Post/Author/DateTime	Post
LGMoses 03-07-07, 12:03 AM	How do you think the average villager would react to those little rocks orbiting so many pc's heads.
Arvagor 03-07-07, 12:06 AM	Probably like this: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html ;)
Howie23 03-07-07, 01:35 AM	Probably like this: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html ;) Ok, I have to know. Did this spur some memory and have you searching for which strip or do you have an index or something :) Way to go. David
Gwumph 03-07-07, 02:05 AM	I can't answer for Arvagor... But that particular strip always stayd with me, because it reminded me how often my DM would strip GP from us when we got in a town. (Truth be known, I too have used this technique before) My favorite way is to make there be only 1 NPC have what they need. Then the NPC demand they perform a favor as a sign of friendship (getting an item from a rivals house is a good choice) So as a friend he can sell them what they need at an inflated price!!! LOL you only need to do it once, and your players will still be cursing their "friendship" price 6 months down the road!!
solbergb 03-07-07, 03:17 AM	Given that by the time my monk could afford ioun stones he also had a freaking great guisarme that glows like a torch, and a kings ransom in magical jewelry/clothing, I think the fact that little rocks are spinning around his head is the least of what would cause the average commoner to react weirdly to this huge muscular Pholtan-symbol bearing Orc in an ill-fitting, much mended courtier outfit.
gomeztoo 03-07-07, 03:26 AM	I am pretty sure that if the townsfolk see my blackskinned draconic elf, the one stone orbiting her head is the least of their worries. As to Oots... This IS a classic one. The origin of the old cap ;)
Arvagor 03-07-07, 08:25 AM	Ok, I have to know. Did this spur some memory and have you searching for which strip or do you have an index or something :)The comment spurred the memory, and I knew it occurred shortly after the end of the 1st Xykon storyline, but it is also the first main strip in No Cure for the Paladin Blues (the 2nd OotS collection), and the strips in the collection have "issue" numbers that correspond to the web site addresses... ;)
ShinAkuma2 03-07-07, 08:58 AM	Many (if not all) regions have documents available for info like this. For instance, the Keoland metaorg book also contains Keoland's laws, and general reactions to various races, items, etc. Ioun Stones fall into the "WTF is that?!" category of social penalties and whatnot.
Cardinal Teplin 03-07-07, 02:37 PM	My character always takes his ioun stones off when he goes into town. If nothing else, there's not much to stop someone just grabbing them and running away. The stones don't orbit all that close to your head, and it would easy to miss them in a crowd.
solbergb 03-07-07, 05:09 PM	combat reflexes and improved grapple :) Go ahead...try to grab my ioun stones give me an excuse to exercise my martial skills legally :)
LachlarlanIII 03-07-07, 05:13 PM	combat reflexes and improved grapple :) Go ahead...try to grab my ioun stones give me an excuse to exercise my martial skills legally :) Okay, make your spot check against the thieve's guild member that just Sleight-of-Handed it.
solbergb 03-07-07, 05:18 PM	You can't steal them with slight of hand. You need to actually make the attack roll. Which makes you visible. Which means you die. Burke hasn't lost a fight with a rogue ever. Not even with packs of rogues. They can't outrun him, can't outclimb him, can't resist his tactical feats. A damage focused TWF rogue might get surprise round+full attack on him and kill him. But steal his stones? Nah. You can slight of hand a sheathed 20kgp rod of metamagic too, or a 32000gp sheathed weapon too. But nobody does. There is a good reason for that. You can kill a PC and it's nothing personal. But you take his stuff, he will hunt you down, kill you, and take all your stuff. It's not like I don't have a zillion favors for spellcasting that I can call in, even leaving out the capabilities of any party I'm likely to be traveling in.
LachlarlanIII 03-07-07, 05:21 PM	You can't steal them with slight of hand. You need to actually make the attack roll. Which makes you visible. Which means you die. Burke hasn't lost a fight with a rogue ever. Not even with packs of rogues. They can't outrun him, can't outclimb him, can't resist his tactical feats. A damage focused TWF rogue might get surprise round+full attack on him and kill him. But steal his stones? Nah. Okay, make your spot check against the Greater Invis'd thieve's guild member that just stole it and took off. Or against the Shadowdancer that grabbed it then Shadow Jumped through your shadow. PS: Not every rogue is out to kill the PC. Maybe the rogue was sent to hinder you or perhaps to get you to follow him.
solbergb 03-07-07, 05:31 PM	You're making a lot of assumptions about surprise mechanics. NPC's can't "act and take off". They must either suprise the party, act and ALSO win init vs the party and use action to get away, or they must fail to surprise party, beat everyone in init, act and then get away in a move action. You have to be totally undetected by everyone to actually pull off such a theft without entering the phase mechanics. It's almost impossible, since we don't even have to spot the thief. We only need someone to notice the item is gone and start actively looking. (the average APL14 party many of these kind of options when actively trying: scent, blindsense, arcane sight, true seeing, see invis, locate object, stupidly high spot/listen checks, invis purge, etc. Burke on his own, with no assistance has scent on familiar and options to do glitterdust if scent pinpoints.) Given that in my case, the stones affect physical attributes, I'll know immediately if one stops working. Then if he was able to be undetected by the whole party AND get away in whatever actions he can take after the theft, he might have easily taken something that mattered more to the party. I'm ok with that. The ioun stones are nice but they're only +1 to a couple saves , +1 AC and one more combat reflexes attack. Taking one won't even fractionally reduce the capability of the party as a whole. We'll still hunt him down, kill him and take his stuff. And get it back. As time permits. Along with his stuff. At the levels you can afford the stones, you need something more like superior invisibility to really accomplish something like that without being noticed, and even then you should steal something that the possessor won't instantly notice is gone via attributes shifting. The kind of rogue that would actually get away with such a theft could also steal something much more valuable than my stones. Anyone else, it's an excuse for an adventure :)
LachlarlanIII 03-07-07, 05:36 PM	The kind of rogue that would actually get away with such a theft could also steal something much more valuable than my stones. Anyone else, it's an excuse for an adventure :) Indeed it is. :) It also shouldn't be difficult to relocate. Locate Object will find it easy enough. That's why I said maybe the thief stole it to get your attention. Possibly so he wouldn't be spotted by local law enforcement agencies.
solbergb 03-07-07, 05:40 PM	Well then, the ioun stones are a good thing, by having them easy to grab, someone who needs my help can get to me. Although why he'd want the attention of a Pholtan monk is unclear, unless he's having a fiend problem or wants me to smash a rival thieves guild or something.
LachlarlanIII 03-07-07, 05:45 PM	Well then, the ioun stones are a good thing, by having them easy to grab, someone who needs my help can get to me. Although why he'd want the attention of a Pholtan monk is unclear, unless he's having a fiend problem or wants me to smash a rival thieves guild or something. Well, not necessarily you, but maybe you're the closest and he needs the help of the others in the group.
Cardinal Teplin 03-07-07, 06:15 PM	Hold on a sec. You are in a crowd. The stones orbit up to three feet away from you, putting them well into neighbouring squares. Worse still, that puts them well past the person standing next to you. These things are going to be bumping into people, getting their path blocked, and generally getting trapped in the press. It doesn't take someone trying to steal them - you could leave them behind trapped in a mass of people who don't know to get out of the way, and are acting as a net for all practical purposes. People will be grabbing at it as it slides around them, in the same way they'd grab at an anoying fly. You'll probably be ok if you're taller than normal, but short guys, or worse still, gnomes or halflings, are going to be causinbg trouble. And that's not to mention the small children who are going to be quite keen to catch the little glittery things. Not to mention magpies. Sure, the stones are hard to catch, but they only need to get lucky once and you have a scene on your hands. More to the point, there's the whole temptation thing. You're dragging a glittery magical gemstone worth potentially as much as the whole town. And you aren't just wearing it, you're floating it past their noses. It's just not polite. I love ioun stones. My 5th level character is about to get one. But not the thing for every social situation I feel. They're like formal or evening wear. Look great, but only in the right circumstances.
Japangirl 03-07-07, 06:36 PM	I don't know about anyone else, but if I was a commoner and I saw "ooh glittery stones" and then saw that it was an adventuring party with more wealth on one person's little finger than I was likely to see in ten years, I'd leave them alone. Unless I had a really good reason to target them, they just look too nasty for me to take on by stealing something. A base level thief won't dare steal your stuff, because you just look too tough.
solbergb 03-07-07, 06:42 PM	Yeah...I mean, you know...you're looking at a tough-looking soldier with automatic weapon, grenades, knife, flak suit, the whole bit. He's got 3 friends with him of similar scary appearance. He leaves his keys in his hummvee and they're smoking next to it, away from the driver side and seem distracted. You could just jump in and drive off....except of course that you are taking your life in your hands to attempt it. I don't think the theft of that vehicle would be a common thing... I also don't think a crowd of people would push into these guys. They'd probably give them some room, except in a riot type situation. Especially given how many adventurers have spiked armor in D&D (and sometimes elementlaly enchanted spiked armor). Nobody's ever stolen anything off of Olivia's tenser's disks or unseen servants either, although somebody tried to steal her entire backpack once, and a BBEG stole her entire cart after she had to run away from a fight. But casual thieves take one look at an expensively dressed woman with stuff floating around her and give her room. I don't expect my warmage will have much trouble with people stealing stuff off his tenser's disks either.
copper_wyrmling 03-07-07, 07:27 PM	Yeah...I mean, you know...you're looking at a tough-looking soldier with automatic weapon, grenades, knife, flak suit, the whole bit. He's got 3 friends with him of similar scary appearance. He leaves his keys in his hummvee and they're smoking next to it, away from the driver side and seem distracted. You could just jump in and drive off....except of course that you are taking your life in your hands to attempt it. I don't think the theft of that vehicle would be a common thing... I also don't think a crowd of people would push into these guys. They'd probably give them some room, except in a riot type situation. Especially given how many adventurers have spiked armor in D&D (and sometimes elementlaly enchanted spiked armor). Nobody's ever stolen anything off of Olivia's tenser's disks or unseen servants either, although somebody tried to steal her entire backpack once, and a BBEG stole her entire cart after she had to run away from a fight. But casual thieves take one look at an expensively dressed woman with stuff floating around her and give her room. I don't expect my warmage will have much trouble with people stealing stuff off his tenser's disks either. Hehehe, yeah. In a module I ran recently, the APL 14 party was walking through a city when their Greater Anticipate Teleportation started pinging. They looked around at the crowded street and decided, "Right, we need to get these people clear of the area within 18 seconds". That was pretty funny to watch, since they decided to go the intimidation route rather than attempting to convince people that they were about to be invaded by teleporting outsiders :)
LGMoses 03-08-07, 01:46 AM	Okay, make your spot check against the thieve's guild member that just Sleight-of-Handed it. darn rite. u ever think maybe the stones just like hit stuff and stop orbiting? get too close to a wall or something you know? you walk all day thru town, get to ur room "w8, where the h*ll is my ioun stone!???" Do you think if you watch an ioun stone really hard it'll make you dizzy? Can Ioun stones be sundered?
Maesto 03-08-07, 06:34 AM	Yeah, they can be sundered. Anybody sundering my ioun stone has a life of pain coming up. The one I've got on my archmage is, of course, the orange prism (+1 CL, 30K). If anybody wants to nick off with it, I hope that they've got the direct intervention of a deity on their side - nothing else is going to stop a discern location. Failing that, I hope they've got greater anticipate teleporation running - they're going to need it to have time to start running when the party turns up from a greater teleport.
Haro 03-08-07, 07:43 AM	Yeah, they can be sundered. Anybody sundering my ioun stone has a life of pain coming up. The one I've got on my archmage is, of course, the orange prism (+1 CL, 30K). If anybody wants to nick off with it, I hope that they've got the direct intervention of a deity on their side - nothing else is going to stop a discern location. Failing that, I hope they've got greater anticipate teleporation running - they're going to need it to have time to start running when the party turns up from a greater teleport. Haro, having adventured with Maesto, knows the above statement is not a threat but a promise...
Cardinal Teplin 03-08-07, 08:31 AM	This kind of thing shouldn't really be a problem for high level parties - it doesn't fit with the heroic high fantasy feel that I reckon we should be going for. But ioun stones aren't just for APL 14 and up. I've seen 5th level characters get them, and there's no reason why they couldn't be bought at lower level still. Incidently, mind blank also stops discern location. And the best defence against an APL 14 party is... another APL 14 party. I used to enjoy plannnig such speculative fights, but with my primary in the throes of redesign, I can't honestly say I'd really know how well he'd do.
Maesto 03-08-07, 09:15 AM	Mind blank doesn't stop discern location against the item ;-) True, the scariest combats I've ever faced have been party on party. They usually don't go well because they're an EL+4 combat to start with (50% chance of survival), and because you get weak and strong parties for any APL. On the flip side, at higher APLs, the lack of money compared to PCs would seriously hamper their effectiveness. APL 2 party on party combats usually go reaaaaally bad. I've never seen an APL 14 party on party; I suspect initiative has a lot to do with things.
solbergb 03-08-07, 09:22 AM	darn rite. u ever think maybe the stones just like hit stuff and stop orbiting? get too close to a wall or something you know? you walk all day thru town, get to ur room "w8, where the h*ll is my ioun stone!???" With most ioun stones you know immediately if anything has happened to it. Your attributes drop, or your caster level drops, or you lose that insight bonus to AC, or suddenly you have to breathe, etc. I don't think they just fall off if you get too close to a wall. They probably just avoid such obstacles, vary the orbit. They're magic and designed not to be useless. You have to actively grab (disarm) or sunder them to make them stop working. See my above comments on entering initiative for such an action.
LachlarlanIII 03-08-07, 09:47 AM	Yeah, they can be sundered. Anybody sundering my ioun stone has a life of pain coming up. The one I've got on my archmage is, of course, the orange prism (+1 CL, 30K). If anybody wants to nick off with it, I hope that they've got the direct intervention of a deity on their side - nothing else is going to stop a discern location. Failing that, I hope they've got greater anticipate teleporation running - they're going to need it to have time to start running when the party turns up from a greater teleport. It's a given that you're gonna kill the guy that just sundered it, but even so, you're still out 30k gold.
solbergb 03-08-07, 12:22 PM	It's a given that you're gonna kill the guy that just sundered it, but even so, you're still out 30k gold. Yeah, but he's dead. What possible motivation would somebody have to sunder an ioun stone at the cost of his life? Which is why sundering isn't common. It's not so much that the DM is being nice to you, it is because removing one caster level from the kind of guy who can afford an orange ioun stone will not impair his ability to kill you one little bit, and it will hugely increase his motivation to do so. Most NPC's want to win, not to do property damage. Those that are otherwise usually get sunder as a side effect of their main thing (black pudding acid damage as it squeezes you) or because they're hungry (xorns, rust monsters). Dumb monsters intent on doing harm will ignore the spinning stone to go after the tasty wizard. Smart monsters intent on doing harm will ignore the spinning stone because they fear what the wizard will do if they don't kill the wizard first.
King Kashue 03-08-07, 12:25 PM	But ioun stones aren't just for APL 14 and up. I've seen 5th level characters get them, and there's no reason why they couldn't be bought at lower level still. Especially the wonderful Dusty Rose stone...5,000gp, +1 insight to AC...I got it at 5th.
solbergb 03-08-07, 12:33 PM	Well you know, 5000gp for +1 AC. To take the stone, it means you've already exhausted cheaper options, or some of them aren't available to you. I expect ioun stones will be pretty popular with druids even moreso than before. (armor, shield, +1 to armor, +1 to shield, +1 ring, +2 to armor, +2 to shield..I'm leaving off the amulet because most folks who care about AC also care about amulet slot for health or wisdom) Which means...you've already got a pretty decent AC even without the stone, so losing it will be an annoyance but not crippling.
Arvagor 03-08-07, 04:21 PM	Mind blank doesn't stop discern location against the item ;-)And what do you think the result of discern location would be once the object is placed in a handy haversack, portable hole, or bag of holding? All of those items open into an uspecified nondimensional space that literally has no location -- you can't discern it if it doesn't exist.
Cardinal Teplin 03-08-07, 07:37 PM	Expect serious table variation on foiling discern location. There are generally plenty of ways to do it, but what they depends on the GM. My personal favourite is to give it to a shapechanger with mind blank. Once they change shape, it melds into them, and is part of their body - which is then foiled by mind blank. I've been playing around with the idea of an undead sundering monster. It _doesn't_ care about winning the fight, just doing property damage. It's a follow on from the zombie grapplers I had, whose sole purpose was to slow the PCs down enough that their master didn't have to waorry about them. Probabl not balanced for LG though...
King Kashue 03-08-07, 08:48 PM	I've been playing around with the idea of an undead sundering monster. It _doesn't_ care about winning the fight, just doing property damage. It's a follow on from the zombie grapplers I had, whose sole purpose was to slow the PCs down enough that their master didn't have to waorry about them. Probabl not balanced for LG though... There's an MMIII (I think III) construct that exists to sunder stuff. It was in a Year 5 Nyrond module, nominally as a guard keeping some prisoners guarded. Except it's utterly useless as a guard, is easy to kill, and is slow...It exists to sunder weapons (explicitly, as part of the Monster description)...It made no sense for it to be in the module. At my table, a guy lost a 32,000 weapon...
Timlagor 03-09-07, 09:31 AM	I'm sure there must be a Monster with something akin to an Artificers ability to suck Magic out of stuff by now...
LGMoses 03-09-07, 09:35 AM	At my table, a guy lost a 32,000 weapon... Is there not some way to repair stuff like that?
Japangirl 03-09-07, 11:49 AM	There is now, there was not back when a Y5 mod came out though. It's a pretty recent development. And since you have to repair something within 3 mods of it getting broken, that guy is just SOL.
King Kashue 03-09-07, 06:17 PM	There is now, there was not back when a Y5 mod came out though. It's a pretty recent development. And since you have to repair something within 3 mods of it getting broken, that guy is just SOL. Yep... He wasn't quite on the verge of tears, but his eyes were at least considering it...I felt so sorry for him (and ****** off about the mod, since there was no internally logical reason for the Construct to be there, and thus no internally logical reason for the weapon to have been destroyed)...
King Kashue 03-09-07, 06:18 PM	There is now, there was not back when a Y5 mod came out though. It's a pretty recent development. And since you have to repair something within 3 mods of it getting broken, that guy is just SOL. Yep... He wasn't quite on the verge of tears, but his eyes were at least considering it...I felt so sorry for him (and hacked off about the mod, since there was no internally logical reason for the Construct to be there, and thus no internally logical reason for the weapon to have been destroyed)...
Maesto 03-09-07, 07:15 PM	There is a monster that exists to suck magic out of things. I can't remember where it's from, but it's called a Nishoom or something. There was one in a year 3 perrenland module.
Arvagor 03-09-07, 07:40 PM	I'm sure there must be a Monster with something akin to an Artificers ability to suck Magic out of stuff by now... Spellgaunt (MM2, pg.188), and the Disenchanter (FF, pg.62), so both have been around a while...