Converting to 3.5 woes...

[Celtavian]

Re: Re: Re

So you're supposed to fly through a dungeon and avoid all encounters? I guess that passes for challenging in 3.0

I am going to ask kindly that you do not use the *roll's eyes* BS when addressing me. You do not have any idea how I and my gaming group play the game. If you did, you would understand why this is a concern.

No I don't expect to fly through a dungeon. I do expect to use my magic to increase my survivability. Fly is the spell that I use to do that along with a variety of others, mostly with short durations.

I do believe that certain spells that an arcane caster uses should allow them to avoid combat for more than one combat. If all combat avoidance spells set up for the duration of one combat, then it makes the arcane caster who is part of a group that goes through multiple dungeon rooms during the course of an adventure useless for a great many combats. Who wants to draw attention to themselves if they have no way of countering melee?

I don't know how your DM runs combat, but my DM starts focusing attacks on arcane and divine casters as soon as it is determined who they are. He even has his scouts report back to the BBEG of the composition of the group, so that the BBEG can prepare to deal with the casters first.

Once the casters are gone, the combat element of the group can more easily be dealt with. Does your DM send advance scouts for the BBEG to determine who the casters in the group are and set out to destroy them? It makes life a little harder for casters in our group than for your group, perhaps.

And Fly was the only long duration spell that allowed me to avoid immediate attack from melee while preparing for battle, when it lasted more than one battle. Now, I am forced (I do mean literally forced as in if I stay, I am dead.) to Dimension Door to a safe location and start buffing up for combat at one spell per round while the melee rush headlong into battle and start whooping ass.

Now I could see this change if the entire party was flying through the dungeon, but since that is not how I and my gaming group play the game given the precious few spells a caster has during the day that any caster can afford to give the entire party Fly. We don't carry a Wand of Fly all the time.

If you do not play the game the way we do, then you cannot possibly understand why these changes are so unncessary, Psi. Just as I don't understand why others consider them necessary because I don't play the way they play.

Myself and the others who DM don't screw around. Many of the problems that I hear some of the people discussing on this board and others that discuss RPG's doesn't occur in our games. Which is why my opinions and those of my players differ, and we even allow a generous stat rolling method and the use of templates.

We still get our butts kicked heartily at major encounters because of how ruthlessly efficient myself and others who share DMing duties are at organizing encounters. Spells like Fly and Invisibility having a 10 minute duration doesn't ruin our ability to challenge the players.

We have incorporated the change to stat-enhancement spells because they effectively lasted for the duration of our time spent adventuring. That didn't seem right to us. We are only reducing them to 10 minutes per level as well.

We use the new Haste for our own sake as well as reducing PC power. That is what happens when an evil hasted cleric drops two Destructions and two empowered Flame Strike's on your party or an invisible wizard opens up with an empowered Cone of Cold and and empowered Lightning Bolt at your back. You start to realize that Haste is overpowered, and it hurts badly.

Not everyone plays this game the same way. That is why some changes just don't need to be applied to certain campaigns. In our case, Fly and Invisibility have not been a problem in our games.

It's a combat spell, so cast it in combat. You use it to avoid being caught in melee. Some opponents won't be able to hurt you at all. You aren't supposed to use it to avoid encounters.

You can use invisibility between combats and you can use the combat spell, improved invisibility, during combat.

If we don't encounter the monster, then we really accomplish nothing. Our gaming group does not avoid encounters. We face encounters. Invisibility is a scout and ambush spell for our gaming group, not encounter avoidance.

We don't count ourselves as clever for having avoided an encounter. If we are going into a dungeon, we feel that we are there to destroy the evil of the place, not wander past it invisibly.

Improved Invisibility is a combat avoidance spell. In our campaigns it is good for one combat possibly two combats if they are very closely spaced in time.. Why? Because by the time we are done killing, looting and investigating, 1 minute per level spells are gone. We do not rush through a dungeon because our spells our active.

Like I said previously, the way people play a campaign will affect their view on certain changes. We aren't powergamers. We are pretty hardcore roleplayers. We keep fairly accurate track on spell durations. 10 minute duration did not negatively affect our campaign.

Did you know stoneskin got better?

How did it get better? Is the duration longer? That would be nice.

Though at higher level, Stone skin doesn't do much but give you a little more time to run when powerful creatures are pounding on your for insane damage with applicaple elemental damage and improved grab.

In fact, Stoneskin is mostly useful at lower levels or when fighting multiple humanoid type monsters swinging weapons. I use it when it would be useful.

 

[rushlight]

"I don't quite understand how an 18th level fighter can single-handedly kill a CR 25 dragon in 2 or 3 rounds. "

Well, here's how it breaks down, and by the end of this I'll show you how a single PC can approach 1000 points of damage in 3 rounds, so stick with me.

Take a Great Wyrm Red Dragon. CR 25, AC 41, avg HPs 660.

18th level PC: 8th level fighter, 10th level weapon master with 20 STR. He uses a +1 frosting, shocking burst holy greatsword (two handed) with a scabbard of keen edge, and boots of haste. He does need 3 spells cast upon him (provided by the cleric): GMW (+5) for the sword, Sanguine Strength (from Relics and Rituals) which gives him a +18(!) STR, and Assassin's Senses (increases his Crit range +1 and his Crit Mulitplier by x1).

So after all that he's got a +39 to hit, and he crits on an 11 or more. He only needs a 2 to hit the thing (which gives him an 95% chance to hit), and will do 2d6 (weapon) + 1d6 (frost, ignoring for now that the dragon takes bonus damage from cold) + 1d6 shock + 2d6 (Holy) + 5 for magic bonus + 14 STR + 7 STR for two-handed use. That's 6d6 + 26, but wait! He's got Ki Damage (Weapon Master ability) so he'll do max damage or 62 points of damage.

When he crits though, things get ugly. His Crit Multiplier is x4 (x2 base, x1 for Weapon Master ability and x1 for spell) so on a roll of 11 or more (that's a 50% chance) he'll do 8d6 (weapon x4) + 1d6 (frost) + 2d6 (Holy) + 4d10 (shocking burst) + 20 (magic x4) + 84 (2h STR x4) for a total of 11d6 + 4d10 + 104 or around 164 points of damage on average.

Now, in 3 rounds he'll get 6 attacks at his full BAB due to haste, 3 at -5, 3 at -10 and 3 at -15. That's 6 attacks at 95% to hit, 3 at 70%, 3 at 45% and 3 at 20%. Also, 6 of those attacks will have a 48% chance to crit (once you factor in the confirm roll), 3 will have a 35% to crit, 3 will have 23% chance to crit, and the last 3 will have 10% chance to crit.

Ok, so here's how it will play out. The first 6 attacks will hit, and probably 3 will crit. That's 678 points of damage on average. Two of the next 3 will hit, and one will probably crit (but we'll skip that) so that's another 124 points of damage. Probably 2 of the last six attacks will hit, so that's another 124 points. So in 3 rounds he's done a total of 926 points of damage - on average.

So you can see that he has a fair chance to kill it in a single round (with really good rolls), an excellent chance in the second round (with average rolls) and a near 100% chance to kill it on the third round. This is absurd, and it's done totally within the rules.

So, what to do? Well, I've banned the above 2 spells, and already fixed crit - range stacking, as well as banning all crit multiplier stacking. The other option was to ban the Weapon Master PrC outright, but I was reluctant to do that. I know that it is possible for me to fix these things with house rules (and I have already done so) but the system really should take care of this by itself. To require the DM to house rule every loophole the player finds gets old after a while, for both people. So, I welcome 3.5 with open arms.

 

[the Jester]

The fighter can only kill the dragon if it sits there and lets him. It should fly away, use spells with Will saves, improved disarm that weapon away from him, etc.

Also, the two R&R spells are both way overpowered... some dms may allow them, but none I've played with.

 

[rushlight]

The fighter can only kill the dragon if it sits there and lets him. It should fly away, use spells with Will saves, improved disarm that weapon away from him, etc.

Also, the two R&R spells are both way overpowered... some dms may allow them, but none I've played with.

That's not the point. The point is a CR 25 dragon shouldn't be afraid of a single 18th level fighter. He shouldn't HAVE to run away after the fighter gets one round of attacks and takes him down to half health. He's SUPPOSED to be a challenge for 4 25th level PCs! A dragon in line with the party (a CR 18 one) would probably not even be able to stand a single round of this fighter's attacks. No single PC should be able to take down a creature with equal CR in a single round. At least not everytime.

As for the two spells, they weren't as broken at previous levels, and especially since they were not combined with the Weapon Master PrC until receintly. But that's been taken care of.

 

[Celtavian]

re

Rushlight,

That is a pretty insane combination. I tend to let players have alot of options because it makes them happy. Your player must have really blindsided you when you first saw that combination in action. I know as a DM I would be quite shocked if a melee dished out that kind of insane damage and critted on a 9 or better.

I keep a very tight watch on any spells, magic items or rules from gaming companies besides WotC. I have noticed that quite a few companies produce spells that would probably never have made it into regular D&D products because they are overpowered or abusive.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Fly and Invisibility are great scouting spells, and the 1 minute per level duration would be absolutely worthless for scouting purposes.

Andy Collins said there are lots of 10 minute/level spells in 3.5.

You aren't supposed to use these spells for scouting - unless you want to relegate the rogue to the uselessness he endured in 2e.

If the wizard was the only going into the king's castle to listen in on the conversation, then his invisibility better not drop.

Or he could use Clairaudience, or let the rogue do it.

How did it get better? Is the duration longer? That would be nice.

GMW no longer trumps it.

No I don't expect to fly through a dungeon. I do expect to use my magic to increase my survivability. Fly is the spell that I use to do that along with a variety of others, mostly with short durations.

Sure... but what does this have to do with duration?

I do believe that certain spells that an arcane caster uses should allow them to avoid combat for more than one combat. If all combat avoidance spells set up for the duration of one combat, then it makes the arcane caster who is part of a group that goes through multiple dungeon rooms during the course of an adventure useless for a great many combats. Who wants to draw attention to themselves if they have no way of countering melee?

There are quite a few spells that still last long enough to go through multiple encounters. However, Fly is simply too good at that duration for a 3rd-level spell. It's much more effective than, say, Stoneskin ... at least this is how I've found it.

I don't know how your DM runs combat, but my DM starts focusing attacks on arcane and divine casters as soon as it is determined who they are.

That happened to me two combat ago. A monk ... with the 3.0 pre-errata'd boots of striding and springing. The sorcerer got dropped to 1 hit point - after he got healed during combat. I was playing a wizard, and I think I took four damage. Something like that.

This has happened on a regular basis at higher levels as well. Readied action fireballs are a great way to break concentration, also taking down my low hit points at the same time. It doesn't help to cast protection from fire before combat either, since my opponent may have many other direct-damage spells available to him, and could just as easily start with chain lightning. Or good ol' flesh to stone, which is just nasty.

He even has his scouts report back to the BBEG of the composition of the group, so that the BBEG can prepare to deal with the casters first.

That's a good way around the change self tactic

Once the casters are gone, the combat element of the group can more easily be dealt with. Does your DM send advance scouts for the BBEG to determine who the casters in the group are and set out to destroy them? It makes life a little harder for casters in our group than for your group, perhaps.

Yup. Too bad I can't cast persistent see invisibility otherwise I might be able to blast them.

And Fly was the only long duration spell that allowed me to avoid immediate attack from melee while preparing for battle, when it lasted more than one battle. Now, I am forced (I do mean literally forced as in if I stay, I am dead.) to Dimension Door to a safe location and start buffing up for combat at one spell per round while the melee rush headlong into battle and start whooping ass.

IME as soon as my buffs are up the tide turns - that's when the wizard gets to kick-butt. The hit point increases that 3.5 monsters will (hopefully) experience should make this even easier. I've found improved invisibility very useful, but for obvious reasons this won't work all the time. I've found using any kind of spell that increases my durability without necessarily making me nearly invincible (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) also works well. It does take up more spell slots (and higher level ones) than using fly only two or three times, but I can deal with that.

Now I could see this change if the entire party was flying through the dungeon

I haven't done this, but my party has walked around invisible for literally hours at a time. I'm sure WotC isn't planning on giving out cheap see invisible items or give tremorsense to five times as many creatures in the MM 3.5. It means my party will have to change some strategies, but I don't see this as a bad thing.

but since that is not how I and my gaming group play the game given the precious few spells a caster has during the day that any caster can afford to give the entire party Fly.

Just the caster I can't cast Fly 12 times per day but I can certainly cast it four times per day. (I guess I can't do that at fifth level though )

We don't carry a Wand of Fly all the time.

Neither do I. I do have a wand of see invisible and two others I hardly ever use (I just took one from a villain's corpse - yay me!).

If you do not play the game the way we do, then you cannot possibly understand why these changes are so unncessary, Psi. Just as I don't understand why others consider them necessary because I don't play the way they play.

Myself and the others who DM don't screw around. Many of the problems that I hear some of the people discussing on this board and others that discuss RPG's doesn't occur in our games. Which is why my opinions and those of my players differ, and we even allow a generous stat rolling method and the use of templates.

Obviously every campaign is different. I'm glad to hear that your campaign hasn't been abusing these spells. Sounds like you've got admirable self-restraint.

We still get our butts kicked heartily at major encounters because of how ruthlessly efficient myself and others who share DMing duties are at organizing encounters.

That's good to hear.

Spells like Fly and Invisibility having a 10 minute duration doesn't ruin our ability to challenge the players.

Do you get extra XP for all that counter-scouting?

We have incorporated the change to stat-enhancement spells because they effectively lasted for the duration of our time spent adventuring. That didn't seem right to us. We are only reducing them to 10 minutes per level as well.

We use the new Haste for our own sake as well as reducing PC power. That is what happens when an evil hasted cleric drops two Destructions and two empowered Flame Strike's on your party or an invisible wizard opens up with an empowered Cone of Cold and and empowered Lightning Bolt at your back. You start to realize that Haste is overpowered, and it hurts badly.

I've also found the old Haste confusing. I hope I was breaking the rules when that sorcerer used Fireball and then readied another Fireball every round. (That's a good way of breaking a wizard's concentration when he's trying to cast Protection from Fire :eek) )

It sounds like you don't use random encounters that often. IME I can fly right past a good chunk of creatures in the MM and I can walk right in front of them, invisible, even more often. I don't think the wizard should be able to cast improved invisibility for 10 minutes, allowing the rogue to sneak past and assassinate multiple opponents while scouting.

I'd like wizards to get d6 hp and be able to cast spells of up to 3rd-level faster, but as long as I can cast spells like fly and improved invisibility and as long as MM creatures can't do anything about that I'm not going to complain too much.

Rushlight

18th level PC: 8th level fighter, 10th level weapon master with 20 STR. He uses a +1 frosting, shocking burst holy greatsword (two handed) with a scabbard of keen edge, and boots of haste. He does need 3 spells cast upon him (provided by the cleric): GMW (+5) for the sword, Sanguine Strength (from Relics and Rituals) which gives him a +18(!) STR, and Assassin's Senses (increases his Crit range +1 and his Crit Mulitplier by x1).

That's a lot of non-core stuff. Does your fighter have the required See Inviz item to even hit the dragon in the first place?

 

[James McMurray]

18th level PC: 8th level fighter, 10th level weapon master with 20 STR. He uses a +1 frosting, shocking burst holy greatsword (two handed) with a scabbard of keen edge, and boots of haste. He does need 3 spells cast upon him (provided by the cleric): GMW (+5) for the sword, Sanguine Strength (from Relics and Rituals) which gives him a +18(!) STR, and Assassin's Senses (increases his Crit range +1 and his Crit Mulitplier by x1).

I don't see Sanguine Strength in the book, so I'm assuming its Strength of Kadum renamed to fit your campaign. If that is the case, I hope your party has access to blood from a creature with 38 strength, since that's the material component needed to get a boost that high.

As for Assassin's senses, the spell has a personal range. I suppose it could have been made into apotion by the party wizard, but when only used by the people whose spell lists it is on, the spell is not over-powered in any way. Not to mention the fact that there is probably an angry assassin (or guild) out there who wants revenge for the loss of their friend's finger.

Of course, in my campaign it was possible to buy those fingers on the black market. They were provided by down and out assassin's, and cost 1.5 times the price of a Regeneration spell.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Has anyone else found that ALL of their existing characters have been invalidated by the new edition?

Just curious

I understand your frustration, but I think that you and your DM should sit down and try to figure out ways to make your PC work within the system. I wouldn't necessarily object to grandfathering in access to a few spells like Mage Armor to lessen the blow, or shifting class levels around to make things balance out. I certainly did several things like that in the 2e/3e conversion.

Just remember that everyone is being rebalanced, including your enemies - and also that a lot of things like Fly have slightly higher level versions that work more like the old spell.

I'd try to get your DM to consider continuing to allow the Monte Ranger, rather than forcing you to convert to the Core Ranger. That would seem fair to me.

Personally, I'm pretty excited about the changes. I disliked the excessive buffing, turning adventurers into airborne shock troops. Now they'll be more like I envision a Fantasy world. That said, if there's a lot of background built up in a game, maybe it's best to selectively retain certain things.

 

[Anubis the Doomseer]

My experience with the conversion

The game I'm starting (PCs made using 3.0, converted to 3.5).
No real change - at all. None. I was quite surprised. Well, a couple of changes to the cleric of Lathander's spell lists, but no change in role/capability.

The game I'm playing in:
My PC (human paladin customized) - I've switched out the mount and cure disease abilities for a house rule-built aura paladin (ala Diablo/Warcraft), as such the only 3.5 book that might influence him is the Warcraft d20 book.

Other PCs will see some major changes.
All the ones who rely on buffing before combat are going to learn to diversify their spell lists fast. Not a huge problem because personally I felt they spent too much of their spells/day on silly buff spells instead of actually useful things like utility/detect and defensive magics.
The Bard is going to suffer a bit from role-drift. Of all the PCs I can see this player actually just rebuilding his character into a Wizard/Expert or Bard/Expert focusing on alchemy and crossbows.
The elven archer (rogue) is fine, as is the dwarf trapsmith (rogue). The Aasimar Paladin/Monk is nerfed a little but since he was min-maxed I don't see a huge problem since the player himself has drifted in role. And our Geomancer (cleric/wiz) may see his spell list mangled but not by much since he will be far more likely relieved that he isn't forced to play the booster-battery for the party.

So overall only one PC is SOL, and our regular combat prep will change but I think the change will be for the better.

 

[Grog]

Well, here's how it breaks down, and by the end of this I'll show you how a single PC can approach 1000 points of damage in 3 rounds, so stick with me.

(snip Mega Fighter of Doom stats)

So, your complaint seems to be that a character with a non-core PrC, using two non-core spells, one of which in a way that breaks the rules (Assassin's Senses is a personal spell and can't be cast on others) is too powerful. So your answer is... that the core rules need to be nerfed?

That just doesn't make any sense. I'd guess that the number of players who play a character like your Mega Fighter of Doom is very, very small. The number of players who play a fighter strictly by core rules is much higher (just look at the sales of supplements vs. core books for evidence of this). If your MFoD needs to be reined in, the way to do it is not to nerf core rules, which affects everyone who plays the game, not just the munchkins.

But wait - here's another problem. This revision won't power down your munchkin's character very much at all! Andy Collins has said that the Weaponmaster PrCs increasing threat ranges will still stack with other means of increasing threat ranges. The non-core spells he's been using won't be altered at all. The only things that will change is that the GMW will drop to +4 instead of +5, and his Keen scabbard won't stack with his Improved Critical feat anymore. So instead of having a +39 to hit and threatening on an 11 or better, he'll have a +38 to hit and threaten on a 13 or better. Wow, he's been powered down a lot...

So, given that this revision doesn't do very much to solve what you said was your biggest problem, why are you so in favor of it?

That's the problem with this revision. It does little, if anything, to stop the munchkins (since they use a lot of non-core stuff, they won't be affected by the core rules changes very much), but the non-munchkins are screwed.

And one other thing - are all Great Wyrm red dragons in your world complete morons who fly around all day with no protective spells up? That Great Wyrm should at least have a Mage Armor spell on, boosting his AC to 45, and when he sees the party, he should probably do something like cast (3.0)Haste and Shield, taking his AC to 56. Even your Mega Fighter of Doom is going to have very serious problems then.