Tumble too powerful?

[delericho]

- Deleted. There comes a point where the debate becomes too stupid even for me. -

 

[N'raac]

Funnily enough, the Nerveskitter spell is also an Immediate Action, and so cannot be used while flat-footed. As written, that spell is actually utterly useless - it is impossible to cast it at any time it would be of any use.

Technically, as long as you roll initiative within a round, it still works. Casting it when you believe you are walking into an imminent trap could be valid. Very situational, but what do you want for a 1st level spell?

And even if you determine that the designers obviously didn't mean to write a literally useless spell, it's worth noting that a wand of nerveskitter won't work -the activation time on a wand is a Standard Action, unless the spell being used has a longer casting time.

Without reading through the rules, the fact that the spell allows this break does not automatically mean magic items do. I've never seen a Wand of Feather Fall, but a Ring that maintains its effect. Would we let someone walk around with a Scroll of Nerveskitter?

- Deleted. There comes a point where the debate becomes too stupid even for me. -

You win.

- Deleted. There comes a point where the debate becomes too stupid even for me. -

I really need to take that Iron Will feat...

 

[delericho]

Technically, as long as you roll initiative within a round, it still works. Casting it when you believe you are walking into an imminent trap could be valid.

True. As written, it's only almost completely useless. Still, that errata is actually a good thing.

Very situational, but what do you want for a 1st level spell?

Balance? Cyclone_Joker is right when he notes that winning initiative is hugely powerful, especially in the hands of a caster. Beyond the first few levels, the Wizard has spell slots to burn, so there's no real cost to this spell... and then he gets to end (or at least very significantly impact) the encounter before it really gets started.

If the spell included a proviso that the recipient couldn't use spells or spell-completion items (but not spell trigger items or spell-like powers), it might be okay.

Having said that, the proliferation of spells, powers, and magic items that make use of Swift or Immediate actions is itself problematic. Pretty much any such spell must be considered at least questionable in terms of balance, and most of them should be banned outright. (Because they fundamentally alter the action economy, by allowing two spells per round.)

Without reading through the rules, the fact that the spell allows this break does not automatically mean magic items do. I've never seen a Wand of Feather Fall, but a Ring that maintains its effect. Would we let someone walk around with a Scroll of Nerveskitter?

A wand of feather fall wasn't possible until the Rules Compendium changed the rule on item activation. And since that was pretty much the last 3.5e book, it's not surprising they weren't present.

Having thought about it at some length, though, I don't think the problem actually lies with that rule change. After all, to benefit from it, the character would have to have his wand/scroll/whatever in hand and readied before the situation called for it.

The real problem, and it's fundamental to 3e, is that many spells that are absolutely fine if the Wizard casts them once in one encounter per day, become broken if they're always active, either because they have very long durations or because the Wizard has slots to burn (or items to bypass Vancian casting). Monte Cook actually hit on this fact when he redesigned the Sorcerer in "Book of Eldritch Might".

If you reduce the Wizard down to preparing, say, any 6 spells of any level he can cast, remove all level-based variables (and reduce the duration of all buffs to no more than 10 minutes), and eliminate scrolls/wands/staffs from the game... well, casters are still unbalanced (because there's no way to balance Power Attack doing 50 damage a round against a spell that casually rewrites the universe); however, it is at least much closer.

Without reading through the rules, the fact that the spell allows this break does not automatically mean magic items do.

Incidentally, that was the point I made in the second of my 'deleted' posts. But that was also the point where I concluded I was being ridiculous. The inconvenient truth that Cyclone_Joker was also right (per RAW) also didn't help, of course.

But all that, of course, is way off-topic for the thread. Sorry!

 

[Nezkrul]

in order to use versatile spellcaster to cast a 9th level spell, one must first KNOW (because that is what the feat states, and what KNOW means is it must be recorded in your spell book from making the spellcraft check to learn it or from leveling up; or be a spell known) the spell to trade slots up for. The feat doesn't say what you interpret it to say. You are breaking the feat up and taking it out of context. It only does exactly what it says it does; sort of like how Monkey Grip doesn't stack with Powerful Build - in your interpretation, Versatile Spellcaster builds on itself to allow ridiculousness in the way many people think Monkey Grip allows a Goliath to wield a Huge sized weapon with no penalty. And I'm pretty sure you CAN'T know a 9th level spell at 1st level.

also, what I find amusing is that your first level grey elf domain generalist somehow has over 40,000 gold pieces to just go and buy all those neat magic items that let him go first, before you even get to play him.

as well, your grasp on action economy is questionable. If you use an immediate action to cast nerveskitter, you can't, I repeat, CAN'T cast a swift or immediate action spell on your next turn. So, again, how does nerveskitter help you other than winning initiative that gives you a turn in which you CAN'T cast celerity? Oh and Third Eye clarity takes a, guess what, IMMEDIATE action (mental) to use, so you CAN'T use it on the same turn you cast Celerity, IMAGINE THAT?

 

[Cyclone_Joker]

in order to use versatile spellcaster to cast a 9th level spell, one must first KNOW (because that is what the feat states, and what KNOW means is it must be recorded in your spell book from making the spellcraft check to learn it or from leveling up; or be a spell known) the spell to trade slots up for.

Read the build before claiming it doesn't work.

The feat doesn't say what you interpret it to say. You are breaking the feat up and taking it out of context. It only does exactly what it says it does; sort of like how Monkey Grip doesn't stack with Powerful Build - in your interpretation, Versatile Spellcaster builds on itself to allow ridiculousness in the way many people think Monkey Grip allows a Goliath to wield a Huge sized weapon with no penalty.

Wrong. It does exactly what I say it does because that's what it says it does. You really should read the entire build.

And I'm pretty sure you CAN'T know a 9th level spell at 1st level.

...You do know that Domain Wizard is on the SRD. There is no excuse for ignorance like what you're displaying.

also, what I find amusing is that your first level grey elf domain generalist somehow has over 40,000 gold pieces to just go and buy all those neat magic items that let him go first, before you even get to play him.

Different parts of the discussion. Almost completely unrelated parts at that. Try to keep up.

as well, your grasp on action economy is questionable.

Actually, it's your reading comprehension that's lacking.

If you can't follow an argument, don't.

If you use an immediate action to cast nerveskitter, you can't, I repeat, CAN'T cast a swift or immediate action spell on your next turn.

And in other news, the ocean is wet. Oh, and if a wizard tries, they actually can. But this requires the esoteric skill of actually knowing what books say, something you appear to still be in the process of learning.

So, again, how does nerveskitter help you other than winning initiative that gives you a turn in which you CAN'T cast celerity?

...If you activated celerity, you already won initiative without rolling, and thus didn't expend your immediate action.

Oh and Third Eye clarity takes a, guess what, IMMEDIATE action (mental) to use, so you CAN'T use it on the same turn you cast Celerity, IMAGINE THAT?

I have been trying to be patient, but this is absurd. Let's go over this again, and I'll use small words and type real slow, just for you: Celerity's most important usage doesn't involve ever actually using your immediate action. And that's ignoring the fact that you don't actually have to activate it upon the effect occurring. Reading is cool like that.

So, basically, if you are going to try to correct someone, be damned sure you're actually right.

Oh, and as a final note, this hypothetical domain generalist actually does have two swift actions a turn. Shapechange is really cool like that. Jus' sayin.

 

[N'raac]

I'd dig through the various items to address them, just as I would expect any GM to do in assessing which optional rules to allow and the manner in which they would combine. The interpretation that the combination of feats and abilities permits a 1st level character to cast 9th level spells, in my view, relies on a very generous interpretation of the various abilities, and the manner in which they would combine. Given the ridiculous result, that interpretation would not be reasonably sustained.

Since we're clearly getting into rules lawyering, I'll draw on my own experience on law. [CAVEAT: I'm not a lawyer, and my exposure to legal principals is commonwealth, non-US] When there are multiple possible interpretations of the words, the courts look to divine the intent of the legislators. The legislators are presumed to know what they are doing. When one possible interpretation carries a ludicrous result, it is discarded as obviously not what the legislators intended, so some other interpretation is assessed as the appropriate one.

Any interpretation allowing a 1st level character to cast 9th level spells carries a ludicrous result, and therefore is not supportable. The specific wizard in question keeps bouncing around in level, feat choices, etc., with only a sample of the character's abilities presented on any given occasion, so attempting to evaluate the specific build is rendered impractical anyway. Perhaps obfuscating the character's abilities and responding to any challenge of the accuracy of the rules interpretations with insults works with your GM. It would more likely see the player invited to find a different gaming group in any of the groups I've played with.

 

[Celebrim]

Without even looking at the build in question or opining on it, I note that exactly ZERO of the things referenced in the build were available in the 3.0 SRD and core books. I therefore don't care what they say or how they are interpreted, because it was immediately obvious at even a cursory reading of the 3.5 Player's Handbook that the writers were incompetent and didn't know what they are doing. While they fixed a few marginal problems like Haste and Harm they broke a bunch of crap that wasn't broken. In the rules as originally written, the majority of the brokenness was confined to 9th level spells like Wish, Shapechange, and the like where things can be relatively safely broken because in any sort of reasonable campaign you are going to spend the vast majority of the play time on lower level play and wrap up before or soon after obtaining 17th level. The rest was easily dealt with.

Basically, I've never had any of the problems described in this thread and particularly in the increasingly off topic spammy debate supposedly on 'casters' that is dominating the thread and I dismiss any argument that simultaneously complains about how broken spellcasters are in 3.5 AND also argues that in playing 3.X by default players should expect to have access to even anything much less everything published in 3.5. In fact, I would happily say to the writers of the 3.5 splat books: "What in the world were you thinking beyond 'I've got a deadline and have to add content because the editor demands it'? Are you proud that you got paid to write that junk? Didn't you realize you were killing the brand? Seriously?"

The fact that you can in theory create Pun-Pun or any similar sort of broken caster by compiling ill-thought out abilities from a variety of sources has no real bearing on the utility or discussion of the Tumble skill, and as such really has no place at all in this thread. If in fact you conceive that there is some game out there where playing any such character is considered reasonable or that such a character could be made is considered salient to a discussion of the game, the problem is with your table for adopting such ill-advised practices. "Hey, they published it." is frankly no excuse whatsoever, and any player that - knowing the rule or option is obviously broken - advocates for it on the basis that it was published in official sources is to not put to fine a point of it an idiot and has no value at all to a RPG group. If he can't see that obvious fact, friendship or not, he's not playing RPGs with me.

tl;dr

Rambling off a long list of things from various 3.5 splatbooks as proof of anything immediately causes me to lose interest. Even so much as the assumption that because these books were published they have bearing on a discussion of 3.5 seems to me far removed from reality. Theoretical optimization aside, I don't believe the campaigns where such theoretically optimized characters were played actually exist or ever existed for any long period of time. Whereas, by comparison, mine is still going.

Even shorter:

Most tables that play or played 3.5 not only didn't use all its splatbooks and options, they actually had no interest in doing so - news at 11.

 

[Celebrim]

I realize that there is an even more succinct and to the point criticism available.

This thread is about house ruling Tumble.

Any argument that boils down to, "Because Pun-Pun is RAW, house ruling Tumble is ridiculous and unnecessary.", is itself ridiculous and unnecessary.

So far I've heard the following ridiculous things mentioned: "Collegiate Wizard", "Conjurer", "Uncanny Forethought", "Celerity", "Immediate Teleport", "Hummingbird familiar", "Nerveskitter", "Eager Warning gauntlet", "Sandals of the Vagabond", a "Belt of Battle", "Ring of Anticipation", "Grey Elf", "Domain Generalist", "Incantatrix", "Anima Mage", "Third Eye: Clarity", "Mindbender", "Alacritous Cognition", "Versatile Spellcaster", "Uncanny Forethought", "Mindsight"...

You're joking, right?

If you aren't joking, then let me just say that I think I'm playing the same game roughly the OP is and you just aren't.

For that matter, I don't even think you are playing the game that you are talking about. I think you are just saying its theoretically possible to play it, but in practice you probably aren't and moved on even if you ever did play it. Regardless, I don't see how it has much bearing on the topic to prove that in some other game other than the one the OP is playing, it's possible to have +30 initiative bonuses. It's just not freaking relevant.

 

[Cyclone_Joker]

EDIT: Screw it, responding to such obvious bait is stupid.

 

[Nezkrul]

If you take Celebrim's posts as "bait", you need to get off the forum. He is dead on in his statements that you did derail this thread away from the OP's intent, and are probably, in his opinion, NOT playing the same game that all of us are, if at all you are indeed playing one. No, his opinion was not bait, nor is this response to your derogatory comment to the latter.

I could go into detail how your reply post to me is completely chock full of wrongness and how it proves you AREN'T playing D&D that we know the rules for, but its too much typing to prove you wrong. We'll just have to agree to disagree.