Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Genghis Cohen 12-11-06, 06:39 PM	I think that its a good idea to discuss this. My concern is how much both players and mod writers will crank up what's possible at each APL. I see this as sort of an arms race that makes suboptimal builds increasingly less effective, and the need to tweek builds increasingly necessary for survival. Abjurant Champion comes to mind. Full BAB and spellcasting progression isn't bad enough. In LG, power, within the context of a player's skills, is defined by money. Abjurant Champion eliminates the need to spend money on armor. What else have people spotted that concerns them?
catsclaw 12-11-06, 07:18 PM	I think that its a good idea to discuss this. My concern is how much both players and mod writers will crank up what's possible at each APL. I see this as sort of an arms race that makes suboptimal builds increasingly less effective, and the need to tweek builds increasingly necessary for survival.I kind of agree with this. Mods seem to be written either targeting a power-gamer group or a normal group. A power-gaming group can waltz through a mod targetted for a normal group, while a normal group is going to get TPK'ed running through a power-game mod. It's especially bad if a couple players aren't playing strategically smart, whether for role-play reasons or not. Abjurant Champion comes to mind. Full BAB and spellcasting progression isn't bad enough. In LG, power, within the context of a player's skills, is defined by money. Abjurant Champion eliminates the need to spend money on armor.This, I disagree with. Abjurant Champion is nice, but the fact that 1) you can't put enchantments on the armor and 2) Mage Armor isn't a abjuration spell tones it down rather heavily.
solbergb 12-11-06, 09:28 PM	every year I see something like this, about some supposed arms race between players and authors that is going on, due to new options available to players. every year I talk to authors, and they're oblivious to this Every year I prep modules and they are no more or no less dangerous than before. The same sources (stupid CR's for certain monsters in the fiend folio, monster manual III and the std monster manual advancement rules gone awry) are the source of the deadly encounters, and none of the new cheese really changes that. The fact that I am still often using the same test characters I generated right when PHB 3.5 came out and I started playing LG, and they continue to handle most modules with random party mixes just fine means this point of view isn't really all that subjective, at least with respect to core modules and modules in my region and metaregion. Deaths mostly occur because players do dumb things or alternately take calculated risks and have a string of bad luck. Tweaked characters die just as often as untweaked ones, just not always for the same reasons. (if you get overconfident in your build, you do stupid things more often it seems...it tends to cancel out the 20% or more effectiveness you get with a really good build) Because really. In the end it's mostly just different cheese, or cheese spread out to more character types. There are ways to deal > 100 points of damage in a standard action at level 10 in the players handbook. It's just that there are more ways to do it when you have more splatbooks. There are ways to have really high AC in the players handbook & DMG too. Or really high attack mods, or attacks where the defender really has no chance to mitigate the damage with most usual defenses. Silence still shuts down most spellcasters, especially as a readied action. PHB. Any form of big boom direct damage spell will also work. PHB has many of those, as well as empower and maximize, and DMG hands them out in convenient, cheap rods. The biggest of the big is metamagicked scorching ray, barring fire resistance or spell resistance. PHB. PHB also provides us with the ever-broken divine power, righteous might and its druidic equivalent animal growth. Not to mention Holy Word and Blasphemy. (divine spellpower just evens the score with all those high hit die low CR half-fiends from the monster manual). All the things wrong with Polymorph are core. The splatbook polymorphlike spells actually tend to work better in real play than, say, wildshape+natural spell. Pretty much all of the really easy ways to break adventures (strategic movement, divination spells, social skills, barrier removal) are in the PHB. Splatbooks just mean you don't have to be a wizard or cleric backed by a bard to have the cheese, and you have more than one way to do the same cheese if you are a wizard or cleric. Now the fighters, archers, rogues and such have their own cheese too. The top of the curve has not moved much. The curve has just broadened out. Where there were exceptions to that (quill blast, some leap-attack combinations, some post-FAQ spikes combinations, staggering strike reward card, nightsticks giving infinite turn attempts to power divine metamagic for cheap cash) the things got banned...adventures didn't get writ assuming they existed at every table. Focus your efforts at the sharp end of the curve, at things that make things unfun (brain spider might be a candidate for removal, as an example). Veil of Darkness is just Blur with another name and descriptor. Expansion materials are usually much more like Veil of Darkness than Quill Blast. The Circle has also been very sensitive to any class that violates the wealth by level guidelines via class abilities. Note the absence of Kensai and Runesmith, and the fact that you have to craft spellglyphs using TU's, making even the modest cash gains of Geomancer over a wizard a significant time investment to realize.
DuctShuiTengu 12-11-06, 09:53 PM	[removed in the interests of berevity] :clap: :bow: :cheer: :w00t: :ayyyy!: [Nothing meaningful to see here folks, move along]
wooti 12-11-06, 10:06 PM	Nice rant solbergb. I mostly agree with you, I think there are a few players and authors that do use the splat books to reach new levels of cheesiness. I haven't however found the adventures that much more difficult, what I would suggest is that authors note in the front blurb if this is a tough module so every one who wants to role play can play a different one and not get tpk'ed. This, I disagree with. Abjurant Champion is nice, but the fact that 1) you can't put enchantments on the armor and 2) Mage Armor isn't a abjuration spell tones it down rather heavily. I disagree here, even without the enhancing armour ability Abjurant champion is the most power mage PrC I've seen in a while. If it becomes legal I'll take it with my straight mage and it is even better for gish build. (compare it to eldrich knight in the DMG you'll see what I'm talking about).
DerekSTheRed 12-11-06, 10:27 PM	I disagree here, even without the enhancing armour ability Abjurant champion is the most power mage PrC I've seen in a while. If it becomes legal I'll take it with my straight mage and it is even better for gish build. (compare it to eldrich knight in the DMG you'll see what I'm talking about). I'll be taking levels in Abjurant Champion with my straight wizard if it's allowed too. My wizard concentrates on ranged touch spells so having a high bab along with the casting bumps would be very useful. I don't think it's as powerful as a Master Specialist though. Derek
Haro 12-12-06, 12:50 AM	Nice rant solbergb. I mostly agree with you, I think there are a few players and authors that do use the splat books to reach new levels of cheesiness. I haven't however found the adventures that much more difficult, what I would suggest is that authors note in the front blurb if this is a tough module so every one who wants to role play can play a different one and not get tpk'ed. I'd be awestruck if this happened. As has been proven repeatedly by more intelligent people than I, the degree of difficulty in combat is much more dependent on party makeup and GM than anything else. I would be unhappy to see LG compartmentalize adventures into combat/roleplay/whatever categories. The beauty of the game is in the sheer scope and variety of it. Joe
solbergb 12-12-06, 12:38 PM	I have in fact seen blurbs that say "this module is hard. Prepare to make sacrifices etc". Without exception, those modules are extremely dangerous. Although the last one, it was because we did NOT enter the area with silence spell blocking all roleplay and just kick down the doors and kill everything we saw. Instead we talked to the NPC's and doomed ourselves :)
LGMoses 12-12-06, 01:06 PM	u got to learn to do your roleplaying in drow sign language my friend, thats the trick. I agree with whoever it was said it depends on gm. I got a buddy who'll roleplay so that enemies will never ever ever provoke attacks of oppurtunity. NEVER! And yes, bad things happen when players get overconfident. We have one guy in our group that ALWAYS plays clerics. (But he rarely ever seems to have time to play.) Well, we were fighting these 6 first level fighters and we're like 6 first level characters. He gets the idea to cast ray of enfeeblement. He's being threatened by a fighter though and the DM ASKS, "Are you casting defensively?" He says screw that. "Do you want to take a 5 foot step back?" He says, I need no 5 foot step. That guy is going to die, my god will protect me. There is no way I'm going to fail to get him. 5 seconds later he's unconscious. But greyhawk mods are a touch tougher than other mods for say Xendrik Expeditions, but I like it that way. Why do you think so many people choose to be farmers instead. Adventurers should have a high mortality rate.
Mommy was an Orc 12-12-06, 06:32 PM	There are ways to deal > 100 points of damage in a standard action at level 10 in the players handbook. It's just that there are more ways to do it when you have more splatbooks. There are ways to have really high AC in the players handbook & DMG too. Or really high attack mods, or attacks where the defender really has no chance to mitigate the damage with most usual defenses. Abjurant Champ is unusual in that it can actually pull both of them off without sacrificing a lot. A Fighter 1/Wizard 6/Spellsword 1/Ab Champ 2 can polymorph into a Green Hag - with Mage Armor going and then casting Quickened Shield with that Polymorph on round 1 of combat, the AbCh gets a 32 AC without any other magic or items. Throw in a Belt +4, Arcane Strike, and Power Attack, and things get out of hand very quickly. And that's ignoring that the build actually technically qualifies as a primary caster - 5th level spells at APL 10...
Lomiat 12-12-06, 07:32 PM	Abjurant Champ is unusual in that it can actually pull both of them off without sacrificing a lot. A Fighter 1/Wizard 6/Spellsword 1/Ab Champ 2 can polymorph into a Green Hag - with Mage Armor going and then casting Quickened Shield with that Polymorph on round 1 of combat, the AbCh gets a 32 AC without any other magic or items. Throw in a Belt +4, Arcane Strike, and Power Attack, and things get out of hand very quickly. And that's ignoring that the build actually technically qualifies as a primary caster - 5th level spells at APL 10... That's actually 34 AC: Green Hag = 22, +6 Mage Armor, +6 Shield. Of course, by your 12th level of spellcasting (in this build, as a 13th level character with 5 Abjurant Champion), when you can make Polymorph a Contingent spell and cast Quickened Shield, you can get your AC much, much higher in one round of prep: Contingent Polymorph (green hag) 22 Greater Mage Armor +11 = 33 Quickened Shield +9 = 42 Boots of Speed (crafted) +1 = 43 use the Abj Cha's ability to ditch a spell for AC (4th level spell) +4 = 47 Tenser's Transformation +7 = 54 Ring of Protection +2 (reasonable assumption) = 56 attack bonus? assuming Heroism (10min/lvl) and Greater Magic Weapon (+4) = 26/26/21/16 That's not bad for a guy who gives up one level of spellcasting (nor is his typical BAB of +10/5).
solbergb 12-12-06, 07:46 PM	Any combination that requires you spend a round casting buffs will have the fight over a significant portion of the time in APL10+ before you move. The rest of the time, yeah, that's nice. A cleric with no more investment than fullplate and heavy shield can do at level 10 rightous might and quicken shield of faith a round too and end up with 32 AC plus damage reduction and a con boost. Give him one more round and he's full BAB with +6 enh to str and +3 to atk/dmg and some temp hitpoints thrown on for fun. Meanwhile our core druid at level 10 can be running around wildshaped in reduced animal form, and do something similar with animal growth and nature's favor and not even need quicken spell. Plus he's got an animal companion who will also get damage reduction, huge size and an AC around 30 without any buffs if he's got mw studded leather barding and gets magic vestment of somebody (or greater mage amror). All core, no need for splatbooks to get the cheese. (Ok, Nature's Favor is in a splatbook. But that's just icing on the cake. GMF and animal growth is all you really need) As I was saying - splatbooks just mean folks other than clerics and druids can do the same level of cheese.
solbergb 12-12-06, 07:52 PM	Greater mage armor is conjuration, not abjuration. Until an eratta or FAQ comes out, it won't work with AB Champion, in spite of the author's intent. Risky in LG to rely on. I don't think 10 minute buffs should be considered in any comparison. Any character looks good when buffed with them, and they're usually touch, so there isn't any reason not to stack them on the guy with full BAB and more feats than you. Any other buff cycle, including quickened spells, needs to be compared to what a cleric or druid can do in the same time. Generally a core cleric or druid attempting the same basic thing can keep up pretty darn well, or close enough that it doesn't matter. (if your Ac is 10 more than expected for a tank of the APL, it really doesn't matter how much higher you go)
Mommy was an Orc 12-12-06, 08:35 PM	Any combination that requires you spend a round casting buffs will have the fight over a significant portion of the time in APL10+ before you move. The build doesn't actually need that polymorph to do 100+ damage and get a 30+ AC at 10th level at the same time. It can do that without it.
Japangirl 12-12-06, 08:35 PM	If your AC is only 10 higher than expected for a tank, you're still hittable and thus it needs to get higher! At APL 10, AC 30 is considered good but not great, and AC 40 is very good. But to be truly unhittable you need AC 45-50, and that's not so easy to get. These builds are getting there though, and with almost full spellcasting progression intact.
Mommy was an Orc 12-12-06, 08:49 PM	If your AC is only 10 higher than expected for a tank, you're still hittable and thus it needs to get higher! At APL 10, AC 30 is considered good but not great, and AC 40 is very good. But to be truly unhittable you need AC 45-50, and that's not so easy to get. These builds are getting there though, and with almost full spellcasting progression intact. Don't forget this is only round 1. Protection from Evil is a 1st level abjuration spell that gives a deflection bonus to AC(against evil creatures only, but...) 45 is not too difficult to get to, given a bit of cash outlay and waiting til round 2. (edit: ignore this, sleep deprived)
Lomiat 12-12-06, 09:01 PM	If we really want to think in GISH terms, the Abjurant Champion has a definitive edge over the Cleric and Druid when you start figuring Extaordinary Spell Aim into the mix, casting Antimagic Field and choosing to exclude yourself. You continue to retain all your magic buffs, but no one can use spells, spell-like abilities or supernatural abilities against you. Should you back a cleric or druid into a corner, all his buffs drop, but yours stay up. (Good point about the Mage Armor, though; I missed the fact that the class only boosted Abjuration spells.)
_m_ 12-18-06, 06:12 PM	true, but through all this, with simple spells, you can remove damage in other ways. agreed, things are getting out of hand there, but blink, greater blink, greater invisibility, fly, dimension door, flicker, even blur. there've always been ways of being unhittable.
Hariman 12-28-06, 09:25 AM	Something just occured to me. Can't a cleric get that kind of an AC pretty easily? It seems to me that an abjurant champion is just a way to counterbalance melee cleric or druid builds. Or maybe it's a class that sorcerers can get into easily that doesn't ultranerf srocerers. And yes, lots of people will walk around as Abjurant Champions if it becomes legal. But there are still plenty of people that won't because they want to take other classes.
budleiser 12-28-06, 09:49 AM	I do not concur with the thread author at all. LG mods are to easy, there is not nearly enough PC death. If this is an arms race, the PC's are winning.
Hariman 01-01-07, 12:14 AM	I do not concur with the thread author at all. LG mods are to easy, there is not nearly enough PC death. If this is an arms race, the PC's are winning. I'm a Keolander. And I say YOU LIE! Depending on the mod, the enemies can be very tough. It also depends on party preparation and teamwork. I played one mod with TWO APL +3 encounters, and no chance to rest between them. (That happens to be the worst mod that I know of in Living Greyhawk. At least, the worst CORE mod.) Some... no, not some, ALL of the Keoland Regionals and Sheldomar Valley Metaregionals have been TOUGH. But as for brokenness? Even BARDS can be broken with the right build. One level of a casting class can give a melee character True Strike. EDIT: The Abjurant Armor special ability of the Abjurant champion only applies to ARMOR and SHIELD bonuses. This eliminates a cumulative +15 or +20 bonus to armor class. At best you can get a +10 to armor class out of this class.
LGMoses 01-01-07, 03:23 AM	there will always be munchkins making power builds and all sorts of stuff to break any slight gap in the rules. They forget that DM's can negate the plusses that don't make sense.
jstorrie 01-01-07, 03:42 AM	The currently allowed extra-Core material does not really provide all that much munchkinning power. BDFs have prestige classes with good will saves, okay. But they always could have just taken Iron Will and paid attention to the gear they were buying. Spellcasters can more easily wear armor, okay. But LG's level cap and access system generally don't allow great access to powerful armor mods anyway, and Mage Armor runs all day at the mid-levels. I would say that the most heavily optimized and tweaked out builds - even those incorporating known LG-smashers like Motivate Dexterity, Divine Spellpower/Divine Metamagic, or Shock Trooper - are still less than 50% more powerful than similar builds in objective terms. A character two levels higher is often 100% more powerful, so what does that tell us? That you've got about a free +1 level adjustment for better building skills? That's not game-breaking in any way. And let's not forget that the spiked chain is core, and probably one of the most broken rules items available for many builds.
Mommy was an Orc 01-01-07, 12:26 PM	And let's not forget that the spiked chain is core, and probably one of the most broken rules items available for many builds. Spiked Chain isn't that great of an item - Guisarme + Spiked Armor or Gauntlets or Improved Unarmed Strike is roughly equivalent, just without the feat expenditure. Sure, there's some interesting options in Exotic Weapon Master, but that involves yet another feat and opportunity cost.
Genghis Cohen 01-01-07, 12:49 PM	Spiked Chain isn't that great of an item - Guisarme + Spiked Armor or Gauntlets or Improved Unarmed Strike is roughly equivalent, just without the feat expenditure. Sure, there's some interesting options in Exotic Weapon Master, but that involves yet another feat and opportunity cost.Interesting options? The ability to ignore soft cover and get an extra attack every round from two levels is more than just interesting. It completely makes spiked chains clearly superior to a guisarme + spiked armor and/or gauntlets. Throw in the fact that you only need to have one variant of the spiked chain per need (adamantine, cold iron, silver, etc.) versus two for the substitute weapons, and the comparison becomes silly.
Mommy was an Orc 01-01-07, 02:23 PM	Interesting options? The ability to ignore soft cover and get an extra attack every round from two levels is more than just interesting. It completely makes spiked chains clearly superior to a guisarme + spiked armor and/or gauntlets. At the cost of 2 feats and a with the exception of those two benefits, a lousy prestige class(very poor saves and skills). The thing that makes Spiked Chain wielders tough is the rest of their build, not that they're wielding a Spiked Chain over a Guisarme. Yes, Spiked Chain is nice if you can afford those 2 feats and two levels, but I personally think there are much better uses of those 2 feats/levels most of the time.
draxynnic 01-01-07, 06:10 PM	Interesting options? The ability to ignore soft cover and get an extra attack every round from two levels is more than just interesting. It completely makes spiked chains clearly superior to a guisarme + spiked armor and/or gauntlets. You also get double power attack at both ranges, while the guisarme+spiked gauntlet only gets regular power attack when using the latter. And as a player who does use the guisarme+spiked gauntlet tactic at times, I've never claimed to be able to threaten with the latter while wielding the former - both hands are on the guisarme. Spiked armour and unarmed strike, yes, but I think it's a reasonable judgement that you either have the spiked gauntlet hand wielding the guisarme or to fight with, not both. (This isn't usually important on your own turn, but it does affect your ability to perform AoEs.) Also, the guisarme doesn't have the bonus to disarm that the chain has. My personal benchmark for the spiked chain to be broken? At a rough guess, about half of the melee-types in my area use spiked chains - and at least a couple of those who don't are refraining out of principle rather than any belief that their build wouldn't be better with one. I think most of them either have Exotic Weapon Master or are going to get it at some stage, but to my knowledge, only one actually has Improved Trip and/or Disarm to go with it. Most don't even have the Int to go down that tree. Now, analyse the rules as you like, but I think that many people voting with their proverbial feat while not taking full advantage of their weapon's features is an indication of somethig fishy.
LGMoses 01-01-07, 07:55 PM	Who uses the spiked chain in Greyhawk? Which group of people? For it to be an "exotic" weapon it must be "domestic" somewhere right?
Arvagor 01-02-07, 07:47 PM	Who uses the spiked chain in Greyhawk? Which group of people? For it to be an "exotic" weapon it must be "domestic" somewhere right?Shadar-kai
solbergb 01-02-07, 08:48 PM	Who uses the spiked chain in Greyhawk? Which group of people? For it to be an "exotic" weapon it must be "domestic" somewhere right? Chain devils :)
LGMoses 01-03-07, 01:03 AM	Shadar-kai? I'll get the Gazeteer....
thorinXXX 01-10-07, 02:13 PM	Most anything from the PHBII