Re: 3.x: rebalancing fighters vs spellcasters vs monsters

On Apr 9, 1:43 pm, LL <Lorenz.L...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
smiting...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Apr 8, 3:29 pm, LL <Lorenz.L...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

smiting...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Yes. Revivify. As Raise Dead, except restored to -1 HP, no other
penalties including level loss. Only catch is you have to cast it
within 1 round. Also, it is the same level as Raise Dead.

Okay, it's not core. Found it in WoW. 8-]
...and the Miniatures Handbook.

Probably I wouldn't allow this spell in my games.

However, there's another spell called Revenance, a level lower. It has
a window of a round a level, restores to half HP, no other penalties
(and minor bonuses). Only catch is you die a minute a level later.
This is specifically stated to not interfere with other revival spells
once expired (you just can't cast them while it's active, because you
cannot bring a living creature back to life).

Okay, another source. Spell Compendium.
Don't like it either and combining spells (or other stuff)
from different sources for maximum munchkin madness even less.
No offense intended.

Both are in the Spell Compendium. What mixing sources? You don't like
it? That's fine. It's also irrelevant. You wouldn't allow it? Same.

It's extremely relevant, dude. If you use these sources you leave
DnD core and play a another game. Which makes /your/ argument irrelevant
by your own logic... or Fail or something... :-P

I never specified D&D core. I said D&D. That includes non core D&D
books. What you would do about it is irrelevant to the fact it is, and
irrelevant to everyone else.

So whenever someone dies as a result of anything Raise Dead can
reverse, you cast Revivify next round. If you can't get to them, cast
Revenance, then finish up and cast Revivify after they die again.

Wouldn't like this happening in my games.
The description of Raise Dead states:
"Coming back from the dead is an ordeal."
With such spells it isn't.

Is that just fluff text, or is it what precedes the level loss? If the
former, death is a status effect in D&D. You die, you come back, and
you continue on.

Why don't you look it up yourself?
"Coming back from the dead is an ordeal. The subject of the spell loses
one level... "
Death is a different matter than sleeping, being confused etc pp.
It's not a mere status effect. Silliness.

So it is just fluff text justifying the level loss. That's why
Revivify costs combat actions instead, and if you aren't a Cleric move
action away you need Revenance as well. It is a status effect because
the game expects you will die at least once, and this is how you
preserve campaign continuity.

It would be virtually impossible to never die, 1-20.
Even if you only had a 1% chance to die per fight, there are 253 and a
third of the things. Iterative probability will get you. Likely more
than once. Either you can return from the dead, or you can keep
rerolling and raping campaign continuity. And while 1% is an accurate
chance of death for routine encounters, anything of higher level than
you (and thus not routine) is going to have a dramatically higher
chance of killing someone. Level + 4 will kill someone at least half
the time. Level + 2? Probably 15-25%. And those encounters are pretty
common - 40% of the total in fact, which means you can literally
expect to see dozens of them.

Maybe you should read the DMG on encounter difficulties.
I think your numbers are off. Main reason being that
you can't determine exact probabilities for such things.
The judgement of the DM is required when encounters are designed.

My numbers are based on encounter difficulties. It's quite likely the
base chance to die is higher than 1% for a routine combat, in which
case death is more of a status effect, as you are expected to die
more. If it's less than 1%, that takes them from routine to completely
fucking trivial, as there's no actual risk at all. In any case '1%'
was an example to illustrate how subbing a value for n made the
Iterative Probability play out.

If you want death to be something other than a status effect, you
don't play systems that assume it's a question of when you will die.
Full stop.

If you play Death as a status effect, you don't play DnD.
Not even any kind of roleplaying game.

Except that that's exactly what it is in D&D. In some other game,
where Iterative Probability doesn't *** with you so hard, yeah sure.
It's not just a status effect there.



Obviously, the more effective means of killing PCs Raise Dead won't
help with and thus, Revivify and Revenance won't work either. This has
always been true, long before those spells actually existed because
that's how death magic and body destruction magic works. But as
neither of these are relevant to items, they are irrelevant to any
discussion of breaking items so that said items don't kill you.

No Wand of Destruction in your games?

Illegal, wands cannot hold 7th level spells, and if they did the DC
would be 20, making it utterly trivial. If you mean a staff instead,

You're right for core / SRD wands.
Hmm, what about sundering a Scroll of Destruction about to be read by
your enemy?

Then it's still trivial DC, and thus a waste of time for them to use
and you to break. For some reason scroll DCs don't use your casting
stat either. So, instead of you wasting your actions breaking it, let
him waste his using it. Now you get ahead twice over in Action
Economy, which means you're winning quite admirably. Of course, a
Cleric would be wise enough to know using scrolls for attack magic =
Fail, and not bother. For that matter, how do you know what it is? How
do you know it's not some other spell? Maybe he used his move action,
that he doesn't need for anything anyways to pull out a Cure Minor
Wounds scroll, just to bait the Sundertard? It's not like you can read
it in combat, even if you had that talent.

Non core doesn't change the wand rules by the way. Or scroll rules.
Only staves and self cast spells get meaningful DCs.

> More to the point, if you actually have a chance to attack a high

level caster, why are you not using it to utterly annihilate him?
Hell, he'll probably kill you anyways just out of spite... making the
party down a lot of cash and some diamond dust.

Maybe I can't breach his protections?

Then you can't be a Sundertard.

The DM and the campaign reality decide about these matters.

At which point you're Monty Hauling to Yakkety Sax. Amusing, but no
one cares.

You are jumping to bizarre conclusions.

No, I am making snarky remarks to make you realize You're Doing It
Wrong.

Otherwise his NPC WBL can't even come close to affording it, and he
doesn't have it. If there was such an item, and you knew that's what
it was you'd be a damn fool not to loot it, and a thrice damned fool
to personally ensure you can't. There's a reason they are referred to
as Sundertards after all.

There can of course be items that can't be looted for various reasons.

And what, non bull*** reasons would those be?

Well, IRL most people don't want to die.
Chars in the game shouldn't be careless, because - hey - the cleric
casts a spell and on we go as if nothing happened.
It's killing SoD.

And death is final in the real world, barring certain works of
fiction.

Shouldn't be careless no. But shouldn't be too worried if the worst
happens either. If he was concerned about dying, he wouldn't be
risking his life to kill things and take their stuff.

Bank robbers, pirates? Really, get out of the basement sometime.

Bank robbers don't die so much as they get arrested and then wish they
were dead. They also don't kill people in the bank if they can help
it, because they just want them to open the vault. Pirates maybe, but
they don't necessarily kill either. Your example is irrelevant.

'Killing SoD'? What? What does that have to do with anything?

It's an important concept of roleplaying, I'm not surprised at all,
that you don't know it.

In other words, it's you making an empty and pointless statement and
pretending it has meaning. Explain your words or stfu.

Even if we instead compare to raise dead, ok. Now the cut off is 5k
instead of 1k. The item still has to be important enough to worth
bothering with breaking but not so important there will not be many
spares. And it has to be so critical you actually would die if you
didn't. See above about WBL rapage. It makes no functional difference
gold cost wise. If you die, you come back halfway through the previous
level.

*If* you find a cleric who wants to raise you (again).
Maybe your careless behaviour has offended all available clerics
and even their gods. Who knows? Hint: the DM...

Ok, time to reroll. And since you're a beatstick, you can expect this
to come up again in a few levels, because dying lots is a class
feature of theirs.

In your biased view. Not in core DnD and not in most games I
participate in and not in those I read about.

You're already getting into Magical Tea Party wank. You can't pull the
rules into it now that you've decided you're going to *** off and do
something else. Choose one: You play by the rules and revival works as
long as you want it to, or you don't and everything you say is
irrelevant to everyone here.

Except now you ride the Gravy Train, getting roughly a third

more XP from everything due to your lower level... meaning it doesn't
take long at all to catch up, and actually ending up with MORE XP than
the other guys is not unheard of.

Why would you get more XP? In my DMG I read otherwise.
Total XP/party members = everybody's equal share.

Check the table again. The XP reward is based on the CR of the
creature relative to the level of the PC, and the total number of
participants.

Maybe I'm recalling 3.0 ed? Okay.

3.0 did do that I think. Sucks to be you if you ever end up behind.
Which could also happen if you miss a session, half the party fights
something while the other half doesn't...

If a player wants his char to take Improved Sunder I wouldn't
want to be a spoil-sport and would certainly design situations
occasionally where his feat /is/ useful, maybe even to save the
party or "win" an encounter (easier). As DM I don't play against
the party/players, I play with them to have fun.

In other words you'd have to go massively out of your way to contrive

In your "pathologically" narrowed view.

Bull***.

some illogical bull***... just so breaking your own stuff is supposed
to be a good idea. Except you're still breaking your own stuff.

No, I'm breaking the enemies stuff with which he would perhaps kill
me or others and for which I just perhaps have no use.
I'm usually not playing murderous thieves, but heroic adventurers,
sometimes a char of mine gives away gold or stuff to the
poor - just imagine that.

Ah, so he further gimps himself, as well as everyone else. Sounds like
a bad character to keep around.

The responsible thing to do if a player wants a character to take it
is to explain exactly why it's a poor idea. If they insist, well

In /your/ game it's only fair if you tell players that you don't play
DnD as intended but as a wargame ala Diablo. It's not the common
expectation after all.

Bull***. Standard rules = Sunder is made of Fail, and everyone who
does it is a Sundertard. It only becomes worthwhile if you blatantly
change the rules to the effect of 'you always get more treasure to
replace what you destroyed' which just means the whiny little shits
keep breaking Nintendo DSs until they get one they want. In other
words, expect the Sundertards to break anything they don't care about,
knowing that gets them MORE loot, and possibly something they use.
When breaking stuff gets you more stuff, your world fails, your
players fail, and you fail. Alternately we have the Sundertard
repeatedly failing his non saving throw vs stupidity and gimping
everyone... or, we can point out that you shouldn't do this because it
will do nothing but hurt you and make everyone hate you and let them
decide on another approach.

that's their prerogative, and the other players will have a word with
them soon, or perhaps even right there regarding it. Much like a low
level party that ignores all the warnings a dragon lives here and
keeps going on anyways deserves to be eaten. In other words, There Is
No Saving Throw for Stupidity.

IMC there's even a save for stupidity, but if you fail you might be
dead. Intelligent players usually manage to survive.

That's called telling them this won't go well, are you sure. If they
say yes, whatever happens happens. So in addition to Sundertardation,
you're now railroading by making their choices not matter. After all,
if they willingly and consciously decide they wish to screw themselves
and everyone else, somehow not making that happen is pretty bull***.

<snip>
> breaking enemy stuff was a good idea (because they didn't make the

short connection to it becoming their stuff).

IRL you can't just take stuff from people you defeat,
not even from a mugger you beat down. His stuff remains his.
In a fantasy game it might be true or not.

And in the real world, you are effectively an NPC, living a boring NPC
life. Completely irrelevant, as Earth isn't about killing things and
taking their stuff so you can kill bigger things and take their stuff
and D&D is. Also, on Earth you could even afford the really big
purchases, without stealing or combat if you did it right. That's not
what D&D is about.
.

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