What Counts as "Longbow"?

[kevin_video]

Good luck in your game, man.  I've been following your threads, and I'd be hard pressed to not murder that DM.

Believe me, it's hard pressed for us all. At least he's somewhat compromising when it comes to magic items (ie we can merge them together, and he'll find other ways to get us items that we want, for cheap).

Your DM is a douchebag.  Ask him if he requires a separate proficiency for the Winchester Model 70 in .223 and .458 WinMag.  Same gun, different cartridge.

Short answer: yes. Not 100% sure, but chances are yes. At least if it requires a different profiency.

[kevin_video]

The DM came through for us today. Well, me and the favored soul.

[AfterCrescent]

What happened? I'm kind of curious as to how he came through for you two.

[kevin_video]

What happened? I'm kind of curious as to how he came through for you two.

Oh. Yeah I put it in the other thread, but essentially what happened was an old player came back to join us for a couple of sessions (two weeks holidays), and he took up his old character from last campaign (which is a ECL 14 pleasure demon), and was coerced by his master (the pit fiend that all of our current characters' parents banished) to convince me to let him put the +3 Greater Bane ability on my bow. The catch was I couldn't use it on demons or devils. I could use it on anything else, but now his personal minions of Hell. I'm NG so I said no, and walked away. This of course angered the guy's character, not to mention the big bad evil who very nearly killed us in the first session of this campaign (we were all lvl 1, but we had our characters from the last campaign as well who were all ECL 20-24), and probably wouldn't hesitate to take me out the second he got the chance. The rest of the players just looked at me, and couldn't believe what I'd done. First off, I'd turned down a free +3 addition to my essentially already useless +2 composite aquatic bow (which was +1 attack and damage, with minor alteration +1). Second, I'd pissed off the guy that very much wants us dead anyways, and gave him even less reason to keep my character alive. At this point I pretty much didn't care. I welcomed the idea actually. I was tired of it. So imagine my surprise when this elf randomly appeared from the shadows, and said that he was quite shocked, but impressed, that I'd turned down that demon's offer. I shrugged, and said I'd probably live just long enough to regret it. The elf smiled, and asked if he could see my bow. I worried that I might be getting tricked, but a Sense Motive check at 21 told me that I had nothing to worry about it. The elf inspected it, told me I had a fine bow of wintermoon, despite it's current limitations and alterations that had been placed on it, and handed it back to me before disappearing into the shadows once more. I was still skeptical so I gave the bow to a local wizard whom we'd saved last session, and told him that I was afraid a demon had cursed it. The wizard looked over it for several moments before saying that it was perfectly fine. Better than fine. It was spotless. Like I'd bought it brand new. I asked him to tell me what properties were on it, and my jaw dropped when I heard "Weapon Aptitude" had been placed on it. I immediately went to the shrine, talked to the cleric about what had happened, he laughed and asked me if I'd seen an elf. I said yes, and he quickly took me to the shrine of Corellan (who is my deity) to immediately pray. I prayed, and thanked him for the blessing of my bow. The shrine glowed, and said I was welcome. To which the cleric fainted. 
As for the favored soul, he plays a succubi race. Because he is the second cousin to the other player's character, and the pit fiend's granddaughter (not to mention he's about nine sessions and one level behind the rest of us -- it was more but the DM put LAs of shadow dragon and abyssal dragon on him), not to mention CE to begin with, the pleasure demon and pit fiend took the abyssal cold iron that we had got three sessions ago (which makes any weapon count as cold iron with a +4 bonus on crit confirmations) into a +2 bastard sword. No catches as he's family.

[Optimator]

Interesting. 

[kevin_video]

Interesting. 

That's one way of saying it, yeah.

Basically I got 10,000 gold for role playing my character like I should. Of course the consequence is I'm quickly going to become a target for the forces of evil. Which is fine. I wouldn't be a good character otherwise.

[thrasher2005]

I am a neophyte on these boards (and may be deserving of any upcoming slaps that stem from this post), but in essence...

Why do people chose to play inordinately complex and rare characters? What happened to sticking to relatively core races with somewhat simplistic classes, ranging in difficulty from Fighter/Barbarian/Cleric/etc into some more flashy sort including the Mystic Thurgist/Swashbuckler/Duskblade/etc?

I have seen a few examples of (including this one of Mystic Ranger 4/Targetteer 2/gold half dragon 1/water elemental 1. Base race is a half-aquatic elf.) are...incredible combinations that amount to trying to milk whatever loopholes can be found in character creation rules. I mean hell, the Warforged Artificer, Kalshatarr Psion, Human Warblade(7)/Swashbuckler(3)/Rogue(2) in my Eberron Campaign gives a few people headaches.

Is it necessary to play those...again wording fails beyond incredible combinations? I have played a Human Barbarian 10/Fighter 2 many times and had success, as well as my personal favorite a Druid from level 8 to level 22 (with two levels of Warshaper), and both class combinations are relatively straight forward and fun, while maintaining a decent power level. Maybe its just the flavor of campaigns I have been in (mind you I am in the greater Washington DC metro area), but most DM's I know would frown upon a 'Pleasure Demon' or 'Half-Shadow Dragon, Cleric 6/fighter7/rogue7' etc. 

I guess what I am struggling to say is...with the amount of...incredible fine print that you are putting into your character, can you really be surprised with any potential anal retentiveness of a DM? What happened to just taking a Ranger to level 10 with perhaps some levels of rogue or going Scout? You complain about damage, but skirmisher damage and/or distracting shot with some sneak dice would sufficiently up your damage output. We had a level 18 ranger once that never seemed to be hurting on damage, but perhaps that is just his character generation.

~sincerely newbie not meaning to ruffle any feathers.

[GawainBS]

I am a neophyte on these boards (and may be deserving of any upcoming slaps that stem from this post), but in essence...

Why do people chose to play inordinately complex and rare characters? What happened to sticking to relatively core races with somewhat simplistic classes, ranging in difficulty from Fighter/Barbarian/Cleric/etc into some more flashy sort including the Mystic Thurgist/Swashbuckler/Duskblade/etc?

I have seen a few examples of (including this one of Mystic Ranger 4/Targetteer 2/gold half dragon 1/water elemental 1. Base race is a half-aquatic elf.) are...incredible combinations that amount to trying to milk whatever loopholes can be found in character creation rules. I mean hell, the Warforged Artificer, Kalshatarr Psion, Human Warblade(7)/Swashbuckler(3)/Rogue(2) in my Eberron Campaign gives a few people headaches.

Is it necessary to play those...again wording fails beyond incredible combinations? I have played a Human Barbarian 10/Fighter 2 many times and had success, as well as my personal favorite a Druid from level 8 to level 22 (with two levels of Warshaper), and both class combinations are relatively straight forward and fun, while maintaining a decent power level. Maybe its just the flavor of campaigns I have been in (mind you I am in the greater Washington DC metro area), but most DM's I know would frown upon a 'Pleasure Demon' or 'Half-Shadow Dragon, Cleric 6/fighter7/rogue7' etc. 

I guess what I am struggling to say is...with the amount of...incredible fine print that you are putting into your character, can you really be surprised with any potential anal retentiveness of a DM? What happened to just taking a Ranger to level 10 with perhaps some levels of rogue or going Scout? You complain about damage, but skirmisher damage and/or distracting shot with some sneak dice would sufficiently up your damage output. We had a level 18 ranger once that never seemed to be hurting on damage, but perhaps that is just his character generation.

~sincerely newbie not meaning to ruffle any feathers.

Well, kevin_video has also posted another thread about this character, and I believe he refers to it in this thread, about how his DM *forces* such a character upon him. He never choose to be a Half-Dragon-Half-Waterelemental-Half Aquatic elf. That's the gist of it.
As for the class combinations: some people can word it better than me, but suffice to say that your character doesn't think of himself as a Warblade7/Swashbuckler3, but rather as a clever warrior.

[kevin_video]

@ thrasher2005 -- Gawain is correct (mostly because I whine to him every other week about what's going on). You have NO idea what it's like to be a player in this kind of campaign until you've walked a mile in our shoes. I have put this in another thread http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4215.0 and it explains just about everything. You simple human barbarian/fighter would be trampled on in his campaigns. You'd be affected by everything, and you'd be the most targeted because of that. Not only that, but your barbarian/fighter has practically no Reflex and Will. Again, you'd be targeted. Miss a few sessions, and get about a level or two behind? Your character will randomly pick up a book that he just can't put down for some reason. When you woke up the next morning, poof, you're a half-celesital, or half-dragon, or half-whatever. Did you die? No problem Resurrection doesn't exist, but now you've been cloned (as per the spell) and are 1-2 levels lower than you were before (and therefore randomly pick up yet another magic book that adds another template like half-*insert type* golem), OR you can choose to take a level in Ghostwalker. It's hard enough for our Thri-keen Warblade to do this. He sacrificed like 12 level adjustments (half-celesital, silver dragon, genie, etc) to become one, and it was still LA +4 to be a Thri-keen. Even I'm taking a big risk next campaign by going human (with one level of half dragon because I still have dragon blood swimming in my viens).

As for Scouts? Unless you're an NPC on the DM's side, you're absolutely useless. How do you use skirmish if you're always surrounded on eight sides, and none of those are a wall or cliff side?

[woodenbandman]

I can understand the joy of playing a character straight out of the book, 1-20, as a member of that class. The thing is, the mentality behind this is often "Oh sweet, I can be one of these classes!" My mentality, on the other hand, is "Oh sweet, I can be any of these classes! I can be ALL of these classes!"

Those don't seem different, but they are. A new player will often have a character in mind but not a character on paper. They'll want to be the guy who runs around singalinging all over the place, so they'll play a bard. But they won't particularly want to cast magic, and sneaking's not their style. They like fighting with axes. So rather than do something like Bard3/Marshall2/Crusader15, and have a character who has Inspire Courage, and other helpful auras/crap and is able to hit things, they'll be Bard20 and not touch parts of their class features. Which is sad, because the second one is really much closer to what they want to be. On the other hand, sometimes Wizard 20 or Monk 20 is just what you want.

As an experienced player, you will find that you will not want to limit yourself to just one class. If you have a truly outlandish character concept that you must bring to fruition, for the art and science of it, it won't matter how ugly Factotum3/Monk2/Marshall1/Paladin of Freedom2/Hexblade3 looks written on your character sheet. To you, it'll say Eldrin Worstford, the burned out elven cassanova who learned a long time ago that trust is for suckers, and who does not let on to anyone at all that he is not a weak old man, as he claims, but is in fact rather capable, out of fear that if it is discovered that he is strong, he will be killed.

I made that character. True story. Mechanically, he's basically a lockdown tripper. Could I have done the same thing mechanically as a Fighter 10? Yeah. Probably better, too. He'd have more HP, AC, Etc... but I wanted to make a guy who convinces everyone that he is a weak old man, but is actually very strong, with phenomenal + 20something saves and loads of HPs and +16 bonus to tripping people... as a basic Fighter or Paladin I could've gotten close, but close isn't good enough for me.

As an experienced player, you don't see classes, or levels, or feats... you see characters. A character has all of these, but he defines what they mean, not the other way around.

[veekie]

As an experienced player, you don't see classes, or levels, or feats... you see characters. A character has all of these, but he defines what they mean, not the other way around.

Amen.