So...how DO you challenge a party above level 4?

[Seikojin]

The game does not differentiate a 5 HD vs. 10 HD efreeti in spell-like abilities. A DM may adjudicate otherwise, but that isn't RAW. Also, the spell results would not be illusionary per the RAW, either.

I suppose it would be a more legitimate argument that the simulacrum could only give you one wish (3 / 2 rounded down). Even so, that's all you need. Wish for Candle of Invocation. Win at life.

I believe in MM2 during monster making, it tells you what abilities are worth, so you can reverse feats and abilities out of a creatures list. I will have to look into that. But if you do get wishes and you were down to 1, you still would need to make the efreeti do as you want (just because it is illusion doesn't mean it is obey, lol, just kidding). But if you get any wishes out of an efreeti illusion, you would have quite a bit of power. Then again, that doesn't mean you auto win. It just means your DM will provide a challenge for that wish.

Mind you, this topic is not how to try and exploit DnD 3.5, it is how to challenge players past 4th level. If any player was smart enough to pull a wish before their could cast it themselves, I would be smart enough to make sure that wish was a challenge to complete.

Edit: No monster making in MM2. Now I have to find where that was, lol

[sainy_matthew]

The game does not differentiate a 5 HD vs. 10 HD efreeti in spell-like abilities. A DM may adjudicate otherwise, but that isn't RAW. Also, the spell results would not be illusionary per the RAW, either.

I suppose it would be a more legitimate argument that the simulacrum could only give you one wish (3 / 2 rounded down). Even so, that's all you need. Wish for Candle of Invocation. Win at life.

Um, yes the RAW does differentiate a 5 HD efreeti versus a 10 HD Efreeti (for starters one gets wish, the other doesn't). I would hold that a "noble" Djinn (one capable of casting wish) would need to be 10th level (as implied by there entry in the Monsters Manual). It seems that with the increase in HD (consider the HD to be the way it powers the wish), the Noble Djinn recieves the ability to grant wishes. Also considering that only 1% of Genies get this, i would assume its a rare happenstance.

The simulacrum spell also specifically states "It appears to be the same as the original, but it has only one-half of the real creature’s levels or Hit Dice (and the appropriate hit points, feats, skill ranks, and special abilities for a creature of that level or HD)."

Seems to me, that half of level 10 is a lesser number then 10 HD. the way i read it, is no you can't get a wish spell like that.

-M

[Aspenor]

Um, yes the RAW does differentiate a 5 HD efreeti versus a 10 HD Efreeti (for starters one gets wish, the other doesn't). I would hold that a "noble" Djinn (one capable of casting wish) would need to be 10th level (as implied by there entry in the Monsters Manual). It seems that with the increase in HD (consider the HD to be the way it powers the wish), the Noble Djinn recieves the ability to grant wishes. Also considering that only 1% of Genies get this, i would assume its a rare happenstance.

The simulacrum spell also specifically states "It appears to be the same as the original, but it has only one-half of the real creature’s levels or Hit Dice (and the appropriate hit points, feats, skill ranks, and special abilities for a creature of that level or HD)."

Seems to me, that half of level 10 is a lesser number then 10 HD. the way i read it, is no you can't get a wish spell like that.

-M

No, sorry to say, you are wrong. You are talking about Djinn, which are not Efreeti. There is no differentiation between Efreeti in the rules, it simply states that efreeti may grant 3 wishes to non-genies per day.

What YOU would rule is irrelevant. That is called RAI (rules as interpreted), but by RAW (rules as written) it works perfectly fine.

Of course, we are now way off topic.

[Aspenor]

Can you linky some info on the Familiar?

I am going to make a few test runs against this class.

The environment: Cave. Ceiling height is 20' for the bulk of what you see. I will note if there is higher.
Number of encounters in the adventure: 20 creatures.
2 huge CR 7 Pit Vipers (cr3 with 4 levels of fighter trained into them). They are in a room that is 20' high and 30' wide. If they do not die in the first round, they flee deeper into the cave. Relevant stats each:
HP: 6d8+6+3d10+3. Between 18 - 87HP
AC:16 (they have dodge)
Base attack/grapple: +7/+18
Attack: Bite +9 melee 1d6+5 + poison (weap specialization bite)
Space/Reach: 15'/10'
Saves: F/R/W: 10/8/4
Everything else is base per the MM at SRD except all skillpoints went to spot (the purpose of these two are alerting)http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/snake.htm#viperSnake so their spot is around 9 or 10. They will have a free feat which I would be tempted to set and blind fighting for survival in the caves, but I could throw that to something else.

Ok... Next time, I will put more info down on what comes up, or you can PM with me back and forth and we can iron the test out.

You can use the info for the Thrush in the DMG, I think it's under alternative familiars. All the stats should be the same, or close enough.

I believe in MM2 during monster making, it tells you what abilities are worth, so you can reverse feats and abilities out of a creatures list. I will have to look into that. But if you do get wishes and you were down to 1, you still would need to make the efreeti do as you want (just because it is illusion doesn't mean it is obey, lol, just kidding). But if you get any wishes out of an efreeti illusion, you would have quite a bit of power. Then again, that doesn't mean you auto win. It just means your DM will provide a challenge for that wish.

Mind you, this topic is not how to try and exploit DnD 3.5, it is how to challenge players past 4th level. If any player was smart enough to pull a wish before their could cast it themselves, I would be smart enough to make sure that wish was a challenge to complete.

Yeah, I know we're steering off topic. Sorry . But in response, I can easily make it do what I want. In the situation where the Mirror Mephit is my familiar, the familiar controls the simulacrum and I control the apprentice. I control the simulacrum by proxie. The same holds true for using precocious apprentice to summon the mephit. I control the mephit and thus control the simulacrum by proxie. I order the mephit to order the simulacrum to grant me the wishes.

@both Sei and sainy: really, no DM should allow this to happen in a real game, I know I wouldn't, I would just Rule Zero it. I am really only talking about the possibilities in theoretical optimization, which are theoretical but should not be employed in an actual game.

[Aspenor]

Can you linky some info on the Familiar?

I am going to make a few test runs against this class.

The environment: Cave. Ceiling height is 20' for the bulk of what you see. I will note if there is higher.
Number of encounters in the adventure: 20 creatures.
2 huge CR 7 Pit Vipers (cr3 with 4 levels of fighter trained into them). They are in a room that is 20' high and 30' wide. If they do not die in the first round, they flee deeper into the cave. Relevant stats each:
HP: 6d8+6+3d10+3. Between 18 - 87HP
AC:16 (they have dodge)
Base attack/grapple: +7/+18
Attack: Bite +9 melee 1d6+5 + poison (weap specialization bite)
Space/Reach: 15'/10'
Saves: F/R/W: 10/8/4
Everything else is base per the MM at SRD except all skillpoints went to spot (the purpose of these two are alerting)http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/snake.htm#viperSnake so their spot is around 9 or 10. They will have a free feat which I would be tempted to set and blind fighting for survival in the caves, but I could throw that to something else.

Ok... Next time, I will put more info down on what comes up, or you can PM with me back and forth and we can iron the test out.

question on these stats, are you actually rolling hit points? the way I do hit points for characters at my table is that you gain your full Hit Die on first level, then after that you get half your hit die on even levels and half+1 on odd levels. monsters typically don't get the full HD at first level.

Also, two CR 7 creatures are a EL 9 , which is an encounter of 2 levels higher than mine. Not that it is really that big of a deal, I'm just stating the facts.

[SquelchHU]

Did he just really try and say MM2 is a serious source for anything? Really?

That's even worse than trusting Paizo to make something reasonably useful.

[Aspenor]

Did he just really try and say MM2 is a serious source for anything? Really?

That's even worse than trusting Paizo to make something reasonably useful.

Well, yeah, the MM2 is notoriously awful.

[sainy_matthew]

I apoligies Aspenor, you are right. I'm getting my Genie kind mixed up again... Too many **** genies & not enough reason to use them... Maybe i'll make my next adventure contain a lost city of genies... lost on a prime material plane for some reason.

@both Sei and sainy: really, no DM should allow this to happen in a real game, I know I wouldn't, I would just Rule Zero it. I am really only talking about the possibilities in theoretical optimization, which are theoretical but should not be employed in an actual game.

You call it rule Zero, at our table its called the "Don't be a ******-bag rule."

But getting back to the how do you make adventures above 4th level interesting, i've never had a problem with this (As a PC & i've learnt from the best as a DM). I would suggest purchasing a copy of Red Hand of Doom & see how a well constructed adventure can be run above level 4 (while not sitting within the formula). Secondly i would say, put aside the formula & just have fun (by formula i mean the dungeon design formula... you know the ones "room a, is followed by room b").

What i think most DM's need to do is to shake things up a little & stop making the same darn adventure over and over again & feel free to cheat a little (heck steal from the best). I recently had a DM on the WotCc boards yell out for help with a puzzle for a party not known for being burdened with too much intelligence (**** this age of internet-idiots). I pitched him our floor circuit puzzle from DDO & the players loved it. So yeah keep things new, keep things fictional & keep throwing interesting things at your players (Interesting is not the same as convoluted).

[SquelchHU]

RHoD is poorly designed.

Also, cheating is the fastest way to get all your players to walk.

[sainy_matthew]

Did he just really try and say MM2 is a serious source for anything? Really?

That's even worse than trusting Paizo to make something reasonably useful.

Wait... what? Whats wrong with MM2? Whats wrong with RHoD? Whats wrong with Paizo? Is there anything you do like? At all?

[Aspenor]

Also, cheating is the fastest way to get all your players to walk.

This is fairly subjective, it depends a lot on your group. I never really had to do it, because the only time I can think of needing to "cheat" is when characters end up able to kill what is meant to be a recurring villain. I usually just make recurring villains powerful enough that the players CAN'T defeat them.

I did have a really, really close call once, though. The PC's were on a quest to find all of those major artifacts "something of whatever of evil," I don't feel like getting out my BoVD to remember the names. Those ones that grant pretty insane bonuses. One was being guarded on an upper plane by angels, one was in the lair of a dragon on the elemental plane of fire, and the last was on the ninth layer of hell in the possession of the most powerful devil in existence (the one in the BoVD). They only knew about the first two at this point. When they visited a diviner on the upper plane to find out where the second was, the recurring villain (who was with the party at the time) was able to steal the artifact from the angels, and rejoined the party as they traveled to the plane of fire. In the dragon's lair, while the PC's fought the dragon (which they absolutely stomped, that was entertaining) the villain ignored the battle and went straight for the artifact. The PC's put 2 and 2 together, and a couple attacked the villain as the rest finished off the dragon. However, as an epic level Shadowcraft Mage (gnome, worshiper of Shar, collecting the items for his deity) the party should have stood no chance. I had underestimated the players' luck and intelligence, failing to take the precautionary measures I should have as they entered the lair. The gnome was a hit or two from death because he was so preoccupied with finding the item. He was able to escape, barely, and I learned an important lesson regarding recurring villains.

[Aspenor]

On topic, I have a fairly easy job when I DM for my group. They really like parties of Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, [whateverclass]. There is only one guy there with a firm grasp of character optimization, and his grasp isn't supremely strong, he just listens to whatever I say (as opposed to the many that don't listen at all). We end up with spiked chain rogues, invisible blades, fighters with Monkey Grip, and clerics that heal a lot in combat. I never use published adventures, because coming up with my own stuff is more fun and gives a large degree of flexibility that a published adventure does not.

[sainy_matthew]

This is fairly subjective, it depends a lot on your group. I never really had to do it, because the only time I can think of needing to "cheat" is when characters end up able to kill what is meant to be a recurring villain. I usually just make recurring villains powerful enough that the players CAN'T defeat them.

Thats exactly the type of cheating i'm talking about. Story cheating. Steal a plot point, borrow a trap, utilise a literary voice/style from a favoured author, take a NPC from a work of fiction. Rules are a important frame work for the game, but story is the reason people keep on coming back.

I did have a really, really close call once, though. The PC's were on a quest to find all of those major artifacts "something of whatever of evil," I don't feel like getting out my BoVD to remember the names. Those ones that grant pretty insane bonuses. One was being guarded on an upper plane by angels, one was in the lair of a dragon on the elemental plane of fire, and the last was on the ninth layer of hell in the possession of the most powerful devil in existence (the one in the BoVD). They only knew about the first two at this point. When they visited a diviner on the upper plane to find out where the second was, the recurring villain (who was with the party at the time) was able to steal the artifact from the angels, and rejoined the party as they traveled to the plane of fire. In the dragon's lair, while the PC's fought the dragon (which they absolutely stomped, that was entertaining) the villain ignored the battle and went straight for the artifact. The PC's put 2 and 2 together, and a couple attacked the villain as the rest finished off the dragon. However, as an epic level Shadowcraft Mage (gnome, worshiper of Shar, collecting the items for his deity) the party should have stood no chance. I had underestimated the players' luck and intelligence, failing to take the precautionary measures I should have as they entered the lair. The gnome was a hit or two from death because he was so preoccupied with finding the item. He was able to escape, barely, and I learned an important lesson regarding recurring villains.

Ar yes, a reactionary villain. Been there done that. If you ever have this happen again, have the Villain step up his precautions next time round (especially if PC, spell casters have a tendency to use one sort of spell a lot).

I do love a reoccuring villain. Whats more PC's love to hate them. Collective hatred is a wonderful thing.

[sainy_matthew]

RHoD is poorly designed.

Um... define how. I'm seriously interested how you think its poorly designed. I personally thought it was a well written, very compelling & generally well built module (its also the general consensus among DM's/Players/amazon.com).

I would like to further explore your belief that RHoD is badly designed.

[Aspenor]

The environment: Cave. Ceiling height is 20' for the bulk of what you see. I will note if there is higher.
Number of encounters in the adventure: 20 creatures.
2 huge CR 7 Pit Vipers (cr3 with 4 levels of fighter trained into them). They are in a room that is 20' high and 30' wide. If they do not die in the first round, they flee deeper into the cave. Relevant stats each:
HP: 6d8+6+3d10+3. Between 18 - 87HP
AC:16 (they have dodge)
Base attack/grapple: +7/+18
Attack: Bite +9 melee 1d6+5 + poison (weap specialization bite)
Space/Reach: 15'/10'
Saves: F/R/W: 10/8/4
Everything else is base per the MM at SRD except all skillpoints went to spot (the purpose of these two are alerting)http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/snake.htm#viperSnake so their spot is around 9 or 10. They will have a free feat which I would be tempted to set and blind fighting for survival in the caves, but I could throw that to something else.

I might as well set up my defenses, as well. Before entering the cave, I cast my extended Mage Armor, Polymorph, and Greater Magic Weapon after the Polymorph. I take 10 on Knowledge (the Planes) to know about Dwarven Ancestors, MM4, exceed the check DC by 8 (5 HD outsider = DC 15). Before casting Polymorph, I take out my granite statue and place it on the floor, then use the command word to make it grow to large size. I cast Polymorph, and assume the Dwarven Ancestor's form. My Otherwordly feat makes me an outsider, thus I can assume the form of an Outsider using both Polymorph and Alter Self. My spirit as a dwarven ancestor inhabits the now Large sized statue. I am now Large, with a +18 Natural Armor bonus and DR 10/adamantine. My total AC is 30 (the ancestor is large and has 8 dexterity, so -1 dex, -1 size, +18 natural armor, and +4 armor from Mage Armor). I cast Greater Magic Weapon on the greataxe I hold, giving it a +2 bonus. I also gain a +7 to my fortitude save, because the Ancestor has a 28 constitution and I can still wear my +2 constitution necklace.

My attack bonus is:
3 Base + 6 Strength + 2 Enhancement Bonus - 1 Size = +10
My fortitude save is now +14
My reflex save is now +3
My Initiative is now +15
AC: 30
DR 10/adamantine
My damage rolls are 3d6 (Large Greataxe) + 6 (Strength) + 2 (Enhancement Bonus) = 3d6 + 8/x3
My Speed is 20 feet
My reach is 10 feet
I retain all my spellcasting abilities

Have I won, yet? Keep in mind, that, actually, just ONE of these snakes is meant to be an at-level encounter. Also, regarding the "flee if they don't die in the first round," the basis of victory was explicitly stated that once my victory is inevitable, the encounter is over. I could fight tons of these things and not break a sweat, they can only hit me on a 20, they can't deal damage except on a roll of 6 and thus cannot inflict poison (I must be injured to even save) and even if they could poison me, I pass my fortitude save on a 2.

I would also argue that, as an animal with an INT score of only 1, even a viper lookout would continually try to attack until it died. I'd, in fact, argue that vipers are not intelligent enough to have "lookouts."

[SquelchHU]

Wait... what? Whats wrong with MM2? Whats wrong with RHoD? Whats wrong with Paizo? Is there anything you do like? At all?

I'm assuming these are serious questions, and will respond accordingly.

First of all, MM2 (the entire thing) is just throwing random numbers at a page.

If I were to get a cat to sleep on my keyboard for a few hours, delete any non numerical keystrokes, and published THAT it would be more balanced than anything and everything in that book. This is the book where something with a mere +19 to hit, but is intended to be a melee combatant is tagged as 'level 19' and it is also the book in which a creature can do 60-150 damage with 100% accuracy no matter your saves is tagged as 'level 10'. Among many, many, MANY other examples. There isn't a **** thing in there that is at all usable, on any level.

Next, RHoD. First of all, most of the opposition here is low level humanoids. Like warrior 2s. The ones that aren't aren't much better (TWFers with no bonus damage for example). So, if that was all there was to it the result is that the encounters would be trivial to everyone. But it is not.

The campaign is meant to last 5-6 levels, starting at level 5. And, this all takes place within about 6 weeks of game time, because that's the timetable you have.

Over 5-6 levels, you're going to have to upgrade your gear quite a bit. How do you do that?

One of three ways:

1: You loot better gear from the cold dead hands of your foes.
2: You sell your vendor trash, and buy a useful item.
3: You sell your vendor trash and have someone craft a useful item.

The QUANTITY of gear in RHoD is just fine. However most of it is stuff like +1 shortswords, ring of protection +1... not likely to be an upgrade, not even when you start at level 5 with the standard 9k of gear. And it certainly will not be later. The number of quality items (as in, things you'd actually want to use) is rather low.

So, the first option is out.

The selection in the shops available in the area (which by the way, covers tens of thousands of square miles) is rather bad. You might get a few upgrades this way, but not many, or many good ones.

So, the second option is out.

Crafting isn't something you'll be able to get from NPCs very well. You could get it from PC casters, except that it is slow. An item that costs 10k gold would require 5k gold, 400 XP, and 10 days. Remember how you have a roughly 42 day time limit to complete the campaign? Yeah...

So it is clear from all of these points you will be unable to keep your gear at par. This, naturally favors those who are not that gear dependent (casters) while screwing over those who need constant upgrades to maintain relevance (everyone else).

So what will happen is you're carrying around all this vendor trash, or all this gold that you can't do anything meaningful with. And the game pretends you'll give it to the NPCs, but why? Not only is it adventuring suicide, most of em are manipulative jerkasses anyways. They also seem to think armies are relevant, just because a bunch of low level hobgoblins could kick their low level asses. But let's ignore that.

Because see, if it stopped there what would happen is you have easy encounters, with lots of Fake Difficulty for the already mook classes.

But that isn't what happens, because by the time the gear deficiencies become really apparent you stop fighting normal hobgoblins and start fighting real threats. Evil Outsiders, Magical Beasts, Undead, Dragons, Giants...

So what happens is the not so gear dependent classes are still fine, but the gear dependent ones are suffering from their inherent weakness and Fake Difficulty at the same time.

End result? Red Hand of Doom is so named because of the color of the shirt non casters will wear throughout it, due to it exasperating the preexisting problems with them.

And Paizo does the same thing, except far worse. They start off with the goal of fixing balance problems... then they make casters better and non casters worse. And that's if they have a clue at all, which they usually do not and that in turn is how they made a level 20 that's supposed to show off how awesome the Eldritch Knight is, yet fails practically all of the Same Game Tests HALF HIS LEVEL. Among many, many, many other things.

I could go on for many pages on exactly how and why Paizo fails, but I and others have already done it for me.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=211361

And use google.

As for killing recurring villains... Um, so what? Death is a status effect. Just because he's dead doesn't mean he'll STAY dead (and if the players do use something that makes him stay dead, let em have it).

[TheDjinnFor]

Eh, so make it a Spinagon and I fly 120 feet and do it, who cares? I can just cast the spell again, or I can use my Fly spell, if I discover my current form is inadequate to accomplish the task. The lack of limbs was an oversight, but it's fairly irrelevant to the discussion since I still have the resources to make it happen.

You're wasting a lot of spells covering up for your mistakes. Looks like you can't handle 16 encounters in a row, can you?

You need not stop to see magic auras. The first round means that it happens in the FIRST ROUND, meaning, it happens immediately and constantly as you move. If I were to stop, that would be the SECOND round. The idea that the spell only works on the action that I concentrate on it is idiotic. Rounds exist to give the game order, not to break it into 6 second parcels where the things you use only work in flashes.

You need to stop to see what kind of Aura it is. I was just illustrating that the only thing you can do on the first round is determine if magical auras exist. See what you can do on the third round, as per the description. For all you know it's an orc with a +1 longsword, or a generic magic potion. Unless you're going to waste time flying over there to check each and every magical aura out. You're running out of time...

It is all irrelevant now, anyway, as I made a minor adjustment to the character. Now I just cast locate creature or scrying if needed, twice if I have to. The simplest way would be to cast scrying, fly to the general area, then cast locate creature. The beauty is that I don't even have to have the spell in my book to cast it. In fact I could just eliminate all divinations from my book completely and still cast them whenever I want, spontaneously, sacrificing a spell of equal level.

Great, more splat book junk. Ooh, I can pick a feat you've never seen or experienced before as a DM to trivialize your adventure. Bravo. Don't get me started on non-core.

Plus, I like how your character is devoid of any logic or sense from a roleplaying perspective. A transmuter specialized outsider elf with instantaneous divination casting? What's your story on that one?

What you missed about the exercise is that your "story" does not prove anything except the fact that you missed the point. In fact, your setup even falls victim to "Bad Structure."

Bad structure my foot. I pulled it out of a campaign I ran not to long ago while the party was level 8. Like, literally, word for word. It's a 'typical adventuring day' for me, I dunno what you tend to run. I didn't change anything other than how many people were in the party, from four to one.

But you know, let's address your points, here:

A bad event-based adventure is marked by mandates restricting PC actions or is based upon events that happen no matter what the PCs do.

Which restrictions did I place on your actions? You could have done whatever you wanted, within realism. And no, flying around randomly looking for your ally is flying around randomly, looking for your ally, not a guaranteed "I'm going to find him and the vampire with the flick of my hand". That means roll the dice, buddy. Really, you could have abandoned the ally for all I cared, but that would have just proven my point, that you can't do everything at once.

Really, you could have just gone for the "vampire" right away if you wanted to. You decided that you were going to try and answer everything I posed at once without stopping to consider anything: you were going to dive right in without being cautious. Not my fault you're not very good at being a PC.

It's good to know the PC's capabilities, but you shouldn't design adventures that continually countermand or foil what they can do.

As a meta-gaming wizard-based character, you could have easily taken a divination spell here or there. For a roleplayer I'd be more forgiving, but it was your choice as a player to neglect information-gathering tools.

I'm not 'foiling what you can do'. Foiling what you can do would be like telling you that you're not allowed to learn a certain spell. If we're going to treat PCs like objects to be manipulated as the Player dictates and not real people, you better manipulate your PC pretty darn well or you're going to have to face failure.

You can fly around quite easily: notice how I still gave you distance-based time limits, even though you could trivialize them. You could deal with large numbers of enemies easily: notice how I still posed large numbers of enemies even though you could encounter-end them. You can't, however, gather information very well; no charms for influencing people, and no divinations for locating things. Oh well. That was the choice your PC made when you meta-gamed it, to suck at a lot of important things. Sometimes the villain wins, and you've got to deal with the result; so what if you the PC fails to stop the ally from stealing the holy artifact? What happens next?

Trying to trivialize that by changing your character around out-of-game is just as wrong, thanks.

You took a look at the daily adventuring spells, and purposely came up with things that you deemed required divination. That is bad structure. In situations such as this, if the players have the resources to make something happen, and they use them in a way that might make something happen, then it happens. Rule Zero'ing that it doesn't work is the mark of a poor, adversarial DM.

You want to use rules so you can trivialize anything I do as a DM? Okay.

You took a look at my quest, and purposely arbitrarily changed your character to trivialize it. This is bad roleplaying. In situations such as this, if the DM outlines a situation and through your choices (like the spells you're preparing) and actions (like flying around randomly) you 'fail' it, changing your character around now or in the future with feats or choices specifically designed to make the situations he presents you with trivial is the mark of a poor player.

I'm not giving you freebies. You want to say I took a look at your daily adventuring spells? I gave you an adventure that I would give any level 7 party: gather information, get to a place, and defeat an unknown foe, all under a time limit. Parties have done it before, and will do it again.

And besides, I haven't even talked about the villain. Don't you think he might try to influence the situation a little bit better than sitting around on the side-lines watching you defeat his challenges? No.

You've made it blatantly obvious that you are the pinnacle of Gygaxian philosophy.

Your method of play invariably leads to it. Tell me what I can do instead, then. What, you want me to give you challenges that you can trivialize with the wave of your hand? No. Instead, I'll play villains appropriately: assuming the villain knows who you are, d'you think he might make it hard for you to defeat him?

Also, neg repped for claiming ad hominem, and then resorting to using it. It's not my problem that you can't handle being told your design sucks, or that you completely missed the point of the exercise.

I changed the point of the exercise around to match the point I was trying to make (then baited you into it, but whatever). Which was: "You can't have your cake and eat it, too". I know what the point of the exercise was, thanks: I can read. You, on the other hand, are still missing the point I was trying to make. Or you're ignoring it, whatever.

At least I will admit when I made a mistake, and offer alternative options to fix it. The most laughable part of this is that having other characters around wouldn't increase my chances of success, even in the slightest, which is the point of the conversation at hand.

Oh really? Maybe you wouldn't have to be so specialized in destroying things if you could have just left a PC to organize the town defense and another to track down the ally (hint: after you scry him, of course)? Maybe you could have more spells that perform utility roles, instead of trying to do everything yourself. Instead you wanted to show how amazing casters were at encounter ending everything; sorry, doesn't actually apply in practice, as demonstrated.

The point is not intentionally trying to out wit me, but you obviously think that's your entire job as a DM.

Ha. Normally I would disagree, but when you task me with the responsibility of being your opponent while you meta-game and powergame your way through everything, then yes, that's the job that you, the player, have assigned to me.

On the other hand, if we were discussing player versus player on a grand scale with me as the facilitator, then things would be different. I could act as arbitrator, facilitator and judge. As it stands, you've given me the job of being your opponent, too, and I'll oblige if you'd like. Don't blame me when I meta-game as much as you are.

Just some stuff Squelch wrote:

For example the trick shot archer is not a workable concept

lol

Since when is your job as the DM to tell players what you think is right?

Correct. However the keyword is ARBITRARY. My changes were not arbitrary, but implemented for a specific and measured reason to correct a specific problem. Your changes are arbitrary. It's the difference between working on a car by deducing that the problem is with the engine, narrowing that down to the precise part of the engine and then fixing that part and working on a car by randomly banging on stuff.

You think your little 'fixes' actually do anything? You think you understand the problem at all? You barely understand why casters are overpowered. Increasing AC when you argue that AC is meaningless, and increasing HP when you argue that a caster's greatest strength is that they can just bypass it... those are supposed to fix things? No. They cover some of the problems, but they aren't the sweeping fix you claim them to be. They're spot-fixes, dealing with the symptoms rather than the problem.

Here's a hint: The designers assumed that mundanes would have the support and buffs of casters (even the weakest buffs at the highest levels) when they designed the CR system, and thus would be a lot more powerful than they normally are. When casters instead use their slots to encounter-end things or for self-centered reasons (i.e. alter self instead of bull's strength), they become a lot more powerful in combat, and the mundanes lose their support and become a lot weaker.

The trick is to expand the rules for what PCs can do on the mundane side (beyond just "ask your DM if you can swing on a chandelier as a charge attack") and give them inherent substitutes (beyond just "buy a magic item") for what magic provides at low and mid-levels, so that they aren't relying so much on casters for everything.

Which is also why the Same Game Test fails, because the CR system is balanced for a party that is more than the sum of their parts, where the party members complement each other. This is the only way to explain the gross difference between a caster CR 7 and a mundane CR 7 when fought in isolation.

Theoretically, casters enhance their mundanes to deal with typical foes, while the mundanes cover for the casters when they run out of spells (and before that, too, so that it never actually happens). Just because this doesn't happen in your campaigns doesn't mean it can't happen with other players and DMs (which it does), and how the system was designed to function.

Looks like you two still don't get it.

You call it rule Zero, at our table its called the "Don't be a ******-bag rule."

QFT.

If you really want to spam wish spells all day, let's just cut out the level 1 BS and start at level 40 with an all-caster party and go from there. If not every player wants to do that, well, someone has to compromise and not be the D-bag who spoils the fun for everyone else. If one guy wants to optimize and three people want to roleplay different archetypes, either the optimizer agrees to restrictions (like, roll randomly for the spells you learn, or use a non-caster class, or come up with a roleplay reason for his class choices) or he finds another group.

Once you recognize that it's the actions of the DM and the desires of the party that determines whether the group steers toward roleplaying or powergaming, you don't need to 'fix 3.5' and you don't have a problem 'challenging parties above level 4'.

[The_Mighty_Cube]

/

Let's take it down a notch and knock off the name calling / fighting. I'd hate to have to cast this one next

[SquelchHU]

So anyways, Djinn has a windmill in his beard.

As such, nearly everything he says can best be described as Giant Frog.

So I'm skipping right on past most of it.

Great, more splat book junk. Ooh, I can pick a feat you've never seen or experienced before as a DM to trivialize your adventure. Bravo. Don't get me started on non-core.

Non core is more balanced than core. Hi Welcome.

Plus, I like how your character is devoid of any logic or sense from a roleplaying perspective. A transmuter specialized outsider elf with instantaneous divination casting? What's your story on that one?

Lulz.

Bad structure my foot. I pulled it out of a campaign I ran not to long ago while the party was level 8. Like, literally, word for word. It's a 'typical adventuring day' for me, I dunno what you tend to run. I didn't change anything other than how many people were in the party, from four to one.

Just because you wrote it doesn't mean it isn't bad structure. In fact, given your history you are making his argument for him. But nice try.:

lol

Since when is your job as the DM to tell players what you think is right?

My job as the DM is to ensure things work. And if a given archetype is flat out NOT SUPPORTED, then the responsible thing to do is to tell them that.

You think your little 'fixes' actually do anything? You think you understand the problem at all? You barely understand why casters are overpowered. Increasing AC when you argue that AC is meaningless, and increasing HP when you argue that a caster's greatest strength is that they can just bypass it... those are supposed to fix things? No. They cover some of the problems, but they aren't the sweeping fix you claim them to be. They're spot-fixes, dealing with the symptoms rather than the problem.

AC is useless because you can't get enough of it. So unless you live in Djinn land that is a perfectly valid and focused solution. A melee's HP vanish like nothing because of the lack of AC yes, but also because they don't have much more at all. So giving them more is again a perfectly logical and focused solution. Unless you live in Djinn land where random orcs have +1 swords.

Here's a hint: The designers assumed that mundanes would have the support and buffs of casters (even the weakest buffs at the highest levels) when they designed the CR system, and thus would be a lot more powerful than they normally are. When casters instead use their slots to encounter-end things or for self-centered reasons (i.e. alter self instead of bull's strength), they become a lot more powerful in combat, and the mundanes lose their support and become a lot weaker.

Here's a hint: If buffs were worth a **** people would use them. +4 str for anything less than an hour a level is insulting, especially when it does not stack with common items and will therefore be replaced by the same later. +4 str for a minute a level is a waste of actions and resources. So if you want to whine about people not buffing the fighter go yell at whoever changed that from 3rd to 3.5.

Here's another hint: If melees need casters to prop them up, this makes them gimps because see, the casters don't need the melees and because see, teamwork requires all members be able to contribute.

And even from the perspective of the melee, it's still better the casters win encounters on the spot than throw out piddly little +2 to hit/damage effects... because guess what? That means the enemy gets a turn. And that is going to more than make up for any advantage some trivial short term buff gave.

The trick is to expand the rules for what PCs can do on the mundane side (beyond just "ask your DM if you can swing on a chandelier as a charge attack") and give them inherent substitutes (beyond just "buy a magic item") for what magic provides at low and mid-levels, so that they aren't relying so much on casters for everything.

Which is also why the Same Game Test fails, because the CR system is balanced for a party that is more than the sum of their parts, where the party members complement each other. This is the only way to explain the gross difference between a caster CR 7 and a mundane CR 7 when fought in isolation.

Facepalm. Shave the windmill out of your beard.

Theoretically, casters enhance their mundanes to deal with typical foes, while the mundanes cover for the casters when they run out of spells (and before that, too, so that it never actually happens). Just because this doesn't happen in your campaigns doesn't mean it can't happen with other players and DMs (which it does), and how the system was designed to function.

Looks like you two still don't get it.

So you've went from Giant Frog to lying?

[Aspenor]

/

Let's take it down a notch and knock off the name calling / fighting. I'd hate to have to cast this one next

so....much....win