Darkness+Devil's Sight is killing my campaign

[Li Shenron]

Darkness and Blindsight? How many characters have Blindsight? Is there a 3.0 spell that I have overlooked?

To be honest, it's not even the combo that bugs me that much, but the fact that it can be done over and over by this warlock. I am sometimes ashamed by myself when my sorceress casts 2-3 times the same all-or-nothing spell until it works

 

[Thanee]

You mean like the Blindsight spell (which in 3.0 still lasted 1h/lvl even )?

Bye
Thanee

 

[atom crash]

Back toward the original topic, it does seem that the warlock's abilities are balanced in llight (pun) of how the 3.5 version of darkness works. However, I don't like how 3.5 darkness works. Why not use obscuring mist or a fog cloud?

My current campaign started in 3.0 and has morphed into 3.5. However, because drow have figured in heavily since the beginning, and since I didn't want to retconn several significant encounters, I ruled that the 3.0 darkness stands.

I also haven't yet opened the warlock class to PCs.

When my current campaign ends, I'm going to have to seriously consider a) how to handle darness next time and b) whether or not to allow PC warlocks.

 

[Thanee]

I hate to perpetuate the thread-jack, but what I've found works well for rolling HP is whenever a player rolls for HP, I (the DM) also roll and the player takes the higher of the two rolls. In the case of both rolling a "1", I reroll. If it comes up a third "1", it stands because it was meant to be. Otherwise, they take that roll.

This method serves several purposes: Their HP doesn't hang on one roll, and they see me as being fair and helping them out. In the case of them rolling a low score and me rolling even lower, they also see that their roll could have been worse.

You could also try my method. Very simple and effective.

Any HD roll lower than half the HD is half the HD instead.

(Half the HD is 2 for d4, 3 for d6, 4 for d8, etc.)

Eliminates bad rolls completely (not just lowers the chance for them), which is the primary purpose, because having low hit points is simply annoying (especially for fighter types), but it does not make hit points much higher than they normally are either (and therefore does not mess with the CR/EL system much), and it puts a little more emphasis on the high hit dice classes (since higher hit dice gain more hit points that way on average... not much, just very little, the difference is 1 hp on average between d4 and d12).

Bye
Thanee

 

[atom crash]

You could also try my method. Very simple and effective.

Any HD roll lower than half the HD is half the HD instead.

(Half the HD is 2 for d4, 3 for d6, 4 for d8, etc.).

I plan to try that method next time my group rolls up characters together. I saw it posted a while back in another thread and liked the idea. For the sake of consistency, though, I'm sticking with my method through the current campaign.

 

[AuraSeer]

My current campaign started in 3.0 and has morphed into 3.5. However, because drow have figured in heavily since the beginning, and since I didn't want to retconn several significant encounters, I ruled that the 3.0 darkness stands.

I met a DM who got around this by linking the revision to actual changes in the gameworld. His explanation involved a confrontation among several deities, the effects of which rippled over into the mortal world. The goddess of Shadow took a blow from the deity of Sun, so spells like darkness can only dim light instead of entirely removing it. Among the deities of combat, the god who rules magical influence lost out to the god of nonmagical Strength, which explains why some combat buffs (like haste and the stat boosts) are less effective.

There's no need for retroactive continuity, because the characters are aware that things have changed. I kind of like this idea, and I plan to use it whenever the next revision comes out.

 

[Particle_Man]

If you are using 3.0 darkness, then why not simply ban Devil's Sight rather than banning the entire Warlock class?

 

[Pyrex]

(continuing the thread-jack)

In my current game, as part of the campaign setup all the PC's are xxx/Ftr gestalt characters, so I have them roll the HD for both classes and take the better result (i.e., Rog/Ftr rolls a d6 and a d10 and takes whichever is better)

 

[shilsen]

You could also try my method. Very simple and effective.

Any HD roll lower than half the HD is half the HD instead.

(Half the HD is 2 for d4, 3 for d6, 4 for d8, etc.)

Who'da thunk? That's exactly what I use in my game, and it's worked great so far.

 

[Thanee]

Heh. I suppose that there are a few more that do so, tho the re-rolling is a lot more popular. It's not that spectacular, just simple and effective.

And, of course, I wouldn't change something like this in the midst of a campaign either.

Bye
Thanee