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Locus Cosecant posted:I thought the Tratnyr was the thrown weapon of choice? Not that it's good, but. Last I checked that was the best option (though I'm not really familiar with Dark Sun's weapons) barring a throwing enchantment. Even then, tratnyrs require a Feat.
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| # ? Jul 19, 2011 03:48 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 12:43 |
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LightWarden posted:Well, isn't the best choice usually a two-hander with some sort of magical property that gives it the heavy thrown property? Though it sort of defeats the point of having your basic javelins and throwing axes. Yes, it usually is. Dwarven Thrower (Axe or Hammer), Hungry (Spear), Crashing (Hammer), and Farbond Spellblade (Light/Heavy Blade) are the four enchants concerned. And yeah, for thrown you basically need to burn a feat to get something decent, or use Javelins. They're rarely a good enough choice to work as a primary weapon. Sadly.
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| # ? Jul 19, 2011 06:00 |
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thatdarnedbob posted:An Elemental Hero's Handbook? I wonder what that could be? It's the Elemental Chaos version of the Shadowfell (Heros of Shadow) and Feywild (Heros of the Feywild) books. The developers are fairly obviously struggling with the splatbook problem of how to keep releasing new content without power creep or choice explosion. The idea of setting-themed rather than mechanically-themed (ie, Martial Power) is pretty nifty in terms of spreading the support around as needed (though HoS wasn't a really inspiring success in this regard). Similarly, from what we've seen of the bladesinger, regardless of anything else it's a pretty clever attempt to present a new way of playing a wizard without actually adding much in the way of new wizard powers. For heavy weapons: I think the top non-tratnyr option is the Drow Long Knife, which trades some damage and range for a +3 proficiency bonus. Though the main reason I remember it is that it can be used as an arcane implement, so might not be as good a deal for seekers.
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| # ? Jul 19, 2011 09:47 |
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Dedekind posted:It's the Elemental Chaos version of the Shadowfell (Heros of Shadow) and Feywild (Heros of the Feywild) books. It also makes it a lot easier for a DM to say "OK, we're going to do this kinda campaign -- here, everyone look at [THESE BOOKS] and pick something cool!"
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| # ? Jul 19, 2011 10:47 |
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Alasdair Crawfish posted:I'm kind of curious now how one would set up a research skill challenge "minigame" with actual strategy and such.
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| # ? Jul 19, 2011 12:11 |
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I'm doing a little CYOA for one my players who missed a game so that he can kind of catch up with some XP and treasure. Anybody got a favorite feywild monster or something like that that you're keen on? Just asking because I don't know a lot about the feywild and want to throw something neat in. I looked at the Monster Manuals but I might have missed something since I was just skimming.
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 17:11 |
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Overemotional Robot posted:I'm doing a little CYOA for one my players who missed a game so that he can kind of catch up with some XP and treasure. Anybody got a favorite feywild monster or something like that that you're keen on? Just asking because I don't know a lot about the feywild and want to throw something neat in. I looked at the Monster Manuals but I might have missed something since I was just skimming. Displacer Beast Pack Lord - http://www.wizards.com/dndinsider/c...nster&id=115673 Also, there's a adventure in this months dungeon for people stuck in the feywild, a maze and some encounters. Haven't had too much of a look, but might be worth investigating.
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 18:02 |
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Personally I really like the Displacer Beast (with Monster Vault stats). It's not only iconic, it also makes for a difficult battle with its large size, threatening reach, insane speed and the 50% miss chance. Plus it provides a nice opportunity to give out a Cloak of Displacement or Displacer Armor or other thematically appropriate item; I did that once when my players killed one and decided to skin it, and everyone was happy. e: two independent votes for Displacer Beast, that should close the deal. 
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 18:05 |
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I'll third displacer beasts. Every good D&D campaign should have at least one encounter with them.
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 18:33 |
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Just picked up the Dark Sun campaign guide because I need a little more desert in my life. But I'm wondering, how essential is the monster catalog? It gets referenced a lot in the main book so I imagine it's pretty much mandatory, but does it use the MM3 math?
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 19:26 |
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It has MM3 math and a lot of the background stuff you want for Sorcerer-Kings. It's really cool and worth the cash.
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 19:30 |
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gobbledygoat posted:Just picked up the Dark Sun campaign guide because I need a little more desert in my life. But I'm wondering, how essential is the monster catalog? It gets referenced a lot in the main book so I imagine it's pretty much mandatory, but does it use the MM3 math? Yeah, seconding the DSCC being good. Awesome resource with a ton of great monsters and it has stats (and more importantly, fluff) for all of the sorcerer-kings. If you're really into Dark Sun and plan to play a campaign for it, I'd suggest picking up the book. Honestly, even if you aren't running Dark Sun, and like to use pregenerated monsters, I'd suggest the creature catalog. It has some of the best designed monsters and it feels like a larger portion of the monsters are designed for paragon tier and up than most other books (cough, Monster Vault). Of course, this also means that if you are doing an adventure for 1-10 players you might not get as much out of the book. If you want to see what you're getting, you can, I think, list out all the monsters on the DND Insider Compendium (filtering by DSCC), even without a subscription, and it'll show you level/name/etc, just no stats. Personally, I rarely use monsters as written, preferring to use them only for inspiration so that I can surprise veteran players, but even so I've shamelessly stolen a few and changed nothing/little from the ones in DSCC.
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 20:28 |
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So I was browsing the product catalog and I noticed this little gem Jesus Christ they're printing a new Book of Vile Darkness
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 20:31 |
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And also whenever they reprint DS in 5th ed (or whatever) this loving map is going on my wall, so awesome.
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 20:39 |
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Fungah! posted:So I was browsing the product catalog and I noticed this little gem Alongside a film about it!
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 20:41 |
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gobbledygoat posted:Just picked up the Dark Sun campaign guide because I need a little more desert in my life. But I'm wondering, how essential is the monster catalog? It gets referenced a lot in the main book so I imagine it's pretty much mandatory, but does it use the MM3 math? Go ahead and get it. It uses MM3 math and is chock full of cool monsters you can port to any campaign, so even if you're not playing DS, you can get a lot of use out of it.
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 20:44 |
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Looks like I'm going with the displacer beast then! Also this Dungeon article is really helpful, thanks for linking it.
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 21:22 |
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rantmo posted:Alongside a film about it! Oh for gently caress's sake It's a lovely book guys stop doing anything with it
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 21:42 |
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Fungah! posted:So I was browsing the product catalog and I noticed this little gem Yes - but it's written by Rob Schwalb... who has written a decent number of good books. I don't expect him to get something spectacular out of a poo poo idea, but maybe it will be more than the previous editions.... right?
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 22:57 |
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The Book of Vile Darkness was an in-game object before it was a terrible, real book. They're probably not continuing the trend of the previous real book, but rather, simply using the ip for a suplement to support the movie.
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| # ? Jul 20, 2011 23:17 |
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The Book of Vile Darkness had rules for soul-eating unicorns. That alone makes it a great book.
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 00:31 |
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sicarius posted:Yes - but it's written by Rob Schwalb... who has written a decent number of good books. I don't expect him to get something spectacular out of a poo poo idea, but maybe it will be more than the previous editions.... right?
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 00:52 |
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They're still making that movie? The one where they had a contest to submit an
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 02:19 |
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I am planning on rolling up a Paladin for a new game. I wanted to give it a try and have never played one before. Is there any build I should avoid? I'd like to be able to do damage while being the primary defender.
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 02:46 |
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NinjaPete posted:I am planning on rolling up a Paladin for a new game. I wanted to give it a try and have never played one before. Is there any build I should avoid? I'd like to be able to do damage while being the primary defender. Strength paladins do better damage than Charisma paladins, but their mark sucks unless you take Mighty Challenge(or Blessed Strength for half-orcs).
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 02:59 |
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Endorph posted:The Book of Vile Darkness had rules for soul-eating unicorns. That alone makes it a great book. It also had corpse fuckin' and bestiality, that makes it a bad book Catastropost posted:The Book of Vile Darkness was an in-game object before it was a terrible, real book. They're probably not continuing the trend of the previous real book, but rather, simply using the ip for a suplement to support the movie. Yeah, I was more thinking that the book was so terrible that they'd want to just sweep it under the rug and forget the whole thing ever happened, in-game item or not Hey who knows, maybe Schwalb'll come up with something that doesn't seem like it was written by a creepy teenager
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 04:25 |
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Really Pants posted:I was just thinking about universal weapons the other day: 1d8 damage for all one-handed weapons, 1d10 for all two-handed weapons. +2 proficiency for simple weapons, +3 for martial, +3 and 1d10/1d12 damage for superior. Choose one weapon type and two properties, maybe three for superior. Then just call it whatever you want--longsword, warhammer, ball of angry rats on a long stick, whatevs Wasn't there some other system out there that basically made weapons a kind of SFX? I recall possibly reading something like that at one point... oh well! I was thinking: All weapons base damage is 1d6 one hand, 1d8 two hand
Properties could be:
Just a quick muckabout with that idea. edit: hold on, brutal 1 for three means no greataxe EVER. Unless, like how RPZip did, making high crit and brutal feats. Mewnie fucked around with this message at Jul 21, 2011 around 06:00 |
| # ? Jul 21, 2011 05:53 |
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You're overpricing the brutal property: brutal 1 averages an extra 0.5 points of damage per die rolled regardless of die size, and brutal 2 averages an extra 1 point. Increasing die size by one step from d6 to d8, d8 to d10 or d10 to d12 also averages an extra 1 point of damage per die rolled, so increased die size should be priced the same as brutal 2.
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 07:44 |
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NinjaPete posted:I am planning on rolling up a Paladin for a new game. I wanted to give it a try and have never played one before. Is there any build I should avoid? I'd like to be able to do damage while being the primary defender. Don't be a Strength Paladin unless you're a half-orc with Blessed Strength. That is pretty much the only way to build a Str Paladin to be a primary defender. Mighty Challenge really doesn't cut it since Paladins lean on sanction rather heavily when acting as the main defender.
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 07:59 |
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Mewnie posted:Wasn't there some other system out there that basically made weapons a kind of SFX? I recall possibly reading something like that at one point... oh well! There are probably more, but Gamma World uses the 4e rules and abstracts the weapons like that.
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 08:06 |
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J. Alfred Prufrock posted:Don't be a Strength Paladin unless you're a half-orc with Blessed Strength. That is pretty much the only way to build a Str Paladin to be a primary defender. Mighty Challenge really doesn't cut it since Paladins lean on sanction rather heavily when acting as the main defender. I have never met a DM who would not allow the Mighty Challenge bonus to apply to both Challenge and Sanction as the abilities are analogous apart from duration and application. I certainly allow it because watching a Straladin bull rush while screaming his god's name and marking a room full of enemies is awesome and I wish to reward awesome.
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 19:17 |
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For someone out of the loop, what did MM3 change about the way damage and numbers and math is calculated in the game regarding monsters?
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 21:59 |
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Monster damage went up. Monster defenses and HP went down. Fights are shorter and more dangerous with MM3 monsters.
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 22:03 |
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Thuryl posted:You're overpricing the brutal property: brutal 1 averages an extra 0.5 points of damage per die rolled regardless of die size, and brutal 2 averages an extra 1 point. Increasing die size by one step from d6 to d8, d8 to d10 or d10 to d12 also averages an extra 1 point of damage per die rolled, so increased die size should be priced the same as brutal 2. I think the reason its easy to overvalue because its an example of a really good mechanic. People HATE rolling 1s, and love rolling high numbers. So when you roll a 1, and then roll a high number, you get that little rush that people get when the win at gambling. This opposed to a strait +1 to damage feat, which people tend to forget they have, and never get the same rush.
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| # ? Jul 21, 2011 22:37 |
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PeterWeller posted:Monster damage went up. Monster defenses and HP went down. Fights are shorter and more dangerous with MM3 monsters. It made combat SO much better. Monsters can hit like a truck now and really make a striker nervous about getting hit. Also, for anyone interested, the live broadcast of my D&D game is once again live
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| # ? Jul 22, 2011 01:39 |
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OverloadUT posted:It made combat SO much better. Monsters can hit like a truck now and really make a striker nervous about getting hit. Awesome, watching it now.
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| # ? Jul 22, 2011 04:11 |
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OverloadUT posted:It made combat SO much better. Monsters can hit like a truck now and really make a striker nervous about getting hit. Is this one single combat seriously almost bordering on THREE HOURS 
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| # ? Jul 22, 2011 04:20 |
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Fenarisk posted:Is this one single combat seriously almost bordering on THREE HOURS 4e epic tier. A billion wacky status effects and off-turn actions means combat takes a stupidly long time. Three hours for a combat with so many enemy hitpoints (4 standards and 2 elites) is actually not bad though. This combat started last week (1 hour) and we're about to hit 2 hours this week. The combat is over, so that's 3 hours exactly.
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| # ? Jul 22, 2011 04:24 |
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Ulta posted:I think the reason its easy to overvalue because its an example of a really good mechanic. People HATE rolling 1s, and love rolling high numbers. So when you roll a 1, and then roll a high number, you get that little rush that people get when the win at gambling. This opposed to a strait +1 to damage feat, which people tend to forget they have, and never get the same rush. Yeah, technically even brutal 2 is slightly worse than increased die size (because when you crit, die size matters and brutal doesn't), but brutal 2 is more fun.
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| # ? Jul 22, 2011 05:08 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 12:43 |
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Thuryl posted:Yeah, technically even brutal 2 is slightly worse than increased die size (because when you crit, die size matters and brutal doesn't), but brutal 2 is more fun. On the other hand brutal 2 is more consistent than increased die size, and consistency favors the side with the upper hand (which should be the party in the vast majority of fights).
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| # ? Jul 22, 2011 05:11 |
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