something.

Fire Wings had a good idea of balancing a lower level flight spell by preventing use of the user's arms with flying, except it's a level 3 spell with the same duration as fly with the same duration and exclusive to the class that has really easy access to hours long flight.

Other WotC d20:
Zap from d20 Modern Dark Matter had the misfortune of being stuck in a super obscure book for a system few people played. In real D&D this would have been a thematically nice damage spell with a decent rider (electric damage to one target with chance to make them prone), but in a system where direct damage is even worse and everyone with hands is a ranged attacker its awful.

Pathfinder:
Early Judgment is pretty cool. Its a rare instance where something actually interacts with alignment and a combat divination spell that doesn't feel forced on either. The problem is that close range, single humanoid target,  1d4 round duration is just complete crap when Hold Person is on the same spell list and is better in every way (better range, better duration, better effect, same restriction on target, same save, same SR, no religion restriction) for evil and good aligned targets, and almost certainly better for neutral targets too. Even with it being level 1 for Witch it's not really worth it.

Accept Affliction would be a great spell... if it wasn't a level 3 spell, the point where you get spells that can cure everything it removes outright. 

5
Savage Worlds is extremely limited on powers (spells) known. A starting character knows only 2 or 3 powers, and getting another 2 (3 for Wizard) requires blowing a precious edge on Extra Powers or to multiclass caster. The Advanced Players Guide bring back an old solution to this problem by (re)introducing the powers summon monster, summon nature's ally, and planar ally (which appears to just be a summoning spell now), This, the equally limited PP count, and the fact that spells don't scale by CL (Savage Worlds progression tends to make characters wider in power, not taller, as they advance) makes the ability to have some spells cast by summoned monsters even more useful than it is in normal Pathfinder.

Monsters with only self only powers won’t be listed, unless that power can still benefit a PC directly (detection, fly on something big enough to carry a human). Note that the restrictions on summoned monsters seen in normal Pathfinder (no summoning other monsters, no wishes) do not appear to exist in Savage Pathfinder.

It's worth noting the increased trait modifier can boost a summoned monster's arcane skill by one step per power point, without caring about the linked attribute. For non Wild Cards:
d8 to d10 adds 7.5% to odds of success, 12.5% to the chance of 6 (odds of success with a -2 penalty, such as from multiaction) and 17.5% to chance of raise
d10 to d12 adds 5% to success, 8.33% to the chance of 6, and 11.67% to chance of raise.

For Wild Cards monsters (Trumpet Archon, Balor, Pit Fiend, Night Hag), who benefit from the wild dice the impact is lower:
d8 to d10 adds 3.75% to odds of success, 10.41% to a 6, and 16.07% to raise
d10 to d12 add 2.5% to success, 6.95% to a 6, and 10.05% to raise.
If you spend the extra PP to increase the casting of one of these monsters, they should always be using multiaction to cast twice, be taking penalties to cast, or seeking a raise as the minor increase isn't really worth a PP otherwise.


Format

Name (WC indicates wild card)
RR:rank required to cast, PPR: Power Points Cost, ASD: arcane skill dice (MP indicates Mystic Powers, SLO indicates all powers are innate), PP: Monster’s PP .
Powers: List powers
IP: List innate abilities. For simplicity, this section also includes abilities that are effectively unique spells. These are always listed last.
(FD) after power indicates a power has a fixed descriptor, + indicates major innate.

Summon Monster

Lantern Archon
RR:N, PPC:  5, ASD: SLO, PP: SLO
IP: Bolt (FD, SL), detect evil, light (SL), speak language (SL), minor teleport (SL, greater, self)

Trumpet Archon (WC)
RR: V, PPC: 10, ASD: d10, PP: 25
banish, boost Trait, detect arcana, healing, planar travel, protection, resurrection, trumpet
IP: detect evil, light, relief, mind link, speak language (self only), teleport (greater, self)

Glabrezu
RR: V, PPC: 10, ASD: SLO, PP: SLO
Powers: Confusion, dispel, illusion (duplicate self only), teleport (greater, self), grant wish, reverse gravity

Succubus
RR: S, PPC: 6, ASD: SLO, PP: SLO
IP: Disguise+, empathy (Charm, duration of one week; Persuasion), puppet+, speak language+ (self), teleport (Greater, self), Profane Gift

Vrock
RR: S, PPC: 7, ASD: SLO, PP: SLO
IP: Illusion (duplicate self only), teleport (greater, self)

Bone Devil
RR: V, PPC, 8, ASD:d8, PP: 15
Powers: Barrier, illusion, invisibility
IP: Mind link, teleport (greater, self)

Ice Devil
RR: V, PPC: 8, ASD: d8, PP: 15
Powers: Barrier (FD), blast (FD), burst (FD), illusion
IP: mind link, teleport (greater, self)

Mephit
RR: N, PPC: 3, ASD: d8, PP:5
Powers:
Air: Deflection
Earth: Elemental Manipulation (earth only), growth
Fire: Bolt (FD), elemental manipulation (fire only)
Water: Bolt (FD)
IP: Mephit Summon (same type, once per day.), breath weapon

Summon Nature’s Ally

Cloud Giant
RR: V, PPC: 10, ASD: SLO, PP: SLO
IP: Fly (levitate, self), obscuring mist

Storm Giant
RR: V, PPC: 10, ASD: SLO, PP: SLO
IP: Fly (levitate, self), control weather (maintaining power long enough to activate requires 9 extra PP with concentration, 18 without)

Mephit
See Summon Monster

Pixie
RR: S, PPC: 6, ASD: d8, PP: 15
Powers: Confusion, dispel, entagle, light, protection
IP: Invisibility (self)

Satyr
RR: S, PPC: 5, ASD: d8, PP: 10
Powers: fear, summon ally (!)
IP: Puppet, slumber, sound,

Planar Ally

Hound Archon
RR:S, PPC: 6, ASD: SLO, PP: SLO
IP: Detect evil, light, mind link, speak language (self), shape change (dire wolf only, self), teleport (Greater, self)

Lantern Archon, Trumpet Archon: See Summon Monster

Asimar: Not a monster? (On possible list of summons, but no bestiary entity)

Balor (WC)
RR: H, PPC: 12, ASD: d10, PP: 20
Powers: Burst (FD), puppet, stun, telekinesis
IP: Dispel+, mind link, teleport (Great, Self), Summon (any demon besides Balor)

Glabrezu, Succubus, Vroc, Bone Devil, Ice Devil: See Summon Monster

Pit Fiend (WC)
RR: H, PPC: 13, ASD: d10, PP: 15
Powers: Barrier, blast (FD), deflection, illusion, invisibility, scrying
IP: Dispel+ (area, multiple powers), link link, teleport (Greater, self), wish+ (once per year), zombie+ (Permanent, five per day, no more than 20 at once), Summon (any devil, once per day)

Mephit: See Summon Monster

Night Hag (WC)
RR: H, PPC: 9, ASD: d8, PP: 10
Powers: Bolt, lower Trait
IP: Detect arcana+ (self, all Modifiers), disguise+ (self), intangibility, invisibility+ (self), slumber+, shape change+ (self, humanoid only), Dream haunting, sound bind
If 3+ hags are 4 yards of eachother, Arcane Mastery, and PP becomes 20 while following powers are gained

As a special case, Hags form a coven automatically when three are next to each other, each gaining benifits.
Night Hag (trio)
RR: H, PPC: 18, ASD: d10, PP:30
Powers: Arcane protection, baleful polymorph, bolt, curse, dispel, divination, elemental manipulation, lower trait, mind wipe, puppet, resurrection, scrying, zombie
Note: Arcane Mastery

Nightmare
RR: S, PPC: 6, ASD: SLO, PP: SLO
IP: Plane Shift (self plus rider)

Ogre Mage
RR: V, PP: 8, ASD: d8, PP: 10
Powers: Intangibility, puppet
IP: Darkness+, invisibility (self), Change Shape (needs spellcasting roll)

Rakshasa
RR: V, PP: 7, ASD: d10, PP: 20
Powers: Bolt, dispel, illusion, invisibility, puppet, protection
IP: Disguise (humanoid only, self), light, mind reading+ (arcane skill required), sound

Tiefling: Not a monster? (On possible list of summons, but no bestiary entity)

6
I don't read  Extendible Limbs as an attack on its own, just a passive that's listed under Focus. You're still using the Basic Maneuvers, they're just boosted in range for having the Extendible Limbs passive.

7
This flaw, while nasty for only 2 points, seems to have an included bonus of boosting things you cast on yourself.
Quote from: Magic Susceptibility
You are susceptible to the magical rituals of the Tremere, as well as to spells of mages of other creeds and orders. The difficulty to cast a spell upon you is two less, and all spells cast have twice normal effect on you.

Any thaumaturgy abilities that this would apply to particularly well?

Also looked into the Street Fighter RPG (It's a Storyteller system based game!) for a lark. I noticed that the power Wall is the sole Focus based attack in the system without a Chi cost, and it seems pretty decent even if it wasn't free (same range, damage and no worse speed than a standard fireball, exchanges making a wall for the often hazadrous fire of a fireball). The sole cost is that, like any other Elemental maneuver, you need points in the Elemental(ist) background to pick it, but this costs a mere two dots, and being an elementalist gives you minor penalty to "air-based attacks" (not even aerials. I think it's just air elementalist abilities, Sonic Boom, and a handful of electric attacks at most generous). Since Focus based attacks use intelligence and wits instead of strength and dexterity, and the game still uses the engine's primary/second/tertiary attribute groups (so assigning physical to tertiary is possible), I wonder how viable playing a mage would be in a system that was never intended for it (Tessa is apparently the best non-boss character in SvC Chaos, but everything in that is broken).

Also appears to be implied you can go all Aang and take the elementalist background multiple times for each element (it's never explicit for or against, but the line "[Elementals] also tend to specialize in only one element" seems to clearly imply it's possible) but this doesn't seem particularly great past two elements (and even then, only if you really want a particular exclusive) since each element really only has ~3 exclusive abilities with the other five being identical or near identical between the other three elements. Fire is even worse here, since several styles gain access to fire based stuff anyways.

Also got to love that Cammy has a 6 in appearance (Chun-Li only has a 5).

8
Now the question to ask might be what other spells can be used to exploit free material components.

9
Bypassing the component cost of Fabricate for infinite money is pretty old at this point, and can be done in dozen+ different ways. False Focus, the various ways of getting it as a SLA, and that one bard ability that gets Limited Wish with an ability drain cost come to mind.

10
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Fun Finds v7.0 - Now with +15% more reposts!
« on: April 27, 2023, 01:34:20 AM »
Plants blocking Disintegrate is a fairly famous exploit.

11
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Creating a Tank
« on: April 20, 2023, 08:10:33 PM »
Creating a tank in 3.5 isn't really possible since there's so few ways to force an enemy to attack you, and most of those options are rather lame. What you can do, particularly as a bard, is to use spells and abilities that make it difficult or impossible for the enemies to attack your allies.

12
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: updated class tier list?
« on: February 21, 2023, 11:11:04 PM »
Warlock and Dragonfire Adept are a bit too high I think. Otherwise seems reasonable.

13
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: weird kalamar spell
« on: February 03, 2023, 12:35:51 PM »
I'd rule it as temp HD, like that one Bard ability (and seemingly nothing else in 3E OR PF) gives.

14
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: Living Greyhawk Qs
« on: December 23, 2022, 09:37:55 AM »
any idea if there is a list of all the unique mechanics found in them? most of the mechanics i browsed through was linked from the original source probably so they didn't need that source to run it?

Ha! There isn't even a full list of modules! Seriously: Even the people who were in charge of LG don't really know how many LG modules were made. Living Greyhawk combined an overly ambitious segregation of the player base with real world regions getting their own unique modules (many not even in English, since several European countries got their own region), and generous licensing that gave module authors rights to non-IP material in their work after LG ended (so WotC couldn't re-release them if they wanted to).

15
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: Power's Tier List for Pathfinder
« on: November 17, 2022, 04:42:58 PM »
IIRC they deliberately excluded that because many talents outright give two feats and it would be even more of a no brainer than other Extra X feats.

16
Other RPGs / Re: Review of Savage Pathfinder / Pathfinder for Savage Worlds
« on: November 12, 2022, 03:30:26 PM »
Does anyone know what the point of Limited Actions is? It's new over normal Savage Worlds, but so scarcely used outside of magic items I don't know why the edges and spell options couldn't have just said "once per turn" instead of introducing it. Frenzy having a restriction on working with such it blocks interaction with one edge in Savage Pathfinder (and another two in the APG), except Frenzy is also limited to "standard Fighting attacks" and had a restriction in normal SW preventing it from working with the only thing the Limited Action thing blocks it from working with anyways, so those three aren't a concern.

17
This is a useful list as it's annoyingly hard to find some of this with a web search. I'll note it's missing one product of note: Dragon Compendium's sister publication Shackled City Adventure Path, which falls in the same disclaimer as Dragon Compendium. It does have a few player usable rules elements in the back.

18
Min/Max 3.x / Re: [3.PF] Feats that are particularly good in E6?
« on: October 31, 2022, 12:47:21 PM »
Extra Traits means traits are feats, so feel free to list them if their bonus is more relevant in E6 than normal.  On that subject, Exemplar Traits might actually be useful in E6 since they let you take Extra Traits multiple times and they scale (to effectively nigh infinite) with every extra trait you have. Charming Smile, Cunning Soul gives a bonus on all social skills that increases, effectively without limit, for each trait you get from its category. Curator of Mystic Secrets is the only really useful one outside of E6, being a worthy feat on its own (no casting time increase for metamagic twice per day) that gets better with every extra trait picked up.

19
Min/Max 3.x / Re: [3.PF] Feats that are particularly good in E6?
« on: October 30, 2022, 11:18:27 AM »
Huh, didn't notice Magical Tail had no pre-reqs other than Kitsune. That's absolutely bonkers  in E6 despite being meh in normal.

20
Min/Max 3.x / [3.PF] Feats that are particularly good in E6?
« on: October 28, 2022, 10:42:23 PM »
Epic 6 AKA E6 is a rules variant where characters no longer gain levels after level 6, but instead gain an extra feat every so many XP. This results in characters with an abnormally high number of feats but are stuck at the abilities, class features, saves, BAB etc. of a level 6 character (bar some E6 exclusive feats that slightly boost one thing above normal) that will still find many classical mythological bad guys (manticore, chimera, troll etc.) a challenge.  What D&D3 and PF feats are more useful than normal in this rule set?

Ones I know offhand
Core:
Toughness: While there's a few ways to gain HP via feats, Toughness is the only one that can be taken more than once. Still not great, but its existence is important to the system.
Improved Familiar: While most of the really good options need a CL of 7+, the familiars are often still useful and there's likely a way to push one's CL up for this purpose

3e:
Shape Soulmeld (+feat chain): There's literally a handbook on all the stuff this feat can give, and many of the options are things magic items or class features (including spells) struggle to give in e6.
Bind Vestige (+feat chain): Largely the same as above
Martial Study/Stance: Class features via feat.
Magical Training: Actual casting (not SLA) via feat, which has some uses. If you're really devious, it can be paired with the below IIRC.
Precocious Apprentice: Early access to prestige classes is even more important with the low level cap.
Least Dragonmark (+feat chain): Lesser Dragonmarks give SLAs of up to third level. With investment in E6 feats (Skill Beyond Your Years+Skill Focus+Improved Skill Focus+Greater Skill Focus) you can actually qualify for Greater Dragonmark and its related feats, which are gamechangers in E6.

PF:
Extra <class feature>: Even sub-optimal choices are often great here.
[Conduit] Feats: Relavent SLA. With Skill Beyond Your Years, you can get Flickering Step for two uses of Dimension Door
Cosmic Gate: Accessible via Skill Beyond Your Years. Teleport while being "very familiar" with the target once a day. Meh at level 10, but good for E6 (though being locked at HD as CL is annoying).
Discordant Voice: Another SBYYs option that's meh as intended but good "early".

PF3P:
Akashic, Martial Adept, Spheres of Power/Might, Pact Magic: All of these let a significant part of the sub-system be unlocked via feats. Martial Training III/IV can even be obtained via SBYY, beating a proper adept.

Can anyone think of anything else?

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 19