OOC

[TheFred]

7 hours ago, Roughtrade said:

Kyton "Yes. Very emphatically. He said that they were all going to Disney World"

If you’re a Kyton presumably you just say “I don’t believe you!” and torture them some more? I don’t think Sense Motive really makes any difference to a Kyton, it just tells them whether or not someone is lying which feels kind of irrelevant. 😀

[TheFred]

Whoo, level up!

What are we doing for hp, average or roll or something?

Also for Molgrug, I was planning on going Incarnate. Would you mind if I used the Psionics of Incarnum soulmelds? In particular, the Astral Vambraces, which are quite powerful at low levels (pretty meh later; the only other notable one is Charming Veil which is crazy-good for the right character but not something I'm terribly interested in for Molgrug). If not, I'll probably just take Lightning Gauntlets or something so as to have some kind of paltry attack (I'm thinking that Mage's Spectacles have to be my first pick, very on-theme for Molgrug).

Edited November 18, 2023 by TheFred (see edit history)

[W0LF]

Nice!

I'll need to do the level up and post tonight as kids are keeping my ass in check today!

[Grand Poobah]

@Michael and team.

I assume I join after waking up .

One request is ...well...to keep the skins if we can. Particularly the paladins. She needs them for her craft.

GP

[Michael]

7 hours ago, TheFred said:

Whoo, level up!

What are we doing for hp, average or roll or something?

Also for Molgrug, I was planning on going Incarnate. Would you mind if I used the Psionics of Incarnum soulmelds? In particular, the Astral Vambraces, which are quite powerful at low levels (pretty meh later; the only other notable one is Charming Veil which is crazy-good for the right character but not something I'm terribly interested in for Molgrug). If not, I'll probably just take Lightning Gauntlets or something so as to have some kind of paltry attack (I'm thinking that Mage's Spectacles have to be my first pick, very on-theme for Molgrug).

This game is crazy enough without me allowing online/dragon mag stuff. It has to have come from a source book.

HP are take half roll half

4 hours ago, Grand Poobah said:

@Michael and team.

I assume I join after waking up .

One request is ...well...to keep the skins if we can. Particularly the paladins. She needs them for her craft.

GP

That opportunity is missed this time around. Feel free to grumble about it in game :)

 

[Roughtrade]

56 minutes ago, Michael said:

HP are take half roll half

I have stolen this for my games.

But I always give you credit.

 

[TheFred]

Eh, like I said, I think they are mostly pretty tame - but no big deal, Molgrug doesn't need to get too close to the action anyway. 🙂

[Roughtrade]

Up Front- I do appreciate the advice last week on Binder and stuff. I just cannot get behind it though. Too many of their abilities were limited to once every five rounds, as if most combat skirmishes last more than five rounds. Or they seem situational or, worse, impact everyone in a 30ft radius with no ability to not inflict on allies.

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Does a Lilitu (which gets the abilities of a 9th level Cleric) get Cleric progression on the monster side? And could be a Sorcerer for the non-monster side? Seems like that would be wrong. UMD always succeeds tho. Nice trick that.

Despite possible divine spell shenanigans with Lilitu, I want my wings. With Michael allowing the Social Skills I feel I can do the Con-Artist/Face type of playing I was looking for. My 'race' is pretty fixed on Succubus, but I was wondering about the mechanics.

---

GitP has a lot of suggestions and they link to Forgotten Realms or D&D Tools but I'm having difficulty in separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were.

Is the Arcane Duelist PrCa real thing? I don't own a lot of 3.5 books and already got burned on Battle Dancer.

And if they are, is it really worth giving up ten levels of spell caster for? I would have thought they kept spell progression.

GitP also seems to suggest Hexblade but using their Class Name Ability only once a day seems like a shite choice.

 

 

 

 

 

[TheFred]

10 minutes ago, Roughtrade said:

Up Front- I do appreciate the advice last week on Binder and stuff. I just cannot get behind it though. Too many of their abilities were limited to once every five rounds, as if most combat skirmishes last more than five rounds. Or they seem situational or, worse, impact everyone in a 30ft radius with no ability to not inflict on allies.

It certainly feels that way at low-levels. They shine in gestalt (which we are, to be fair) or higher-level (which we are not).

Take Naberius for instance. Command once per 5 rounds seems meh, but Molgrug can cast it twice per day at the moment (well, he has four L1 slots total). Naberius also gives you at-will Disguise Self and some skill usage. Problem is, he's not really a primary combat plan - you're a rogue/infiltrator/whatever with an SLA and, probably, a crossbow or something.

Malphas gives you some invisibility and 1d6 sudden strike... it's kind of on a par with a Ninja, though Ninjas suck. 🤷‍♂️ Dalver-Nah is pretty cool but you do have to watch out for that friendly fire, and Savnok is OK but very defensive-focused (you get armour and DR, that's about it). You kind of have to be a meleer with a big two-hander and some high Str or something at this point, then Binder is just giving you all this utility and defence.

Anyway, I can understand the reticence; Binders are generally pretty well-balanced but they only get really fun later when you can bind multiple vestiges at once (you can easily get to a point where you have several useful 1/5 rounds abilities so who cares if you have to wait when you can just cycle through them?).

10 minutes ago, Roughtrade said:

Does a Lilitu (which gets the abilities of a 9th level Cleric) get Cleric progression on the monster side? And could be a Sorcerer for the non-monster side? Seems like that would be wrong. UMD always succeeds tho. Nice trick that.

Despite possible divine spell shenanigans with Lilitu, I want my wings. With Michael allowing the Social Skills I feel I can do the Con-Artist/Face type of playing I was looking for. My 'race' is pretty fixed on Succubus, but I was wondering about the mechanics.

Is there a progression for the Lilitu? It should get casting - I'm playing an Arcanaloth who gets racial casting and I've just spread it out across the levels (Michael's actually let me switch it for Archivist casting so I'm taking Archivist levels in the gaps, as it were).

Don't forget that there are no social skills. 🙂

10 minutes ago, Roughtrade said:

Is the Arcane Duelist PrCa real thing? I don't own a lot of 3.5 books and already got burned on Battle Dancer.

And if they are, is it really worth giving up ten levels of spell caster for? I would have thought they kept spell progression.

GitP also seems to suggest Hexblade but using their Class Name Ability only once a day seems like a shite choice.

It is, but it's from a web enhancement and Michael has mostly not been allowing those. It's also generally not worth giving up casting for - it's a bit of a build-around. One level is tolerable for that sweet AC bonus - but generally reserved for meleers who just happen to have or can easily snag enough casting to meet the prereqs, not "real" spellcasters. Ten levels mean you're definitely not a caster, you're probably shooting for that ability where you make illusions of yourself that all attack or something. There's a whole guide for it on the internet somewhere but I wouldn't recommend it for most characters.

Hexblade is... kinda bad. I like it, but it's far from a strong class mechanically (to the point that the author even put out a series of suggestions to upgrade it). There are some good abilities early on so you can do worse than taking 1-4 levels then multiclassing, particularly in gestalt (it's a full BAB class with an OK chassis and great defensive abilities so take it alongside a spellcaster - in normal gestalt, I guess that would be, if you weren't a fiend - and it looks pretty sweet). The curse is cool but super limited in uses per day.

I took some Hexblade levels in the first version of this game I played - I think Michael let me have the Dark Companion ACF even though IIRC it's from a web enhancement. I ended up rocking a lot of defensive bonuses and big debuffs (Hexblade, Paladin of Tyranny, Binder) though it didn't really come online until later.

[Roughtrade]

14 minutes ago, TheFred said:

It certainly feels that way at low-levels. They shine in gestalt (which we are, to be fair) or higher-level (which we are not).

Take Naberius for instance. Command once per 5 rounds seems meh, but Molgrug can cast it twice per day at the moment (well, he has four L1 slots total). Naberius also gives you at-will Disguise Self and some skill usage. Problem is, he's not really a primary combat plan - you're a rogue/infiltrator/whatever with an SLA and, probably, a crossbow or something.

Malphas gives you some invisibility and 1d6 sudden strike... it's kind of on a par with a Ninja, though Ninjas suck. 🤷‍♂️ Dalver-Nah is pretty cool but you do have to watch out for that friendly fire, and Savnok is OK but very defensive-focused (you get armour and DR, that's about it). You kind of have to be a meleer with a big two-hander and some high Str or something at this point, then Binder is just giving you all this utility and defence.

Anyway, I can understand the reticence; Binders are generally pretty well-balanced but they only get really fun later when you can bind multiple vestiges at once (you can easily get to a point where you have several useful 1/5 rounds abilities so who cares if you have to wait when you can just cycle through them?)

A lot of the 'good' combat things were awkward to use. Hey, today I get to be an archer-ish. Okay. I get point blank shot. Do I have a bow? Tomorrow I get to wear heavy armor! Do I have any heavy armor? Oh, look, I can be a really good healer but I can't attack anything first and my first attack, when I finally get it, has to be non-lethal. It's just too busy. Unless you pick one or two vestiges and only use them it is just too much paperwork to track and gear to lug along for the off chance it might be useful with today's vestige.

Wish there was a chaotic monk. I could try leaning in on the negative energy attack and debuff things.

[Roughtrade]

21 minutes ago, TheFred said:

there are no social skills

That is not entirely true. There is still Gather Information and Perform

I had missed the bit about Diplomacy. Of course, I also forget that in 3.5 it is only used to change attitudes.

@Michael How does Feinting work without Bluff?

My Planescape Rogue sucked because no one would ever set up flanking with me. Feint is really useful for getting sneak attack damage in.

Bluff was also useful for defeating telepathic/mind reading and fooling alignment checking spells.

[TheFred]

Feint is hard work, especially at higher levels when you have many attacks, but pretty good for now.

1 hour ago, Roughtrade said:

A lot of the 'good' combat things were awkward to use. Hey, today I get to be an archer-ish. Okay. I get point blank shot. Do I have a bow? Tomorrow I get to wear heavy armor! Do I have any heavy armor? Oh, look, I can be a really good healer but I can't attack anything first and my first attack, when I finally get it, has to be non-lethal. It's just too busy. Unless you pick one or two vestiges and only use them it is just too much paperwork to track and gear to lug along for the off chance it might be useful with today's vestige.

This is a problem that all day-by-day flexible classes have, honestly. I certainly don't think you build a Binder expecting to be able to use any vestige. Heck, some, like Leraje, are just really bad. You probably build around a certain one, or you skip anything that's too... well, build-around. The proficiencies for example are only really useful at low levels when you're not sinking gp into items (or Savnok, who gives you armour).

[Roughtrade]

1 minute ago, TheFred said:

Feint is hard work, especially at higher levels when you have many attacks

??

I always thought it was easier at higher levels. Get Improved Feint. Then Feint as move action, Sneak Attack as attack action.

Sure beats not getting any Sneak Attack in at all. Multiple/Iterative attacks that don't include Sneak Attack are worse.

Wouldn't be a problem if other players would just stick around to set up flanking. The number of times I've had someone move away from a flanking set up because they wanted to solo enemies is a bit maddening.

[TheFred]

Well, feinting at all is easy, but it sucks. Being able to hit just once for some sneak just doesn't keep up with full-attacks. You kinda need swift/free-action feint and Surprising Riposte. None of that matters at low levels, of course; the main limitation is just that you can't meaningfully feint and dual-wield, which is one of the ways Rogues get the best out of their sneak attack.

[Roughtrade]

21 minutes ago, TheFred said:

which is one of the ways Rogues get the best out of their sneak attack.

Again. As long as someone sticks around.

Maybe you get it in the Surprise round... Oh, but most of the time Surprise round is used up closing to combat.

Full attack and Dual wielding are great for Rogues if you can catch someone flat footed.

Flanking is the first/best option for that, but is completely dependent on someone else sticking around. Which is not common in my experience.

21 minutes ago, TheFred said:

Being able to hit just once for some sneak just doesn't keep up with full-attacks.

At top levels. 3 possible attacks. Weapon Damage, lets say Longsword, why not? Weapon damage 1d8. Maybe +1 or 2 for strength because keeping all your Rogue goodness requires you to be lightly encumbered and I like to carry around more than my underwear and one pair of clean socks.

 

So ...three attacks for a full attack action is 3d8+6 vs One sneak attack at 20th level which is 1d8+10d6.

I will take the one attack over the multiple attacks if it means I get my sneak attack dice.

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And sure, with dual wield you could get six attacks. Two of those are only at +5 to hit. Not counting on them very often.

But even if all hit, 6d8 is still less than 10d6.