Min/Max Boards

Quote from: The_Mad_Linguist on January 19, 2012, 04:41:48 PM

Quote from: liquid150 on January 19, 2012, 08:27:58 AM

Quote from: SorO_Lost on January 19, 2012, 04:43:03 AM

If you go Warlock you can dip Binder to cover ability damage for Hellfire (and Dark Speech if you use that), then of course snag a ritual or two out of Lords of Darkness. There is a 100ft teleport that can be obtained once you can expend the 2,000gp & 500gp to permanently obtain it.

Ritual of Shadow Walking, IIRC, in the section about the cult of Shar. You can also use Necropolitan to cover the ability damage from that one.

Might as well pick up 'honest pain' while you're at it.

Honest pain? Doesn't ring a bell.

Another ritual from the book.  Permanently lowers con score, makes you immune to stuff like zone of truth, IIRC.  Costs basically nothing beside that.

Quote from: SorO_Lost on January 19, 2012, 04:43:03 AM

If you go Warlock you can dip Binder to cover ability damage for Hellfire (and Dark Speech if you use that), then of course snag a ritual or two out of Lords of Darkness. There is a 100ft teleport that can be obtained once you can expend the 2,000gp & 500gp to permanently obtain it.

Ritual of Shadow Walking, IIRC, in the section about the cult of Shar. You can also use Necropolitan to cover the ability damage from that one.

Might as well pick up 'honest pain' while you're at it.

Any ideas on using a Nightstalker (DL:RoA)? It gets you 3 ghost cohorts which can definitely be handy. One would be a Bard, one would be a MotUH, but what would the 3rd one be? Any ideas of how to optimize the Nightstalker class itself?

Hmmm... the only version I've seen is the Age of Mortals version, which I haven't touched because, well, Kender.

I think the MotUH up Deathsong makes a lot of sense if you can go necropolitan or similarly become nonliving.  Dealing triple physical damage makes a master of the unseen hand absolutely brutal.  It's a bit unfortunate that it only buffs the ghost who's singing it at the moment, but the will save vs panic will cause the others to flee anyway.

As for the third... Well, haunting ghost's Illusion (su) is an obvious choice for a 'third wheel' character.  Unlimited major images is the type of utility that makes or breaks things. 

Let's say you choose Major Image, Dimension Door, and Malevolence for abilities.  Stick it into a golem, and you now have a teleporting, illusion-projecting golem that can actually *think* and use class abilities.  Combine that with some class that's decent at melee already like a warblade or something, picking physical stats as total dumpstats since they get replaced.  Go out to venerable age, even.  Now you've got a frontliner who can actually pull his own weight.  Heck, even a calzone golem would be decent, once it can benefit from magic items.  That uncapped AC bonus and spell immunity is a nice combo.

OK, take a warforged with +2 La of templates with nice stat mods.  Hit it with expansion, then hit it with incarnate construct.  You now have a LA+0 medium size giant.  Now hit it with "return to nature" and shrink it down.



Alternatively, wave around a rod of wonder until it shrinks you to a twelfth of your size.  That's the easy way.

14) If a monster has the same level as a PC, then they should be of equal power. This means, that for a party of one 5th level PC fighting one 5th level Monster, this is an equal level challenge, worth 25xp.

So you gain 25 xp... in exchange for a 50% chance of death?

For a party consisting of one 5th level PC, one 7th level PC, one 4th level PC, and one 1st level PC (Avg 4.25) fighting one 5th level Monster, since the party has 4 members, we divide the Monster's level by 4, arriving at a challenge level of 1.25, making it a challenge three levels lower, worth only 10xp.

So let's say I have a level 10 guy 'brawn mcmighty' fighting a level 5 orc 'generic mcmook'.  25-5*(10-5)=0 
He gets no experience points for it.

Let's say he pulls a random level 1 bum off the street named 'shrimp mcgee' and has him join the party.  He stuffs Shrimp Mcgee into a portable hole with a crate of beer and tells him to chuck the empties at anyone who looks funny.

shrimp mcgee + brawn mcmighty = 11, party average = 5.5
divide generic mcmook's level by two, so 'challenge level' is 5/2 = 2.5

This is a 'three levels down' challenge, apparently.  That means Brawn Mcmighty earns MORE experience points because he has an alcoholic sequestered in his portable hole. 

Or let's say he hires two level 1 bums to throw bottles at the orc from a distance while he fights it in melee
Party total = 12, party average = 4.  Divide generic mcmook's level by three to get 1.7.  Difference is TWO levels, so Brawn McMighty is earning fifteen experience points more than if he hadn't gotten some ranged backup.

Adding MORE members to the party shouldn't give you more experience points.

Also, how does the system work for awarding experience to an outnumbered party?  Is facing an alley full of ten level 1 bums really equal to facing a single level 10 barbarian?  I think not.

Quote from: The_Mad_Linguist on January 12, 2012, 06:08:11 PM

What's the ECL on myconids?  I can't find it in the MM2 entry.

try the update book?

EDIT: +2

Aha, the link I found first to a MM2 update was secretly the errata.

If they're spell-like, that means he ignores experience and material components, right?

Favorable Sacrifice (Cleric 3) seems realllllllly appealing to you.

WBL in fact ignores consumables from your last level. You could have blown your entire 13th level budget on scrolls, but at level 12 you're to have X in gear.

Um, actually, WBL assumes you've used some consumables.  Specifically, the difference between (14 x Average treasure of Newlevel) and (WBL_Newlevel-WBL_Oldlevel)

Treasure per Encounter
Table 3–5: Treasure has been created so that if PCs face enough
encounters of their own level to gain a level, they will have also
gained enough treasure to keep them apace with the wealth-by-
level information found in Table 5–1: Character Wealth by Level
(page 135). Just as gaining a level requires between thirteen and
fourteen encounters of a party’s level, so too fourteen average rolls
on the table at the party’s level will get them the treasure they
need to gain the appropriate amount for the next highest level,
assuming that the PCs expend some resources such as potions and
scrolls during those encounters

It overrates some lackluster to downright crappy feats like Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Skill Focus, and Combat Casting at 10 points (the baseline for a feat) while taking awesome feats like Quicken Spell and Natural Spell and halving the cost at 5 points! He's actually saying that when a druid takes Natural Spell by default at 6th level, that he should also get Quicken Spell for free! Holy crap, SKR!

Toughness (5 hp)    10 points   
a benchmark because your typical creature with 1d8 and this feat is going to have max hp compared to the same kind of creature without it; handy because it's half the fighter hp from a d10 and just over the max for a wizard's from a d4; also evenly divisible by 5 so you could have the option of buying extra hp at the price of 1 hp per 2 feat points

Toughness (3 hp)    6   see Toughness (5 hp)

Yes.  He does indeed claim that gaining 3 hp from toughness is worth MORE than natural spell.

Now, if it were 3 hp per level, then, well, it still wouldn't be worth it.  Never mind.

Player's guide to Kalamar gives examples but no method of judging what benefits are appropriate

Loyalty’s Reward [General]
Your loyalty to liege or lord grants you a benefit.
Prerequisite: Leadership feat or a follower of a character with the Leadership feat. Benefit: Taking this feat as the leader of an organization allows you to use the feat and grant others the benefit of a custom feat. Taking this feat as a member of the organization gives you the special ability granted by that organization. Example feats include:

    Snowbound: You gain a +2 resistance bonus to saving throws against cold spells. The druidic circle of the Voldorwoods and the Slennish can gain this feat.
    Serpent’s Swiftness: You can move an additional 10 feet on a charge action and gain an additional +2 bonus on your attack roll. Some barbarians of the Obakasek Jungle (the Kelen tribe) have this feat.
    Victims of Injustice: Due to combating constant oppression, you gain a +2 bonus to your Sense Motive checks made to oppose Bluff checks. The DC for someone to Intimidate you is 4 points higher than standard. Certain fanatical dwarves of Karasta take this feat.