>>96434718
TQ: A cult leader from underground city that served some Far Realm monstrosity. He was supposed to be a great and terrible evil, but he wasn't memorable because of that. No. The dice hated him. He literally failed each and every actually important roll during confrontation. Attacks, spells, saves. It was like Fate itself decided "fuck this guy in particular and the horse he rode on".

So instead of a terrible foe we got to fight a bumbling fool, that managed to slip in grease, barely crawled out of it, got slammed by a fighter into the wall, flailed around with his weapons ineffectively, got disarmed and slam dunk into the ground, got peppered by rays of enfeeblement, all of his attempted spells failed and the fighter drove him through the table before carving him up like a turkey in the end.

>>96434718
One of the main reoccurring antagonists that gets brought up at least once a month is a NPC that used to be a PC that betrayed the party long before my character joined, years ago IRL.

>>96434918
>Fate itself decided "fuck this guy in particular and the horse he rode on".
Beautiful thing about Table-Top RPGs. When your boss is underwhelming because of the dice fumbling, while that lv1 Goblin encounter becomes legendary due to multiple-crits scored by that one Goblin.

For antagonists do people make custom bad guys? Nowadays me being lazy I just pick the default stat block from the bestiaries and if they survive they get a template or a class (rinse & repeat per surviving).

So, last thread, it was suggested that you should ban core for a balanced game with the exception of core feats but what about spells? Wouldn't classes like the shugenja, warmage, healer, etc. lose out a lot while psionics would remain untouched.

>>96436181
>but what about spells?
The core spells are the main problem and the main reason people say "Ban Core" in the first place. It's not like wizards and sorcerers are overwhelmingly more powerful that Sha'ir, it's that Time Stop, Contingency, and Polymorph are overpowered.

>>96436181
Psionic limitation on the amount of PP you can spend per power is a way stronger limitation than spell slots. You can fuck it over but for that you either need a very high level of some shenanigans that most DMs won't allow you to get away with.

Arguably D&D plays way better if you mostly remove standard casters and leave only alternative magic systems - Incarnum, Binders, Psionics, Warlocks and so on. If you want some bullshit effects especially with permanency they are way better done through ritual Incantations.

>>96438185
The main issue with psionics is that they have a million and one ways to refresh their entire PP pool between encounters, a thousand and one more ways to fuck over the action economy with any of the abilities that manipulate time(create in-universe save files, unlimited standard actions per turn, throw things outside of time, etc), and finally a hundred way to break character building by reshuffling all the stats/skills/etc, giving themselves all the psionic powers in the game, or even breaking the xp system completely.
>>96436181
Easiest fix is to ban the psionics books too. Alt-magic is fine by itself.

Let's talk about Dragonmech a little more.

In my personal opinion the best approach would be to make mechs as vehicles but replace the 10 feet sections with more abstract free size pieces. So, say a mech would have engine, weapons, controls and so on, plus of course it would have to use maneuverability rules for vehicles especially if it is super large.

So say a Huge mech would have up to 8 Large pieces filled for example with - reinforced armor (2), engine (1), reinforced cockpit (1), two arms/weapons (2), secondary weapon tower (1) and cargo container (1). As with vehicles you can attack each of the sections separately and it will have its own HP. Plus you can add further subdivisions for each part if say you want smaller weapons, some crew quarters for long hauls and so on. Make internal parts that can't be directly attacked outright take more space.

On city sized mechs you would have also residential areas as modules where people actually live and so on.

Attacks are probably best to be relegated to siege engine style - each weapon/arm has its own number of attacks or abilities but uses driver or gunner BAB and skills. You can add places for people to attack from like on normal vehicles but with shit like 10 hardness and 50+ HP of armor even on smaller mechs it wouldn't be very effective unless those guys are of decently high level and in that case you probably have better uses for them than glorified turrets.

I'd like some feedback on this homebrew feat. Is it overpowered? Underpowered?

"Cross Study I (Homebrew). Each time you select this arcana, you may choose a number of spells equal to your int modifier from among any spell casters spell list. You are then able to learn and cast those spells normally as if they were on your own class spell list, while ignoring domain requirements as well as divine focus requirements when casting them. You must still learn these spells from a mentor, scroll, or spellbook as normal and scribe them into your spellbook before you may prepare and cast them."

>>96439847
That's pretty damn brutal depending on the class you are playing. if it's wizard only as implied it wouldn't make them much more powerful but does ease some of the exploits they can get up to. For non-wizard classes, especially partial casters with limited spell lists, it goes pretty hard.

>>96439847
There are some spells that are 100% worth a feat, so pretty dope.
I like it that you need to find the spell first, so you could feasibly be in a situation where you stumble onto a really cool spell, then you consider taking the feat.

>>96440018
Thanks for the feedback, I nerfed it by adding a spell level cap but expanded it to be not just a wizard exclusive feat.

"Cross Study I (Homebrew). Each time you select this feat, you may choose three spells from among any spell casters spell list. You may only choose spells of up to third level and below. You are then able to learn and cast those spells normally as if they were on your own class spell list. Arcane spellcasters may ignore any domain or divine focus requirements for these chosen spells, though divine spellcasters must still meet them. You must still learn these spells from a mentor, scroll, or spellbook as normal for your class, before you may prepare and cast them."
>I like it that you need to find the spell first
Me too, this is for a campaign setting where ALL spellcasters do not receive ANY spells on level up and must acquire them within the game itself - I thought it was a great idea from the developers

>>96438376
>The main issue with psionics is that they have a million and one ways to refresh their entire PP pool between encounters
Almost all of them are solved by making Bestow Power below-standard-cost but actually transfer PP from the manifester's pool to another. Though the wording to exclude bag-of-rat Mindfeeder laundering gets a bit weird.

>a thousand and one more ways to fuck over the action economy with any of the abilities that manipulate time
Involved, feat-intensive, PP-hungry, and with very sketchy in-universe logic. Even so, not much more of a problem than spamming max-PP Powers is to begin with; that is, dependent on the DM making the grave mistake of pinning everything on One Big Fight without follow-up pressure.

>and finally a hundred way to break character building by reshuffling all the stats/skills/etc
Psychic Reformation is actually more restrictive than the PHB2 retraining rules (which DO cover fucking with ability scores) and costs 50 XP per level back you want to redo.

>giving themselves all the psionic powers in the game
Not remotely conveniently, Psychic Chirurgery is a 9th-level Power on a Discipline list that costs a mad 1,000 XP per Power level and needs somebody who knows the Power to pull it from, while Power Research still takes 200 XP and a week per Power level without the ability to access other lists.

>or even breaking the xp system completely
...Compared to nested Thought Bottles whatever TO bullshit has dug this into your brain is nothing.

In summary, skill issue.

>>96438723
I feel obligated to point toward Stronghold Builder's Guidebook for a sadly-price-inflated subsystem for building layouts that could be looted for parts, either as a translation layer or direct conversion into the Dragonmech price and staffing conventions.

Current party: ardent, warblade, warmage, wildshape ranger, and archivist

>>96442777
This. Psionics are bad but they're not as bad as spells.

>>96442777
>Almost all of them are solved by making Bestow Power
You'll also need to ban the psicarnum feats and the power-point steal enchantment. These are only the ones I know off the top of my head, the list of houserules will likely be ever-increasing until you finally do the smart thing and ban psionics entirely.
>Involved, feat-intensive, PP-hungry, and with very sketchy in-universe logic.
Anon, having infinite standard actions only requires you be a level 10 ardent with the linked power feat. The save game trick only requires a psicrystal, 4 psionic powers, and(optimally, but not required) a wizard in the party willing to cast status and imbue with spell like ability.
You can have both with little to no investment. Both have very solid raw and need to be houseruled. They're also not the only big action-economy exploits, just the ones off the top of my head.
>Psychic Reformation
>Psychic Chirurgery
>Thinks they're the only issue
Kek
>...Compared to nested Thought Bottles whatever TO bullshit has dug this into your brain is nothing.
Anon, comparing a nuclear blast to The Sun will make the nuke look pathetic.
That doesn't mean a nuke isn't a fucking problem when someone drops one on your house.
Oh you swee

>>96443191
>Oh you swee
WTF is this from and why is it here? I'm the one who typed it and even I don't know.

>>96443416
You were swiped by Candlejack, obviously.
That's the kind

>>96443440
Pretty sure anon is asking why letters he didn't remember typing showed up in his post. Kind of the exact opposite of the meme really. Bro got fucking pranked by his own subconscious.

>>96443191
>You'll also need to ban the psicarnum feats and the power-point steal enchantment.
The Azure Talent/Psicarnum Infusion combo takes three feats for remotely timely use, only covers a paltry trickle of PP, while the Midnight Augmentation feedback is dependent on Bestow Power. Mindfeeder was already mentioned, as again it causing problems is largely from laundering through Bestow Power, which handily catches Azure Talent recharge in the process of wording around "temporary" PP.

>Anon, having infinite standard actions only requires you be a level 10 ardent with the linked power feat.
Assuming the DM allows Synchronicity into the Time Mantle through the Substitute Powers ACF. That's less RAW than Arcane Swordsage game-breaks, you may as well be talking about Pun Pun inventing arbitrary new abilities with Manipulate Form.

>The save game trick only requires a psicrystal, 4 psionic powers
Which entails one feat while a single manifestation of each of those four powers is 30 PP and 15 XP. As for RAW, Time Hop is unambiguous about the target acting on its NEXT turn, while Forced Dream only operates on the turn it's Manifested; these cannot be fulfilled simultaneously to execute the save-point.

>Psychic Reformation
>Psychic Chirurgery
>Thinks they're the only issue
What other sources of additional Powers Known does a stock Psion have, Advanced Tattoo arrangements?

>Anon, comparing a nuclear blast to The Sun will make the nuke look pathetic.
The difference is that the horseshit of resetting XP is a directly-stated function of Thought Bottles. Cheating XP costs is overtly a thing they are FOR. If you're referring to curing level loss after spending XP, that's a general mechanical flaw in the system rather than at all specific to Psionics and one it requires significant hoops and very high level Powers to tap into.

>>96442784
Well, Dragonmech proper has a different problem. It's too fucking cheap - a gargantuan mech, though with pretty shitty stats, but made out of steel and with steam engine costs ~7k gp. Arguably with the benefits it provides it actually does cost that price. Since 22 strength on a 40 ft. speed gargantuan monster with average maneuverability and with damage that can be easily beaten by a level 6 fighter is horrible shit. But still its kinda sad.

>>96444759
Anon, that's for a generic base-model with no mechanical upgrades, magical enhancements, or spell-infusions. If your willing to drop a kingdoms worth of dosh, you can very much make a strength 50 mech that can outrun the flash. The cost wuld bankrupt a small kingdom though, so start moon-dragon hunting like a proper cogboy.

>>96447767
I mostly have a problem with the fact that something like 20 tons of steel costs similar to 4-5 full plates and can't fight its own way out of a paper bag.

When should you say this town with an 800gp limit is out of CLW/Lesser Vigor wands and Healing Belts? Like 1d3 available per month? per season?

File: town market.png (31 KB, 742x354)

31 KB PNG

>>96448674
PF has more reasonable rules about how this works

>>96448674
Does it have a native production capability or do they import them? If there are clerics around who know how to make them they have no reason to stop, short of running out of ingredients. And ingredients for the wands should be mostly some kind of healing plants and similar stuff with above average positive energy. Though if they create them out of plants their production would be tied to seasons - they would be able to make them from spring to autumn. Unless it's a more serious operation and they built a greenhouse.

>>96448708
>If there are clerics around who know how to make them they have no reason to stop, short of running out of ingredients.
Or XP. If they're in town every day they're likely not earning much.

>>96448247
It gets even funnier when you realize that dragonmechs of the same size get their shit rocked by tinker-gnome contraptions from dragonlance. A clockwork gundam is 100% something those autistic fuckers would do as well.

>>96450119
>XP required for crafting items
Meta-gamplay-wise this is solely to stop players from farming gold by just crafting items, and to encourage actual hack & slash adventure to gain magic items rather than just crafting.
In-universe-wise there was no explanation in the fluff that crafters of magic items put their "souls" or "memories" into the items, right (at least like in general, exempting unique items)? To my mind that's the only thing that can represent XP in the universe.

>>96450119
They probably get good roleplaying bonus XP for staying in character in town all day

>>96452149
Ahahah. Someone said the likes of Kings face a lot of hard, high-stakes social checks that would count as encounters for XP and so SHOULD actually be fairly high level.

I'd say especially busy days healing would count for XP.

>>96452624
I'm torn, because on one hand I'm fond of high level ex adventurer kings like Conan. On the other hand, I know that XP shouldn't apply to NPCs, otherwise you wind up with high level slaughter house workers due to all of the pigs and chickens they keep killing

>>96454781
a child gets exp for bringing in a particularly hefty set of groceries; an adult wouldn't

>>96454781
you dont get as much exp from encounters that are way easier due to circumstances
a butcher would get very little, but then again there should be something to simulate their ease with killing living creatures and their experience with cutting meat; more than one medieval revolutionary leader was a butcher beforehand

How much damage should exposure to boiling water inflict? I was thinking,1d6 fire damage per gallon of water for each round of exposure

>>96452624
>>96454781
I like having real divine right of kings in my D&D, when monarchs of established kingdoms have "by the grace of god" in their titles it's not just a set phrase or means some deity just OK'd it, they're literally backed by lawful deities who grant them powerful divine boons, amongst other things specifically to prevent some chucklefuck adventurers from assassinating them easily.

>>96434718
Sell me on why I should play 3.5 instead of OSR or 5e.

>>96456525
I'm pretty sure it should be 1d6 period. If there is a lot of water it will just make saves harder (assuming the character isn't covered completely). Boiling water just doesn't rate compared to all the other ways you can use to kill people. It's good enough for killing commoners or a good way to torture someone for a very long time if they have a high level.

>>96457081
Mechanics.

>>96457081
Depth of character customization through feats and prestige classes, huge variety of supported content through OGL, the parity of mechanics between PCs and NPCs makes it extremely modular for DMs, and the nature of the bonus/penalty math allows for easy improvisation of situational rewards.

>>96457081
>Sell me on why I should play 3.5 instead of OSR or 5e.
3.5e vs 5e is that you have more subsystems you can use both a GM and Player. 5e is okay as a basic dungeoncrawl, but can't really do anything else at the moment. The astonishing thing is 5e is 11 years running now, which is longer than 3.0~3.5 combined of 8 years, but only has around 50 official books while 3.0~3.5 has over 500 official books. WTF Wizards make more books!

3.5e vs OSR is if you want more generalization & customization versus specialization. Weird thing about a lot of OSR systems are that even the original TSR-stuffs were more generalized than them. For example, Basic D&D allows you to be merchant if you want in one of their supplements, but to do that OSR a lot designers make a game/setting specifically for that experience. I guess it kinda makes sense, because it's more profitable to go for the niche market than competing in the generic systems area.

>>96456607
nightmarish

why not just make kings be lawful clerics and paladins

>>96458512
They effectively are, but instead of training and adventuring they get most of their levels/HD by birthright.
Anyway it has only ever come up maybe like 3 times in all of my campaigns where I used the concept.

>>96458641
I can't get behind gods giving people levels/HD. I had an idea where worthy rulers can wear the crown, which is an artifact that makes you more powerful, but will hurt or kill anyone unworthy that tries to wear it.

>>96458684
>I can't get behind gods giving people levels/HD
Start undermining the monarchy right now, sabotage the church, the revolution begins with you.

>>96434718
>What's the most memorable antagonist your party faced?
A halfling monk-sorcerer with 16 Strength named Garret who chased them around trying to steal the MacGuffin sword for most of the campaign. His escapes got kind of ridiculous but I rolled for them all and he would always be sacrificing a dozen or more goblins to hold the line for him to run away. Eventually he added his brother Oswald and sister Henrietta to the roster, enlisting them for help. I don't remember their classes. Eventually, the characters made it to some desert temple where they learned the sword has the power to sunder a Far Realm gate enchanted to be impregnable otherwise. They also learned the real BBEG's name, and that he had hired Garret to draw the PCs to the south, far away from the gate, so they wouldn't hear about the rumors of weird things happening in the mountains. Basically to get the one item that could destroy it as far away as possible. Anyway they eventually killed Garret, by stabbing him in the head with a rapier crit, captured his sister but eventually let her go. I don't remember what happened to Oswald I think he died as well. He was not a very good character, all he did was cast magic missiles while his goblin hordes waded in. Still a pretty fun character, I guess I was more creative back then because now I would never imagine using such a terrible build concept for a villain.

Many weeks ago I posted about giving my 3rd level party a 7-headed hydra encounter. It took a long time to get to it but here's the rundown of how it went.
>they explore a ruined castle and find a few hidden switches that open the locks to the vault where the loot and hydra are located
>along the way they find many pools of volcanic acid, shards of broken obsidian from inclusions on the ceiling of the cavern, and a large working portcullis, as well as an ancient gladius in an armory, which they take to present as proof they found this place
>each lock makes a loud click that startles the hydra and causes it to vocalize
>the druid recognizes this sound as being similar to a crocodile
>the second lock causes multiple simultaneous vocalizations
>druid thinks this indicates a pit of multiple crocs
>the NPC gnome trail guide with the group remembers that his tribe told tales of hydras in this area long ago
>the NPC trail guide then leads the other NPC university researcher to a safe place
>the party carefully sets up a rope system to open the last switch to the vault door and leads the hydra to the room with obsidian shards
>the NPC gnome trail guide returns with poisoned monstrous centipede meat to distract the hydra

>>96459523

>they climb up a broken wall and the cleric knocks down a large shard of obsidian from the ceiling with Spiritual Weapon
>the shard hits 4 of the heads and manages to sever all of them
>the NPC gnome trail guide distributes acid splash vials to the group which he filled from the volcanic pools around the area
>they successfully cauterize the 4 heads
>there is no more sufficiently large obsidian to sever heads, only does minor body damage
>one of the players gets bit by a single head for minimum damage
>they lead the hydra to the portcullis and the druid uses a summon to lure it precisely
>they slam the gate onto its necks and the two outer heads chew off the middle one in an attempt to eventually free itself
>the party throws lamp oil onto the stump and lights it
>the heat from the fire weakens the bronze portcullis and the hydra pulls itself free, but the stone wall holding the gate collapses and knocks it unconscious
>the party realizes no one has a bladed weapon to cut off the last remaining heads while it's down
>the NPC university researcher runs out of her hiding spot and uses the gladius from earlier to cut off the remaining heads
>they douse it in acid one final time

>>96459535
Glad it went well! A bit of an ass-pull with the DMPCs but at least they took the bait on the environmental tools to try and trap it. How'd the players feel about it?

>>96459552
they seemed to really enjoy it. I think the NPC killing it off at the end was a fun dramatic choice but it also could have been fun if they just stood up and faught out the last 2 heads.

I'm sorry to say that a big factor leading to that choice was that it was very close to the time one of our players has to leave and we won't be able to play again for several weeks. I really didn't want to break this fight up into two sessions a month apart.

>>96459676
Hey, improv is the name of the game and I've definitely had sessions and arcs defined more by IRL shit than any internal cohesion. I'd say you handled it well, especially with time pressure. Good shit.

>>96459523
>>96459535
>>96459676
Excellent news! I'm impressed they used almost everything you placed at their disposal
How much influence did you have with the NPC? As long as you all had fun then it doesn't matter, but i'm curious as to how much you had to beat them over their head with the idea of not rushing towards their deaths