Author Topic: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin  (Read 217732 times)

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oslecamo

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #200 on: June 26, 2011, 11:41:44 AM »
oslecamo you're throwing strawmen out again. Yes a DM could have a campaign where there's nothing to animate but a DM could also have a campaign where everything is sneak attack-immune, there's nothing evil for a paladin to smite and even sneezing the wrong way causes the paladin to fall, or everything is huge or larger so good luck building a tripper.
First you should go look at what a strawmen actualy is before simply throwing fancy words around and pretending they make a good argument just because they're fancy. Actualy your argument right there is more of a strawmen than anything I said in my previous post.

At some point the game needs to be fun and if the DM is going out of his way to hose specific classes or class features then the game becomes less fun and more player vs DM. Now if I'm aware that the campaign is going to be like that ahead of time then it's a different story and then it's my own fault for trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
This is not preventing the game from being fun. This is preventing the game from colapsing because (almost)free and stackable  minions can easily escale out of control. In particular because the more you have, the easier it is for you to beat stronger monsters and then turning them into stronger minions to beat yet stronger monsters to turn into yet more minions and so on.

Plus Necromancy has a lot more tricks than animating dead so even if you never find anything worthwhile to animate dead, an adept/dread necro/cleric/wizard is very far from hosed.

However this discussion is more about a generic campaign where you're fighting a healthy mix of monsters and it's reasonable to expect to fight a monster that's a good candidate for animate dead. I'm not expecting 10 headed hyrdas to fall in my lap but even something like an ogre or a rhino works decently enough.
And who are you to decide what's a healthy mix or monsters or not?  We have rules for acquiring certain monsters on market, why not use them?

Nachofan99

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #201 on: June 26, 2011, 01:24:07 PM »
And who are you to decide what's a healthy mix or monsters or not?  We have rules for acquiring certain monsters on market, why not use them?

Well, I would look at it like this.  If you get Animate Dead at 8th level, and you have *on average approximately* 13.33 encounters to level, you would have had 50ish encounters.  I find it difficult to accept that, by random chance, none of those 50 encounters will have netted anything that's a decent target for Animate Dead.

I agree with what you're saying, that it's easy for Animation spells to get abused.  And I also agree that no sane DM is going to let you keep a stable full of Animated pets.  And I also agree that it's unlikely for a 10 headed hydras to fall into your lap just because you leveled and want to replace your 9 headed hydr; because 50 encounters is not enough to ensure you are going to get exactly what you want.

However, if the Adept can never Animate *anything worthwhile* in 50 encounters, I just don't find that to be reasonable either.  I would acknowledge to the Adept player that it is too variable an advantage and should not be the focus of their build due to that fact.

Yes in TO where you are given a limitless stable of exactly the monsters you want Animate Dead is better than the entire Monk class; that says nothing about the Adept class beyond the fact that they are a potential Animate Dead delivery system.

LordBlades

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #202 on: June 26, 2011, 03:06:41 PM »
that says nothing about the Adept class beyond the fact that they are a potential Animate Dead delivery system.

By the same line of thinking, what more are sorcerers but a d4, poor BAB, one good save no class feature (aka terrible) delivery system for arcane spells?

It seems only fair IMHO that a spellcaster should be judged by the power of his spells.

In most normal campaigns the adept, up to level 11 will come across at least a few nice Animate Dead targets. Not to mention that, if need be, he can go look for a 10 headed hydra (he's got the necessary knowledge skills to know a 10 headed hydra exists, also has survival and can take Track to find one, kill it and animate it).

Also if you want to play an Animate Dead focused adept Deathbound domain is a pretty good choice (use Eberron adept to get a Domain) as it raises your undead cap to 3xCL.

« Last Edit: June 26, 2011, 03:08:54 PM by LordBlades »

Sir Giacomo

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #203 on: June 26, 2011, 03:24:55 PM »
I think that Oslecamo'a (justified imo) point is that you should not just assume the maximum possible for the animate dead spell.
That said, it can be quite useful - and an adept using animate dead could probably have always 1-2 or more minions around. But they are not always the best. And - which was my entire point from the beginning - are probably too expensive over time for the effect they have IF you use them all the time for combat (since they perish quite fast).

25gp per hit dice, possibly dangerous/time-consuming location of appropriate bodies, costs for Necrosis Carnex (whose details JaronK strangely enough cannot provide although he gave the impression that he recently played necromancers using it), cost for altar, costs for desecrate spell effect, costs for envelopping pit (see below). It all adds up over time.
For this, you get CR x to 8 (max) creatures which at level 12 simply have a too high fatality rate in combat. Still, outside of combat they can be used to activate traps, tactically deceive opponents, transport stuff, be a mount (flying even), and are great possibly for fluff and that whole "bow-to-me-my-minions"-thing. ;) This does not mean that outside combat you should not ignore possible drawbacks (like bringing them into civilised areas).

The enveloping pit for transport is a good idea, though. Also getting them into combat should be a swift action (that is the activation time iirc). It is an awfully underpriced item, though (costing less than 20% of the portable hole, but being bigger and faster to activate? Oh yeah!).
Since it is only 10ft diameter (albeit 50ft deep) huge undead or bigger probably cannot be put inside, though.

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JaronK

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #204 on: June 26, 2011, 03:30:27 PM »
Yes they'll probably throw you melee monsters, but the problem it's finding the optimal one. I find it hard to believe you reach lv10 and DING you find a 10-headed hydra to replace the 9-headed hydra from the last level.

I don't think anyone's saying that (this is why we're saying strawman).  A 10 Headed Hydra Zombie was an example of how nasty undead can get... a 9 Headed Hydra Zombie, however, is perfectly good too.  So's a Zombie Behir (CR 8 Magical beast with 9HD, hits for 2d4 +12 or, if you had Corpse Crafter, 2d4+14, has 11 natural armor to start) or a Zombie Bulette (CR 7 Magical Beast with 9 HD, hits for 2d8+8 normally and has a burrow speed) or a Zombie Chimera (CR 7 Magical Beast with 9 HD) or a Zombie Elasmosaurus (CR 7 10 HD Animal) or a Skeletal Tyrannosaurus (CR 8 18 HD Animal) or a Skeleton Dire Shark (CR 9 18 HD animal) or a Zombie Young to Mature Adult Black Dragon (16-22 HD, CR 9-14) and so on and so forth.

You're harping on the idea that the best undead is all a character would have.  No one's saying that, so it's a strawman.  However, there will be SOMETHING that'll make a solid zombie or skeleton... that's what's being said.  And if you haven't figured it out, I was just going through the Monster Manual there and picking magical beasts, animals, giants, and dragons of appropriate CR and HD... and it works.  Notice that it's pretty easy to find CR 7ish critters with just about the right HD.

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Well that indeeds seems to have been made purposedly for that.

Yup, it was.  Black Sand works better, but the Carnex definitely gets the job done (without being cheesy).

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Then you need to spend actions bringing them out for combat, and if you're fighting anything with flying (pretty common at lv 11) they may as well not be there.

You do know that zombies can still fly and that skeletal creatures with magical flight still fly as well, right?  For example, Skeletal Also, you don't need to necessarily spend actions to bring them out.  It's just that you hide them when you want to be stealthy, but when you're playing kick in the door kill 'em all style, you leave them out under standing orders to attack anyone who you attack or who attacks you.

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Ok, then you've proven me right. Just like you don't let the mind-controler start with a selection of brainwashed monsters, we can't let the necromancer start with a selection of animated corpses.

Right, you get them after the first couple encounters.  Then you have them.  As such, when considering how well these classes do in game, we expect that the Adept will probably have some solid undead if that's campaign appropriate.  What's the problem?

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Then kill them in-game. What the DM makes available for you to kill/enslave/animate is for the DM to decide. Hydras aren't even that much of a challenge for an optimized party at that level (low speed and ground bound so laughable easy to kite) so I would certainly not use a 10-headed  one at 10th level unless I wanted the party to get free stuff.

...killing them in game is exactly what I've always done.  And it works, and then you have a bunch of them.  

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Dread warriors have locked stats and anyway only can be produced from fighter corpses. It doesn't say anywhere they retain their old capacities. Notice how they have a single feat despite having 4 HD and suposedly being created from fighter.

Are you reading the same books I am?  Dread Warriors are from UE.  Their feats are "Same as the base creature, except the dread warrior loses any feats for which it no longer qualifies" and it can be applied not just to Fighters, but to "any humanoid of at least 3 hit dice or levels."    They definitely keep all their old abilities, as the template never says anything about losing them and the fluff part of the template even says "dread warriors are undead beings usually created from the corpses of skilled warriors.  They retain many of the martial skills and talents they possessed in life."  So, usually you use them with Fighter types, but you don't have to, and they keep their abilities.

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It could be construct campaign. It could be plant campaign. Heck it could be undead campaign in which case you can't animate them again.

Or my favorite, demon campaign since Fiendish Codex states that their bodies disapear in fantastic ways when killed. :p

Seriously?  A Construct only campaign?  A Plant only campaign?  REALLY?  You know, I've never been in a campaign where every enemy was always the exact same type.  God, the poor Rogues in your game worlds!  A campaign world of nothing but constructs, plants, and undead!    Seriously though, let's assume a reasonable normal campaign here.

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There's also that nifty spell that makes creatures self-destruct when dead.

So, you're saying a DM can go out of their way to screw a player if they want.  We know.  Hey, it could also be a completely dead magic world, except all Monk abilities work anyway!  Monks clearly rule!

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Point is, there's thousands of creatures out there, and not all of them are that optimal for animating, so you can't just cherry pick whatever you want before the campaign even started. Because that's as campaign-specific as it gets. It's like saying "well there's artifacts in the DMG and it's not uncommon to find artifacts in my campaigns so the adept gets whatever artifacts I want".

See?  There's your strawman.  No one's saying you can just cherry pick whatever you want before the campaign even started.  That's your strawman, right there.  Notice how what we're actually saying is that there's lots of good creatures to reanimate (whole classes of creatures in fact... virtually every dragon, giant, magical beast, or animal of appropriate HD is a good choice), and in most campaigns you're liable to see enough of them to have some solid zombies or skeletons on your side.  

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Now that is reasonable. If there's standard market prices for them, you can expect to be able to purchase them and kill them for animating. You still can't cherry-pick whatever you want.

STOP THE STRAWMAN.   NOBODY'S SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT CHERRY PICKING WHATEVER YOU WANT.

To be clear, here's the actual argument:

There's lots of good creatures to reanimate (whole classes of creatures in fact... virtually every dragon, giant, magical beast, or animal of appropriate HD is a good choice), and in most campaigns you're liable to see enough of them to have some solid zombies or skeletons on your side. Therefor, it's reasonable to expect than an Adept could, if he wanted, have a decent number of reasonably strong Skeletons or Zombies via Animate Dead, simply by raising creatures that are seen, fought, or bought during the campaign.  Examples of good undead creatures to raise include zombie 10 headed hydras, as well as zombie dragons, zombie bulletes, skeletal warbeast tyrannosauruses, and zombie warbeast Elasmosauruses.  Undead creatures can then, when needed, be placed in extradimensional space, or pulled out when combat might be approaching.

The following is your strawman, which nobody is arguing, but which you're attacking:

An Adept gets to cherry pick whatever he wants before the campaign even starts, and when an Adept reachs lv10 and DING he'll find a 10-headed hydra to replace the 9-headed hydra from the last level.  These creatures are then always stored in Extradimensional space until the fight starts.

See the difference?  Notice how I'm showing your strawman out of your quotes, so don't go claiming you didn't make it.  Now can you stop with that?

JaronK

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #205 on: June 26, 2011, 04:09:08 PM »
So apparently Giacomo will not be responding to my posts since he is under the impression that threatening to ignore someone who does not like him will result in him being liked again.

I strongly encourage everyone who wants to post something in response to what Giacomo says to PM it to me so that I may do it for him.

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Bauglir

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #206 on: June 26, 2011, 05:01:35 PM »
I strongly encourage everyone who wants to post something in response to what Giacomo says to PM it to me so that I may do it for him.

The underlying rule of these forums are "Don't be a Douche".

... ensure your posts are adding to the community rather than detracting or keeping it stagnant (by spamming for example).

I do apologize for the whole vigilante moderation thing here, and I'm not going to complain if there's any moderation action taken against me because hey, that is a consequence of what I'm doing and that's a price I'm willing to pay. But this endless, moronic trolling that Solo seems to be so wrapped up in needs to stop. It's dragging across too many threads, cluttering too many discussions that actually have the potential to be interesting, and just all-around douchey.

No, that does not mean that I agree with Giacomo. But stop making me ashamed to disagree with him. Grow up.
So you end up stuck in an endless loop, unable to act, forever.

In retrospect, much like Keanu Reeves.

JaronK

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #207 on: June 26, 2011, 05:01:54 PM »
25gp per hit dice,

So, about 500gp per undead (for the max 20HD, which are best... it's cheaper if it's less than that), and you generally keep them through many fights. Heck, I kept a few undead I rebuked as a DN from level 4 to level 12 (though they were far less useful then, but they made reasonable enough scouts).  They don't exactly die easy.

Out of curiosity, how much do the Monks you like to make spend in charges off wands per encounter?  It's more than that per encounter, isn't it?

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possibly dangerous/time-consuming location of appropriate bodies,

Since bodies are usually obtained from fights you were doing anyway, this makes no sense.  You fight a bunch of leveled up Drugar Raiders riding Bullettes, you say "hey, a Bullette is a pretty good critter" and then you animate it because the body is right there in front of you."

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costs for Necrosis Carnex (whose details JaronK strangely enough cannot provide although he gave the impression that he recently played necromancers using it),

I remember it was 200gp for the special Cold Iron bands involved.  If there was any other cost to it, it wasn't much.  Again, really cheap at this level... cost is a non issue.  I don't remember it well because I was playing a Dread Necromancer with the Black Sand spell and didn't even need them.  But either way, still cheaper than the per encounter cost your Monks notoriously tried to have.

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cost for altar,

Trivially cheap.

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costs for desecrate spell effect,

This one costs some cash.  It's 4395gp.  On a level 11 character.  See here:  http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20021031x .  Oh noes!

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costs for envelopping pit (see below).

Again, pretty cheap.

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It all adds up over time.

...since when have you understood the concept of costs adding up over time?  To be clear, for an Adept to have his undead factory, he needs an additional outlay of 4395gp (ring) + 3600gp (pit) + about 400gp (for a pair of Necrosis Carnexes).  Now he spends about 500gp per undead... let's say he gets at level 12 the full 48 HD in undead, so that's 1200gp for all of them.  He almost never needs to replace them.  So, 8395gp for the initial investment, and every once in a while he finds a new better undead and spends around 500gp on it.  Yeah, that's a bank breaker at level 11.

That doesn't add up to very much at all.

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For this, you get CR x to 8 (max) creatures which at level 12 simply have a too high fatality rate in combat.

Compare them to the Monks you've made.  Notice how they're far more survivable.  So, are you admitting that your Monks are worthless?  I mean seriously, to pick a random critter, how about a Skeletal Storm Giant?  Made by someone with Desecrate and Corpse Crafter, we're talking about something with 19d12+76 (199 hp), Str 43, Dex 20, an attack set of +23/+18 with his Greatsword for 4d6+24 or two slams and two claw attacks at +23/+23/+18/+18 for 1d6+16 and 1d8+8 respectively,  or two Composite Longbow shots at +12/+7 for 3d6+16, initiative +9, AC 21 (with the default Breastplate, it could go up), Immunity to cold as well as most Fort saves and a bunch of other things, DR 5/Bludgeoning, and saves of Ref +11, Fort +6, and Will +11.  Plus he can be healed indefinitely by a single casting of Black Sand, or by a Necrosis Carnex.  And if you have random other gear he could use (for example some of the treasure he came with) you can let him use it until you're at a place where you can sell it.

Now, notice how much more durable that guy is than any of the Monks you've made (and note that 10HD critters turned into Zombies are generally even more durable).  Either these guys are totally survivable, or you're admitting that your Monks all have an extremely high fatality rate.  Which is it?

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Still, outside of combat they can be used to activate traps, tactically deceive opponents, transport stuff, be a mount (flying even), and are great possibly for fluff and that whole "bow-to-me-my-minions"-thing. ;) This does not mean that outside combat you should not ignore possible drawbacks (like bringing them into civilised areas).

Notice how that example Skeletal Storm Giant (and yes, I did just pick a Giant with just under 20HD... it's quite simple) is also a very effective combat creature, capable of doing a lot more than most Monks (like the ones you've shown).    As for civilized areas, you have a few options.  Many undead can be covered in armor and then disguised as a living version of the same creature (for example, a Skeletal Storm Giant in Full Plate could be disguised as a Storm Giant in Full Plate).  Or teleportation can get you places.  Or there's Extradimensional Space (not so easy for huge creatures, but acceptable for Large and smaller... though I'd buy a humanoid shaped skeleton fitting in there).  Really, there's a lot of options here.

JaronK

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #208 on: June 26, 2011, 05:14:24 PM »
A 20 HD zombie cost less to make (400 gps) than a partially charged wand of a 1st level spell with 30 charges (450 gps). For a 12th level adept animate 48 HD of undead it only costs 1,200 gps (25 x 48), less than a third of the cost of a fully charged wand of a 2nd level spell (4,500 gps). WBL for a 12th level PC is 88,000 gps so it's costing an adept PC about 1.5% of his wealth to have a fully force of undead with him and even even if he carries around another 1,200 gps in black onyx gems around with him for replacements he's spent less that 3% of his total wealth on undead, hardy a big sacifice. Throw in a few hats of disguises (1,800 gps) and I'm up to about 5% of my total wealth. Even if we're using NPC WBL it's barely a dent in a 12th level NPC's wealth.

JaronK

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #209 on: June 26, 2011, 05:24:06 PM »
A 20 HD zombie cost less to make (400 gps) than a partially charged wand of a 1st level spell with 30 charges (450 gps).

500gp, but it's still pretty close.  A 16 HD Skeleton or Zombie is 400gp.  But, yeah, the point still stands... maintaining undead is cheap, and far cheaper than burning charges off wands in every fight.

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oslecamo

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #210 on: June 26, 2011, 05:45:50 PM »
I don't think anyone's saying that (this is why we're saying strawman).  A 10 Headed Hydra Zombie was an example of how nasty undead can get... a 9 Headed Hydra Zombie, however, is perfectly good too.  So's a Zombie Behir (CR 8 Magical beast with 9HD, hits for 2d4 +12 or, if you had Corpse Crafter, 2d4+14, has 11 natural armor to start) or a Zombie Bulette (CR 7 Magical Beast with 9 HD, hits for 2d8+8 normally and has a burrow speed) or a Zombie Chimera (CR 7 Magical Beast with 9 HD) or a Zombie Elasmosaurus (CR 7 10 HD Animal) or a Skeletal Tyrannosaurus (CR 8 18 HD Animal) or a Skeleton Dire Shark (CR 9 18 HD animal) or a Zombie Young to Mature Adult Black Dragon (16-22 HD, CR 9-14) and so on and so forth.
You still brought up the hydra in the adept build. It's not a strawman if you did exactly what I'm acusing you of doing.

You're harping on the idea that the best undead is all a character would have.  No one's saying that, so it's a strawman.  However, there will be SOMETHING that'll make a solid zombie or skeleton... that's what's being said.  And if you haven't figured it out, I was just going through the Monster Manual there and picking magical beasts, animals, giants, and dragons of appropriate CR and HD... and it works.  Notice that it's pretty easy to find CR 7ish critters with just about the right HD.
Unless you bring up some random creature generator (that works with all creature types, not just those that are efficient to animate dead), you'll be still cherry picking, when otherwise it's up to the campaign and the DM what monsters you face.

You do know that zombies can still fly and that skeletal creatures with magical flight still fly as well, right?  For example, Skeletal Also, you don't need to necessarily spend actions to bring them out.  It's just that you hide them when you want to be stealthy, but when you're playing kick in the door kill 'em all style, you leave them out under standing orders to attack anyone who you attack or who attacks you.
Zombies fly so poorly they'l be hard pressed to do anything. Skeletons are more efficient, but magic flying creatures with great natural combat stats are indeed rare.

Right, you get them after the first couple encounters.  Then you have them.  As such, when considering how well these classes do in game, we expect that the Adept will probably have some solid undead if that's campaign appropriate.  What's the problem?
"Appropriate" meaning a lot of diferent things to diferent persons. Otherwise nobody would've bringed up the 10 headed hydras at 10th level (and then trying to cheese out ways to animate dead 12 headed hydra zombies on top).

...killing them in game is exactly what I've always done.  And it works, and then you have a bunch of them.  
But we don't have a game here. We have a 1x1 duel. This adept never adventured or fought any battle, and now you want to give it advantages based solely on its background.

Now if you want, we can fill the duel arena with other randomized monsters and if your adept can kill them and animate deading them in real time then I have no complains.

Are you reading the same books I am?  Dread Warriors are from UE.  Their feats are "Same as the base creature, except the dread warrior loses any feats for which it no longer qualifies" and it can be applied not just to Fighters, but to "any humanoid of at least 3 hit dice or levels."    They definitely keep all their old abilities, as the template never says anything about losing them and the fluff part of the template even says "dread warriors are undead beings usually created from the corpses of skilled warriors.  They retain many of the martial skills and talents they possessed in life."  So, usually you use them with Fighter types, but you don't have to, and they keep their abilities.
I was checking out the Monsters of Faerun version, which is where google said they're from. What's UE again?

Seriously?  A Construct only campaign?  A Plant only campaign?  REALLY?  You know, I've never been in a campaign where every enemy was always the exact same type.  God, the poor Rogues in your game worlds!  A campaign world of nothing but constructs, plants, and undead!    Seriously though, let's assume a reasonable normal campaign here.

Please, vine/golem/grave strike have been printed long ago to enable rogues to easily sneak up pretty much everything. :p

So, you're saying a DM can go out of their way to screw a player if they want.  We know.  Hey, it could also be a completely dead magic world, except all Monk abilities work anyway!  Monks clearly rule!
Based on your previous logic, dead magic zones exist somewhere in the campaign, so clearly the fight will be in a dead-magic zone that happens to be filled with optimal monsters for animate deading. One background condition from each player is only fair.

See?  There's your strawman.  No one's saying you can just cherry pick whatever you want before the campaign even started.  That's your strawman, right there.  Notice how what we're actually saying is that there's lots of good creatures to reanimate (whole classes of creatures in fact... virtually every dragon, giant, magical beast, or animal of appropriate HD is a good choice), and in most campaigns you're liable to see enough of them to have some solid zombies or skeletons on your side.  
Then choose monsters whitout any specfific preference. There's several random ecounter generators out there to keep things fair. Otherwise, guess what, you're still cherrypicking them when you bring a specific monster out of nowhere to the duel!

See the difference?  Notice how I'm showing your strawman out of your quotes, so don't go claiming you didn't make it.  Now can you stop with that?
Last time I checked it's not a strawman to repeat what others have said, and several times you were all mentioning specific optimal monsters for animate dead for the adept to use.

So I'll stop it when you stop it as well and either use a random monster generator,  or simply use some of the other's monk tricks.

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #211 on: June 26, 2011, 05:45:58 PM »
Tiers explained in 8 sentences. With examples!
[spoiler]Tiers break down into who has spellcasting more than anything else due to spells being better than anything else in the game.
6: Skill based. Commoner, Expert, Samurai.
5: Mundane warrior. Barbarian, Fighter, Monk.
4: Partial casters. Adapt, Hexblade, Paladin, Ranger, Spelltheif.
3: Focused casters. Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, Warmage.
2: Full casters. Favored Soul, Psion, Sorcerer, Wu Jen.
1: Elitists. Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Wizard.
0: Gods. StP Erudite, Illthid Savant, Pun-Pun, Rocks fall & you die.
[/spoiler]

Solo

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #212 on: June 26, 2011, 05:48:57 PM »
Can I get that on a T-shirt?

"I am the Black Mage! I cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down!"

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #213 on: June 26, 2011, 06:41:44 PM »
I don't think anyone's saying that (this is why we're saying strawman).  A 10 Headed Hydra Zombie was an example of how nasty undead can get... a 9 Headed Hydra Zombie, however, is perfectly good too.  So's a Zombie Behir (CR 8 Magical beast with 9HD, hits for 2d4 +12 or, if you had Corpse Crafter, 2d4+14, has 11 natural armor to start) or a Zombie Bulette (CR 7 Magical Beast with 9 HD, hits for 2d8+8 normally and has a burrow speed) or a Zombie Chimera (CR 7 Magical Beast with 9 HD) or a Zombie Elasmosaurus (CR 7 10 HD Animal) or a Skeletal Tyrannosaurus (CR 8 18 HD Animal) or a Skeleton Dire Shark (CR 9 18 HD animal) or a Zombie Young to Mature Adult Black Dragon (16-22 HD, CR 9-14) and so on and so forth.
You still brought up the hydra in the adept build. It's not a strawman if you did exactly what I'm acusing you of doing.
You are correct on one thing, and one thing only:  this specific argument isn't a strawman.  It could be tagged as any number of other logical fallacies, however, since you're basically saying "Animate Dead sucks if you don't get Hydras."

You're harping on the idea that the best undead is all a character would have.  No one's saying that, so it's a strawman.  However, there will be SOMETHING that'll make a solid zombie or skeleton... that's what's being said.  And if you haven't figured it out, I was just going through the Monster Manual there and picking magical beasts, animals, giants, and dragons of appropriate CR and HD... and it works.  Notice that it's pretty easy to find CR 7ish critters with just about the right HD.
Unless you bring up some random creature generator (that works with all creature types, not just those that are efficient to animate dead), you'll be still cherry picking, when otherwise it's up to the campaign and the DM what monsters you face.
Why does JaronK have to do anything of the sort?  To convince you?  I don't think that's terribly important.

You do know that zombies can still fly and that skeletal creatures with magical flight still fly as well, right?  For example, Skeletal Also, you don't need to necessarily spend actions to bring them out.  It's just that you hide them when you want to be stealthy, but when you're playing kick in the door kill 'em all style, you leave them out under standing orders to attack anyone who you attack or who attacks you.
Zombies fly so poorly they'l be hard pressed to do anything. Skeletons are more efficient, but magic flying creatures with great natural combat stats are indeed rare.
Even with a clumsy fly speed, flying is flying.  If you animate something with a high fly speed, the maneuverability barely even matters.

Right, you get them after the first couple encounters.  Then you have them.  As such, when considering how well these classes do in game, we expect that the Adept will probably have some solid undead if that's campaign appropriate.  What's the problem?
"Appropriate" meaning a lot of diferent things to diferent persons. Otherwise nobody would've bringed up the 10 headed hydras at 10th level (and then trying to cheese out ways to animate dead 12 headed hydra zombies on top).
Now you're just being contrary.  It's like your obligated to disagree with every sentence JaronK writes.

...killing them in game is exactly what I've always done.  And it works, and then you have a bunch of them.  
But we don't have a game here. We have a 1x1 duel. This adept never adventured or fought any battle, and now you want to give it advantages based solely on its background.

Now if you want, we can fill the duel arena with other randomized monsters and if your adept can kill them and animate deading them in real time then I have no complains.
This is totally unreasonable.  Duels are meaningless in determining a character's strength.  We'd likely be using a same game test if we wanted to test this out, which will invariably give the Adept something to raise over the course of the test, and it's likewise inane to say that a 12th level character has never before adventured in their life, especially if they make the skill investments necessary to hunt down and kill a hydra.

Seriously?  A Construct only campaign?  A Plant only campaign?  REALLY?  You know, I've never been in a campaign where every enemy was always the exact same type.  God, the poor Rogues in your game worlds!  A campaign world of nothing but constructs, plants, and undead!    Seriously though, let's assume a reasonable normal campaign here.

Please, vine/golem/grave strike have been printed long ago to enable rogues to easily sneak up pretty much everything. :p
Elementals, then, and you're assertion is still ridiculous.

See?  There's your strawman.  No one's saying you can just cherry pick whatever you want before the campaign even started.  That's your strawman, right there.  Notice how what we're actually saying is that there's lots of good creatures to reanimate (whole classes of creatures in fact... virtually every dragon, giant, magical beast, or animal of appropriate HD is a good choice), and in most campaigns you're liable to see enough of them to have some solid zombies or skeletons on your side.  
Then choose monsters whitout any specfific preference. There's several random ecounter generators out there to keep things fair. Otherwise, guess what, you're still cherrypicking them when you bring a specific monster out of nowhere to the duel!
Fine, MM's 1, 3, 4, and 5.  A random sampling of 20 monsters CRs 8 through 12.  Here's what I've got:

Ruin Elemental (Elemental, can't be animated)
Grimweird (Undead, can't be animated)
Ushimoi, Turlemoi (Worthwhile skeletons if they keep rock throwing)
Vitreous Drinker (Undead, can't be animated)
Mindshredder Zenthal (Weak animating candidate)
Mohrg (Undead, can't be animated)
Giant Squid (Weak animating candidate)
Shredstorm (Construct, can't be animated)
Lifeleech Otyugh (Moderately good zombie, Improved Grab, Constrict and +22 grapple)
Cave Troll (Good Zombie)
Rylcar Harridan (Usable as a zombie)
Mountain Troll (Very strong skeleton)
War Troll (Very strong skeleton)
Shield Guardian (Construct, can't be animated)
Blighted Bloodfire Ooze (Ooze, can't be animated)
Slaughterstone Eviscerator (Construct, can't be animated)
Lodestone Marauder (Usable skeleton)
Ironclad Mauler (Strong skeleton)
Forest Haunt (Undead, can't be animated)
Chemical Golem (Construct, can't be animated)

Now kindly shut up about good zombies and skeletons not being available in a campaign.  By your own standards, you're WRONG.

Solo

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #214 on: June 26, 2011, 06:49:58 PM »
Ozzy, you say that giving the Adept specific monsters to animate is cherrypicking since the monster availability depends on what the player would have faced in a campaign.

But doesn't that apply to... everything? Like magical gear, for instance. I mean, if you spend the campaign fighting against Elementals in a massive dungeon off of the material plane, you won't really be able to "cherrypick" your character's possessions, so making a build with any specific items would be invalid under those assumptions.

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ImperatorK

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #215 on: June 26, 2011, 07:19:18 PM »
Gear is subject to DM approval. Every game where you can pick your every item as long as you don't exceed your WBL, is just how it is in this particular DMs game and not some rule that everyone must follow.
Ergo, someone must state the rules for this test and watch if you follow them.
« Last Edit: June 26, 2011, 07:22:16 PM by ImperatorK »
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[spoiler]
Quote from: Lateral
Or you could just be a cleric of an ideal. Like, physics and say that the domain choices reflect potential and kinetic energy.

 Plus, where other clerics say "For Pelor," "For Nerull," or "For Crom?" You get to say, "FOR SCIENCE!" *fanfare*

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Use Iron Heart Surge on the sun. That'll teach him to use fluff as RAW.

Damn you! You totally ruined my build that was all about getting epic far shot early and throwing my enemies into the sun!
[/spoiler]

Solo

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #216 on: June 26, 2011, 07:25:58 PM »
But who watches the watchmen?

"I am the Black Mage! I cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down!"

The Legend RPG, which I worked on and encourage you to read.

ImperatorK

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #217 on: June 26, 2011, 07:40:56 PM »
Good point. Then we should assign someone to watch them as well.
"I'm done thinking for today! It's caused me enough trouble!"
"Take less damage to avoid being killed."
"In the arena of logic, I fight unarmed."


[spoiler]
Quote from: Lateral
Or you could just be a cleric of an ideal. Like, physics and say that the domain choices reflect potential and kinetic energy.

 Plus, where other clerics say "For Pelor," "For Nerull," or "For Crom?" You get to say, "FOR SCIENCE!" *fanfare*

About me:
Quote from: dark_samuari
I know your game, you just want a magical Amazon.com to knock off those good ol' honest magic shops run by polite, old wizards!
Use Iron Heart Surge on the sun. That'll teach him to use fluff as RAW.

Damn you! You totally ruined my build that was all about getting epic far shot early and throwing my enemies into the sun!
[/spoiler]

Solo

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #218 on: June 26, 2011, 07:42:21 PM »
Can we use webcams? I love webcams.

"I am the Black Mage! I cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down!"

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ninjarabbit

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Re: Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin
« Reply #219 on: June 26, 2011, 07:47:41 PM »
Can we use webcams? I love webcams.

We don't want to turn this into Chat Roulette