WAY TOO MUCH healing in 3E!
Halaster Blackcloak
conversations, but this weekend I've been looking closer at 3E and
trying to make a final decision as to how I feel about it. I saw the
thread here about changing spells, and I decided to post something
about the overabundance of healing in 3E.
Not only is there way too much healing allowed, but healing is also
toughened up. Healing spells do MUCH more than they used to. Let's take
a look at a cleric at 15th level with the healing domain (I used
higher level cleric to make a point).
He has the following # of spells:
(6) Orisons, (5) 1st, (5) 2nd, (5) 3rd, (4) 4th, (4) 5th, (3) 6th, (2)
7th, (1) 8th. He also gets an additional healing spell at each level
for having the healing domain. Ummm...can a cleric double up on a
domain? If so, that's even worse, but I saw nothing that told me
doubling up on a domain (for example, two healing domains) is not
allowed. For purposes of this argument though, we'll assume he can't.
Ok, so said cleric takes all 6 orisons as Cure Minor Wounds because the
other orisons are really not that important, and you can always have a
druid or another cleric take them. So that gives us 6 pts. healing for
that day. Total = 6 pts.
For his 1st level spells, he takes Cure Light Wounds twice, leaving him
3 slots for other types of spells, not a bad amount at all. He does
1d8+5 pts healing with each. That comes to (averaging a roll of a 4 on
d8), 9 pts. each. Add his healing domain and we get an additional 9
pts. Total= 27pts.
For his 2nd level he takes Cure Minor Wounds twice, again leaving him
with 3 other spells for various effects. Average is 2d8+10 = 18 pts.
along with his domain spell, he totals 54 pt. total.
For his 3rd level spells, he again picks two of them as healing spells,
memorizing Cure Serious Wounds this time. So, 3d8+15 = 27 pts.,
multiplied twice plus a third for his domain and we get a total of 81
pts.
Looking at 4th level spells, he decides to memorize just one healing
spell, leaving him 3 other spells of different uses in keeping with his
past selection. So he memorizes Cure Critical Wounds once, plus his
domain. That comes to (4d8+15)x 2= 62 pts. total.
For his 5th level spells, he again only memorizes ONE healing spell,
plus his domain. And here he only NEEDS to pick one, because when the
team regroups to heal, he does 1d8+15 to EACH of them, using one single
spell! TWICE because of his domain! So, that's an average of 19x2= 38
pts. TO EACH CHARACTER ON THE TEAM!
At 6th level, he picks just one healing spell, which leaves him two
powerful spells of 6th level for other uses. Taking Heal, he can now
restore a PC to full health and hp each day. Ummm...make that TWO PCs
each day because of his domain.
No healing spells availaible at 7th level, but you can be damn sure
he's taking the ultra-powerful Mass Heal for his 8th level spell!
TWICE, actually, because it's his domain! With this, he heals the
ENTIRE TEAM to FULL HP, not once, but TWICE a day!!!
So, overall, that gives this powerful cleric the ability to heal 230
pts of healing a day on average, IN ADDITION to the fact that he can
heal TWO characters to FULL hp each day using Heal, and heal THE ENTIRE
PARTY of an ADDITIONAL 38 pts. each day using Healing Circle, and hell,
if that ain't enough, then he can heal ALL of the characters of ALL
damage TWICE a day using Mass Heal!
So if the team has say 5 members (the cleric, two fighter types, a
wizard and a rogue), he heals EACH of them to full health TWICE each
day (Mass Heal), he heals TWO of them to full health an additional time
each day (Heal), he heals EACH of them for an additional 38 pts. each
day (Healing Circle), PLUS he has 230 freakin' hps to pass around ON
TOP OF ALL THAT! And that's ON TOP OF the 15 pts. of healing (or should
I just call it "regeneration"?) that each team member does naturally
each day. Why they would ever need bed rest to heal while they have GOD
ALMIGHTY on their team is beyond me, but if they decided to, they could
all also get some bed rest and heal 22 pts. for the day instead of a
mere 15 pts.
And if that isn't enough trouble, the god-cleric can swap out each of
his other memorized spells as needed, which AT LEAST doubles all these
#s. So rack that up from 230 to 460 hps healed each day, etc, etc.
I ask you...why do we even bother with damage? Why not just rename
it "Dungeons and Immortals"? (The "dragons" are gone, slain by the
perpetual healing machines called PCs).
Keeping in perspective that a typical average fighter at 15th level
will have (in 3E, starting with max hp) a total of 80 hp, and that
other classes have much less, and you begin to see that short of
killing off PCs straight away, they'll never be challenged by the
prospect of death. You no longer have the possibility that they have to
retreat and perhaps even give up...either they die straight off, or
they never get defeated.
The god-cleric above has the ability to restore to full hp, every
member of the party at least 3 or 4 times EACH day. Hell, assuming an
average charcter of each class of the team members (2 fighters, a
cleric, a rogue, a wizard), and each averaging their hp rolls of a
minimum of half (fighters average 5 on d10, etc), the team has a total
of 304 hp.
If by some miracle the DM manages to destroy on of these super-
regenerating killing machines, it doesn't even matter if he's
disintegrated and his ashes cast to the wind. Because NOW we have a new
spell called True Resurrection, and now you dont' even need a scrap of
the body to use it, nor does the person lose a level or a CON point or
even memorized spells! That's another ridiculous thing...when you die,
you no longer lose memorized spells in most cases.
Unreal. I'm sorry, but 3E is powergaming in my eyes. This amount of
healing is ridiculous, and un-needed. No cleric, even at 15th level,
shoudl be able to heal his entire team to full health 3 or 4 times a
day! It seems to me by looking at a lot of other spells, it's all about
power escalation. Oh shit! I forgot the death's door rule! Well, that
just lowers the likelihood of anyone ever dying a bit huh? Why in the
Nine Hells would you NEED a death's door rule with all this healing
power? I mean, come on! Lord, I also forgot bonus spells for high
wisdom (which all 15th level clerics shodl have since they can gain a
point of WIS every 4 levels automatically). Let's try not to even think
about adding more spells, shall we? I'm burnt on all this math of these
godlike beings. ;-)
In comparsion, a 2E cleric of the same level picking the same # of
healing spells (and he doesn't get extra domains) would get:
CLW: 1d8 x 2 = 8
CSW: 2d8+1 x 1 = 9
CCW: 3d8+3 x 1 = 15
Plus 1 Heal
------------
Total healing per day: 32 pts. Plus healing ONE character to full hp
once a day. Quite a bit weaker than his godlike 3E cousin, huh? I mean,
we go from 32 pts. of healing a day to 230 pts. We go from Healing ONE
PC to full hp a day to healing EVERY PC to full hp TWICE a day, and tow
MORE PCs to full hp twice again each day, etc, etc, etc.
And the weaker 2E charcters only heal 1 hp per day, 3 hp with bed rest
compared to 15 hp or 22 hp of their 3E cousins. Also consider that 3E
characters start with max hp, and that they keep rolling for hp above
10th level, unlike 2E where it tops off at 9th, and you're now looking
at god-characters.
No, to me this isn't even D&D anymore. It's some sort of high-level
video game where characters have unlimited healing and resurrection
ability.
--
Halaster Blackcloak
"Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
home."
"Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
db...@tampatrib.com
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Ummm...can a cleric double up on a
> domain? If so, that's even worse, but I saw nothing that told me
> doubling up on a domain (for example, two healing domains) is not
> allowed.
To me, "Choose two domains" means to choose two, not to choose one and
pick two spells per level per day from it.
> No, to me this isn't even D&D anymore. It's some sort of high-level
> video game where characters have unlimited healing and resurrection
> ability.
Yeah, you complained about this before. I'll give you the same answer
as before. Good thing there are no monsters that paralyze, charm,
petrify, grapple, ensnare, age, drain or capture the players rather
than merely slash them. And, your clerics may need those spells seeing
as how the dragon that formerly had 17d8 hit points now has 25d12+150
and is +36 to hit.
-- at no extra charge
The Sigil
> > No, to me this isn't even D&D anymore. It's some sort of high-level
> > video game where characters have unlimited healing and resurrection
> > ability.
>
> Yeah, you complained about this before. I'll give you the same answer
> as before. Good thing there are no monsters that paralyze, charm,
> petrify, grapple, ensnare, age, drain or capture the players rather
> than merely slash them. And, your clerics may need those spells seeing
> as how the dragon that formerly had 17d8 hit points now has 25d12+150
> and is +36 to hit.
>
> -- at no extra charge
You forgot... a cleric has a *maximum* (assume a CON of 24) of 225 hp at
15th level. Compare to a CR 13 monster (should use 20% of the resources
of 4 characters of 13th level - so should use about 20% of the 15th level
cleric's resources) such as the PHB entry for a Red Dragon. Mr. Dragon,
with his +34 and +29 to hit with his claw/claw/bite routine averages a
mere 41 hit points of damage per round (if the cleric has +5 full plate
and a +5 large shield the dragon STILL only misses on a natural one). Not
to mention a breath weapon which can be used on average, every 2.5 rounds
and does an average of 70 hp of damage. Which means Mr. Cleric should
with his MAXIMUM hp gets toasted for 70 in round 1, hit for 41 in round 2
(111 hp total), hit again for another 41 in round 3 (152 hp total), and
burnt again in round 4 for 70 (222 hp total) and any deviation above
average, no matter how slight, means death for Mr. Maximized Hit Point
Cleric in four rounds ( a typical Cleric with a CON of 16 has 113 hp and
is probably dead in 2-3 rounds), but let's assume five. Mr. Cleric, who,
since he uses healing spells, obviously is of good alignment and can't get
the Harm spell (which some folks has complained about) since clerics don't
get Heal AND Harm. Sure hope Mister Maximized Munchkin Hit Point Cleric
has a way to deal 312 hit points to Mr. AVERAGE Dragon in four rounds.
Further, in theory, Mr. Munchkin Cleric should be able to do this while
expending 20% of his resources, meaning Mr. Munchkin Cleric should only
see a loss of about 40 hp...
Explain again why PCs are overpowered Gods now, Halaster. I must have
missed it. Or perhaps you missed that the monsters are HUGELY upped in
power - IMO they got a MUCH bigger boost than the PCs did.
I don't know that it plays like a video game. I'm usually able to plunk
down a quarter and continue after the dragon has whacked my character in a
video game and my character comes back at full strength and the dragon's
still weakened. Then I do it again. And again. And again. And about 3
bucks later the thing finally dies. Or perhaps players have 12 lives in
your campaign? IMC, the dragon usually toasts the PCs and then the next
party shows up months later after the dragon has healed and bolstered his
defenses...
The Sigil
Aaron F. Bourque
>db...@tampatrib.com wrote:
>
>> > No, to me this isn't even D&D anymore. It's some sort of high-level
>> > video game where characters have unlimited healing and resurrection
>> > ability.
>>
>> Yeah, you complained about this before. I'll give you the same answer
>> as before. Good thing there are no monsters that paralyze, charm,
>> petrify, grapple, ensnare, age, drain or capture the players rather
>> than merely slash them. And, your clerics may need those spells
>> seeing as how the dragon that formerly had 17d8 hit points now has
>> 25d12+150 and is +36 to hit.
>>
>> -- at no extra charge
>
>You forgot... a cleric has a *maximum* (assume a CON of 24) of 225 hp
>at 15th level. Compare to a CR 13 monster (should use 20% of the
>resources of 4 characters of 13th level - so should use about 20% of the
>15th level cleric's resources) such as the PHB entry for a Red Dragon.
>Mr. Dragon, with his +34 and +29 to hit with his claw/claw/bite routine
>averages a mere 41 hit points of damage per round
Don't forget the chance of automatic death when a character loses 50 or
more in a round.
Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque
--
Being grown up all the time is only a sign of immaturity.
Come on, people! Grow up! Act stupid!
The Sigil
> <snip>I ask you...why do we even bother with damage? Why not just rename
> it "Dungeons and Immortals"? (The "dragons" are gone, slain by the
> perpetual healing machines called PCs).
>
> Keeping in perspective that a typical average fighter at 15th level
> will have (in 3E, starting with max hp) a total of 80 hp, and that
> other classes have much less, and you begin to see that short of
> killing off PCs straight away, they'll never be challenged by the
> prospect of death. You no longer have the possibility that they have to
> retreat and perhaps even give up...either they die straight off, or
> they never get defeated.
Huh? The Dragons are slain by perpetual healing machines called PCs? I'm
guessing a CR 15 dragon (not the CR 13 one in the PHB) would do, on
average, 16d10 or 80 hp of damage with his breath weapon. So, on average,
a CR 15 dragon can toast as many 15th level fighters as it can catch in its
breath weapon. If, on average, it toasts a 15th level fighter, it will, on
average, toast EVERY non-barbarian character caught in its breath weapon.
Not only that, but that breath weapon is coming every 1d4 rounds, NOT 3x
per day. Keep in mind that a CR 15 dragon should be a challenge for 4 15th
level characters. Even if his physical attacks are the same as the CR 13
dragon in the PHB, it takes, on average, two claw/claw/bite routines to off
anybody who might have avoided its initial breath weapon.
> The god-cleric above has the ability to restore to full hp, every
> member of the party at least 3 or 4 times EACH day.
Hard for the cleric to heal when he's DEAD as soon as the dragon opens his
mouth.
> Hell, assuming an average charcter of each class of the team members (2
> fighters, a cleric, a rogue, a wizard), and each averaging their hp rolls
> of a
> minimum of half (fighters average 5 on d10, etc), the team has a total
> of 304 hp.
And if they're all five standing mostly together (probable when facing a
dragon in its lair) the CR *13* dragon catches them for 70 hp each or a
total of 350 hp, nicely toasting them all in the first round of combat.
THIS is a "dragonslayer" party?
<snicker>
> If by some miracle the DM manages to destroy on of these super-
> regenerating killing machines, it doesn't even matter if he's
> disintegrated and his ashes cast to the wind. Because NOW we have a new
> spell called True Resurrection, and now you dont' even need a scrap of
> the body to use it, nor does the person lose a level or a CON point or
> even memorized spells! That's another ridiculous thing...when you die,
> you no longer lose memorized spells in most cases.
Hmm... and if the DM just killed off your whole party of 15th level
characters in one round, where are the new 1st level PCs going to find
somebody to cast this spell (or enough gold to convince them to do so)?
> I'm burnt on all this math of these godlike beings. ;-)
>
> No, to me this isn't even D&D anymore. It's some sort of high-level
> video game where characters have unlimited healing and resurrection
> ability.
Again, you obviously haven't looked at the upgrade monsters have gotten.
Again, IMO it FAR exceeds the PCs' upgrades. Do the math on the monsters'
destructive abilities, and THEN come back and complain about "PC gods."
The Sigil
Lasse Reichstein Nielsen
> In article <8os4ju$mbv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > Ummm...can a cleric double up on a
> > domain? If so, that's even worse, but I saw nothing that told me
> > doubling up on a domain (for example, two healing domains) is not
> > allowed.
>
> To me, "Choose two domains" means to choose two, not to choose one and
> pick two spells per level per day from it.
Agree. Also, it doesn't help, as you only get one spell pr. day when
you have two domains. You just have two to choose from. Chosing one
domain twice would not be a benefit, it would merely reduce you to one
choice of domain spell pr. level instead of two... unless the granted
power stacks, and what's the odds of that?
> > No, to me this isn't even D&D anymore. It's some sort of high-level
> > video game where characters have unlimited healing and resurrection
> > ability.
>
> Yeah, you complained about this before. I'll give you the same answer
> as before. Good thing there are no monsters that paralyze, charm,
> petrify, grapple, ensnare, age, drain or capture the players rather
> than merely slash them. And, your clerics may need those spells seeing
> as how the dragon that formerly had 17d8 hit points now has 25d12+150
> and is +36 to hit.
Agree here too. Play it, then complain. Until you have tried playing a
15th level party, you don't know. You're right, this isn't the d&D you
know any more... I like to think it's better, but then again, I
haven't played it either.
Final thought: It's all well with all this healing when you are safe
and quiet, but unless you can use it in the heat of battle, it won't
help you, and cure minor wound will not be of any help there.
/L
bob blanchard
> more in a round.
>
Did this make it into 3rd ED ?
Denakhan the Arch-Mage
"The Sigil" <inv...@noway.com> wrote in message
news:39B1A5A7...@noway.com...
> db...@tampatrib.com wrote:
<<<snip example of max hp 15th level cleric getting killed by an average
dragon>>>
>
> Explain again why PCs are overpowered Gods now, Halaster. I must have
> missed it. Or perhaps you missed that the monsters are HUGELY upped in
> power - IMO they got a MUCH bigger boost than the PCs did.
I don't even have 3E yet, but I'll pipe in just for poops & ha-ha's...
Cleric vs. Dragon = Dragon
Cleric & Thief vs. Dragon = Dragon
Cleric & Thief & Wizard = ...Cleric, Thief & Wizard
Cleric & Thief & Wizard & Fighter & Fighter = maybe two rounds, tops,
for the poor dragon, and then the Cleric can happily heal everyone fully to
go into the next cavern to take on the other dragon.
;-)
I'm with Hallaster on this one. IMNSHO, 3E is a Video game put down on
paper.
>
> I don't know that it plays like a video game. I'm usually able to plunk
> down a quarter and continue after the dragon has whacked my character in a
> video game and my character comes back at full strength and the dragon's
> still weakened. Then I do it again. And again. And again. And about 3
> bucks later the thing finally dies. Or perhaps players have 12 lives in
> your campaign?
With all the healing abilities of a 15th level cleric in the group, I'd
say that about covers it.
>IMC, the dragon usually toasts the PCs and then the next
> party shows up months later after the dragon has healed and bolstered his
> defenses...
I'm glad to see that someone who runs a 3E game *with no house rules*
has a game that turns out like this....you arn't using any house rules, are
you? ;-)
^_^
Denakhan the Arch-Mage
Aaron F. Bourque
>> Don't forget the chance of automatic death when a character loses 50
>> or more in a round.
>>
>
>Did this make it into 3rd ED ?
Uh . . . yes. Pg 129, first column, about halfway down the page, Massive
Damage.
Oh, wait. It says "single attack." My mistake.
Lasse Reichstein Nielsen
out of context, but....
> Mr. Cleric, who,
> since he uses healing spells, obviously is of good alignment and can't get
> the Harm spell (which some folks has complained about) since clerics don't
> get Heal AND Harm.
Why don't they? I can't see anywhere that good clerics shouldn't be
able to cast Harm (or inflict foo wounds for that matter). They are
not marked as evil spells (then they couldn't, clerics of god deities
cannot cast evil spells, and likewise law/chaos). The nearest I could
find was that channeling negative energy is an evil act, but I am not
sure whether "channeling" only refers to turning/rebuking, though I
believe it does.
This mentions nothing of neutral clerics of neutral deities who chose
to channel positive energy for turning/spontaneous healing... heal
cannot be cast spontaneously anyway.
/L
Joe
year old creature would allow a party of 40 year old kids to beat up on him.
If the party survives the fight then the Cleric can heal them. You are
talking about a very powerful Cleric. The bigger question is why a DM would
allow even powerful but young characters to stand toe-to-toe with ancient
and highly intelligent creatures. Wouldn't that creature have a few tricks
up it's sleeves? I am not intelligent enough to play ancient monster so I
retire the party before they get that high.
Sagiro
>
>Unreal. I'm sorry, but 3E is powergaming in my eyes. This amount of
>healing is ridiculous, and un-needed. No cleric, even at 15th level,
>shoudl be able to heal his entire team to full health 3 or 4 times a
>day! It seems to me by looking at a lot of other spells, it's all about
>power escalation. Oh shit! I forgot the death's door rule! Well, that
>just lowers the likelihood of anyone ever dying a bit huh? Why in the
>Nine Hells would you NEED a death's door rule with all this healing
>power? I mean, come on! Lord, I also forgot bonus spells for high
>wisdom (which all 15th level clerics shodl have since they can gain a
>point of WIS every 4 levels automatically). Let's try not to even think
>about adding more spells, shall we? I'm burnt on all this math of these
>godlike beings. ;-)
>
>
>video game where characters have unlimited healing and resurrection
>ability.
>
>
>--
>Halaster Blackcloak
Having played a high-level cleric in a playtest campaign for about 18
months, I can safely say that all of your concerns turn out to be (IME)
unfounded in practice. Here are three things to consider, that you seem to
have overlooked:
1. Monsters and characters both have many more HP across the board in 3E
than in 2E. Citing raw numbers of points healed and comparing to 2E can be
misleading. A 15th level fighter with a 15 Con, for example, will have
about 112 HP on average.
2. In high-level play especially, a cleric's non-healing spells are often
going to be more crucial to winning battles than healing spells. I speak
from long and grueling experience. ;-) I realize that in your examples,
the Cleric took lots of non-healing; I bring this up in conjunction with my
next point...
3. (Most relevantly) A cleric can still only cast ONE spell, healing or
otherwise, in a round, unless he's hasted. That is a limiting factor that
cannot and should not be overlooked.
It's interesting that you should have used a 15th level Cleric for your
example; I play a 14th level Cleric in my 3e Campaign (switched over from 2E
to 3E when he was about 11th level). Just last session we had a gruesome
combat against a high-level-monster-conjuring, high-level-spell-slinging
opponent. Two members of our party died in the fight, including a
high-level ranger with 150 HP. (She stayed toe-to-toe with baaaad summoned
monsters, got backed against a wall too far from the Cleric, and no one
could get to her in time.) I can tell you this: if all my character had
done was heal everyone he could every round, with his best available healing
spell, we would have *all* died. No question. Flame Strike, Dispel Evil,
True Seeing, Blade Barrier, Greater Dispelling, and Monster Summoning VII
all were crucial in our eventual defeat of the enemy. Yes, I cast a few
healing spells, including Heal on our unconscious Sorceress, but the total
damage I healed, compared to the HP of the party and the damage being slung
around, was not noticably different that it would have been in a typical 2E
combat. And because I could only cast *one healing spell in a round*, it
wasn't relevant that I could *in theory* heal hundreds of points of damage.
As in almost every combat, there just wasn't time.
(The spell "Mass Heal," by the way, will only super-useful when your party
is packed fairly close together. In my campaign, the DM presents us with
all sorts of tactical scenarios, and we are seldom in such close quarters.
In fact, we have learned through hard experience not to stay in "fireball
formation" if we can at all help it. Of course, I'm not high-level enough
to cast Mass Heal; when I've leveled up to 15 (if I live so long) and have a
chance to try it, I'll report back about its utility.)
Here's another opinion formed from playtest experience: 3E is less about
"powergaming" than 2E, by far. In 2E, there were ways to tease, abuse and
manipulate the system to create characters that were much more powerful than
others; the broken multiclassing system made that much worse. In 3E, while
there are lots of choices in creating characters, none can be used to create
PC's who are significantly more powerful than most others. It was this
potential *disparity* that, to me, made 2E feel like powergaming; if you
didn't play the system, you fell behind. Of course, your definition of
power-gaming may vary.
And the power curve is no longer strangely truncated at the top; it just
keeps going in a more-or-less straight line. In 2E, the difference between
a 13th level fighter and a 17th level fighter was hardly noticable. No
longer! Along the same lines, they've no longer capped ability scores at an
arbitrary maximum, which means there's room to express that Conan is x times
stronger than Bilbo Baggins, but that Tiamat is also x times stronger than
Conan. DM's have more *fair* ways to challenge high level parties in 3E.
Anyway, sorry to ramble. The moral of the story is: the apparent increase
in Cleric healing ability in 3E turns out not to be a problem at all in
practice. I would urge you to *play* 3E for a while, and see if you still
think it feels like a video game. To me, it feels like what D&D *should* be
like; fun, fast-paced, heroic, full of good role-playing and nail-biting
combats. Of course, my DM is a God. Your mileage may vary.
-Sagiro
Augustus
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8os4ju$mbv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> I've been busy the last few days, so Im behind a bit in recent
> conversations, but this weekend I've been looking closer at 3E and
> trying to make a final decision as to how I feel about it. I saw the
> thread here about changing spells, and I decided to post something
> about the overabundance of healing in 3E.
{This is a flame and response... flame first though...}
You again? Geez...
Judging from what you wrote this time, and your previous posts... I can
honeslty say, I think this group is better off without you... Heck... I
think this group is better off with Brian J Maloney and Terry Austin than it
is with you...
But oh well... we can get a good idea of how your mind works from your posts
and tis a pity, but I don't think you are going to stop posting...
The Response:
You know... any system can be made to 'look bad' if you purposly go out of
your way to come up with some far fetched scenarios that will most likely
never happen.
Anyhow, its evident you have never played a cleric (or priest) before... you
probably play the fighter all the time and maybe the thief once in a blue
moon...
But... had you ever played the cleric you would know that has always been a
problem with the character class back in 2nd edition (and I ALWAYS play the
priest/cleric so I can say with expertise)
Problem was... all the spell levels that had healing spells in them (be they
Cure Light Wounds, Cure Serious, Heal, etc) also had the other good priest
spells... so you had spell levels like Level 2... where there are maybe 1 or
2 spells you would take (usually "Aid" as most priests might tell ya) but
where you would gladly have offered to give up level 2 spells in exchange at
1 to 1 for level 1 spells... why? because all your level 1 spell slots are
taken up by Cure Light Wounds that you can't take any of the general all
purpose and handy spells (anybody who has ever really played a priest much
would tell ya... level 1 spells are better and handier than level 2 spells)
But this applied to all spell levels with healing spells... it was just the
big drawback of the priest class because the people at TSR, when they made
2nd edition didn't think it through... just poor planning.
Another thought is... at level 15... the party in general (a group of 5 you
said... 2 fighters, 1 mage, 1 cleric, 1 thief) has a fair hunk of hit
points... and you said the priest could heal 230-460 "per day" (note: I say
'per day' in quotes because it'd actually be every second day... since a
full day would be needed to rememorize these spells)... so that would almost
cover all the hit points of this party...
But how useful would that be to the party if healing spells were all the
priest took? Gee... not too helpful...
And then again... have you seen the Monster Manual? I'd guess not since its
not out yet... so... how do you know that monsters at that level aren't
going to be doling out more damage than they did in second edition?
Thus far, you have a third of the rules... if you want to pick apart the
system like some childish baby, atleast wait until its all out, eh?
Augustus
The Sigil
3-foot gymnasts and gnomes still have big noses IMC), no. Everything is,
rule-wise, by-the-book so far...
The Sigil
The Sigil
looks suspiciously similar to one in my general area (Orange County, CA). I ask
because it sounds like you have a good group and if so, I would love to NOT DM
for the first time in 15+ years and be "just a player" again. ::sighs::
The Sigil
Stephenls
You contribute interesting things to other threads, you have interesting
views. Normally.
You won't convert anyone else on this NG to your opinion, and no one is
going to convince you that there is a good game balance in 3e.
WotC is not going to recall all the copies of the PHB and cancel the
release of the DMG and MM. People who like 3e aren't going to stop
playin it.
If you don't like 3e, fine. It's your problem to deal with as you see
fit.
I miss the posts you used to make before you gor hung up on this. Go
back to contributing useful stuff, please.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"Life without pain isn't real" -Isamu Dyson, Macross Plus
(BTW, you only get one domain spell slot at every level, and you an only
use that slot to cast domain spells. You can't swap a spell in a domain
slot for healing. And if a spell appears in a domain, but not on the
regular list, you can only memorize it with a domain slot.)
Sagiro
The Sigil wrote in message <39B1BBC0...@noway.com>...
>Just out of curiosity, where are you geographically located. Your
organization
>looks suspiciously similar to one in my general area (Orange County, CA).
I ask
>because it sounds like you have a good group and if so, I would love to NOT
DM
>for the first time in 15+ years and be "just a player" again. ::sighs::
>
>The Sigil
>
Sorry to disappoint; we're in the Boston area, and my DM (I think) already
has a waiting list for his game. I know that I'm lucky to have stepped in
such a high quality campaign. ;-) I also am the DM of another campaign,
and it's nice to have both experiences. I understand your desire.
I'd suggest picking one or two of your players who you think would make good
DM's, and seeing if they'd be willing to take over, or start a new campaign
of their own. Failing that, you could ask around at local gaming stores and
see if anyone's looking for a player. Good luck!
-Sagiro
Halaster Blackcloak
db...@tampatrib.com wrote:
>To me, "Choose two domains" means to choose two, not to choose one and
pick two spells per level per day from it.<
That's how I interpreted it as well, but I posted the question mainly
as a devil's advocate type thing. I mean, 3E seems to be about doing
anything you want, so I assumed someone will think of doubling up
domains. ;-)
>Yeah, you complained about this before. I'll give you the same answer
as before. Good thing there are no monsters that paralyze, charm,
petrify, grapple, ensnare, age, drain or capture the players rather
than merely slash them. And, your clerics may need those spells seeing
as how the dragon that formerly had 17d8 hit points now has 25d12+150
and is +36 to hit.<
And again, I understand that. Yes, I can still challenge characters,
and sure that dragon spits out some hellacious damage. But again, the
characters have never had anywhere NEAR the massive amount of healing
they do now in 3E. Let's take a look at the stereotypical invasion of a
lich's tomb.
In 2E, the party goes in, hopefully survives myriad traps, defeats a
bunch of monster servants, etc, etc. But, they may not be tough enough
to reach the lich. In fact, they probably won't in most cases. So they
get banged up but good, taking lots of damage, and they're running low
on resources, and so their wizard teleports them to safety, perhaps
home. Problem is, if they wait 5 days, 10 days, maybe two weeks to heal
fully and recover spells, etc...that gives the lich time to create new
servants, replace and improve traps, hell, even track down and send a
counter-attack against the team while they're TRYING to heal.
Take that scenario to 3E. Wizard teleports the team out, cleric casts 2
spells, the whole team is fully restored of all damage, teleport back
in, and the lich now faces a fully refreshed team of opponents, all of
about 10 minutes later. Hell, he might not even have had time to know
they had left! Even if for some reason they wait a day...perhaps they
need the extra sleep to rememorize another boatload of healing spells
because the cleric has already expended half of his healing spells
curing the entire army of the good kingdom...that's still just a single
day before they can come back, as opposed to 2E where they had to spend
many days, perhaps even weeks re-preparing.
I mean, seriously, normal damage is the predominant threat in D&D, not
petrification, disintegration, etc. If normal physical damage becomes
irrelevant (which it IS when you have a 3E cleric), then the DM has to
start using all kind of nasty stuff like petrification, poison, life
drain, etc in order to challenge the characters. The game suddenly
takes on a more deadly tone. Seriously, doesn't the cleric's ability to
heal his ENTIRE party to full health 4 times over in ONE day seem at
least a LITTLE overzealous in your book?
Sorry, but 3E still looks like regeneration on amphetamines to me.
--
Halaster Blackcloak
"Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
home."
"Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
William
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <8os5f5$n97$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> db...@tampatrib.com wrote:
(snip)
> And again, I understand that. Yes, I can still challenge characters,
> and sure that dragon spits out some hellacious damage. But again, the
> characters have never had anywhere NEAR the massive amount of healing
> they do now in 3E. Let's take a look at the stereotypical invasion of
a
> lich's tomb.
>
> In 2E, the party goes in, hopefully survives myriad traps, defeats a
> bunch of monster servants, etc, etc. But, they may not be tough enough
> to reach the lich. In fact, they probably won't in most cases. So they
> get banged up but good, taking lots of damage, and they're running low
> on resources, and so their wizard teleports them to safety, perhaps
> home. Problem is, if they wait 5 days, 10 days, maybe two weeks to
heal
> fully and recover spells, etc...that gives the lich time to create new
> servants, replace and improve traps, hell, even track down and send a
> counter-attack against the team while they're TRYING to heal.
In 2E, it wouldn't take anywhere near that long for a high-level party
to come back to full strength. If the cleric had already exhausted his
healing spells for that day, he'd simply memorize a full slate of
healing spells the next day, use them all to bring the party back to
full strength, then rememorize his usual spells the day after. Total
time passed: about 1.5 days. Maybe add in another day if the party was
severely damaged, but it wouldn't be even close to two weeks.
Willow_R
> No, to me this isn't even D&D anymore. It's some sort of high-level
> video game where characters have unlimited healing and resurrection
> ability.
On the bright side though we can play X-men with the 3E rules and not have
to do much conversion.
db...@tampatrib.com
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> That's how I interpreted it as well, but I posted the question mainly
> as a devil's advocate type thing. I mean, 3E seems to be about doing
> anything you want, so I assumed someone will think of doubling up
> domains. ;-)
Yeah, that's true, someone will assert that.
> But again, the
> characters have never had anywhere NEAR the massive amount of healing
> they do now in 3E.
Well, there's no arguing with that.
> In 2E, the party goes in, hopefully survives myriad traps, defeats a
> bunch of monster servants, etc, etc. But, they may not be tough enough
> to reach the lich. In fact, they probably won't in most cases. So they
> get banged up but good, taking lots of damage, and they're running low
> on resources, and so their wizard teleports them to safety, perhaps
> home.
Now, I would shut that down right there. In some of the oldest and best
published adventures, the writers recognized what this takes away from
the challenge. Vault of the Drow? No teleporting more than a half-mile.
I don't think you could teleport at all in Tomb of Horrors.
> Take that scenario to 3E. Wizard teleports the team out, cleric casts
2
> spells, the whole team is fully restored of all damage, teleport back
> in, and the lich now faces a fully refreshed team of opponents, all of
> about 10 minutes later.
Again, no one should be able to teleport into or out of the conclusion
of a dungeon crawl. If we divide all adventures into three categories
-- dungeon crawl, voyage and societal -- there are things that wreck
any of these. No one in an adventure of societal intrigue and diplomacy
should be able to simply charm the king. No one in an overland
exploration adventure should be able to plane shift away from being
lost. And no one in a dungeon crawl should be able to teleport into the
conclusion. It's the very premise of each adventure in turn that you
can't do these things.
> I mean, seriously, normal damage is the predominant threat in D&D, not
> petrification, disintegration, etc.
Doesn't that really depend on you? If your characters are thieves,
isn't the predominant threat "getting thrown in jail"? If your
characters are paladins, isn't the predominant threat "failing to
remain a paladin"?
If damage is the predominant threat, it's because you made it so. It
seems to me that the predominant threat in any adventure is "failing to
complete it." It sounds like you need to have an adventure where, for
once, you say to the players, "Well, you teleported away from the lich.
He performed his ritual and has become a god. You failed. The kidnapped
princess is dead. Looks like you'll have to flee to another land, as
this one will forever become unliveable." The reason your lich is so
weak is that -you- haven't provided a penalty for simply teleporting
away from him.
> If normal physical damage becomes
> irrelevant (which it IS when you have a 3E cleric), then the DM has to
> start using all kind of nasty stuff like petrification, poison, life
> drain, etc in order to challenge the characters.
Um, weren't you using those already? I don't think I've ever had a
campaign where the players didn't run across wraiths or something. Is
there some problem with a poison-themed dungeon once in a while? Not to
me, there isn't.
> The game suddenly
> takes on a more deadly tone.
You were just asking for it to.
> Seriously, doesn't the cleric's ability to
> heal his ENTIRE party to full health 4 times over in ONE day seem at
> least a LITTLE overzealous in your book?
I won't say no, but I will say that if it starts to become so, I will
make that fact irrelevant. That's what being a DM is, challenging the
players to a reasonable degree.
> Sorry, but 3E still looks like regeneration on amphetamines to me.
Of course, this means the enemies can be so as well.
If your complaint is simply that you don't like this style of game, I
have no argument.
-- at no extra charge
Rooster?
So, are you planning on playing 3e characters in a 2e campaign
setting? i hope not. you're not looking at the whole picture here.
--
Rooster?
What?
Sir Bob
conclusion
> > of a dungeon crawl. If we divide all adventures into three
categories
> > -- dungeon crawl, voyage and societal -- there are things
that wreck
> > any of these. No one in an adventure of societal intrigue and
diplomacy
> > should be able to simply charm the king. No one in an
overland
> > exploration adventure should be able to plane shift away from
being
> > lost. And no one in a dungeon crawl should be able to
teleport into the
> > conclusion. It's the very premise of each adventure in turn
that you
> > can't do these things.
>
(re: what is
> known as railroading).
Not really. It's bad DM'ing if you simply disallow it. It's
*good* DM'ing if you come up with a reasonable and very
persuasive in-character reason not to do it, and make sure the
PCs are well-aware of it. For example, maybe if you try to
teleport out of the lich's lair, its wards will smear your atoms
across eleven planes of existance. Maybe the king you're
considering charming has an advisor who radiates protective magic
like a blast furnace gives off heat standing behind him (I
believe you *did* mention this one, good for you). You can do
anything you want to prevent the PCs from derailing your
adventure, as long as it's not cheesy (i.e. no "As you turn the
next bend, you stumble into a dragon's lair...")
Sir Bob
P.S. Nih!
Denakhan the Arch-Mage
<db...@tampatrib.com> wrote in message news:8osi2u$436$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <8osg2m$26o$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
<<<snip teleporting home, resting, and then back to fight a lich>>>
> > Take that scenario to 3E. Wizard teleports the team out, cleric casts
> 2
> > spells, the whole team is fully restored of all damage, teleport back
> > in, and the lich now faces a fully refreshed team of opponents, all of
> > about 10 minutes later.
>
> Again, no one should be able to teleport into or out of the conclusion
> of a dungeon crawl. If we divide all adventures into three categories
> -- dungeon crawl, voyage and societal -- there are things that wreck
> any of these. No one in an adventure of societal intrigue and diplomacy
> should be able to simply charm the king. No one in an overland
> exploration adventure should be able to plane shift away from being
> lost. And no one in a dungeon crawl should be able to teleport into the
> conclusion. It's the very premise of each adventure in turn that you
> can't do these things.
This *reeks* of bad DM'ing..."Alll....aboooaaaard!" ;-) (re: what is
known as railroading). If I was, say, a cleric, and my party got lost in
some nasty wilderness, *why* couldn't I use Plane Shift, as in your example,
to get away from being lost? Nothing other than a bad DM. We are in a
dungeon, and almost dead...we know the main bad guy is on the next lower
level, so we want to retreat...using teleport (simply faster), *why*
couldn't the party mage do that? Again, nothing other than bad DMing. As
for the King/charm thing....why not? Probably not the smartest thing to do;
I'm sure that the king has magic-using attendents (court mage, castle temple
high priest, etc). As soon as the king starts "acting wierd" (re: all of a
sudden the king is best buddies with some mage who has never shown his face
in the country, and lets that mage do whatever they want...well...), a
simple Dispell Magic or some such and now the former Charm-casting mage
finds himself on the Most Wanted list of the kingdom.
Don't get me wrong, there are some adventures/locations/etc where
"strange and unusual effects" (re; the Decent Into the Depths of the Earth
series), this is fine...but if EVERY tomb/dungeon/cairn/cave system has
this....the DM is waaaaay out of line, and would/should find himself without
any players.
> > I mean, seriously, normal damage is the predominant threat in D&D, not
> > petrification, disintegration, etc.
>
> Doesn't that really depend on you? If your characters are thieves,
> isn't the predominant threat "getting thrown in jail"? If your
> characters are paladins, isn't the predominant threat "failing to
> remain a paladin"?
Huh? I think he's talking generally. And what's that about paladins? Is
"failing to remain a paladin" the driving force behind paladins? Huh. You
have one strange world. In mine, the biggest threat to a paladin are the
organized evil bad guys.
> If damage is the predominant threat, it's because you made it so. It
> seems to me that the predominant threat in any adventure is "failing to
> complete it." It sounds like you need to have an adventure where, for
> once, you say to the players, "Well, you teleported away from the lich.
> He performed his ritual and has become a god. You failed. The kidnapped
> princess is dead. Looks like you'll have to flee to another land, as
> this one will forever become unliveable." The reason your lich is so
> weak is that -you- haven't provided a penalty for simply teleporting
> away from him.
You almost have a point here. Lich's are mighty tough beings. We all
agree on that.(well, I *think* we should all agree on it). Putting in a
"penalty if the PC's don't do what you want them to do" is...you guessed
it...BAD DMing. :-) The lich has some neferious scheme he is trying to
carry out. Ok. If it is trying to complete some ritual in order to ascend to
demi-godhood, chances are that the PC's would have found out about
this....they should, if you want to give them anything resembling a 'fair
chance' at defeating the lich. NOW the PC's have a choice to make....do they
risk teleporting out to heal, giving the Lich time to complete his
ritual...or do they heal the best they can right then and there, and forge
ahead? Weather or not the PC's (and players) had the brains and skill at
playing to figure out what the lich was doing is up to the players, but
suddenly deciding "Well, they'll kick this lich's ass if they are up
full....so I'll just say he was doing some super ritual and he becomes a
god, kills the princess and takes over the land. If they stay, then they
can see how cool a DM I am when I kill most of their characters." ;-)
What is boils down to is that you, as DM, should NEVER penalize a
player's charcter because the player thought of something you didn't, or
used the powers that YOU gave him in the first place. If you don't want PC's
teleporting away when in the middle of a dungeon, either give them a damn
good reason to stay, or don't give them the means. Don't cheat.
> > If normal physical damage becomes
> > irrelevant (which it IS when you have a 3E cleric), then the DM has to
> > start using all kind of nasty stuff like petrification, poison, life
> > drain, etc in order to challenge the characters.
>
> Um, weren't you using those already? I don't think I've ever had a
> campaign where the players didn't run across wraiths or something. Is
> there some problem with a poison-themed dungeon once in a while? Not to
> me, there isn't.
To each his/her own I guess.
> > Seriously, doesn't the cleric's ability to
> > heal his ENTIRE party to full health 4 times over in ONE day seem at
> > least a LITTLE overzealous in your book?
>
> I won't say no, but I will say that if it starts to become so, I will
> make that fact irrelevant. That's what being a DM is, challenging the
> players to a reasonable degree.
Challenging to a reasonable degree is the key phrase I think. The thing
that starts to suffer then, in the long run, is the "standard of danger" of
the campaign world. Example, if you have a lot of high-damage monsters
running around to offset the silly amount of healing the cleric can do.
Now, the cleric dies, and the player decides to play a new character...a
ranger. Now the party has VERY little healing at there disposal. If all of
a sudden the monster "standard" drops, that will lead to many questions; Why
is it so now, when two months ago, this place was teaming with giants? How
come when we have no cleric we are better off than when we do? Just *where*
did all those griffens go to that were hear last time we passed through?
Etc..etc..etc... Let alone if a cleric does show up in the party
again...do you "re-adjust" the "standard of danger" again?
In short, don't change the game world to suit the PC's power
level....change the PC's power level to suit the world.
> > Sorry, but 3E still looks like regeneration on amphetamines to me.
>
> Of course, this means the enemies can be so as well.
It's called "Power Inflation". 2E had it for years, and to me, 3E looks
even worse so far from what I've seen of it. What's the difference between
someone that does an average of 5hp damage per round vs. a 50hp
monster....and someone that does an average of 10hp damage per round vs. a
100hp monster? Answere: bigger numbers. The ratio is still the same. This
whole thing reminds me of two children bickering over what they'd do to each
other...
Ill punch you in the nose!
Yeah, well I'd do a power bomb on you!
Oh yeah, well I'd just do a bunch of Jet Lie moves to you!
Well I'd just get a sword and stab you!
I'd get two swords and stab you!
Then I'd just get two guns!
Yeah, well Id get to grenades!
etc..etc..etc...
(You ever watch Bugs Bunny cartoons? And you see the bigger and bigger
guns start coming out? BB gets a big gun, and Yo'Semity Sam gets a cannon?
The BB gets a bigger cannon...and YSS gets a bigger one...etc...etc...untill
they are both siting on guns that are bigger then the entire Earth? Yeah,
same thing.)
^_^
Denakhan the Arch-Mage
green...@my-deja.com
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> I've been busy the last few days, so Im behind a bit in recent
> conversations, but this weekend I've been looking closer at 3E and
> trying to make a final decision as to how I feel about it. I saw the
> thread here about changing spells, and I decided to post something
> about the overabundance of healing in 3E.
>
> Not only is there way too much healing allowed, but healing is also
> toughened up. Healing spells do MUCH more than they used to. Let's
take
> a look at a cleric at 15th level with the healing domain (I used
> higher level cleric to make a point).
>
> He has the following # of spells:
>
> (6) Orisons, (5) 1st, (5) 2nd, (5) 3rd, (4) 4th, (4) 5th, (3) 6th, (2)
> 7th, (1) 8th. He also gets an additional healing spell at each level
> for having the healing domain. Ummm...can a cleric double up on a
> domain? If so, that's even worse, but I saw nothing that told me
> doubling up on a domain (for example, two healing domains) is not
> allowed. For purposes of this argument though, we'll assume he can't.
Halaster, I've always thought the Cleric was a little too powerful ever
since 1st Ed AD&D, and the 3e Cleric just increases this power.
However, I do want to correct your take on the Domains issue.
The book does not explicitly say that the two chosen Domains must be
different, so it is concievable that a player may double up on one
domain. But that would either be good roleplaying or foolishness on the
part of the player IMO. Remember, the Cleric can only prepare ONE
Domain spell per spell level, which can only be chosen from one of the
two available Domains. For example, a Cleric who has chosen Pelor as a
patron God might chose Good and Healing as Domains. The Cleric gets
both special granted powers (+1 level for Good and Healing spells), and
each time the character prepares a 1st level domain spell, he/she/it
can chose from Protection from Evil or Cure Light Wounds. The character
cannot prepare both spells as domain spells at the same time - EVER.
On the other hand, let's say that same Cleric chose Healing twice (and
the DM allowed it). The DM might be generous and allow the special
granted power to stack (giving +2 levels for Healing spells), but now
the character has no choice for a Domain spell - it MUST come from the
Healing list. The character also has no other special granted powers.
Considering this tactic will add at most just 1 HP per Cure Wounds or
Healing Circle spell cast, and there is a limit as to how much benefit
the Cleric's level will give anyway, I would hardly consider it to be a
power gamer's first choice.
Your other points are well made though - especially the bit about
Spontaneous Casting. That just means all Good and some Neutral Clerics
will never need to prepare any Cure spell anymore (0-4th level Cure
spells) since you can just prepare anything else you want and swap it
out for the Cure if you need it.
Hong Ooi
<halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>I've been busy the last few days, so Im behind a bit in recent
>conversations, but this weekend I've been looking closer at 3E and
>trying to make a final decision as to how I feel about it. I saw the
>thread here about changing spells, and I decided to post something
>about the overabundance of healing in 3E.
[snip massive rant...]
First, in my experience, every cleric in every campaign I've played has
loaded up on the healing spells, simply because that was their
designated role. So there was always a boatload of healing available
anyway. The new rules allowing swapping of normal spells for healing are
good, because it gives clerics that extra flexibility they didn't have.
Second, ISTR a thread way back with the subject line "I decided not to
switch to 3E...here's why...". Given that you've already decided not to
switch, I don't know why you're still so bothered with it; unless this
is just an elaborate troll.
--
Hong Ooi | "It's not an extortion, it's called
hong...@maths.anu.edu.au | 'technology transfer'"
http://www.zip.com.au/~hong | -- G. J.
Canberra, Australia |
Donovan Hawkins
Aaron F. Bourque <afbo...@aol.compliance> wrote:
>bob blanchard (bob...@uswest.net) howled at the moon:
>
>>> Don't forget the chance of automatic death when a character loses 50
>>> or more in a round.
>>>
>>
>>Did this make it into 3rd ED ?
>
>Uh . . . yes. Pg 129, first column, about halfway down the page, Massive
>Damage.
>
>Oh, wait. It says "single attack." My mistake.
Ok, so what about magical damage? Of course I automatically assumed it
would also count (50 points from a fireball, for example), but here is the
PHB definition of attack:
"Any of numerous actions intended to harm, disable, neutralize an
opponent. The result of an attack is determined by an attack roll."
But spells aren't determined by an attack roll (with the possible
exception of touch spells and some that require targeting like a ray or a
chromatic orb-type). So it would seem they don't qualify for massive
damage. I checked the combat section and nowhere do they use the word
attack (that I can find) to refer to a spell. So, does this mean that
magical damage doesn't count, or should this be an errata?
--
Donovan Hawkins "The study of physics will always be
Department of Physics and Astronomy safer than biology, for while the
University of California, Irvine hazards of physics drop off as 1/r^2,
haw...@uci.edu biological ones grow exponentially."
Denakhan the Arch-Mage
> (re: what is
> > known as railroading).
>
> Not really. It's bad DM'ing if you simply disallow it. It's
> *good* DM'ing if you come up with a reasonable and very
> persuasive in-character reason not to do it, and make sure the
> PCs are well-aware of it. For example, maybe if you try to
> teleport out of the lich's lair, its wards will smear your atoms
> across eleven planes of existance. Maybe the king you're
> considering charming has an advisor who radiates protective magic
> like a blast furnace gives off heat standing behind him (I
> believe you *did* mention this one, good for you). You can do
> anything you want to prevent the PCs from derailing your
> adventure, as long as it's not cheesy (i.e. no "As you turn the
> next bend, you stumble into a dragon's lair...")
Actually, what I was trying to get accross was that sometimes you
can...and should...do this as a DM. However, if every dungeon has some
"anti-teleportation" magic, the DM has gone to far. That being said, the DM
*could* do this...as long as the players understand that this is a 'law of
nature' in the DM's world...: "In my world, gold protects vs. mind
influencing and mind affecting spells...like Charm, Sleep and Hypnosis, as
long as it is worn over the head and is at least 2 pounds worth; a kings
crown would be an example. Also, dimention spells like Teleport, Planar
Shift and Dimention Door can not function if there is more than 100' of
earth, or 30' of stone. So if you are in a dungeon, don't plan on
teleporting to outside." Something like that might be ok; at least the
players know what rules govern there characters lives in this regards.
^_^
Denakhan the Arch-Mage
Sagiro
>
> It's called "Power Inflation". 2E had it for years, and to me, 3E
looks
>even worse so far from what I've seen of it. What's the difference between
>someone that does an average of 5hp damage per round vs. a 50hp
>monster....and someone that does an average of 10hp damage per round vs. a
>100hp monster? Answere: bigger numbers. The ratio is still the same. This
>whole thing reminds me of two children bickering over what they'd do to
each
>other...
>
Arg... I've finally reached my limit of letting this sort of post slide.
No, no, no, no, a thousand times no. It's not "power inflation," however it
might seem. The relevant answer to the question you pose above is not
"bigger numbers." It's "larger area of expression, and more effective
differentiation." The more you compress numbers down, the less room you
have to *differentiate* one character or monster's
abilities/damage-dealing-capacity/defensive capability/etc. Ratio is not
the the only, or the most, relevant factor to consider. After all, you
could apply that argument and say that ability scores should be rolled on a
1-6 bell curve, rather than a 3-18 bell curve, right? Same ratio. But
you'd lose the ability to have more distinctions between ability scores.
2E, for whatever reason, flattened out its power curve at the mid-to-high
levels, and compressed all ability scores into a 3-25 scale. The designers
of 3E (rightfully, IMO) realized that this was an inferior design, and used
an infinitely extensible scale. For instance, now the difference in STR
between an enormous Dragon and a Hulking fighter can be as great or greater
than the difference in STR bewteen that fighter and an old peasant with a 5
STR. And now there's an appreciable difference between a 13th level fighter
and a 17th level fighter, since you don't stop rolling full hit dice.
And a natural consequence of stretching their game-mechanical scales is that
the numbers across the board get bigger. That allows them the room for
differentiation that previous versions lacked. It's not arbitrary power
inflation; it's sensible game design! But because the numbers that make
sense for the elegant 3E design happen to be larger than those used for
similar concepts in 2E, people instinctivly cry "power inflation" without
really thinking it through.
I may not always know what I'm talking about, but in this case, I really do.
I'm a game designer by trade, and I deal with this exact issue quite often.
-Sagiro
Barry B Wood
> What is boils down to is that you, as DM, should NEVER penalize a
> used the powers that YOU gave him in the first place. If you don't want PC's
> teleporting away when in the middle of a dungeon, either give them a damn
> good reason to stay, or don't give them the means. Don't cheat.
Bravo. As a DM. I have the luxury of controlling all aspects in my game, and I
have the maneuver space to be flexible (my actions are easily adjusted, without
any inspection) if my players take off on a wild tangent. If the players manage
to out-think in five hours a scenario that I've been crafting for 5 days, then
they deserve to be rewarded for their cleverness. In fact, an old group of
mine regularly gave out a 5,000 ep bonus for "stumping the DM".
Cheers
Barry
SILVATREAT
spells. If your good you can only switch cure spells and of course you have
your domain spell as well, but you have acess to all the cleric spells on the
list. Evil clerics can cast cure spells, they just can't switch spells for them
or I might have interpreted this wrong
write or post
Gillb...@aol.com
Denakhan the Arch-Mage
"Sagiro" <sag...@dont.bother> wrote in message
news:o3ms5.55727$NH2.4...@typhoon.ne.mediaone.net...
>
> >
> > It's called "Power Inflation". 2E had it for years, and to me, 3E
> looks
> >even worse so far from what I've seen of it. What's the difference
between
> >someone that does an average of 5hp damage per round vs. a 50hp
> >monster....and someone that does an average of 10hp damage per round vs.
a
> >100hp monster? Answere: bigger numbers. The ratio is still the same.
This
> >whole thing reminds me of two children bickering over what they'd do to
> each
> >other...
> >
>
> Arg... I've finally reached my limit of letting this sort of post slide.
Everyone has their limits. ;-)
> No, no, no, no, a thousand times no. It's not "power inflation," however
it
> might seem. The relevant answer to the question you pose above is not
> "bigger numbers." It's "larger area of expression, and more effective
> differentiation." The more you compress numbers down, the less room you
> have to *differentiate* one character or monster's
> abilities/damage-dealing-capacity/defensive capability/etc.
I understand completely what you mean; the 'short range' of the
Storyteller system (Vampire, Werewolf, etc) is a perfect example of "not
enough" differention. Stats/skills/etc rangeing, for all intents and
purposes, from 1 to 5 is simply not enough when you concider 1 as weakest of
the weak, and 5 penicle of human achievment.
> 2E, for whatever reason, flattened out its power curve at the mid-to-high
> levels, and compressed all ability scores into a 3-25 scale. The
designers
> of 3E (rightfully, IMO) realized that this was an inferior design, and
used
> an infinitely extensible scale. For instance, now the difference in STR
> between an enormous Dragon and a Hulking fighter can be as great or
greater
> than the difference in STR bewteen that fighter and an old peasant with a
5
> STR. And now there's an appreciable difference between a 13th level
fighter
> and a 17th level fighter, since you don't stop rolling full hit dice.
This is good. But, stats and damage/healing aren't the only reason I'm
leaning towards the "power gaming" side in view of 3E. See below...
> And a natural consequence of stretching their game-mechanical scales is
that
> the numbers across the board get bigger. That allows them the room for
> differentiation that previous versions lacked. It's not arbitrary power
> inflation; it's sensible game design!
Increaseing the 'numbers' isn't the only thing in question. Sure,
charcters have more HP....so, clerics should be able to heal more. No
problem with that. However, the original thread ("WAY TO MUCH healing in
3E!") touched on the fact that the healing-to-hp is simply too 'out of
whack. The didnt' just double hp and double healing...the doubled hp and
quadrupled healing. THAT is what I mean by power inflation. No longer is a
fighter 'exceptional' if he has good strength, specialized in a weapon and
has some unique ability in combat. Now the fighter has good strength is
specialized in a weapon, is extra-proficient with that weapon, is trained to
use two of those weapons, is trained to use special attack A, B, C and D in
that weapon and gets to add skills for that weapon that he learned in
another class. THAT is what I mean by power inflation.
>But because the numbers that make
> sense for the elegant 3E design happen to be larger than those used for
> similar concepts in 2E, people instinctivly cry "power inflation" without
> really thinking it through.
I've thought things through as much as I can (see below). In short, too
many powers ('Feats' I think they are called now) available too offen and,
it seems, with no drawbacks/limits to them. THAT is power inflation.
Likewise, just because the 3E number-range design happens to be larger
than those used in previous editions doesn't mean that is is "better" or
"balanced" either.
> I may not always know what I'm talking about, but in this case, I really
do.
> I'm a game designer by trade, and I deal with this exact issue quite
often.
As I've said from the beginning, I don't actually own a 3E PHB yet, I'm
only going by what I've read on the net and here, so all of my opinions are
simply that...opinions. Maybe when I get the game and play it I'll change
my mind, but after more than 20 years of DMing/Playing I think I have a good
grasp on game design.
PS: You're a game designer, huh? Which ones? I'm curious (might give me a
better idea of your style for gaming).
^_^
Denakhan the Arch-Mage
Halaster Blackcloak
green...@my-deja.com wrote:
>Your other points are well made though - especially the bit about
Spontaneous Casting. That just means all Good and some Neutral Clerics
will never need to prepare any Cure spell anymore (0-4th level Cure
spells) since you can just prepare anything else you want and swap it
out for the Cure if you need it<
Exactly! And another thing I just thought of...weapon damage has not
been dramatically upped, if at all. And yet regular armed opponents
will constitute the majority of the PCs' foes especially at lower
levels. So while monsters may have been made tougher, regular opponents
who still do a d8 damage with a sword have NOT.
I mean, when you take a cleric and power him up so that he jumps from
healing 32 hp per day to healing 230+ hps per day, you're talking
almost an 8 fold increase. That's a lot. and all those mass heals and
healing circles and blah blah blah.
3E seems obsessed with not letting characters die.
--
Halaster Blackcloak
"Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
home."
"Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
Allister Huggins
>
<SNIP>
> In 2E, the party goes in, hopefully survives myriad traps, defeats a
> bunch of monster servants, etc, etc. But, they may not be tough enough
> to reach the lich. In fact, they probably won't in most cases. So they
> get banged up but good, taking lots of damage, and they're running low
> on resources, and so their wizard teleports them to safety, perhaps
> home. Problem is, if they wait 5 days, 10 days, maybe two weeks to heal
> fully and recover spells, etc...that gives the lich time to create new
Hmm? 4 person party in 2E and let's use the base 4 classes. Fighter,
Cleric, Wizard and Thief. 15th level fighter with 17 CON will have
9*(8.5)+3*6 = 94 HP. I'll assume the other 3 classes get 1 extra HP due
to 15 CON. Cleric would have 9*5.5+2*6 = 61 HP, wizard would have 41 HP
and the thief 57. Assume the cleric has a 17 WIS.
Healing and Herbalism allow for 3 HP to regained per day.
CLW heals an average of 4.5 HP. (1st level spell). Cleric can cast this
8 times healing thus an average of 36 HP. Combined with normal 3 HP/day
of rest, the wizard is back at 39 HP.
Aid can be used for an average of 4.5 HP (2nd level spell). Same 36 HP
and with 3 days of bed rest, the thief now needs 18 HP of healing.
CSW heals an average of 10 HP. (4th level spell). Cleric can cast this
6 times thus being able to cure 60 HP. Combined with bed rest, the
cleric is now up to 61 HP.
CCW heals an average of 16 HP. (5th level spell). Cleric can cast this
4 times and thus uses 2 for the thief and one for the mage.
Heal heals max HP (6th level spell). Heal cures the fighter of all HP.
Voila, one day and the party is back at max HP. I'm not sure how you
got 5 days as a minimum.
<snip>
> takes on a more deadly tone. Seriously, doesn't the cleric's ability to
> heal his ENTIRE party to full health 4 times over in ONE day seem at
> least a LITTLE overzealous in your book?
>
> Sorry, but 3E still looks like regeneration on amphetamines to me.
You concern would be valid however, you totally botched your
calculation from 2E. As I've shown, it only takes a cleric one day to
heal an average 4 person party back to max HP in 2E.
Allister H.
NtlAcrobat
limiting the domains that are available for priests to use. Case in point, I am
not all that fond of the 4th level Cleric Spell Dimensional Folding from the
ToM. In my greyhawk campaing, there just happen to be no dieties who allow
major access to the numbers sphere. My players just figured this out last week.
So, as the dm, you can limit in a way what spells are available.
jbs
<pm...@home.com> wrote:
> I understand completely what you mean; the 'short range' of the
>Storyteller system (Vampire, Werewolf, etc) is a perfect example of "not
>enough" differention. Stats/skills/etc rangeing, for all intents and
>purposes, from 1 to 5 is simply not enough when you concider 1 as weakest of
>the weak, and 5 penicle of human achievment.
Actually, I think the system works well for that type of game (heavy
on the role-playing)
> Increaseing the 'numbers' isn't the only thing in question. Sure,
>charcters have more HP....so, clerics should be able to heal more. No
>problem with that. However, the original thread ("WAY TO MUCH healing in
>3E!") touched on the fact that the healing-to-hp is simply too 'out of
>whack. The didnt' just double hp and double healing...the doubled hp and
>quadrupled healing. THAT is what I mean by power inflation. No longer is a
>fighter 'exceptional' if he has good strength, specialized in a weapon and
>has some unique ability in combat. Now the fighter has good strength is
>specialized in a weapon, is extra-proficient with that weapon, is trained to
>use two of those weapons, is trained to use special attack A, B, C and D in
>that weapon and gets to add skills for that weapon that he learned in
>another class. THAT is what I mean by power inflation.
So you think that the fighter should still be way underpowered at
higher levels compared to other classes? Or you think that it would
be better for other classes to be less powerful at higher levels so
that they don't make the fighter look too bad?
>>But because the numbers that make
>> sense for the elegant 3E design happen to be larger than those used for
>> similar concepts in 2E, people instinctivly cry "power inflation" without
>> really thinking it through.
>
> I've thought things through as much as I can (see below). In short, too
>many powers ('Feats' I think they are called now) available too offen and,
>it seems, with no drawbacks/limits to them. THAT is power inflation.
THAT is the primary means of making the fighter a feasable choice for
character class now. Why should they have drawbacks at all?
> Likewise, just because the 3E number-range design happens to be larger
>than those used in previous editions doesn't mean that is is "better" or
>"balanced" either.
Actually, I think you already agreed that it does. Reread what you
said about WW above...
>> I may not always know what I'm talking about, but in this case, I really
>do.
>> I'm a game designer by trade, and I deal with this exact issue quite
>often.
>
> As I've said from the beginning, I don't actually own a 3E PHB yet, I'm
>only going by what I've read on the net and here, so all of my opinions are
>simply that...opinions. Maybe when I get the game and play it I'll change
>my mind, but after more than 20 years of DMing/Playing I think I have a good
>grasp on game design.
So your opinions can be safely ignored as uninformed blather...?
jbs
Hong Ooi
Yes, that's right. Your "good" cleric can, if he really wants to, cast
Death Knell as many times as he has 2nd-level spell slots. Of course,
doing this too often means he probably won't stay good for long.
--
Hong Ooi | "Game guys, Java has been around since
hong...@maths.anu.edu.au | 1994. It's DEAD."
http://www.zip.com.au/~hong | -- T.
Canberra, Australia |
Sheepy
And minor healing potions can be brew easily by PCs.
jbs
<hong...@maths.anu.edu.au> wrote:
>On 03 Sep 2000 08:21:19 GMT, silva...@aol.com (SILVATREAT) wrote:
>
>>I believe and correct me if I'm wrong, but any cleric can cast cure or inflict
>>spells. If your good you can only switch cure spells and of course you have
>>your domain spell as well, but you have acess to all the cleric spells on the
>>list. Evil clerics can cast cure spells, they just can't switch spells for them
>>or I might have interpreted this wrong
>
>Yes, that's right. Your "good" cleric can, if he really wants to, cast
>Death Knell as many times as he has 2nd-level spell slots. Of course,
>doing this too often means he probably won't stay good for long.
No he can't. Good clerics can't cast Evil spells.
jbs
Jason Hatter
Huggins) proclaimed <39B271C5...@home.com>:
> Aid can be used for an average of 4.5 HP (2nd level spell).
> Same 36 HP
>and with 3 days of bed rest, the thief now needs 18 HP of healing.
Nitpick: Aid provides no healing, just bonus HP that go away at the
end of the duration, if any are left.
--
Jason
ICQ#24332701
Sith Lords should learn to stay away from wells.
Michael Scott Brown
Three threads now you've started to bitch about, and each time you're wrong.
You'll always *be* wrong, and you're getting boring. Your ability to
analyze this issue in a meaningful way is nonexistent.
> Not only is there way too much healing allowed, but healing is also
> toughened up. Healing spells do MUCH more than they used to.
Gods, damnnit, Halaster, stop being such a nitwit. You've been told
about this Over and OVER and OVER AGAIN. *Attacks* do MUCH more than they
used to as well.
Simply comparing the raw numbers between editions on this issue is
*meaningless* because they're at DIFFERENT SCALE SETTINGS. Simply adding up
the numbers in *this* edition is meaningless because they need to be placed
in the context of threats and surviveability.
Notice the following:
2ndEdition: a 4th level figther with straight 15's would do 1d10+2
damage if
specialized with his two-hander, and he's have a max of 40 hit points.
He can kill himself in four max-damage blows.
3rd edition: a 4th level fighter, also specialized, with straight 15's
would do 2d6+6 damage with the same weapon and has a max of 48 hit points.
He can kill himself in three max-damage blows.
Now, *THINK*. In a world where hit points are lost like gashed arteries
due to ubiquitous strength damage bonuses and two-handed weapon damage
extras, a world where you want clerics' healing to be at least as effective
at maintaining party surviveability as before, what is the correct setting
for the clerical healing ability? If *damage* is more severe, then *healing*
has to be amplified from its previous values in order to be brought into
balance.
> So, overall, that gives this powerful cleric the ability to heal 230
> pts of healing a day on average, IN ADDITION to the fact that he can
> heal TWO characters to FULL hp each day using Heal, and heal THE ENTIRE
> PARTY of an ADDITIONAL 38 pts. each day using Healing Circle, and hell,
> if that ain't enough, then he can heal ALL of the characters of ALL
> damage TWICE a day using Mass Heal!
So? He's a *15th level priest* SPECIALIZED IN HEALING. If he decides to
do nothing but heal people, that's his privelege, and the extreme
effectiveness of this character at such a task ought to be reflected by
this.
Perhaps you might consider looking at how much damage a wizard can *do*
in one day. Guess what? A 15th level wizard can do 60 points of damage to
ten people with ONE THIRD LEVEL SPELL (fireball). How many can he cast,
four? Just his third level spell allotments do TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY POINTS
OF DAMAGE. And that's just his *third levelspells* - they can do all the
damage your priest can heal on one person . . .to *ten* people.
The obviousness of this fact, and the fact that you've overlooked it
completely, indicates powerfully that your analysis *sucks*. You are
bordering on idiocy by pursuing it further. Healing is levelled against
damage. *Compare* the damage potential to the healing potential for PCs.
Quit your gods-damnned bitching, and PLAY the system - only then will
you be able to ascertain whether the cleric's healing reserves are so
enormous that the party isn't threatened by danger. But while you're
thinking about that, why not do your bloody homework? Go on. LOOK UP THE
STATS FOR AN ORC. Pay close attention to that 1d12+3 damage rating.
Compare it to the hit points of a first level character. Then discuss the
"lack of a threat of death" that is caused by having a cleric along.
-Michael
Michael Scott Brown
> been dramatically upped, if at all.
Bullshit. Have you even read the damnned rulebook, you moronic sod?
Look up the page that describes STRENGTH BONUSES.
Look up the page that describes TWO HANDED WEAPON STRENGTH BONUSES.
Look up the page that describes the damage ratings for LARGE WEAPONS.
Look at the survival guides' description of the typical strength scores
and armnaments of traditional humanoid monsters.
The expected damage PCs receive per attack runs about:
1d12+1.5x(1-5)= ****1d12+1-7**** for any serious humanoid warrior.
The best one faced in 2E was 1-8 for almost any humanoid monster - orc,
gnoll, hobgoblin, etc.
One to *eight*. 4.5 average. Standard heavies now average closer to
*ten*.
THAT'S A FACTOR OF *TWO* more threat potential.
Look at hit points. Lots of monsters that used to have d8 HD now have
*D12* - *AND* constitution bonuses.
What, exactly, is hampering your ability to look at this evidence and
draw correct conclusions from it?
-Michael
Allister Huggins
>
> On 03 Sep 2000, in rec.games.frp.dnd, alhu...@home.com (Allister
> Huggins) proclaimed <39B271C5...@home.com>:
>
> > Aid can be used for an average of 4.5 HP (2nd level spell).
> > Same 36 HP
> >and with 3 days of bed rest, the thief now needs 18 HP of healing.
>
> Nitpick: Aid provides no healing, just bonus HP that go away at the
> end of the duration, if any are left.
Thanks but I also screwed up somewhere else. The thief only needs 18 HP
of healing after _1_ (not 3) days of bed rest and a 15th level cleric
can cast 2 6th level spells per day not just 1.
Strange, I always played Aid as a poor man CLW, still, taking out Aid
from my example means that the cleric must use 3 of the CCW spells and
one more for the mage to bring everyone to full health. The cleric still
has access to 1 "Heal" spell thus he can actually bring up to full HP a
5 person party in one day. Yet this doesn't include if the 5th person is
a druid or a paladin or a ranger (Goodberry can be used to heal damage).
Ergo, Halaster's time frame of 5 days minimum to heal a party is simply
not true.
Allister H.
Jason Hatter
<8otbn6$u27$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>:
>3E seems obsessed with not letting characters die.
But since you haven't played it, you don't know, do you?
When I first started playtesting a few months ago, the first
encounter the group of 6 PC's had was 6 orcs and 6 war dogs. At the
end of the fight, I had 2 PC's at positive hit points (one was a
cleric), with the rest ranging from -3 to -9 HP.
The second encounter with the same party (at 2nd level) was against
three orcs, a 1st level kobold sorceror, a gnoll ranger, and a shadow
panther. The PC's dispatched the humanoids in about 4 rounds, taking
moderate damage,but the shadow panther killed the half-orc barbarian
(and ran off with his body. 8) ).
A later encounter with a deepspawn decimated the party, with two
survivors.
The campaign that's currently being run had three fatalities last
week-one lost to a blast spore, the other two being killed by a
gelatinous cube (in the Return to the Keep on the Borderlands
module). The PC's were first level.
Sure, there's a lot of healing...once you get up to the higher
levels. It's needed...and if you can't *get* to the higher levels,
it's a moot point.
Donovan Hawkins
If you're refering to PHB page 32, under "Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful
Spells", it seems to refer only to spells from the Chaos, Evil, Good, and
Lawful domain. It says to look on the level line of the spell description
(where the domain access is), not the school line. I made the same mistake
at first.
This works out nicely, since the evil domain spells are hard-core evil
(prot from good, desecrate, etc.). Same goes for the other alignments. As
for Death Knell, it isn't part of the evil domain, so it's ok (though
your good deity may or may not like it, depending on their belief system
and who you cast it on; thus the indicator on the school line).
Interestingly enough, the page 31 says a cleric can cast all spells,
and only warns that casting some spells may have unforseen consequences if
they are from the wrong alignment. The rule on page 32 is more specific,
though.
PJS
> I've been busy the last few days, so Im behind a bit in recent
> conversations, but this weekend I've been looking closer at 3E and
> trying to make a final decision as to how I feel about it. I saw the
> thread here about changing spells, and I decided to post something
> about the overabundance of healing in 3E.
>
> a look at a cleric at 15th level with the healing domain (I used
> higher level cleric to make a point).
----------
I see this as no bad thing; the trouble with not having much healing is that
you'd tend to fall into the trap of the party saying something like, "Right,
we've defeated the monsters in this part of the dungeon, but we're getting
low on Hit Points . . . let's go back to the inn and rest up for a few days,
cast some Cure ... Wounds spells and then come back"
--
The Ox is like the Bamboo
Floating on the Ocean.
Hong Ooi
Hawkins) wrote:
>In article <u6q4rs8aukvmuseng...@4ax.com>,
>jbs <j...@excelonline.com> wrote:
>>No he can't. Good clerics can't cast Evil spells.
>
>If you're refering to PHB page 32, under "Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful
>Spells", it seems to refer only to spells from the Chaos, Evil, Good, and
>Lawful domain. It says to look on the level line of the spell description
>(where the domain access is), not the school line. I made the same mistake
>at first.
>
>This works out nicely, since the evil domain spells are hard-core evil
>(prot from good, desecrate, etc.). Same goes for the other alignments. As
>for Death Knell, it isn't part of the evil domain, so it's ok (though
>your good deity may or may not like it, depending on their belief system
>and who you cast it on; thus the indicator on the school line).
So, "Donovan Hawkins", if that is your real name, you have seen through
my EVIL PLAN! My DELIBER8 MISTEAK was not a misteak after all, but an
ELABOR8 RUSE!!!! But this will help you NOT A WHIT!!1! Whatever a whit
is.
Allen Wessels
<halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Exactly! And another thing I just thought of...weapon damage has not
> been dramatically upped, if at all. And yet regular armed opponents
> will constitute the majority of the PCs' foes especially at lower
> levels. So while monsters may have been made tougher, regular opponents
> who still do a d8 damage with a sword have NOT.
Of course they have. First, since bonuses for strength start earlier,
the monsters are more likely to have them. Second, monsters get feats
now too.
- Allen
Sheitan
> >Uh . . . yes. Pg 129, first column, about halfway down the page, Massive
> >Damage.
> >
> >Oh, wait. It says "single attack." My mistake.
>
> Ok, so what about magical damage? Of course I automatically assumed it
> would also count (50 points from a fireball, for example), but here is the
> PHB definition of attack:
>
> "Any of numerous actions intended to harm, disable, neutralize an
> opponent. The result of an attack is determined by an attack roll."
>
> But spells aren't determined by an attack roll (with the possible
> exception of touch spells and some that require targeting like a ray or a
> chromatic orb-type). So it would seem they don't qualify for massive
> damage. I checked the combat section and nowhere do they use the word
> attack (that I can find) to refer to a spell. So, does this mean that
> magical damage doesn't count, or should this be an errata?
It means any damage source - "attack" here is not being uesd in its more
formal sense.
- Sheitan
Michael Scott Brown
news:8FA4804DBtowon...@207.211.168.88...
> On 03 Sep 2000, in rec.games.frp.dnd, alhu...@home.com (Allister
> Huggins) proclaimed <39B271C5...@home.com>:
>
> > Aid can be used for an average of 4.5 HP (2nd level spell).
> > Same 36 HP
> >and with 3 days of bed rest, the thief now needs 18 HP of healing.
>
> Nitpick: Aid provides no healing, just bonus HP that go away at the
> end of the duration, if any are left.
Nitpick of nitpick: the points only go away if in excess of normal hp
total.
-MIchael
Douglas Bailey
> My DELIBER8 MISTEAK was not a misteak after all, but an ELABOR8 RUSE!!!!
> But this will help you NOT A WHIT!!1! Whatever a whit is.
It's an Iain Banks novel, isn't it? :)
doug
--
--------------douglas bailey (trys...@ne.mediaone.net)--------------
this week dragged past me so slowly; the days fell on their knees...
--david bowie
Colin Neilson
>>>Death Knell as many times as he has 2nd-level spell slots. Of course,
>>>doing this too often means he probably won't stay good for long.
>>
>>No he can't. Good clerics can't cast Evil spells.
>
>If you're refering to PHB page 32, under "Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful
>Spells", it seems to refer only to spells from the Chaos, Evil, Good, and
>Lawful domain. It says to look on the level line of the spell description
>(where the domain access is), not the school line. I made the same mistake
>at first.
Not quite true. Some spells that are not Evil domain are still
classed as evil. Eg, animate dead is calssed as an evil spell but is
not on the evil domain list. Good Clerics and Neutral Clerics of Good
dieties cannot cast this spell.
Peter Seebach
Barry Smith <bsm...@premier1.net> wrote:
>"Upgrade"? So it is about power escalation? We can agree on that? I've
>read the entire thread up to this point, and so far, I'm leaning
>Halaster's direction. If his numbers are even remotely close, which
>after checking out some of the spells and numbers in the 3e PHB they
>seem to be pretty close, it is about power escalation. Upping the
>numbers across the board. No, I'm not saying this is bad, but it's not
>for me.
It's mostly a smoothing out of the curves; in many cases, this results in
"higher" power - but this also leaves more room for fine tuning.
-s
--
Copyright 2000, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
Consulting & Computers: http://www.plethora.net/
HADSIL
>are sitting down to create characters, this is the speech I give them about
>how to do it...
>
> "Ok. Everyone, make a guy. Pick your stats if you want. Pick
>everything. Don't go all nutty, just think of a cool character that you'd
>like to play in this world. Don't worry about specific rules of can/can't
>do this and that....just come up with a cool character concept that you'd
>like to play. We'll figure out any special adjustments, abilities and stuff
>as you get a better feeling for your character."
>
Exactly the type of GM I'd want to play with! If I were to do this I admit I
might go "overboard" a little, but I have no problem talking it over with the
GM. I know what's important is the character concept, not his abilities. I
remember in college I wanted to play a cleric whose alignment and sphere
allocation changed every day. I created a character with said characteristic.
I wasn't allowed everything I wanted but the core concept remained, a cleric
whose alignment changed every day because the GM liked the idea as well. In
another campaign with a different GM, and I'll *always* be greatful to this GM,
I played an Undead Skeleton. All I really cared about was to roleplay the
character, to face the challenges of being a Lawful Good Undead character.
Naturally the GM had to set limitations on abilities, but he accepted my
concept, and I played the character.
> ...seems to me that my way gives FAR more 'options' for PC's than simply
>having more 'stuff' listed in a book. Also, my way encourages uniqueness on
>a *much* greater scale than simply having a half dozen 'choices' in the PHB.
>I also have the power to nix any "cool ability" the player wants for his
>character....and because it isn't "in the rulebook" my judgment/ruling is
>accepted much easier and with much more repect than had I said "No." to them
>when they choose some powerful ability I dont' want in my campaign. My way
>encourages player-DM interaction. My way sets the ground rules for the
>players and DM to collectively develope a feeling for the campaign. My way
>sets the DM up more as a partner in character creation than an opponent of
>character creation.
>
I agree the GM should be able to say "No" to an ability. It is possible
cynical players will purposely ask for lots of stuff knowing the GM will veto
it to get some of what they ask for, and what they keep is hopefully what they
really wanted. The theory is that they "just know" the GM is going to take
something away. Still, players and GM creating characters in this way should
do it like a sane granting of Wish. The player should not be impossibly
greedy, and the GM should allow the player have a character that is "cool".
> But if all these 'super powers' wern't listed in the official rules of
>the game, the DM wouldn't have anything to 'forbid' in the first place. I
>don't mind options in the rule book, but, from what I gather, FEAT's in 3E
>are NOT "optional"; they are part of the core rules system. I would be much
>more happy about it if the game gave a few example FEAT's, but explained to
>the player that "FEAT's are too varied to be listed by any one book. Your DM
>has full information about how to create specific FEAT's for the game." Now
>that would be a good way of doing it, IMHO. Kinda like the game "Legens of
>Darkurthe" and there "Combat Maneuver" skill. The player more or less 'made
>up what it does' for his character...a special trick/maneuver/etc. the
>character has; each was unique.
>
Though I understand your point, I disagree the Feats are too empowering. Many
of them are abilities that already existed in some 2E sourcebook, now condensed
into one reference. Others provide new options of tactics. Except for
Fighters and straight spellcasters, if I remember correctly, characters aren't
getting too many. Fighters get a lot, but only for combat. They should be the
best in combat, and the feats reflect that. The metamagic Feats for spell
casters are rather cool, in my opinion, because they allow for flexibility.
Empowering a spell to be cast faster at a cost of a higher spell slot seems
fair and nifty. Guaranteeing max damage for a spell, though powerful, also
costs a significant higher spell slot, is a fair trade-off, and only already
somewhat powerful spell casters could do it anyway. To me, these Feats are
simply nifty abilities that characters can develop over time as they gain
levels. They allow 1st level characters to be forces to reckon with against
similar opponents, and I always advocate that just because a character is 1st
level doesn't mean he has to be an incompetent wimp who can't do anything, and
higher level characters can do more stuff to reflect that they are higher
level. Since real world reality prevents most campaigns from ever getting to
levels 16 or higher, "god-like" characters aren't going to happen. Should a
campaign do reach 16, 20, 25th level, then not only have the players earned
such powerful characters, since they do happen so rarely, it would be fun to
once player a character with such power. To this day I still cherish the
concept of the first time ever I played a priest character who was able to cast
Raise Dead, Heal, and Regenerate in a game without batting an eye. Such
spells were always done by NPCs; now I got to do it for once.
>>I cringe when I hear GMs constantly (my exaggeration,
>> perhaps) talk about denying player characters all sort of things or even
>> boasting of it.
>
> I agree with you on this one. DM's that pride themselves on how much
>they've "restricted" all the optional rules (I blame this entierly on 2E)
>need to think more. DM's are supposed to be neutral when running a world.
>They aren't there to go against the PCs (and players), and they aren't there
>to favore them either. Seems to me, most of them restrict everything
>because of one or two reasons; 2E was just screwed up with all that "Complet
>Book's of..." crap that it was easier for a DM to just say "Nothing except
>the core rules; PHB, MM, DMG", or because they were loosers that needed to
>boost their ego's by "showing the players how powerful they are".
>
>^_^
>
>Denakhan the Arch-Mage
>
>
I think the worse was when I overheard a GM cheerfully say that in his world
there are no healing spells whatsover except perhaps for unique very high level
NPC priests, and they can only cast Cure Light Wounds. However, for even
standard D&D, Ravenloft and Dark Sun are such GMs' wet dreams, and I stay clear
away from such campaigns.
Gerald Katz
Paladins rule!
Deirdre M. Brooks
Barry B Wood wrote:
>
> Hong Ooi wrote:
>
> > In such circumstances, the rational person ensures he or she is
> > well-informed about the facts, before making any judgements.
> >
> > Are you a rational person?
>
> Fallacy. Appeal to Conformity. Also irrational. Turn the question on
> yourself?
Fallacy. Taking Hong's statements out of context.
--
Deird'Re M. Brooks | xe...@teleport.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
"Atlantic City is Oz envisioned by used car salesmen and pimps."
http://www.teleport.com/~xenya | --Rick Glumsky, Celtic Filth
Michael Scott Brown
news:RkXs5.2858$qL5....@news3.atl...
> I was basing this on, as I stated, the fact that 10.5 is the Average roll
> for a d20.
>
> If the Ogre rolled AVERAGE, 10.5, then he would hit AC 18.5(18 or 19), and
> thus, ON AVERAGE, would hit an AC 18 character every round, on average.
You're making a conceptual mistake with this thinking here. Consider -
by your thinking, a character with no attack bonus should miss every round
in your example when attacking a monster with AC 11 or more, something that
clearly doesn't make any sense! Further, having the ogre hit every round
would be a 100% success rate, which is just as unreasonable.
The "average" on the d20 is the total of all the rolls divided by the
number of rolls; one *can't* "roll average all the time" on a d20 unless
there's a freak of nature involved (any single value is only 1-in-20 likely,
notice the extreme unlikelihood of rolling straight tens for a few throws .
. ). After several rolls, the average roll will approach ten, but that's
different entirely from the rolls themselves, for the average roll to be
ten, you will in general be rolling higher and lower than this repeatedly.
Consequently, the right way to extract information from the chance to
hit is to find out what % of the time a given target number is met on the
die. The ogre, with a +8 to hit, only needs an 8 to show on the die in
order to hit AC16 - this means that he only misses on a 1-7 on the die = 35%
of the time (~1/3). So his average number of hits per round is ~2/3.
To hit Ac 18 he misses on 1-9, so he hits 55% of the time (closer to
1/2).
> Like I said, I am NOT a statistician, nor a major in Statistics.
You need to be neither to make use of these basic concepts; an
elementary education in mathematics such as you recieved in high school
should have been adequate.
-Michael
Michael Scott Brown
news:39B37224...@knutsen.dk...
> To me it looks like he gets one attack per round with a 50%
> chance of hitting (0.50 p), average damage/hit 14, so he does an
> average damage per round of 7 hp, or 72%/77% of what the party
> does (with MM/with staff)
Note- during any round that a character closes with the ogre it will get
an extra attack for that round, upping his damage for that round to 14.
I wonder what the rules are for grabbing and throwing smaller characters
back out of your immediate vicinity so that they have to move through your
reach again?
-Michael
Peter Newman
> The
> Animate Dead spell has always been considered an evil spell,
Where and by what previous canon?
Suppose that you are the defender of a castle that is being
besieged by the forces of evil and chaos. If the castle, which
contains the rightful heir to the throne, the good Prince Bob,
falls to the forces of evil the uncrowned King will be put to
the sword and evil will spread forth unopposed across the kingdom.
The castle must hold!
However most of the defenders of the south wall were killed
by those 'Cloudkill' spells yesterday. Without another fifty
bodies on the wall by dawn the kingdom will fall. If the castle
can hold another two days the loyalist forces from the west can
attack the evil traitor Count Muir's [speaker pauses to spit at
the mention of his name] forces from behind and save the kingdom.
The castles chaplain is not powerful enough to cast 'Miracle' to
bring those troops back but he is powerful enough to cast 'Animate
Dead'. Are you going to let the light of good and truth and beauty
throughout the Kingdom fall to Chaos and Evil by forbidding him
from 'Animating' the fallen to hold that wall? Prince Bob is the
rightful King anointed with a divine right to rule by the Goddess
herself, will you let his line perish?
Draxus
Goddess
>herself, will you let his line perish?
In my games at least the good chaplain isn't going to have access to Animate
Dead in the first place. I'd have to agree that most "good" socities are going
to view reanimating corpses as not a nice thing to do.
Besides, how many times have we seen the story where the good guy learns the
evil magics because it is the "only" way to save the good kingdom, and he ends
up going postal and wiping out the kingdom anyway?
Peter Newman
>
> On Mon, 04 Sep 2000 02:58:08 -0800, Peter Newman <pne...@gci.net> scribed
> into the ether:
>
> >Denakhan the Arch-Mage wrote:
> >
> >> > Why on earth would most players know how Teleport, Plane Shift,
> >> > and Dimension Door work before they first encounter?
> >>
> >> Uh, you *do* know what a player is, right? That should answere your
> >> question right there.
> >
> >I meant what I said.
> >
> >Even if they know what the PH says, so what?
> >
> >Unless your character is knowledgeable about a spell the
> >_player_ should have no reason whatsoever to know if the DM
> >has altered a spell using Rule O. The DM's answer should be
> >"Your charecter does not know that so you don't know it either."
> >
> >If a spell in my game world happens to work differently than
> >a spell in the PH the players do not need to know that unless
> >they are knowledgeable about that spell.
>
> Simply by possessing the spell, the player would automatically be
> knowledgable about it.
Right and that is covered by "Unless your character is knowledgeable
about a spell" above. This means something like unless you know
the spell, have seen the spell, have talked about the spell to
someone who can cast it or is otherwise knowledgeable about it,
make a not terribly hard Spellcraft Roll, use Bardic Lore, etc.
> And what
> decent party member is not going to tell his compatriots about the
> limitations that he is under?
Not all party members are decent....
Not all of those who are decent have entirely decent party members.
[The following paragraph is brought to you by the International
True Neutral Characters Union, ITNCU]
The Spellcasters knowledge is part of his power. The more the other
party members know of his weaknesses the easier it is for them
to murder him. Trust is for the gullible. The world is a hard cruel
place. You have to look out for number one.
Michael Scott Brown
news:39B4B544...@gci.net...
> > The Animate Dead spell has always been considered an evil spell,
>
> Where and by what previous canon?
Perhaps you've read the 2ndEdition PhB at some point in your life?
-Michael
Lawrence Mead
Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> I've been busy the last few days, so Im behind a bit in recent
> conversations, but this weekend I've been looking closer at 3E and
> trying to make a final decision as to how I feel about it. I saw the
> thread here about changing spells, and I decided to post something
> about the overabundance of healing in 3E.
>
> Not only is there way too much healing allowed, but healing is also
> toughened up. Healing spells do MUCH more than they used to. Let's
take
> a look at a cleric at 15th level with the healing domain (I used
> higher level cleric to make a point).
[snip long calculation]
You are up to over 300 hp and you still haven't converted any
non-healing spells to cures on the fly. I agree 100%.
DMGorgon
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Lawrence Mead
db...@tampatrib.com wrote:
> In article <8os4ju$mbv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Halaster Blackcloak <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > domain? If so, that's even worse, but I saw nothing that told me
> > doubling up on a domain (for example, two healing domains) is not
> > allowed.
>
> To me, "Choose two domains" means to choose two, not to choose one and
> pick two spells per level per day from it.
>
> > No, to me this isn't even D&D anymore. It's some sort of high-level
> > video game where characters have unlimited healing and resurrection
> > ability.
>
> Yeah, you complained about this before. I'll give you the same answer
> as before. Good thing there are no monsters that paralyze, charm,
> petrify, grapple, ensnare, age, drain or capture the players rather
> than merely slash them. And, your clerics may need those spells seeing
> as how the dragon that formerly had 17d8 hit points now has 25d12+150
> and is +36 to hit.
Try looking up the word "inflation". Sure seems appropriate here :)
DMgorgon
Michael Scott Brown
news:8p2pcd$db4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
> [snip long calculation]
>
> You are up to over 300 hp and you still haven't converted any
> non-healing spells to cures on the fly. I agree 100%.
Thereby proving that you are 100% pathetic.
Your repeated failures are now legendary. You do realize, don't you,
that your "and he hasn't even converted his nonhealing spells" crack is
utterly moronic, given that he's *memorized* nothing but healing spells in
the first place?
Mead, you're a failure. You've had six months of preview and *your own
copy of the PhB* and you STILL don't understand one thing about the new
system, nor do you have the slightest idea of what analytical framework
would be needed to make *meaningful* comparisons across editions. Hint for
you, dweebcheeks- adding up the big numbers isn't it.
The only way, it seems, for you to contribute to this group
intelligently is if you do so on topics confined to first edition. You are
welcome to change this situation - but at some point, you're going to have
to try *thinking* before you post.
-Michael
The Wraith
>
>relative to the PC's hp 3e healing allows characters to be fully healed
>multiple times per day (past about level 4-5) with 1 cleric. To ignore the
>balance arguement for a minute. This isn't very good storytelling;
On the contrary, it seems to me to make for a much better story to
have the heroes burst in on their final enemies brimming with power
and strength, but with those NPCs able to give them a damn good run
for their money anyway. Having a group of tired and tattered PCs limp
in to face those same final enemies, and despite the weakened state of
the PCs having those enemies still not be able to win, doesn't seem to
make for a very good story to me.
>i mean
>it really changes the laws of physics so that natural healing is unessary,
>and ummm to sumarize its just plain goofey.
Are you seriously trying to claim that natural healing ever had a
significant impact in the average AD&D campaign?
--
Now, by popular demand, a new .sig!
I still can't think of anything witty to say, though.
The Wraith
spank...@my-deja.com
out the same amount of damage as good clerics can heal, by
using 'inflict' spells as opposed to cure spells. So that's 300hp of
damage from a 15th level evil cleric.... I thinf the good clerics on
your party will have to use most of their healing just to cancel this
out, especially if the evil cleric has the destruction domain.
Good clerics just became a little less powerful, don't you think?
'If you lve a lie, you die a liar' - Cerys Matthews, 'Postscript'
Hari the Monk
conceptual mistake on my part. Part of what I was clinging to was the fact
that the average damage of the Ogre would drop the average first level
character when he it. So he would drop a character every other round(or a
little better than this depending on AC) on average. I was looking at it
from a bad standpoint in the first place. My bad.
Hari the Monk
"Michael Scott Brown" <The_Z...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:OjZpk4wFAHA.318@cpmsnbbsa07...
Dan
> Exactly! And another thing I just thought of...weapon damage has not
> been dramatically upped, if at all. And yet regular armed opponents
> will constitute the majority of the PCs' foes especially at lower
> levels. So while monsters may have been made tougher, regular
> opponents who still do a d8 damage with a sword have NOT.
Monsters now get stats with appropriate bonuses, so stronger monsters
will do slightly more damage. Also, monsters can do criticals just like
PCs can, so more skilled monsters will do proportionately more damage
than their 'basic'.
Dan
Hari the Monk
My thoughts on this are that sometimes in RPGs, inflation of the numbers are
a GOOD thing. Lets compare two ends of the spectrum:
Whitewolf games: all your stats are min 1 max 5 'dots'. Within 5points, you
have everything from the toughest thing in the game to the weakest thing in
the game. Fine if all you desire is just a good story, told mainly by the
DM(er ST I guess) with the occasionally imput of the players. But how do
you tell who's stronger, the Hulk or Colossus? They'd both have 5 or so
'dots' of Str. How about the Str difference between Captain America and
Hawkeye(just using Comic examples to point out obviously different STR
character's)?
D&D 3e: stats run from 1 as the weakest thing in the world to 45 and beyond
for the toughest things in the world. This makes it a lot easier to
illustrate that Captain America probably has an 18 Str(peak human, maybe a
bit higher after level bonuses, so possibly 22), whereas Hawkeye probably
only has a 15 or so Str. And the Hulk might have a 60 Str(and probably be a
Large creature to boot). This is much better for the folks who desire to
have the DM as the referee/plot devisor and the players as the main driving
force of the story(as opposed to the story being the main driving force of
the players).
I'm not saying either method is BAD or WRONG, but I prefer the D&D3e
version, myself.
Hari the Monk
"Lawrence Mead" <lrm...@orca.st.usm.edu> wrote in message
news:8p2pf7$dba$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Lasse Reichstein Nielsen
> Lasse Reichstein Nielsen wrote:
>
> > The
> > Animate Dead spell has always been considered an evil spell,
>
> Where and by what previous canon?
Ok, I overspoke. I do not know what 1E said, but the 2E spell
description specifically said that casting it was an evil act. That
is why I think the [Evil] on the school line in 3e means that it is an
evil spell, even if it is not associated with the evil domain. I was
talking about the rulebook. I'm sure a lot of house rules might differ.
-snip example of temptation-
So this mortal is more important than the rules of your god.
There is always another option. Dying with style is one. :)
/L
grimb...@my-deja.com
A lot of these numbers are outrageous but for characters to benfeit
from this healing they have to survive the encounters in the first place,
not to mention reach the levels appropriate to cast all these spells.
Being abble to heal hundreds of hitpoints doesn't matter much when the
cleric himself has already taken the dozens required to do him in.
I'd say 3E is leaning towards being brutal to the pc's during combat with
a good chance of survival if the players do things right (the average orc
is doing what 1d12+5 damage?), work together and the cleric survives thus
being able to heal everyone, don't work together the shows over and the
pc's are dead.
Al Petterson
> conversations, but this weekend I've been looking closer at 3E and
> trying to make a final decision as to how I feel about it. I saw the
> thread here about changing spells, and I decided to post something
> about the overabundance of healing in 3E.
I note you don't much care for the system changes, and it's certainly
your right to prefer 2E over 3E. But I think you might benefit from
this point of view:
- first, note that any 2E cleric could memorize pretty close to the same
number of healing spells as a 3E cleric can cast -- he just has to make
the choice up front. The "abort to healing" rule doesn't make clerics
better at healing, it makes them more fun to play, since they can
memorize other spells that they can cast *if they don't need the
healing*.
- yes, heal spells heal more damage. And characters have more hit
points. Also, monsters do more damage (all monsters get strength bonuses
to damage now). Basically, a hit point means less than it did. The
scale is a little different. This is neither good nor bad, just
different.
- I consider your .sig highly ironic for someone complaining about
supposed power-gaming aspects of the new edition. ;)
> "Undermountain, the Realms' deadliest dungeon? I prefer to call it
> home."
> "Elminster? Bah! Neophyte!"
Deirdre M. Brooks
Hari the Monk wrote:
>
> Whitewolf games: all your stats are min 1 max 5 'dots'. Within 5points, you
> have everything from the toughest thing in the game to the weakest thing in
> the game. Fine if all you desire is just a good story, told mainly by the
> DM(er ST I guess) with the occasionally imput of the players. But how do
> you tell who's stronger, the Hulk or Colossus? They'd both have 5 or so
> 'dots' of Str. How about the Str difference between Captain America and
> Hawkeye(just using Comic examples to point out obviously different STR
> character's)?
This isn't even wrong.
I don't mind good examples, but this is just horrendous. From looking at
this, I'd suspect you've never done more than look at a character sheet
and listened to rhetoric from offended grognards.
1) There's nothing in the Storyteller games that indicates they're all
about "a good story, told mainly by the ZST with the occasional input of
the players." In fact, you'll find a lot of text dating back to first
edition Vampire strongly stating just the opposite: That the players
drive the game.
2) You've misrepresented the attribute scale in Storyteller. Attributes
*are* ranked from 1 to 5 for normal humans. Elder vampires, powerful
spirits, archmages and other things can definitely exceed 5 dots in many
scores. "5" represents normal human maximum in an attribute, nothing
more. (Btw, Aberrant - White Wolf's super-game could model the Hulk vs.
Colossus quite nicely and without fudging, as well as Hawkeye vs.
Captain America).
Hong Ooi
>"Sheitan" <sheit...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:8oud6c$19a$1...@news.ihug.co.nz...
>>
>>
>> It means any damage source - "attack" here is not being uesd in its more
>> formal sense.
>>
>
>How do you know this? It's at best confusing terminology. The meaning of
>"attack" *must* be consistent throughout the rules.
This is getting stupid.
--
Hong Ooi | "Game guys, Java has been around since
hong...@maths.anu.edu.au | 1994. It's DEAD."
http://www.zip.com.au/~hong | -- T.
Canberra, Australia |
Jimmy Kerl
err 2 good points there. but ummm.. ok. well point taken.
The ratio of hp between 1st: and 20th level characters as well as eazy
and more difficut monsters has went WAYY up; and regardless of healing
this is something i'm almost certian im not going to like (though
i do need to play it a few times im sure to find out for certian)
And while youve refuted my points rather effectiveally, it still just
doesn't feel right to have that much healing (specifically the swap
to healing spells) if this was an ability for only clerics w/healing
domain i'd be more inclined to like it.
Jimmy
Deirdre M. Brooks
Hong Ooi wrote:
>
> >How do you know this? It's at best confusing terminology. The meaning of
> >"attack" *must* be consistent throughout the rules.
>
> This is getting stupid.
Your statement would be far more plausible if you removed the third
word.
Peter Knutsen
Michael Scott Brown wrote:
>
> "Peter Knutsen" <pe...@knutsen.dk> wrote in message
> news:39B37224...@knutsen.dk...
> > To me it looks like he gets one attack per round with a 50%
> > chance of hitting (0.50 p), average damage/hit 14, so he does an
> > average damage per round of 7 hp, or 72%/77% of what the party
> > does (with MM/with staff)
>
> Note- during any round that a character closes with the ogre it will get
> an extra attack for that round, upping his damage for that round to 14.
Ouch!
> I wonder what the rules are for grabbing and throwing smaller characters
> back out of your immediate vicinity so that they have to move through your
> reach again?
It sounds like it could be abused.
Anyway, without having read either the PHB or DMG, I'd rule
that you'd have to use both your (empty!) hands to grab and
throw someone, so the stunt wouldn't be useful for making
attacks.
With sufficient size difference (I'm thinking Ogre vs Halfling
or something, here), you could kick instead of grab. But
that would require an attack roll versus a target two sizes
smaller than you are (on the other hand, your objective is to
give the target a nice little gift of kinetic energy so you
won't care whether it's armoured at all). Kicking ought to
work.
> -Michael
--
Peter Knutsen
Hong Ooi
<xe...@teleport.com> wrote:
>
>
>Hong Ooi wrote:
>>
>> >How do you know this? It's at best confusing terminology. The meaning of
>> >"attack" *must* be consistent throughout the rules.
>>
>> This is getting stupid.
>
>Your statement would be far more plausible if you removed the third
>word.
Genteel understatement was always my preferred method. :)
Hari the Monk
Storyteller games in general. With the 1-5 dots thing, I may have been
thinking of Mage instead of Vampire. Sorry. I HAVE played Vamp, Mage,
Wraith and one sitting of Werewolf. I'm still inclined not to like it.
Never heard of aberrant. Maybe I just came across a string of DMs/STs that
drove our characters with their story, instead of letting us drive the story
with our characters. Again, basing this off of personal experience. I
actually own Mage, and it wasn't TOO bad, but I've HATED all my Vampire
experiences(LARP and PnP included). I can't speak for anything other than
personal experience.
Hari the Monk,
who doesn't wish to be lynched by the WhiteWolfers:)
"Deirdre M. Brooks" <xe...@teleport.com> wrote in message
news:39B5358D...@teleport.com...
Stephenls
<snippety>
I'm not sure, but it might be a product of the "generic" spell
descriptions that Animate Dead is vewed as "neutral". I've always seen
it as ripping the soul of the departed away from an afterlife and
shoving back into a corrupt shell to serve every whim of a callous
master, while never being able to again express it's own wished and
forever having to look upon a world that it can no longer participate in
and...
Sorry. I've been reading my whitewolf books again. I'll stop now.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"Life without pain isn't real" -Isamu Dyson, Macross Plus
Stephenls
You've made this argument that I can't find any holes in more than once
and he continues to ignore it.
*sigh*
Stephenls
> Hari the Monk,
> who doesn't wish to be lynched by the WhiteWolfers:)
Lynching isn't really our style. We like to spew angst at people until
they die of depression instead.
:-)
Tyranus
healing thing. I know that the 2 hp per day max, and then after 2 weeks you
are "completely" healed doesnt make much sense, it has played a HUGE factor
a number of times in my campaign.
I tend to play role playing games like a medieval adventure story. "Tough
fighters face the mighty dragon and are severely wounded, but win by a close
margin. Evil villian comes along and the wounded and weaken heroes are
forced to flee."
I know I come off as an old timer, but I try to put clerical magic into the
"miracle" category and certainly force my clerics to adhere to their
spheres. A majority of the priests in my worlds cannot even perform the
"miracle" of resurection (raise dead). Even those priests that are part of
religions that have major access to the healing sphere, almost none are high
enough level to cast raise dead. I priest who can remove disease, or cure
blindness is VERY awe inspiring to most commoners. Awe inspiring enough to
attract a HUGE following, and is only 5th level.
I guess it all comes down to how you run adventures. If you run your game
like a "video game" where it is very high pace, very high combat, very low
RP, then you need a system that can replenish the "war machines" you use as
characters. If you use alot of RP, a little bit of healing magic can go a
LONG way. I guess thats why a new "rp" system isnt that awe inspiring to me.
Tyranus
Jimmy Kerl <j...@icok.net> wrote in message news:39B55A...@icok.net...
Tyranus
> Peter Newman wrote:
>
> <snippety>
>
> I'm not sure, but it might be a product of the "generic" spell
> descriptions that Animate Dead is vewed as "neutral". I've always seen
> it as ripping the soul of the departed away from an afterlife and
> shoving back into a corrupt shell to serve every whim of a callous
> master, while never being able to again express it's own wished and
> forever having to look upon a world that it can no longer participate in
> and...
>
> Sorry. I've been reading my whitewolf books again. I'll stop now.
Hrm. Interesting. By the very last line in the description of the spell, I
would have to agree that it is evil. As far as the ripping from after life,
I dont agree. It could simply be a spectre of negative energy animating the
animated dead creature. I dont believe it nescacarily has to be the life
force of the bodies former occupant.
Tyrnaus
Dr Nuncheon
In fact, I would assert that it is definitely *not* the life force of the
former occupant.
True Ressurrection is a 9th level cleric spell. It *cannot* force a soul
to return to its body if the soul does not want to (p153).
Animate Dead is a 3rd level cleric spell.
Draw your own conclusions.
J
--
INTERNET SEEMS TO BE FULL OF MILLIONS OF | Jeff Johnston
IDIOTS & LUNATICS ! ! - c2 (ts...@my-deja.com) | jeffj @ io . com
Denakhan the Arch-Mage
> > significant impact in the average AD&D campaign?
<raising hand> I do! I do! ;-)
In most of my campaigns, one in particular (Eisla by name), natural
healing of 1hp/day (x2 if safe, warm area ; x3 if safe, warm area with
someone who knows healing/herbalism : so 1hp / 2hp / 3hp per day
respectively), with a bonus of Con HP Adj. at the end of 7 days. This was
never a problem because in Eisla, "levels" were VERY VERY low. A 1st level
PC fighter was better than any standard guard of a city. In fact, the
sergent of the city watch might be 2nd, with the captain 3rd. "High level"
was around 5 to 8. And there is virtually no one who is 9th or higher.
It is a great campaign, with a lot of hero-potential. When the town
says "Help! Our farmers complain of a huge man-beast that makes off with
sheep and cattle in the night. Can you help us? We can pay 25 gold coins.",
the party of, say, 4 chracters of 3rd level *ARE* the best suited for the
job.
^_^
Denakhan the Arch-Mage
John Proulx
news:g8harsglo8l9g36cs...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 04 Sep 2000 22:22:22 GMT, "John Proulx" <dew...@att.net> wrote:
>
> >"Sheitan" <sheit...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:8oud6c$19a$1...@news.ihug.co.nz...
> >>
> >>
> >> It means any damage source - "attack" here is not being uesd in its
more
> >> formal sense.
> >>
> >
> >How do you know this? It's at best confusing terminology. The meaning of
> >"attack" *must* be consistent throughout the rules.
>
> This is getting stupid.
>
Why? Because I expect WotC to stick to their own definitions of terminology?
Well, bleah.
John Proulx
>
> "Halaster Blackcloak" <halaster_...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:8os4ju$mbv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Sorry, but you have NOT proved that. It has been repeatedly asserted
> that though the power of PC's has increased, the power of monsters has
> increased even further - effectively providing an even _greater_ challenge
> to PC's than in previous editions. It may not be true, I don't yet know -
> but neither do you. All this healing may indeed be necessary and when it's
> placed into an active game rather than a static example it may be that the
> effects won't be what you are suggesting they _could_ be.
Well, it's obvious however your amount of healing statements were flawed. As
I posted before 15th level 2e clerics hardly have the small amount of
healing you claimed they did. You had 3e somewhere around 200+ hps and 2e
around 32 hps healed per day. That's just wrong.
See my previous post on this topic. 2e clerics had as many healing spells
and have a slight boost in 3e.
This isn't just theory for me, I've been playing 3e since Gencon =)
--
Mike Wilson
uce_...@yahoo.com
Peter Newman
>
> "Peter Newman" <pne...@gci.net> wrote in message
> news:39B4B544...@gci.net...
> > > The Animate Dead spell has always been considered an evil spell,
> >
> > Where and by what previous canon?
>
2nd ed PH p 165 says only:
"The casting of this spell is not a good act."
It does not say that it is an evil act it says only that it
is not a good act, there is a vast difference.
Moreover since the assertion was that "The Animate Dead spell has
_always_ been considered an evil spell" even if it was considered
evil by second edition it might not necessarily _always_ have been
evil.
Peter Newman
>
> Peter Newman <pne...@gci.net> writes:
>
> > Lasse Reichstein Nielsen wrote:
> >
> > > The
> > > Animate Dead spell has always been considered an evil spell,
> >
> > Where and by what previous canon?
>
> Ok, I overspoke. I do not know what 1E said, but the 2E spell
> description specifically said that casting it was an evil act.
No it does not. What is says [2nd ed PH p 165] is that
"The casting of this spell is not a good act". Just because
something is not good does not make it evil it can be neutral.
Stephenls
> True Ressurrection is a 9th level cleric spell. It *cannot* force a
> soul to return to its body if the soul does not want to (p153).
> Animate Dead is a 3rd level cleric spell.
> Draw your own conclusions.
Well, then, I'm lost.
I'd post some stuff about evil gaining power faster than good at the
expence of morals, and some more other stuff like that, but people would
just shoot it down.
Other than that, maybe it's because all undead that are uncontrolled
have a natural tendency to try to destroy all life around them? If
that's the case, then creating more of them certanly /is/ evil.
Other than that, I can't think of any reason why it should be EEEEEEvil.
Deirdre M. Brooks
Tyranus wrote:
>
> I guess it all comes down to how you run adventures. If you run your game
> like a "video game" where it is very high pace, very high combat, very low
> RP, then you need a system that can replenish the "war machines" you use as
> characters. If you use alot of RP, a little bit of healing magic can go a
> LONG way. I guess thats why a new "rp" system isnt that awe inspiring to me.
I find your assumption that "high pace" and "high combat" are both
"video game style" and "very low roleplay" to be unsupportable. Can you
explain why these qualities preclude roleplay, or is this simply an
elitist statement?
Deirdre M. Brooks
Stephenls wrote:
>
> Hari the Monk wrote:
>
> > Hari the Monk,
> > who doesn't wish to be lynched by the WhiteWolfers:)
>
> Lynching isn't really our style. We like to spew angst at people until
> they die of depression instead.
> :-)
I'm irritable that my news serivice didn't pick up Hari's post. Hari: No
worries. :-)
Duane Vanderpol
news:5uit5.260260$8u4.2...@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com...
But you don't consider that to be an _average_ sort of D&D campaign do
you? The observation is that in a more typical game, natural healing seldom
gets a look in for more than a few points overnight before the cleric drowns
the PC in healing making natural healing little better than an
afterthought - an extra goodie point like downing your one daily Goodberry
for a point. In extreme situations, those single points may make all the
difference but on the average they mean very little.
--
Duane VanderPol
http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp
Alea jacta est. In omnia paratus. Ars gratia artis.
Hari the Monk
slanted by bad DM's, etc.'.
Nothing major:)
Hari the Monk
"Deirdre M. Brooks" <xe...@teleport.com> wrote in message
news:39B5BDBB...@teleport.com...
Stephenls
> I find your assumption that "high pace" and "high combat" are both
> "video game style" and "very low roleplay" to be unsupportable. Can
> you explain why these qualities preclude roleplay, or is this simply
> an elitist statement?
Jusdging from his other recent postings, the latter.
He seems very much to be the steriotyped WW gamer. More's the pity.
Wonko the Sane
>
> > Like I said, I am NOT a statistician, nor a major in Statistics.
>
> You need to be neither to make use of these basic concepts; an
> elementary education in mathematics such as you recieved in high school
> should have been adequate.
>
heh. gotta love today's public schools. :)
--
There once was a dwarf named Fritz,
Who was burned right where he sits.
That happens they say,
When you get in the way
Of a dragon, just as he spits.
Michael Scott Brown
news:39B58ADD...@dccnet.com...
> Has he killfiled you or something?
>
> You've made this argument that I can't find any holes in more than once
> and he continues to ignore it.
>
> *sigh*
Your post would be slightly more informative if it were more apparent to
whom your musings were directed.
-Michael
Michael Scott Brown
> > > > The Animate Dead spell has always been considered an evil spell,
> > >
> > > Where and by what previous canon?
> > Perhaps you've read the 2ndEdition PhB at some point in your life?
>
> 2nd ed PH p 165 says only:
> "The casting of this spell is not a good act."
>
> It does not say that it is an evil act it says only that it
> is not a good act, there is a vast difference.
Well butter me up and call me a muffin, your interpretation of the
nuance would seem to be quite correct. I often sing the very song of
not-good isn't always evil and so I dare not disagree. :)
But generally speaking, animate dead isn't good quite clearly because it
usually *is* considered to be black magic-by-default. There are a few cases
where it might be functionally neutral to use it.
-Michael
Rupert Boleyn
wrote:
>With sufficient size difference (I'm thinking Ogre vs Halfling
>or something, here), you could kick instead of grab. But
>that would require an attack roll versus a target two sizes
>smaller than you are (on the other hand, your objective is to
>give the target a nice little gift of kinetic energy so you
>won't care whether it's armoured at all). Kicking ought to
>work.
It's only a touch attack, so only size, Dex and dodge bonuses would
count. As for it being difficult - I don't see why, as all you're
doing is kicking something with the same relative size as a rugby ball
is to a human (or even a bit bigger). Sure it moves erractically, but
not that much more than an oval ball skipping and bouncing as it
rolls.
Let's hear it for Trollball!
--
Rupert Boleyn <rbo...@paradise.net.nz>
"Inside every cynic is a romantic trying to get out."