Author Topic: Dirty Trick Handbook II, or how to force your DM to attack you without a save.  (Read 66476 times)

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McPoyo

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Which you have infinite of, both before and after you go, so it's still irrelevant.
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

Garryl

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In any case, you can still use your absurdly large number of linked readied actions on your own turn as each one comes up from auto-manifesting Linked Power goodness. You just get only one of them at a time outside your turn as a readied action. That's still 2 actions with Anticipatory Strike, enough to get away from a Dire Tortoise with Celerity. And then the next round, you Teleport or Plane Shift back in with your NI linked actions and kick names and take butt.

What this also means is that you'll have trouble doing things like avoiding readied actions against you, or AoOs from your own actions. Slightly problematic, but with NI pp and actions per round alongside full manifesting, you should be able to deal with it.
A Guide to Free D&D - A resource of free, official D&D resources on the web.
General listing of my homebrew.
Links to things I've worked on
[spoiler]
Idiot Crusader, refreshing maneuvers for free every round.
The Opposed Checks Handbook - Under construction.
Adaptations Handbook - Under construction.
[/spoiler]

Maat_Mons

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I think the more important part is that Synchronicity overrides that quote with "If you do not perform your readied action before your next turn, you lose that action."

McPoyo

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I think the important part is that normal readied actions require specified trigger actions, whereas, synchronicity does not, therefor you really cannot argue that trigger conditions overrode another action.

And if you are going by the strictest reading of "next action", then a readied action cancels itself because it has not occurred yet when it would be next taken...
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

Bauglir

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Except "next" implicitly excludes the action it's talking about, which is the readied action. It's a semantics issue, so I think we apply Caelic's Razor (I choose to call it that) and pick the more balanced option, IE you only get the one readied action out of the whole dealie. Although, this also implies that you should only manifest Synchronicity after you've done everything else in your turn, which can be kind of irritating for people NOT trying to abuse it.
So you end up stuck in an endless loop, unable to act, forever.

In retrospect, much like Keanu Reeves.

McPoyo

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I'd like to point out the location of the particular sentence used for this claim, and the fact that there is a parenthetical note attached to the end. Grammar functions are important here.

And regardless, synchronicity linked to synchronicity as your readied action, which still nets you your readied action and trips off another ready for next time, still accomplishes the same goal, even with the claim being argued.

This is, of course, assuming readied actions do not function like a Stack. In which case, it's irrelevant because you keep interrupting.

Edit:

Or, per initiative and ready rules, you have readied action A trigger action B trigger action C and work your way backwards, since a readied action triggers prior to it's triggering action, and interrupts the readying action as it is begun.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2010, 03:56:39 PM by McPoyo »
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

Maat_Mons

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I think the important part is that normal readied actions require specified trigger actions, whereas, synchronicity does not...

I don't see how that relates. 

...therefor you really cannot argue that trigger conditions overrode another action.

Sorry, but I can't follow this. 

McPoyo

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I think the important part is that normal readied actions require specified trigger actions, whereas, synchronicity does not...

I don't see how that relates. 

...therefor you really cannot argue that trigger conditions overrode another action.

Sorry, but I can't follow this. 
There was a sentence that was supposed to be in there that made it make sense that I accidentally left out. Damned if I can remember what I was thinking at the time, though.
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

Bauglir

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If I understand the claim correctly, it's that the Synchronicity loop gets reset every round to 1 extra readied action, because you lose all your additional readied actions when you take your first readied action (which is an action that you have come to). At least, that's what I was assuming.
So you end up stuck in an endless loop, unable to act, forever.

In retrospect, much like Keanu Reeves.

McPoyo

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If I understand the claim correctly, it's that the Synchronicity loop gets reset every round to 1 extra readied action, because you lose all your additional readied actions when you take your first readied action (which is an action that you have come to). At least, that's what I was assuming.
Yes, but you could just make your readied action a synchronicity linked reset, which would net you another action right then, and a readied action, as long as one of the two was augmented, netting essentially the same result.
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

Bauglir

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If I understand the claim correctly, it's that the Synchronicity loop gets reset every round to 1 extra readied action, because you lose all your additional readied actions when you take your first readied action (which is an action that you have come to). At least, that's what I was assuming.
Yes, but you could just make your readied action a synchronicity linked reset, which would net you another action right then, and a readied action, as long as one of the two was augmented, netting essentially the same result.

Except you can't chain upward indefinitely, because you can't use readied actions to get more readied actions than you started with, ever, because your first wipes out the rest.
So you end up stuck in an endless loop, unable to act, forever.

In retrospect, much like Keanu Reeves.

McPoyo

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Except the additional ones are occurring because of the first, they take place before the action is performed, per the SRD and PHB. No action performed to remove the others. Unless you are claiming that an action that occurs because of it's predecessor setting it off nullifies it's predecessor, which would nullify it since it's required action never occurred.
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

Bauglir

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I'm... not really sure what you're saying? I'm just saying you can't build your readied actions exponentially from one round to the next. Your first readied action that you take is the first action that you come to since readying actions, and so you lose any ADDITIONAL readied actions you may have. You still get to take that one, and that readied action can't have come from an action you take later, so there's no paradox going on. You can use linked synchronicities to get a free readied action next round, but since you'll only ever have one at a time and you have to spend it to maintain the chain, there's not much point in terms of the action economy (fast healing 2 for your pp is pretty nice, though, and since you can exceed your maximum it's still pretty absurd).
So you end up stuck in an endless loop, unable to act, forever.

In retrospect, much like Keanu Reeves.

McPoyo

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Ah, misunderstood what I meant then: I was talking about using synchronicities to bounce off each other (readied action inspires a synchronicity that occurs before the initial action, which also inspires one that occurs before that second one, etc) so that the last occuring synchronicity happens time-wise prior to the first one.

Granted, it's largely irrelevant, since the text in the Synchronicity power is different than it is in the Readied Action section, and I just now realized that. Synchronicity's text states the "do not have to spend an action to get this readied action" blah blah caveat, like was pointed out, but it also says, as the last sentence, "If you do not perform your readied action before your next turn, you lose that action." Bolding mine.

I'd like to posit that specific is once again trumping general rules, because of that single word difference.
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

Maat_Mons

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Unless you are claiming that an action that occurs because of it's predecessor setting it off nullifies it's predecessor, which would nullify it since it's required action never occurred.

I think I understand what you're saying.  Let me apply it to a situation where only one of the things happening is a readied action, for clarity. 

Let's say I ready an action to make a melee attack against a spellcaster if he casts a spell.  Let's also say he does cast a spell, my melee attack succeeds, and I deal enough damage to kill him.  He is dead before he can cast the spell, because my readied action is resolved before the action that triggered it. 

You are saying he is allowed to cast the spell in spite of being dead because, if he doesn't, my readied action does not trigger and he does not die.  Do I have that right? 

Synchronicity's text states the "do not have to spend an action to get this readied action" blah blah caveat, like was pointed out, but it also says, as the last sentence, "If you do not perform your readied action before your next turn, you lose that action." Bolding mine.

You should have a look at reply #59 and reply #62. 

McPoyo

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Yeah, I missed those somehow.

I disagree on the "Specifically does not call out that it replaces, so they are both applying at once" thing, since the synchronicity text calls out several adjustments to the normal readied action rules, and does not say "like a normal readied action, but with x y z" or "in addition to normal restrictions". May just be the way I am interpreting the text though. I'm too used to reading specifics into M:tG card abilities based upon grammatical structure and commutative rules properties.
[Spoiler]
A gygaxian dungeon is like the world's most messed up game show.

Behind door number one: INSTANT DEATH!
Behind door number 2: A magic crown!
Behind door number 3: 4d6 giant bees, and THREE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HONEY!
They don't/haven't, was the point. 3.5 is as dead as people not liking nice tits.

Sometimes, their tits (3.5) get enhancements (houserules), but that doesn't mean people don't like nice tits.

Though sometimes, the surgeon (DM) botches them pretty bad...
Best metaphor I have seen in a long time.  I give you much fu.
Three Errata for the Mage-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Barbarian-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Monks doomed to die,
One for the Wizard on his dark throne
In the Land of Charop where the Shadows lie.
[/spoiler]

SorO_Lost

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Dirty Trick #345ish: Prevent divination spells from being used against you.

Vecna-Blooded (MMV) requires you to answer 7 riddles of Vecna and be able to cast 2nd level or higher arcane spells to acquire the template.
While the riddles are undefined the low spell requirement serves as a point that a 3rd level wizard can do it. At best they have 22 int and 6 ranks in knowledge skills for an at highest DC 31 assuming 19s are rolled. Such numbers are well within a Factotum's abilities or for that matter anyone donning multiple +30 competence items they plan to sell off afterwards.

Steps
1. Die. Well, become a necropolition.
2. Get spell stitched for spells and acquire the Vecna-Blooded template.
3. Get a cleric to cast raise dead on you, thus you are no longer undead and no longer spell stitched and thus no longer qualify for Vecna-Blooded.
4. The cloak works even if you lose the template.
5. Profit!

***

Dirty Trick #346ish: Hate, unlike Love, does more than hurt.
BoEV's dying curses are simply epic.

Steps
1. Find an ECL 17+ evil creature, binding or gate works fine.
2. Mind Rape an evil creature so it's willing to place a dying curse on your target.
3. Kill the raped victim thus placing 10 separate and saveless greater curses on the target; notably 1d4+1 of it's allies become permanently blind and deaf and flat out block their spellcasting.
Even the most powerful of the powerful fear ending up in your torture chamber of drug extraction. Points over Love's Pain in creativity and sadism.  :devil
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]

PlzBreakMyCampaign

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thus no longer qualify for Vecna-Blooded.
Templates can't be 'unqualified.' Once you have it, it sticks.
[Spoiler]
Quote
An interesting read, nice to see a civil discussion
The point of Spell Resistance is to make it harder to get buffed.
And healed. Don't forget that.
Huge amounts of people are fuckwits. That doesn't mean that fuckwit is a valid lifestyle.
[/Spoiler]

Old Geezer's Law of Hobby Taste: The more objectively inconsequential a hobby is, the more disagreements within the community will be expressed in outrageously insulting, overblown, and ludicrously emotionally laden terms.

More Funny than Humble[Spoiler]
Quote from: PlzBreakMyCampaign
Your a shifter... you have all you ever need.
It blows MoMF out of the water

But if your greedy for more [Wish] for something that only effects you, like another class level or two that doesn't count against your ECL.
Quote from: hungryhungryhippo987
Yes, I'm the 3.0 "Masters of the Wild" shifter, the awesome kind. My favorite form to take is Force Dragon. Yes, I am immortal ... My character is hands down the coolest guy in the campaign and there is nothing I could possibly want.
PBMC gets a cookie for DotA r

Kuroimaken

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thus no longer qualify for Vecna-Blooded.
Templates can't be 'unqualified.' Once you have it, it sticks.

Unless there's a clause on Vecna-blooded that says you can actually lose the template somehow. Never seen something like that though, except Saint.
Gendou Ikari is basically Gregory House in Kaminashades. This is FACT.

For proof, look here:

http://www.layoutjelly.com/image_27/gendo_ikari/

[SPOILER]
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Katana of Enlightenment.
Get yours.[/SPOILER]

I HAVE BROKEN THE 69 INTERNETS BARRIER!


Havok4

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thus no longer qualify for Vecna-Blooded.
Templates can't be 'unqualified.' Once you have it, it sticks.

Unless there's a clause on Vecna-blooded that says you can actually lose the template somehow. Never seen something like that though, except Saint.
Actually you can lose the God-Blooded template by having the templates DR absorb more than 40 points of damage, but no longer qualifying would do nothing.