3.5 Dungeon 100 info

[Corinth]

Or was my (admittedly cursory) reading missing something?

The adventure takes place on the Astral Plane. Casters can Quicken for free on the Astral Plane, but they still can't cast more than one Quickened spell per round.

 

[drnuncheon]

"Hi, I'm a ranger. I've spent my whole life learning the ways of the giants, that I might slay them whenever they attempt some foul deed."

"Oh? I'm a rogue. I've never seen a giant, but as long as you stand on the other side of it, I can kill it in half the time you'd take. Loser."

...and the wizard can take it out in one round. Your point?

I personally wouldn't be calling the ranger a loser if you need him to stand on the other side of the giant for you.

As far as the rest of the comparison goes:

Sneak attack: extra damage under certain circumstances. Generally needs stealth or teamwork to set up. Less chance to hit, because your rogue BAB is lower than the ranger's.

Favored enemy: extra damage whenever you hit (multiplied on criticals, I believe) and bonuses to a whole lot of skills.

A lot of people forget the skills in their rush to tally up their damage. Pretty much anything you do against a favored enemy, you get a bonus to - and in 3.5, it's a significant bonus, up to a +10.

J

 

[Lazybones]

The adventure takes place on the Astral Plane. Casters can Quicken for free on the Astral Plane, but they still can't cast more than one Quickened spell per round.

Ah, gotcha, thanks.

 

[Rodrigo]

NEWSFLASH

How bout this,

If you don't like the changes quit yer whining and play it the way you want!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Elder Basilisk

Interesting assertion. It appears that 20th level characters may bear that out.

That's a relief. Not that you agree with me, actually (it would be a very boring world if everyone did), but I kept thinking that by posting "I don't believe you" I may have been offensive.

For the record, I didn't intend to be offensive, and I'm glad you didn't take offense.

IMO, multiple stacking empowers are only a problem if they're combined with some kind of improved metamagic ability. And, in that case, the problem is the improved metamagic not stacking empower.

We'll just have to agree to disagree then.

Hmm. BAB +15, +10 Str 30 (17+3 stat boosts, +6 enhancement, +4 rage), +5 weapon, +1 weapon focus, +1 bless or prayer = attack bonus of +32/+27/+22 which hits AC 44 on a 12 with the primary attack. Of course, what happens when he hits the unholy aura is another matter entirely.

My math may have been a bit off, too. I think it was just a 50%+ chance to hit with the first blow.

PS a raging dwarven barbarian can easily ignore a DC 26 Fortitude save, such as that caused by unholy aura used by a pit fiend. (There's also greater dispelling, if you can target an invisible pit fiend.)

If the revised pit fiend is really CR 20, I guess I can buy that. I'll have to wait and see though. In most games I play in, our supposedly overpowered PCs wielding their supposedly broken spells still barely escape with their lives against half the things that are supposed to be challenging.

It seems our experiences are different. Perhaps your DM is more competent than myself, or perhaps he's out to get you?

Coyote

If all characters have to have that to compete, that means that a lot of interesting (but non-maximizing) options (in magic items, feats, etc.) will perforce be neglected. That's boring, IMO.

IMO, an opponent with weak hit points, such as a pit fiend, should be difficult in another way. (To whit - that crit alone took off a quarter of the pit fiend's hit points. )

The characters I used were somewhat optimized, for 25th-level characters, although I come down hard on what I consider "cheese".

I wish I had a 20th-level duelist sitting around - I'd try him and tell you how it went. Better yet, a monk (he of the low offense).

IMHO a party doesn't actually need those items to handle a pit fiend. This flying spellcasting creature rarely has a need to enter melee, regardless. (IME, limited as it is, the players did not "co-operate" with the tactics section, and I didn't expect them to do so, either. The pit fiend, which was powerful enough to cause a TPK, did get to kill the archer who was held. That's the only time he took a full-round action in melee - and even then, he was invisible.

The high AC is nasty, but there are lots of ways around that, and spellcasters rarely need to worry about natural armor, in any event.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The disintegrate change will be interesting to see in its entirety. I'm not interested in 25th level casters, but I'm very interested in what happens to 11th casters (they guys who have normally just got disintegrate as their "top gun" spell).

In terms of the spell "special effect", does it seem likely that the disintigrate spell does damage to a target and anything reduced to -10hp turns to dust? It would give a better benchmark for casting disintegrate against objects as well as creatures.

An observation - if it does damage, can it not then be empowered, hmm? Fear the 8th level "empowered disintegrate" if it could technically do up to 60d6 damage

Regarding that new slow spell - from the way it has been explained by the initial poster I'm not sure that it isn't way too good - if they can only take a move OR a standard action, AND they are at half movement rate... humans and creatures with similar movement are only going to be able to make a 30ft charge attack... and are simply going to die against archers if slowed (unless they have enough cover to hide behind and wait for the spell to wear off). It is also far more devastating to high level characters than low level characters, which is a little bizarre - since the high level characters lose out on multiple attacks to the spell, while low level characters don't (unless they are TWF )

Cheers

 

[Felon]

Re: Re

This is a nice change. Blindsight was a little too ambiguous and open-ended IMO. It really didn't fit for dragons as it was written. How could you possibly include a cool scene where an invisible creatures talks with the dragon enemy if the dragon knew exactly where the invisible creature was? This will make for more interesting interactions with dragons now that invisibility will work against them.

How so? The dragon still knows exactly where the invisible character is. He just has a 50% miss chance to miss with his claws (not with his breath though heh).

What it DOES do is nerf the rogue's ability to use a blindsight/darkness combo to launch sneak attacks against opponents. And that is a good thing, because once rogues start using that tactic, they don't seem to want to stop.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Ooo, another thought about disintegrate... if it is still a ranged touch spell, then it can critical hit

"Aha, critical hit with my empowered disintegrate! Take, uh, 120d6 damage!"


Mwahahahaha!

 

[Felon]

Re: NEWSFLASH

How bout this, If you don't like the changes quit yer whining and play it the way you want!

That's a great solution if you are content to always be the DM, or you can coerce every DM you play with into adopting your personal house rules. If not, then that's where "rule zero" falls short.

 

[Felon]

Re: 3.5e ads

Did people see the ads for 3.5e in Dungeon 100?

Yes, thought it was odd that, of all the classes that could have been chosen, the sorcerer was featured as predominantly as the bard and ranger (in fact, he's the centralmost figure in the first picture). Wonder if that signifies anything?