Author Topic: The Iron Price  (Read 5942 times)

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veekie

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #20 on: February 27, 2011, 10:14:43 PM »
Enhancement to hit and damage
Resistance to Saves
Enhancement to Armor
Deflection to AC
Natural Armor to AC
Enhancement to Ability Scores

This is the bare minimum assumptions that any character needs if hes to be statistically comparable to the enemies he face.

Interesting. I'm puzzled that three of these go to AC, though. Is it actually possible to make AC relevant past the lower levels? I mean, if you're fighting a real opponent, not a horde of spear-carrrying ooga-boogas.
Real opponents translate excess to-hit into damage via Power Attack, and also summons hordes of spear-carrying ooga-boogas.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

Whisper

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #21 on: February 27, 2011, 11:02:39 PM »
Enhancement to hit and damage
Resistance to Saves
Enhancement to Armor
Deflection to AC
Natural Armor to AC
Enhancement to Ability Scores

This is the bare minimum assumptions that any character needs if hes to be statistically comparable to the enemies he face.

Interesting. I'm puzzled that three of these go to AC, though. Is it actually possible to make AC relevant past the lower levels? I mean, if you're fighting a real opponent, not a horde of spear-carrrying ooga-boogas.
Real opponents translate excess to-hit into damage via Power Attack, and also summons hordes of spear-carrying ooga-boogas.

I see. So one of the modern CO rules of thumb is that all beatsticks buy power attack, and if your lower-AC chars aren't being power attacked, then the GM is handling you with kid gloves?

Makes sense.

Seems like miss chance wouldn't really help that equation, either, because if you miss, you miss whether you were power attacking or not.

So characters are stuck boosting AC even when they don't have a decent chance of making monsters actually miss them. Bah. AC has always been broken.

veekie

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #22 on: February 27, 2011, 11:05:32 PM »
The idea is to stack miss chances and AC, naturally.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

Whisper

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #23 on: February 27, 2011, 11:11:58 PM »
The idea is to stack miss chances and AC, naturally.

Yes, I realize that, but my point was that:

50% miss chance + high AC = hit ~50% of the time.
50% miss chance + low AC = POWER hit 50% of the time.

So you need AC, even though it doesn't actually make anybody miss. Skilled combatants aren't actually skilled at slipping and parrying blows, they just square off and hack chunks out of each other, like two retards knife-fighting in a phone booth.

Nice one, WoTC. Nice one, Gygax.

veekie

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #24 on: February 27, 2011, 11:25:50 PM »
Well, consider also that many games make use of armor rating and common elemental resistances to reduce damage from the other guy, as well as take the edge off status effects of those elements.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

Shadeseraph

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #25 on: February 28, 2011, 03:54:57 AM »
So, an elusive target combatant with miss chance can drop AC? Well, he still has some problems with multiple enemies, and Elusive Target prerequisites sucks, but still.
[spoiler]
I hate mouth breathing fuckwits who go around spouting lies, even after being corrected on those lies, and that bait mods into helping to defend their wrongness and fail. I also hate the MBFs that don't understand the meaning of words, and that can't get a fucking clue.
Hey! I like spouting lies. It's very entertaining to observe how people on the internet are buffing their small egos by declaring victories over some stupid MBFs. :smirk
Also - I hate people who use too smart words that I don't understand. :mad

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Go fuck yourself, because others won't do it for you.

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Anarchy_Kanya

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #26 on: February 28, 2011, 04:01:43 AM »
Maybe Melee Evasion will help.
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[spoiler]
Once my 12 level VoP exalted Monk beat a Horned Devil. ALONE! The only dmg the devil could do to me was from one spell-like that he menaged to shoot out before he droped. :D
wow... you are the epitome of trolling...

Non complete list of people here that are not fuckwits: bearsarebrown, BeholderSlayer, Dictum Mortum, Ithamar, Kajhera, RelentlessImp, SeekingKnight, Shiki, Solo.
You didn't include yourself. Does that mean you're a fuckwit? ???

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Then I can assume the answer to the question is "Yes".
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veekie

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #27 on: February 28, 2011, 04:02:07 AM »
Well, theres touch AC, but thats usually so low even a caster who's not doing anything with his to hit is going to hit.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

oslecamo

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #28 on: February 28, 2011, 12:57:56 PM »
Want a candle of invocation? Well you'll have to slay that great wyrm. And pray it doesn't use the candle of invocation if it feels cornered.

Pray it doesn't use the candle of invocation to get infinite wishes and conquer the world. It's not a kind of item, that I would bring into the game.

No creature in my campaign has Wish SLA. Because you don't need candle of invocation to get them. Planar binding would allow it as well.


The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #29 on: February 28, 2011, 01:00:42 PM »
IMC, genies have a tradition of granting wishes.  Just not wishes.  You get a free request... well, you'd better be certain it's within their not-inconsiderable power, since otherwise you just wasted it.
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oslecamo

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #30 on: February 28, 2011, 01:18:42 PM »
IMC, genies have a tradition of granting wishes.  Just not wishes.  You get a free request... well, you'd better be certain it's within their not-inconsiderable power, since otherwise you just wasted it.

By "tradition", genies will twist the wishes you ask so they turn in horrible situations that horribly screw you.

Wait a moment, scrap that.

By the actual "tradition", genies are extra-evil entities that will kill you in horrible ways if you cross their path, even if trying to help them, and will only grant you the wish if you manage to trick them , and then they will twist said wish anyway. Because they aren't really giving anyway for free, they just want to see you suffer.

Also, out of curiosity, how do you prevent your players from farming those free wishes of yours with the numerous calling effects out there?

veekie

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #31 on: February 28, 2011, 01:22:03 PM »
IMC, genies have a tradition of granting wishes.  Just not wishes.  You get a free request... well, you'd better be certain it's within their not-inconsiderable power, since otherwise you just wasted it.
Mythically its how the Genie Wish works too. They have powerful abilities of teleportation, scrying, transformation(PAO grade) and are also massively strong and fast, so when you make a wish a lot of the time it's just a super fast super strong invisible teleporting fella at work.
Of course, mythically those who bind genies like that generally do it by kicking genie ass(or having angels do it for them), and then extracting a binding promise of future service.
The literal genie effect is partly a parable and partly because it has to work within what it CAN do, so sometimes these abilities wind up being very creatively used. And of course the genie being a poor sport at being made to do menial tasks.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2011, 01:23:54 PM by veekie »
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #32 on: February 28, 2011, 01:32:25 PM »
IMC, genies have a tradition of granting wishes.  Just not wishes.  You get a free request... well, you'd better be certain it's within their not-inconsiderable power, since otherwise you just wasted it.

By "tradition", genies will twist the wishes you ask so they turn in horrible situations that horribly screw you.

Wait a moment, scrap that.

By the actual "tradition", genies are extra-evil entities that will kill you in horrible ways if you cross their path, even if trying to help them, and will only grant you the wish if you manage to trick them , and then they will twist said wish anyway. Because they aren't really giving anyway for free, they just want to see you suffer.

Also, out of curiosity, how do you prevent your players from farming those free wishes of yours with the numerous calling effects out there?
They'll only grant wishes if they've got a good reason to - it's just a cultural standard reward type of thing. Dick around with them, and you'll suddenly find them using the most convoluted reasoning to dick around with you.

By (some) actual tradition, genies are mostly incomprehensible extra-dimensional entities, made of elemental fire where humans are made of elemental earth.  They're not so much dicks as mindrapeless cosmic horrors.

Honestly, I haven't gone much in depth with genie society beyond a dude who has a genie at his beck and call for a year and a day, and I think maybe whatever that flask is that can trap outsiders.
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My custom class: The Priest of the Unseen Host
Planetouched Handbook
Want to improve your character?  Then die.

veekie

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Re: The Iron Price
« Reply #33 on: February 28, 2011, 01:44:00 PM »
Depends on the Djinn in particular too, theres one associated with each element, and the weaker ones like to collaborate with magicians(read, charlatans) to troll people by levitating stuff.

One the magnitude of the one in the Aladdin story is definitely high on the list of Things You Do Not Mess With. Particularly since the ones stuck in lamps or other objects are generally bound against their will, and once the wishes run out, are free to wreak their vengeance.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."