Questions

[Delia2531]

7 hours ago, Steel Warrior said:

Does this also apply to Ninja's Sudden Strike? Which functions just like normal Sneak Attack.

RAW Sudden Strike is different to Sneak Attack, specifically it does not affect targets who are flanked unless they are also denied their Dec Bonus to AC (e.g. flat-footed).

The damage stacks (where both can be applied) but they progress separately based on the classes taken.

[Inash]

I'm poking around to see if there might be simpler ways to add 'powerful build' to a character. Would the Stonebone template (LA 2, +4 STR, -4 DEX, +4 Con, -4 on climb and swim checks, -10' land speed and -20' swim speed) and the Evolved feat (negates either the dex penalty, the skill penalties, or the speed penalty for the template) from Dragon #350 be allowed?

Edited May 10 by Inash (see edit history)

[Rudolf]

Be a half-giant?

[MrNeech]

What part of Powerful Build are you trying to emulate? Races of Faerun has Jotunbrud - it lets humans have the "Counted as Large when advantageous," part of Powerful Build, but doesn't include the use oversized weapons part.

[Inash]

I should have said 'while being an elf/half-elf to qualify for arcane archer'.

[MrNeech]

Half-Elf with a Flaw for Human Heritage (Races of Destiny) + Jotunbrud + Monkey Grip (Either another Flaw or at 3rd)?

[Inash]

The part of powerful build that I want is the large weapon, Monkey Grip would do that with a penalty and Jotunbrud wouldn't be needed. I'll keep it in mind though.

[Rudolf]

Rules Update:

• Limit one specialized summoning feat per character. Augment summoning is not counted in this total.
• Sneak attack is accrued level-by-level. So, a gestalt rogue // prestige class generates sneak attack faster if the PrC gives sneak attack damage on even levels. This can allow a character to surpass the normal sneak attack total of a single-classed rogue.

[Rudolf]

Blue Jay will get to it, he’s the official updater. We just decided this today, it’s breaking news. I thought people would want to know sonner rather than later. We are trying to consolidate rules and postings, but it will take time.

 

 

[Blue Jay]

11 hours ago, Steel Warrior said:

When you make these changes, can you PLEASE POST WHERE this is updated. I tried looking for said rule changes that are posted here and several have never made their way into the actual house rules section.

Even though I understand you guys want to keep things balanced, there are probably years of yes and no's that have approved or not approved that have never made it to the official house rules section.
Question thread that started in 2016

I understand you guys are busy, but it's also mildly frustrating to build a character and then out of the blue sorry nope, oh it's official? Not anymore!

Anyways, sorry. Rant over.

Okay, I'd like to express my personal feelings on this, because I'm becoming a bit of a cranky moderator of late.

First of all, you are a power gamer. I want you to stop building things that are overpowered. I want you to stop building things that won't play well with other players. I don't really care what content you use, except that you keep swinging for the fences with every decision you make. And that stresses me out. Your requests always seem like you're testing boundaries, and that makes me feel like I can't really trust you, so my impulse is to be harsh in my rulings with you.

I do not believe that making specific, nitpicky rules about which content we allow is going to have any effect on the way you build characters, but it is eventually going to interfere with the ability of other players to make more sensible builds. So, I resent being asked to make this kind of rule, especially when most of the requests end up not being incorporated into a final build anyway. Now I'm starting to develop a grudge over it and dragging my feet on all moderator requests because it feels like every one of them is a fight, and I'm naturally very conflict-averse. But, I should probably talk about it instead of letting it fester anymore.

Consider the character you are currently building: a War Troll with Deceivingly Innocent Form and beefed-up summons. You could have built a perfectly playable character using Forest Troll instead of War Troll, and it would probably fit your chosen plant-shaman fluff better. But the big physical ability scores, the Regeneration, the Dazing Strike and the Large-sized weapons were more important to you than your own flavor. You wanted Greenbound Summoning, also ostensibly for flavor reasons. But you also took Ashbound, and you swapped out the nerfed Greenbound for Augment Summoning. This tells me that it really wasn't a flavor-based decision at all: it was just a power grab from the beginning. It's a cool character idea, but the entire build just looks like one big, unnecessary power grab to me.

So, the mods started a discussion about imposing a limit on summoning enhancements as a way to rein this in (we have a secret moderator thread, by the way, where we discuss important decisions as a committee). Of course, in 8 years at RFT, we've never had to talk about this before, and it's unlikely that we'll have to talk about it again. Most house rules we make end up affecting exactly one player, so that's another reason why I'm dragging my feet about adding new house rules.

If you want to summon plants, how about this: why don't we make a plant-themed or individualized summoning list? I'd be happy to consider that. I had an RFT moderator at OGMW once work out an ooze-themed summoning list with me for a summoning-ooze character I built, so it would be fun to pay it forward. In fact, here's a quick kernel to start it off:

• SNA I: twig blight
• SNA II: needlefolk
• SNA III: assassin vine
• SNA IV: wood woad
• SNA V: verdant reaver
• SNA VI: shambling mound
• SNA VII: myconid sovereign
• SNA VIII: treant
• SNA IX: saguaro sentinel

That sort of approach to character building is fun and rewarding for everyone. But, the way you build makes it feel like a chore to me. You request some content, then I say "I'm uncomfortable with the power level" or "that feels like it will annoy other players". Then you say, "Ah-ha! So that's the boundary!" and you swap it out for something else that's slightly less powerful, but still basically the same thing. And then you nag us about updating our house rules threads with things that I wanted you, specifically, to change about your approach to building characters. The problem is never the specific content: it's your insistence on swinging for the fences. Please stop swinging for the fences.

And now I've once again spent 2 hours on one post, and so I have no more time to do anything else on RFT for a while. So, the threads won't get updated, and nobody's character submissions will get any comments from me for a while.

[Steel Warrior]

On 5/11/2024 at 11:54 AM, Blue Jay said:

Okay, I'd like to express my personal feelings on this, because I'm becoming a bit of a cranky moderator of late.

First of all, you are a power gamer. I want you to stop building things that are overpowered. I want you to stop building things that won't play well with other players. I don't really care what content you use, except that you keep swinging for the fences with every decision you make. And that stresses me out. Your requests always seem like you're testing boundaries, and that makes me feel like I can't really trust you, so my impulse is to be harsh in my rulings with you.

I do not believe that making specific, nitpicky rules about which content we allow is going to have any effect on the way you build characters, but it is eventually going to interfere with the ability of other players to make more sensible builds. So, I resent being asked to make this kind of rule, especially when most of the requests end up not being incorporated into a final build anyway. Now I'm starting to develop a grudge over it and dragging my feet on all moderator requests because it feels like every one of them is a fight, and I'm naturally very conflict-averse. But, I should probably talk about it instead of letting it fester anymore.

Consider the character you are currently building: a War Troll with Deceivingly Innocent Form and beefed-up summons. You could have built a perfectly playable character using Forest Troll instead of War Troll, and it would probably fit your chosen plant-shaman fluff better. But the big physical ability scores, the Regeneration, the Dazing Strike and the Large-sized weapons were more important to you than your own flavor. You wanted Greenbound Summoning, also ostensibly for flavor reasons. But you also took Ashbound, and you swapped out the nerfed Greenbound for Augment Summoning. This tells me that it really wasn't a flavor-based decision at all: it was just a power grab from the beginning. It's a cool character idea, but the entire build just looks like one big, unnecessary power grab to me.

So, the mods started a discussion about imposing a limit on summoning enhancements as a way to rein this in (we have a secret moderator thread, by the way, where we discuss important decisions as a committee). Of course, in 8 years at RFT, we've never had to talk about this before, and it's unlikely that we'll have to talk about it again. Most house rules we make end up affecting exactly one player, so that's another reason why I'm dragging my feet about adding new house rules.

If you want to summon plants, how about this: why don't we make a plant-themed or individualized summoning list? I'd be happy to consider that. I had an RFT moderator at OGMW once work out an ooze-themed summoning list with me for a summoning-ooze character I built, so it would be fun to pay it forward. In fact, here's a quick kernel to start it off:

• SNA I: twig blight
• SNA II: needlefolk
• SNA III: assassin vine
• SNA IV: wood woad
• SNA V: verdant reaver
• SNA VI: shambling mound
• SNA VII: myconid sovereign
• SNA VIII: treant
• SNA IX: saguaro sentinel

That sort of approach to character building is fun and rewarding for everyone. But, the way you build makes it feel like a chore to me. You request some content, then I say "I'm uncomfortable with the power level" or "that feels like it will annoy other players". Then you say, "Ah-ha! So that's the boundary!" and you swap it out for something else that's slightly less powerful, but still basically the same thing. And then you nag us about updating our house rules threads with things that I wanted you, specifically, to change about your approach to building characters. The problem is never the specific content: it's your insistence on swinging for the fences. Please stop swinging for the fences.

And now I've once again spent 2 hours on one post, and so I have no more time to do anything else on RFT for a while. So, the threads won't get updated, and nobody's character submissions will get any comments from me for a while.

To be fair, you linked a post that stated Greenbound Summoning should increase the spell slot by 2. I can't cast 3rd level spells, so there was no way for my character to cast a greenbound summoning spell. If I really wanted to focus on a powerful character, I wouldn't have even bothered playing an OA Shaman.

While I like to play unique things, and I play world of warcraft so the troll idea came from there. Other builds I come up with usually have a flavor to them. They are different. I also like to have fairly balanced stats when it comes to both physical and mental stats, which I do understand that some builds I do make yes, I want them to survive and yes, they are gimmicky. If someone watches Wolverine, then they will sometimes want to play a wolverine regenerating style character etc.

Playing Pathfinder nearly as much as D&D 3.5 I have seen OTHER players builds and go huh.. and sometimes I steal those ideas.

My builds are things I never played before, because I have done most of the normal stuff already. Your rules lets me play things I never played before.

Long term, my builds were most likely never out do someone magic focused. Those persistant spell clerics or a paladin that can smite for an insane amount of damage that I recently came across. With the right feats they did something like +50 damage to the dice roll or something.

Since my concepts are that much of an issue, I will go ahead and pull myself from making more apps and when I finish the game I am currently in, I will pull that also.

Thanks anyways.

Added: Look, I am not saying your wrong, but you know? I kinda enjoyed building these ideas, and also debating rules with you and the other GM's @Blue Jay but apparently since it caused you to become "grouchy" and then guilt tripped me in the final statement. That is the reason why I decided to leave RFT.

Edited May 12 by Steel Warrior (see edit history)

[Dnd4life]

This might be mostly for the RFT DM's, but I suppose it would be interesting to know general interest for such an idea.

I was tossing up the idea of running a game here, but I was wondering if there's the possibility of doing something a little different in terms of the exp / rewards for the mission. Effectively I would be looking at running a Tower Defense or Unending Horde type mission if that was permissible. I would make the rewards say.. One level up (From three to four) but the actual amount of monsters would likely be higher than needed for a level up. More of a milestone level-up instead of the normal exp per encounter.

Though I suppose it is possible to just calculate the exp, but I was thinking of making it increasingly harder and adding in other hiccups or so for the players.

[Delia2531]

3 hours ago, Dnd4life said:

This might be mostly for the RFT DM's, but I suppose it would be interesting to know general interest for such an idea.

I was tossing up the idea of running a game here, but I was wondering if there's the possibility of doing something a little different in terms of the exp / rewards for the mission. Effectively I would be looking at running a Tower Defense or Unending Horde type mission if that was permissible. I would make the rewards say.. One level up (From three to four) but the actual amount of monsters would likely be higher than needed for a level up. More of a milestone level-up instead of the normal exp per encounter.

Though I suppose it is possible to just calculate the exp, but I was thinking of making it increasingly harder and adding in other hiccups or so for the players.

Whilst we recommend XP and treasure per the encounter generator, gestalt is also hard to balance so 'award XP that is fair for the mission (and then match the treasure)' is probably the actual guiding principle here.

 

The mission sounds really interesting 'how long can you hold off for with occasional boosts/refreshes' could be a real challenge even for high level characters (action economy and resources are still finite); don't forget to factor in that combat in PbP can be a bit slow at times, perhaps a target-rich environment will actually make it simpler.

 

Good luck with the mission!

[Divinedragonslayer]

By the way what is the general feeling of starting a business ala rules from PHB II?

[Blue Jay]

49 minutes ago, Divinedragonslayer said:

By the way what is the general feeling of starting a business ala rules from PHB II?

I hate it personally. When I first started as a moderator, I fielded several complaints about unbalanced wealth between characters, which is why we implemented the Wealth-by-Level guarantee for everyone. There were also some business abuses that took place before my time as a moderator.

But then, there were also players who had fun running businesses, and who handled it appropriately.