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Messages - PlzBreakMyCampaign

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161
Min/Max 3.x / Re: Multiclassing Penalty = 1e style terminal advancement
« on: February 20, 2018, 11:36:56 PM »
What happens if you have 6 classes' worth of XP penalties, giving you a -120% XP penalty?  Would you go down in level by completing quests?
Getting there is non-trivial.

I had a thread on weaponizing XP penalties to do something similar. It relied on a mathematical interpretation of when negative numbers must be used. People didn't take it well, because, you know. Grey area and all that. I still consider it a valid interpreation of RAW, even if its unlikely to see play.

But even if you do get a DM to allow it, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. You're better off optimizing a core wizard or whatever; you'll pwn campaigns even harder and avoid all the bad feelings.

162
If someone wants to through up a google docs for me, I'll dump my version of this that mostly balances these whoppingly imbalanced spells. Shapechange, of course is still OP, which is only a problem if you play with 9th level spells.

I also put mine in delta-format so you can see what you 'gain' by going up to the next most powerful abilitiy.

163
Min/Max 3.x / Re: A Min/Max Challenge
« on: February 20, 2018, 10:58:36 PM »
This thread is a poster child for why my ECL variant is required for any kind of balanced play with monsters. Even then its got too many RHD for my variant to save you: it's a centaur with LA inflation.

164
The PBMC Metacompendium / MetaCompendium Fixes
« on: February 19, 2018, 06:36:00 PM »
Metacompendium Fixes Readme:
(click to show/hide)

Fluff & Optimization Background
1 Oberoni (Rule 0) Fallacy
2 On the Fly Rulings
3 Flavor is Mutable
4 Races Diversity
5 Stormwind (rollplay vs roleplay) Fallacy
6 Adventuring Duration Buffs
7 Job Diversity
8 Optimizer Levels
9 NonDeathmatch Encounters

RAW Reminders
0 Legal Sources
1 Methods of Gaining XP
2 Retraining Abuse
3 Leveling Order
4 Lower Half Tiers Free 1 LA
5 Monsters get better penalties
6 Weapon Sizing & Handedness
7 Stacking the Same Template
8 Spells that force Templates
9 LA Buyoff
10 Pounce doesn't Stack
11 Guidelines for DMPCs
12 Temperature Bands
13 Plane Shifting to Layers
14 Magic Mantle
15 Metaconcert
16 Psychofeedback
17 Power Stone nonRAW abuse
18 Mindsight
19 Sleep Deprivation
20 0th Level Available Spells
21 Genesis et al
22 Weirdstone Large towns
23 Free actions per Round
24 Idols
25 Complete Iconoclasm
26 Dysfunctional Rules Rulings
27 Kaorti Resin
28 All Core Creatures Have An LA Value
29 Leveling Via Scrolls vs WBL
30 WBL Maximum on One item

RAW Variants
Adding to UA Variants
Gestalt X = Non-Gestalt Y
Res Variant
Timestop & SR


Dirty Trick Fixes
The Dirty Trick Handbook Fixes community input. I have more below.
General Feat Nerfs:
Firre Eladrin
Fly By Breath
Lightning Maces is banned
Mantis Leap
Mark of Cania
Pawn in the Great Game
Maneuvers:
Aura of Chaos maneuver
White Raven Tactics is banned
Other:
1 Shadowpounce per Round
Canabilistic ability eaters
Factotum's Cunning Surge
Festering Anger disease
Kobold Age Categories
Phasm's alter self
Powerful Storms
Proficiencies
Regen slash X with X immunity
Save Crystal
Skill quickstep


Campaign-based
C8: (PM me for HTML a la SRD for C8-formatted OGL classes)
C8 (8 level Chassis)
PrCs in C8
Epic in Pre-Epic:
Epic Spells Pre-Epic
Official Classes Buffs:
Aberrant Paragon
Hexblade
Invisible Blade
Shadowcaster
Savage Progressions:
Kaorti Thrall
No LA entry and LA-- races and template interprations
Voidmind Savage Progression
Other:
Action Points are Banned
Base Class Tier Squeezes
Calculating & Comparing Racial ECL
A Finite Cosmology
A Full Cosmology
Damage Cap
DR Stacking
Fair PC LA for DMG2 'NPC' Templates
Feats that Should Be Free
Generic Classes
LA for LA-- Templates (Unfinished)
Monster Difficulty
PrC Tier Squeezing
Retroactive Int
Swarmfighting & Aid Another
Planar Time Traits
Weapon Statistic Reverse Engineering

Noncaster Buffs
Appraise
Armor Bonus PHB124 table
Chassis Changes
Craft, Perform & Profession
Defensiveness
Diplomacy
ECL Variant
Evasion for Non-Damage Effects
Free Improved TWF
Heal Skill
Iteratives
Lack of Spell Level Bonii
Martial Stance
Noncasters may count RHD towards LA Buyoff
Point Buy Discrimination
Wielding for Magic Items
Protection from Energy
Racial traits and Feature Options
Skill Point Flexibilitiy
Truenamer Fixes
Uncanny Dodge
Untrained Skills

WBL & Items
Major Artifacts
Ammo Enhancement
Dead Character Wealth
Dropping Items
Dust of Sneezing and Choking
Manyfanged Dagger
Minimum Caster Level
Mirror of Opposition, Aleax, et al
Monk's Belt
No Custom Items or Traps
Retributive Amulet
Slotless Item and Magic Stacking
Slotless Item Costs
Spellblade Tennis
Stacking Extra or Nondimensions
Starmantle Cloak
Strict WBL
Thought Bottle
Vow of Poverty
Wands, Scrolls, Staves, Djores
Weapons of Legacy

Caster Nerfs
Base Class Features:

Feats:

Polymorph Line:

PrCs:

Specific Spells:

Other:

165
The PBMC Metacompendium / Subforum Table of Contents
« on: February 19, 2018, 06:30:28 PM »
The several areas areas I'm maintaining are outlined as follows.


Firstly the Metacompendium's 3e fixes:
  • Fluff & Optimization Background
  • RAW Reminders
  • RAW Variants
  • Dirty Trick Fixes
  • Campaign-based
  • Noncaster Buffs
  • WBL & Items
  • Caster Nerfs
The first batch aren't really fixes so they are the 0th category. The Campaign based grouping is group 1, followed by 2, 3, and 4. They get more in-depth and important from a balance point of view as you go along. It should be no surprise that nerfing casters requires the most work.




The following are the Resources part of the metacompendium. Mostly of them are player-centric as is normal for 3e, but DMs will find invaluable resources there too. Most all of the area is not my own work. I've collected these from other people, so feel free to 'add' in the discussion thread.
  • Attack Things
  • Caster Lists
  • Class Handbooks
  • Class Indexes
  • Empty Files
  • Feat Things
  • Form Changing
  • GP Things
  • Initiative
  • Miscellaneous
  • Noncaster Lists
  • Other Handbooks
  • Miscellaneous Indexes
  • PrC Stuff
  • Prereqs
  • Race things
  • Rolling
  • Source Things
  • Template things
  • XP Things
The penultimate folder, called 'What Copyright' houses full text listings that probably shouldn't be shared here all in one play to avoid a C&D. But I do have a zip of it, an email, and I respond to PMs. Wink Wink. It includes:
  • the old Crystal Keep PDFs (great for monster filtering)
  • the EVD
  • the psionic powers list
  • my sorting in excel of the full text of 3957 spells
  • The Storm seeker's class bible
  • The Storm seeker's feat bible
  • The Storm seeker's magic item bible
  • The Storm seeker's spell bible
  • All Drag Mag feats & flaws
  • Various screenshots of non-OGL content like the XP breakdowns
You'll want it just for the spell list. The ability to instantly sort every conjuration or every 3rd level spell, or every bard spell, or the highest to lowest spell level ranges is invaluable.





Lastly the Metacompendium also includes saved webpages of every single useful WotC page I could find. Basically if I've ever referenced it in the decades I've been doing 3rd edition optimization, it's in there. So some of the Eberron fluff pages aren't in there, nor are the little tournament summaries; things no one cares about. I have been told other people have a similar, guaranteed to be thorough copy of their own, but I have yet to see it. If someone can provide me a link, please PM me.

It also goes without saying that I have offline copies of the entirety of useful 3rd edition handbooks held in this website's handbook resource area. I offered it to our admins during our last crash. If you'd like the offline version, rather than just the links I use below, PM me.





Then there are things I've done that are outside the metacompendium. These are:
(Note to self, I'm on page 12/99)



tl;dr The metacompendium has 2 parts. One forces balance onto 3e, the other helps you build characters. This subforum additionally stows away things that not everyone might need, but that you might find useful and amusing.
(click to show/hide)

166
Board Business / Re: Cleaning Up Homebrew
« on: February 19, 2018, 11:13:15 AM »
I'm back. I'm fine with the OP as well as strat's recent suggestion. Come what may.

167
The PBMC Metacompendium / Re: Subforum Readme
« on: February 19, 2018, 10:59:38 AM »
Reserved, just in case space is needed. Now you can go post in my centralized response thread. It's easy. Just cut what you get when you hit the quote button, and paste it over there along with your keystrokes.

168
The PBMC Metacompendium / Subforum Readme
« on: February 19, 2018, 10:59:10 AM »
Q) What is this thread?
A) This is where I intercept expected questions readers may have and answer new questions. If you have something not below, feel free to post here even if this is not to the thread you are talking about. Just link/quote the one you are referencing so I can help reply to comments.

Q) What is this subforum?
A) It's two things. Firstly its a full text dump of every part of the MetaCompendium. Secondly I'll also jamming in here an archive of every important post or thread I make (and others). No one else might care about that part, but if when the next board dies, it will save me a lot of trouble digging.

Q) What are (RT) and (MC) threads?
A) RT stands for random threads and MC stands for meta compendium. Basically, if its part of what a DM needs to fix 3e, it belongs in the metacompendium. Otherwise its just random stuff that is placed here to save/share it easily.

Q) Alright PMBC, what gives? You basically stopped posting half a year ago. This has been up and empty for a season. I want to reference 3rd edition modularly fixed already!
A) I slowed down for a long while, unsure if this sub-board would even happen. I hate to bother people for things and didn't want to pester the admins. Basically my massive D&D theory crafting is a lorrey roaring down the high way and it just got too much load added in with no stopping point in sight. I basically "pulled the plug" on adding anything more to the entire browsers full of tabs I wanted to reply/update/do/etc unless I could unload what I already had in the queue. Once the emergency break got pulled, I didn't have the energy to fire up the engines until I did some other cleaning.

Q) What did you do in the meantime?
A) I worked on modifying other games. Rimworld (fun), darkest dungeon (not worth it now that cheat engine tables are missing the speed up script), Dark Souls 3 online, 100% NG, clear Londor, no enemy revive (so ... much ... research ... required). Xcom 2 "all of the mods" got interrupted by steam trying to extort me. Really.

Q) Why did you do all this? Why haven't you "moved on" to 5e?
A) I had to, or atleast I'm the only one who can. First of all this was done before 5e, when 4e was still failing. Remember that both 4e and Pathfinder were tauted as "fixing" 3e. Both just ended up becoming 'not D&D' because you simply can't use your 3e builds when playing those separate systems. Lastly, 5e is a magic tea party E6 / 4e hybrid. It does not recreate 3e. It is merely a wishy-washy subset, a shadow of the former glory that is 3e. I said this from the beginning and now that 5e has been out for a few years the "it's still new!" cries have slunk back into their shadow and just become a 'it's what's out now' shrug like 4e before it.
(click to show/hide)

Q) Wait, Pathfinder didn't fix 3e? What about Frank and K's tomes? I thought I saw someone on GitP fix all of 3rd edition once. Are you really saying that no one else has ever balanced D&D before you?
A) If people object to the sky being blue, every other comprehensive system fix has been like saying you can change the color of the atmosphere by draining away all the air. You haven't fixed the sky being blue, you've just thrown out the sky. Every other fix has simply thrown 3e out and replaced it with something that isn't D&D anymore. I haven't. My fixed 3e feels exactly like a normal, gentleman's agreement game of D&D. The difference is, my fixes allow you to take off the training wheels, strap on the jet pack of high-level, optimized play and still have it ride straight. No veering off to crash and burn like normal. And you're still on a bike rather than a submarine or something.

Q) So if I want to play a balanced game of D&D, do I have to use your fixes?
A) Only if you want any level of optimization and to avoid magical tea part (aka DM fiat). Basically I do all the 'dirty work' of figuring out what actually needs the ban hammer, and what can stay if treated with slight care/fixing. With clever enough players and enough play time, you'll either let you campaigns get smashed or you'll take positions at least as logically strong as mine. I save you that headache. You're welcome.

Q) But if I have unicorn players who never break the game...
A) Podcast that for proof. Otherwise it aint real. If it is real but you can't show me, then they probably dress in a fluffy pink outfit and go dance on rainbows.

Q) Can I ask questions elsewhere beside this thread?
A) Sure, but I might not see it. When in doubt, PM.

169
Aw look at your two, learning to use the forum. Welcome to the boards. Sorry it took a while to answer your summons. I pulled the emergency brake to come to a full stop when learning a new system (Mutants & Masterminds), but fear not, I shall return (and soon dump more posts in a single day than probably anyone on this forum).

1) First of all, put all of your abilities into full sentences. Use prose to explain anything about the class including levels at which abilities gain and operate. After that tables are helpful. Just remember that text trumps tables in D&D. For instance, "Feeding Aura(dark): enemies who enter this aura begin to feel their life sap away and bolster the dark auraist, feeding on all enemies who enter.  (1d6 + 1d6 per 3 levels + wisdom mod)" contains sentence fragments.

2) You might want organize things differently. This doesn't feel complete to me. There are 12 abilities lists and D&D defaults to 20 levels for a base class. Players don't like dead levels and DMs will expect saves/SR/hit rolls on abilities that affect others. Does this class have anything to do with tanking?

170
Game Design / DotA Abilities Translated into D&D. Imbalanced?
« on: August 27, 2017, 08:36:03 PM »
For those gamers who haven't noticed the crown jewel of the ESports scene, DotA is an immensely popular team-based PvP game with heavy RPG influences from Warcraft 3. I play a version of DotA that allows any character to have any 6 abilities rather than being stuck with the 4 pre-designed ones.

I was thinking about its balance, in general. On-attack passives by mundane fighters are wildly powerful. This is in stark contrast to 3rd edition. Now, I know many of you don't play DotA, so I've done all the work of translating the abilities below. Keep in mind that I'm importing them in as honestly as I can. Imagine you had a player who wanted to play the following abilities. What would your impressions be?

Quote from: Quick D&D reminder
In a 6 second round, a character has a 3second standard attack and a 2 second move and a 1 second swift action, there-abouts

Some starting mechanics concerning iterations
(click to show/hide)

Spells
(click to show/hide)

Stats:
(click to show/hide)

DotA's ability balance varies wildly from D&D's. I'll be building an LoD Dota a mundane and caster carry before translating it into D&D terms so we can see how powerful they really can get. Basically one is all passive abilties and the other is mostly active abilities (aka spells).

Agi (passive carry) (standard skills chose one to boost every level up. Any are selectable but follow the minimum levels above as if they were spells):

Essence Shift
(click to show/hide)

Fury Swipes
(click to show/hide)

Fervor
(click to show/hide)

Beserker's Blood
(click to show/hide)

Agi Carry ultimate skills can be taken any time starting when a 4th level spell would. For instance 2nd level of marksmanship would count as a 5th level spell, selectable starting at ECL 10)

Marksmanship
(click to show/hide)

Shadow Dance:
(click to show/hide)

Mundane Dex-based tl;dr summary: much like D&D, DotA assumes that players will buy certain items to give them abilities that they simply need to function: a big HP boost item, a big movement item, true sight, 15% Lifesteal upon attack, a bashing item (it takes away actions from those you hit 25% of the time, 1 round magic immunity usable every 14 rounds and even a plus iteratives item. Trying to play an hardcore agi carry without them is an exercise in frustration. Once you get them, the only thing that can stop you is continuous mass stuns.


Int (active carry): Now we can compare that to a similarly optimized caster build (the best of the best):

Purification
(click to show/hide)

Deafening Blast
(click to show/hide)

Meat Hook
(click to show/hide)

Sunstrike
(click to show/hide)

Multi-cast
(click to show/hide)

Laguna Blade
(click to show/hide)

Summary of the caster build: You rush a scepter or have a support with greed to give you one. Think of it as an item that applies free augmentation to your spells/psionic powers, augmentations that are only available if you have the item. Then octarine core is your second best item. The 25% cooldown reduction let's you kill a nontank or carry while waiting the now 4 rounds to fire your laser again. The point is to basically get iteratives on spells. Spells that can't have their damage lowered. The order is: fireblast, hook, purify, deafening, laguna. If you get good odds, you could deal enough damage to kill two heavy tanks, on top of locking down any other enemies around.

171
Handbooks / Re: Sohei Handbook
« on: August 26, 2017, 08:07:50 PM »
I love the sohei. Nice handbook. The commentary is gold.

172
It doesn't matter too much. Scrolls are part of teh brokenzor core materiel. They are like partially charged wands for but you can put anything in it.

And that's before metamagicks.

173
Min/Max 3.x / Re: RAW Campaign benefits
« on: August 11, 2017, 12:14:47 AM »
I found another. It's a psuedo-template that only has a minor benefit and requires a large, passive time investment. But it is meant to happen in the prime and explicitly is addable to any large desert or wastes.

5th level characters can, after a (bardic) knowledge check be only 1 greater teleport away from the Basin of Deadly Dust which has a nonmagical fine-sized construct dust that "requires one month of exposure. These creatures are known as tain-touched, and their natural armor bonus increases by 4."  [Sand202]

174
Gaming Advice / Re: Universal character enhancers D&D 3.5
« on: August 08, 2017, 01:46:24 PM »
Welcome to the boards! Have you considered reformatting your list by what a PC expends to get the benefits?

Obviously there are classes for ECL. Race is its own category since you can only chose one. Also you forgot affiliations.

175
Min/Max 3.x / Has Anyone Actually built and played a Psionic Artificer?
« on: August 06, 2017, 05:49:09 PM »
Here's some good publicity to an old post I found:
For the record:  JaronK has, I would argue, a very reasonable tier system, based on quite good (but not amazing) optimization.  He has be behaved both reasonably and intelligently.

If you have a problem with the placement of one of the classes in the tiers, google for it, and if it hasn't been addressed before, start a thread, and we can all discuss the specifics.

Best,
David

I have quite the post about Psionic Artificers on the handbook discussion page, but thought I'd hear if anyone has handled the class in actual play, specifically if full transparency wasn't in play. I've already reproduced the entire (altered) class text for others to follow along about the variant. I'm mainly interested in how the variant changes the artificer class, so there's little need to get worked up about where to place the original Artificer in the tiers.

176
Handbook Discussion / Re: The Unofficial Artificer Handbook Discussion
« on: August 06, 2017, 04:43:55 PM »
Every core feat, yes. All splat books only assume core unless they reference something else. So yes, in core, a barbarian was the ultimate mundane class. But there was no factotum or warblade there. Anyways, I have useful things for you:

Unfortunately all the other artificer handbooks are unfinished. Does this handbook fully obsolete the old ("tier 0") one? There is no synopsis of the Crafting Handbook or Soro's tier 4 artificer claims. There should be. There's also a lot of extra prose in the handbook (Attributes & Attune Weapon feat, I'm looking at you). Here's the only useful part from the last attempt:

BAB: Divine Power. Persist it
Special Attacks: (Cloud of Knives!)
Class Archetypes: Ring of Evasion and Skill boosters. clockwork armor.
Feats and Skills: spells grant feats or skill bonuses.
Sneak Attack: Hunter's Eye
Find Traps
Rage: Gutworm symbiont from Fiend Folio.
Spells up to 6th: For the Warforged, Wand Bonding lets you cast spells from wands using your infusion slots instead of charges. (City of Stormreach, page 119)

Lastly, the Psionic Artificers section is way too small, especially for the tier 0 rumors surrounding it (hint, they're false). The handbook says things like "you will need to go through and make psionic variants of all of the various homunculi as well," which isn't true. You can't expect your DM to homebrew extra material just because the normal versions don't work for your variant. The Psi Arti simply needs to multiclass like an arcane swordsage if you want to get the most out of it. Just so everyone is clear on the variant, I've faithfully converted the entire class:

(click to show/hide)

Commentary: "A psionic Artificer cannot emulate spells to create magic items." [MoEp42] This seems to imply that DMs are not to have the full transparency variant in effect. If that is the case, Psionic Artificers are automatically Tier 2. All of the magical flexibility they used to have is now gone. Now they are just stuck with their 3 really overpowered infusions (Spell Storing Item, Metamagic Item, and Item Alteration). If those are already off the table for regular artificers, then that's another tier drop. You're like a bard or psywar, but still above a UMD rogue.

Things would get really hairy for you if scrolls/wands & power stones/dorjes were banned. But fear not! If your DM thinks a whopping 3 tiers worth of nerfing might have been too harsh, you might be able to stay Tier 3 with liberal use of Psychic Reformation: "The subject can also choose to forget powers it acquired when advancing to its current level, replacing them with new ones." Just multiclass Psion and enjoy the powers known!

The good news is that Psionic Artificers would have 46 powers known since the list doesn't change much: 13 at level 1! In E6, the class is its won 6 class level long dip complete with 29 spells know. Level 7 only offers some (eternal) wand stretching and level 10 is a dead level in case you wanted 5th level infusions. You don't. They're bad, as are the 6th level ones. There infusion list is:
(click to show/hide)

177
General D&D Discussion / Re: Criticism of a random inflamatory D&D blog
« on: August 06, 2017, 03:10:29 PM »
Double posting to separate some thoughts on Fu:

I know that fu (especially the negative kind, hehe) has slowly gone away, but does anyone else use a boards with a more flexible system? Like, can the amount a person can give be limited by post count? Can it require quoting? Can it have delays built in so if you really want to commend someone, you have to save it and wait a day until after you've quoted the post you are commending?

Just thinking out loud.

178
Min/Max 3.x / Re: What initiator/psionic PrCs exist in the magazines?
« on: August 06, 2017, 12:10:08 AM »
what's your I.L. ?!
RHD ... except IL has free half class levels in there. You'll want to take a martial class if you plan on swapping for higher level maneuvers though.

179
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: Using Symbiotes for Prerequisites?
« on: August 06, 2017, 12:06:48 AM »
First of all, Nifft, you are doing a wonderful job of trying to keep the posting on topic, with concise rules quotes. So I commend your cat-herding instincts.

You're currently suggesting that we use a FAQ entry which blatantly contradicts the rules as the basis for inferring an unstated rule.
SORO TRIGGER WARNING! SORO TRIGGER WARNING!   :P What do I know; maybe he'll let it go this time. He certainly made a strange entrance already.

To be useful without reading all the ... back and forth ... a nice list might help. Who wants to fill in every single requirement with rules quotes? I seem to recall we collectively failed this task when I asked for it years ago. Yes, I know that the casting rules are a mess and are everywhere ( :shakefist), but I'll start:

0) Let's just ignore the minimizing CL tricks for now. They tend to get people excited when someone innocently asks if the below as precedence or not when there seems to be a way to take a CL penalty (like the mage slayer feat line)
(click to show/hide)

180
General D&D Discussion / Re: Criticism of a random inflamatory D&D blog
« on: August 05, 2017, 10:42:55 PM »
Overall, you are way too kind.
0:)

Quote
But he cannot be bothered to even address them all in a functional manner.
:) There is something very appealing about your specific and insightful critiques.

Quote
9. "Wah! I hate alignment! I hate fantasy archetypes! I don't care about genre!"
It's successfully humorous because its true. See fu post below.

The best part about this one is that the blogger is somehow trying to use literary history to mock Vancian casting, as though Vancian casting had a non-literary origin.

PBMC, you are indeed too kind.
:D

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