Author Topic: Contact other plane  (Read 3267 times)

Offline Esgath

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Contact other plane
« on: November 17, 2011, 04:55:46 AM »
1. Is there any way to reliably make the int check up to greater deities, without raising intelligence to 40?
2. Can you avoid the int/cha decrease and the disability to cast arcane spells somehow if you should fail?
3. Is it possible to make the answers more certain?

As CoP is seen as one of those "cheats" for wizards, there must be a way around those problems which I am not aware of, I figured.

Offline Agita

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Re: Contact other plane
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2011, 05:44:01 AM »
1. Technically, you should be able to take 10 on the check, as you're probably not going to be casting the spell in a stressful situation. That's most definitely not the intention, but there's nothing preventing it.
Alternatively, a dedicated Wizard will probably have Int 30-34 at level 20. If the DM agrees, you could do something like adapt the Circlet of Persuasion for Int checks instead of Cha checks and get to a high enough modifier, but you probably shouldn't rely on that if you're going to be cheesing CoP.

2. None that I know of. A Wish spell could try to fix it, I guess?

3. You can cheese the system by asking questions about questions to reduce the probability of any one question being wrong (e.g. "Was the answer to question 1 false?" "Was the answer to my question about question 1 false?", and so on). You'll never get it to exactly zero, but you can get close. That aside, the Divine Oracle PrC allows you to roll twice on percentages for divination spells and take the better, which reduces the chance to get a false answer again (from 10% to 1%, if you're at 90% likelihood of a correct answer).
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Offline veekie

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Re: Contact other plane
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2011, 04:09:34 PM »
Of course if you use 3 too much you might give the DM a headache.

Also, some handle the error rate for a particular question to a particular answer source as consistent(on the basis that the answering entity is obviously misinformed), so clarify that before the shenanigans.
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Offline Nachofan99

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Re: Contact other plane
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2011, 04:27:12 PM »
Esgath,

The other posters gave you some help.  Yeah you can just Take 10 so you will generally never fail.

However to answer question #3.

I ask my players when they cast CoP what they want:

A) The future cannot be changed.  Anything you learn from CoP is 100% absolutely sure to happen.
B) The future can be changed.  Anything you learn from CoP would have 100% absolutely happened...except the future is subject to changing and changed after your CoP.

If the player's elect for A) and they see that they die - they die.
If the player's elect for B) the information may or may not be useful.

Note: I understand the spell and everything.  You still have to make a DM call that either the future is 100% static or is inherently changeable.  So either CoP always work, or it might not work.

Offline veekie

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Re: Contact other plane
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2011, 04:52:54 PM »
B there is probably the only practical ones without massive railroading or extreme vagueness.
Everything is edible. Just that there are things only edible once per lifetime.
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Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves; The vast concerns of an eternal scene.

Offline Agita

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Re: Contact other plane
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2011, 05:00:21 PM »
B is also what you want when you're predicting the future, because there's little point in knowing the future if you can't change it to your advantage.
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Offline Kajhera

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Re: Contact other plane
« Reply #6 on: November 17, 2011, 06:47:40 PM »
B there is probably the only practical ones without massive railroading or extreme vagueness.

Oedipus would agree.