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Messages - TC X0 Lt 0X

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1
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: BEHOLD!
« on: January 29, 2024, 03:08:03 PM »
Man it do be some whiplash going from basic stuff like a Spiked Chain build straight to Pun-pun lol.

2
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Fun Pathfinds
« on: April 25, 2022, 03:45:01 PM »
Well, time for another entry: the Impundulu familiar, which seems to be a must-have for Witches (just be 7th level and have Improved Familiar to qualify). Cannot be bothered to give the whole familiar description, but will cite the most interesting parts:

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Familiar Service A mortal of 7th level or higher with the Improved Familiar feat can summon an impundulu to serve as her familiar; an impundulu familiar appears as a birdlike imp or quasit, has the normal statistics of an imp or quasit, and loses all of its own abilities except its subtypes, alignment, and damage reduction. If its master is slain, the impundulu seizes its former master’s soul, retreats to a hidden place, and consumes the soul, after which it metamorphoses over the next 24 hours into its natural form, regains all of its normal abilities, and becomes free; most aging masters pass on their impundulu familiars to younger family members rather than let the creatures turn on them.

Witchcraft An impundulu serving as a witch’s familiar gives its master additional spells known, just like a witch’s patron. The master must choose from one of the following patron themes when binding the impundulu, and this choice cannot be changed without dismissing and re-summoning the impundulu: Agility, Elements, or Transformation. These patron spells known are in addition to any granted by the witch’s actual patron.

Yep, bonus patron for a Witch, and these patrons are not bad. Transformation is pretty weak (If it'd given Beast Shape IV instead of Form of the Dragon I, it'd be a lot better), especially for the low levels, and generally outclassed by Agility (unless you want Form of the Dragon, which is not that bad as far as buffs go), but Agility and Endurance (mostly for the MIracle finisher) both have some real prizes there.

Use a Collar of Sacrifice and you should be fine. While a sulking familiar is probably not much use, Witches generally prefer the use of a familiar satchel rather than risk their living spellbooks in combat anyway (unless they are level 10+ Beast-Bonded Witches, which do not need to worry about having their soul consumed by the Impundulu anyway, since their soul auto-possesses their familiars when they die, unless they're both dead).

Alternatively, you can Geas your familiar into not consuming your soul, or use a Clone to preempt the possibility at even higher levels. Whether or not Lesser Geas works would require GM adjudication, since the base form of the Impundulu has 14 HD, but the familiar forms it turns into have less than 8 HD. Familiars use their master's level as their HD if it is higher, however, so you would only be able to cast this at level 7 (when you get Lesser Geas) or lower (with a scroll or similar).

You misread Witchcraft, it can grant access to Elements, not Endurance.

3
Oslecamo's Improved Monster Classes / Re: Purple Worm/Great Worm
« on: July 31, 2021, 01:44:25 PM »
Like what I see, very solid start.
Good to see some content being put in here again.

4
You can always use a pickaxe, especially if it's adamantine. People underestimate the power of mundane items.

I mean shit, I had a game where the players decided to widen a hole through a small stone drop chute rather than go through the fucking dungeon. One of them is in fact in this thread now  :pout

5
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Fun Finds v7.0 - Now with +15% more reposts!
« on: August 24, 2020, 03:05:51 AM »
From Tome and Blood
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Secret Component Compartment/Pocket: This is a secret compartment or hidden pocket large enough to hold the components for one spell. A pocket is added to a garment, while a compartment is built into a tool, weapon, or other item. The compartment or pocket must be added when the item is first made. Finding a secret pocket or compartment (if you don’t already know where it is) requires a successful Search check (DC 20).

What's the physically largest thing (instead of variable things like any piece of equipment that was used by a xth level fighter) that's explicitly listed as a spell component?

So we have Apocalypse from the Sky, which uses any Artifact as a material component. I am  pretty sure there are some large artifacts?
Quite amusingly, Sword of Darkness uses a Katana/Longsword/Bastard Sword as a material component. So Matryoshka of Colossal Swords can occur.
Animate Instrument uses any musical instrument, so I guess that depends on how big of a instrument you can construct
Despoil uses the corpse of any living creature, so colossal+ size.
And probably the easiest one to get to any size you want, Shadow Trap uses a Black cloth drape which can cover a target object of the spell, so it can get to the surface area of any object effectively.

6
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Fun Pathfinds
« on: August 01, 2020, 02:06:41 PM »
I just had a thought. Conductive weapons have always been a little lackluster, because it converts touch attacks to normal attacks and can only be used once per round. However, that would be once per round per weapon. So, you could make a kineticist with half a  dozen +1 conductive javelins and a blinkback belt and deal more damage at 0 burn than you would maxing it out every round. Stick a conductive AoMF on a natural weapon build and hit your enemies with half a dozen touches of cruelty.


Quote
Conductive

Price +1 bonus; Aura moderate necromancy; CL 8th; Weight —

DESCRIPTION

A conductive weapon is able to channel the energy of a spell-like or supernatural ability that relies on a melee or ranged touch attack to hit its target (such as from a cleric’s domain granted power, sorcerer’s bloodline power, oracle’s mystery revelation, or wizard’s arcane school power). When the wielder makes a successful attack of the appropriate type, he may choose to expend two uses of his magical ability to channel it through the weapon to the struck opponent, which suffers the effects of both the weapon attack and the special ability. (If the wielder has unlimited uses of a special ability, she may channel through the weapon every round.) For example, a paladin who strikes an undead opponent with her conductive greatsword can expend two uses of her lay on hands ability (a supernatural melee touch attack) to deal both greatsword damage and damage from one use of lay on hands.

A given character can use this weapon special ability only once per round (even if she has several conductive weapons), and the power works only with magical abilities of the same type as the weapon (melee or ranged).

7
Min/Max 3.x / Re: [3.5 and PF Separately] Best Scrolls?
« on: July 31, 2020, 12:09:45 AM »
It is super expensive comparatively, but Spellscribed Armor allows you to have effective scrolls put on top of armor:

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Spellscribed Armor

Source: PZO9467

The myriad of threats that adventures face often go well beyond mere weapons, so many spellcasters trained in the use of armor seek to augment it with spells.

Any spellcaster with both Craft Magic Arms and Armor and either Scribe Scroll or Brew Potion can create spellscribed armor. A single suit of armor can be inscribed with a number of spells equal to its base armor bonus (not including its enhancement bonus).

For example, a suit of breastplate armor (which has a +6 armor bonus) can have up to six spells inscribed on it. If you are using the piecemeal armor rules, only a piece of armor that grants an armor bonus can be spellscribed.

The maximum level for spells contained in spellscribed armor depends on the type of armor being inscribed.

Light armor, a buckler, or a light shield can hold up to 3rdlevel spells; medium armor or a heavy shield can hold up to 6th-level spells; heavy armor or a tower shield can hold up to 9th-level spells.

An inscribed spell is a spell-completion item that only the wearer of spellscribed armor may activate, and only if he is proficient with the type of armor worn. The inscribed spell vanishes when activated. The inscribed spell must be visible to the wearer and must be touched as part of its activation. Otherwise, suits of spellscribed armor are treated as scrolls (except that using them doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity) and use the rules for spell-completion items.

The process to create spellscribed armor requires access to expensive etching and scribing materials worth an amount of gold pieces equal to the inscribed spell’s level × the creator’s caster level × 100 (plus the price of any expensive material components).

Spells inscribed on armor can be dispelled as if they were separate magic items (treat them as scrolls), wholly independent of the suit of armor on which they are etched.

Table: Magic Armor and Shields

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-armor/

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: [3.5 and PF Separately] Best Scrolls?
« on: July 27, 2020, 02:24:52 AM »
Ah spiffy.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: [3.5 and PF Separately] Best Scrolls?
« on: July 25, 2020, 04:25:39 AM »
Following for the off chance I put anything listed into my Scroll Handbook dealio. Never really got around to caring about finishing any spell suggestions for it.

How does the Razmiran Priest do infinite scrolls? This is the first I am hearing about it in regards to them (though I vaguely remember it being open for abuse before).

10
Plenty of monsters have the option to choose from open lists of spells for SLAs. Something like this opens up abuses in such cases. Might be a good idea to put in a clause preventing this being used with such options.

11
Yeah they definitely did good to change Polymorphing.
Actually Synthesist Summoner not following those new standards is one of the reasons it is so potentent that a lot of people ban it outright =P

12
The Coven Caster feat can be used to give a caster level bonus as a special Aid Another action. Caster level bonus can be boosted further with the Azlanti Inheritor race trait (Adopted social trait circumvents racial requirements) and Ring of Tactical Precision. This also has a special stunt for self-buffing by using Ally Across Time or its greater version, Army Across Time, to give yourself Aid Another checks and boost your own caster level. Aid another bonuses stack so this can result in quite a fairly high caster level. Especially seeing as nothing is stopping you from casting these spells multiple times and benefiting from all of them simultaneously (only limit appears to be how many adjacent spots there are for aid-another perks), because these are summoning spells, not self-buffs.
Oh that is pretty nifty actually

13
I am also a bit fond of the Familiar Archetype and Animal Companion Archetypes. It made for interesting options for those focusing on familiar builds or just happen to have one. Removing the exp loss and the huge hassle of getting a new one is also nice.

14
That and level loss from stuff like being raised from the dead being turned into negative levels instead. In-fact, the official forums have comments by authors that giving the entire group XP for a single character's personal accomplishments in certain APs was to avoid disparate XP totals in the group.

Speaking of APs, 3E's first party module support was pretty weak. The only notable ones I can recall are Sunken Citadel, Red Hand of Doom, that Eberron series, and Expedition to Demonweb Pits. Of those, only the first two are celebrated as good modules while the other two are notable more for being a good introduction to how an Eberron adventure is supposed to look, and for the fact that it's the sole Planescape book of the system than anything actually in the module respectively. PF had some really bad AP volumes (all of Wrath of the Righteous for one...) and modules but far more good ones both in total and percent.

Oh yeah PF does seem to have quite a decent amount of APs that are highly celebrated, though I have only had experience with 2 modules of Kingmaker and the 1st module of Rise of the Runelords (the 3.5 version, and one of my first dnd experiences =P)



- I really like the Vigilante, but a couple of the archetypes SUCK soo bad.

Yeah Vigilante, as well as some of the other one off base classes added in later in the system, are woefully undersupported. Thankfully a few 3rd party sources have rescued some of these options (Legendary Vigilantes and Legendary Villains Vigilante from Legendary Games really flesh out the potential of the class concept)

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- I wish they continued Epic, with Mythic as a different system.

Yeah Mythic rules are not a good alternative to Epic rules. I like Mythic rules myself, but it just does not provide the same role at epic rules. I mean I somewhat despise 3.5 epic rules, but they at least are there. I think an epic ruleset would have been a valuable option to include at some point, especially if they could make them simple to use and can avoid reproducing the cancer of epic spellcasting.

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- Making most of the playable races fairly comparable across the board, removing LA for the most part (outside a couple races).

...

- Lack of rules on playing monsters.

Oh yeah this has kind of bothered me as well. LA for the most part sucked, but it did open up monster options. They do have rules that use a monsters CR to determine a pseudo level adjustment but none of it was ever expressly stated as part of monster stat blocks and it was mostly disregarded.

That said I also do quite like the advanced races quide, provided players are never allowed to touch it or utilize anything without DM approval at least. You can get away with constructing a few monster races with it in a decently satisfactory way at least.

15
Pros
I like how they handled Combat Maneuvers. I feel that Reposition, Drag, and Bull Rush should all just be their own thing together, but otherwise the system is a definite improvement.
Classes have more features that fill out the empty levels of 3.5, which is nice. I would say martial classes are generally in a better position here then they are in 3.5 as well
Multiclassing is not a punishing chore that disproprantely impacts noncasters.
Races are more interesting overall, and alternate racials and unique favored class bonuses make many pretty distinct options.
Archetypes are a solid evolution to ACFs, and make customization of build quite interesting.
Skill System is a straight improvement all around.
Feat scaling made for more interesting choices all around.

Cons
Prestige Classes were largely pushed aside by archetypes and classes having featured that scaled by class level. There are interesting prestige options, but they are definitely not in the same position as 3.5 prestige classes.
Likewise Alternate Class Features were put aside for archetypes, which is not entirely bad, but it is a little annoying when you just want to trade out one or two things, but the archetype rips out otherstuff you want to keep. It is even worse when you come across two archetypes that otherwise dont conflict but both modify what class skills you have rendering them incompatible. Overall the end result is the more bulky archetypes become a bit of a drag on customization. Having more stand-alone alternate class features would have elevated this, or just allow for a bit of pick and choosing.




What do you mean by #8 about giving people the same EXP number?

I imagine he is referring to all xp costs for spells/crafting/etc being removed which leads to some characters falling behind by a level or so depending on how exp is distrubted, affecting experience rewards.

16
So with Run the Ramparts, does it allow the Goblin Piledriver to ignore Running/Charging in a straight line, at least as far as going verticle/horizontal? I would imagine so at the very least because you need to end on a horizontal surface, but would like to confirm.

17
Not in core Tome of Battle.

Homebrew Schools often have wording that allows martial adepts to trade Disciplines (though often enough disciplines are just given to X class)

If you have looked at the Pathfinder Path of War from Dreamscarred Press (which has a lot of disciplines that started out as Homebrew for ToB), they introduced Martial Traditions which are flavored as guild/organizations associated with a particular Discipline that a Martial Adept can join and get the discipline in place of one they already know (amongst some other benefits that vary in power). Other PoW supplements have some one-off disciplines that can be traded in as well (Such as Radiant Dawn and Unquiet Grave).

18
If a creature has Immunity to Mind-Affecting effects, then it is immune to any such thing with the descriptor, be it Magic, Psionics, or otherwise.
Mind Blank would block Psionic Powers with the Mind-Affecting descriptor because the spell specifies effects, which a psionic power is.

Of course, this all depends on how your DM rules the non-transparentency, as it is mostly a house rule anyways, or at the very least requires the DM to make considerations to the point where it basically is.

19
Anomander has not logged in since mid 2018 so I don't know if you will get a answer from him.

If I were to gander, an atomic explosion generates extreme heat and is otherwise a massive blast of explosive force. A lot of explosives in 3.x are given the fire damage type and less often the bludgeoning damage type. I am not sure how far this damage is supposed to account for nuclear radiation beyond that.

20
Min/Max 3.x / Speedster AoE Damage Options [3.x/PF/3P]
« on: February 26, 2020, 05:47:40 AM »
So I am looking to make a Speedster build, and am looking for any options that allow for a character to deal damage when adjacent/close to the target passively, or otherwise as part of movement.

From what I have been able to gather, there is not a lot of obvious options. There is some of the stuff Chuck E Cheese build uses (though I am not trying for anything that absurd), like Ring of Fire. There is also Salamander Charge, but that is a bit on the late levels for some basic damage.
Most damage auras I have come across have a stipulation of triggering at the start of your turn or a targets turn, which does not work if I just want to run passed them. There are gaze attacks which I believe should work fine, but those are rare and a bit difficult to get as a PC.

Are there any other options out there that can be used?

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