For discussion of D&D 3.0 and 3.5e> Toolshttps://srd.dndtools.orghttps://dndtools.one/https://d20srd.orghttps://www.realmshelps.net/> Indices> 3.5https://archive.burne99.com/archive/4/http://web.archive.org/web/20080617022745/http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/index.php> 3.0http://web.archive.org/web/20060330114049/http://www.crystalkeep.com:80/d20/rules3.0.php> Dragon Magazine Indexhttps://www.aeolia.net/dragondex/> Web Articles Orbital Flower Index PDFhttps://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/91811106/#91824954> Erratahttps://web.archive.org/web/20201111205827/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/errata>3e Resource Index Version 2024-04-17https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/92491374/#92530275Previous thread: >>93955633Thread Question: Everyone has had to fight a lich at least once. How did your lich encounter go?
I'm considering starting a 3.5 E6 campaign. Anyone with experience running long E6 campaigns? Any tips?
>>94129592Its a shame that that 3.x Ghost book didn t get more support.
>>94129612When the Players get to sixth level, make sure to remind them that they no longer level, so they done get confus
>>94129592Over 20 years with 3e/3.5 and a few with 2E 2nd ed. I've actually never fought a lich as a player and have never run a lich fight as a DM.Unrelated to the thread question, I'm the anon who, a few threads back, said I'd be combing through Dungeon magazine to try to give its adventure-agnostic content treatment like the Dragon index. Just wanted to give an update. Work is slow, between life, my weekly 3.5 session, and the horrendous OCR quality of the archive I'm working off of, but I'm still progressing. I'm currently on issue 112, ~3/8 through with the 3e/3.5 content. There's obviously not going to be anywhere near as much content as Dragon magazine, but so far I'm up to (excluding things that I have confirmed to be reprinted in official materials):* 2 Prestige Classes* 2 Feats* 8 Diseases* 2 Poisons* 2 Drugs* 5 Spells* 15 Monsters* 9 Templates* 1 Armor Quality* 1 Specific Armor* 1 Specific Shield* 1 Weapon Property* 6 Specific Weapons* 2 Rods* 2 Rings* 28 Wondrous Items* 15 Minor Artifact* 8 Major Artifacts* 1 "Official" 3>3.5 Mundane Weapon Update* 3 Mundane Weapons* 1 Vehicle* 1 Intelligent Weapon* 5 Alchemical Substances* 1 Cursed Item* 1 Symbiont* 1 Fiendish GraftThis is from clearly marked sidebars and appendices, but at least two items and one monster were discovered inline so I intend to do a second pass. I know some bits are scattered about (realmshelps has some monsters, for example, but home-updated to 3.5 in some cases), but I'd rather have what little there is to squeeze out of the rags in one place./update
>>94129782Very nice. You are a credit to multiple communities, Anon.
>>94129612Depending on how hard you can be on the players you may want to emphasize that things that weren't a threat in general game are way more dangerous now. 2 guys with a level of rogue and a feat that gives them additional 1d6 damage are a mortal danger to most PCs - 6d6+5-6 damage with flanking bonuses. And there are a lot of things like this. So watch out for them. Illusions and mind affecting attacks are way more dangerous. Feats and abilities that were basically dangerous for only 1-2 levels stay with your for the whole game, and so on, and so on.A good way to show that things are still dangerous is to throw a monster with sunder/break object abilities and just make it bust through walls to get to the party. I would also recommend for characters to die at -HP or -CON, whichever is higher. Otherwise you may get a lot of your PCs dead to a lucky crit.
>>94129782Awesome work. Great progress. Thick. Solid. Tight. Keep us all posted on your continued progress with any new progress updates or archive documents. Show us what you got man.For real, nice.
>>94129592The cleric with the Sun domain, ran up hasted and invisible close to the lich while a summoned Azata Bralani was distracting it and succeeded on his turn check. 1 round of combat, not counting buffs and closing the distance.
>>94131940Was the lich retarded or something
>>94129592Couldn't find a forgotten realms thread, so I instead come to you people for help because I consider you smarter than the people in the 5e thread. I try to include lots of forgotten realms stuff in my world building, because my players like it, but I am still learning a lot of it. I need some recommendations for a few things:>Some sort of disaster that would make the ordinary surface world nearly unhinhabitable. Turning it into a barren plain of death or fire. Maybe something unleashed from the hells? Or a very powerful and ancient lich?>Some sort of "good" and lowkey society, probably magical in nature, that might want to protect the people of the world as best they can. >Some sort of ancient, large scale, and reusable demiplane. For example perhaps a demiplane once used to contain a great monster, but now that it is dead, it is home to various small scale civilizations (kind of like the backrooms?)The idea for my setting is that this world ending disaster is imminent, and this society is attemtping to send people to an "ark" of sorts that is a demiplane. The adventure will consist of the players going around in this demiplane and interacting with the towns and people in it like any normal story. I was going to homebrew everything, but thought they might like it better if they discover something and go "oh my god, this is xyz from forgotten realms!" Anyways, feel free to share your most interesting and obscure wiki pages I can steal from!
>>94133279>Some sort of disasterFor disasters, use as framework Elder Evils. While you read that book, glance (just glance) at ELH abominations. You don't have to transpose 1:1 just grab useful stuff.>Some sort of "good" and lowkey societyDoesn't FR have harpers? what am I missing>Some sort of ancient, large scale, and reusable demiplaneMake one with Genesis?If you need one previously occupied, make that the current occupiers are Ethergaunts.
>>94133360Those are all awesome anon, thanks>harpersDo you think harpers would fit for this role? I thought they were a rough network of less powerful adventurers. The flavor I had in mind would be something like a wizard showing up to a town and sending the entire town's population to the ark, without even briefing them on what is happening. Just trying to get as many people off the primary material plane as possible before the disaster strikes.
>>94133442Last time I checked, the Harpers were a "good" organization secretely keeping the setting in medieval stasis (or its magical equivalent) so that another Netheril won't happen ever again.
>>94132893>>94132893More like artificially constrained in means and options. It was an encounter straight out of a module. Not stated explicitly but strongly hinted that he was a dis-favored minion of Orcus, condemned to be a warden for the outskirts of a major dungeon and also forced to carry his phylactery on his person while doing it. In the encounter lich was used as an undead commander grinding down an encircled expedition of dwarves. Came to personally observe results after throwing 3rd wave of minions at his target. the players only won because they got 4x lucky in that one - >they had a Sun domain cleric, suspected they were going to be up against a vampire so he saved up his most powerful turn attempt>one of them had a good roll and spotted the lich observing the last wave's attack from 200+ft away on a moon lit night>they weren't sure if they should attack him, and only decided to try because the lich turned to retreat (also according to the module) and that gave them false confidence that they might be able to take him on. If they failed to spot him or didn't pursue him, he would have ground them down with endless waves of undead over the next day> and than the cleric rolled a turn check which only had a 20% chance of success.if that turn check failed it would have almost certainly been a party wipe for anyone who didn't flee. The whole thing took almost a month of real time to play out and last 3 weeks of that I was preparing how to reset the campaign after the expected TPK. Than the dice spoke.
>>94133490Whoa I did not know that. I will look more into them then.
>>94133490As far as I remember it was a faction in the Harpers.They caught a case of dead somewhere between 4th and 5th edition if I remember right but were still alive and kicking during 3.5 era.
>>94133683This. 4E expunged a lot of the intrigue, in-fighting, idealism/zealotry, and just organizations in general from the setting. 5E has made some in-roads into bringing back some of the lost lore and flavor, but it feels like they purposefully stopped short.>>94133279Let's see...>World-ending disasterThe Spellplague that occurred at the end of 3E affected not just Abeir-Toril and Realmspace, but touched any plane connected to it. Your dying plane could have already been teetering on the brink and then its proximity or connection to Realmspace could have let the Spellplague leak into its bounds and hasten its death.Alternately, a Faerunian dragonrage (especially the last artificially-induced Rage of Dragons) could spill into your plane by some deus ex machina and, if it was unprepared for a whole flock of gigapissed dragons, be absolutely decimated.>"Good" and lowkey society, probably magical in nature, wanting to protect peopleHarpers, Knights of the Weave (to an extent), the Soft Claws (especially relevant if coupled with the dragon rage idea), the Seven Sisters (fitting for a Spellplague tie-in if in your timeline most of them weren't absolutely annihilated). It's also very easy to invent an association dedicated to good and magic related to the Forgotten Realms since all of the good/neutral gods of magic and their associated churches are directly allied with each other.>Ancient reusable demiplanePlane of Shadow. Literally a negative image of any plane it touches, home to many (mostly evil) civilizations, and transitive between every known material plane.
>>94133279Mephistopheles attempted to make Faerun the 10th Hell in NWN1, with you (the MC) intervening.I don't remember the specifics on WHY the very active gods of FR didn't bat an eye, but in your case you can handwave it as no such epic hero ever appearing to stop him.
>>94134174>but it feels like they purposefully stopped short.That would be because the people who weren't FR fans really, really, really, really, really fucking hated this aspect of the setting.
>>94134250As always "not fans" come and ruin the fuck out of something they weren't fans of. Faerun literally didn't have much else over other settings. It's a fucking kitchen sink. Having its organizations and nations have at least some depth was one of its few redeeming qualities.
>>94134250All the more reason Greyhawk should have been kept as the default setting. Leave the bland, nondescript setting as the base for worldbuilders to build off of, and keep the matured settings as optionals for those that like what they have to offer. But no, "FR has sold more books (ignore the fact that we haven't published a Greyhawk book in an entire edition), so lets mainstream FR, rip out half of its character, and sell more books. And start writing a new setting contingency for when we milk this one dry!"
>>94134443Is it because of "FR having more books" or a succession of noteworthy video games set in Faerun (BG1&2, Icewind Dale, NWN1&2, etc)?
>>94134484Multiple NYT best-selling novels across multiple editions, multiple well-developed games, a matured setting build across every edition of D&D, take your pick. They all contributed to its success as a whole.
A Knight of the Raven's Raven isn't really a familiar, meaning that familiar feats don't work on it, right?What does it count as? "Special companion"?I remember reading that sort of language in some feat I think.Are there other feats or classes or whatever that can improve the thing in any way?I'm asking mostly out of curiosity as I don't plan on putting any resources towards the Raven.
>>94134856Can' you just awaken it? Should give it proper progression and ability to learn skills and feats.
>>94134430If you want to blame anyone blame WotC, not the fans. If there wasn't market pressure FR would have been off on its own. But it was the most popular setting while also being a divisive setting and WotC kind of has to keep publishing FR so it got the nuke in 4E.
>>94134886Shit that would be pretty funny actually.My character being able to talk to ravens was already a source of chuckles, having an actual aweakened raven would be hilarious.I do wonder how that would interact with the whole "when it dies it just comes back the next dawn" deal.
>>94134856I actually went through this with a player at my table just a few weeks ago (druid trying to accumulate a flock of bird companions).My personal interpretation of it is that it is a virtual familiar (in the same way class features can fill in as virtual feats) and allow it to benefit from feats, spells, and items that target familiars. Additionally, if the character in question also has a familiar slot from a class or the Obtain Familiar feat, they may select their raven as said familiar, granting it the benefits from normal familiar advancement and KotR advancement at the same time; it already gets half owner HP, owner HD determination, and owner base saves like a familiar, so this just gives it advancing INT/AC and a few extra features with the player only having the manage a single companion.>>94134970Hasbro of the Coast. Wizards hasn't been Wizards since Hasbro gutted them near the end of 3.5 and continues to wear their skin.
>>94134987>I do wonder how that would interact with the whole "when it dies it just comes back the next dawn" deal.Count it as a summon. They got the same deal. You still can kill them permanently with some effort.
>>94135012>>94135407Alright. Both valid interpretations/ideas.I'll meditate on those options and talk to my DM
>>94133279The closest I can think of is the blue fire / Spellleaf stuff in 1385 right at the end of 3e where spells were increasingly likely to backfire and kill you and everyone had to learn to recast with raw magic instead of using the weave, because FR uses a global artificial magic construct to raise its magical powers up to where greyhawk was, while also making magic safer, without which you get crappy 4e magic, and trying to cast normal magics is very dangerous.Detailed a fair bit in the haunted lands trilogy.The blue fire itself also wreaked havoc and mutated people and killed others and hit random people with wild magic effects for no reason. It was a bad time to be alive - but even that didn't render the world uninhabitable. Still though, it's a good justification to cut off the upper level spells.
>>94134174>plane of shadow.Good stuff. in my home games it is the only real part of the typical cosmology I kept. it replaces the ethereal, astral, Phlogiston, and feywild planes, as the glue binding all other planes together.
>>94137611Has the Phlogiston seen any use outside of Spelljammer?
>>94134250Faction conflict (and novin l continuity) is the whole appeal of the setting. If you don't want a game of faction conflict and a background of novels, pick a different one. There are several others.
>>94137619Not that I'm aware of. I'm just specifying I don't include spell-jamming as a means of planar travel. Instead it's all lengthy dangerous plane of shadow travel. (limited spells to fit as well)
>>94137737You also said no Astral, so where do the deities of your setting reside?
>>94137715You don't get to choose which setting you play in as a player. That's why the forums were inundated with nonstop complaints about FR.
>>94137852You get to choose if you want to join the table though and your DM needs players. This is even more so if you're a group of irl friends since nobody really wants to play with randos.
>>94137874Most people playing 5e don't have single, stable groups or they wouldn't be playing 5e
>>94137874If only it was as simple as that.
>>94137994Maybe it's not as complex as you think?3 stable players, 2 revolving DMs. We all know each other and hang irl. It all started years ago when I showed NWN1 to the group and they were intrigued by the system.You don't need random grognards from forums to play, they are the worst playerbase. And you don't need to present your games set in stone in the manner of "This is the Setting, these are the classes we'll play, if not then fuck off". Nobody likes that.If you're a no-friends neckbeard then I don't know what to tell you.
>>94138062And this is ... your 5e group?Or are you just not able to follow the conversation?
>>94138062And what happens when the DMs and 2 of the players want to play FR? You play FR or don't play at all.
>>94138100>Anons says players don't get to choose the setting.>I say they get to choose to actually join, indifferent invalidating the point.>Anon says it's not that simple.>I say otherwise.What did I miss?DMs not finding players because they are unyielding in their choices or unable to socialize is not a 5e thing, it's a ttrpg thing in general.
>>94138120Then I ask the one player who doesn't want to play in FR if he wants a Solo on the side on some other setting.
>>94138121>What did I miss?Developing a triple digit IQ, I guess.>DMs not finding playersThat doesn't happen>because they are unyielding in their choices or unable to socialize is not a 5e thingYou're right, it's not. Most people who play 5e go to a place and have a DM for the day. This is the majority of cases of people playing 5e, by playtime. 5e is primarily not played with stable groups, per >>94137899. DMs don't have trouble finding players.>>94138154Now this is low quality bait.
>>94138062It doesn't matter what you think the alternatives were when what I described was the reality. Most players during 3E's heyday took what they could get. It is literally one of the main reasons there was so much bitching about FR on RPG forums at large - that and FR being filled with some of the worst That Guy enabling advice this side of Deadlands.
What are some good level 1 powers for d-list classes to pick up with hidden talent? Supposing the goal is for this one feat to provide more for the character then class levels throughout its career.
>>94137846Deities reside in their own demiplanes, which your dead soul can travel to through an arduous and dangerous journey through the plane of shadows. You really want a guarded escort.>>94137852>"Hey GM. I don't want to play a faction conflict forgotten realms game. and I know that's what you like running. No offense, but if you don't want to run anything else, Jim said he wouldn't mind running an Eberronian Dungeoncrawl survival game, and you're welcome to join as a player. But he'd rather be a player too. Are you even a little interested to run a dungeon crawler in a different setting, no faction conflict?"Not that hard. Just talk to people.
>>94142598I'll expand your question to feats like Martial Study, Shape Soulmeld, etc. These feats that let's a character dip its toe in one of these subsystems.Maybe also considering further feat options that are enabled by taking one of these feats.
>>94137846Planar *everything* is harder in my setting though. No Gate spell or plane shift, just Shadowfade and Shadow Walk. "Summon monster" spells each summon a single type of monster as conjured facsimiles, not real creatures. Players can capture creatures, and study them (or turn them over to a guild) to have them studied for conjuration spells, to learn how to make a sort of 'platonic ideal' of the creature which can be conjured. Receiving the spell may be the payment for the job, or part of it. I'll determine the value of the spell and contrast it against the CL-appropriate encounter payout, and work it into pay negotiations for the run, etc. Planar binding is reworked to have a range limit. You can't directly talk to anyone offplane, you can't resurrect someone without their soul on hand (which, you might, because it doesn't immediately vanish after death - but it also might have run off to avoid getting eaten by wraiths or something). Dead souls thus hide out in temples waiting for an escort to their afterlife, if they can, as they will be safe from predators.Deities are real, but limited in power to their own planes and outside of that by their agents, which makes the distinction in power between deity and demon lord blurry. They can't directly grant spells across planar bounds. Divine* casting works mostly like Archivist. But you need to be in an area with ambient Divine Mana to prep your spells. Divine mana is ubiquitous in the planes of the gods, but in the material plane, it's generated mostly within a short-ish range through large generators which are either brought in by a lesser celestial agent of a deity (or pantheon) to christen a church - or perhaps crafted by high level priests. In practice, it means priests need to prep spells within the same 12 mile hex as a church. It's not an "everything 3.5" setting, it's definitely a curated subset. And it requires some changes to the spells. But, I'm making a heavily tweaked PHB to match my setting.
So I was reading a third party book today andand
How would I narrate the Sacking of Fort Bones by Valenar in Eberron's history? Not even sure how they got access to Earthquake as mentioned in the blubrs we go with nobody that high level. Honestly pitched battle in a setting with so many damned wands seems really tricky.>>94134484>>94134512Novels led to the video game makers wanting to cameo novel characters (Espescially Drizzle) Which led to most people being introed by either games or novels.>>94133555Most powerful turn attempt? As in charges on buffs he could use for his turn?
>>94145334>we go with nobody that high level. Off the top of my head, you can use Summon Nature's Ally and a ring of the beast to cast it as a fifth level spell instead of an eighth by summoning an Oread.
>>94145809Brilliant.
>>94144898Diegetic horny.The best kind of horny.
Which of these two spells would you consider stronger?Unluck (3rd lvl version, Spell Compendium) : When you cast this spell, you negatively influence the randomness of fortune for the target. Whenever the affected creature undertakes an action involving random chance (specifically, whenever any die roll is made for the creature, including attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws), two separate rolls are made and the worse result applied. (Duration 1 round/lvl) (Verbal and Somatic)Evil Eye(Book of Vile Darkness) : The caster focuses malevolent wishes through her gaze and curses someone with bad luck. The subject takes a -4 luck penalty on all attack rolls, saves, and checks. The spell ends at the next sunrise, when dismissed, when a remove curse is cast on the subject, or when the caster takes at least 1 point of damage from the subject. (Somatic only)They both have the same range, spell resistance and the same will negate, when cast.
>>94148192It's kinda complicated. Mathematically if the chances of failure on target's part are 50/50 the spells have more or less the same utility.If chances of failure are below 50 percent Evil Eye is better. If chances of failure are above 50% Unluck is better, of course until it only succeeds on 17-20 or worse - since Evil Eye will make it impossible to pass.There is also the question of schools - Divination is better than Enchantment most of the time since it is harder to block or get bonuses against.
>>94148269I calculated the chances that if you roll 2 20-sided deices, one will be 5 or more smaller than the other. (since evil eye lowers by 4). The chances that rolling 2 dices will result in a bigger loss (aka,5 or more difference in the lower one) than evil eye's effect are 60%
>>94129592>How did your lich encounter go?Never encountered one as a player, but I ran one as a DM. I homebrew a neutral Lich whose main concern is medicine and he lived too short to study it. He runs a clinic where hopeless patients go to become his medical experiments. He guarantees nothing. The party went there because one PC was a Necromancer simp who bought all of his medical books so becoming his apprentice was his character storyline. IRL, player had to move out of the country to start her studies so that was a nice way to retire a character.>>94129782You will get a free character commission from me once that is done.
>>94145809>>94146289Wait no, it says it doesn't let you go above your highest with that ring, but I could see it working with some sort of ritual.
>>94148269>>94148192There's also the matter of scope. Evil Eye affects Attack Rolls, Saving Throws, and Checks (ability, skill, caster, anything with the word "check" in its roll). Unluck affects EVERYTHING that is rolled, and I've seen at least one DM argue what this extends to HP rolls on level with contention surrounding the word "action".Save disparity was already mentioned: Enchantment spells (Evil Eye) face a lot of racial and circumstantial bonuses that Divination spells (Unluck) do not. Unluck is also uniformly 3rd level (base DC 13), while Evil Eye could be cast by one class at 2nd level (base DC 12), so the source is also a factor. And, Evil Eye is an [Evil] spell, which carries a number of spell and class feature weaknesses.The only thing Evil Eye arguably has going for it is its duration, being an ambiguous "until next day" style of curse, while Unluck is a "one encounter" 1 round per level slap.So yeah, Unluck, a precursor to (dis)advantage rules, is far worse than Evil Eye.
>>94149107your analysis is all the way in favor of unluck, then you change at the end? why?
>>94149346I think he means "worse to be hit by" not "less effective". That's how I'm reading it, anyways.
>>94149353Correct. Unluck is far worse to be hit by. "Worse", in this context, means "stronger" in the eyes of whoever is about to be hit by it.
>>94149399Ah, gotcha. Well, I was asking, because I was planning spell progression for my Illithid Sorcerer PC, so. It's best in my case. As in stronger to hit lowly peasants with.
Did "Body Ward" (Complete Champion) ever get an errata? Am I reading this wrong? It protects against 5pts of ability damage if you choose to protect one stat; protects against 8 to either if you choose two stats; and protects against 10 to any of the three if you choose three. It *SEEMS* the 5 and the 10 are switched, right? Because as-printed I see no reason you would ever choose to just have a worse version of the effect.Or am I reading it wrong?
>>94151174You're reading it wrong - check it again. You missed this line.>When cast multiple times upon the same subject, body ward has a synergistic effect.The 10 for all three ability scores requires you to cast it on the target three times.
>>94151174>When cast multiple times upon the same subject, body ward has a synergistic effect.You only get the extra effects if you cast the spell multiple times.
>>94151185>>94151186Thanks guys. I clearly didn't read it carefully. My bad.
Trying to make a backup character. using psionic artificer. I sorta know what I'm doing, but also no i don't. Please help. All the guides are for regular artificers. Is it possible to do blaster while also keeping up persist buffs?
>>94151291You'd need to find some way to get the Persist effect, but at least as far as things you're likely to have put in items, Psionics gives you the best straight forward blasting in the Kineticist exclusive powers. Just remember that you are limited to spending (and thus putting in) your effective ML in power points.
So, Runecaster.Is it as good as it seems or does the fact that it's best stuff only comes really late (level 8?) makes it not as good.Or is their level 8 feature (charge per day and permanent runes) not as good as they seem for the investment?Thinking of getting myself an Archivist/Runecaster cohort.Would it be better to just make a Cloistered Cleric (or even an Archivist with PRCs) fully focused on persisting spells n others?
>>94154417As with most things, the question is what does "good" mean to you? The cheese builds for raw power are known, so it's far more about the specific flavor of utility and vibe of the table than anything else. It being a cohort means you don't need to worry about it being overly niche or boring to level because it'll just show up fully formed.
>>94152483There's two ways. One is to beg my DM to allow the persist power from 3.5, the other is to utilize ardent multiclass for magic mantle, although maybe at that point I should just stick with regular artificer.Something to keep in mind is that this is a campaign where standard wizard/sorcery/cleric spellcasting is banned/needs to be unlocked(the gods cannot reach our land and neither can the weave, so most spellcasters are reliant on something called the shadow weave). My party has unlocked the ability to multiclass into wizard/cleric, but my potential backup would not.
>>94158821>One is to beg my DM to allow the persist power from 3.53.0
>>94145334i meant this use of the domain powerhttps://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/clericDomains>Sun Domain>Once per day, you can perform a greater turning against undead in place of a regular turning. The greater turning is like a normal turning except that the undead creatures that would be turned are destroyed instead.
Anyone remember if 3.x ever got a stronghold book like the 2e Castle Guide?
If I enlarge a dragon from medium to large with magic, it gets access to its tail slap and all of its other natural weapons damage die increase in accordance to the table in>https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dragonTrue.htmcorrect?if so, what are some effects that can enlarge a dragon for hours at a time? Say, at least 8 continuous hours a day?If necessary, assume caster level 11 for spells and psionic powers.>>94163310Stronghold Builder's Guidebook IIRC.
>>94163328>Stronghold Builder's GuidebookYou're spot on. Cheers, anon.
>>94163833Just a word of warning about SBG: It's 3E, so it might need some monitoring for 3.5, but from what I've been looking at (my current group took over the Twilight Tomb dungeon/demiplane after some play and diplomacy and are slowly restoring it) it's mostly 3/3.5-agnostic.
>>94163328I thought they got those abilities with age rather than it being purely a function of size, but I can't find any documentation to support that.
>>94165840That's what I thought too. Then I reread the table and it doesn't seem to be the case, so I thought I'd ask you folks.
More than anything else I wish any other grid-based combat game had something as fun as the spiked chain. Something about it just speaks to my soul.
>>94169690Your soul is an edgy leather coat wearing half vampire half werwolf with katana and wants to upgrade to uber-edge level.
>>94169761the amount of linkin park I've listened to today has no bearing on how cool the spiked chain is
In your personal experiences, how many encounters (resource depleting) does your party go through before being able to rest to recover their daily resources?I'm looking for personal anecdotes rather than official guidance, RAW analysis, and the like.I offer this image as a sign of goodwill.Also, is anybody else having issues with 4chan simply doing away with their posts without showing an error.I'm sure I'm not running afoul of the new nigerfagot filter rules.It took me 3 attempts to get this post to show up in the thread.Fucking weird.>>94169961Lmao.
>>94171462i had much fun playing in faerun, but some fo the clerics look like clowns. Another artist was needed with better instructions. No clowns.
>>94171519They all seem pretty thematic to me.Are you telling me you don't like the beholder hat?I love the beholder hat.Imagine going to a hatter and commissioning a hundred+ of those for the new cult initiates.
>>94163328>>94165891>all of its other natural weapons damage die increaseIncontrovertibly yes, this is just a function of size category>it gets access to its tail slapRAW yes, and moreover this seems to be RAI per draconomicon:>A dragon of roughly human size or larger can strike effectively with the alar limbs at the forward edges of its wings.>A dragon of larger than human size can use its tail to deliver powerful blows. To do so, the dragon curls the tip of its tail upward and uses the upturned portion as a bludgeoning weapon. The biggest dragons have enough power in their tails to sweep them from side to side, knocking over smaller foes.Note that tail sweep refers specifically in the text to being gargantuan rather than merely a product of the lookup table.So yes, you'd get the extra attacks>if so, what are some effects that can enlarge a dragon for hours at a time?Polymorph into a humanoid, cast enlarge person and then permanency it (or just equip a continuous enlarge person item (RRP: 2000gp)).>>94171462>In your personal experiences, how many encounters (resource depleting) does your party go through before being able to rest to recover their daily resources?1 - 3. The intentional encounter, maybe one on the way there, maybe one while resting.
>>94171519Mask and Lliira look like literal clowns, but I'm pretty sure that's by design
>>94171519I freely admit I prefer the 2e versions of the priesthood (including the Myrkulite guy's 2gp Halloween costume and the Vhaeraunite's "ow the edge" kit) over the 3e FRCS depiction of them, where the Banite has the edgiest of edgy armour and what looks like blue corpse paint, the Sharran looks like a ripoff of Zerase from Suikoden V and the Talassan looks like a hobo with a +2 hammer.That said, I love some of the art of the gods themselves in Faiths and Pantheons, especially Kelemvor and Tyr. Some of the art reminds me those 90s video game/book covers where they just photographed a bunch of people in Ren Faire outfits and called it a day, though.
>>94163310Stronghold Builders Guidebook (prices are 10x-20x what they should be IMO); or Mongoose Book of Strongholds and Dynasties.I prefer the latter, the former could be okay if you fix the prices.
>>941714623-5. About where the guidelines expect you to be.
>>94171462I've heard rumors that there's new wordfilters in place that will tell you your post is successful but not actually have it go through. I think that requires a critical mass of slurs, though.
>>94171462Outside of a Dungeon Crawl?2-3Inside a Dungeon?4-5.
Do you allow your players to use options from the player’s handbook? I mean people here keep saying that the strongest options are in core. It’d be pretty funny to hear your DM say that you can’t use it. It might make for a fun challenge for character creation as well.
>>94172746>Do you allow your players to use options from the player’s handbook? I mean people here keep saying that the strongest options are in core.Most things that are defacto or actually banned are from either the PHB or the DMG but other than doing an intro with complete newbies I'd never ban the book in general because classes like fighter and feat rogue are needed to glue some build together and if you take away PA and Combat Reflexes from the feat list it bites into your options for martial characters pretty heavily.I have run a game where core was banned.>It might make for a fun challenge for character creation as well.Not nearly as crazy as you seem to think. Intensive multiclassing and the like is mostly off the backs of core classes, either because prestige classes assume you have those base classes or because they're just the most modular either intrinsically or through accumulated ACF. Pretty much every character that would go 1-20 in a single class is non-core.
>>94172746We played like this. Or at least close. The rule was - no core casters. It worked okay. Barbarian, Scout, Warlock, Swordsage and Psychic Warrior was an okay party.
>>94173828That should be an ogre unless I am mistaken
>>94172746People here go from a solid advice about being wary of stuff like Natural Spell to hysteria.Of course I allow the PH.
>>94171462>Also, is anybody else having issues with 4chan simply doing away with their posts without showing an error.Happened to me yesterday, now's ok
lets ogre it out
>>94173892>FIGHT IT OUT!My favourite ogre is still this Champions of Krynn variation on the theme of the 1e Monster Manual one. Fits the big barbarous brute image of ogres to a T, in my opinion. The wrestling belt over his leopard skin loincloth is just the cherry on top.
>>94173942was there a thread with those monsters from the gold box games?
>>94171596>So yes, you'd get the extra attacksGood, thanks.>Polymorph into a humanoid, cast enlarge person and then permanency it (or just equip a continuous enlarge person item (RRP: 2000gp)).Interesting. Would the dragon retain the enlarged size after it changed back from being a humanoid?I'm thinking not since it's no longer eligible to be under that effect, right?>>94172576>>94172711Alright, that's what I read when giving it a cursory search.Seems like our group does it differently than most then.For example, in this latest adventure, we started in a small village, where we had 2 non-combat encounters that did take resources, then we entered the dungeon (time was of the essence), had one encounter on the way there, then another relatively large one right outside, and yet another after entering the dungeon, against a bunch of enemies, including 2 spellcasters, a bard, a rogue type with etherealness, two large beasts, and 5 or so bruisers and grapples.Then we started exploring and had another 5 encounters since.Most of these encounters were very low CR (I'll guess -5 a normal encounter) for our average level 14 party, but a couple were certainly level appropriate or, like the buffed Elder Black Pudding in an environment where we had the disadvantage.And we are still going.So quite the hectic day for the party I guess.That last encounter I felt was just right, it was tense but it was also clear that even without some of our best spells and the like we could still make out without anybody getting downed, so that was fun. Very fun even.One thing that heightens the tension is that some magic involving the planes is out of whack, so resurrection is kind of risky.I sure hope we don't stumble onto a level appropriate dragon, that could be a TPK at this point.>>94173890I've been getting it randomly for a couple of days now, and when it happens, it usually destroys several posts in a row.Fucking sucks.
>>94173995I don't remember, but there should be. SSI really put in the work. Pool of Radiance had most of the monsters straight from the 1e Monster Manual (except for the orc portrait, IIRC) but animated. The C64 version was in fact my first contact with xDnD and I still reckon it one of the best cRPGs I've played.
>>94163328>if so, what are some effects that can enlarge a dragon for hours at a time? Say, at least 8 continuous hours a day?Expansion gets 10 minutes/level with a 2 PP augment, then Extend Power doubles that to 20 min/level for 2 PP metapsionic adjustment and Psionic Focus. ML 24 would do at that point, which is in reach of pre-Epic boosts though troublesome to get in an item.
>>94174179>Very low CR.I was thinking "if they come out to CR=LV or harder" when I answered you here. >>94172711 Its easy to do more if they're easy encounters.But IME players get cautious after 2 CR=LV encounters and don't press on if they're not under a lot of pressure to keep going, and they're not always under such pressure.
>>94174778We are kind of a meat headed bunch (our characters too lol), so unless it's absolutely clear that we are fucked, we will continue moving forward.>>94174318Expansion. Right.I'll look into that, see if maybe I can get a magic item equivalent of the 2pp metapsionic somehow.Thanks you anon.
Want to make a psychic warrior pirate. Should I go for graft weapon on a sickle or a scythe to get a hook hand or just flavor my claws of the beast as hooks?
>>94175408I actually just ran across a semi-magic drow weapon in Dungeon #119 that might fit what you're looking for (with a LOT of extra flavor). You could use it as is, or adapt it into a psionic weapon and/or into a different base weapon (all up to DM approval, naturally):Handspur (Dungeon 119): A handspur appears as a punch dagger made of bone, but instead of a handle, the weapon has a writhing, lamprey-like stalk. If handled with bare flesh, the handspur immediately makes a +5 touch attack against its target. If it hits, the lamprey mouth immediately bites off the two middle fingers of the victim's hand and burrows into his arm to latch onto arteries deep inside. This inflicts 1d4 points of damage and 2 points of Constitution damage. The blade-like spur protrudes from the bloody stump. Once in place, a handspur functions as a punch dagger that cannot be disarmed. The handspur itself is not technically a creature, despite its organic appearance. It is merely a strange form of magic weaponry that has fallen out of style amongst most drow. As long as a handspur is in place, the wearer suffers a -2 penalty on Disable Device, Forgery, Open Lock, and Sleight of Hand checks. It does not impact spellcasting. All handspurs are considered to be masterwork punch daggers, although they can be further crafted to gain enhancement bonuses or other weapon qualities. A handspur can store up to six doses of poison; it injects a victim with one dose each time it deals damage to a target. There is no chance of suffering accidental poisoning while loading a handspur with venom. Faint conjuration; CL 5th, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, animate objects; Price 500 gp; Weight 1 lb.
>>94175755Okay that looks sick as shit
>>94175755That's so incredibly metal, holy shit.
>>94174179>Interesting. Would the dragon retain the enlarged size after it changed back from being a humanoid?Yes.>I'm thinking not since it's no longer eligible to be under that effect, right?There is nothing to suggest that that is how it works, and it's clearly RAI that it stays active as well since e.g. you don't have to stay in range of someone you cast a spell on unless it specifically says you must in the description.
>>94177117>since e.g. you don't have to stay in range of someone you cast a spell on unless it specifically says you must in the description.I see. You are interpreting the limitation as an initial condition for the spell to target a creature, not for the continuation of the effect.Alright, that interpretation makes a lot of sense.Thank you for the insight anon.
>>94180174>You are interpreting the limitation as an initial condition for the spell to target a creature, not for the continuation of the effect.Yes. Compare the wording of Enlarge>This spell causes instant growth of a humanoid creatureto Giant Vermin>You turn three normal-sized centipedes, two normal-sized spiders, or a single normal-sized scorpion into larger forms.If we don't interpret it as targetting for the initial condition, then Giant Vermin supresses* itself. Requirements aren't checked proactively in general.The only time this isn't true is when it specifically tells you otherwise (e.g. feats). WotC carelessly writing the opposites in prestige classes requirements in a splatbook is responsible for one of the worst pieces of RAW in a book - dragon disciples losing the prestige class features (and then regaining then, because they lost them, etc.) at 10 when their type changes, per Complete Warrior. Per DMG rules only, this isn't the case:>If a character does not meet the Requirements for a prestige class before that first step, that character cannot take the first level of that prestige class.but unfortunately this was later updated with:>If a character no longer meets the requirements for a prestige class, he or she loses the benefit of any class features or other special abilities granted by the class.*I assume that it would supress rather than dispel the effect if you chose to houserule it this way, simply because that's more like how feats and PrC requirements work. Of course, there aren't actually rules for what happens afaik because afaik that isn't how spells work in the first place.
>>94180311The contentious clause was also in Complete Arcane. For the most part, it actually makes sense. It matches the intent of every "ex-class" clause. The only problem is they forgot to account for exceptions caused by the prestige classes themselves (of which there are very few, the most notorious being Dragon Disciple).Part of being a DM is adjudication of the rules. Even the DMG says:>Choose the rule that you like the best, then stick with it for the rest of the campaign. Consistency is a critical aspect of rules adjudication.A good DM, in the case of the PrC prerequisite example, would either fall back to the DMG standard and allow freeform progression unless the class has an explicit "ex-class" block or alter the update to include:>Occasionally a prestige class feature may appear to cause the class to no longer qualify for itself (such as Dragon Disciple causing the character to become a dragon and no longer be a non-dragon for its requirements). As long as the disqualification came from normal progression in the class being disqualified, this rule may be ignored.As to the Enlarge/Polymorph interaction, I would personally rule that the enlarge would end when the polymorph ends as we have numerous examples of spells ending due to late disqualification and condition changes. But, that's what house rules are for.>Look to any similar situation that is covered in a rulebook. Try to extrapolate from what you see presented there and apply it to the current circumstance.>If you have to make something up, stick with it for the rest of the campaign. (This is called a house rule.) Consistency keeps players satisfied and gives them the feeling that they adventure in a stable, predictable universe and not in some random, nonsensical place subject only to the DM’s whims.
>>94145334>>94145809>>94149059I just switched it to more of a "Living earthquake" driving a stampeding herd of talentan dinos into the wall.
>>94180311>>If a character no longer meets the requirements for a prestige class, he or she loses the benefit of any class features or other special abilities granted by the class.Ironically that doesn't apply to things like say BAB leading to people divine powering into prestige classes and relying on that 1 extra point from full BAB of the class to keep their access to the class.
>>94173828>>94173871Skullcrusher Ogre, yeah.
>>94180311>but unfortunately this was later updated with:Source? As far as I'm aware, this was a 3.0 rule that was removed in the 3.5 system update, and nobody has ever clearly cited to the contrary, except for its erroneous reprinting in Complete Warrior (we can easily tell this is an error because it actively contradicts the DMG).
>>94184425>and nobody has ever clearly cited to the contrary>It's been cited multiple times ITT
I previously asked if Regenerate should be treated as bringing a person up to optimal health for his age. I think the consensus to that one was 'yes'have another question about Regenerate spell>Regenerate also cures 4d8 points of damage +1 point per caster level (maximum +35), rids the subject of exhaustion and/or fatigue, and eliminates all nonlethal damage the subject has taken. It has no effect on nonliving creatures (including undead). >points of damagedoes this include Ability damage or this phrasing meant to imply HP damage only? My initial impression was that this was meant to be HP only but I just noticed that disease and poison which imply damage to organs and systems all express that damage as ability damage. And likewise loss of limbs, eyes etc often is expressed as ability damage too. So im a bit stuck here between the two interpretations. On the one hand, the same phrasing is used on the basic Cure Wounds line of spells and those definitely do not heal abillity damage.On the other hand, how is Regenerate supposed to be restoring ruined organs, missing limbs and broken bones not fixing the associated ability damage?Any errata on this?
>>94189810Nonlethal damage is a game term
>>94189810 damage only. It probably should fix ability damage, but mechanically it doesn't.
Say you’re a 6th level artificer looking to craft a flesh golem, how do you go about advancing its HD? During and/or after construction?does the reserves of strength feat and the like affect caster level reqs when it comes to crafting wonderful items?
Death Pact - We can discuss all three versions.Is it really worth the -2Con?You could instead get a contingent Word of Recall, and prepay (or agree to pay upon the casting, or put down a deposit, or whatever you negotiate with) the temple for the resurrection services of your choice.Certainly, Death Pact costs less gold. But that -2 Con is permanent.Paying for a Contingent Word of Recall costs 5280 If you price it as a spellcasting service; or 6600 if you price it as a magic item. + 5,000+550 for Raise Dead;or + 25,000+1530 for True Resurrection.Either way, significantly more than the 500 or 1000 for Death Pact.But that -2 Con is permanent. Is it worth it for the old Death Pact? Is it worth it for the new one?
What's the best way to randomise which crusader maneuvers I get on discord? I used to use cards. I could just roll dice but not sure if there's something easier
>>94193957I was trying to make a custom alias for that in Avrae but the fucking drac2 programming doesn't work as advertised.I might look into another bot like Dyno or something.The algorithm itself is pretty simple.
I really want to pick up a collection of 3rd edition DnD books for nostalgia, just to have on my shelf and flip through for fun every now and then.What are some essential ones I should pick up, besides the 3 core rulebooks?
>>94196398
>>94193682tl,dr - comes down to narrative and setting.Death Pact involves entrusting one's life and soul to an evil deity and a setting where that is a option casually entered into without serious consequences is probably one that does not understand the very concept of evil or deitiesThe other route involves having very powerful allies you trust to receive your remains and resurrect you (so a whole bunch of DM fiat) or a crazy broken setting where you can just buy something like that at a whim... but settings where such a contingency is easily available immediately become ridiculously broken in terms of economy and social structure so that just means a whole bunch of other DM fiat.if one is comparing these choices on a white board with no pressing circumstances and assuming access to any and all resources you might want or need than obviously permanent penalties and entangling one self with evil gods is always a worse option than a cost disparity that can be overcome with time. Decisions like this begin mattering when there is time pressure, imminent threats and lack of resources. In 3.5 people often do comparison on assumption of everything being available, including information about all the options but they don't like to remember that all these options are supposed to be heavily couched in narrative and setting.
>>94196398Aside from already mentioned: Grand History of the Realms, Player's Guide to Faerun, 3E Manual of the Planes (better planar descriptions, like the dream demiplane that is actually the dream of a little girl trapped in stasis because her colony ship crashed on an uninhabitable world and she was the only survivor), Faiths and Pantheons.Not D&D, but the Shadowrun 4E anniversary core book is good for this, too. The whole first chapter is an in-universe history lesson and every chapter is prefaced with a good short story.
>>94197838>raise dead is mother-may-I in games where full casting is ubiquitousStop trying to push your shitbrew as if it's the core setting
You should all play 4e instead
>>94198248It's not bad but it's a very different game. It had some god ideas but implementation was substandard. And early problems with monster math really didn't help. Though I do like to add Incantations into 3.5 game as an option for rewarding casters in game without growing their direct power - which is basically rituals in 4e. Also a really nice option to give to NPCs that they can use as barters with players.
>>94197838>but settings where such a contingency is easily available immediately become ridiculously broken in terms of economy and social structure so that just means a whole bunch of other DM fiat.Not really, Craft Contingent Spell is only CL 11th prerequisite and the GP cost of the Contingency is a decent chunk of 12th level PC wealth so it'd be appreciable income.The only serious question to social structure is that those on good terms with casters who took Craft Contingent Spell get some safety-net demanding specialized ambush tactics to be sure, but for plenty of Wizards the Contingency spell is good enough and they'd rather stockpile with Craft Staff or Forge Ring. And it's EXPENSIVE enough to set up that you can't get away with the supremely-general ones that require Dimensional Anchor in a surprise round unless the wealth curve goes VASTLY beyond 12th level PCs.Once again, the high-flying bullshit can "exist" in a setting readily available to PCs with a long enough career without being so abundant that the setting caves in to it.>>94197911The particulars that it's DM-may-I if there are casters that high level who accept is technically correct, but the rules that are written are rather thorough in setting such an expectation.
>>94198248I did play 4e. It's terrible. It's a great framework for CRPGs and decent for "quick-play" games, but terrible for traditional PnP, compounded by the over-simplification of the Forgotten Realms setting and clear intent to sell more books by spreading core rules out across multiple required books.
>>94198248lol
>>94198248Why?
>>94196379I’ll keep an eye out. I found a card bot that uses playing cards and lets you make custom decks. Might see if I can make a deck of cards ace to 5 in one suit. It was called dicecord I think.
>>94196398Some of my favorites are stormwrack, libris mortis, the complete books (warrior is very skippable), tome of magic, and tome of battle
>>94189810>And likewise loss of limbs, eyes etc often is expressed as ability damage too.I... don't think that's actually the case? Usually it would take a form of penalties (like penalties to attack rolls and spot for missing an eye rather than reduced wisdom score or whatever)
>>94202868It's not, but the guy you're replying to doesn't play the game or read the books so it's superfluous to point this out
>>94202227>warrior is very skippableLmao retarded opinion
>>941982484e math is less functional than 3e.
>>94203257>4e is less functional than 3e.FTFY
>>94197838>The other route involves having very powerful allies you trust to receive your remains and resurrect youI'm used to FR, where you can reliably expect that the priests at your own temple can be depended on to do such a thing, and in a decent sized city, they have the means.But sure, how deities and NPCs work does come down to the DM.I'd never seen anyone talk about actually using Death Pact before the other day, and the contingent word of recall approach, I had seen before many times.Also, somehow I missed that Death Pact only worked with an evil deity - ah, the Spell Compendium version, in addition to being a cheaper True Resurrection, + Word of Recall, also took off the evil keyword. I have also seen Contingent Teleport used to penny-pinch, but then the body doesn't always make it to the temple, and you need to arrange someone to be keeping an eye out for your corpse, or arrange some other means to find it when it may appear outside of town.A contingent sending or something with a prerecorded message so they know to look for your body? I dunno. I'm sure there are options, and some dedicated player has mathed out which one is the cheapest.
>>94198248But I want early 3e with a bit less combat per session than it assumes, not watered down All-Bo9S 3e with everything but combat having its mechanics removed.
>>94203257No it's not.
>>942060124e didn't have a semi functional monster manual for years. 4e had to introduce patch "obligatory" feats that fixed hit rate.And more importantly, if you want to talk about that failure of a game, make your own thread.
>>94129592>How did your lich encounter go?They killed the body but never found the phylactery. The lich decided it'd just fuck off into the shadows once it reformed.
>>94169690If you don't mind hexagons, GURPS has some fun tactical combat things.
Stone Body (SC 207) includes the following line:>Your speed is reduced to one-half normal, and your weight increases by a factor of three.Does that apply to all movement speeds? Does it apply to movement speeds acquired after the spell is cast?I'm trying to figure out if it's something I might want to persist, and one of my other daily spells is Overland Flight. Would be a substantial downgrade to have a fly speed of 20 ft.
>>94129612Do E10 and not E6. I'm not even joking. Also let them qualify for higher level feats like Robilar's Gambit based on how many times they've "leveled" past 6. The way I honestly suggest you do it, is a bit like B/X: You level up normally to level 9, but after that your attacks and saves don't improve anymore. In B/X you still get +1 or +2 hp per level. You can consider adding this but I wouldn't. Instead I would just have your "level" continue increasing but you just don't get more hit dice. So you can be a level 15 fighter with 10 hit dice and you can also take Greater Weapon Specialization and Robilar's Gambit. Yes, your "base attack" isnt actually +12 but we all know that's shorthand for level 12.Alternatively, I genuinely suggest halving XP rewards and playing just to a level 10 cap. That is what my old campaign was with my dad and brothers growing up. I DMed for them and I thought the XP tables were too complicated so I just gave them 75 XP per encounter and continued this for a long time til like level 5 when I upped it to 200. So we did a couple hundred sessions and only made it to level 11. Which should normally take 160 encounters but I estimate it was over double that. And honestly it worked pretty well imho.
My character finally got to do the good guy thing of stopping a senseless fight midway in spite of the wishes of the rest of the other meat head party members.Some light, momentary inter-party conflict and tension that made for a nice roleplay.It was nice.It did remind me that I should always have Divine Insight ready to go since it all almost went to shit thanks to the Rogue (who escalated the situation in the first place) trying to "help".Not that we couldn't kill the 10 or so enemies with relative ease, but my character isn't really a fan of mass murder when we were the ones to strike the first blow, even if our opponents were filthy Duergar.Thank you for reading my blog I guess.
>>94202868that is a nice distinction. I was assuming limb damage translating to ability damage based on the pf1 called shot system which our game tacked unto the basic critical hit system in an effort of making the combat more gruesome. Having that be a separate penalty makes more sense
>>94205488>'m used to FR, where you can reliably expect that the priests at your own temple can be depended on to do such a thing, and in a decent sized city, they have the means.much as I like 3e rule system. settings always made more sense to me based on older editions in terms of demographics.There is a comparison someone made on a thread herehttp://candlekeep.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21267>Just taking it back to the question of availability via the "how many clerics in Waterdeep can cast raise dead" case studywhich observes an obvious power creep in terms of numbers of high level individuals. That said, there are still not that many individuals capable of casting the spell and one would have to assume that high level people of influence etc would sometimes have other responsibilities than sitting around waiting to resurrect the faithfulAnother point of consideration should be that anyone who had the means would want to have such a contingency in place and every assassination plot against powerful people would have to account for that.
Thinking of getting into 3.5. I recently got into D&D but the new stuff looks like absolute garbage, divisive crap. How hard is it to get ahold of physical core books for 3.5 and other supplemental stuff? Is it that much harder to learn than 5e?
>>94212992>How hard is it to get ahold of physical core books for 3.5 and other supplemental stuff?Depending on where you live there's quite the decent used market for these books.There's also official PoDs if that matters to you.> Is it that much harder to learn than 5e?If you know 5e you already knows the basics of 3.5e, at least as a player.You might want to read on how characters advance. For example, instead of a proficiency bonus that gets added to your saves, skills, and attacks, you have individual advancement tracks for your Base Attack Bonus and Saving Throws, and you advance your skills manually and granularity. Meaning that you can choose to be just good enough in skill A and B while being a master of C, or be really good at B and C and not put any points in A, etc.I started with 5e too a couple of years back, and I've haply been playing 3.5e for the last two years.I still play 5e once in a while, it's alright I don't hate it, but fucking hell I love 3.5e.
>>94212992Physical books are easy enough to find but fairly expensive as they've been out of print for a decade, though I think some print on demand options are available. PDFs are free and easy to get. Supplements are a crapshoot but often you're cherrypicking what you want anyways so I wouldn't worry too much. 5e is dumbed down and streamlined compared to 3.5 but I wouldn't say 3.5 is harder to learn, there's just more of it. The basic rules are very simple; to do basically anything you roll a d20, apply relevant modifiers, and if the number meets or exceeds the DC you succeed. The complexity comes from the sheer breadth of options available to both players and the DM for customization and specialization.
>>94206704>Does that apply to all movement speeds?yes>Does it apply to movement speeds acquired after the spell is cast?'yes'. I don't think this is ever explicitly pointed out, but it definitely seems to be intended. Haste uses the same kind of wording ("All of the hasted creature’s modes of movement ... increase by 30 feet") whereas slow uses the opposite tense.Magical effects are broadly treated as ongoing statuses in general, stone body isn't instantaneous (full heals notwithstanding).>Would be a substantial downgrade to have a fly speed of 20 ftGet something with a real flight speed you can ride, 40ft is the same as 20ft for most combat purposes (i.e. it's slow as fuck) and you only really need OF to avoid getting screwed by being left without a fly speed.What's the character anyway? Is this greater anyspell overland flight?>>94212992>Is it that much harder to learn than 5e?It's easier in the sense that the rules actually make sense and you can pretty much find answers for things.It's harder in that there are a lot more books and passages you should read.>How hard is it to get ahold of physical core books for 3.5 and other supplemental stuff?Depends on what exactly you want.3e got anniversary reprints for the core books so it's not that hard to find them but if you're trying to score a hundred specific splatbooks, then uh, good luck.
>>94211649>anyone who had the means would want to have such a contingency in place and every assassination plot against powerful people would have to account for that.Yes. That is the logical implication, and that's how we ran it. It is very expensive compared to most people's wages though, so most people can't afford it. Basically just sufficiently powerful adventures and the very wealthy (who are often also high level).As for levels; Going over the levels of novel characters, and how big a deal they are, a level 8 wizard is presented as not that big of a deal in-world in the novels, that's where most of the 'rookie' adventurer characters seem to start out when you look at their stats. And reincarnate is a 4th level spell.IMO the demographics in the DMG are much weaker than Faerun as presented in the novels. I think those are Greyhawk demographics.
>>94213862>I think those are Greyhawk demographics.They are>IMO the demographics in the DMG are much weaker than Faerun as presented in the novels.Depends on what you mean. 3e greyhawk has metropoli that put the entire setting of FR to shame in terms of both total population and power level. Per-person average power is a lot lower, though.
>>94212992You can get the corebooks on DMs Guild Print on Demand easily enough. Most of the other books are not available print on demand and you're looking at eBaying them if you want physical copies.IMO the way to go is get a cheap laptop to DM with, or a Samsung tablet, and then fill it with PDFs. I have a Galaxy Tab S8, it's pretty good to read from, though I always GM from a laptop. You can pass the PDFs to your friends, too, or stick them on google drive and set the PDFs to read only no download if you bought them and they're watermarked.Plus dndtools (make sure you use an ad blocker, one anon mentioned malicious ads). Cross compatibility with PF1 stuff on d20pfsrd and archives of nethys.>Is it that much harder to learn than 5e?Not at all, no. It's a lot like 5e with better math scaling and more character customization; and with a more fleshed out skill system. It's not that much more difficult.Making effective /builds/ takes more effort if you don't build a caster. But that's stuff you do away from the table, and there are all kinds of guides and whatnot. And alternate rules in the book Unearthed Arcana you can use to make that a good bit less tedious (test-based prerequisites).
>>94213908Yeah, I mean the levels per capita. need to be higher than the DMG would suggest for level 8-14 characters to be as small a deal as they so often are in the novels. In FR I would say 8's the starting level of a competent inexperienced adventurer, and <=6 is for4 gutter rats and teenagers and noncombatant shopkeepers. Which is not the world presented in the DMG.
>>94214141 (You)>>94213862 (You)That said - it being FR, (We were not aware of this bit, I think this poster misremembered)>I’m sure Ed explained this somewhere already: in most places (Waterdeep and Cormyr definitely among them), laws prevent nobles (sometimes royalty are exempt) from being raised. This stops all sorts of power struggles, conflicting claims for lands and money from “back from the dead” claimants or pretenders purporting to be someone dead centuries ago (whom nobody alive today would be able to swear is an impostor), pretenders “rewriting history” by writing diaries, accounts, false wills, documents purporting to be old agreements, and so on.>Over time, the laws are backed up by social custom: if you break it by raising someone, you threaten the social order, and are apt to be shunned, exiled, or no longer treated as noble by anyone. So folk grow up thinking it’s simply not a possibility.IIRC it's not that it's /illegal/ to bring nobles back from the dead, it's that when they die they lose any claims to their property; titles; etc. So in dying you lose your (official) political power. IIRC Ed said it's not uncommon for wealthy nobles, and royalty, to get a battlefield resurrection under the guise of 'healing' done promptly, and nobody can prove otherwise, but it stops people from resurrecting a dead king from last century. In Halls of Stormweather, one of the villains is a dead guy who came back from the hells, who was killed by one of the heroes' parents (IIRC it was self-defense) like 20 years prior. He had no claim to anything in the family, but his brother inherited everything, so he was staying in the house anyways. Of course, that wasn't a proper resurrection, he somehow got a new body and came back /mostly/ human as wizard thing of some sort, on a mission, and then decided to pursue his personal goals when he got back to Toril. Fun Novel.Anyways. IIRC it's not that they *can't* resurrect nobles. Just inheritance limits.
>>94213229Ahh shame.So if I had stone body, haste, elation, heart of fire, and heart of air active, I'd have... (20+20+5+10)/2=22.5 land speed, and (40+30+5+10)/2=42.5 fly speed?Shame cloud wings is druid only and longstrider is likewise inaccessible. Maybe I should look into persisting expeditious retreat.>Get something with a real flight speed you can rideThat's a thought. Not sure how feasible it is for my campaign, but it's something to look into. Although my weight is tripled, so...>What's the character anyway?A very tanky wizard/incantatrix :)>>94212992The core books and common books are easy to get but I'm still waiting on reasonable prices on ebay for some of the ones I want. (it won't happen)I wouldn't say it's harder to learn, but there's definitely more to keep track of. In addition to the large number of classes and prestige classes and feats and spells and magic items and such, not all balanced with each other, there's also a large number of types of bonus that have obnoxious stacking rules, as well as weird edge cases that rarely come up. (5e simplifies the stacking bonuses by just using advantage and disadvantage.)On the plus side though, it's got a ton of unique and fun content that 5e seems to be utterly lacking in.
>>94213862really? I kind of had the opposite impression, but I read those novels over a decade ago. Do you by any chance remember any examples?I wonder if any blogger/youtuber ever made that kind of analysis that could be shared - would be an interesting read.
>>94212992As much as I always recommend always recommend getting physicals, there are also fantastic scans (with middling bookmarks - the most common Magic of Incarnum scan has one "fuck you" bookmark and nothing else) in a number of repositories.
>>94214630>Do you by any chance remember any examples?I made this back in 2022 when I was trying to figure out who was what level. It's probably not complete, but it's a list with sources.But there's a trend that the mid levels are often not a huge deal. The wimpier adventurers seem to be like level 7ish, and the tougher ones like those from War of the Spider Queen, level 17+.It seems the Drizzt characters trend towards being lower level, but Salvatore seems to ignore everything he didn't write in the setting, so I often view his work as an alternate reality Faerun, just because the continuity of Salvatore doesn't seem to play nicely with the rest of the setting, like how those books seem to act like Eilistraee just doesn't exist.
>>94214630I vaguely remember Liriel Baenre being statted up for each novel, and I think she was level 8 as she was just approaching adulthood with no real life experience, just private tutoring. But that was on the old Elaine Cunningham website. I will check and see if it's archived, but no promises, I'm thinking of the internet from like 2001.
>>94216084Here's the spread.53.68% of all the Novel-NPCs I found stats for at the time (I tried to skip characters who didn't appear in novels, since the novels are what I wanted to find level demographics for) are level 8-15. Yes, that's a decent level span, but well, you can see the shape of the level spread and the counts for yourself.
>>94216234Whoops, tagged myself.>>94214630
>>94216095>>94214630Found Lirielhttps://web.archive.org/web/20040621004128/http://www.elainecunningham.com/liriel_baenre.htmShe's an unusually high level. The page doesn't specify, and there's only one writeup I could find. Clearly I misremembered. Anyways, with the level this high, I think it would mostly make sense if this is her at the end of the trilogy, even if a lot of her OP items are from the first novel because daddy's the L23 archmage of Menzoberranzan.
>>94216084I sort of feel all the novels run on different rules than the actual game. For example, I checked the 2e module Azure Bonds: Alias is a 6th level fighter, Akabar bel Akash a 5th level mage, Olive Ruskettle a 6th level thief and Dragonbait a 7th level paladin. Yet these stats are from *after* the book Azure Bonds where they managed to own several high-level enemies.It's sort of reading Battletech novels and playing BT, where you notice the fudging immediately (or if you're reading Stackpole books, how he writes a fight like an after action report of an actual game).
>>94216084>>94216234>>94216305thank you for the listing, anons>>94216095hmm, female author, female character that's powerful and capable despite having no accomplishmentshaven't ready any of her books but she sounds like her writing is MarySueish
>>94221665Generally not, no. its not my favorite of her novels, but she wrote some of my favorite FR novels. She almost gets merc'd by a drow scouting party in the first book. I think this is at the end of the trilogy.But yeah, she is still quite capable (for her age) in that first book, but she's the rich daughter of an archmage raised unconventionally by private tutors because she showed a childhood aptitude for arcane magic and he didn't care to see her stuck in the drow priesthood. (Gromph killed her lower station mother when he found out). You might be able to argue some mary-sue-ism, but she generally makes sure the things her characters can do are justified in the context of the plot.Counselors and Kings was great.>>94219674Yeah, I can see that. I tried to avoid stats from modules, I was trying to get a sense of what the levels were like specifically in the fiction. The general conclusion I drew was that novels-FR has a big bubble in the 7-14 range and few of the novel characters (when statted up outside of a module where they might be tempted to shoehorn them into a lower level) can be plausibly represented with low level characters. and of course, Greenwood's epic characters from his home campaigns stay epic and get statted up in non-adventure books; and that the videogames and modules generally present a lower leveled world so the PCs can start at 1.>WhyI wanted to get a sense of how to populate the world relative to player levels if I want to get a vibe similar to the novels. So now if I'm running Faerûn, I focus on that level 7-14 bubble.
Metamagic for SLA is in what book again?Is there a “reserves of strength” feat for spell like abilities? Uncapping them
>>94222528>Metamagic for SLA is in what book again?One of the monster manuals I think?
>>94222528MM13/4/5 have Quicken and Empower SLA. Complete Adventurer has the Sudden Metamagics that explicitly work with SLAs. Complete Arcane has Heighten and Maximize, Vile Darkness has Boost (general) and Corrupt (vile), and Exalted Deeds has Purity (exalted). And, just for the sake of completion, Races of Faerun has Spell-Like Ability Focus (not metamagic).
TLDR on me on Book of Vile DarknessJust edgy trash or are there some useful ideas to use for making bad guy?
>>94221665>thank you for the listing, anonsAll one anon. Just had two PDFs to post, and then I found the character writeup on wayback. But you can see why I would say that in novels-FR, the low level adventurers are often still like level 7ish.
>>94223202> BoVD>Bad Guy StuffIt has some more fleshed out rules for possession; ritual sacrifice; curses; and diseases; dark speech (evil-thuums); a torture subsystem with torture devices; execution mechanics; drugs; and many new poisons.I mostly used it for fleshed out writeups of demon lords and archdevils and the cleric domains for fiend-worshipping clerics, but a lot of that stuff I would probably just use the FR wiki for now, and make a point to ignore any 4e/5e BS.
>>94223202Boost is a general feat. Not evil, not vile, not edgy. Just like every splatbook, BoVD has general content as well. Boost is 3/day +2 DC on one SLA. Corrupt I mistargeted as vile. It adds the evil descriptor onto a selected SLA, making its damage half original/half unholy similar to how spells like Flame Strike work. Usefulness of both are up to how you use them.
>>94223202To add on to the above, I got really attached to one of the magic items, the Angelwing Razor. It wasn't really that interesting mechanically, but the backstory it gave stuck on my head ever since. Also, it has a variety of good tools for making evil characters, including rare new options for the Blackguard. I'd say it's worth reading if you have the time.
>The epic rules in this section also work for monsters with character levels, using the creature’s effective character level (ECL) instead of just its class levels. For example, a bugbear (3 Hit Dice and +2 level adjustment) that is also a 14th-level fighter/3rd level blackguard is ECL 22 and thus gains an epic attack and save bonusI never knew about thisHow fucking bizzare>>94214626>So if I had stone body, haste, elation, heart of fire, and heart of air active, I'd have... (20+20+5+10)/2=22.5 land speed, and (40+30+5+10)/2=42.5 fly speed?No. Everything besides elation is an enhancement bonus.>(20+20+5+10)/2=22.5 land speedIn the strictest possible sense, you must ask your DM because the wording is unclear and order of operations is never spelt out. At most tables you'd have (20 + (min(30, 20+5+10+10)=30) + 5)/2 = 55/2 = 25ft because the default assumption is the bonuses stack in the order most beneficial to the owner (order of operations proper regarding actual mathematics notwithstanding). If that's not actually 20ft and is instead 30ft reduced by medium armor, you'd have (30+30+5)*2/3*1/2 = 65/3 = 20ft instead. Also, the armor would interfere with your flight.>>94214678>the most common Magic of Incarnum scan has one "fuck you" bookmark and nothing elseIconic>>94221665>powerful>level 8Reminder that you can get to level 9 with nothing but CR 0 encounters.>>94223202Read it yourself and find out
>>94214678>the most common Magic of Incarnum scan has one "fuck you" bookmark and nothing else) in a number of repositoriesMine's all prim and proper.Wonder where I got it from.
>>94223418>>powerful>>level 8NTA, but she didn't have a writeup at level 8 like I thought. I misremembered her having one for each book.She had a writeup at M10/F13 (2e) (Drizzt Do'Urden's Guide to the Underdark) and Wiz11/Clr3/Ftr1 (3e) (Author's website), and I mis-recorded her level, and wrote down the stated CR by mistake.
Bros, how good is the Sha'ir? Looks like a prime candidate for the Elemental Savant PrC
>>94223513The sha'ir is a slightly worse wizard with a more reliable spellbook. It has no class features and needs a prestige class. The elemental savant is pretty on-point thematically; if you wanted to make one, it might be the best way to do it.
>>94223478Mine's from the old rpg.rem.uz siterip that can be found everywhere, so it kinda makes sense.
>>94223418my only game used pathfinder 1e exp track, i forgot 3.5 even had this scaling thing to begin with.As a DM, in retrospect, that scaling goes a long way toward explaining a setting with lower average levels.
>https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/genie.htm>Djinni>major creation (created vegetable matter is permanent)Does this mean that a caster who has Summon Djinni on their spell list, could summon one, cast Wieldskill on it for a higher craft check, give it instructions to create some super fine furniture or textile fabrics or carve high quality wooden statues and make easy money that way?
>>94223689also, with the above wording of the Djinni's special caveat for Major Creation and the way that the spell itself is worded, would this 'permanent' vegetable matter be subject to Dispel?
>>94223707Permanent effects are generally dispellable, it's Instantaneous-yet-ongoing that isn't.
>>94223689>Summon DjinniSummon Djinni? I only know the 2e spell. Anyway:Permanent =/= instantaneous, I imagine it'd still wink out under an AMFBy the time you can do this you can probably already do the wall of iron + fabricate combo that's in core
>>94223673Do you mean the epic rules by this, or something else?
>>94223727pf 1 has one too https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/summon-genie/>>94223734I meant we use the PF1 experience system (medium track)https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/character-advancement/3.5 system seemed unnecessarily complicated to me when we first started especially as in our campaign the expectation was that there would be frequent play with level disparity within the party and I just didn't want to have to go that calculator all the time.
>>94223776I'm familiar with the PF1 XP Tracks. WHat threw me off was>i forgot 3.5 even had this scaling thing to begin with. As a DM, in retrospect, that scaling goes a long way toward explaining a setting with lower average levels.I couldn't figure out which scaling you were referring to in >>94223418
>>94224009oh, I was referring to how in 3.5 you don't get exp for monsters too weak for your levels so danger has to scale with levels
>>94224453Ohhh right. I forgot that in PF1 XP is just a flat amount by CR. It's been a while since I ran PF1, and while I played it back in 2020, the GM just tracked all the XP for the party.This table!https://www.d20pfsrd.com/Gamemastering/#Table-Experience-Point-AwardsOkay. Thanks for clarifying.
Potentially derpy question:https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicJar.htmMagic Jar says you can detect and attack life forces. It implies you can target undead. It says only intelligent undead have or are souls. All well and good.This /to me/ implies that (though probably not intended) you can target a ghost or a wraith?Raw legalese-wise, could you steal their incorporeal 'body'? A wraith body could be fun.
>>94224492Probably not:>Incorporeal Subtype: An incorporeal creature has no physical body.Per MM1
>>94224492>could you steal their incorporeal 'body'?no, it has no body. Body refers to corporeality. ghosts have majir jar powers so they can possess people's bodies.
Is there a list of spells that “light up” or mark targets for follow up attacks?like guiding light for examplethere was a GitP thread about it but it’s been awhile, can’t find it
>>94223418Dangit I missed the enhancement bonus description in haste because they had it in a separate sentence. So wouldn't stack with the heart spells, you're right. Probably not much point in bothering with the heart spells then since I'd get fortification from stone body. Although from what you're saying, having them on does increase the enhancement bonus from haste even though it doesn't stack? (...or theoretically would but in this case doesn't because they both round to 25ft? - but lacking elation would)>(20 base land + 5 elation + min(30, 20+5+10 HoF))/2 = 27.5 -> 25>(20 + 5 + min(30, 20+5))/2 = 25>(40 base fly + 5 elation + min(30, 40+5+10 HoA))/2 = 32.5 -> 30>If that's not actually 20ft and is instead 30ft reduced by medium armor>Also, the armor would interfere with your flight.Dwarf. I assume that applies to flight too.Incidentally, are there tables for reducing speed if you aren't 20ft or 30ft?
>>94226158>>94226585Interpretation 2:Could you target a wraith's undead life force to stuff it in the magic jar, without getting a body, and keep it imprisoned until you go back into your body or the jar?
>>94228084>undead >life force
>>94230069alive: life forcedead: no life forceundead: gotta have SOMETHING or it'd just be deadseems legit to me
>>94230069Undead do have a life force. They just use negative energy instead of positive energy.
>>94230460>>94230479Undead are generally animated by negative energy, yes, so don't be too surprised if you try to steal one's "body" and find yourself missing one level.
>>94227645>Dwarf. I assume that applies to flight too.I guess it would? Somehow this is really novel to me. I don't think I've ever played a dwarf who flies under their own power.>Incidentally, are there tables for reducing speed if you aren't 20ft or 30ft?Barding has stats for 40ft, 50ft, and 60ft.>https://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#bardingMediumCreatureandLargeCreatureThe heuristic is 2/3rds, rounded to the nearest 5ft. Not sure if this is ever explicitly spelt out.>>94228084I think you'd be caught by>Attempting to possess a body is a full-round action. It is blocked by protection from evil or a similar ward. You possess the body and force the creature’s soul into the magic jar unless the subject succeeds on a Will save. Failure to take over the host leaves your life force in the magic jarso it'd be as if it succeeded it's saving throw
>>94231230Noted. But you can't sense which life forces have a body, so there's a chance you target a wraith by mistake if one is in the room, and then they just auto-pass their save. Right?>>94230795https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicJar.htmSeems pretty clear you can at least steal the body of a vampire, and no mention of negative levels for doing so. That would be a houserule. and a rather cunty one to suddenly spring on a player by surprise.
>>94227130only know of this onehttps://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/faerieFire.htm
>>94231438>so there's a chance you target a wraith by mistake if one is in the roomYou'd know they're undead so it'd only come up if you're trying to magic jar an undeadWhich, as far as I'm aware, is a RAI option and something that's been in modules, but don't quote me on that
>>94231438>a rather cunty one to suddenly spring on a player by surprise....It might be that I'm just used to that, yes.Oh wow, it does specifically talk about undead without disallowing. Guess I ate crow here.>(Undead creatures are powered by negative energy. Only sentient undead creatures have, or are, souls.) >(and on the same plane of existence)Ok so targeting wraiths may not be feasible since they "are souls" and don't have a body to take over, right? Also probably on the Border Ethereal, unless that's not a thing in 3e, I forget.
>>94232321Border Ethereal doesn't mean incorporeal in 3e, it means the part of the ethereal plane that overlaps with the material plane.But no, they're not. They're incorporeal, not ethereal. Ghosts are ethereal.
>>94232321There is no "Border Ethereal" in 3E/3.5. The Ethereal Plane is coterminous with the Material Plane at all points, in the same way as the Plane of Shadow. Incorporeal creatures only rely on the Ethereal Plane if they are described as such.A Wraith, for example, is simply an incorporeal creature: It exists on the Material Plane in incorporeal form. Meanwhile, a Ghost exists in corporeal form on the Ethereal Plane and has the ability to manifest onto the Material Plane in incorporeal form.As a DM, I would argue that Wraith is ineligible and Ghost is weird for Magic Jar: A Wraith has no body to inhabit. A Ghost's "body" is wholly on the Ethereal Plane, but isn't really a body as much as an ethereal construct; without the life force, the "body" doesn't exist and it is, in a way, very similar in nature to a being in the process of using the Magic Jar spell itself (as described in its Malevolence ability).
>>94232507I think you're right. I saw that same argument as to why you can't magic jar outsiders. Their body is their soul.>>94232321Yeah, I think the conclusion we arrived at is you could target a wraith by mistake if you're trying to possess a similar HD vampire, and it would automatically fail. which seems to be a fair reading of the spell.
>>94129592>D&D 3.0 and 3.5eare the some great things in dmg 3 that are not in the dmg 3.5? or in other 3e books?
>>94230460undead have absence, a void, poking into that with a majic jar or something that opens up something and tryint to draw its contents out would have either 1. no effect or 2. doom itself.
>>94230460>alive: life force>dead: no life force>undead: gotta have SOMETHING or it'd just be deadbetter put it likealive; positive energydead; no energyundead; negative energy, oh fuck
>>94231438>least steal the body of a vampire,if a vampire's body loses its connection to the negative material plane it would mean the vampire dies and the body turns to dust, or he enters some sort of lethargic state like if you just stake him in a film and just leave him their for the sequel. Being able to "steal" a vampiric body makes no sense, the vampire's body is animated due to its connection to the negative material plane and the life force he devours from the living (which becomes negative as positive hurts him).
I'm getting more and more convinced that movement and positioning add very little to the game and are not worth keeping in the combat formula, to the point that I want it to run a short campaign with it completely removed, with combat basically being similar to classic jrpgs.
>>94234529IIRC the 3.5 DMG is the 3.0 DMG, reorganized, witha few variant rules removed.But the 3.0 MM has the monsters with more varied spell lists that are more than just combat stuff.
>>94234540reread the spell. per raw you can just steal the body of a vampire.
>>94234884it doesn't lose its connection to the plane of negative energy. it loses its soul and yours takes over. an unintelligent undead has a negative energy connection without a soul. thr body has a connection to the plane of negative energy as well.
>>94235518I remember HATING it when my DMs started pushing Attacks of Opportunity in 2e.
>>94232507>Border EtherealIt's a variant cosmology option, but MotP does mention the idea of a "deep ethereal" which is not coterminous with the material plane, as well as ethereal planes coterminous with other planes.
>>94235583>>94235573senseless rules, what is the soul of a vampire doing out of its body? it should end up in hell instantly or perhaps...well you can make a new monster that is a vampire whoe body was lost....or make him a ghost and who gives a fuck
>>94235518You might have a point there. Players mostly move around to engage enemies, tiptoe around attacks of opportunity and position themselves around whatever spells are about to be cast, while environmental interactions like falling chandeliers and exploding barrels rarely feel good (because it's not like they're there by chance); I kinda agree that having character movement doesn't add that much to the game (and it's not like flanking requires that much strategy, let's be honest), but you'll need to homebrew a lot to make it work, and rogues in particular might get the short end of the stick.
>>94235569has anyone compiled a 3.5+ version of the core books with all the useful 3e material reintegrated?
>>94235583>>94235573think up of a cool name and lets make a new monster, the disembodied vampire.something like Asomatos Vrykolakas (Without a body Vampire)
>>94235819>what is the soul of a vampire doing out of its bodyHaving a bad time being shunted into a Magic Jar, kek.>It should end up in hell instantly or perhaps...Why? Regular souls don't all instantly transport to the afterlife. Some of them stick around. Planar travel takes time with low level effects. Or we wouldn't have ghosts and wraiths and whatever else.>well you can make a new monster that is a vampire whoe body was lost... or make him a ghost and who gives a fuckYeah, I dunno if I would have them instantly get incorporeal undead powers. But some sort of Vampire-Based Wraith variant would make sense I think, if they are disembodied for some time, and don't move on to the afterlife.>>94235832Not that I am aware of. Most people normally just use the 3.5 version and ignore the things that were cut from 3.0. I just used the 3.0 DMG for like a decade, and grabbed the updated magic item making formula from d20srd.>>94235840What kind of abilities would you give it? And is it fundamentally a ghost (ethereal stuff) or more like a wraith (just incorporeal)?I think the simple answer would be to just make them eventually become a wraith, but wraith+ghost traits in one template could also make sense.
>>94236903it gets pretty silly, a ghost uses magic jar on a vampire and takes his body while the vampire is expelled in an incorporeal spectre or ghost form....so if he becomes a ghost he just magic jars his previous body to take it back and.... yeah its ridiculous. but a solution in this mess, if a dm allowed this thing to happen, is to have weak vampires become wraiths, average spectres and powerful Ghosts, so the powerful ones can retake their body or attempt to do so. The others cannot. or choose any other incorporeal undead, but a simple one not the strange ones.
>>94236903>Not that I am aware of.i would convert the mechanics to 3.5 (some stats if may have for npcs or whatever was added/remove/altered) and add the non-mechanics useful things to a 3.5+ dmg
>>94236903>Why? Regular souls don't all instantly transport to the afterlife. Some of them stick around.vampire is a damned soul, they get to hell in an instant that is the whole point of the vampire concept. The damned. There is no more sticking around for them. They stick around by having a body and drinking blood. Lose that and its over. they are not some bandit that died and due to his evil became a wight and then after his destruction ended up in hell or died and just went to hell.
>>94236903i would never allow magic jar to work in a vampire, it just fails having no effect. This is just bad mechanics making the game into a pointless lawyering in a court room. Like a clockwork device that is just existentially pointless. Vampires are cursed and damned, not some guy in a suit and you can just take his suit.
>>94237075I do not think that's how it works in any D&D material ever published. Even if you're an actual devil-worshipper, someone has to come collect your soul. It doesn't instantly appear in the hells. By what means does a vampire's soul get the ability for a one way planeshift to hell? Nevermind the fact that there are canon examples of nonevil (neutral) vampires who were turned against their will.>>94237306K. But that's your personal Houserules. Nobody but you is using them, unless you publish them in a book and people buy it (and they will likely houserule some of the things themselves).Magic Jar explicitly talks about targetting undead, so I'm going to allow them to target undead with it. And yeah, this also means a ghost could try to steal a Vampire's body, making a disembodied vampire. A canny vampire (or anyone) is welcome to get a talisman or a tattoo of Protection from Possession; or one of it's L4 AD&D equivalent with a 10' Radius.Continuous Protection From Possession: 2000GP if it takes a slot. 4000GP if it's slotless, like an ioun stone or a magic tattoo. Not crazy difficult to guard against permanently.
>>94237306Vampires are not outsiders or mindless/soulless. So I don't see for what reason it wouldn't work.
>>94237041Yeah. I don't think it's a bad idea. I just also don't think anyone has done it. I do think they cut some stuff from 3.0 that they shouldn't have. Particularly the changes to spell lists to be more combat-centric in the MM.
>>94237429>someone has to come collect your soulNot necessarily, I think most just went straight through the Astral Plane to their Outer Plane, no need for escort, at least in 2e.>And yeah, this also means a ghost could try to steal a Vampire's body, making a disembodied vampire.Wait, does a ghost actually kick out the soul temporarily or just take control?>>94237075>they are not some bandit that died and due to his evil became a wightI think that really depends on the type of vampire, setting etc.
>>94235832There's very little benefit from doing so. By the end of 3.5, the greater majority of 3E content was already officially ported: PHB, DMG, and MM1 were pretty directly ported, Epic was barebones integrated into DMG, and the 3E splatbooks mostly became the Completes. Everything that wasn't reprinted either didn't matter or was generally bad to begin with (Savage Species) or were already universal (Stronghold Builder's Guidebook) or could be self-ported with little effort (Arms and Equipment, Good/Evil books, campaign books).
>>94237700The ghost ability (unlike the fiendish one) seems to just mention magic jar, without the jar. I took that to mean it kicks you out of your body. But the fiendish version has feats and whatnot about fighting with the fiend in your body, so they shouldn't kick you out. I'd have to check the wording to see if fiend of possession and the like use similar wording to ghosts, or if it phrases it differently, to be sure.>>94237075Nothing in D&D I can find supports that. It all seems to suggest (by omission) that a vampire soul is like any other soul. Maybe it's drawn to the fugue plane to be picked up and ferried off to whatever deity it worshipped, maybe it sticks around with unfinished business and eventually becomes a ghost. In 5e they can seem to become crimson death / vampiric mist after being destroyed instead, but that seems to just be a 5e thing.
>>94237700It's based on setting. In FR, your soul travels to the Fugue Plane and you wait until:1: A representative collects your soul, be it a divine representative or a demon/devil associated with a power claiming it.2: You become a servant of the plane for being False.3: You become mortar on the Wall of the Faithless.4: Kelemvor looks the other way while an abyssal raiding party carts you away kicking and screaming.5: You're so evil you end up becoming one of the Wanderers walking the inner wall of Realmspace's crystal sphere chanting for all eternity or until your soul falls into a portal to Radiance or the phlogiston and is utterly annihilated.
>>94237746He's talking about restoring cut content from 3.0 core that didn't make it into the 3.5 versions, like the 3.0 spell monster lists which had a wide assortment of noncombat spells.
>>94237783I wasn't even thinking about FR because I know it does its own thing and the afterlife sounds even shittier than normal. The exceptions I was thinking about were like, settings where valkyries or something take care of escorting some dead.I'm almost sure I've read something about "ethereal resonances", and Speak With Dead actually working with those while the real soul is long gone, figure undead might work the same (I seem to remember RECENTLY reading about how much of the original's memory an undead retains). I'd have to find the quotes though and honestly I'm not too big on that kind of thing.
>>94129592TQ: I've only fought one lich - but it was in 3.5. We fought Dragotha, a dracolich, as part of the Age of Worms campaign adventure path back in the day. I don't remember many specifics, but it was a great time and very memorable in terms of when the DM put the gigantic mini on the table. Iirc we destroyed the phylactery just before fighting him as a surprise, but it's been decade(s). Now that I'm typing it out I think our rogue player died here? But our cleric was able to bring him back. He later took the hand and eye of vecna and left the party - to be replaced by a fighter. We never did resolve the rogue/assassin with the hand and eye plot thread.Speaking of age of worms however, I'm starting an Age of Worms campaign Saturday with some friends that are mostly new to d and d but not tabletops/wargaming (met 3 through battletech, the 4th is my nephew and plays d&d with me on Sundays). Anyone have any tips/tricks/things to watch out for in terms of running 3.5 campaigns long term? Age of Worms specifically? The 3.5 system? I haven't DM'd for 3.5 to be honest, but plenty of 5th edition experience, and know 3.5 well as a player. I did start them at level 2 to be a bit tankier.
>>94237774Fiend of Possession uses very different verbiagehttps://dnd.arkalseif.info/classes/fiend-of-possession/Oriental Adventures Possess / Possess Animal are also pretty clear about not ejecting the original body, and they're also not tied to magic jar.Wrest Possession (Faiths of Eberron) *Seems* to be making reference to the Fiend of Possession mechanic. Or maybe the Eberron books have possession rules of their own. I dunno.Ghostwalk has all of its own custom subsystems for mortal souls (which are not undead), and specifically mentions it does not refer to the MM Ghosts.So, none of them but the Ghost Malevolence ability seem to reference Magic Jar, and I'm not finding anything to contradict the "ghosts dont just take over they kick you out of your body and you lack a suitable ability to get back in on your own" reading of malevolence.
>>94238064For what it's worth the party is an elven druid, halfling spellthief, human wizard (transmuter, ban ench./illus.), human barbarian.
>>94238139>Or maybe the Eberron books have possession rules of their own.Eberron Campaign Setting pg. 100-102, very similar to Book of Vile Darkness pg. 23-26 and Fiendish Codex I: Infinite Hordes of the Abyss pg. 21-26.
>>94238594I assume FC1 is the most fleshed out version of the subsystem, being the newest? Or is there a reason to pick the Eberron one instead? I Just compared it to BoVD, and the FC1 version definitely seems better.(Either way though, doesn't seem to tie into the Ghost's Magic Jar Malevolence stuff.)
>>94238139>Oriental Adventures Possess / Possess AnimalNTA - completely forgot about this one
>>94238655>I assume FC1 is the most fleshed out version of the subsystem, being the newest?It's totally different from Fiendish Codex Fiend of Possession as I recall.I really regret losing my fiendish codices.
>>94240336Yes, Fiend of Possession is totally different. The Fiendish Codex version is a revision of the BoVD Possession rules, which are what >>94238594 said the Eberron version is also based off of.>I really regret losing my fiendish codices.I feel that. I lost my 2e Waterdeep Boxed set. I used that a ton while I had it. That was some good sandboxing.
>>94237774>Nothing in D&D I can find supports that. It all seems to suggest (by omission) that a vampire soul is like any other soul. Maybe it's drawn to the fugue plane to be picked up and ferried off to whatever deity it worshipped,its an evil mortal (or other alignment and became evil due to vampirism) that became an evil monster and evil soul....its not going to be picked up by the happy-go-lucky space train and taken to a luna park. Its hellbound, that is the whole point of the vampire. The damnation. If not you just have a blood drinker working for pepsi-cola Transylvania sector.
>>94237774>vampire soul is like any other soulassuming its a human, its a human soul that thas become evil (exceptions few, if even possible) due to vampirism. In a vampire state of corruption its a human evil soul and it goes to the nine hells. It will not be going to the god of beads and boiled potatoes if it happened to worship him somehow. The absolute chaos brothel that D&D writing has produced is fucking unbelievable. This is whateverness and randomity, sticking things together from there and there with no coordination, just write, publish, no guidelines or lame ones and lets shoot randomly into the air while riding an ox.
>>94237677>Yeah. I don't think it's a bad idea. I just also don't think anyone has done it. I do think they cut some stuff from 3.0 that they shouldn't have. Particularly the changes to spell lists to be more combat-centric in the MM.They were and are so fucking messy.
>>94237677there must be SOME useful things in the 3e dmg/mm/phb? that have value and are worthy of being ported to 3.5. Even as alternates (alternate monster spell lists for example). As 3.5 mechanically and the non-mechanical stuff as they are.
>>94241982>it goes to the nine hellsthe Abyss, more likely
DMG 3e - DMG 3.5ethey removed the world building chapter fully
>>94242010More narrative spell likes, and something about DR in the very least.I don't particularly care but people liked the 1/2 classes
>>94241937Like a third of the gods are evil, expect evil, and reward evil. If they continue to worship good gods and don't do evil deeds, they'd be one of the rare vampires that avoided the alignment change through sheer strength of will, like the canon example, Jander Sunstar.You think Asmodeus is going to pick a fight with all the evil deities over the souls of their worshippers he has no claim to? This isn't christianity with only two options. If a Lolth worshipping drow vampire dies, Lolth will want his soul. If a Bane worshipping human vampire dies, He's not just going to roll over and give his worshipper to Asmodeus. Hell. If an Orcus worshipping human vampire dies, again Asmodeus doesn't get him.Many of the neutral deities are often happy to have evil or good worshippers. If you worship Kossuth, he doesn't give a fuck if you're an evil vampire so long as you further his goals. Gebthant. Gond. Helm. Mystra. Tempus. Shaundakul. Shevarash. None of these gods give a fuck if you're evil. Some may care if you're lawful or chaotic. But Evil is fine. Velsharoon, lichgod of Undeath.Even the unclaimed souls. They go to the Fugue plane to get sorted out by cosmic bureaucracy (and some do not, and forcibly stay behind on the material plane instead, becoming ghosts). While they are IN the fugue plane they may sell their souls, preferring the hells to wherever they are supposed to go or being stranded or plastered into the wall of the faithless for their souls to decompose (or getting captured by demons with little defense because nobody has a claim on them).Asmodeus (ruler of the nine hells) gets Asmodeus worshippers, and people who explicitly sell *him* their souls for perks. That's it.Have you ever even actually played D&D, or read the manuals? These are some shockingly wrong takes for someone in a thread for a 24 year old edition and its 21 year old revision.
>>94242160No shit. Well, I guess DMs never need to know how to worldbuild. /sYeah, that would be a good bit to add back in to make a D&D3.5+ DMG.>>94237041You going to do up a custom page template and hunt down the fonts and use MS Word to create a new DMG PDF to match the 3.0 / 3.5 ones?
>>94243009>Have you ever even actually played D&D, or read the manuals? These are some shockingly wrong takes for someone in a thread for a 24 year old edition and its 21 year old revision.A lot of people are retarded and still can't wrap their head about the fact that in D&D Evil is a major force of the multiverse. You don't get damned for being Evil, you get damned for being pathetically evil. But if you are actually Evil? With proper presentation and actual achievements you would be rewarded upon death. Now, some Evil gods are absolute dicks and their reward is that you are going to be tortured a little less before your soul gets eaten but they are not very popular.
>>94243664Plus a ton of amoral powers, like Mystra, who just have other goals, and don't give a fuck about good vs evil.
>>94242160Hey, at least if it's a whole chapter, it's easier to just take it from one book and insert in another.
>>94243664You pretty much have to phone ahead if you're LE though
>>94244558>>94242010There's a whole bunch of 3.0 spells that got cut, you might want to consider some of those?For instance, Change Self, is meaningfully different than Alter Self. It's just an illusion, it grants you no new abilities, and is just a lv1 10min/lv disguise spell.
>>94247577Those two have been around since 2e at least. Change Self got cut in 3.5?
>>94247577>Change Self>>94247637Let's see, gentlemen Change selfIllusion (Glamer)Level: Wizard 1, Sorcerer 1, Slayer of Domiel 1, Thayan Slaver 1, Vassal of Bahamut 2, Trickery 1,Components: V, S,Casting Time: 1 actionRange: PersonalTarget: YouDuration: 10 minutes/level (D)You make yourself-including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment-look different. You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller, thin, fat, or in between. You cannot change your body type. For example, a human caster could look human, humanoid, or like any other generally human-shaped bipedal creature. Otherwise, the extent of the apparent change is up to you. You could add or obscure a minor feature, such as a mole or a beard, or look like an entirely different person. The spell does not provide the abilities or mannerisms of the chosen form. It does alter the perceived tactile (touch) or audible (sound) properties of you or your equipment. A battleaxe made to look like a dagger still functions as a battleaxe.If you use this spell to create a disguise, you get a +10 bonus on the Disguise check.Note: Creatures get Will saves to recognize the glamer as an illusion if they interact with it (such as by touching you and having that not match what they see, in the case of this spell).next post 3.5 Disguise Self
>>94247702Disguise SelfIllusion (Glamer)Level: Bard 1, Savant 1 (Arcane), Jester 1, Sha'ir 1, Beguiler 1, Vigilante 1, Fatemaker 1, Ebonmar Infiltrator 1, Wizard 1, Sorcerer 1, Assassin 1, Trickery 1, Baator 1, Envy 1,Components: V, S,Casting Time: 1 standard actionRange: PersonalTarget: YouDuration: 10 min./level (D)You make yourself—including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment—look different. You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller, thin, fat, or in between. You cannot change your body type. For example, a human caster could look human, humanoid, or like any other human-shaped bipedal creature. Otherwise, the extent of the apparent change is up to you. You could add or obscure a minor feature or look like an entirely different person. The spell does not provide the abilities or mannerisms of the chosen form, nor does it alter the perceived tactile (touch) or audible (sound) properties of you or your equipment. A battleaxe made to look like a dagger still functions as a battleaxe.If you use this spell to create a disguise, you get a +10 bonus on the Disguise check.A creature that interacts with the glamer gets a Will save to recognize it as an illusion. For example, a creature that touched you and realized that the tactile sensation did not match the visual one would be entitled to such a save.
>>94247713Fun fact: dndtools gives that version, here's the SRD oneYou make yourself—including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment—look different. You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller, thin, fat, or in between. You cannot change your body type. Otherwise, the extent of the apparent change is up to you. You could add or obscure a minor feature or look like an entirely different person.The spell does not provide the abilities or mannerisms of the chosen form, nor does it alter the perceived tactile (touch) or audible (sound) properties of you or your equipment.If you use this spell to create a disguise, you get a +10 bonus on the Disguise check.A creature that interacts with the glamer gets a Will save to recognize it as an illusion.
>>94247724>>94247713>>94247702Okay. Yeah, they're pretty similar. I thought there was more difference than that. My mistake.
>>94247866Nono thanks anon, I also found interesting that two sources give an altered version.It was worth checking.
>>94247939There are a few other changes of note. The +4 Enhance ability spells had much longer durations, for instance, and Animal Companions used to just be a spell a druid used to get animals to do favors for them, and you could have more than one. So a druid with a swarm of crows was a doable build.---------From 3.0 SRD.Animal FriendshipEnchantment (Charm) [Mind-Affecting]Level: Drd 1, Rgr 1Components: V, S, MCasting Time: 1 actionRange: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)Target: One animalDuration: InstantaneousSaving Throw: Will negatesSpell Resistance: YesThe character wins the loyalty of an animal. The spell functions only if the character actually wishes to be the animal's friend. If the character is not willing to treat the animal as a the spell fails. An animal's loyalty is natural (not magical) and lasting.The character can teach the befriended animal three specific tricks or tasks for each point of Intelligence it possesses. They cannot be complex (complex tricks require the Handle Animal skill).At most, the character can have animal friends whose Hit Dice total no more than twice the character’s caster level (though the demands of adventuring generally restrict a character to half that number).The character may dismiss animal friends to enable the character to befriend new ones.https://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/players-handbook-30--106/animal-friendship--5028/index.html
>>94247637I misremembered it getting turned into Alter Self, but it mostly just got renamed. My mistake.
>>94248174>swarm of crowsIn fact - I could be wrong but I cannot find any rule for swarm animal companions in 3.5
>>94248280I don't know of any either. That's why I pointed out Animal Friendship as an example of a 3.0 spell one might want something similar to ported to 3.5.
>>94248280I suppose I should use a term other than swarm, as that implies the swarm rules. I'm actually suggesting having a high level adventuring druid with ten individual crows.The only things I can think of that are similar after 3.0 are from PF1 (will post from PC).
>>94248554>I'm actually suggesting having a high level adventuring druid with ten individual crows.The beastmaster Prc had up to 4 IIRC but no druid would get it
>>94248554>>94248280Multiple Animal CompanionsHoundmaster Cavalier - IIRC won their design contest as an entry.https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lqzy&page=1?Hound-MasterHuntmaster Cavalier - The published version of the contest entry.https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/cavalier/archetypes/paizo-cavalier-archetypes/huntmaster/---EidolonsBroodmaster Summonerhttps://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/summoner/archetypes/paizo-summoner-archetypes/broodmaster>>94248564>Beastmaster PrCAh. Right. I've never seen that one at the table.Master of Flies is also a bit similar, but it's from Savage Species, so proto-3.5.
>>94248554>actual swarm of crowsDid Summon Swarm 3.5 ever get revised after the PHB? Feels like it should by the time Tome of Magic or whatever it was came out, by that point there were swarms of birds, including crows, which made sense to include.Though to be honest, summoning swarms in 3.5 could almost be rolled into other summoning spells.>>94248174>+4 Enhance ability spellsDidn't you roll them randomly with the longer duration? At that point you'd just have to include most spells twice.>Animal FriendshipYeah that got ate in the major Ranger/Druid overhaul, like they got rid of the Animal Empathy skill and just turned it into a Wild Empathy ability (bad change, in my opinion). Like a wizard's Summon Familiar used to be a spell in 2e.
>>94249424there are some spells for summoning swarms I think. and PF1 has some. but summon spells aren't quite the same as making friends with a bunch of crows. lol
Been a while since I played 3.5, but my group is starting up a new campaign in it as a sequel to a campaign we did years ago. Which dumb bad thing should I do between shadowcaster, incarnate, and iaijutsu focus factotum?
I am planning on getting back into running 3.5 after a decade of Pathfinder 1e, D&D5e, and non-fantasy games.Is there any things to keep in mind? I am expecting my players to have not a clue on the system as a whole.
>>94250842I'd say Shadowcaster or Incarnate. Take Factotum only if you hate your DM or the game is explicitly going to be hardcore - motherfuckers have too much flexibility and are a pain in the ass to manage.
>>94251012>Is there any things to keep in mind?Start small.
>>94251012>I am expecting my players to have not a clue on the system as a whole.Use that to your advantage, and as the previous anon said, start small. Go with core, and once your players want something extra, then start with the supplements. In hindsight though, Pathfinder 1e is ~90% 3.5e anyway.
>>94253745Yeah, but that other 10% has some crap houserules mixed into it. (and they had worse quality control on character options outside core, so there's lots of unusable garbage to dig through).
>>94250842>>94251517As far as PRCs go, mysteris count as arcane spells right?If so, por que no los dos.Make a Incarnate\Shadowcaster\Soulcaster.Could you throw Noctumancer in there too?Why? Because the fuck not, of course.PS: These are most likely terrible, terrible ideas.
