Comments and questions on 3.5 from a Newbie

[Staffan]

Based on personal experience, I have to agree about druids. Currently one of the campaigns I'm involved in features a gnome druid who is an awesome <KABOOM> spellcaster as you so appropriately put it. He uses call lightning to very good effect. I'm running a druid/ranger myself; equipped with a longspear she is so impressive in combat that I hardly use her spells.

IMC, the druid briefly got his hand on a lesser rod of maximize (he unfortunately died soon after). Maximize is very good in combination with call lightning.

 

[sniffles]

(genuinely curious)

Sniffles, how do you handle Feats in your game, then?
How many do you allow your players to take?

Well, it's not "my" game in the sense that I'm just another player, not the GM - I've only dabbled my toes in the GM pool a couple of times.

But to answer your question, my friend just feels that the RAW doesn't allow enough feats, so he's decided to allow PCs in his game to have more feats than would normally be allowable. He really hasn't set a specific number; he just told us to pick things we thought would add to the flavor of the characters. If anyone got carried away he would tell that player to trim the list a bit. He did restrict most of the feats to things that don't add to combat abilities, so they are predominantly skill feats or other types of enhancements. Our characters are supposed to be blessed by their patron deity, which accounts for part of that. He also allowed us each to randomly take a Heroic Path from the Midnight setting (an OGL product, not D&D), which gives us each a string of extra feats and special abilities in addition to our class abilities. I think my 4th-level bard has about 10 feats, not including the stuff from the Heroic Path. So I guess some people might consider that character pretty munchkined.

That's a pretty extreme way of making a PC, at least in my experience. The other GMs I regularly game with don't allow such bending of the rules. Getting back to my 10th-level fighter, who's made with a fairly strict interpretation of the rules, here's a writeup of his abilities, skills, feats, and equipment:
*Note: this character was created using the dice-roll method, but the GM allowed us to roll 5d6 for 2 ability scores, and we were permitted to apply the results in whatever order we chose.*

Telemnar, male sun elf (Forgotten Realms), level 10 (fighter 8/Tempest 2)
STR 18 (+4), DEX 17 (+3), CON 14 (+2), INT 12 (+1), WIS 15 (+2), CHA 12 (+1)

FORT +11, REF +5, WILL +4, BAB +10/+5 (melee +14, ranged +13)
AC 18 (touch 13, flatfooted 14) HP 88, Initiative +3, speed 30'

Armor & weapons:
+3 goblin-bane longsword +15/+10, dmg. 1d8+4 (+2d6 vs. goblins)
+1 shortsword +15/+10, dmg. 1d6+2
Compound longbow +13/+8, dmg. 1d8+4
+1 Chain shirt

Class Skills: Balance +3, Climb* +6, Diplomacy +2, Handle Animal +9, Intimidate +5, Jump* +7, Knowledge (religion) +1, Profession (horse trainer) +8, Ride +13, Swim* +4, Tumble* +3 *physical skills not modified for encumbrance* skills in italics are not class skills - I'm preparing him for another prestige class

Feats/special abilities:
Quick Draw, Animal Affinity, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (longsword), Mounted Combat, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Tempest Defense, Ambidexterity, elven racial abilities

Magic items (other than armor/weapons):
Locket +2 vs. fear and emotion control, potion of silversheen, potion of bull's strength, everburning coin, potion of cure light wounds, potion of cure moderate wounds

Aratan, light warhorse
STR 15 (+2), DEX 14 (+2), CON 18 (+4), INT 2 (-4), WIS 13 (+1), CHA 6 (-2)

FORT +10, REF +5, WILL +3, BAB +4, AC 14, HP 43, Initiative +1, speed 65'

Hooves (x2) +4, dmg 1d4+2; Bite -1, dmg 1d3+1

Listen +6, Spot +6

Special abilities: Scent
Tricks: Attack, Come, Defend, Down, Guard, Heel

Elven saddle (+2 to Ride)

Hope this contains some useful information for you, Edena.

 

[Razz]

I haven't read much of this thread. It's grown rather big and only started a couple of weeks ago!

But Edena of Neith, welcome to 3rd Edition (and revised to 3.5) and I hope you enjoy it! It offers tons of what I like to call "fun fun fun optional options!". The game is very flexible now and a lot more fun and easier than 2E was. More concise and detailed, as well. Though the more books you purchase, the broader the options. It's great, but could give you a headache as in my case (I own most of the 3E books and supplements made by WotC and also for the Forgotten Realms setting), but at least the information you need is there on the shelf.

Though some would complain more options means more min-maxing, if a player likes to min-max than so what? As a DM, his/her job is to make the players happy. I have had a mix of player types in one group. The min-maxer, the power gamer, the role player. And the new options in the game is useful to all player types.

I suggest you subscribe to Dragon Magazine for more options and guidelines to how to run your own campaign or play your character, and to Dungeon if you ever wanted an adventure ASAP and you don't have time to make your own.

But in any case, enjoy 3rd Edition! Unearthed Arcana & 3rd Party Products pretty much made the game into a 4th Edition if you use those, thanks to the fact that you could substitute what's in there with the core rules of the game. There's also an innumerable line of 3rd party products you could purchase as well to enhance your games.

 

[Razz]

Welcome back, all!
Hmmm ... what to do, then? I guess, a House Rule? The Druid Wildshape allows the druid to gain the physical stats, and all of the Natural, Extraordinary, and Supernatural abilities of the form assumed. The druid, in turn, retains her Type, classes, levels, hit points, Extraordinary abilities, Supernatural abilities, Spell-like abilities, and all her spell abilities.
That would keep it otherwise similar to 3.0 Wildshape, no?

You might not want to do that as it would unbalance the game. 3E likes to try and keep a balance with PCs and the creatures they battle.

For example, no one wants to have the 4th-level paladin with his +5 holy avenger running around with them, and they're all either wielding masterwork or +1 weapons, at most.

I believe druids have access to spells that can change their shape and grant them all the natural and extraordinary abilities of the creature assumed. As for supernatural and spell-like abilities, I believe there was a feat for druids that could do that. And if so, I'm sure it was an epic feat (Epic being, I'm sure you know by now, levels beyond 20).

You could do whatever you wish, though. It's your game. However, if you give druids that powerful of a wildshape, you should mark off some of their other abilities, or decrease their number of spell slots by 1 per spell level to balance the class out.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

To Razz and Sniffles:

Razz, I have a question.
Aside from taking the two flaws as per Unearthed Arcana, and the obvious tactic of gaining fighter levels, how does one legally increase the number of feats one can take for one's character?

Sniffles, how does the Heroic Path work, in your DM's game? What are it's benefits (including feat progressions) and drawbacks?

(just asking questions, once more.)

Thank you for the warm welcome, Razz.

 

[sniffles]

Sniffles, how does the Heroic Path work, in your DM's game? What are it's benefits (including feat progressions) and drawbacks?

(just asking questions, once more.)

We added the Heroic Paths to our game to give our characters something special. They have received "blessings" from their deity (a homebrew deity the GM created). We spent a lot of time trying to figure out just how to do this. The deity is draconic, so we considered using the draconic bloodline from Arcana Unearthed, but we felt that was too limiting as it meant that everyone would get the same benefits. We wanted more variety, and the GM wanted more randomness (he likes randomness). We each randomly rolled for a choice from a predetermined selection of Heroic Paths - there were a few the GM didn't want to include.

The Heroic Paths give special abilities at every level. Some of these are similar to existing feats, some are not. As I stated previously, he's also allowing extra feats, though not at every level. My character is a bard with the Quickened Heroic Path, so for example she gets an increased base speed at certain levels. She also has a special ability called Burst of Speed that allows her an extra action per round, once per day, and leaves her fatigued afterward. As she increases in level her base speed will continue to improve, her number of Bursts of Speed per day will increase, and she'll also get an occasional increase to her Dex ability score. Other characters get Charisma boosts or the ability to have natural weapons, for example, depending on what Path they have. One player even has two Paths as the result of a random die roll (receiving a Path in our campaign works a bit like the Quickening in the Highlander movies, if you're familiar with that).

I don't personally feel that this is at all unbalancing to our campaign. It makes each character unique and special, since we are the heroes of this campaign. But our party is made up of a bard, a bard/marshal, a druid/sorcerer and a ranger/warlock, so we're not exactly a "standard" adventuring group. This particular campaign is more about roleplaying than killing monsters and taking their stuff.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Thank you, Sniffles. Thanks much.

Seems to me that if I can build a decent base character, then if the DM wants to house rule the goodies on top of that, that's frosting on the cake.
But, of course, I have to build a decent character first (rueful look)

 

[William Ronald]

Thank you, Sniffles. Thanks much.

Seems to me that if I can build a decent base character, then if the DM wants to house rule the goodies on top of that, that's frosting on the cake.
But, of course, I have to build a decent character first (rueful look)

Well, I think one thing to consider is how a character can work with ther rest of a party. I made a few comments on the Gwendilyn thread in the Rules forum.

Perhaps one thing to remember is that characters will have different roles in a group. So, some degree of focus is important. Also, there are a lot of things that characters can do to increase their effectiveness. For example, characters can use reach weapons and missile fire to attack their foes at a distance. Or characters can find ways to enhance each other, by focusing on creating flanking bonuses or even having a few scrolls on hand to buff up allies. (An enlarged, raging barbarian with a bull's strength on him can be a powerful ally.)

 

[sniffles]

Thank you, Sniffles. Thanks much.

Seems to me that if I can build a decent base character, then if the DM wants to house rule the goodies on top of that, that's frosting on the cake.
But, of course, I have to build a decent character first (rueful look)

Well, I haven't looked at your character builds yet, but I don't think there's such a thing as a useless character. It's all in what you want out of that character, what the campaign is all about, and as William Ronald says, what role your character plays in the party.

My friend who GMs the campaign I described previously has long wanted to play a rogue with points in lots of knowledge skills - basically a know-it-all who probably wouldn't be any good at typical rogue skills like Open Lock or Sleight of Hand. But even a character like that can still Aid Another or provide a flanking bonus, as William Ronald points out. He could carry lots of useful equipment, too, or if he had lots of ranks in Bluff or Diplomacy he could be the "face" of the party when meeting with NPCs. That same friend is playing a character in a pick-up game who changes class every level. My friend is doing that just because it's fun for him. I myself once ran a rogue/sorcerer who had only a 6 STR. You can make any character work if you try.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I agree.
I just feel an obligation to build the best character I can, using what I know. I have taken the role of student on this thread (and other threads too) and a student is required to make the best effort he can. If he does not, he wastes his time and the time of his instructors (and, he flunks the test. )
Yeah, I'm trying. I end up with this stack of books open on my desk. Sometimes books sit on books, open. Other times they are on the floor, or in my lap. It's a scene straight out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where Buffy, Giles, and the group are doing intensive research on vampires/demons/otherworldly monsters/Glory.
Which is why I make such ridiculous mistakes as forgetting that you only do 1/2 strength damage on your off-hand. I'm so focused on the tree, that I can't see the forest. Ah, the joys of PRACTICE (practice means, you just know such things as that automatically.)

I feel it's audacious to the point of ridiculousness for me to create a 9th level character, yet you saw Gwendilyn at 9th level. That's because she was a hypothetical character only. I wouldn't actually sit at a game and play her. I haven't earned that right. That right comes through play.
If that sounds phony, when I started this game in the late 70s, a friend accidentally left me a 5th level canned character. I thought he had given me a big gift. I actually called him to thank him for the enormous gift. None of my characters had progressed past 1st level (most, had died in their first encounter.)

Now, you know about my high level character, Edena the cleric. But you don't see me trying to create him. Not even at 1st level. That's for the good reason I can't create him at 1st level: I would dishonor the character if I tried. Until I learn how to create clerics properly, I would not so dishonor Edena the cleric as to try to create him!
As for creating him at his high level, that will never happen. Not, at least, until I have throughly mastered the epic rules and played a number of characters of 40th level or higher. In other words, not for a long time.

Anyways, it is my job to create the best characters I can. If I fall short, and they are still playable, that's good. But I'm wasting your time (in reading my posts) if I don't do my best, to create the best characters I can. It's not about min/maxing. It's about effort and work. Lots and lots of work.