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Messages - brainpiercing

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Break my E6 Houserule - Prestiging beyond 6th.
« on: April 23, 2014, 08:45:34 AM »
I like the idea, I don't think it would be broken so easily, as you are not circumventing any requirements.

In my E6 group we have simply chosen to lower all common prerequisites  - at least the numerical ones - so that a prestige class can be taken at level 2. Of course not all prereqs are lifted, like third level spells, for instance, or requiring a high-level class feature.

Some classes might break, but less so when you only gain them after level 6. For instance the Beastmaster or that monster herder, I forgot the name, that would get non level-appropriate pets, do break under our rules, but would not break under yours.

In my PbP game I ran for quite a while on the old boards, characters could even choose which levels to replace, but in that case only for LA-substitution levels or template HD. So you could swap out empty levels, and that was fully intended.


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Min/Max 3.x / Re: [CO Discussion] Tank Archetype
« on: July 29, 2013, 05:12:55 PM »
JackBQuick with something to auto-heal.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: [CO Discussion] Tank Archetype
« on: July 29, 2013, 01:30:14 PM »
By the way, I see standstill mentioned a lot. I am currently away from books, but from what I can recall, I can't see how standstill helps you tank. Sure, you can probably use it to stop melee attackers with no range, but it doesn't stop spellcasters, ranged and throwing weapons.

It's part of the larger kit for keeping enemies on you. I find Stand Still to be more reliable for keeping enemies from escaping than Improved Trip because the Reflex save has a DC = 10+Damage, which should be next to impossible.

That's true, Stand Still is part of a kit, just like Knockback and Shock Trooper, etc.

I have to say that tanking vs. spellcasters is a tad harder, obviously. If you have mixed melee/ranged/caster enemies then the tank role will be very hard to fill by a single person. I can't even think of a build from the back of my head that could do it all with actual mechanics.  Most Warblades can get decent anti-magical defenses, but still have to make the casters attack them. To me your best bet is still to be too dangerous to ignore and hope the AoE-attacks will not hit your allies, too. Likely as not a you will want to be able to bypass the enemy meatshield and attack the casters, so that they have to focus on you behind their lines. Which means some sort of teleport ability would be nice.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: [CO Discussion] Tank Archetype
« on: July 28, 2013, 05:22:47 AM »
I don't believe that's objectively BAD DM'ing, per se. The DM can't be a tyrant that causes TPK just to make his players learn. Throwing the weaker characters into the negatives a couple of times for a scare, see if they learn, if they don't, play around their strong points to avoid TPK's is not actually a bad idea to keep the game fun. Yes, the DM can coach characters during character creation to avoid having dysfunctional parties, but if the players won't listen, what can he do? Cancel the adventure? Sometimes the DM has to concede, and dumb monsters that only attack the stronger character is a trope of many a movie and animated series, and doesn't break immersion that much.
I concede that point because of course you are right - it should be fun for everyone. And if that means breaking logic a bit then so be it. However, this is an optimisation forum, which means that building for the GM to accommodate you should not be done. Strategies discussed here should be designed to work in the harshest campaigns (because after all, if you've gone to all that trouble, it would be boring otherwise). 

@Unbeliever: I'm not sure, but I believe were not that far apart. For me the objective of the Tank role is to make sure your teammates don't get hurt. However, the caveat of the Tank role is that this is achieved by drawing the attention to yourself. The Controller role does the same thing, but ideally by making sure noone gets hurt at all. The end result is ideally the same, with the tank focusing on surviving the amount of heat he draws to himself, while the controller tries to mitigate enemy offense in a variety of ways.  A tank can also be a controller and vice versa.

We were discussing, I believe, ways to be this kind of tank - the one that draws attention, or agression, to himself. (The "aggro", which I believe IS an MMO or hack&slash game term, but I've also never really played any other than Diablo2). My stance is that many classes can tank, and the easiest way to do it is to make yourself too dangerous to ignore. The less easy part is surviving the heat, which is why we keep coming back to the beefy classes (Crusader/Warblades with some bonus-feat classes thrown in for good measure), or those classes that do everything well anyway. (Wizards, and the like). My stance is that the tank should always be dangerous, but not dangerous enough to make the enemy run or avoid him.

Share pain and similar are one of the few ways of tanking where it is not necessary to draw attentions to yourself. Also, I believe there are some sword-and-board feats where you can actually block hits for others, or give AC bonuses to allies without threatening the enemy yourself.

There are of course other, simpler, ways, that might also work: There are situations where it is simply only necessary for one person to close to melee. Then this will be the tank. Or there might be tight corridors where only one person is in front. This guy will ideally be the tank, since he has the best defenses.

A realworld example of tanking from our last game session: My Beguiler was the perfect tank against a group of really dangerous but unfortunately mindless undead. A simple Silent Image kept them occupied while the party then drew them out one by one and dealt with them.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: [CO Discussion] Tank Archetype
« on: July 27, 2013, 08:04:54 PM »

That's the core feature, metagame speaking, of the Tank.  She stacks defensive abilities and resources, somehow, freeing up the Hood or the Striker or the Glass Cannon to allocate their resources somewhere else.  Now, clearly the extremes are bad:  Captain Invincible but Utterly useless is bad, as is Major 10,000 Damage But Made Out of Paper-Mache.  But, that's the basic idea.  A Tank's role is to mitigate, prevent, etc. harm to herself and the rest of the party.  With savvy players, this frees them up to expend their resources elsewhere, whether it be character build resources or in-combat tactical ones. 
It would be nice if this actually worked, but in practical play I believe it doesn't, unless the GM accommodates you. If you build up your defenses and simply stand in front of people who are actually more dangerous, then this won't protect them on the long run. D&D has a few mechanics to defend others, but not really very many. If you focus on those and then are still mobile enough to defend one or ideally more team mates, then you are a tank. For the rest of the game drawing aggro works better.

Of course I know the games where the GM was too frustrated with the weak defenses on half the party that he was actually making most enemies attack the tank, even against all logic. But that's objectively bad GMing and bad character building. I'm not saying it can't be fun in campaigns where even mechanically weak characters survive past infancy - but as an optimisation excercise a purely for fun game is a pointless example.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: [CO Discussion] Tank Archetype
« on: July 27, 2013, 02:50:26 AM »
So you're claiming that a Wizard nuking the holy hell out of someone with Fireball is "tanking", because dead people don't attack.

Normally when someone says something like that they say it with a smile and everyone polity laughs afterwards.
But all I hear is crickets.
Well, see... he's still sort of right, but only half: Because the guy who is drawing the aggro by being too bloody dangerous to ignore is actually best at protecting his party. HOWEVER, there needs to be a point to drawing the aggro, because if enemies always have to fear being one-shotted, then they will stay the hell away and - if they are smart - just pack up and run, or go looking for some ranged attack power.

Which is why superchargers and hoods whose only point is one-shotting make bad tanks, unless the enemy is too slow to get away, or absolutely needs to fight them for whatever reason. But a wizard slinging spells and being really dangerous automatically puts himself into the tank role, as long as enemies are mobile enough to reach him. To become a tank he needs to have the defenses to survive drawing the aggro.

Seriously, tanking cannot be just about being the meatshield. That role is defined, it's called meatshield, best left to summons or minions, but actually just physical barriers work almost as well. It's not something anyone in their right mind would play. The tank is the spearhead, the one who draws the aggro and survives, or if he can't do that, at least protects his team-mates actively.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: [CO Discussion] Tank Archetype
« on: July 26, 2013, 08:02:21 AM »
At high levels: Build a tank for your wizard.

Permancy on Animated Object (Some rollers and a framework chassis on top of that), then cover this with a body of several inches of Adamantine so no LoE to the animated object remains. Put a little tower like thing on top to fight from or simply make some openings to be able to shoot or cast spells from total cover. Since there is a wizard inside it will be able to deal with various threats. Bonus points if you can somehow build a gun for the tank.

Well... a mounted Ballista would be hilarious...

Little port holes you can open and close as a free action, have them built with least crystals of returning? 300g for a free action port might be reasonable? :P Then you can cast spells from total cover.

Although I imagine a lot of Shape Spells, heat or chill metal and similar might upset the tank crew.

Hmmm.... you are right. Shaping spells would suck. I would tend to think they have a limited range, though, so just being ready to counterspell, or wearing a ring of counterspelling or spell battle, or whatever it was called, would help.

Heat metal won't do too much, as I would assume an adamantine monocoque would be quite resistant to simple heating. Chill metal I don't know, it might lower the hardness.

As the outer shell is theoretically inanimate, Disintegrate would also ruin your day. Making it layered instead of monolithic might prevent that.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: [CO Discussion] Tank Archetype
« on: July 26, 2013, 03:38:07 AM »
IMHO there are several kinds of tanking in D&D that actually work reasonably well, depending on levels. It's hard to make a fighter to do most of them.

At low levels: Make a wall, movable at best. Usually cannot be done by one character, but I have found that a formation of low-level crusaders can make a fairly good tank.

At low levels: Ride the tank: A Magebred warbeast animal with custom feats (Martial Study/Martial stance, I'm looking at you)

At all levels: Make yourself too dangerous to ignore. This means:
- extreme reach or high mobility. I had a game once where reach weapons had native reach, and I had 15ft of reach with a large glaive (10ft native), and 25ft once enlarged (15ft native). This meant that in a lot of fights just getting past me was a challenge, and I could still be within reach of anyone teleporting past me to the squishies behind me. Generally, enlarging with a reach weapon will work wonders.
- high impact: BFC abilities AND high damage: The easiest is the Knockback feat. Combine with Shock Trooper, possibly dungeon crasher. Tripping, Combat reflexes, Stand still. If every hit is significant AND carries some  effects, then enemies won't ignore you.

Unfortunately this means you will always be at least 50% glass cannon. Actually glass cannons will be the better tanks after a while. You just have to be tough enough to survive. Usually this means you need some sort of buffer (a tricked out bard is best, a wizard will do)

- be a (mobile) machine gun nest: RANGED tanking is just so much better. Force the enemy to traverse a large amount of ground to get to you while you pelt him with whatever you have. Must be significant enough and versatile enough to actually get them to attack and not just bypass. If you are attacking a strong point then they might just hide, too, but in that case you have full tactical mobility for your team without threats. If they run away, well... that's also a success. Guess which kinds of characters do this best? This obviously doesn't work if your team mates just run ahead. It also doesn't work too well if all you do is crawl around dungeons. Some might say that this is not tanking, but obviously it is, because you will draw the enemy towards you and make him want to attack you (by being pesky or hopefully really dangerous), and to do this they might have to bypass your glass cannons or even just minions who can take them out before they do significant damage to your team. Unfortunately you cannot make yourself invulnerable or unreachable while you do. So a flying ranged attacker pelting a bunch of melee crawlers is NOT a ranged tank.  You DO ideally have a backup plan for when the enemy manages to close.

At high levels: Build a tank for your wizard.

Permancy on Animated Object (Some rollers and a framework chassis on top of that), then cover this with a body of several inches of Adamantine so no LoE to the animated object remains. Put a little tower like thing on top to fight from or simply make some openings to be able to shoot or cast spells from total cover. Since there is a wizard inside it will be able to deal with various threats. Bonus points if you can somehow build a gun for the tank.


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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Optimizing a Housecat?
« on: May 20, 2013, 06:11:49 AM »
Alright, current level spread is as follows: Magical Beast 3/Barbarian (CC Lion totem variant) 1/Ranger 1/Swordsage 1/Scout 14.

This gets me 4d6/4ac Skirmish, Pounce, 4 Favoured enemies (meaning I can Skirmish basically anything), a couple maneuvers for utility (mainly looking at Child of Shadow stance, dat synergy) which allows me to qualify for Shadow Blade to get my dex to damage, mitigating the strength penalty (I'm fairly sure Natural Weapons count as unarmed strikes for those purposes, though I'm not sure.)

Now all thats left is to sort out feats. Any critiques for this level spread?

Improved Skirmish should get you to 6D6 for a 20ft move.

If you can get Mystic Ranger from Dragon 336 by your GM then this beats Scout. The ranger spell list is actually quite appealing. However with basic ranger you don't nearly get enough spells. In any case if you advance Ranger then Moonwarded Ranger substitution level from Dragon 340 lets you add Wis to AC in light armour in exchange for Combat style.

I would strongly advocate the H&R Fighter Dip for Dex to damage vs. Flatfooted. That's easily worth losing a bit of skirmish. Also, you might need some more feats.

Indigo Strike (MoI) gives you 2 skirmish damage per essentia invested. Only worth it with more essentia...

If HIPS is worth it for you to not dip any more then do that, but it will come very late at a considerabel opportunity cost. You are tiny, a bit of grass can give you cover, a bit of shadow, the stump of a tree, anything. Also, if you don't take equipment you can probably just run about your german panzer crews for a good while and may even get a free meal in the process.... then get in the panzer with the crew and massacre them from inside. Granted, it will be a bit hard to get skirmish inside a tank.  (An astute rules lawyer might argue that the basic movement of the tank qualifies you for skirmish already, just like gliding, for instance. I personally don't think this counts, but... anyway, kill the driver last :)).

Other than that it looks viable right now.




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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Melee Gnome build that can hold it's own...
« on: May 19, 2013, 06:49:29 AM »
2.5x Dex would be Targeteer with Dead Eye and Crossbow Sniper.  Quite fun with TWF hand crossbows and the Splitting enhancement.
I built a Maug NPC monster once with four stone spitters and multiweapon fighting. They didn't even have splitting, yet, but he could still take out the destined to die level 10 PC in one round :). (The player didn't want to play the char anymore.)

Closest you can get to a "Vierlings FlaK" in D&D I guess :).

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Optimizing a Housecat?
« on: May 19, 2013, 06:44:20 AM »
Monsters come with a standard array of 3x10 and 3x11. If you use that you will be at a significant disadvantage compared to the other players, with only your Int score being the saving grace.

There are extra rules for working out the negative mods on monsters.  http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monstersAsRaces.htm#abilityScoresforMonsterPCs

Whether you need to use them depends on your GM I guess. Basically they work just like subtracting either 10 or 11 from the base value with the exception of Int, which is capped to never go below 3.

With a standard pointbuy I would now just stick with the 8 points in Int, and do the rest accordingly. You have effective racial mods of:

Str -8, Dex+4, Con +0, Wis +2, Int -8 (OR +12 with awaken) Cha -4. This comes out to a total of -14, which IS rather unbalanced compared to normal PCs. (LIke, WAY too low.) With awaken you can't really calculate this well anymore. Going by strict mechanics your Awaken gives you +12 to Int (23-11), which still comes out at -2 for the final character. Seeing as Int is not a primary stat due to RHD this isn't in the least unbalanced at this point.

As a GM, what I would do is just give you those racial mods + the awaken bonus + the mods from the templates (because those are paid for by the templates) and then make you buy all points, including Int, but impose an INT cap of 27. This is the fairest way of handling this.


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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Melee Gnome build that can hold it's own...
« on: May 18, 2013, 07:33:39 PM »
I'm sorry about the blunders, I mixed things up in my head. Somehow I remembered I could get 2.5x Dex to damage, but IIRC there was also a mistake there, because you can't mix Targetteer with H&R.

Aptitude for mixing melee and ranged is a bit cheesy, although I would have to re-read it to figure out just how far away from intent it really is.

So, yeah, I was getting ahead of myself.

A way to save the Weapon Finesse entirely is getting a Feycraft weapon.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Optimizing a Housecat?
« on: May 18, 2013, 07:27:02 PM »
It looks to me like brainpiercing is getting 3HD
from Awaken + Warbeast (overwriting the cat 1/2 HD)
Ok, strictly speaking I was supposing this. I don't see any precedent for what happens with half HD when you add more. I'm assuming it gets rounded down. And if it's just because we want go get a playable concept here, and not some brainfart. 4 HD would be be pushing the playable area, and we can't keep half HD. The closest we can get is deleting the half HD when we get the first class level.

As to the INT, well... Kung Fu Genius?

My reasoning is, you're playing a melee character with heavy dipping, anyway, and monk can get you a lot of feats in two levels. And one of the nifty roleplaying aspects of a house cat is, well, it's a fricken CAT. It can just run about everywhere and won't be minded, as long as it's not wearing a full-plate armour and carring a moutpick glaive.(That would be stupid, anyway.) So basically, it would be nice to look inconspicuous and not wear armour. It would be even more nifty if you could get lots of bonuses as extra-ordinaries that don't show up on Detect Magic...

Swashbuckler is a mediocre class, and I'm not sure this will be worth it. You will gain 6-7 points to damage (granted, per attack) for three mediocre levels.

On the long run I would stick to maximising Dex (and getting synergies to run from there with some dex to damage) and just keeping the high Int as a bonus. You could get Dex to 26 at first class level (assuming you do have a point buy), and Int would be stuck at 23-ish unless you roll really well, and might end up just 20.

But basically you don't need to decide, now. Getting the other stuff in first is more important, and if you rolled well and got 27 Int, well, get those swashy levels.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Melee Gnome build that can hold it's own...
« on: May 18, 2013, 09:31:15 AM »
If you don't want rogue flavour, why even take Martial Rogue? What's wrong with just taking Fighter? You don't get skillpoints, but generally a martial type that can't hit early on isn't very satisfying. I would suggest the Hit&Run Fighter alternative which exchanges Heavy armour for Dex to damage against flat-footed (IIRC) opponents "within 30ft". You can even maximise your Dex2damage by taking the Hand Crossbow Focus for 1/2 Dex to damage and that drow feat Crossbow Sniper that gives Dex2Damage, too, and then applying them to a melee weapon via the Adaptive enhancement, once you can afford a +2 weapon. This can get pretty neat.

Also, to put the Iaijutsu focus into perspective, it's a few D6 each attack. A LOT of classes can do that. You have to roll a check every time, and also initially you'll reliably getting maybe 2 or 3 dice for a hefty investment into being viable.

Don't forget they still need to be flat-footed, and early on that won't be so easy. (Confound the BIg Folk, Underfoot Combat and Titan Fighting will help you, but are by no means insta-win buttons.)

You can still always do a regular, 1/round Iaijutsu build with a regular weapon and the martial strikes that make your enemy flat-footed. (Nightmare Blade line.) That will make you viable until level 7-8 or so. Then you need to think, but you will have stuff available, for instance going into Iaijutsu master.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Optimizing a Housecat?
« on: May 18, 2013, 09:15:21 AM »
Well, for the sake of argument, let's assume I've found the means to circumvent getting weapon enhancements/crystals onto my natural weapons for now.

I was asking why not go for Daring outlaw over Swift hunter, as sneak attack + int to damage is worth more than what I can get out of favoured enemy + Skirmish, unless there's something I've overlooked.
The reason I advocate Swift hunter is that while it IS precision, it is easier to get full-attack damage on it. As you are tiny(?) you can't threaten, which means you can't flank, which means you will rarely ever get sneak attack at all on full attacks. On the other hand, simply running around from enemy to enemy and pouncing them will get you skirmish just fine. And you can even get all those tiny critter feats such as underfoot combat. (Duh, ok, you DO get sneak attack with that.)

Also, swift hunter allows you to always apply skirmish against immunes if they are your favoured enemies. With two FE from your basic package you can already get constructs and undead, or whatever else you wish.

I also keep advocating an awakened Magebred Feral Warbeast Cat. Apart from all the attacks modes you gain (bonus feats, pounce, fast healing,etc.) this gains you the following:
Unfortunately upon review I have to find that Feral is not eligible because it can only be applied to humanoids or monstrous humanoids, and awaken only works on animals. Personally for the pure LOL factor, and with some restrictions on the character (for instance a restriction on items, or whatever) I would allow this as a GM, but for the case of being strictly legal...

base stats:
Str 3, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 7, speed 30ft

Magebred:
+2 NA, +10 spd OR +2 NA (additional), +4 (one physical stat), +2(other physical stats), NO COST!
Warbeast: Str +3, Dex +0, Con +3, Int +0, Wis +2, Cha +0. +10 speed, at the cost of one more HD! Personally I find this affordable!

If you can wiggle to get Feral approved, by whatever tricks (we would need another template to change type to humanoid, apply feral, and then change type back to animal for awaken. It's... uh... a long shot.)
Feral: +4 Str, -2 Dex, +2 Con, -4 Int (min 2), +2 Wis. +2 NA, +10 speed. LOTS of other benefits (pounce, fast healing,etc.), depending on level. At a cost of +1 LA, which is really cheap for the benefits.
The -4 Int would be cancelled out again by the awakening. Well... I think it's funny, but your GM may not.

So with the legal mods we now have the following mods to the pointbuy:
Str -3, Dex + 8, Con + 5, Wis +2, +10-20 speed, +2-4 NA. 3HD, magical beast type. + The mods from Awaken.

I would build:

MB 3,
Lion Totem Barb 1
Scout 1
Ranger 1 (Or Mystic Ranger+2)
Scout+4
H&R Fighter 1 (or 2)

From there either go on with Mystic Ranger or do whatever else you like. For mundane classes I would consider
Some specialty Monk 2
Warblade1
Crusader1
Totemist 2 or more, maybe, so you can get Landshark boots for four attacks as a standard action.
Some weird melee class like Dread Pirate or something (I forget what this needs or gets you save sudden strike dice).

As a weapon I would consider a Mouthpick weapon (LoM), and take some exotic reach weapon with the free proficiency that offers, at least if you can't get more natural weapons via class features, etc. Unfortunately Cats don't get rakes by default.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Optimizing a Housecat?
« on: May 17, 2013, 02:26:56 PM »
A swift Hunter package with or without Mystic Ranger comes to mind (5 or 6 levels to include the bonus feat  for Improved Skirmish), then tag on some Lion Totem Barb, Totemist or warshaper for extra gimmicks. I believe a Tibbit can do this out of the box, because it can shift, right?

I had a feral Housecat NPC, but that needs more HD+LA, but does get some nifty benefits on the long run, especially as it scales with HD. If you want to go overboard with the stats, take an awakened Magebred Warbeast Housecat. Feral, maybe. Make it a swift hunter for mad pounce damage. Add some soulmelds and the crusader stance for self-healing power.  Should give you 20D6 skirmish from five attacks (if you don't advance ranger) + regular damage on a pounce, power-attack + shocktrooper comes to mind, etc... If you can find a way to get sneak attack that would also be nice.

With many natural weapons even a VOP could work out.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Threesteel Spell - Optimization Help?
« on: May 17, 2013, 02:14:07 PM »
Using battlefists might be a bit expensive on the long run, I think the regular options discussed are better.

It's not a bad spell, although aren't there others that launch a weapon?

18
These were exactly my concerns before. However, it seems to be a consensus from the high-end optimisers that this just works - you can simply use your bonus power points first, and you then don't lose anything else when they go away.

It feels a little cheap to do this, and I'm sure it would hardly ever fly in a game where I'm not the GM, however, in this case... and anyway NPCs are just interim characters anyway, to keep my char-op-addiction satisfied, until the next NPC comes along :).

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Endless quiver of healing arrows?
« on: May 08, 2013, 04:53:38 PM »
Arguably if you can full-attack with the healing arrows - IF you can - then you can heal a bit to at least one or two guys at range.

However, I have to agree that the only worthwhile healing spell is Heal.

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Min/Max 3.x / Re: Endless quiver of healing arrows?
« on: May 08, 2013, 10:44:54 AM »
Ok, so I don't get this: You don't want to pay the spell slots, but you still want to imbue the arrows whenever you need them? But would that not cost a spell slot again?

There is then a problem: Assuming imbuing takes at least 1 standard action, you will need another to fire the arrow, which means your arrow is already gone again by the time you get to fire it.

If you GM allows you to do the imbuing while the arrow is still in the quiver, then fine. I then question the balance that a quiver of 50 spell storing arrows cost 8k+gp, and right now your spell storing quiver which creates arrows is 8900gp.

If I were the GM there would now have to be some hefty restrictions to alleviate the advantage of a basically infinite supply for the cost a few hundred more than the 50.

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