Min/Max Boards

Ok, if I read Dread Witch correctly... technically I could use Fearful Empowerment on a Detect Magic that I cast on myself and then make permanent. Thus I would be perpetually subject to a fear effect, albeit just one that could make me shakened, and benefit from +1 CL or cast a free cantrip every turn, right? Or I could make a choker of Fear that constantly targets the wearer with the spell, and get +3 CL or a free 2nd spell every round...

Holy crap, Dread Witch is awesome.

Ok, lets say I wanted to play a character based on Beetlejuice.

What would people suggest build-wise? I'm kind of torn between whether to focus on illusion, necromancy or transmutation. If I went wizard I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to ban any of those three schools, but I'm not sure if Wizard is the best way to go.

(I just have the sodes as mp3s in my library, they come on through shuffle all the time)

Ok, so I know we're supposed to avoid them, but does anyone else have Doofus Moments they're actually sort of proudshamed of?

My best Doofus moment happened in a 3.5 game. The GM was dusting off a campaign from his earliest days in 1st ed, so this thing was chock full of traps that were just this side of Gygaxian. He also has this thing where he allows players to request "Bennies," special stuff that doesn't have to fit the rules as such, whatever they want. Some players ask for a special item to help them better fit the concept they have in their mind, others just want more gold to spend, others want a special familiar, whatever. When things were especially powerful for our level, basically we paid for them with "plot-debt," which is to say, it would draw trouble to us.

So our rogue requested some awesome suit of armour of some sort. I'm not sure what exactly, because we only had to clear things with the DM, not the group. I had decided to play a cleric of Apollo, and wanted a magic bow. Nothing necessarily too powerful, but I was aiming at the Cleric Archer build, and didn't want to have to worry about making sure I had a level appropriate bow. I think what I requested was along the lines of a bow that always had an enhancement bonus of 1/3 my level, and fired light arrows. So no need to worry about ammo, no need to worry about keeping my bow at the most powerful thing available.

Anyway, the rogue player had basically been doing everything possible to focus the spotlighton himself. He's the type of guy who treats the game as his own sole plaything and to hell with other people's fun (he was a friend of mine, and I saw him in many games, he did this a lot). So he basically blew up his armour, attracting the demon he stole it from in backstory, stole some giant gem or something, and basically just grabbed the spotlight by it's flaps and smashed it against his junk. Needless to say, by the time we got to the field of traps outside the dungeon that was supposed to be his time to shine, people were getting pretty irritated, but it's traps, it's the rogue's thing, so we let him set to start making a safe way through the nearly-literal minefield of uber-traps. Until he got to one that he accidentally set off, and got caught in ropes. Another failed disable device check and the ropes became razor wire. A third and they came alight with flame.

None of us can do squat from the edge of the pit, and he has to stay very, very still still as he tried to extricate himself or find some way to reach the giant red "probably reset button" at the bottom.

Everyone was well past pissed at the spotlight hog, and the game session was rapidly running off time as we stood around with our thumbs up our asses and watched the rogue try to fix his fuck up.

At least half an hour passed, all the while with me thinking about how I could probably hit the button with an arrow, before I literally said aloud "Sun cleric bored now! I fire my bow at the button."

Now, fortunately it actually was a reset button and not the "frappe" setting.

Later players would actually complain to the DM about this player and the DM would have to talk to him about the spotlight stealing. If you were to ask me today, I would maintain that this was more about jerking the spotlight away from its place chained to the rogue's crotch, but there's not a lot of difference between that and grabbing it for oneself.

Sorry, this concept just made me think of this:

Ok, my computer is set up stupidly, and the torrent got fucked on my end, meaning I had to make a new torrent, as I doubt anyone has been able to completely download the original.

I have literally no clue as to whether the newly created torrent will be treated as the same torrent (though I doubt it will be), so here is the new torrent link, hopefully it just (re)adds my computer as a seeder and nothing gets fucked https://www.dropbox.com/s/fd5h29hokretikp/Brilliant%20Gameologists.torrent

(the problem was that my torrenting stuff is all on an external which is plugged in via a usb hub, and if I plug something new into said hub it refreshes everything, so my external was briefly disconnected, which meant that uTorrent could suddenly not find the source file. The source file is now on my desktop, so this should not happen. Although that said, I will be far more careful about this all in the future)

Well, they are fairly large files, and there's few seeders. Is your torrent showing any seeding activity?

I had the episodes in my dropbox for a while but removed them to free up space. Now I've created a torrent instead, which is a much better solution all around. You can get the .torrent here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fd5h29hokretikp/Brilliant%20Gameologists.torrent

I believe that's all the episodes, but I might be missing one or two bonus sodes or such.

Again, I'm talking about execution of a concept, it makes a better trait, than a feat. The entire idea is fucking terrible in item-focused games like D&D and PF.

Quote from: Prak on October 29, 2012, 11:26:12 AM

4) The Vow feats are fucking stupid. Lets start with the fact that they are more Lawful than Good, conceptually, then add in the fact that they arbitrarily add Christian morality into a game about fire breathing, flying lizards, men who can fire force missiles from their cocks, and many myriad pantheons.

I am, seriously, quite likely to allow almost anything else, at least circumstantially, but I will never allow vow of poverty.

I don't know what sourcebook that spell's from, but I bet it's in the Book of Erotic Fantasy or a James Desborough product.

But on VoP, I think us 3.5 fans should be grateful for what we have:

I mean, look what Pathfinder did to Vow of Poverty!

And the designer considers gimped class features the height of roleplaying!

I'm actually much more on board with that. Vow of Poverty as a character option which does not consume a feat, is mostly a flavour restriction, and allows you to have a single item that may be considerably valuable, and provides a minor bonus is a much better way to represent it.

Vows really shouldn't be feats, they should be, at most, traits a la Unearthed Arcana.

Between the first two? Yes, I know, that was intentional. The feat overpowers those who are too lazy to pick their equipment (sorta), but it underpowers the characters which have it relative to others, because it's essentially a feat that gives you sub par equipment choices flavoured as divine power. Also, it's possible for an choice to be overpowered relative to other choices of the same type (you're essentially an idiot for choosing Weapon Focus over VoP if you can, for instance), and still render a character underpowered.