Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[Dandu]

In which case, should the rogue be able to take 10 on searching for traps? After all, having a vat of acid dumped on you has got to be at least as stressful as being in a room full of lawyers.

In fact, when climbing, swimming, and etc, you should not be able to take 10 because there is the danger of death.

Assuming your wizard can take 10 on COP, that does not mean that he can do so all the time. Casting COP on a ship in the middle of a typhoon, for instance, seems like it would be rather distracting.

Indeed, you can even have a Sorcerer cast it, who may not have the Int to get away with taking 10; it is possible to generate an Int 3 sorcerer by rolling, which would be a result of 6 when taking 10 on an Int check.

So it is entirely possible for COP to need a table with lower DCs even if taking 10 is allowed.

 

[delericho]

In which case, should the rogue be able to take 10 on searching for traps? After all, having a vat of acid dumped on you has got to be at least as stressful as being in a room full of lawyers.

Well, technically there's a difference - if you fail your Search, you don't find the traps, but neither do you trigger the traps; if you get caught out in a lie in court, you're in trouble.

But yes, you're right. There's an ambiguity in just when you can and cannot use take-10, which makes it difficult to determine exactly where the boundary is. And yes, there's nothing inherent to contact other plane that indicates it shouldn't be allowed except that allowing it makes the side-effect of the spell too damn easy to bypass.

 

[Dandu]

Well, technically there's a difference - if you fail your Search, you don't find the traps, but neither do you trigger the traps; if you get caught out in a lie in court, you're in trouble.

Yeah, there's the serious risk that they may acquit you...

But yes, you're right. There's an ambiguity in just when you can and cannot use take-10, which makes it difficult to determine exactly where the boundary is. And yes, there's nothing inherent to contact other plane that indicates it shouldn't be allowed except that allowing it makes the side-effect of the spell too damn easy to bypass.

"This interpretation leads to a broken spell" is a perfectly valid reason not to allow it in your games, but does not make the interpretation necessarily wrong. We all know there are some spells that are in fact badly written. Shivering Touch, for example.

I would argue that you could have a low Int character casting Contact Other Plane, which makes the table of side effects necessary, because a really dumb Sorcerer could still cast COP.

 

[delericho]

"This interpretation leads to a broken spell" is a perfectly valid reason not to allow it in your games, but does not make the interpretation necessarily wrong.

True. As I said in another post, I think COP is badly written (probably as a holdover from 2nd Ed), so... yeah.

I would argue that you could have a low Int character casting Contact Other Plane, which makes the table of side effects necessary, because a really dumb Sorcerer could still cast COP.

Also true.

 

[N'raac]

I refer you to Races of the Dragon.

Give me the quote and page reference that says “All sorcerers are descended from dragons. This is an official change to the rules, not an optional rule”. Then I will consider that all sorcerers gain their powers from a draconic lineage. Failing that, please follow your own demands and stick to RAW.

And I'd call autodidacts learning through intelligence.

I’d note autodidacts learn through research and tend to consult experts, which presupposes people to write those research materials and be consulted.

Not really. It's easy. You have a bunch of questions per level and a bunch of slots per level. Especially if you took Spontaneous Divination.

If I had unlimited time, I’d ask you to start listing your questions and checking the rolls for one word answers. If the wizard had unlimited time, he might actually map out the lair. Whether they finish before the dragon moves on or he or the wizard expires from old age (that includes gray elves, for the record) is a better question. I don’t have unlimited time, so I guess we will never know (and both believe we already know), but que sera.

How about an hour of blowing divinations on the area?

How about show me the spell that lets you scry on an area you currently lack any familiarity with for a one hour period, getting more than a 10’ radius or so.

Ah, so you don't care about actually communicating when attempting to communicate. Nice.

I think you have managed to miss what I actually don’t care about. And I’m not really going for “nice”.

Opposed checks in which they have massive penalties and I have bonuses?

No, the actual checks set out in the rules.

Yes it is. Extend is easy, and that's ignoring massive CL boosters.

First, the duration of the Planar Binding spells is instantaneous. Extend Spell does not affect spells of instantaneous duration.

To caster levels, I believe you previously set out that you could manage about +10 caster levels (at the cost of 10 points’ CON damage, among other issues). Show me how you get the Caster Level of 365 required for a year’s service and I’ll toss in Feb 2 for free in leap years.

If you assign some open-ended task that the creature cannot complete though its own actions the spell remains in effect for a maximum of one day per caster level, and the creature gains an immediate chance to break free.

Imagine it breaking free after you voluntarily inflicted 10 CON damage on yourself for +5 caster levels…

Given the scope of the penalties that can be applied, I call "bull."

The check is assigned a bonus of +0 to +6 based on the nature of the service and the reward. If the creature wins the opposed check, it refuses service. New offers, bribes, and the like can be made or the old ones reoffered every 24 hours.

Not seeing any penalties there. Not really sure you can torture it through that magic circle, either.

Also, if it really did so, it should want out.

In exchange for serving a slimy mortal? Now THAT’s Hell!

It's not truly indefinite. A life is pretty well defined.

To repeat:

If you assign some open-ended task that the creature cannot complete though its own actions the spell remains in effect for a maximum of one day per caster level, and the creature gains an immediate chance to break free.

Or are you giving the creature permission to complete your lifetime through its own actions? If it wins, you’re dead. If you win, it goes home. Not seeing a big risk to the Devil. Plus, it still gets its promised reward, whatever that may have been.

Okay, but I'll just stick to those incapable of reading.

To each his own, of course.

No, not really. Unless you accept BoVD's awful rules, in which case everyone in the universe is already irredeemably evil, so it doesn't matter much.

So why is Book of the Dragon to be accepted and BoVD rejected? Either splatbooks are rules or they aren’t.

You're adorable. It's like you actually think I'm going to accept your terribly-executed dodges.

Another brilliant retort clearly demonstrating the quality of your position. Again, don’t stop on my account!

No, those are rules. I hardly call rules "coddling"

Ignoring them (or stretching them like taffy) for the benefit of the wizard is coddling the wizard. What you call it is up to you.

 

[N'raac]

Well, ambushing generally implies stealth, which the Fighter does not have.

True - can he not wait outside the Lizard Village waiting for a Lizardman?

Finding the lizardfolks requires some means of tracking them down unless the Fighter wants to wait around in a swamp somewhere on the off chance lizardmen pass by. This is also not an ability he possesses.

The wizard needs directions as well.

Intimidate requires skill points which the fighter does not have an abundance of.

While true, they’re not long on great skill choices either. A 14 INT human (Combat Expertise requires a 13 anyway) does OK.

I'll grant you he can intimidate people as that is within the abilities of the class, but setting up ambushes for Lizardfolk seems much more difficult.

Can’t disagree overall. Would a fighter at a level appropriate for the dragon have much trouble with a lizardman village? Just need one alive…maybe two or three to corroborate.

I think in real life, we've gotten used to using technology to solve everything. Why don't we do things the old fashioned way, with manual labor and 16 hour workdays?

True. In real life, technology is everywhere. Is magic everywhere in game? If so, people should have some awareness of what it can do, shouldn’t they?

Rules of the Game - Polymorphing Revisited, Part 3

Thanks – that’s what I would have hoped.

Well, I never said they did the right thing, just that the reason for what they tried to do.

Agreed – I think they made some good changes, but applying the same theory beyond combat would be a definite improvement.

Why would the heroes walk out when they have teleport?

The one that typically comes to my mind is too many creatures in the party. More loot than they can carry probably means they’ll be back – no reason the dragon can’t lay an ambush (after waiting several hours with all those lizardmen…bet he’s steamed!)

I believe that, by the fight rules, if you have poor maneuverability, you have a minimum forward speed, and if you cannot maintain it, you must land at the end of your movement.

Average or worse – probably why dragons like Hover!

The dragon is free to use the Hover feat if he has a move action left, which will probably be the next round. Of course, that is when, ideally, someone will be tying it down with attacks/spells/nets/bubblegum.

When do we measure that? He only moves on his actions, so it seems like he isn’t moving between turns, yet he doesn’t fall out of the sky then.

Well, that depends on the number of broken spells available; if there are too much, it becomes a problem that spellcasting in general is overpowered.

Unquestionably. When the same spell comes up every time, that spell is the issue (3.0 haste, for example).

Unfortunately, I did not bring wizards to the event as I wanted to try and blast my way though the Tomb of Horrors. It didn't turn out that way, but I did not know that ahead of time.

I think you proved just fine that removing wizards in favour of sorcerers does not solve the issue, though.

The Tomb of Horrors was intended to frustrate everyone, at least from the stories I've been told. I am not sure what the CR of the monster behind the wall was (it killed our paladin in one round, iirc) but a Balor is Cr 20. (At least, I think it was a balor. We did not stick around long enough to find out for sure.)

But it seems like it did not frustrate everyone. The challenges could be addressed by non-fighters, but their forte, combat, was set to prevent them addressing their challenges.

Giving Fighters non-combat abilities seems to be the logical answer.

Agreed. That means getting past “Fighters fight so they can only have combat abilities”.

Either designing it so that everyone could participate, or simply giving every player more options from classes and letting the players find ways to apply those options to various situations, would have been better.

So is the problem game design or ToH scenario design, in this instance?

Yep, I'd agree with that. There's no point in a DC 7 Int check that you can take 10 on, especially for a character who must have a 15 Int to cast the spell in the first place.

Having said that, contact other plane is actually a rather badly written spell, probably as a legacy of being brought across from 2nd Edition. Having the spell reduce the character to 8 Int and Cha rather than applying some amount of ability damage is clunky, and there's no real need for the stated durations either - better instead just to use the standard rules for healing ability damage.

That said, I guess they didn't want removing the effects to be as simple as casting a restoration...

I think that’s the answer. A no save feeblemind that ends after the period in question would be an option.

I would say "no", unless he has Skill Mastery. That situation has got to be at least as stressful as combat, and the consequences of failure are at least as significant as the failure of any single combat action.

Edit: Of course, I think I'm actually in favour of getting rid of "take 10", "take 20" and retries on skills altogether. Roll, and move on. But I'm not 100% convinced on that one...

I like the idea of routine tasks being predictable and taking extra time providing some bonus. However, it seems like better defining what a “distraction” is, and/or what you can and can’t take 10/20 on, is the answer.

 

[pemerton]

So what’s the redesign? The sorcerer shift didn’t do the trick, apparently.

[I think I'm the wrong person to ask this particular question, as I think it's already been answered, via 4e! (I'm not familiar with the 3E solutions others have mentioned, like ToB/ToM/Warcasters, Beguilers etc.)

QUOTE=Dandu;6188435]I do not believe anyone is saying that 7 STR should not be penalized, just that encumbrance does not balance out the abilities available to spellcasters.[/QUOTE]
Also, encumbrance is a tedious rule which requires irritating bookkeeping. The invoker/wizard in my 4e game suffers for having poor STR - he can't climb walls, he can't jump, he can't escape from grapples - but encumbrance is not really where the exciting action is.

I don’t find it obscure, or overly difficult. What is the penalty for a low STR for a non-melee combatant if we ignore encumbrance? To me, that 7 STR should be just as defining as a 19 INT – characters are made interesting by both their strengths and their weaknesses.

No doubt different players, and different tables, find different things exciting. My group got excited the other day when the invoker/wizard took a crit for 77 hp of damage, so there is no doubt that arithmetic can generate tension and emotion in the play of the game.

But I've personally never had the same sort of reaction to an encumbrance calculation.

What is the penalty a character in AD&D suffers from having a 7 INT? However that is adjudicated, it's not via the arguably tedious bookkeeping that encumbrance involves.

It's not truly indefinite. A life is pretty well defined.

It's not a particular well-defined period of time - especially when you get into corner cases like cloning, lichdom and the like.

In any event, "indefinite" is not the word used:

If you assign some open-ended task that the creature cannot complete though its own actions the spell remains in effect for a maximum of one day per caster level​

"Guard me from all harm" is an open-ended task, in my view. It seems obvious to me that it triggers the 1 day/level duration. In fact, I would have thought it's a paradigm of the sorts of tasks that were meant to trigger that restriction.

 

[n00bdragon]

...

I just want to point out that in that double post you quoted something 34 times. Jesus jumping christ on a pogo stick.

 

[Manbearcat]

In other news, I think that if I can't use the holy grail of dragon-slaying spells in Shivering Touch, I'd probably (while Improve Invis'd):

- use some amalgamation of control spells to keep the dragon pinned down/cordoned away from me; Bigby's Forceful Hand, multiple Black Tentacles and Fiery Tentacles. Alternatively, Wall of Force to close me off from the lair proper and Stone Shape the wall adjacent to my Wall of Force to make a wee hole in the stone so I can lob spells into the chamber without reprisal.

- keep it utterly debuffed. Double up on Rays of Exhaustion to confirm exhaustion to gut his str/dex/move so his (already horrible) touch AC and grapple check is gutted, and so he couldn't move even if he could get away from tentacles, etc. Maybe toss on an Enervate for good measure.

- and then whip out my Summon Monster 4 wand and throw as many charges of Flying Lantern Archons at him (2 * Extraordinary - no SR - ranged touch attack at + 2/1d6 damage per round...hits the dragon nearly automatically) as it takes to finish the job. Once I have 11 Archons (if the dragon is still kicking), I'd probably haste them.

And eat a sandwich. If things go pear shaped, I'd exit stage left with a Teleport Scroll.

I'd probably scout the area out for the dragon's natural chimney/underground river escape route beforehand and collapse it. Any number of these could have been Scrolls I've scribed or Wands. Quite a bit more involved than Spectral Hand > Shivering Touch.

 

[Dandu]

True - can he not wait outside the Lizard Village waiting for a Lizardman?

How would he find the village?

The wizard needs directions as well.

He could use Locate Creature to locate the creature.

Can’t disagree overall. Would a fighter at a level appropriate for the dragon have much trouble with a lizardman village? Just need one alive…maybe two or three to corroborate.

A lizardfolk tribe consists of 30-60 members, plus 2 lieutenants of 3rd-6th level and 1 leader of 4th-10th level. I would consider such an action inadvisable.

True. In real life, technology is everywhere. Is magic everywhere in game? If so, people should have some awareness of what it can do, shouldn’t they?

Technology is everywhere, but people who can use it competently are uncommon, and those who understand how it work, even more so. (Can you tell me off the top of your head how a semiconductor works, and the physical principals behind it?)

Knowledge of what magic can do is governed by Knowledge: Arcana. Without much arcane knowledge, a layperson's awareness of exactly what magic can do would be rather like the common man's understanding of what forensic science is from watching episodes of CSI.

The one that typically comes to my mind is too many creatures in the party.

A 10th level wizard can teleport an entire 4 man party. The only reason they would be unable to teleport out is if they had to rescue a princess or capture some creature which would increase the number of creatures in the party.

Even then, you could have the Rogue UMD a scroll of Teleport and split the party. I would imagine the party teleporting out is very reasonable as they have every reason to want to get out as quickly as possible.

More loot than they can carry probably means they’ll be back – no reason the dragon can’t lay an ambush (after waiting several hours with all those lizardmen…bet he’s steamed!)

Well, we've established that the wizard has a Handy Haversack, so presumably the rest of the party has some sort of extradimenstional storage, such as Bags of Holding. This really isn't an unreasonable assumption. A Type I Bag of Holding only costs 2500 gp.

When do we measure that? He only moves on his actions, so it seems like he isn’t moving between turns, yet he doesn’t fall out of the sky then.

Readied action to cast Solid Fog during the Dragon's turn.

Unquestionably. When the same spell comes up every time, that spell is the issue (3.0 haste, for example).

Assuming we ban all broken spells, we can still get characters like my sorcerer in Tomb of Horrors who was able to trivialize several traps, avoid deadly enemies, etc using utility spells.

But it seems like it did not frustrate everyone.

I would assume the reason for that was that traditionally, it is a very dangerous dungeon with a high PC mortality rate, but as we were able to have an Unseen Servant prod the most dangerous traps, we removed the risk to ourselves. Otherwise, we'd have been forced to have the fighter or rogue do things like toy around with the throne, which would have been very bad.

So is the problem game design or ToH scenario design, in this instance?

I would say that the game ToH was written for has the problem that Fighters can't contribute outside of combat. ToH itself is badly designed because only specific characters will contribute in it, combat is far too lethal, puzzles are sometimes just arbitrary, etc.