General Discussion

[Mezlo]

Re: D&D

You were stupid enough to roll a Monk in Core Only.

What does this mean? Monk is not a good job in D&D 3.5?

[Murphie]

Re: D&D

Yyg told me to use the pathfinder wiki as a resource.

[Firewind]

Re: D&D

Fro ma PM I sent him a few days ago:

1) What books are allowed?

2) Is Divine metamagic (Using stuff like Extend Spell et al with Divine Spells) allowed?

3) What classes are people interested in playing thus far? I don't mind filling a gap in the party's needs. The classes I mostly like playing best are Rogues, Bards and Clerics from Core and Hexblade, Ninja and Beguiler if classes from the "Complete..." splatbooks are allowed.

4) Are we using Pathfinder rules?

5) Did I ever say how awesome you are for offering to DM a 3rd Edition D&D campaign? (Even if I fully admit to being a 4th Edition Heathen now )

1. Any of the base 3rd Edition books. I'm not playing wityh any of the advanced books yet. Try and stick to the core set.

2. Yes

3. Mezlo called Sorcerer. That's it so far. Nobody else has shown interest in anything specific.

4. No

5. My ego... it hurts from the swelling.

[Taskmage]

Re: D&D

Okay, question about tanking mechanics. I'm just gonna start talking here and you can tell me what I've got wrong.

There's a feat called Antagonize that is basically like Provoke, forcing the target to attack you for a turn or at least take a combat penalty for attacking someone else. It doesn't say so but I assume that would be a standard action, so if I were to rely on a feat like this to control targeting, I would spend all my turns waving my arms, never have time to actually take a swing at anyone, and still only lock down one guy on me. The more practical thing to do would be to leverage my ability to make multiple attacks of opportunity against anyone who enters my attack range and tries to ignore me, and position myself between the mobs and the squishier members of the party. So even though they still can move past me or go out of their way to go around me, it's disadvantageous for them to do so.

[Firewind]

Re: D&D

The PM is why I'm confused. If we are going Pathfinder and cid has his heart set of Rogue then I'm tempted to go for something like a Gunslinger, Bard or Ranger...

EDIT: OR, since Rogues are pretty versatile, make one with a different skillset

[Taskmage]

Re: D&D

Looking back through the thread he never said anything definitive about pathfinder. =/

[Murphie]

Re: D&D

I don't believe this world has guns. He described it as 5th century Europe meets Tolkien to me.

[Firewind]

Re: D&D

Okay, question about tanking mechanics. I'm just gonna start talking here and you can tell me what I've got wrong.

There's a feat called Antagonize that is basically like Provoke, forcing the target to attack you for a turn or at least take a combat penalty for attacking someone else. It doesn't say so but I assume that would be a standard action, so if I were to rely on a feat like this to control targeting, I would spend all my turns waving my arms, never have time to actually take a swing at anyone, and still only lock down one guy on me. The more practical thing to do would be to leverage my ability to make multiple attacks of opportunity against anyone who enters my attack range and tries to ignore me, and position myself between the mobs and the squishier members of the party. So even though they still can move past me or go out of their way to go around me, it's disadvantageous for them to do so.

The bolded part is exactly how "tanking" in 3rd Edition D&D works. You work out ways to punish monsters that don't go for you, or at the very least, slow them down so that your squishier party members can either run (if ranged) or get into a flanking position or fall back to drink a potion or something (if melee). Really anyone with a decent toughness can "tank" though since damage far outscales AC and HP at higher levels and in combat healing sucks in turn based games (D&D is no exception) due to it dragging out the fight and subjecting the party to more incoming attacks, the concept of a "Damage Sponge Tank" doesn't really work in 3rd Edition D&D due to how unbalanced it is at high levels.

It's done better in 4E since defences and HP scale better and Defender type classes get class abilities that let them mark a target and punish them for violating the mark in different ways like a free attack of opportunity or damage reduction on the hit character, there's also a pile of other tools for them to use. It's also done amazingly well in Star Wars Saga Edition (which was basically D&D 4th Edition: The Beta Test anyway) since there's a ton of ways to give your attacks of opportunity bonuses and defences scale pretty well.

[Murphie]

Re: D&D

I'm just going by the phone conversation I had. I'm perfectly happy to build a 3.5 character if needed.

[Firewind]

Re: D&D

I'm perfectly happy to wait for Ygg to get online to clear things up really since I'm a bit confused at the moment.

[Mezlo]

Re: D&D

Wasn't Mezlo going to be a sorcerer?[COLOR="Silver"]

I was going to, but then reconsidered because I don't want to sit around doing nothing when i run out of spells?

[Murphie]

Re: D&D

I raised the Yygnal.

[Armando]

Re: D&D

The bolded part is exactly how "tanking" in 3rd Edition D&D works. You work out ways to punish monsters that don't go for you, or at the very least, slow them down so that your squishier party members can either run (if ranged) or get into a flanking position or fall back to drink a potion or something (if melee). Really anyone with a decent toughness can "tank" though since damage far outscales AC and HP at higher levels and in combat healing sucks in turn based games (D&D is no exception) due to it dragging out the fight and subjecting the party to more incoming attacks, the concept of a "Damage Sponge Tank" doesn't really work in 3rd Edition D&D due to how unbalanced it is at high levels.

How would I go about tanking as a Cleric in 3rd Edition then? Stuns and the likes? Attacks of opportunity aren't really the class's strong suit. Also, what do you mean by damage outscaling AC and HP?

[Taskmage]

Re: D&D

[10:21] Curtis: Btw, are we using pathfinder? Firewind says no, but at least Murph and I were assuming we were.
[10:21] Yygdrasil: we are
[10:21] Yygdrasil: ill talk to fire
[10:21] Yygdrasil: i changed my mind on that after talking to cid and murph
[10:22] Yygdrasil: its just easier to consolodate abilites like pathfinder does
[10:22] Yygdrasil: all it is is rule adjustments anyway
[10:22] Yygdrasil: makes it a little more streamlined

---------- Post added at 10:41 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 AM ----------

Really anyone with a decent toughness can "tank" though since damage far outscales AC and HP at higher levels and in combat healing sucks in turn based games (D&D is no exception) due to it dragging out the fight and subjecting the party to more incoming attacks, the concept of a "Damage Sponge Tank" doesn't really work in 3rd Edition D&D due to how unbalanced it is at high levels.

What's a more effective way to deal with incoming damage at higher levels?

[Murphie]

Re: D&D

Well shit, folks, we need some diversity.