Rules Questions

[Shadowbit]

I have a few rules questions if anyone might happen to know the answers.

First, a little background. I joined this group a number of months back. The campaign is fairly well established, with characters up around 17th level. The players in the group trade off GMing duties. I recently opted to take up the GM mantle, since I had an idea for an adventure.

The characters are traveling along through the jungle toward a hidden city lost for millennia. The first fight, against a group of Lizardfolk was an easy fight. EL12, so the lizardfolk were pretty well slaughtered.

The next fight, where a more experienced band of lizardfolk sought to get revenge for their tribesfolk slain. This encounter was EL17, with 8 CR 11 lizardfolk. In the fight, several things happened that I hadn't ever anticipated.

First, one of the characters pulled out a wand and cast meteor shower. The character is an Artificer, and at the time I was completely unfamiliar with the class. I opted to trust the player's knowledge on his own class. Wands can hold up to a level 4 spell and max out at 50 charges. He cast a level 9 spell and claimed to have 71 charges left. And then told me that his character because he's an artificer can use spells in his work that are 3 spell levels above him, and that he can alter wands and other magic devices. Are there any prestige classes or feats that make either of those true?

Second, one of the other characters who is a psionicist, pulled out a wand and cast a fireball-like spell, which had a save DC of 28. I know about Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus. What other sources out there allow you to increase the save DC of a spell?

I haven't really looked closely at the character sheets for the other characters. I know that my own character is a level 9 Swashbuckler/8 Rogue and purchased equipment using the level 17 value from the DMG, but I strongly suspect the others' gear is valued at quite a bit more.

But anyway, does anyone know if the above situations are possible with any combination of feats or class abilities?

SB

 

[irdeggman]

First, one of the characters pulled out a wand and cast meteor shower. The character is an Artificer, and at the time I was completely unfamiliar with the class. I opted to trust the player's knowledge on his own class. Wands can hold up to a level 4 spell and max out at 50 charges. He cast a level 9 spell and claimed to have 71 charges left. And then told me that his character because he's an artificer can use spells in his work that are 3 spell levels above him, and that he can alter wands and other magic devices. Are there any prestige classes or feats that make either of those true?

First off never let a player use a prestige class (or non-core feat or spell) that you do not know.

Second - the artificer is an Eberron specific class. If you are not using that setting (or at least Action Points) don't allow it. The class is inherently dependent on Action Points. It also has to make a UMD everytime it uses an item (and since it casts spells from items that is pretty much all the time).

I know of no way (shy of epic feats) to get a 9th level spell in a wand let alone more than 50 charges. The class does get a clas ability to add in metamagic feats to the spells cast out of wands by using up more charges.

Second, one of the other characters who is a psionicist, pulled out a wand and cast a fireball-like spell, which had a save DC of 28. I know about Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus. What other sources out there allow you to increase the save DC of a spell?

Next never allow in psionics unless you are familiar with the system.

Psions do not have wands they have djores (crystal type things but not wands). The metamagic spell feats do not apply to psionics. Also a psion can only apply 1 metamagic feat at a time since it uses up his psionic focus.

They can, however "augment" their powers when manifesting them. This can add to the DC - but as far as I know you can't augment a power manifested from a djore. And they can't spend more pp on a power than they have manifester levels, unless they use the Overchannel feat (and then they take hit point damage unless they also have the Talented feat.

I haven't really looked closely at the character sheets for the other characters. I know that my own character is a level 9 Swashbuckler/8 Rogue and purchased equipment using the level 17 value from the DMG, but I strongly suspect the others' gear is valued at quite a bit more.

Obviously the next thing to make sure you do, especially when running higher level PCs. Make sure you understand and "agree" with everything on their sheets.

 

[Dross]

First, a little background. I joined this group a number of months back. The campaign is fairly well established, with characters up around 17th level. The players in the group trade off GMing duties. I recently opted to take up the GM mantle, since I had an idea for an adventure.

I wonder of you noticed these tricks as a player? To unfairly casts aspersions that may not be there, they could be taking advantage of things with a "new" DM......

Here are some Q's to ask:
The general power level of the game. This could be the reason for the "more than DMG $$ limit" that they seem to have.
Are there house rules that you do not know about? I joined a group that had several homebrew feats and rules which made my pure fighter PC almost less capable than a psion in melee combat. This goes to the wand Q as well.
Are you sure it was a wand and not a staff or something else? irdeggman has the appropriate rules for wands.
What the %&$^ is an Artificer? You do need to read up on this. Or conversley, take the player's word, use an Artificer classed foe and hit them with the same thing and see what happends (warning: it may not be pretty though).
Same for psionics. Given that the DC for spells and psionics (at least I beleive) should be roughly the same, 28 does seem high.
As a DM you should have permision to look at the player's sheets, if only to be able to provide some specific challangers to the PCs.

But anyway, does anyone know if the above situations are possible with any combination of feats or class abilities?

It is quite possible with house rules, meshed with third party books and maybe some selective reading. They might be using agreed rules that you are not aware of, or they may be abusing you newness to DMing and their group. Find out.

 

[sukael]

It is quite possible with house rules, meshed with third party books and maybe some selective reading. They might be using agreed rules that you are not aware of, or they may be abusing you newness to DMing and their group. Find out.

Seconded.

Also, transcribe their character sheets if you can, so you can look up specific classes/feats/spells in their respective books.

On the initial question,

He cast a level 9 spell and claimed to have 71 charges left. And then told me that his character because he's an artificer can use spells in his work that are 3 spell levels above him, and that he can alter wands and other magic devices.

I don't think there are any ways to add extra charges to wands. In fact, artificers generally have less charges to work with, since the wand-related things they pick up often burn extra charges to use.

An artificer can have ways to add metamagic feats to scrolls/wands, but this doesn't let them actually get a higher-level base spell.

Second, one of the other characters who is a psionicist, pulled out a wand and cast a fireball-like spell, which had a save DC of 28.

Psionicists use dorjes*, not wands... and, pre-Epic, dorjes use the same DC calculation as wands- DC determined as per the minimum stat for casting spells of that level.

Manifesting from their own powers known, a psionicist can get very high DCs, but only by burning lots of power points at once**- think like a spellcaster using a 9th-level and a 7th-level slot at the same time to cast a 9th-level spell with a higher DC.

* Like wands, except not.

** And even this is very difficult, since without using Overchannel*** and other painful tricks, you can only use up to (your manifester level) in power points on a single power manifestation at once.

*** You can boost your manifester level by 1, 2, or 3, depending on your level... but you take 1d8, 3d8, or 5d8 damage in the process. Very ow for regular use.

 

[robberbaron]

Sounds to me like either;
a) they are yanking your chain. 'Taking the piss' is the appropriate British term.
b) they are playing with a significantly different set of rules to those to which you are accustomed.
c) a bit of both (most likely, in my opinion).

I'd advocate having a sit down with them before your next session and finding out what rules they are using. You might get some opposition to you looking at their character sheets, and that is a problem with a player also being able to be DM, but I think it is important for you to know what is going on.
If they turn out to be making stuff up then you either have to call them on it or join in and cheat as much as they do.

Back in the day, my group tended to run games for each other in the roughly the same world and it was both good and bad. We had players who would take the piss and we had a DM who would kill off the other characters so his would be the best in the game.

 

[darthkilmor]

First, one of the characters pulled out a wand and cast meteor shower. The character is an Artificer, and at the time I was completely unfamiliar with the class. I opted to trust the player's knowledge on his own class. Wands can hold up to a level 4 spell and max out at 50 charges. He cast a level 9 spell and claimed to have 71 charges left. And then told me that his character because he's an artificer can use spells in his work that are 3 spell levels above him, and that he can alter wands and other magic devices. Are there any prestige classes or feats that make either of those true?

Sounds like the players are either running with a bunch of different rules from previous DM's, or they simply dont understand the rules(ie, they can't add/don't know all the rules) and the previous DM didnt call them out on it. I've had this problem before with a player, "Create a level 10 character, you've got %d gold to spend on items." After 20 or 30 minutes I look over his sheet and he's way off base, must have had 30% more items than he had the $$ for. Not malice, just well, he couldnt add it all up right. The previous DM's might have let the players make their magic items without any oversight, and thus you get 9th level spells in wands with too many charges.

 

[werk]

My bet would be that they are loosely interpretting the rules, or one player is loosely interpretting the rules and verbally explaining to the others who further interpret them.

It sounds like what they are doing is outside of the standard rules, but as said above, that may be the way they like it. I'd be careful about making any accusations. Maybe ask about the wand the artificer used, "how did you get a wand to hold a 9th level spell?" If the answer is "i'm an artificer." then no.

It's very important to know if they are playing outside the rules so you can adjust challenges accordingly if you want to continue playing with the group...and so you can start looking for wacky stuff for your character.

 

[Jhaelen]

Psionicists use dorjes*, not wands... and, pre-Epic, dorjes use the same DC calculation as wands- DC determined as per the minimum stat for casting spells of that level.

I'd like to point out that dorjes in contrast to wands are not limited regarding the maximum power level. So you can have dorjes with the equivalent of 9th level powers.

Second, while it's true that dorjes use a base DC as per the required minimum stat for manifesting the power, dorjes can also contain augmented powers, which often also increases the save DC:

However, dorjes can be created at a higher manifester level than required to manifest the power. In this case, the dorje that holds an augmentable power is augmented, to the limit of the manifester level and the power’s augmentation maximums, if any. The manifester level of a dorje cannot be more than five higher than the minimum manifester level to use the power it contains.

Still, I doubt you could get a DC of 28 with any power (pre-epic) - now, with psicrowns that would be possible...

Other than that I agree with what has been said before:
Don't allow anything in your game you don't know the rules about.

And: Don't believe for a second that a player knows the rules for his character. More often than not, they don't - at least in my experience. If a player states something that you find hard to believe, let them proof they're correct by showing you the relevant rule and/or let them calculate all the modifiers that apply to an attack roll/AC/DC/whatever.

 

[eamon]

Well, I have no trouble with players using rules I don't know as long as they can explain them and they seem reasonable.

As to the wands bit.... heck I have a player that calls everything magical a wand. Even staff's of life... ;-) Just check their char sheet. Have a wand with more than 50 charges is odd, but hardly overpowering (it's usually better to have 2 with less charges after all), it's the spell that's... odd...

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I don't think there are any ways to add extra charges to wands.

Artificers do have an infusion that adds temporary charges to wands. It's a 3rd-level Infusion called Power Surge, which adds 1 temporary charge per 5 caster levels, and the charges last for 1 minute / level or until used.

I'm not seeing a way to easily get 21 additionaly charges on the wand.