Post/Author/DateTime	Post
RollaD20 08-01-07, 09:18 PM	its possible for a player through various assorted measures to reach scores and such that would effectively make them the equal or better than a a great wyrm gold dragon even in the early levels should they be limited? even if the method they use is entirely legit? i mean str of 57 or more or charisma of 51 it be like a person picking up anarctica or a person so handsome/beautiful they are mistaken for a god/celestial being? should there be a limit or since in the 3.5 rules its legit should it be allowed?
Ryusage 08-01-07, 09:41 PM	I gather that you're new to the game, by your join date, question and sig? If so, welcome to the team:D There is no hard limit on ability scores. Theoretically, they are infinite. However, remember that bonuses of the same source do not stack (enhancement, insight, sacred, etc.)
Nom 08-01-07, 09:48 PM	"Is it possible to break the game if I ignore all the advice in the DMG that makes it difficult to break the game"? Of course! It hurts when you whack yourself in the head with a hammer. The correct solution is not to design an better helmet (or a better head). The correct solution is to not whack yourself.
RollaD20 08-01-07, 10:47 PM	i am rather new to the game but ive read most of the 3.5 core books cover to cover so i know thet the bonuses from various sources dont stack but i was just wondering if there was something i missed and curiosity took over also soo...idk also is there something wrong w/ my sig? and nom i dont ignore any advice/rules in the dmg at all what im talking about is legit and also i dont get why you added the second part which to me sounds like your calling me a dimwit or the like so id prefer a straight-forward answer instead of being patronized im sorry if im taking this the wrong way than you intended but the internet doesnt portray feeling or emotion just words and pictures
Mock26 08-01-07, 10:54 PM	Rule 0. If you think ability scores above a certain number would adversely affect your game, then put a limit on how high they can go. It is that simple.
StevenO 08-01-07, 11:06 PM	Pun Pun. I don't recall the specifics but it is a build that utilizes rules loopholes which allow it to do absolutely crazy thing very quickly. Technically there is no upper limit on ability scores but with very few exeption there is a practical one.
spectralphoenix 08-01-07, 11:18 PM	How are people getting abilities in the 50+ range? Generally speaking, core standard race characters are de facto limited to 34 or 36 in a score (if they rolled an 18, +5 for leveling up to 20, +5 for wishes or the appropriate tome/manual, +6 for an enchancement item, and possibly a +2 racial bonus,) and that's assuming that they were lucky enough to roll an 18 and put every level-up bonus and a great deal of their gold into that one stat. And they should be nowhere near that "at the early levels." Barring any char-ops style craziness or monstrous races, you shouldn't be having an issue with this in the first place.
runestar 08-02-07, 12:53 AM	Warhulk can give up to +20str. Its lack of bab advancement might be made moot with the correct eq, such as a skillful weapon or UMDing a wand of divine power. Does the +8 str from barb rage count towards attaining this score? An orc barb20 with enlarge person can get a str score of 36 (assuming starting str of 16), or 44str with rage, though this will happen only 5 times/day (or 7 with extra rage). I suppose if you could find a way of accessing bite of the werebear... I know of no such thing as scared bonus to str.
calronmoonflower 08-02-07, 03:15 AM	Unlike earlier addition Dungeons and Dragons is now open ended. The limits have been removed so you could in theory end of with level 500+ characters with equally insanely high ability scores. Just remember to do so by the rules and everything should be well grounded, unless you play builds like pun-pun.
Kouk 08-02-07, 03:32 AM	also is there something wrong w/ my sig? Wrong? Hmm... Well, it is huge, much bigger than your post, it is blue, it has strange font, and it doesn't really seem to make sense. Mostly it is the huge part that will bother people. If you make it normal sized font, nobody will harass you about it.
RollaD20 08-02-07, 01:00 PM	ok then sdorry about my sig ill change it also it was with a giant character that they were getting +16 strength from the get-go and other various things (including a draw from the deck of many things) o well thanks for everyones advice i get the picture now
Shaggy_Shaggs 08-02-07, 01:07 PM	ok then sdorry about my sig ill change it also it was with a giant character that they were getting +16 strength from the get-go and other various things (including a draw from the deck of many things) o well thanks for everyones advice i get the picture now This might be your problem. The Deck of Many Things is referred to as a game breaker and campaign killer for good reason. Sane DMs won't include it in games, and sane players won't screw with it if it does show up. Although the character being a giant is a problem too. You do know that Effective Character Level = hit dice + level adjustment + class level, right? A lot of people seem to forget the HD part. EDIT: I should also note that LA: - doesn't mean no level adjustment, it means not considered suitable to be a player character. And yeah, I just looked up the various monster manual giants, the one that gets Str +16 is the Stone Giant. That's 14 giant hitdice and level adjustment +4, eighteen effective character levels higher than its class level. That's not low level at all.
RollaD20 08-02-07, 04:00 PM	when we play with giants we drop the giant levels i know it effectively makes em broken but they make hell good barbarians
Shaggy_Shaggs 08-02-07, 04:30 PM	:uh-huh: ...anything would be "hell good" if you gave it 14 levels' worth of class features for a monster class for free.
Allarian 08-02-07, 04:54 PM	aaaand that would have been a good thing to say at the start. no offence but the rules work reasonably well. When you change them it really shouldn't be a surprise that things are knocked way off base.
Onikani 08-02-07, 05:03 PM	taking out the racial hit dice: +16 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +8 Constitution, +2 Wisdom. Large size. Space/Reach: 10 feet/10 feet. A stone giant’s base land speed is 40 feet. Darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision. +11 natural armor bonus. Special Attacks (see above): Rock throwing. Special Qualities (see above): Rock catching. Automatic Languages: Giant. Bonus Languages: Common, Draconic, Elven, Goblin, Orc. Favored Class: Barbarian. Level adjustment +4. Honestly, this isn't much better than a half ogre. More strength, rock throwing, and a buttload of NA. But you have a +4LA instead of +2. Drop out any racial hit dice and this guy has about 19HP at ECL5 (assuming a starting 16+8 con and he's a barby). Hardly broken.
Allarian 08-02-07, 05:44 PM	The 21 AC before armor (asuming no points put into a base dex of 8) goes a long way towards fixing this problem at low levels. And we don't seem to be talking about level 5 here with stats mentioned in the fifties.
RollaD20 08-02-07, 05:46 PM	ok the character in question is a full grown stone giant ECL 6 with 2 levels of barbarian oh well i get the picture now on my answer i appreciate all your advice thank you
StevenO 08-02-07, 08:23 PM	If you remove all the HD of a monster and then plan on advancing with character class levels you need to adjust their ability score modifiers. Taking out 14 racial HD should include three Stat level ups and I'd guess they all went into Strength.
eamon 08-03-07, 10:55 AM	If you remove all the HD of a monster and then plan on advancing with character class levels you need to adjust their ability score modifiers. Taking out 14 racial HD should include three Stat level ups and I'd guess they all went into Strength. The LA's are only balanced if you must take all racial HD before taking any normal levels. The strength modifier of a stone giant alone is probably worth a LA of +4 at first level. If you don't care about game balance (which might sometimes be the case, such as if you're manually balancing things) then you can do it, but otherwise - i.e. in 95% of the cases - you cannot be a stone giant character of less than 19th ECL, and not with less than all 14 racial HD.
RollaD20 08-04-07, 12:26 PM	im seeing where this is going but im gonna end the discussion at "i saved the entire party from a ticking time bomb that would have delt 40D6 damage effectively killing everyone by throwing every last one of em across a 40 foot chasm" i know noone cares but i really dont think the party wants my stats to go down at all
runestar 08-04-07, 11:37 PM	Are you nuts? Remove all the giant HD, and those stats are easily worth LA+5 or LA+6 at least...:confused:
RollaD20 08-05-07, 12:45 PM	stone giants have an optional +6LA to become an elder with various earth related caster level 10 spells
theheiress 08-06-07, 12:02 PM	Alright, so here's a character in one of my games: Race: Half-Orc +2 Str Rolled an 18 at creation Has Gloves of Str + 2: +2 Str Has taken 1 level of werebear for + 2 Str Has permanently enlarged (spell): +2 Str Lost his arms in a battle, got two skeletal grafts: +6 Str (DM ruled appropriate) Got a Manual of Gainful Exercise +4: +4 Str Has added his 4th level bonus to str: +1 Str Has an ioun stone of str: +2 Str For a total, at level 11, of 39 Str. Once he upgrades his gloves to a +6, takes two levels in Warshaper prestige class (Complete Warrior), and takes the rest of his werebear levels, he will have a strength of: 61 Str Hip-Hip-Hurray for werebears....or not
Karui_Kage 08-06-07, 12:53 PM	Alright, so here's a character in one of my games: Race: Half-Orc +2 Str Rolled an 18 at creation Has Gloves of Str + 2: +2 Str Has taken 1 level of werebear for + 2 Str Has permanently enlarged (spell): +2 Str Lost his arms in a battle, got two skeletal grafts: +6 Str (DM ruled appropriate) Got a Manual of Gainful Exercise +4: +4 Str Has added his 4th level bonus to str: +1 Str Has an ioun stone of str: +2 Str For a total, at level 11, of 39 Str. Once he upgrades his gloves to a +6, takes two levels in Warshaper prestige class (Complete Warrior), and takes the rest of his werebear levels, he will have a strength of: 61 Str Hip-Hip-Hurray for werebears....or not Ioun Stones and your Gloves of Strength shouldn't stack, they're both enhancement bonuses.
Karui_Kage 08-06-07, 12:57 PM	Example way to get above 50 in an ability score (Strength here, because it's the easiest) Half-Orc Fighter 9/War Hulk 10 Starting Strength: 18 Gain from race: +2 Gain from level-ups: +5 Gain from enhancement bonus on Gauntlets: +6 Gain from permanent enlarge: +2 Gain from War Hulk: +20 Gain from Wish spells: +5 Total: 58 Strength
Marcus Majarra 08-06-07, 01:00 PM	Gain from permanent enlarge: +2 Just nitpicking, but goliaths are Monstrous Humanoids. They're not subject to enlarge person.
Karui_Kage 08-06-07, 01:36 PM	Good point. 58 then. :)
Marcus Majarra 08-06-07, 06:06 PM	Good point. 58 then. Actually, it's 38. Since goliaths aren't large to begin with, they don't qualify for War Hulk. So bye-bye strength! Also, a level 19 goliath only gets 4 ability upgrades, not 5. So that would settle this at 37, actually.
Karui_Kage 08-06-07, 06:52 PM	Have to rain all over my parade don't ya Marcus? ;) Fine, I'll edit the original post to be a Half-Orc instead. Then it will be able to get permanently enlarged, and can qualify for war hulk.
Marcus Majarra 08-07-07, 12:16 AM	Why not go for an Orc? Better strength, no LA. You'll even get a better kick of it than with a half-ogre (Races of Destiny), since you'll be large, with a +6 modifier to Strength, but no LA (meaning a L20 character). Or, better yet, go for a Druid 5 / Master of Many Forms 5 / War Hulk 10. You can pick that sweet new Troll from MMV as your regular wild shape, and wind up with about 70+ Str all day long. This character can actually be of any race, too.
Karui_Kage 08-07-07, 02:07 AM	I swear Marcus, you just follow me around, waiting to upstage my posts don't you? ;) That said, I do agree. An orc would be stronger, and the Druid method you suggested works as well.
Marcus Majarra 08-07-07, 10:02 AM	I swear Marcus, you just follow me around, waiting to upstage my posts don't you? I'm not saying I'm not. ^_^
Karui_Kage 08-07-07, 12:37 PM	Haha. I knew it! It's a conspiracy! So, strength is the easiest to get up, primarily because of the War Hulk class, but also because a lot of races give good plusses to it. How about a non-physical stat, such as intelligence? What's the best RAW way to get that one permanently above 50?
Zarron 08-07-07, 01:38 PM	Haha. I knew it! It's a conspiracy! So, strength is the easiest to get up, primarily because of the War Hulk class, but also because a lot of races give good plusses to it. How about a non-physical stat, such as intelligence? What's the best way to get that one permanently above 50? Cheat.
Karui_Kage 08-07-07, 01:42 PM	Haha. I knew it! It's a conspiracy! So, strength is the easiest to get up, primarily because of the War Hulk class, but also because a lot of races give good plusses to it. How about a non-physical stat, such as intelligence? What's the best RAW way to get that one permanently above 50? Fixed.
Marcus Majarra 08-08-07, 01:12 AM	Int can be bypassed far more easily than Wis or Cha thanks to one very useful spell: polymorph any object. This spell grants the Int of the new form and can be permanent. The trick is finding a sufficiently compatible high Int form and proceed with the usual way to pump up your Int.
Karui_Kage 08-09-07, 01:22 AM	Bah, come on Marcus, you can do better without resorting to Polymorph. :) What about Wisdom then? Or Charisma?
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 08-11-07, 06:42 PM	Back to strength for a moment, but how about an Incarnate Construct Dustform Creature Orc? +8 Strength for no LA. Hooray for horribly abusing rules.