Search results

Using magic items is definitely not "spellcasting". Casting a spell is a particular kind of action in D&D, and you are only said to be "casting a spell" if you actually cast a spell or use a spell completion item. Spell trigger items shouldn't count, and command-word or continuous-use items...

You can achieve a similar flavor (though, obviously, not identical effects) in Core by being a Wizard who takes Conjuration and Transmutation as his schools. Drop Evocation and Enchantment to represent things that, IIRC, alchemists can't do in FMA. (Or drop Necromancy to represent the...

Now, to be fair, balking at a gestalt campaign is wholly different from balking at one of the other PCs choosing a "Usually Evil" race. The latter has no effect on you mechanically and doesn't put any burden on you, and ought to be more of an opportunity for you to roleplay than anything else...

What you do is you have a "pre-session" where the DM and players talk about the campaign concept and character concepts, all in person, for one whole meeting before the sessions actually start. (Not a fifteen-minute prelim before the first session, an actual Session Zero on its own.) Everyone...

My idea of "evil" isn't nearly so extreme. IMC the population is basically evenly distributed -- about 1/3 of all human beings everywhere will fall into the evil category. Anyone who goes through life as a selfish ass, a manipulative bastard, or someone who generally doesn't care about other...

Refresh my memory, but you can't do this with _command_ in 3.5 at all (I don't know about 3e). You can command it to approach, drop its weapon, flee, or halt, which makes these things much easier to run. Not that it matters, because what you were doing with _command_ is the exact same effect as...

Well, this is why the DMG says the circumstance bonus or penalty is the DM's best friend. If someone is really good at describing their actions, add bonuses, and take them away if they don't. The thing is that it's often not fun for a player to be expected to either actually have the mindset...

I was making a stupid drug-based analogy to try to explain what Kreia's Grey Jedi powers derive from and how she herself "reads" in terms of Light Side/Dark Side balance. Frankly I think she was always more Dark than Light -- more Darth Traya -- all along, but she was able to keep that cloaked...

A heads-up on what you don't, technically, need to buy thanks to the SRD -- The SRD contains all the crunch (though not the cool flavor text) from: PHB DMG MM Expanded Psionics Handbook Epic Level Handbook (converted to 3.5) Deities and Demigods Unearthed Arcana There are exceptions -- you...

That's why it's so seductive.

It's analogous if only in the sense that it's a situation where people tend to bitch all the time about how they can't get exactly what they want, when they often don't really know what they want, want unrealistic or inconsistent things, change what they want all the time and *still* bitch even...

Instantaneous transmutation effect. Can't be dispelled, doesn't detect with a magic aura under _detect magic_, and holy water that you buy from the temple is under Equipment, not under Magic Items. I can see the *logic* behind not letting holy water work -- it says it works because of positive...

This is a problem with *all* kinds of social activities, not just D&D -- what restaurant should we go to? what movie should we rent? what city shall we visit on vacation this year? -- and it's really up to each group to solve it in their own way, based on their own personalities.

*sigh* Every day I find another little reason to be slightly ashamed of my hobby. And I seriously thought I personally was one of the most screwed-up unsocial geeks I knew.

You're allowed to have high standards. You're just not allowed to complain all the time and make everyone else angry and upset because of your high standards. That is, there's nothing wrong with you rejecting girls left and right because none of them appeal to you -- however, you have to...

It's really not that hard if you actually use a grid and minis. I mean, you look at the grid, you see where the guys with weapons are, you don't run right past them or else they'll hit you. It's a lot easier than, say, playing checkers. None of these problems with "realism" directly create...

A system where you need one meat shield per one attacker to protect the wizard isn't that great of a system. It swings us all the way back to the other pole, where fighters' job is to stand around the wizard and do nothing but wait, and the wizard's job is to lob spells at the BBEG.

Not familiar with OA, but an Ogre Mage that was actually faithful to the Japanese oni would be quite a bit more powerful than either the original Ogre Mage (which was, face it, a really crappy and hamhanded way of trying to simulate an oni, which they had the nerve to call "the Japanese ogre"...

All I'm gonna do is ask how the heck the Ogre Mage fits into this criticism. *What* flavor? What "classic" feel? What about him was so great and so special? Mearls' criticism -- echoed by other designers in other columns -- is that if you look at the original Ogre Mage he's a hodgepodge of...

*sigh* You would ask for the one variable by which d20srd.org doesn't let you filter. While longer-than-an-action casting times are not terribly common anymore, a lot of divination spells or spells that induce permanent effects have long casting times. _Commune_ takes 10 minutes, as does...