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I always found the Pun-Pun nonsense annoying... but mainly because it hinges on an explicitly NPC-only ability from Forgotten Realms. Mind, Forgotten Realms for 3e / 3.5 tended towards garbage mechanics even by the standards of the WotC line. But, you know, Sean K Reynolds, whatareyougonnado.
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May 11, 2017 17:40
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gradenko_2000 posted:I think it's more a commentary on how 3e/d20 is played, i.e. as CharOp exercises, than on the thread itself. Yep. I was responding to Focacciasaurus Rex, not the thread in general. 90s Cringe Rock is right; that's a terrible selection of sources for that monstrosity. Think we all got our wires crossed. @Alien Rope Burn: Yep, Pun-Pun pisses me off for the exact same reason. It's seen as some giant failure when it's not meant for player use, and actually works just fine in play. Just again, teenage boys who can't keep it in their pants trying to outdo one another online. I'm curious to hear what stuff you thought was so mechanically bad from the 3e FR line, however.
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May 11, 2017 18:24
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PMush Perfect posted:If you backpedaled any harder, you could do the Tour De France. Being willing to listen to new information isn't backpedaling. And I've always been entertained by most charop. So I have no idea what you're talking about. But whatever you say, buddy.  Arivia posted:Yep. I was responding to Focacciasaurus Rex, not the thread in general. 90s Cringe Rock is right; that's a terrible selection of sources for that monstrosity. Think we all got our wires crossed. Of course you're going to wind up with something really weird if you toss all the templates ever onto something because a lot of the templates themselves are really weird. IT's why a lot of gm's don't trust 3rd party products in general, too little quality control and balance work. But without the context of "So what would something with every template ever even be like?" the Mortiverse strongly reads as that kind of dickwaving thing, especially with the name and fluff of the Mortiverse attached. "Oh man it's like as strong as the entire universe but it's an EVIL universe and is the strongest evil thing ever and-"... There's no space for it in an actual game. If it's meant seriously as some sort of cthulhu level cosmic horror, just have it eat 1d4 inspectors per round. Don't give it explicit abilities and giant bonuses. If it's just another goofy exercise, then chances are it will never show up in a serious game. 
Focacciasaurus_Rex fucked around with this message at 18:36 on May 11, 2017 |
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May 11, 2017 18:28
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Focacciasaurus_Rex posted:If it's meant seriously as some sort of cthulhu level cosmic horror, just have it eat 1d4 inspectors per round. Don't give it explicit abilities and giant bonuses. If it's just another goofy exercise, then chances are it will never show up in a serious game. I too become angry when people enjoy a thing in a different way than I do. It's like they don't understand that there is one correct way to approach these things.
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May 11, 2017 18:43
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Gambor posted:I too become angry when people enjoy a thing in a different way than I do. It's like they don't understand that there is one correct way to approach these things. That's not the part that annoyed me.
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May 11, 2017 18:45
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I find Pun-Pun fun because it's a pure exercise is messing around with the rules. Sure, it's nothing that you'll ever see in a real game, and it's not something the designers could have really planned for (though elements of the scheme are broken on their own). It really has no place in balance discussions. It's just a fun "what do the rules technically allow you to do?" exercise.
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May 11, 2017 18:46
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JackMann posted:I find Pun-Pun fun because it's a pure exercise is messing around with the rules. Sure, it's nothing that you'll ever see in a real game, and it's not something the designers could have really planned for (though elements of the scheme are broken on their own). It really has no place in balance discussions. It's just a fun "what do the rules technically allow you to do?" exercise. But it doesn't even work reading the actual text. It doesn't follow how Serpent Kingdoms is set up, or what that book is doing. It's based off of an intentionally bad reading complete with ignoring large sections of the text and basic logic. It's the height of the idiotic 3e charop community ignoring everything that isn't rules text they can twist to their benefit, including the actual narrative of the game in general. That stupid fluff versus crunch view haunted 3e and we can do so much loving better as adults than that.
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May 11, 2017 18:51
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Arivia posted:But it doesn't even work reading the actual text. It doesn't follow how Serpent Kingdoms is set up, or what that book is doing. It's based off of an intentionally bad reading complete with ignoring large sections of the text and basic logic. It's the height of the idiotic 3e charop community ignoring everything that isn't rules text they can twist to their benefit, including the actual narrative of the game in general. Yes, it's an exploration of what the rules technically allow. The point isn't to make a character to play in a game, the point is to see what you can do within the framework of the rules as written. It also doesn't make sense that dunking your head in water would heal you, but the rules are written in such a way that corner cases exist in which that is what a strict application will do. Like sure, you can argue that no reasonable DM will allow it in a game or that it's not how that power is intended to be used, but since neither of those things are the point you may as well complain that the character isn't an elf. Focacciasaurus_Rex posted:That's not the part that annoyed me. My bad, it sounded like the part that bothered you was when people put a bunch of stuff together to see what stupid thing they can do with the rules and came up with a thing made out of absurd numbers and silly "I win, you lose" statements. What was it that annoyed you?
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May 11, 2017 18:59
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JackMann posted:I find Pun-Pun fun because it's a pure exercise is messing around with the rules. Sure, it's nothing that you'll ever see in a real game, and it's not something the designers could have really planned for (though elements of the scheme are broken on their own). It really has no place in balance discussions. It's just a fun "what do the rules technically allow you to do?" exercise. Arivia posted:But it doesn't even work reading the actual text. It doesn't follow how Serpent Kingdoms is set up, or what that book is doing. It's based off of an intentionally bad reading complete with ignoring large sections of the text and basic logic. It's the height of the idiotic 3e charop community ignoring everything that isn't rules text they can twist to their benefit, including the actual narrative of the game in general. That stupid fluff versus crunch view haunted 3e and we can do so much loving better as adults than that. That's just how most high-end CharOp stuff goes, both of you. It's stuff that's interesting or funny to think about, but most GM's wouldn't allow it as a regular thing. Maybe once off as a stunt. If they did, it would probably result in some kind of death spiral. The problem is where to draw the line, and that's a different debate entirely. It's rules as written, but not really rules as intended. My theory is it's an artifact of 3.x's simulationist bent. When everything has to have rules, simple rules bloat means a few are going to interact in unexpected ways. I also think PunPun is fun, so take that as you will. Gambor posted:My bad, it sounded like the part that bothered you was when people put a bunch of stuff together to see what stupid thing they can do with the rules and came up with a thing made out of absurd numbers and silly "I win, you lose" statements. What was it that annoyed you? I didn't know it was an exercise in template stacking to see what would result. The sources I had encountering it presented it as a completely sincere attempt to make some sort of thing that could kill anything in 3.x, out of whole cloth. The part that annoyed me was simply how pointlessly strong and edgy it looks without the template stacking context I was previously lacking. It came across as just "My imaginary monster can beat up your imaginary monster, and has an invisible bullet deflecting shield." where it just came across as pointless godmoding. The kids these days call it "Cringe", I think? It has no practical use, and I wasn't aware that it occupied the theoretical niche it does. Keep in mind this was also like a decade ago and I hadn't really heard of it gain until now so
Focacciasaurus_Rex fucked around with this message at 19:12 on May 11, 2017 |
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May 11, 2017 18:59
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Focacciasaurus_Rex posted:It's rules as written, but not really rules as intended. My theory is it's an artifact of 3.x's simulationist bent. When everything has to have rules, simple rules bloat means a few are going to interact in unexpected ways.
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May 11, 2017 19:08
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I always found the Pun-Pun nonsense annoying... but mainly because it hinges on an explicitly NPC-only ability from Forgotten Realms. Arivia posted:Yep. I was responding to Focacciasaurus Rex, not the thread in general. 90s Cringe Rock is right; that's a terrible selection of sources for that monstrosity. Think we all got our wires crossed. As for the issues with the 3E FR line, the fact is that the FR books have a disproportionate number of feats/prestige classes/spells that were either mechanically crap (caster PrCs with half casting access, martial PrCs with a trickle of small bonuses and nothing else, many of the regional feats) or wildly powerful (3.5 Incantatrix, Greenbound Summoning, Magelord). But that's not a problem with FR in particular; rather, it was an issue with how 3E's own designers didn't quite "get" their own game at first, and only later got a handle on how to design well for it. Compare and contrast, say, Sword and Fist with Tome of Battle. So the way this ended up applying to the 3E FR line was that those books disproportionately came out in the early years of 3E, when the designers were still kinda stumbling blind and publishing stuff like Cavelord (hilariously tepid and unattractive) in the same book as Shadowcrafter (full casting plus buffs to an already versatile class of spells).
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May 11, 2017 19:11
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NGDBSS posted:As for the issues with the 3E FR line, the fact is that the FR books have a disproportionate number of feats/prestige classes/spells that were either mechanically crap (caster PrCs with half casting access, martial PrCs with a trickle of small bonuses and nothing else, many of the regional feats) or wildly powerful (3.5 Incantatrix, Greenbound Summoning, Magelord). But that's not a problem with FR in particular; rather, it was an issue with how 3E's own designers didn't quite "get" their own game at first, and only later got a handle on how to design well for it. I wish pathfinder did more to fix the fullcaster supremacy gap.  Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Sounds interesting. Maybe there should be a thread for that. I know.  . It's just an explanation for why Murphies happen, especially in 3.x. Calm down.
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May 11, 2017 19:24
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Focacciasaurus_Rex posted:I didn't know it was an exercise in template stacking to see what would result. Kurieg posted:I know at some point in the past I made some dumb giant effortpost on this monster that someone applied every single template they could find to resulting in an instant death aura measured in observable universes, but I can't find it now. It'd be perfect for this thread. 
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May 11, 2017 19:27
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There's a difference between 'monster composed entirely of dumb templates on purpose' and 'the monster maker wanted something strong but got there through careless template abuse'. I can see the meaning now but misread that in my annoyance. Sorry for getting annoyed at a decade old DnD thing I had the wrong idea about. I will go say twenty Hail Pelors later. Now can put the pitchforks and torches down and post about Murphies again?  To help get the thread back on track, and due to a clause in the OP, I'm going to post a murphy. It's not a super great one, but it's the best I can come up with that hasn't been mentioned before. 3.5. Complete Warrior. Gnomish Giant Slayer. Presents itself as a class meant to deal with larger enemies, and while it has a few abilities that work off of differences in size class, what it mostly does is make you better at fighting the giant subtype. You can still get your benefits, even if you grow yourself, shrink the giant, or even both so you're now larger than the giant. You can also always move through the square of something three size classes larger than yourself, while the gnomish giant slayer can do it with things two size classes larger. Which can lead to the weird situation of having a large guy be in your way, such as through a tunnel or doorway they are in front of, but suddenly being able to get through if you enlarge them somehow. And even having to fear opportunity attacks less because being oversized carries a heavy accuracy penalty, so the one or two they might get are likely to miss and depending on class might have killed you in one hit in the first place. Just another weird case where casting buffs on the enemy can actually help you.
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May 11, 2017 19:52
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Arivia posted:But it doesn't even work reading the actual text. It doesn't follow how Serpent Kingdoms is set up, or what that book is doing. It's based off of an intentionally bad reading complete with ignoring large sections of the text and basic logic. It's the height of the idiotic 3e charop community ignoring everything that isn't rules text they can twist to their benefit, including the actual narrative of the game in general. That stupid fluff versus crunch view haunted 3e and we can do so much loving better as adults than that. I'm just going to ask again: why do you read this thread when you literally hate the concept? The entire point of the thread is dumb crunch interactions and why they don't line up with the fluff.
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May 11, 2017 19:54
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Because someone has to remind us that Elminster is a good character, actually.
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May 11, 2017 19:56
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NGDBSS posted:As for the issues with the 3E FR line, the fact is that the FR books have a disproportionate number of feats/prestige classes/spells that were either mechanically crap (caster PrCs with half casting access, martial PrCs with a trickle of small bonuses and nothing else, many of the regional feats) or wildly powerful (3.5 Incantatrix, Greenbound Summoning, Magelord). But that's not a problem with FR in particular; rather, it was an issue with how 3E's own designers didn't quite "get" their own game at first, and only later got a handle on how to design well for it. Compare and contrast, say, Sword and Fist with Tome of Battle. So the way this ended up applying to the 3E FR line was that those books disproportionately came out in the early years of 3E, when the designers were still kinda stumbling blind and publishing stuff like Cavelord (hilariously tepid and unattractive) in the same book as Shadowcrafter (full casting plus buffs to an already versatile class of spells). Essentially this, there were classes like the Nar Demonbinder with a non-standard spell progression, the Incantatrix, templates like the Mineral Warrior... compared to a lot of underwhelming stuff like most of the regional feats. The thing is that Forgotten Realms had a lot of weird concepts they were trying to often squash into the d20 rules set and they weren't always particularly elegant in how they went about it, and so they bent a lot of the system conceits to do so, and so you get a number of elements that let you end-run around normal progression or dominate the game even without going to charop levels of nonsense. Or, yeah, stumbling into something that looks exciting to play, like a giant-killer, but then discovering your class abilities will not save you from the high attack bonuses and damage of a giant for long... if at all. That sort of thing.
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May 11, 2017 20:09
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As someone who only came into D&D in late 3.5, what do you mean by a "regional feat" ?
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May 11, 2017 20:30
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A feat that can only be taken by someone from a specific region. They were all garbage, to the extent that even if you got them for free for some reason they really weren't worth taking.
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May 11, 2017 20:37
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Loxbourne posted:As someone who only came into D&D in late 3.5, what do you mean by a "regional feat" ? Basically backgrounds, but they cost a feat. It was usually something like "+1 Farming and Knowledge: Nature", which was balls even compared to the core book's garbage tier.
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May 11, 2017 20:41
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SirPhoebos posted:Basically backgrounds, but they cost a feat. It was usually something like "+1 Farming and Knowledge: Nature", which was balls even compared to the core book's garbage tier.
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May 11, 2017 21:04
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PMush Perfect posted:Hey, now, PHB had Craft Wondrous Item, Quicken Spell, Scribe Scroll, and Spell Penetration! What more could an effective character need? compared to the core book's -garbage tier-.
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May 12, 2017 02:07
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PMush Perfect posted:Hey, now, PHB had Craft Wondrous Item, Quicken Spell, Scribe Scroll, and Spell Penetration! What more could an effective character need? Perhaps I could tempt you with... 3 more HP? 
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May 12, 2017 02:08
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I remember when they came out with the successor feats for toughness I made a character named Cookie who took nothing but those feats, just for the pun.
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May 12, 2017 03:17
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Focacciasaurus_Rex posted:I don't mind char op or other dumb stuff, I just don't like the Mortiverse specifically. I think it crosses the line from fun dumb to irritating dumb. Much like many of the guys in the catpiss thread themselves. But the sites I'd seen it on never mentioned that it was just a pile of templates, they just presented it straight as some crazy ubermonster. So if that's the origin then that's less irritating? Focacciasaurus_Rex posted:But whatever you say, buddy. Focacciasaurus_Rex posted:There's a difference between 'monster composed entirely of dumb templates on purpose' and 'the monster maker wanted something strong but got there through careless template abuse'. I can see the meaning now but misread that in my annoyance. emoticons and say "Whoops I was wrong! I thought it was this other thing. Sorry for being a tool!" People will respect you more.marshmallow creep posted:I remember when they came out with the successor feats for toughness I made a character named Cookie who took nothing but those feats, just for the pun.
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May 12, 2017 10:50
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Splicer posted:When you make an rear end of yourself by being wrong, don't "apologise" while trying to imply that it's the people who called you out are the dumb ones for calling you out. Next time ditch the Sincerity is difficult when it's returned with hostility. And I really just want to derail the thread as little as possible. Focacciasaurus_Rex fucked around with this message at 11:31 on May 12, 2017 |
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May 12, 2017 11:23
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Focacciasaurus_Rex posted:Sincerity is difficult when it's returned with hostility. And I really just want to derail the thread as little as possible. Here's the secret to not derailing threads: stop trying to get the last word in.
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May 12, 2017 11:53
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Splicer posted:Were there ever any HP multiplier feats or were they all additive? Toughness in 3e core was +3 HP Complete Warrior had Improved Toughness, which gave you 1 HP per Hit Die, with a prereq of a +2 Base Fort save. The Epic Level Handbook had Epic Toughness, which gave you +20 HP Player's Guide to Faerun had Dauntless, which gave you +5 HP. You could only take it once, and only at level 1, but it did stack with Toughness. It's one of those [Regional] feats that were mentioned: quote:Prerequisite: Dwarf (the Galena Mountains, the Smoking Mountains, Turmish, Underdark [Earthroot], or Underdark [Old Shanatar]), human (Damara, the Great Dale, Impiltur, or the Moonshae Isles), lizardfolk (Surkh), orc (Amn, Chessenta, or Vaasa), or slyth (Underdark [Fluvenilstra]).
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May 12, 2017 12:16
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The dumbest regional feat choice I ever saw: Forgotten Realms have a couple halfling variants; one, the strongheart halfling, takes the 3.x halfling's +1 bonus to all saves and trades it in for a bonus feat at first level. Not a bad deal, right? ...Unless, of course, you immediately spend your bonus feat on a regional feat for your starting location that...gives +1 to all saves.
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May 12, 2017 12:43
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Caltrops are weird. "Caltrops. As an action, you can spread a single bag of caltrops to cover a 5-foot-square area. Any creature that enters the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or stop moving and take 1 piercing damage. Until the creature regains at least 1 hit point, its walking speed is reduced by 10 feet. A creature moving through the area at half speed doesn’t need to make the saving throw." Of course, the rules do not actually state any limits, such as distance or line of sight or gravity to where you can make the caltops appear. Or any rules to remove them. Sprinkle them in the square directly above your head to ward against oncoming pixies and they'll just hang there. Or on a hated enemy's chair, while you're halfway across town. It's fine, they'll be there for all time. Line of sight and line of effect are for archers and spellcasters. Then there's the strangeness about what actually qualifies the caltrop "attack" to trigger. Depending on edition, it's either just entering the square, in which case remaining in the square regardless of how much footwork you're doing in it won't endanger you further, or remaining fighting while standing in the square, but fighting while prone, dancing and lovemaking are all fine. I guess violence angers the caltrops? Mounts of all sorts (magic carpets?) with a ground clearance of noticeable less than 5' will also subject you, personally, to the caltrops. And that's not going into all the potential arguments of how caltrops interact with large targets who occupy multiple squares. Caltrops are weird. Poops Mcgoots posted:Here's the secret to not derailing threads: stop trying to get the last word in.  Splicer posted:Were there ever any HP multiplier feats or were they all additive? There were no multiplicative HP feats as far as I can recall. They were all flat bonuses. I'd argue that if it would increase your hit points by at least 5%, it is comparable to a +1 to ac or reflex saves given how d20 math works out. Or at least SHOULD be, but it doesn't work out like that in practice. 3.x had huge problems with instant death of various forms, including full attack spreads that would drop even a heavily armored fighter in one round. Focacciasaurus_Rex fucked around with this message at 13:07 on May 12, 2017 |
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May 12, 2017 13:03
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Not all of the regional feats were garbage. Otherworldly was incredible to take if you qualified because it made you a Native Outsider. Now, the game has always treated this as being a big deal, because now things like Charm Person don't work on you. On the other hand, there aren't that many X Person spells around, and some of them are buffs (like Enlarge/Reduce Person). What you really need to look at is are the features and traits of Native Outsiders. Features (skill points, saves, BAB, and Hit Die) don't really matter because you're advancing through class levels. A lot of the traits go away with the Native subtype, so you need to eat and sleep, and can be raised from the dead. You do get the darkvision 60' that comes with the package, and the Otherworldly feat mentions it. What it forgets is that weapon and armor proficiency are traits. This means that every Outsider, regardless of where it came from, what sort of life it's led, how it advances, is proficient in all simple and martial weapons, plus any other weapons or armor it's described as wearing. We'll ignore the latter part, since it's meant for descriptions in the monster manual. So, with one feat, you get immunity to a couple of spells, darkvision, and proficiency with all martial weapons. Granted, there are more powerful options for a wizard. But if you want to play any sort of a gish, this can cut an otherwise useless level of fighter out of your build.
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May 12, 2017 19:07
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Didn't genasi get that trait normally? I forget if FR gave them a level adjustment. If so, they're probably still worse because literally all LA races are bad compared to having that extra level.
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May 12, 2017 19:10
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JackMann posted:Not all of the regional feats were garbage. Otherworldly was incredible to take if you qualified because it made you a Native Outsider. There aren't a lot of more powerful options for a wizard, because being an outsider unlocks a ton of good stuff for Polymorph and Alter Self
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May 12, 2017 19:14
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I always found the Pun-Pun nonsense annoying... but mainly because it hinges on an explicitly NPC-only ability from Forgotten Realms. What's everyones opinion on LOL-R-SK8 the Human Wizard
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May 12, 2017 22:11
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Oh, yeah, he's mostly mystic theurge and loremaster
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May 12, 2017 22:12
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Under the vegetable posted:What's everyones opinion on LOL-R-SK8 the Human Wizard
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May 12, 2017 22:29
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Under the vegetable posted:What's everyones opinion on LOL-R-SK8 the Human Wizard I don't know this one... but if it's sufficiently amusing, it'll show up next time I run Paranoia.
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May 12, 2017 23:05
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Under the vegetable posted:What's everyones opinion on LOL-R-SK8 the Human Wizard I don't know it, can you explain?
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May 12, 2017 23:07
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Found here. If memory serves, this took about as much effort as a master's thesis
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May 13, 2017 00:00
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Someone ran a tournament for epic level 3.5 characters once and lol-r-sk8 easily beat a full tournament bracket of charop mostrosities specifically designed to be unkillable pc murderers
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May 13, 2017 00:05
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