Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Neo_Leviathan 04-15-05, 09:31 AM	Ok, I know that in a few levels time our party will be getting a deck of many things. I'm playing a Sorcerer/Mage of the Arcane Order, and we should be lvl 9 or so when we get the DOMT. Now then, I wasn wondering what ways there are to 'rig' a deck of many things, or to prevent the bad effects from it etc etc. The only one I can think of is Wild Mage's "Student of Chaos" ability.
sukael 04-15-05, 10:05 AM	You gain the power of good fortune, which is usable once per day. This extraordinary ability allows you to reroll one roll that you have just made before the DM declares whether the roll results in success or failure. You must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll. From the SRD, luck domain. It may or may not help you out, depending on how the DM chooses the DOMT cards.
Neo_Leviathan 04-15-05, 10:08 AM	From the SRD, luck domain. It may or may not help you out, depending on how the DM chooses the DOMT cards. I'll pass that one on to the cleric, but I dont suppose anyone knows any ideas that my Mage can use?
ck2001wendt 04-15-05, 10:11 AM	Fatespinner? Wish will also be good. You could probably convince your DM to let you spend 5000 XP up front to avoid the first bad card you draw (which will probably make the deck disappear...but hey!). There's also a "re-roll" feat chain in Races of Destiny, if you're a Human. Destiny's something or other.
Neo_Leviathan 04-15-05, 10:18 AM	Fatespinner? Wish will also be good. You could probably convince your DM to let you spend 5000 XP up front to avoid the first bad card you draw (which will probably make the deck disappear...but hey!). There's also a "re-roll" feat chain in Races of Destiny, if you're a Human. Destiny's something or other. Fatespinner wouldn't be useful to me until 4th level of it. And the Destiny feats dont let you reroll any roll, it's reroll a saving throw, and avoid death *once*. Are there any spells that let you re-roll something ala the Luck Domain?
Griff_Goodbeard 04-15-05, 11:32 AM	Maybe I'm being dense, but what's the point of getting a DoMT if there's no chance of something bad happening?
Neo_Leviathan 04-15-05, 11:36 AM	I just want to mitigate the bad things *Grins*
Qaetar 04-15-05, 12:14 PM	Contingency Temporal Stasis if you draw a 'black' card. After that, decide how to deal with it, come out of stasis and kick some arse. (Qaetar)
Iaimeki 04-15-05, 02:38 PM	Wild mage's student of chaos, luck domain (this works for an arcane caster too, if you can somehow get actual domain access, though I don't remember any ways to do that immediately), fatespinner, I think there are some regional feats that allow you to reroll, tattooed monk has a reroll ability IIRC . . . I don't remember anything else off the top of my head.
primetimekiller 04-15-05, 03:20 PM	wild mage helps here he can take two rolls on a random item effect as the rod of wonder or a bag of many tricks and then chosse one of them... the ability is called "student of chaos" and is attaind on 3rd level of wildmage wildmage is in the complete arcane should work here....
UMiskatonic 04-15-05, 04:54 PM	Um, build a simulacrum, and have it flip the card for you? That's easily rule zeroed by a DM, though. You could charm/dominate someone, and have them flip cards. Ah, better still, magic jar someone. IF your body gets destroyed, you just go back to the gem focus. Have a still, silent teleport ready, and head on back home. You'll need a still, silent plane shift too, if you want to be really prepared. Hire a guy to cast a string of augury spells? Should I draw one card? Weal. Should I draw three cards? Weal and Woe. Okay, how about two cards then.... You get the idea.
SpeedyMunky 04-15-05, 05:19 PM	Hmm... the 'Deck of Many Things' is an artifact, as such, I would rule that its power overrides most 'easy ways out'.... aside from such things as being able to control fate (or Tymora's blessing) or controling the powers of randomness... if you can get the beneficial magic, then you get the negative...
Interested2 04-15-05, 05:37 PM	One word: Augury.
Hiten 04-15-05, 11:12 PM	I know this is an optimization forum, but for (insert your characters Deity here) sake, some things are left best to chance. If you do manage to find some way to bend the rules to breaking point on that, what sense of adventure is that? Personally as a DM i disallow ANY methods of tampering with ANY effects of the deck of many things, short of characters being epic level and useing powers of major artifacts or epic spells (and this hasnt happended yet, so i doubt ill have to worry about it at all). personally i plead to all DM's, dont let players loophole the DoMT, its one of those completely random, fun things about D&D that makes the game what it is.
Neo_Leviathan 04-16-05, 05:07 AM	Hmm... the 'Deck of Many Things' is an artifact, as such, I would rule that its power overrides most 'easy ways out'.... aside from such things as being able to control fate (or Tymora's blessing) or controling the powers of randomness... if you can get the beneficial magic, then you get the negative... Weeeeeell, my character *does* workship Tymora.... Hiten - I do understand where you're coming from, but considering that I dislike having characters killed (I've already lost one because the DM "Rule Zeroed" stuff that was core simply so he didn't have to work out what might happen), so minimising risks is a good thing, especially since in the case of "Entrapment" the party would have no way of reversing it.
runestar 04-16-05, 05:32 AM	Your character worships the most fickle of women and you want to know how to fudge your dice rolls :rolleyes: Only way would be train how to roll the specific numbers you want. OR if you use tarot cards, learn how to stack the cards and rig the draws.
nissir2000 04-16-05, 06:54 AM	I have a great way of winning with a deck of many things...DON'T DRAW FROM IT. Out of 5 or 6 times this worthless item has showed up in 10 years of gaming, I have never seen a game session that came out interesting, fun, or profitable. Everytime it ended up with someone dying, someone jumping ahead a ton of levels making their character unplayable, or someone getting their soul sucked out. IMO it is a tool for bad DMs who can't come up with anything interesting of their own, and would rather screw over their players, then come up with a good game of their own to run. Oh and to keep this post CO instead of the rantings of a total hater...Cards are drawn, there is no dice rolling involved so I would think all the cool reroll stuff once a day things are out. Might want to try something along the lines of a character that is good at cheating at games of chance. Perhaps a slight of hand, or profession card cheat would work?
Lilt 04-16-05, 08:58 AM	Bribe your GMwith food and other goodies! If you all work together to buy him something nicethen he may let all of you draw a good card like one that gives you an item or sends you up a level.
McJarvis 04-16-05, 11:32 AM	My first DnD game a few years ago ran into one of these do-hickeys, and I spent many a long night pondering and weighing my choices on the matter. How many cards is optimal? How might I avoid EVERY bad thing? Etc,etc The deck of many things we got was programmed by the DM to work only once with every person, so we carried it around playing fate with everyone I met. Things I noticed: The best way to avoid bad stuff from the deck is to just draw "The Fates" card early. Once you do this, you can keep drawing all you want since it will allow you to avoid anything bad that happens.(I don't know how a DM could rule against that) Anyway: the bad draws Donjon: Obviously having a teammate with freedom is the best bet here. Euryale: Who cares? I mean, this isn't a game-stopper bad-thing. Flames: I actually like this one, it gets you more XP and the DM would have to be a jerk to make it a solar or something when you're low-leveled. Fool: Tough luck man....hope you draw The Sun or the Jester at some point to counter-act that. On the plus side, there are two cards that give back the XP opposed to this one that drains. Idiot: Hope you're not a wizard. On the plus side, there are two cards that can get you +inherent abilitiy to counteract this(the Moon and th Star) Rogue: Seriously hope the DM isn't going to turn PC's against each other. That's mean. It can actually be interesting if your party hired a guide or something. Ruin: This one is pretty easily avoided, just have someone else have all your stuff when you start. Granted this makes defeating that dread wraith a problem but....eh... Skull: You dead unless you're a spellcaster. That is, if you're following my advice for Ruin & Talons. However, if your party is powerful enough then perhaps you'd rather face LOTS of these guys instead of just one? Lots of XP. That makes this a good card. Talons: See Ruin. The Void: Tough Luck. Try to save a The Fates card for this. As you can see, there's only _one_ card out of the entire deck you need to seriously worry about. If your DM is a jerk about the pocessions thing(I see it as balanced since giving away your stuff hurts chances against the skull card) you could just take Vow of Poverty. I think after practice drawing I decided five cards was optimal, since many cards allow for re-draws. The deck is a chance for sure, but it has ALOT of AWSOME stuff to give, and like I said...only one bad thing that is unrecoverable from, and in the end any of these can be avoided via The Fates. I hope this helped, even though it was just going through what the deck actually does....it sounds really dangerous when you read it, but if you think rationally+have a party that is powerful enough to back you up, then you can seriously benifit from it.(That Skull card can present a major fun battle+xp) -McJarvis-
lostone 04-16-05, 11:42 AM	The only thing a mortal could do that I would allow would be the wild mage's student of chaos ability as mentioned previously. However I would (and have) allowed characters to use the deck of many things against itself. The wishes and the "prevent any situation once" draws have been used to prevent bad draws: "You just lost 10,000 experience points" "I prevent myself from drawing that." And "I wish the next card I draw would be a good draw." I wouldn't let them specify a specific card or wish that all the remaining draws be good, 1 wish per card, but it has to be a wish granted by the deck itself. And while this only happened once, I allowed it because it was good roleplaying and a good idea.
McJarvis 04-16-05, 12:08 PM	I would be hesitant to let a single wish replicate the outcome of one of the card draws. Perhaps two wishes could do it...
Kintara 04-16-05, 12:26 PM	Ruin: This one is pretty easily avoided, just have someone else have all your stuff when you start. Granted this makes defeating that dread wraith a problem but....eh...Good luck trying to convince a DM to define "possession" that narrowly.
lostone 04-16-05, 02:24 PM	I would be hesitant to let a single wish replicate the outcome of one of the card draws. Perhaps two wishes could do it...The only reason I allowed it was because it was a wish granted by the deck of many things. I figure the artifact would have power over itself.Good luck trying to convince a DM to define "possession" that narrowly.Doesn't work, if they are given to the other person with the understanding that they are to be given back later, they are still your possessions. If your character gives them to a stranger (1st level commoner) with the thought that they will go get them back later through theft or whatever, then your character still thinks of it as his possessions and it will be gone. The artifact is a powerful magic item and wouldn't be so easilly fooled.
McJarvis 04-16-05, 08:12 PM	VoP is an option then, I suppose. I don't reallly view material things as the core power behind my builds...regardless, my original point was the deck isn't a show-stopper per-se. Just that one card really kills you beyond belief. As far as Wish granting it, I dunno if I woulda done that-- but I don't claim to be an expert on the limitations of Wish.
Hot Rod 04-16-05, 08:26 PM	Wish that you'd never found the deck... (Unless the campaign's over and you WANT to go out with a BANG) Although card tricks work well too. 52 (or however many is left in your deck) Pickup is a fun start. :P Using a wish granted by the deck to wish you'd never found the deck can paradoxically 'break' the deck (and the timestream too ;) ).
Keldar 04-16-05, 11:16 PM	Theres a huge problem with the Deck of Many Things that slipped in from second edition clear through to 3.5. The XP of the cards are the same as in 2nd ed. when you needed 10 times the xp to reach 20th as you do now. 50k xp is over 1/4th the xp you need for 20! Thats seriously broken. Mention this to your DM before playing with the Deck, these values should be cut to 1/10th (1k and 5k respectivley) or at a minimum cut in half to keep the deck from totally unbalancing the game. Good luck though, I've always hated that thing.
Kintara 04-17-05, 03:42 AM	Theres a huge problem with the Deck of Many Things that slipped in from second edition clear through to 3.5. The XP of the cards are the same as in 2nd ed. when you needed 10 times the xp to reach 20th as you do now. 50k xp is over 1/4th the xp you need for 20! Thats seriously broken. Mention this to your DM before playing with the Deck, these values should be cut to 1/10th (1k and 5k respectivley) or at a minimum cut in half to keep the deck from totally unbalancing the game. Good luck though, I've always hated that thing.It's an artifact. That's what "artifact" means in D&D, as far as I'm concerned. Does that make it good for a party? Not necessarily. But it doesn't bother me that an artifact does something crazy.
xanadu 04-17-05, 03:47 AM	Anyway: the bad draws Flames: I actually like this one, it gets you more XP and the DM would have to be a jerk to make it a solar or something when you're low-leveled. Skull: You dead unless you're a spellcaster. That is, if you're following my advice for Ruin & Talons. However, if your party is powerful enough then perhaps you'd rather face LOTS of these guys instead of just one? Lots of XP. That makes this a good card. -McJarvis- :D :D :D
Vaelan 04-17-05, 03:50 AM	The best way to use a Deck of Many Things is to offer draws to desperate people, for a favor. The beggar starving on the streets might just take the gamble, for a price. The only draws that would matter to you are Gem, Key, Moon, Sun, and Throne. If they draw one of these five cards, you could come to an arrangement such as splitting the gems/jewelry/wishes or buying the magic item from them for an extremely low price. The issue of the castle would probably take further thought.
nachtmeister 04-17-05, 05:24 AM	but be careful - the beggar could have an higher level than you afterwards :D
Lokathor 04-17-05, 12:39 PM	Even a 20th level Commoner is still only a commoner. And he wouldn't suddenly have all the equipment needed to put up a fight. Ho-ray for 50 hp!!