How do y'all feel about the concept of rocket tag in 3.5?

[Basket Burner]

They easily can. But if it can't full attack, it's going to do something else, that is probably more dangerous. And the only way it might even remotely target the "tank" is by unloading a full attack into it, so you have no choice.

And just how easy is it for a dragon to get pounce?  Other than taking levels in Totem Barbarian, that is.  And you have plenty of choice, merely by having the non-tanks invisible/silenced/out of range/behind a barrier/whatever other defensive magic is available.  And what can a dragon typically do that is more dangerous than a full attack?  Unless it ambushed the PCs, they should all have enough resistance/immunity to its breath weapon to render that a much weaker option, and its spellcasting is another weak option, unless the dragon is a much higher CR than the PCs' level.

Incredibly so and even more if you take into account extra move action abilities. Regardless, the only way it's ever attacking a "tank" is with a full attack, which will smash it. Otherwise it's going to unload on someone else. Which still results in serious inconsistency in how many dice it takes to die. Which is the point. Not to mention none of those things are going to work especially well against a dragon for obvious reasons.

[littha]

And just how easy is it for a dragon to get pounce?

Incredibly so

Name two.

[Basket Burner]

A single class level.

A single low level spell.

A single low level power.

There's three.

Add in all the extra move action options and extra movement as a swift action options and moving and full attacking is quite simple to anyone that cares, such as a melee dragon.

Again, that isn't the point though. The point is that there is no correlation between dice rolls and actions, as a single full attack can easily consist of 5 actions. Only actions until death matters as a metric as they are the only honest and accurate baseline you can use.

[archangel.arcanis]

A single class level.

A single low level spell.

A single low level power.

There's three.

Add in all the extra move action options and extra movement as a swift action options and moving and full attacking is quite simple to anyone that cares, such as a melee dragon.

Again, that isn't the point though. The point is that there is no correlation between dice rolls and actions, as a single full attack can easily consist of 5 actions. Only actions until death matters as a metric as they are the only honest and accurate baseline you can use.

It is posts like these that endear you to people BB. He asked for 2 ways and you gave a generic answer. It would be much more helpful if you stated what class and which spell & power otherwise anyone who hasn't read over almost every spell, power, and ACF has no clue what those are.

[lans]

Shape meld(sphinx claws) and open least chakra gives pounce with natural weapons
Lions charge spell/power gives pounce and is third level.

[Mooncrow]

A single class level.

A single low level spell.

A single low level power.

There's three.

Add in all the extra move action options and extra movement as a swift action options and moving and full attacking is quite simple to anyone that cares, such as a melee dragon.

Again, that isn't the point though. The point is that there is no correlation between dice rolls and actions, as a single full attack can easily consist of 5 actions. Only actions until death matters as a metric as they are the only honest and accurate baseline you can use.

It is posts like these that endear you to people BB. He asked for 2 ways and you gave a generic answer. It would be much more helpful if you stated what class and which spell & power otherwise anyone who hasn't read over almost every spell, power, and ACF has no clue what those are.

Of course, unless there's a dragon variant that casts druid spells, he's either adding 5 levels of druid or 8 levels of ranger to get that "low level spell".  Or 4 levels of Psychic Warrior to get the power.

But of course, all dragons (I think all melee NPC's, actually) have a level of barbarian in BB's campaign world. 

edit: ah, I did forget about the meldshape: so that one only costs 2 feats?

[phaedrusxy]

A single class level.

A single low level spell.

A single low level power.

There's three.

Add in all the extra move action options and extra movement as a swift action options and moving and full attacking is quite simple to anyone that cares, such as a melee dragon.

Again, that isn't the point though. The point is that there is no correlation between dice rolls and actions, as a single full attack can easily consist of 5 actions. Only actions until death matters as a metric as they are the only honest and accurate baseline you can use.

It is posts like these that endear you to people BB. He asked for 2 ways and you gave a generic answer. It would be much more helpful if you stated what class and which spell & power otherwise anyone who hasn't read over almost every spell, power, and ACF has no clue what those are.

Of course, unless there's a dragon variant that casts druid spells, he's either adding 5 levels of druid or 8 levels of ranger to get that "low level spell".  Or 4 levels of Psychic Warrior to get the power.

But of course, all dragons (I think all melee NPC's, actually) have a level of barbarian in BB's campaign world.

Use Psionic/Magic Device ranks + item (dorje/wand/etc). No feats or class levels required.

[Mooncrow]

Use Psionic/Magic Device ranks + item (dorje/wand/etc). No feats or class levels required.

Fair enough. 

[TenaciousJ]

A single class level.

A single low level spell.

A single low level power.

There's three.

Add in all the extra move action options and extra movement as a swift action options and moving and full attacking is quite simple to anyone that cares, such as a melee dragon.

Again, that isn't the point though. The point is that there is no correlation between dice rolls and actions, as a single full attack can easily consist of 5 actions. Only actions until death matters as a metric as they are the only honest and accurate baseline you can use.

It is posts like these that endear you to people BB. He asked for 2 ways and you gave a generic answer. It would be much more helpful if you stated what class and which spell & power otherwise anyone who hasn't read over almost every spell, power, and ACF has no clue what those are.

Of course, unless there's a dragon variant that casts druid spells, he's either adding 5 levels of druid or 8 levels of ranger to get that "low level spell".  Or 4 levels of Psychic Warrior to get the power.

But of course, all dragons (I think all melee NPC's, actually) have a level of barbarian in BB's campaign world.

Use Psionic/Magic Device ranks + item (dorje/wand/etc). No feats or class levels required.

The Child of Eberron sovereign archetype casts druid spells as arcane spells.

[Basket Burner]

A single class level.

A single low level spell.

A single low level power.

There's three.

Add in all the extra move action options and extra movement as a swift action options and moving and full attacking is quite simple to anyone that cares, such as a melee dragon.

Again, that isn't the point though. The point is that there is no correlation between dice rolls and actions, as a single full attack can easily consist of 5 actions. Only actions until death matters as a metric as they are the only honest and accurate baseline you can use.

It is posts like these that endear you to people BB. He asked for 2 ways and you gave a generic answer. It would be much more helpful if you stated what class and which spell & power otherwise anyone who hasn't read over almost every spell, power, and ACF has no clue what those are.

You're right. I shouldn't assume people on an optimization board are intelligent enough to recognize LION Totem Barb, LION's Charge, and Psionic LION's Charge without having it explicitly spelled out for them as if they are very dumb. Even though I get the impression there is some sort of unifying theme lion around there somewhere. I wonder what it could be?

Next they will be confused as to how a creature that can 1: Cast spells from the Druid/Ranger lists. 2: UMD wands of the same. 3: Use powers. 4: UPD Dorjes of the same. 5: Take class levels. could possibly manage to get those things. It's quite sad, and explains quite a lot that I previously wasn't sure about.

[archangel.arcanis]

A single class level.

A single low level spell.

A single low level power.

There's three.

Add in all the extra move action options and extra movement as a swift action options and moving and full attacking is quite simple to anyone that cares, such as a melee dragon.

Again, that isn't the point though. The point is that there is no correlation between dice rolls and actions, as a single full attack can easily consist of 5 actions. Only actions until death matters as a metric as they are the only honest and accurate baseline you can use.

It is posts like these that endear you to people BB. He asked for 2 ways and you gave a generic answer. It would be much more helpful if you stated what class and which spell & power otherwise anyone who hasn't read over almost every spell, power, and ACF has no clue what those are.

You're right. I shouldn't assume people on an optimization board are intelligent enough to recognize LION Totem Barb, LION's Charge, and Psionic LION's Charge without having it explicitly spelled out for them as if they are very dumb. Even though I get the impression there is some sort of unifying theme lion around there somewhere. I wonder what it could be?

Next they will be confused as to how a creature that can 1: Cast spells from the Druid/Ranger lists. 2: UMD wands of the same. 3: Use powers. 4: UPD Dorjes of the same. 5: Take class levels. could possibly manage to get those things. It's quite sad, and explains quite a lot that I previously wasn't sure about.

Not everyone owns all the books or even has had access to them all in order to recognize those. I knew which ones you were talking about due to these very boards, technically the BG incarnation but the point is the same. I'm saying when asked to give an example give an actual example rather than coping out and saying a spell does it. It has nothing to do with intelligence and you trying to say anyone who hasn't seen those items is stupid is you being a douche.

[Mooncrow]

The Child of Eberron sovereign archetype casts druid spells as arcane spells.

Ah, that is interesting.  It still puts it at CR14+ in most cases, though.

Is there a psychic warrior variant as well?  (gem dragons can only cast from the psion list normally)

(BB - most people don't consider tacking 4+ class levels on to an encounter as "incredibly easy".  I do concede the UMD point though)

[Basket Burner]

It has everything to do with intelligence, as I falsely assumed that people around here understood the game well enough to not need everything spelled out to them and could instead understand with a simple reference. As that is clearly false, I will make a note to be much more condescending (you know, the thing I was trying to avoid doing) in the future.

Just as I was under the impression that people would grasp that the point of this has nothing to do with nitpick sperging the example. Apparently that was also a mistake.

PS: Every single core true dragon of CR 8 or higher automatically succeeds at the UMD/UPD check required except the White, that needs a 2. The CR 7 Silver also no fails it. Since those are all of the dragons that might want to melee...

[Mooncrow]

It has everything to do with intelligence, as I falsely assumed that people around here understood the game well enough to not need everything spelled out to them and could instead understand with a simple reference. As that is clearly false, I will make a note to be much more condescending (you know, the thing I was trying to avoid doing) in the future.

Just as I was under the impression that people would grasp that the point of this has nothing to do with nitpick sperging the example. Apparently that was also a mistake.

PS: Every single core true dragon of CR 8 or higher automatically succeeds at the UMD/UPD check required except the White, that needs a 2. The CR 7 Silver also no fails it. Since those are all of the dragons that might want to melee...

I was responding to the Child of Eberron variant casting - requires the dragon to be able to cast 3rd level spells, which most of the time takes it to CR14ish.

And I'll freely admit that I'm nit-picking - I actually agree with one of your early posts in this thread:

There are other ways of diminishing the rocket tag, but they require heavy optimization and heavy houserules.

The one houserule that I've found to work well (for a lot of things, but it includes diminishing rocket tag) is just to switch to using 2d10 instead of d20.  It makes for a much nicer probability curve, and defenses become much more reliable.

[archangel.arcanis]

It has everything to do with intelligence, as I falsely assumed that people around here understood the game well enough to not need everything spelled out to them and could instead understand with a simple reference. As that is clearly false, I will make a note to be much more condescending (you know, the thing I was trying to avoid doing) in the future.

Just as I was under the impression that people would grasp that the point of this has nothing to do with nitpick sperging the example. Apparently that was also a mistake.

PS: Every single core true dragon of CR 8 or higher automatically succeeds at the UMD/UPD check required except the White, that needs a 2. The CR 7 Silver also no fails it. Since those are all of the dragons that might want to melee...

I've never said you were wrong on the actual fact. I was saying you were needlessly being a condescending douche, and in fact have been in pretty much every thread I've seen you post in. Your answering of a specific question with a generic reference, which those who have read the spell/power would likely recognize but no one else would, is you pretending to be the smartest man in the room and using that as an excuse to belittle people.

[littha]

I knew of all of these ways before hand but the aim was to show that they are not things to be assumed of every dragon you ever encounter.

My personal favourite way of (Psudo)Pounce is Dimension hop from the travel mantle, you wont get the charging bonuses (which without further investment ammount to +2 to hit) but you can do it in any direction.

[ImperatorK]

Two feats, Martial Study (any tiger Claw maneuver) and Martial Study (Sudden Leap) can work like a pounce. Or you get a third feat, Martial Study (Pouncing Charge).

Archangel, just ignore him.

[Basket Burner]

The one houserule that I've found to work well (for a lot of things, but it includes diminishing rocket tag) is just to switch to using 2d10 instead of d20.  It makes for a much nicer probability curve, and defenses become much more reliable.

Enemies hit on a 2. That means they go from hitting 95% to 99%. Not exactly reliable. On the defense side at least. Characters that aren't bulking up their saves need more than an 11 to resist spells. They are now even less able to do so. The ones that do bulk up their saves resist spells more but then I said that already.

I've never said you were wrong on the actual fact. I was saying you were needlessly being a condescending douche, and in fact have been in pretty much every thread I've seen you post in. Your answering of a specific question with a generic reference, which those who have read the spell/power would likely recognize but no one else would, is you pretending to be the smartest man in the room and using that as an excuse to belittle people.

If you think being mean is unnecessary, you have not been paying attention. These boards are outright hostile to those that actually understand optimization, despite being optimization boards.

[Mooncrow]

The one houserule that I've found to work well (for a lot of things, but it includes diminishing rocket tag) is just to switch to using 2d10 instead of d20.  It makes for a much nicer probability curve, and defenses become much more reliable.

Enemies hit on a 2. That means they go from hitting 95% to 99%. Not exactly reliable. On the defense side at least. Characters that aren't bulking up their saves need more than an 11 to resist spells. They are now even less able to do so. The ones that do bulk up their saves resist spells more but then I said that already.

It reduces autohits and misses, and even more importantly, crits (which are always better for team monster than for players).  It means that if you can get your defenses (whatever type they may be) up to point where you succeed on a 8 or better, you have a much, much higher chance of survival than when rolling a d20. 

No, it doesn't do much against monsters that hit on a 2, but if you let one of your defenses lapse that hard in a high-op game without another way of countering, you deserve to die. 

[Kethrian]

Enemies hit on a 2.

Really?  So I can just pick any random monster of a CR equal to my players' levels, and it's more than 50% likely to have an attack bonus of at least +19 over any of their ACs?  Excepting, of course, PCs that optimize AC to the exclusion of just about everything else.

Huh, doesn't seem to be true for my Monster Manual.  How about.... nope, not for MM 2 (3.5 updated), 3, 4, or 5.  Not even the monster section in the EPH.  In fact, none of the monsters seem to be capable of hitting on a 2 against any but the most unoptimized ACs.