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Messages - magic9mushroom

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1
Handbook Discussion / Re: The GOD Wizard Discussion
« on: November 22, 2023, 02:54:01 AM »
Quote from: GOD guide
Elf Wizard (RotW): If you've spent time perusing the various fora for 3.5, you'll likely have heard of the Elven Generalist and how it's really good. I'm going to be a naysayer on this one; while the effect of the 1st level RSL is quite good, there's so much support for Specialists out there that this has been outstripped. The bonus spell slot is only 1, and while the extra spell known/level is nice it only applies to Wizard class levels gained (and thus doesn't benefit you when you PrC out, which you should anyway). This sorely limits its applicability outside of the lower levels. The rest of the RSL here is horrible, for the record.

I checked the language on this.

Quote from: PHB
Spells Gained at a New Level: Wizards perform a certain amount of spell research between adventures. Each time a character attains a new wizard level, she gains two new spells of her choice to add to her spellbook. These spells represent the results of her research. The two free spells must be of spell levels she can cast. If she has chosen to specialize in a school of magic, one of the two free spells must be from her specialist school.
Quote from: Races of the Wild
Generalist Wizardry: A 1st-level elf wizard begins play with one extra 1st-level spell in her spellbook. At each new wizard level, she gains one extra spell of any spell level that she can cast. This represents the additional elven insight and experience with arcane magic.

The elf wizard may also prepare one additional spell of her highest spell level each day. Unlike the specialist wizard ability, this spell may be of any school.

This substitution feature replaces the standard wizard’s ability to specialize in a school of magic.
I don't see anything in Complete Arcane, Complete Mage or Rules Compendium that clarifies, and the text in both cases is "new wizard level". So, the two colourable readings are "all wizard PrCs give up all free spells entirely, including the base wizard ones" or "'(and spells known, if applicable)' in the text of every +casting PrC means the free spells in the wizard case, so you get free spells identical to those if you'd gained a level of wizard, so an elven generalist still gets the extra spells".

I suppose if you take the first interpretation, you might still consider some PrCs to be worth the cost, and then "elven generalist" would be less useful. But if the author thinks PrCs give any free spells, he's clearly in error about "elven generalist" not improving them.

2
The "Lines of Power" adventure for MtAw 1e lists a character as having "Flaw: Sociopath". Does anyone know what sourcebook this is from? I haven't found anything either in the sourcebooks I have or by Googling (the latter being badly poisoned with oWoD results).

3
The immortality guide is specifically about protecting yourself from dying of old age though.
I'm not seeing how this is in contradiction with what I'm saying. I'm saying that something that (only) prevents you from dying of old age isn't the sort of thing that warrants KK/Taltamir's suggested extreme security measures.

If you don't have anyone trying to kill you, keeping the LZs in your manor is safe enough.

If someone is trying to kill you, there don't seem to be any plausible scenarios in which super-hiding the LZs helps very much. If you're stronger than them, then when they break in and your various "hey, somebody's breaking into my manor" alerts go off, you can just teleport back (LZs require 5th-level spells to create) and deal with them. If they're stronger than you, then they can just assassinate you without bothering with attacking your manor (or finding the super-hidden LZs if you did that), since the LZs don't stop you being killed and killing the LZs won't kill you in any sort of useful timeframe.

That last one (someone trying to kill you who's stronger than you) is the reason that super-hiding a phylactery is actually worthwhile, because the phylactery does stop you from being killed.

4
The issue with making them into maids. is that someone might kill them.
Adventurers raid your manor and kill all your maids. and suddenly you are aging normally again.
It takes a lot of effort to acquire those Elan to make living zombies out of

Teleport somewhere suitably far away from anywhere else and cast an imprison on them. And suddenly it is a lot more expensive to damage your life extension device.
The issue there is that Living Zombies don't protect you against murder in any way. It's not like a phylactery where killing you won't work unless the phylactery's also destroyed. So the benefit of having the zombies be super-extra-unfindable is not all that large - enemies out to kill you can just directly kill you and ignore the zombies, and then they're useless. Living zombies only help if you have few enough people trying to kill you that you're actually expecting to die of old age.

5
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Fun Finds the 2nd Party Edition
« on: April 28, 2023, 08:14:23 AM »
Laborious Training [General]
Your selfless dedication to study and the long hours you have spent training for your craft have given you an increased capacity for learning. Prerequisites: Int 13, Knowledge (any one) 5 ranks.
Benefit: Your maximum rank in any Intelligence- based skill equals 5 + your character level. Normal: A character’s maximum rank in any skill equals 3 + character level.

From Ravenloft Legacy of the Blood pg 92

could this let you qualify for epic feats before being epic? or do you have to have 21+ levels?
You need to be epic, but dragons that are Old or older can ignore that. Insert Dragonwrought Kobold here.

A lot of epic feats need more than 24 or 25 ranks in a skill, though (and quite a few don't need epic skills at all, or need non-Int skills), so the amount potentially unlocked by adding this is fairly low:

Augmented Alchemy (Craft(alchemy) 24)
Automatic Silent Spell (Spellcraft 24)
Magical Beast Companion (Know(nature) 24)
Plant Wild Shape (Know(nature) 24)
Vermin Wild Shape (Know(nature) 24)
Efficient Item Creation (Know(arcana) 24, Spellcraft 24)
Epic Spellcasting (Know(arcana/religion/nature) 24, Spellcraft 24)
Ignore Material Components (Spellcraft 25)
Improved Combat Casting (Spellcraft 25)
Permanent Emanation (Spellcraft 25)
Scribe Epic Scroll (Know(arcana) 24, Spellcraft 24)
Spell Opportunity (Spellcraft 25)
Spell Stowaway (Spellcraft 24)
Spontaneous Spell (Spellcraft 25)

Ignore Material Components and Spell Stowaway are the really-interesting ones there (Epic Spellcasting's not great at subepic without gate-chaining or hiring a pile of NPC spellcasters, although this feat is useful for it later on since your epic slots/day is proportional to Knowledge ranks).

6
Quote
7. Living Zombie Cocktail (CoR)
No, it's not actually called that. Creating a living zombie takes Command Undead, Dominate [type], False Life, Feeblemind, and 1,000gp. You can have one living zombie at a time for every modifier from your primary spellcasting stat (Intelligence for wizards, etc.) which is good because you want as many as you can get. Every one you have makes you age half as quickly as you usually would. This effect is cumulative if you have multiple living zombies, so create as many as you can to greatly increase your lifespan. The only problem is they still age as they usually would so you'll have to replace them every 100 years or so (less if they're elves).

If this is based on the creature turned into a living zombie, imprison an Elan zombie and call it done?  No max age, never age again?

Sorry, not familiar with the spell, but I play a lot of REALLY OLD characters (mainly Elans).
Don't need to imprison; living zombies can't disobey their creator, so you could just keep them as maids or whatever.

And no, it wouldn't let you live forever; the benefit for the creator is strictly "aging halved (multiplicatively) per living zombie in existence" (max = primary spellcasting ability modifier). The only relevance of the living zombies' lifespan is that the zombies aren't immune to aging themselves, so making them out of mortals would mean you'd need to replace them when they died. Using Elans would remove the need to replace them (since Elans are immortal and the template does work on aberrations), but you still need a ton of them and you still will age (just, y'know, really really slowly).

7
Some 1e MtAw questions:

- Is there anywhere that they actually said what degree of Wisdom sin it is to summon a Gulmoth? I know the Summoners book calls it an act of "direst hubris", but it never actually gives a number and it specifically notes that sacrificing humans to pay a summoned Gulmoth is Wisdom 1 which kinda implies summoning one without human sacrifice is not quite as bad (and, of course, if summoning a Gulmoth is Wisdom 1, then it doesn't make sense for non-Mad frequent Gulmoth summoners to exist).

- Did they ever clarify Phantasmal Weapon's limits? (i.e. can you make a gun or suit of armour that has +30 equipment bonus, or is it limited to whatever a nonmagical item of those dimensions gets?)

- Was there any kind of definitive word one way or another on whether non-Banishers can use the spells in Banishers? Some of them are hilariously OP, and one of them was called out elsewhere in the text as something normal mages can't do.

- Is it just me, or are Mastigos a bit too good? Mind can do a very-large number of things quite well - buffs (Euphoria, Supreme Augmentation and Skill Mastery are all crazily good), attacks (Psychic Assault/Sword are covert making them spammable, and Assault's also three-dot so you can do an extended sympathetic cast pre-archmastery which only Celestial Fire shares, plus straight-up combat mind control - I know Mental Shield is a thing, but that's also Mind and only Prime can substitute), and minionmancy (Goetic Evocation - yes, it's a Wisdom ding, but only one worse than spirit summoning - as well as just mind-controlling people to help you) - and Space is obviously great as a conjunctional but also has the kinda-WTF Apportation and Ban (and in all cases you again kind of need either Space or Prime yourself to not get hardstopped, with even Prime having trouble against some of Apportation's more serious abuses like bombing and item theft).

I never expected to read such a thing as absurd as sneakers being a means to improve what amounts to a skill.

Any other unique quirks of the system or lore?

It doesn't improve all aspects of the skill. It gives you a +1 in a foot chase or when shadowing someone. Makes sense to me; running shoes are better at running and at avoiding making noise than dress shoes or sandals. Sure, most people will get the bonus most of the time, but that's not really a big deal.

I think the main thing complained about in 1e nWoD (and don't correct me on that name; it was renamed after the start of 2e) is rocket tag, particularly via Fighting Styles. Fighting Styles are Merits (basically nWoD's version of D&D feats; to give a comparison, it's 2/6/12/20/30 XP to buy a Merit rated 1/2/3/4/5, while increasing an attribute by 1 is 5x(new rating) and increasing a skill by 1 is 3x(new rating)), which represent specific training with a weapon (to continue the analogy, fighter feats). Most of the abilities from Fighting Styles are pretty balanced, but a few of them let you attack multiple times per turn (nWoD's combat turns are 3 seconds, and you normally only get one attack). The ones that let you attack twice and make you lose your Defence (in D&D terms, Dex to AC, except it's a bigger deal), those are pretty reasonable. The ones that let you attack twice and don't make you lose your Defence are smelly. The ones that let you attack (N-1) times per turn where N is one of your attributes (max for mortals is 5, max for supernaturals is typically somewhat over 10), those are pure rocket tag - if someone gets it off you're reasonably likely to be dropped in one round (the worst, by far, being Fighting Style: Combat Marksmanship 5 - guns ignore Defence, can ignore a lot of armour, and are ranged, so a legal mortal starting character can often drop the actual maxed-out mortal durability against guns in one turn; when you get into supernatural boosts on each side, you're talking about "when this goes off, instant TPK" because the ludicrous amounts of shots don't even all have to be at the same target).

I'm not especially familiar with 2e CoD, mostly because a lot of the mechanics changes are stupid; from what I understand they fixed the XP-versus-starting-stat-cost issue the wrong way (should have aligned starting stat costs to XP rather than XP to starting stat costs), they let skill specialties stack (specialties are cheaper than more points in the skill, but this means you just pick one method to use the skill and then take a billion specialties that all apply to that method instead of buying more points - Firearms 1 (Assault Rifles, Autofire, Laser Sight) and then just use autofire from an assault rifle with a laser sight, much cheaper than Firearms 4 or even Firearms 3 (Assault Rifles)), and XP for stunting (different strokes, yes, but I'd wind up strangling the GM after about three or four sessions of this because my idea of "cool" is very different to most).

EDIT: Okay, the most literal reading of Skill Mastery isn't as crazy as I thought; if total dots granted by the spell are limited to Mind dots (as opposed to dots-per-skill being limited to Mind dots) then you can't just go full crazy with extended-cast the way I thought you could.

8
Handbook Discussion / Re: The 3.5 Cleric Handbook - Discussion Thread
« on: September 23, 2020, 03:05:35 AM »
Pact of Return and Battlemagic Perception are great spells at high levels (yes, BmP is a 3rd-level, but it comes into its own later on when your 3rd-level slots aren't as necessary anymore). Divine Defiance is a pretty good feat, too, instead of or in addition to BmP. Missing those from the guide is pretty lousy.

9
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: [3E] Who does this actually apply to
« on: February 15, 2020, 04:40:58 AM »
Mystic Ranger still casts like a normal ranger. In-fact, it looks like it still has half its class level in caster level. (It's a shame they didn't just take the sane option and give it the adept casting rate. I really like the idea even if implementation is stupid)
Nah, it's even weirder; it inherits "no caster level until level 4". This makes the Mystic Ranger the only class I know that can cast spells with CL 0.

10
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: So the "other" forum is looking for support...
« on: February 04, 2020, 07:49:57 AM »
Personally, I'd be more interested in trying to nab members from one of our main rivals than in attempting to prop them up.

(I'm not just saying this out of competition, as I do have an account there; it really pisses me off that GitP is so much more active than this forum because GitP's moderation strangles honest discussion and you can't go through any old thread without finding that half the members got banned.)

11
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Fun Finds v7.0 - Now with +15% more reposts!
« on: January 09, 2020, 11:49:32 PM »
I noticed something when looking at the Leadership table.

While the "cohort level" in the table is ECL, the "two levels lower" restriction appears to be character level. So, if your Leadership score is bigger than you need, grab a cohort with an LA.

Huh you're right, no reference to ECL at all.
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#leadership
The cohort = ECL in table thing is explained under "Special Cohorts" in the DMG, which apparently didn't make it into the SRD.

Quote
edit: Checking one for a lore article, I've only just now realized there's actually a few issues of the online only Dungeon/Dragon before 4E launched with 3.5 content. Note that this is actual first party stuff. Not sure what's in here (there's lot of high level monsters that seem original at least) or if these issues have ever been properly been excavated.
Dragon 360 has Demonomicon: Graz'zt.
Dragon 362 has Shothragot, who's probably the most useful Elder Evil to Implore if you're crazy enough to bind Elder Evils.
Dragon 363 has the 3.5 Epic Destinies and Epic Binder.

A lot of their stuff is either previews of 4th or fluff for 4th, so there's not as much 3.5 crunch as usual for Dragon.

They did the Epic Destinies as a separate 3.5e/4e article too, which surprisingly managed to be saved. 
We've had it here (use the whole thread for links) :
 http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=4570.0

They also had a conversion document for all of the Elder Evils for 3.5e/4e. idk what happened to it (sad).

Yeah, Dragon #360-#363 got published both as separate articles and as the packaged "issue".

12
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Fun Finds v7.0 - Now with +15% more reposts!
« on: January 04, 2020, 06:43:12 AM »
edit: Checking one for a lore article, I've only just now realized there's actually a few issues of the online only Dungeon/Dragon before 4E launched with 3.5 content. Note that this is actual first party stuff. Not sure what's in here (there's lot of high level monsters that seem original at least) or if these issues have ever been properly been excavated.
Dragon 360 has Demonomicon: Graz'zt.
Dragon 362 has Shothragot, who's probably the most useful Elder Evil to Implore if you're crazy enough to bind Elder Evils.
Dragon 363 has the 3.5 Epic Destinies and Epic Binder.

A lot of their stuff is either previews of 4th or fluff for 4th, so there's not as much 3.5 crunch as usual for Dragon.

13
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Fun Finds v7.0 - Now with +15% more reposts!
« on: January 04, 2020, 01:57:29 AM »
I noticed something when looking at the Leadership table.

While the "cohort level" in the table is ECL, the "two levels lower" restriction appears to be character level. So, if your Leadership score is bigger than you need, grab a cohort with an LA.

14
The PBMC Metacompendium / Re: Subforum Responces
« on: December 16, 2019, 04:19:13 AM »
Tainted Scholar: Remove Blooded/Tainted metamagic.
That's not what breaks it. What breaks it is Tainted Spellcasting.

Removing Tainted Spellcasting does, indeed, fix it.

15
Handbook Discussion / Re: Ultimate Magus HB: Discussion
« on: December 16, 2019, 03:36:54 AM »
I should note that Improved Sigil (Krau) or Versatile/Heighten lets you get into Ultimate Magus with Bard 1 rather than Bard 2. This can be relevant for Sublime Chord/Ultimate Magus builds, which ideally want to take a level of UM before their level of SC.

e.g.

Wiz4/Brd1/[+Wiz]5/SC1/UM9 has Wiz18/Brd1/SC7 or Wiz17/Brd1/SC8 or Wiz16/Brd1/SC9
Wiz3/Brd2/UM1/[+Wiz]4/SC1/UM+9 has Wiz17/Brd2/SC8 or Wiz16/Brd2/SC9

but

Wiz4/Brd1/UM1/[+Wiz]4/SC1/UM+9 has Wiz18/Brd1/SC8 or Wiz17/Brd1/SC9.

16
Board Business / BG-archive triggering antivirus
« on: December 16, 2019, 03:04:57 AM »
When I follow a link to a BG-archive thread my antivirus goes berserk and pops up four or so warnings. Doesn't happen when I go to the main forum page for BG-archive (or MMF itself).

Might be a false positive, but could you check what's going on there?

EDIT: I should note that the warnings are from apparent connections to brilliantgameologists.com itself.

17
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: Artifacts (Opinions)
« on: July 15, 2019, 06:34:24 AM »
(4) I don't think so. Artifacts are especially out of player control so I don't imagine anyone would ever build a quide around them. The only way I know to get a Artifact without the DM handing it over is Artifact Lord Epic Destiny from late 3.5 era Dragon Mag

Epic Binder can create a temporary Sphere of Annihilation with one of the epic vestiges. The big question is whether you're allowed to create it on top of someone, since it doesn't actually say yea or nay.

18
1) You already have 16 BAB by partials (Mystic Theurge and Sublime Chord are 1/2; Bard, Druid, Green Whisperer and Arcane Hierophant are 3/4; Fochlucan Lyrist is 1; 3*.5+9*.75+8*1 = 16.25). Getting 16 BAB without partials is also possible, but you'll lose some of your bard casting and your Arcane Hierophant abilities and have to spend a feat on Dodge (Bard1/Druid4/Green Whisperer 4/Dragonslayer 1/Sublime Chord 1 or 2/Fochlucan Lyrist 9 or 8).

2) Dunno.

3) One of your 9ths is non-negotiably Time Stop. The other is specifically not Shapechange or Foresight, since druids get those. Mind Blank is worth getting as an 8th if no-one else in the party has it. Hindsight is interesting as a 6th-level, though it's quite situational. Not sure about the rest.

19
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Warhulking hurler build help
« on: July 03, 2019, 07:19:06 AM »
- Be a Half-Minotaur from Dragon #313 if they're not banned. It gives +12 Str, +6 Con and Large size plus a bunch of other stuff for +1 LA, and it's a template so you can put it on top of another race (specifically, a Medium-sized one). This is the cheapest way to qualify for Hulking Hurler and War Hulk "naked", although the Strength is only relevant if you aren't going into Polymorph/Wild Shape shenanigans.

- Might I ask why you want to take War Hulk? No Time to Think is really annoying, and the rock throwing doesn't combine well with that of Hulking Hurler. The only real advantage is the Strength (assuming you're using your natural form as a base, otherwise even that's useless), and there are other ways to get your rock size up to "enough" (Righteous Might, either from actually taking the Cleric levels or from a custom magic item, multiplies it considerably, and there's always Natural Heavyweight). This also applies to the last two levels of Hulking Hurler, as Overburdened Heave is the only trick that isn't a drop in the bucket and even that is often not worth the full-round action.

20
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Fun Finds v7.0 - Now with +15% more reposts!
« on: May 23, 2019, 08:44:03 AM »
You don't need to worry about nuking the holder's saving throws, because the ability specifically targets the item

Quote from: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm
Damaging Magic Items

A magic item doesn’t need to make a saving throw unless it is unattended, it is specifically targeted by the effect, or its wielder rolls a natural 1 on his save. Magic items should always get a saving throw against spells that might deal damage to them— even against attacks from which a nonmagical item would normally get no chance to save. Magic items use the same saving throw bonus for all saves, no matter what the type (Fortitude, Reflex, or Will). A magic item’s saving throw bonus equals 2 + one-half its caster level (round down). The only exceptions to this are intelligent magic items, which make Will saves based on their own Wisdom scores.

The Caster Level for items is notoriously low.

While magic items' saves are hilariously bad and nonmagical items' nonexistent, they can use the holder's.

Quote from: Player's Handbook p166-167
Saving Throws: Nonmagical, unattended items never make saving throws. They are considered to have failed their saving throws, so they are always affected by (for instance) a disintegrate spell. An item attended by a character (being grasped, touched, or worn) makes saving throws as the character (that is, using the character's saving throw bonus). Magic items always get saving throws. A magic item's Fortitude, Reflex, and Will saving throw bonuses are equal to 2 + one-half its caster level. An attended magic item either makes saving throws as its owner or uses its own saving throw bonus, whichever is better. (Caster levels of magic items are covered in the Dungeon Master's Guide.)

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