New Game of Death: Battle Royale of the GAWDS

[Number47]

I think the reason that Martok attacked you is because nobody likes a whiner. I would have done it myself if you weren't so far away and me with my hands full already.

Note that if there was some sort of "collusion" to deny you your Disintegrate ioun stone, why did Martok lock the kobold in with you? Heck, he INSURED that it's available when you exit the Maze. Secondly, I would have laughed my butt off if somebody had Mazed me. Keep me nice and safe and cozy for 10 minutes, unable to be harmed? Sign me up!

You're looking for trouble where there isn't any. Grow up. Stop ruining our fun. Get with it and play, or forfeit now. Nobody wants to hear your sad-sob story about how clockworkjoe only allowed you a very powerful character and not a godlike-powerful character.

The only thing I can say in your defense is that clockworkjoe is not (in my impression) any kind of rules lawyer. He makes judgements that, by the book, may be technically wrong occasionally. That may have happened to you. But it is his game, he's the DM and you don't hassle the DM. You play by his rules, even if the book says differently.

Me, I would have disallowed you the entire OA once again even after he already made a special exception for you. Yeah, that's right. Remember? He made an EXCEPTION for you. Nobody else got to use OA. But you took his good graces and tossed it back at him because you can't play nice with others.

Gah. Maybe a mod should delete this post. I am getting too personal.

 

[reapersaurus]

hey, you're entitled to your opinion.

 

[Victim]

I think the reason that Martok attacked you is because nobody likes a whiner. I would have done it myself if you weren't so far away and me with my hands full already.

I thought about it too, but you have Haste as (Ex) and had a partner, so I decided it was too high risk.

Note that if there was some sort of "collusion" to deny you your Disintegrate ioun stone, why did Martok lock the kobold in with you? Heck, he INSURED that it's available when you exit the Maze. Secondly, I would have laughed my butt off if somebody had Mazed me. Keep me nice and safe and cozy for 10 minutes, unable to be harmed? Sign me up!.

The problem is that someone (Martok) can take out the cohort while he's gone. However, you have either 10 minutes of complete safety, or about a 1 minute if you hurry back. In theory, you may even cast relatively short duration buffs while in the Maze, allowing you to use your 1 and 10 minute per level spells. However, skipping the first couple of minutes keeps you safe during the most dangerous parts of the game. Look at the previous matches. Varsus spent most of the time trapped behind a wall of force and Sigmund hid in obscuring mist. Having the stone trapped inside the cage with you works to your advantage as well.

The only thing I can say in your defense is that clockworkjoe is not (in my impression) any kind of rules lawyer. He makes judgements that, by the book, may be technically wrong occasionally. That may have happened to you. But it is his game, he's the DM and you don't hassle the DM. You play by his rules, even if the book says differently.

Me, I would have disallowed you the entire OA once again even after he already made a special exception for you. Yeah, that's right. Remember? He made an EXCEPTION for you. Nobody else got to use OA. But you took his good graces and tossed it back at him because you can't play nice with others.

While I think a number of rulings regarding reaper's character were in error, I can see why he nerfed your character. When the allowed materials are clearly stated, I think it's a bit rude to ask for an exception because there's some classes ripe for abuse in there. It's also a bit unfair to other players, because they'd develop expectations based on what books are allowed and design characters accordingly. For example, in a core rules game, I'd think +30 saves were a great defense, and count on them to defend my character against most magical attacks. However, if FR materials were allowed, I'd have very different expectations and would either find ways to increase them or alternate defenses because +30 isn't sufficient against red wizard archmages and the like. So if I was playing in what I thought was a core game and counting on my +30 saves, but someone was using FR stuff, I'd be screwed. Similarly, OA changes the expectations of melee damage output. How fair is it for characters designed to deal with relatively normal melee damage to be suddenly thrust into the scary world of Pounce attacks and Iajitsu whatsits.

And why would Jade meet the roleplaying requirement for Contemplative? Characters need to spend their special advantage to qualify for the roleplaying requirements of PrCs. You spent the advantage to get a cohort that can fight with you, so you don't have it to use for Jade's PrC requirements.

See:

a. The character qualifies for any Prestige class that requires a special roleplaying background such as contacting an outsider, finding a secret treasure
etc.

Persistent Flying and Trueseeing are illegal, because those spells have a range of touch.

I thought Iajitsu Focus had to be used when quickdrawing a weapon? You can't really quickdraw shields. But I don't have OA so I'm not sure.

But I can see how his rulings on the Divine Feats would be rather unfair.

 

[clockworkjoe]

Look, if it's not clear enough what clockwork did, let me be clear - I'm not one for secrecy, and if someone can't stand being honest and up front about their actions, than maybe they should rethink why.
clockwork's actions as arbitrator of this match should be able to pass whatever light is beamed on them - if he has to rely on back-door dealings, or glossing over events, than that's a big warning sign, I would think.

It's not like my character's strengths are hard to figure out : As people already publicized, I'm using a 2-shield Smackdown method with a cohort. I used Divine Shield, Divine Might, Lion's Pounce, and Spikes to get lots of damage on a charge, as well as Paladin to get high saves.
Or at least I would have liked to use Paladin, but clockwork nerfed that and made me waste levels by using the weaker OA Shaman class to substitute.

Look, I'm already getting off-topic.
If someone's not putting 2 and 2 together yet, I'll make it clear as day:

I sent a powerful character that included the Spelldancer, that gave Therron Persistent Spell Turning, Flying and True Seeing. (among other things)
He could have attacked anyone first turn and probably hit.
Clockwork nerfed that, and many other things (see below).

So Jade was eunuched (her power was, at least LOL).
So I put in an ioun stone with Disintegrate in it specifically to prevent the cheesy Forcecage.
Lo and behold, the Gawd's themselves removed Therron's defense. Then a player casts Forcecage & Maze before Therron's initiative.

Do I have to draw a map for anyone?
If it wasn't so transparent, it might be appreciatable.

The disappointing part is, if Clockwork was going to do all this nerfing of my completely correct by the rules character, and then pull the kobold-Hunter trick, why did he bother letting me play?
If he was so afraid of my character dominating, why wouldn't he just have the balls and say "Sorry, reaper - you brought in too strong of character to the Tournament. You can't play this time."

To manufacture this makes you look cheap, clockwork, and I'm sure you're better than that most of the time, but it's unfortunate that you felt you had to protect the others and your Game, from my diabolically Evil power-character that apparently noone could stop (oh - they stopped him in 1 round, that's right).

Let me detail, in public now, what he did to my character, and let you decide about things - maybe I'm off my rocker here, but it seems pretty clear to me... :

(excerpted from the now-attached original post I hadn't sent, out of respect for Clockwork's privacy)
Nerf #1) After 16 replies, he changed the rules on the SpellDancer PrC to weaken it. He also changed the "Help in the Corner" advantage to not allow cohorts to cast spells on combatants. So I spent hours re-vamping the character and re-submitted it.
Nerf #2) After re-submittal, he removed the SpellDancer entirely, requiring another costly re-vamp.
Nerf #3)Clockwork said in an email, "3. It's stupid to think that you get to benefit from two different types of rage/frenzy at the same time. Also, rage/frenzy is a mind affecting effect and once you enter in one type of rage, you can't benefit from another. "
Nerf #4) He denied the use of the Singh Rager unless I took away the level of Paladin and Cleric I included in the original build.
So I re-worked it with AkodoChampion and Shaman (the OA cleric).
He later said that it was stupid to use 2 elite PrC's (SinghRager and Akodo).
So I changed it to all Shaman and 1 level of Sohei (holy fighter-monk).
(He later turned around and said that I was including all this OA stuff. The only OA stuff other than SinghRager, Sohei, and Remove Fatigue I've added was because of him denying me rules.)
Nerf #5) He denied the use of the Contemplative PrC for Jade (she wouldn't satisfy the role-playing requirement).
Nerf #6) He denied the use of the Madness domain, although it explicitly allows it as a Domain of Olympic Pantheoon clerics in Deities & Demigods, page 101.
Nerf #7) He didn't allow 2 Arms of Nyr to be used. He later changed the rules on it, saying the Arm's bonuses were enhancement bonuses, so they wouldn't stack with Bull's Strength or Cat's Grace.
Nerf #8) He didn't allow Iajutsu Focus to be used with shields, although it's completely by the rules (completely stupid, IMO, but by the rules).

I took all those denying of rules to me completely in stride, and wrote many times that this is His Game, and if he felt that what I included would hurt his Game, than I'll change my character. I never fought him on the removals, and I agree with a couple of them.
Using his own words, I DID "prove (him)and the others wrong. And don't whine about how I should have told you earlier that I wasn't going to allow this or that. "
NOW I'll criticise clockwork for not telling me earlier. He could have saved me 20 hours of MY time if he had just denied the super-powerful (broken, IMO) SpellDancer PrC straight out.

But the straw that broke this camel's back was when clockwork at the end of Round 1 made up that Divine Might was an enhancement bonus, and that Spikes (3rd level Defenders of the Faith spell) is an enhancement bonus to DAMAGE (therefore not stacking with Divine Shield and totally negating Therron's effectiveness).
That's Nerf #9 and 10, and that's more than I can take at purposely weakening my character to the point that he can't compete.
However, I said nothing about it, other than to question him on the rules source, and quoting that the rules do not say what he is saying (not to mention that EVERYONE plays them not as enhancement bonuses - oh yeah, "I don't care what other people who didn't design the game think about it." is what he said. Nice.)
________________________

So unfortunately for everyone involved (including you guys), clockwork did NOT prove me wrong, in not letting his biases get in the way of the Game.
To quote clockwork, he thinks the style of fighting I used is "Fu**ing stupid."

Ces't la vie - it looked like a fun game, and I absolutely love these power-gaming challenges, but it looks like my entries are not desired, and I can't play in a straight-up fair fight with other great players on these boards.
I was looking forward to mixing it up with you guys - have a good battle, and make sure not to upset Clockwork.

too long, didn't read.

edit to say, I am sick of dealing with this issue. I generally trusted everyone who sent in characters that they weren't trying any stupid smackdown exploit or similar stuff. Reaper abused that trust and I don't care what hardships he had to endure to get his still extremely powerful character in the game. I am through reading about it or trying to appease him.

I still don't have an anccurate list of what spells Jade cast on Therron either.

 

[JDragon]

Iajitsu Focus - Can only be used if the person being attacked is flat footed and you attack immediately after drawing a weapon. (does not define what "drawing" a weapon in considered)

So its generally only good once per combat in the first round.

The DM of my current OA campaign has allowed it for most melee weapons, but they have to be in thier non-ready state and you have to have quick draw or pull it as you charge.

JDragon

 

[reapersaurus]

What does it really matter, clockwork, about Jade's spells?

All I wanted was to Smack somebody straight out the gate and throw some excitement in your Game, since IMO most Games rely too much on insta-death or no-save spells, and boring tactics like invisibility and hiding out (no offense to any player who chose that as a tactic - that's my opinion.)

You got what you wanted - my characters out of the way, by a multitude of actions in-and-out of game.

I don't view being flung into a Maze a Good Thing, even if it helps Therron to survive. I wanted to have fun mixing it up, but poor me, wahh waahhh...

Victim - you all heard me ask for one thing from OA - Singh Rager. That's it.
I'm just shocked that clockwork considered me abusing trust while there's a flying anti-magic guy with apparently Gnomish Atrificer gadgets flouting the magic rules.
Or a psionic lich with an entire chapter of the SRD dedicated to custom rules for it.

I agree with you on one thing, clockwork - I'm tired of the whole thing, too, and burnt out on the entire experience.
I'm sorry I tried to make a powerful character to bring into the Game so I could win - I thought that's what the point was.

Seriously, everyone - hope you all get a good Smack in on someone. Have a good one.

 

[Terraism]

Or a psionic lich with an entire chapter of the SRD dedicated to custom rules for it.

Ok, I should probably drop it, and I'm sure Reaper's not coming back to the thread, but I seriously don't have a clue what he means by this one - anyone who picked up on it, could you be a friend and explain it to me?

 

[Dr Midnight]

edit: Never mind.

 

[Victim]

My gnome gadgets follow the rules perfectly. MaoF states that all of the powers except for the shadow weave ones work in antimagic areas. I'm not using Shadow Weave powers. I'm really feeling the lack of haste. And since gadgets cost signficantly more than similar magic items with a price of 2k x spell level x caster level for a 50 charge device that takes up a space, I'm paying alot for some low level spells.

And I'm think that in terms of raw mechanics, including my excellent AMF+fly defense, my character isn't broken, for reaons that hopefully won't occur. If you quit or die, then I'll send you my character - unless I die first, in which case I'll post it.

 

[Berk]

You were ripe for the pickins. We started out close to each other, then you got hurt a bit. I didn't know a damn thing about you and would have cast force cage and then maze on you even if I did know that that ioun stone contains disint. It was gonna happen no matter what, even if you had your original character in there. You might have been able to get out easier, but that's about it. And for god sakes it's a freaking game. Go hit puberty already and act like an adult. Crap happens in life, just be glad it happened in a game and not in the real world.