Zereth posted:

Oh man, this got posted when I wasn't looking? I have something to share!

So. In D&D 3.5, there's various things which allow you to survive large amounts of negative HP, for a very short time. The Frenzied Berserker in particular allows you to survive literally infinite amounts as long as your rage holds out, I believe. There are assorted charop tricks which use this sort of thing, some sort of damage copying/transference or something to exploit it, and then fix the fact that you're in the millions or possibly literally infinite amounts of negative HP depending on what damage trick you used, by sticking the character's head in a bucket of water.

See, when you start drowning, the first step is that you fall unconscious and your HP is set to zero. Easy way to stabilize somebody: drown them! Then just pull them out once that happens and heal them up from zero!




There's just one small problem most of these people have overlooked: there are no rules for stopping drowning.


There you are. The mechanical effects of drowning. Once you begin drowning, you go to 0 HP and unconcious: Then you go to -1 HP the next round, then on the third round you drown. Absolutely nothing about any method of stopping this process, and if you're rolling with RAW poo poo like assuming that means yoru HP go UP to zero if they were lower, well.

In fact, since it doesn't say you die, we should go look up the rules for drowning to see what happens when you get to the third round! Let's see...

Oh right. Well. Apparently, drowning is not technically lethal, bu once you start you can never stop. You will be trapped in a horrible limbo of dying but unable to die forever.

And the Dead condition doesn't actually indicate it stops other ongoing conditions like this, so even if somebody kills you, you'll only know the peace of the grave until the next round at which point you either get stuck back in the "unconscious at 0 HP" or "dying" state.

No, this falls afoul of the same issue with the "drown yourself to recover from enormous amounts of damage" trick: the throwing rules don't care about momentum. The sufficiently long string of peasants hand the ball down the line long enough to achieve light speed, then the last one throws it using the normal throwing rules. It is, however, useful for other purposes as gnome7 already explained.

Otisburg posted:

I remember in my middle school AD&D campaign some dude played an alaghi fighter and just beat all the faces everywhere, till nary a face was unbeaten.

Rulebook Heavily posted:

A club costs 0gp, which multiplies into 0sp.

LightWarden posted:

3.5e has the Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords, a book designed to give fighting characters more awesome abilities divided amongst nine different schools of battle. One of these schools is Iron Heart, focusing on determination and weaponskill to achieve almost supernatural things.

One of those maneuvers is Iron Heart Surge.


There are lots of things you can use this maneuver for. Iron Heart Surge your way out of a debilitating spell, or maybe shake off a disease or poison. But what is an effect? Can you use Iron Heart Surge to end hunger or thirst? What about the infirmity of old age? Or poverty?

And it says that "that effect ends" not "that effect ends for you", so if you use it to shake off a spell cast on your whole group, it ends the spell entirely for everyone, not just relieving them of the effect for a round.

Well, Drow and Orcs are blinded by bright light, and dazzled if they linger in it. So if a drow in daylight uses Iron Heart Surge... daylight ends immediately.

Randalor posted:

Oh, it gets better than that. Part of the spell is "It appears where you designate and acts immediately, on your turn". It has a rather short range (25 ft +5 ft per caster level) but there's nothing saying it has to appear on the ground. Want to summon a whale 25 feet above your enemy's head? You can, and as it acts immediately, your opponent won't have time to get out from under it.

NGDBSS posted:

Alien Rope Burn posted:

DC 40? What kind of creature can make that kind of Strength check?

LightWarden posted:

Back to the D&D 3.X and its offspring, we have How To Get By (With A Little Help From Your Furry Friends).

Ariamaki posted:

Nope! Having a 0 is very distinct from having nothing at all, and so despite having the same "cost" in all functional terms, not even Richard (and not even in his Secret Lair) can let you make this swap.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Thanks to a clarification on the Pathfinder boards, tracking is separated into two skills: Knowledge (nature) lets you identify tracks, while Survival lets you follow tracks.

Therefore, it is possible to identify a set of tracks but be completely unable to follow them, or follow a set of tracks and be completely clueless as to what left them!

Pathfinder: "I'm tracking the wild... um... I ain't got no fuckin' idea. But it went thataway!"

oslacamo on associated classes posted:

Now the first matter we need to clear up it's associated class levels and non associated class levels. Basically, the books say that normally class levels add +1 CR on a 1 to 1 basis. However, if you're giving the monster class levels that don't play directly to their strengths (like giving wizard levels to a troll), then the CR only increases 1 by each 2 class levels, until the monster has as much non associated class levels as racial HD.

Problem is, how do you know that a class is associated or nonassociated with a certain monster? The troll for example. Giving it wizard levels sounds like a bad idea, at first, but let's look more carefully.

First just 2 wizard levels. It's stats get improved. Let's put the +5 at int so he gets 11 int and can cast 1st level spells. Scribe scroll isn't that useful, so we'll use the variant wizard that swaps it for a fighter feat. We'll get a bat familiar for a blindsense scout, or trade it for something else. Yes we can do that. The troll gets +17 hp from it's extra two HD, thanks to his fat con, +3 to his will save, that was pretty weak before, +1 BAB, and can cast two or three spells for some utility. Like grease to hold the party's cleric at bay while it closes in. It can also now use scrolls and wands, which he can afford with his NPC wealth.

Not too shabby, right? The troll has CR+1, but it's gained a series of considerable bonuses.

Now let's give it 6 wizard levels. It can now cast 3rd level spells( he gained two stats increase at 8th and 12th level, so let's increase his int to 13), so it can fly, see invisible opponents, become invisible himself plus plenty of other stuff. It also gained a good chunk of HP, two extra fighter feats total, +3 BAB total, +2 to ref and fort and +5 to will, and can now speak with his familiar. Plus trolls stats.

It's total CR is 8. If used properly, he's quite a challenge to the party.

And now a more extreme example, Tiny the stone giant wizard. He begins CR 8 and with 14 HD. Give him 14 wizard levels and now he's CR 15. But he casts as a wizard 14. With stone giant stats. And can pick up epic feats. And his ECL is 28, so he gets a buttload of money to spend in equipment!

So, my advice is, consider that all class levels are associated for normal monsters, and nonassociated for elite monsters. Tiny would make a great leader for a stone giant force, but a tribe made only of Tinys will just roll over the party. And once more, notice that nonassociated caps when you have as much class levels as racial HD, thus monsters without racial HD count everything as associated.

HitTheTargets posted:

Cheesemaking is chronomancy?

Bacon In A Wok posted:

Doing so doesn't make much sense, as the beholder is giving up the chance to hit you with several Save-or-Suck eyebeams in order to muck about with your battlefield position, but it can do it.

Grim posted:

In 3E you could apply the Multiheaded Template to Beholders I always thought that was pretty funny

Elfface posted:

Surely the best option is to declare someone to be a construct, then case a repair spell on them?

"Well, we can't afford a healer... take him to old Chuck's. He can fix anything, so long as he thinks it's a robot."

Zereth posted:

Yes, a peasant "railgun" moves it from one end to the other instantly, then the peasant throws it using the normal throwing rules. D&D 3.x doesn't care about momentum in anywhere except I think maybe flying rules.

Drowning yourself may not work, as there's nothing in the rules about stopping drowning, but let's not get into that again. Better to just get Regeneration somehow so we don't need to.

deadly_pudding posted:

That fireball would be really awesome, though?

Wizard: I target my FIREBALL in the center of our group.
Party: What the hell? You fuckin
Wizard:

Party: MAN I'M REALLY BURNIN IT UP *slam dunks a kobold from across the court*

Mors Rattus posted:

How does rear claw rake work, anyway? I've never seen a cat do a donkey kick.

kafziel posted:

Some sort of animate object?

Olesh posted:

Every creature, no matter how absurd it would be to actually use it, is technically capable of performing an unarmed strike, and even receives multiple attacks while doing so if its base attack bonus is high enough. A T-Rex, instead of using it's bite attack, is technically capable of instead ineffectually slapping an opponent three times a round for non-lethal damage.

Elfface posted:

Isn't that game Bunnies and Burrows, where a single flea-bite does 1hp damage to your 4hp bunny?

Nihilarian posted:

As i recall there was actually a weapon enchantment in 3.5 that let creatures with a bite attack and no hands wield a weapon in their mouth. I forget the book name but it was about aberrations and the enchantment was designed for Beholders?

Mors Rattus posted:

The main thing with longbows is that they were easily the best European ranged weapon pre-gun. It's just, you had to grow up using them to be any drat good at it. The English mandated at least one hour of longbow practice per week, IIRC, and used the thing regularly in daily life for a lot of peasants. It's why English longbows were a thing.

No one else put that level of effort into it. Crossbows were superior to normal European shortbows in just about every way but reload speed.

Comrade Koba posted:

Isn't the point of weapons that you don't want them to stop as soon as they touch your opponent?

Comrade Koba posted:

But if it activates on impact it won't ever enter the body, it would stop in mid-air with the point lightly touching the target.