Trying to work around a DM's restriction

[LevinSerra]

I've run into a bit of a problem in a campaign I'm currently in. I'm playing a druid, currently level 10, and very soon to be 11. I was really hoping to choose Coiled Serpent as my paragon path, as it fits in nicely with my character concept and within the group. There's just one problem with it, and that is the fact that our group really has a hard-on for defeating minions of Orcus. We fight a lot of undead.

Now, this wouldn't actually be a problem, except for our DM's hatred of Dragon Magazine. We are not allowed to choose any powers/feats/what-have-yous that come from only Dragon Magazine, so Assassin MC/Venom Hand Master is not an option. I was hoping that Heroes of Shadow would have something useful, but as far as I can tell that doesn't appear to be the case.

So, internet, do any of you know of any other way I could get around poison immunity, not using Dragon Magazine? Any number of feat spending is acceptable, at least to give me an idea of how it would have to happen, even if it's not worth it.

 

[Aulirophile]

Doesn't exist.

Your DM is kind of silly. Dragon content isn't any more or less powerful then the book content. Not at all like 3.x.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

For implement attacks: only if you're a dragonborn who doesn't have poison breath; use a Rod of the Dragonborn from Adventurer's Vault.

For weapon attacks: Frost Weapon (quarterstaff) with the Wintertouched and Lasting Frost feats for cold damage, Flaming Weapon (quarterstaff) for fire damage, Lightning Weapon (quarterstaff) for lightning damage, Radiant Weapon (quarterstaff) for radiant damage, all from the PHB.

 

[theNater]

You could ask your DM permission to use a homebrewed feat for it. Just let your DM know that you like a paragon path with a lot of poison damage, and that you're worried that you'll be underpowered given the amount of undead you're fighting.

If you sense resistance, offer to spend multiple feats, or to make the feat turn their poison immunity into resist 5 or something. Be willing to compromise and you should be able to come up with something you can both live with.

 

[Nullzone]

Houserule it and reflavor Coiled Serpent as acid instead of poison, maybe?

 

[Arlough]

Perhaps a multiclass feat, since they count as a feat and a half, or you could go questing for a magic item that would allow you to add the Acid keyword to your PP features and power that have the poison keyword.

If you go with the multiclass feat, you may be able to make it more palatable by making it a series of multiclass feats similar to the net, whip, and bola mastery multiclass feats.

If you instead go for the item, it could be something that is hidden away in a temple of Zehir, but that you need to get if you are going to fight Orcus (because poison doesn't work on undead, duh.)

Or you could just choose another paragon path and re-skin it to have a serpent flavor. Like you could turn the Storm Speaker paragon path into the Storm Serpent paragon path, with references to how lightning lurks, hiding in the clouds until it is ready to strike, and then suddenly snakes across the sky to descend upon it's foes.

 

[Dausuul]

Peraion has the right idea. If you want to hew closer to the Coiled Serpent theme, I recommend a mordant staff (from King of the Trollhaunt Warrens). That way you still get to deal poison damage, but it's converted to poison and acid, so it works on undead.

Your DM is kind of silly. Dragon content isn't any more or less powerful then the book content. Not at all like 3.x.

*shrug* I could see how a DM burned by three previous editions of "Dragon" might be kind of leery of it by now. And there are other valid reasons to disallow Dragon material, aside from power level. If nothing else, it limits the flood of new character options into your game if you require people to produce a physical book.

 

[chitzk0i]

*shrug* I could see how a DM burned by three previous editions of "Dragon" might be kind of leery of it by now. And there are other valid reasons to disallow Dragon material, aside from power level. If nothing else, it limits the flood of new character options into your game if you require people to produce a physical book.

I'm not following your argument here. In 3.x, DMs had to limit the amount of content in their game if they wanted any semblance of balance. In 4e, I have seen absolutely no problem with allowing every every source available.

If nothing else, it limits the flood of new character options into your game if you require people to produce a physical book.

So if you aren't concerned about the power level of content in Dragon, what other reasons for banning it could there be? I can't think of any. I guess you might have thematic objections to certain articles, but that's no reason to ban the entire magazine. Finally, if material is fairly balanced, then I see no problem with a "flood of new character options".

[MENTION=6675308]LevinSerra[/MENTION]: Talk to your DM and bring up your concerns. He may happy to accommodate your concept. Druids have historically hated undead as perversions of the natural order, so I could see feats for a druid to use poison to fight them. If he's thinking rationally, you should be able to get him to make a one-time exception to his blanket ban on Dragon content.

 

[Aegeri]

I don't see the point in banning anything from Dragon to be honest, as most of the most broken things are in the PHB, Adventurers Vault and Martial Power. Primarily because these were the first supplements and therefore the worst for mechanical swinginess (albeit some broken elements did follow).

Unfortunately without Venom Hand Master and a campaign full of undead you are just boned. Poison is the most useless damage type in 4E for dealing with undead (as they are practically all immune).

 

[Dausuul]

So if you aren't concerned about the power level of content in Dragon, what other reasons for banning it could there be? I can't think of any. I guess you might have thematic objections to certain articles, but that's no reason to ban the entire magazine. Finally, if material is fairly balanced, then I see no problem with a "flood of new character options".

If you're playing bog-standard D&D in all its kitchen sink glory, zillions of character options are fine, but some DMs like a little more control over the themes and elements in the game.

This issue mostly crops up with classes and races; it doesn't come up as much with feats and powers. Even so, the potential for problems exists, and in fact the OP is a case in point. Venom Hand Master is a feat that lets poison work on undead and golems. The DM might consider it ludicrous to be able to poison a stone statue or a walking skeleton, or feel that it diminishes the "unnaturalness" of such creatures if there's a way to make poison affect them.

And, as we all know, every previous edition of the game has had monstrously broken stuff in Dragon. At the moment, that's not the case in 4E, but there's no guarantee it will stay that way. I could see how a DM might not want to constantly monitor Dragon to be sure it's maintaining its quality.

Of course, all this is speculation. We don't know why the OP's DM banned Dragon material. My guess is he's old-school and has been burned by Dragon (heh) often enough in the past that he just doesn't trust it, no matter what assurances WotC offers that it's cleaned up its act... but who knows.

Talk to your DM and bring up your concerns. He may happy to accommodate your concept. Druids have historically hated undead as perversions of the natural order, so I could see feats for a druid to use poison to fight them.

This is excellent advice...

If he's thinking rationally, you should be able to get him to make a one-time exception to his blanket ban on Dragon content.

...this is not. The DM may have perfectly valid reasons for not being willing to make an exception. As I pointed out above, the existence of Venom Hand Master changes the game world in ways that a DM could find objectionable.

The DM has already established that Dragon material is not available in his campaign. He's well within his rights to do so, and to say no if a player wants to make an exception. That doesn't mean he will say no, but he's not necessarily being irrational if he does.