Has anyone ever played a true TO game?

[Talakeal]

Some of the responses in my previous thread have implied to me that many people actually play a game where every loophole and exploit is allowed and that TO is the norm. Is this actually a case?

I thought TO was, as the name suggests, theoretical, but I am told lots of people actually play that way.

Has anyone ever done it? How does it work?

How do you challenge a party where everyone is playing pun-pun or the equivalent? If it is by enemies who are also pun-pun, how does that even work? Does it bare any resemblance to actual D&D or is it just a weird thought experiment played out using abstract math and theoretical physics?

Also, how do you keep to "WBL" and "4 encounters a day" (which I know is only a guideline but most DMs keep it a hard rule) when players can use self resetting magical traps and chain gates to get infinite resources?

[Emperor Tippy]

Some of the responses in my previous thread have implied to me that many people actually play a game where every loophole and exploit is allowed and that TO is the norm. Is this actually a case?
Full TO? A few times. Most of TO is really not built for play though; no one cares if you can do a million damage or run a mile a second or throw the moon when doing 500 damage per attack is more than enough to kill every enemy you will face. TO is rarely built for general purpose use, or even for being usable; it's almost always built to do one thing really well at the expense of everything else. The exceptions are the true kings of TO, things like Pun-Pun or the Omniscificer that have gone already back around to being well rounded (just absurdly powerful)


I thought TO was, as the name suggests, theoretical, but I am told lots of people actually play that way.

Has anyone ever done it? How does it work?
You are confusing TO and PO.


How do you challenge a party where everyone is playing pun-pun or the equivalent? If it is by enemies who are also pun-pun, how does that even work? Does it bare any resemblance to actual D&D or is it just a weird thought experiment played out using abstract math and theoretical physics?
If you are playing with Pun-Pun then you are playing free form. Short of that, playing high end PO is in a lot of ways like regular D&D except much, much, more deadly and much less forgiving. You want to kill that BBEG Wizard to prevent him from performing a 5 year long ritual to summon one of the Old Ones into this reality? Well you are going to be doing 20-30 carefully planned, level appropriate, adventures that take you all across the planes (and possibly time) as you uncover his secrets and gain counters for his defenses. You will do things like a quest for Vecna to recover a long lost artifact in exchange for Vecna ensuring that the BBEG Wizards divination's have a blind spot where your activities are concerned. You will do a quest in Sigil to find the one single portal that opens directly into his private demiplane where the BBEG is always hanging out. If you do everything right and complete all of the quests then you get the chance to actually have a "fair" fight against the BBEG. If you are lucky, have a good party, have planned meticulously, and are fully prepared then you stand a better than even chance of victory. And that was your big quest for the decade.


Also, how do you keep to "WBL" and "4 encounters a day" (which I know is only a guideline but most DMs keep it a hard rule) when players can use self resetting magical traps and chain gates to get infinite resources?
WBL is easy. "Magic items work by interacting with your natural magical abilities, the stronger your spark the more items you can support. Try to link more items to your spark than it can support and you rather spectacularly explode and your soul is utterly destroyed as it's shredded. By the way, half your magical items just became intelligent."

4 encounters per adventuring day (which could be once a month or rarer) is relatively easy, you throw them all at the party pretty much one right after the other with just enough time in-between for short duration buffs to wear off. At least if you are trying to do 4 combat encounters a day.

[JadePhoenix]

TO by definition shouldn't see play.

[Riverdance]

Admittedly I don't actually know what TO stands for, but I think I know what you're talking about (allowing pun-pun and all that), and it just doesn't sound like it would be all that fun. When I learned to play I got the impression that I should always be extremely overpowered, and be able to deal with any situation. Unfortunately, learning to play as a Mary-sue did not teach me to role-play through situations and it really wasn't that fun. But hey, if people like playing like that, who am I to say they shouldn't. I'm sure it can be fun as well. It could even be considered an art, as in "who can most elegantly max-min their character?" The iron chef competitions are kind of like that, although they aren't going for pun-pun level optimization so much.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

TO by definition shouldn't see play.

We may disagree on many topics, but on this, we share the same opinion.

TO is, by definition, theoretical optimization. It's not designed for play, it's not intended for play, it's not suggested by the creators for use in an actual game. It's "Hey cool, look what I did, I broke the game again!".

Mind you, the line between PO (Practical Optimization) and TO can blur in some instances, depending on the cheese tolerance of the table you're at, but I would not consider using anything I deem a TO build in an actual game.

[Flickerdart]

Look up Team Solar. It's the most egregious example of optimization that I know has actually seen play.

[JadePhoenix]

We may disagree on many topics, but on this, we share the same opinion.

It had to happen eventually. :smallwink:

[MukkTB]

My group plays low optimization. I play mid optimization. I don't even get near full PO let alone total/theoretical optimization. Still I die much much less than the other players in my group.

[JeminiZero]

I thought TO was, as the name suggests, theoretical, but I am told lots of people actually play that way.

Here's what I *think* is happening (although I have no hard proof to back this up).

Given enough gaming groups, with a sufficiently wide variety of optiization, there are bound to be some people playing in TO territory. And as long as everyone has fun, thats fine and all, D&D is a game after all.

Coincidentally, however, a lot of the TO gamers, also frequent D&D forums (because you usually do not achieve TO capabilities without picking up a lot of good/crazy ideas from other people). Hence there is an over-representation of them online.

Additionally, if the TO gamers post more than the average gamer, it will amplify their over-representation even further.

Hence, the number of TO gamers you see online, is likely not representative of gaming in general.

[Quellian-dyrae]

I'd figure it comes down to, like Shneekey was saying, different levels of optimization-tolerance. Where do you really draw the line? I mean, I think it's fairly safe to say that any sort of infinite loops/arbitrarily high numbers is TO no matter who you ask (I think...maybe...I hope). But the description Tippy gave of "high-end PO", the wizard who lives in a private demiplane (presumably using Astral Projection and the like to interact with the outside world), I would call TO myself.

So basically, I don't think that too many people (if any) play what they would consider TO in any serious game. But the optimization norm for one player could easily be considered TO by another, and I think you'll wind up seeing that not only more often, but also, to a greater degree, online.

[kardar233]

The line between TO and PO is a constantly shifting one that varies based on the optimization level of the campaign.

I've been in campaigns where a Shock Troopering Warblade was so powerful you'd be shunned for playing one. In a recent game, I played an unholy combination of Team Solars and the Twice-Betrayer. The funny thing was that it was the absolutely ridiculously powerful campaign in which I came within millimetres of permanent death, just barely saved by Iron Heart Surge.

[Aegis013]

You want to kill that BBEG Wizard to prevent him from performing a 5 year long ritual to summon one of the Old Ones into this reality? Well you are going to be doing 20-30 carefully planned, level appropriate, adventures that take you all across the planes (and possibly time) as you uncover his secrets and gain counters for his defenses. You will do things like a quest for Vecna to recover a long lost artifact in exchange for Vecna ensuring that the BBEG Wizards divination's have a blind spot where your activities are concerned. You will do a quest in Sigil to find the one single portal that opens directly into his private demiplane where the BBEG is always hanging out. If you do everything right and complete all of the quests then you get the chance to actually have a "fair" fight against the BBEG. If you are lucky, have a good party, have planned meticulously, and are fully prepared then you stand a better than even chance of victory. And that was your big quest for the decade.

This sounds like one of the most fun campaign ideas I've ever heard, honestly. If it's alright, I may run this idea here as a game at some point.

[Darth Stabber]

TO builds tend to be thought exercises. Maximum possible X with Y materials allowed. They aren't built to play.

PO builds are builds people intend to play at some point. If someone says a build is PO it is, no matter how much anyone wants to call it TO. Whether that amount of optimization is encouraged or even allowed in the game the character was created for is immaterial, the difference is INTENT. Too optimized is just overpowered not TO.

The line isn't blurry, it's plain as day.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

I build/read up on TO all the time, this is why most DMs I know think I am going to break their game. In reality I mostly play mid to high level op in low op groups, so it seems like I am playing TO.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

TO would be boring to play. You just say 'I win', and you do.

I mean, how fun would it be to play as Pun-Pun? Really?

"The elder evils are..."

"Baleted."

"You can't just delete an elder evil."

*shows the GM your sheet*

"Huh, I guess you can. Oh well, campaign over. Now what, guys?"

At my table, we tend to have pre-defined optimization levels:

"Silly Campaign" - Low-op. Tier 1-2 classes banned. The goal here is to come up with as outrageous a character as you can come up with. If you stump me (i.e. I can't figure out a way to explain your character in my game world), I buy the pizza.

"Newbie Friendly" - Low to mid op. Generally, this happens when we have one or more people at the table who are still new to 3.5, and we want to take it easy on them and let them have some fun. No Clericzillas, no Druids, no Batman Wizards or Mailman Sorcerers. If it requires more than four sourcebooks, talk to me (the GM) first. Come on, guys, let's take it easy on them until they are properly blooded.

"Laid Back" - Mid-op. Pretty much do whatever ya wanna do as long as you don't get carried away with it and don't steal everyone else's thunder. The targeting point is roughly around Tier 3, or maybe low Tier 2.

"Hardcore" - High-op. This pushes the limits of PO. The only restriction I place is 'No Dragon Mag, No BoED/BoVD, no Infinite, NI, Arbitrarily Large, or similarly nonspecific number sets, or the loops to create such. Included is the caveat that anything the players do is explicitly going to be used at some point by the GM. You wanna be a Mailman Sorcerer? Fine, you can do that. Just remember, at some point, you're gonna run up against one. Can you take what you dish out?

[Golden Ladybug]

"Hardcore" - High-op. This pushes the limits of PO. The only restriction I place is 'No Dragon Mag, No BoED/BoVD, no Infinite, NI, Arbitrarily Large, or similarly nonspecific number sets, or the loops to create such. Included is the caveat that anything the players do is explicitly going to be used at some point by the GM. You wanna be a Mailman Sorcerer? Fine, you can do that. Just remember, at some point, you're gonna run up against one. Can you take what you dish out?

That is about the closest me and my Group have gotten, with pretty similar restrictions in play. The most recent instance of this was a few months ago now, when I took a break from DMing for two or three sessions. One of my players took a seat behind the screen and told us we were going to be playing Shenanigans. It was level 20, 50PB and no holds bared from the DM.

I threw together a Dvarti SotAO Ranger/Warblade Archer thing that was putting a few thousand arrows in the air each turn (Scrolls of Maximised Reach Chained Arrowsplit, Time Stands Still, Splitting, Rapid Shot, Haste, Belt(s) of Battle, etc), which we rolled to hit and damage for by the hundred, someone used a Nanobot build, and was getting ridiculous bonuses on everything because of his huge swarm of Adamantine Marbles and someone used the Elven Domain Generalist as a platform to make a Build with Triple 9ths.

We ended up fighting Beholder Mages, Neutronium Golems, a team up of the Twice Betrayer of Shar and The Cheater of Mystra, The Holy Awakened Tarrasque (the DM gave it 20 Levels of Cleric :smalleek:) and we finally duked it out with Imhotep, who'd surrounded himself in Prismatic Spheres and was rolling around the battlefield destroying everything.

The only reason it worked is that we were all playing to the hilt, it was being run by a guy with a good sense of humor (it all started when one of us seduced a Lich, after all) and we'd spent a game session watching Gurren Lagann instead of playing the week before.

But if any of us had brought in a build that arbitrarily won everything, what would be the point? We were all doing it to have a ton of fun, go completely over the top and play around with the most fun optimised builds we could think of. We wouldn't play these sorts of things in a normal game, but since these ideas and theories and builds are there, why not take them out for a spin?

[nedz]

TO is a game you play where you try to find ways to exploit some loop hole in the rules. It is not an RPG, it just uses the same ruleset.

PO is where you try to realise some character concept at an appropriate level of optimisation in an RPG.

There is a space in between which varies depending upon the cheesyness of any given campaign. It is possible to get this wrong and unbalance a campaign; in certain rulesets this can be done quite inadvertantly. Optimisation in this space needs a name ?
Perhaps IO, Inappropriate Optimisation ?
Or OO, Over Optimisation ?

None of these should be confused with Munchkinism. This is where you ignore inconvienient rules.

[Malachei]

I think TO is not really the problem, because if it occasionally sees play, it is mostly for demonstrative purposes, and everyone agrees to it in advance.

The real challenge is to find a working definition of the various levels of PO.

In one game, a particular build may not seem "optimized much at all", while in another it is by far the strongest player character.

Some of what their proponents see as PO, are actually utterly game-changing, and sometimes rely on heavily subjective reading of RAW (such as taking a paragraph out of context or ignoring parts of a monster entry).

And if you say Ice Assassin Army, Feat-shuffle, Solar-Gating for Wish-abuse, Solar-Chain-Gating and such are PO, then my answer is:

No problem, go ahead and try this in my game. :smallbiggrin:

[Talakeal]

I have never been in a group which had a firm enough grasp of the rules to use anything even remotely PO, let alone TO. The closest I got was a game what went to level 20, and as soon as the sorcerer got Shapechange the game became a joke and every encounter was him digging through the monster manuals for a trick that would end it before it began.

I can't imagine trying to run a game where any of the infinite resource, early entry combos I see on this board are actually used.

As for myself, I don't really have a desire to play an omnipotent godling anymore, and I am to busy working on my own games to devote the time and effort neccessary to break or fix anyone else's game. I would like to start playing d20 again however, but honestly I am kind of afraid what I will find.

[Harry]

TO and PO depends on what kind of group you are playing in like in my group mailmans and cheaters of mystra are common and I may have played pun pun before but there are groups where warblades are TO so technically everyone here has only played PO because that is what the groups level of Power is

[nedz]

Perhaps what we need is some kind of grading system ?
Like the tier system for classes.

Something like


TO
Cheese
Competant, but no Cheese
Some Optimisation, but nothing noteworthy
Classic, at the level of OP presented in the PH
Low OP, Beginners mistakes
OP Fail

[Shadowknight12]

I ran a heavy-RPing game where I basically allowed the players to optimise to their hearts' content. I allowed all of the cheese, gave them free stuff (like bonus feats, spell-like abilities, skill points and extra equipment) because combat was not going to be an important part of the campaign and they were supposed to face things straight out of Epic level (which I also beefed up at my discretion).

All of them reacted very positively to the idea. They were supposed to protect the planes from horrors beyond the limits of the universe, and it was very much okay for them to decimate entire armies in a single round, because the entire point of the campaign was that everywhere was being attacked at once, so it didn't matter if they saved this city or that one, there were always more places in danger. Even creating an entire army of solar simulacra was only good to protect perhaps one nation or big city. And the enemies, being alien creatures of intelligence beyond anyone's ken, adapted to each trick the PCs found, becoming immune or resistant to each one. That kept them constantly challenged and allowed them to flex their TO muscles while the story's plot progressed.

If I had to liken it to something, it'd be somewhat like what Mass Effect 3 did. But I did it first. And with more flair. :smalltongue:

[Water_Bear]

For me the TO/PO barrier is set at the exact point where you stop using basic reading comprehension.

Example #1: Rainbow Servant [CD]
If you read it's rules text, it obviously means that the Bard/Sorcerer can choose to add Cleric spells to their Spell Known list as they would from their ordinary list, or the Beguiler via their Advanced Learning. In fact 90% of people will read it that way the first time they see it.
In TO, you have to put away your common sense and ability to read between the lines and focus on the exact phrasing, allowing casting spontaneously off the entire Cleric list.

Example #2: Simulacrum/Ice Assassin
It is patently obvious that the "piece of the creature to be duplicated" is something which the PCs must go out and find. That is why it doesn't have a listed price, because you are not intended to buy it in a store.
In TO the fact that it has no listed price means it costs nothing, in the same way a priceless Artifact is presumably worth less than 1gp. Again, understanding written English demands more than just stringing the words together; determining intent is one of the basic parts of reading.

Other things like Candle of Invocation are more just "this was priced poorly" but most of the High-Op stuff on the boards here can be nullified with a Grade School English education.

*I think TO is fun, and love 90% of the threads about it here. I am not trying to insult anyone, just point out the fact that "Pure-RAW" sets aside basic concepts on how English text is to be read and understood.*

-Edit: Spelling and Diction, ironically enough.-

[The Glyphstone]

We ended up fighting Beholder Mages, Neutronium Golems, a team up of the Twice Betrayer of Shar and The Cheater of Mystra, The Holy Awakened Tarrasque (the DM gave it 20 Levels of Cleric :smalleek:) and we finally duked it out with Imhotep, who'd surrounded himself in Prismatic Spheres and was rolling around the battlefield destroying everything.


Please tell me you played the Katamari Damancy theme song during the fight.

[OracleofSilence]

Example #1: Rainbow Servant [CD]
If you read it's rules text, it obviously means that the Bard/Sorcerer can choose to add Cleric spells to their Spell Known list as they would from their ordinary list, or the Beguiler via their Advanced Learning. In fact 90% of people will read it that way the first time they see it.
In TO, you have to put away your common sense and ability to read between the lines and focus on the exact phrasing, allowing casting spontaneously off the entire Cleric list.
ted price means it costs nothing, in the same way a priceless Artifact is presumably worth less than 1gp. Again, understanding written English demands more than just stringing the words together; determining intent is one of the basic parts of reading.


A 10th-level rainbow servant can learn and cast spells from the cleric list, even if they don't appear on the lists of any spell casting class he has... This class feature grants access to the spells, not extra spells known.


A warmage casts arcane spells (the same type of
spells available to sorcerers and wizards), which are drawn
from the warmage spell list given below. He can cast any
spell he knows without preparing it ahead of time the way
a cleric or wizard must. When a warmage gains access to a
new level of spells, he automatically knows all the spells for
that level listed on the warmage’s spell list. Essentially, his
spell list is the same as his spells known list.

Bolded for emphasis. So no. its not a reading error. For classes like Beguiler, Warmage, and Dread Necromancer, they actually DO get access to the full spell list, because the class feature EXPLICITLY grants access to the spells on the Cleric's spell list, and they can spontaneously cast any spell they know. The broken comes in if you read the Spells Per Day/Spells Known section, and see that it says they advance casting at all levels. Yes all of them. And text trumps table, so the table lies.

[Toy Killer]

Bolded for emphasis. So no. its not a reading error. For classes like Beguiler, Warmage, and Dread Necromancer, they actually DO get access to the full spell list, because the class feature EXPLICITLY grants access to the spells on the Cleric's spell list, and they can spontaneously cast any spell they know. The broken comes in if you read the Spells Per Day/Spells Known section, and see that it says they advance casting at all levels. Yes all of them. And text trumps table, so the table lies.

And if I'm not mistaken, you also qualify for the MT afterwards, with both the divine and arcane spell casting levels granted adding to your warmage level. Not sure how you would enter Rainbow a level early, but if you can, you can have epic spell casting before 20. all spontaneous of the ever expansive cleric spell list.

[Water_Bear]

Except that's more of exactly the same issue I mentioned before.

The Beguiler/Dread Necromancer/Warblade class features say their Spells Known are the same as their "X Spell List Table" plus spell that they learn through other means, AKA Advanced Learning. That is clear from reading it.

Rainbow Servant basically says that the Character can learn new spells off of the Cleric list, as they would normally do. Hence the "no new spells known" part. For a Beguiler or similar, this logically means via Advanced Learning which normally excludes most Cleric spells.

The Reading Comprehension fail is at the point where exact words trumps obvious intent. That is exactly where I draw the PO/TO line.

[Amphetryon]

The Reading Comprehension fail is at the point where exact words trumps obvious intent. That is exactly where I draw the PO/TO line.What you or any other individual reader of the rules consider "obvious intent" is neither universally obvious nor necessarily intent. To claim otherwise is essentially to claim that you have intimate knowledge of the individual writer's state of mind at the time a particular rule or class feature was put to paper. That seems a. . . dubious claim.

On topic: As has been said, what one group considers "Theoretical Optimization" is "Practical Optimization" for another group, excepting the most extreme examples like Pun-Pun. I'd need a more accurate understanding of the OP's definition of "Theoretical Optimization" before I could say whether I've been a part of a group that played with that mindset.

[2xMachina]

TO would be boring to play. You just say 'I win', and you do.

I mean, how fun would it be to play as Pun-Pun? Really?

"The elder evils are..."

"Baleted."

"You can't just delete an elder evil."

*shows the GM your sheet*

"Huh, I guess you can. Oh well, campaign over. Now what, guys?"

At my table, we tend to have pre-defined optimization levels:

"Silly Campaign" - Low-op. Tier 1-2 classes banned. The goal here is to come up with as outrageous a character as you can come up with. If you stump me (i.e. I can't figure out a way to explain your character in my game world), I buy the pizza.

"Newbie Friendly" - Low to mid op. Generally, this happens when we have one or more people at the table who are still new to 3.5, and we want to take it easy on them and let them have some fun. No Clericzillas, no Druids, no Batman Wizards or Mailman Sorcerers. If it requires more than four sourcebooks, talk to me (the GM) first. Come on, guys, let's take it easy on them until they are properly blooded.

"Laid Back" - Mid-op. Pretty much do whatever ya wanna do as long as you don't get carried away with it and don't steal everyone else's thunder. The targeting point is roughly around Tier 3, or maybe low Tier 2.

"Hardcore" - High-op. This pushes the limits of PO. The only restriction I place is 'No Dragon Mag, No BoED/BoVD, no Infinite, NI, Arbitrarily Large, or similarly nonspecific number sets, or the loops to create such. Included is the caveat that anything the players do is explicitly going to be used at some point by the GM. You wanna be a Mailman Sorcerer? Fine, you can do that. Just remember, at some point, you're gonna run up against one. Can you take what you dish out?

Why no T1 without PO? Quite possible no?

[nedz]

And if I'm not mistaken, you also qualify for the MT afterwards, with both the divine and arcane spell casting levels granted adding to your warmage level. Not sure how you would enter Rainbow a level early, but if you can, you can have epic spell casting before 20. all spontaneous of the ever expansive cleric spell list.

Yep, not sure that would fly in a real game though.

[Talakeal]

What you or any other individual reader of the rules consider "obvious intent" is neither universally obvious nor necessarily intent. To claim otherwise is essentially to claim that you have intimate knowledge of the individual writer's state of mind at the time a particular rule or class feature was put to paper. That seems a. . . dubious claim.

On topic: As has been said, what one group considers "Theoretical Optimization" is "Practical Optimization" for another group, excepting the most extreme examples like Pun-Pun. I'd need a more accurate understanding of the OP's definition of "Theoretical Optimization" before I could say whether I've been a part of a group that played with that mindset.

Normally I agree with you. Sometimes, however, you CAN know the intent, at least with reasonable certainty.

If you see a pattern and notice an exception, for example Sword Sages getting 6x skills at first level or boomerangs doing 24 damage it is obviously a typo and you know what they meant to say.

Further, sometimes the context a rule is written in can give clues.

For example: "I am blue." could mean I am sad or that my skin is the color blue. If someone said "I just had paint poured on me. I am blue" or "My dog just died. I am blue" You could tell which by context.

Further, a lot of time you DO know what the author was thinking because they elaborate in an FAQ, Errata, Design Notes, or an interview. Most "rules lawyers" disregard such declarations of intent as unofficial house rules however, which in my mind gives them a bit less moral high ground when they declare "RAW trumps RAI because you can't read the author's mind".

[Answerer]

Further, a lot of time you DO know what the author was thinking because they elaborate in an FAQ, Errata, Design Notes, or an interview. Most "rules lawyers" disregard such declarations of intent as unofficial house rules however, which in my mind gives them a bit less moral high ground when they declare "RAW trumps RAI because you can't read the author's mind".
That's... not "a lot of time" at all. Very, very few articles of that sort were ever published.

Also, in this case, Water Bear is patently wrong. The designers presumably never intended the Beguiler/Dread Necromancer/Warmage to get all those spells automatically, but nothing in there suggests that their solution to this was that they need to use Advanced Learning on them. That's purely houserule, since Advanced Learning says nothing about those class's own Spell Lists. There's no evidence whatsoever to support his position.

Note that in later classes, after Wizards realized the problem here, they added specific text stating that classes like Warmage cannot get all of those spells. See Silver Pyromancer (Five Nations).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Why no T1 without PO? Quite possible no?

It requires PO to keep up with T1 classes and still be relevant. The point of the game is to have fun. It's not a lot of fun if you are just holding the coattails of a T1 class who keeps you around for some unknown reason since you don't meaningfully impact the game.

[Thorcrest]

Originally Posted by Complete Divine 55

A 10th-level rainbow servant can learn and cast spells from the cleric list, even if they don't appear on the lists of any spell casting class he has... This class feature grants access to the spells, not extra spells known

Let me just begin by sayin that I have not read the source material, but my reading of this would be as follows:

The Rainbow Servant can add spells from the Cleric list to his spells known list (he can lean and cast spells from the cleric list) just as a sorceror can "learn" spells from the Wizard/Sorceror list, by adding them to his spells known list, and cast them even if he had no class that granted him access to the cleric spell list.

This class feature grants them the ability to add these spells to their spells known list, but it does not make all these spells known.

That is explicitly what it is saying.

The last sentence is where the ambiguity and possible other interpretation comes in, the word access implies either:
A) The Rainbow Servant can cast all spells on the cleric list as though they were spells known.
B) The Rainbow Servant can add any spell on the cleric list to his spells known list and cast it as normal.

Both A and B are acceptable when one considers only the access part. Then when one adds the it does not add extra spells known part, it should be clear that A is wrong, but it can still be logically true even with that statement as it would mean that the spells are not added to spells known for the purposes of Maximum Spells Known.

We now have two possible options, however, B should be the one accepted due to the earlier use of the word learn. This word implies that he does not immediately know all of these spells but can choose to add them to his spells known list. Thus he goes from not knowing them to knowing them (adds to his spell known list), a process commonly called learning.

[Answerer]

Let me just begin by sayin that I have not read the source material, but my reading of this would be as follows:
What? How are you formulating this if you haven't read it?

It's very, very simple. The Rainbow Servant says it adds the spells to the character's Spell List.

The Warmage et al. say that they automatically Know every spell in their Spell List.

If something adds a spell to a Warmage's Spell List, he knows it. There is no such thing as a spell on the Warmage's list that he does not know.

As for the use of the word "learn," Warmage specifically says that he does not learn spells as a Sorcerer does, he just automatically knows all the spells on his list.

Look, Rainbow Servant was printed in Complete Divine, published May 2004. The first "full-list" spellcaster was printed in Complete Arcane, published November 2004. The people who wrote Rainbow Servant didn't know that the Warmage was going to exist. Classes that were printed later that work like the Rainbow Servant specifically include a particular clause that prevents the Warmage et al. from getting all of those spells as spells known automatically (see the Silver Pyromancer in Five Nations).

But Rainbow Servant does not. It does not because they couldn't know they needed to, but nevertheless it does not. Is the ability to spontaneously cast any Cleric spell ever balanced for most games? Absolutely not – so houserule it. There's nothing wrong with houserules. But the fact of the matter is that by RAW, a Warmage X/Rainbow Servant 10 can spontaneously cast any Cleric spell of a level he has spell slots for.

[Thorcrest]

What? How are you formulating this if you haven't read it?

I don't need to read the entire class to be able to say that the passage given as evidence does not actually do as he stated. That particular passage in no way states that Rainbow Servant gets all of the clerics spells ready and able to be cast. But I did note why it might be that someone would think that. Now, if there is another passage in the text that would indicate this, then my argument does not matter, but based on that passage alone, the Rainbow Servant does not get the ability to cast all spells.

You should also note that I said nothing about the Warmage not having them if he were to use that particular feature of the Rainbow Servant since he is able to cast all spells from his list, however, the Rainbow Servant does not have that ability, which is what I was demonstrating. I in no way said that this could not be abused by Warmage et al.


Originally Posted by Water_Bear

Example #1: Rainbow Servant [CD]
If you read it's rules text, it obviously means that the Bard/Sorcerer can choose to add Cleric spells to their Spell Known list as they would from their ordinary list, or the Beguiler via their Advanced Learning. In fact 90% of people will read it that way the first time they see it.
In TO, you have to put away your common sense and ability to read between the lines and focus on the exact phrasing, allowing casting spontaneously off the entire Cleric list.
ted price means it costs nothing, in the same way a priceless Artifact is presumably worth less than 1gp. Again, understanding written English demands more than just stringing the words together; determining intent is one of the basic parts of reading.

This Quote seems to me to be saying that the Rainbow Servant can cast all spells from the Cleric's List Spontaneously and that would be incorrect given the other passage and only that passage.

Now, if I simply misunderstood what someone wrote then feel free to disregard what I have said in this particular instance. That is a problem with text based communication.

Having looked over those two passages again (the ones provided earlier by OracleofSilence), I reaffirm what I said that the Rainbow Servant does not gain the ability to cast all spells from the cleric's list spontaneously, only the ability to add them to his spells known list. As for the Warmage, if he gains access to all of the Rainbow Servant's Spell list, then one of two things can occur:
A) He gains all of the spells to his spells known as they are part of the list.
B) He gains only the spells on the Rainbow Servant's original list as it does not say the Rainbow Servant gets the Cleric's list, he can merely access it for the purposes of learning spells.

I could argue for either of them and find neither more convincing then the other depending on how you read the text.

If there are other relevant passages please bring them to light, but based off of the evidence given in those two passages The Rainbow Servant only gains the ability to add Cleric's spells to his Spells Known as he would any other spell from his list, and the Warmage et al. can either cast all spells from the Rainbow Servants list spontaneously OR he can cast all spells from the Rainbow Servant and Cleric's lists spontaneously. Based on the given evidence, I would say neither of the last two readings are wrong, but generally access implies having the list so I would go with Warmage et al. gaining access to both.

This is just a case of unclear writing leading to multiple possible interpretations on everyone's part.

[Fable Wright]

If you are playing with Pun-Pun then you are playing free form. Short of that, playing high end PO is in a lot of ways like regular D&D except much, much, more deadly and much less forgiving. You want to kill that BBEG Wizard to prevent him from performing a 5 year long ritual to summon one of the Old Ones into this reality? Well you are going to be doing 20-30 carefully planned, level appropriate, adventures that take you all across the planes (and possibly time) as you uncover his secrets and gain counters for his defenses. You will do things like a quest for Vecna to recover a long lost artifact in exchange for Vecna ensuring that the BBEG Wizards divination's have a blind spot where your activities are concerned. You will do a quest in Sigil to find the one single portal that opens directly into his private demiplane where the BBEG is always hanging out. If you do everything right and complete all of the quests then you get the chance to actually have a "fair" fight against the BBEG. If you are lucky, have a good party, have planned meticulously, and are fully prepared then you stand a better than even chance of victory. And that was your big quest for the decade.
Out of curiosity, exactly what are the wizard's defenses and scrying spells? I keep on hearing about how they make the wizard immune to everything, but I never actually hear what they are. What spells does the Wizard use to prevent someone from Wishing themselves onto his demiplane (bypassing Anticipate Teleport by virtue of the lack of Teleport descriptor and all planar defenses by virtue of wish) and striking his helpless body down while he sleeps? How does he prevent someone from severing his Astral Cord? What do they use to predict all of the coming attacks, and what questions do they ask if they use Contact Other plane? If he doesn't Astral Projection, what other defenses does he use? I'm not trying to say that it wouldn't take a ton of resources, I'm just wondering exactly what defenses he has that would take 20-30 adventures to bypass.

[Flickerdart]

How does he prevent someone from severing his Astral Cord?
IIRC you get a DC15 Will save when your cord is struck, and on failure your Astral Projection is dispelled with no harm to you. The book states that many travellers choose to fail the save willingly. So that's not an issue.

[Answerer]

Now, if I simply misunderstood what someone wrote then feel free to disregard what I have said in this particular instance. That is a problem with text based communication.
Pretty sure he was referring only to the case of the Warmage, and the Warmage definitely does, by RAW, automatically know all spells added to his Spell List. The "for the purpose of learning them" clause doesn't inhibit this in any fashion, since all that means is the Warmage "learns" them immediately and automatically as he does any other spell on his list.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Out of curiosity, exactly what are the wizard's defenses and scrying spells? I keep on hearing about how they make the wizard immune to everything, but I never actually hear what they are. What spells does the Wizard use to prevent someone from Wishing themselves onto his demiplane (bypassing Anticipate Teleport by virtue of the lack of Teleport descriptor and all planar defenses by virtue of wish) and striking his helpless body down while he sleeps? How does he prevent someone from severing his Astral Cord? What do they use to predict all of the coming attacks, and what questions do they ask if they use Contact Other plane? If he doesn't Astral Projection, what other defenses does he use? I'm not trying to say that it wouldn't take a ton of resources, I'm just wondering exactly what defenses he has that would take 20-30 adventures to bypass.

Basic immunity to scrying comes from Mind Blank. Flat immunity to the Divination domain. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Basic immunity to 'yes' starts off with making a Simulacrum of yourself and working through said proxy, then by Polymorphing into a Dire Tortoise to prevent being surprised ever. At this point, anything that tries to attack 'you' are actually attacking your simulacrum and the worst that can happen is you lose it. Failing that, you use Astral Projection, then use illusions to interact with people.

In short, the best way to avoid an attack is to not be there. You can strike at illusions, or at a cheap copy... but actually finding the Wizard in question, much less being able to attack him, is nearly impossible.

As far as wishing yourself there... you'd need to know, in general, where to wish yourself to.

[Fable Wright]

IIRC you get a DC15 Will save when your cord is struck, and on failure your Astral Projection is dispelled with no harm to you. The book states that many travellers choose to fail the save willingly. So that's not an issue.

Nope. Book and SRD state that you are immediately killed if it's sundered, Monster Manual says that a Silver Sword needs to sunder a hardness 10 hp 20 object to sunder the cord.

@^: The Simulacrum would be a level 10 wizard, that probably would not be able to pull off the awesome feat of magic necessary for summoning the Elder Evils. Assuming the level 20 wizard had to actually be in the same place for the 5 years to summon them, what divinations/defenses would he need?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

While my group doesn't do anything TO, we do play fairly high-optimization games. I've told the story here several times before of one game I ran wherein two parties in the same world, each composed of 5 PCs with at least +6 free LA and mountains of wealth from their merchant corporations, (ab)used the Stronghold Builder's Guide to make a flying, invulnerable, intelligent, Blastoise-shaped fortress (for the good party) and an invulnerable, intelligent githyanki Astral ship (for the evil party) and take on the entire Hells and Abyss themselves. On the rare occasions I play rather than DM, I usually run support casters, and my last one was a war weaver able to drop 8+ buffs on the party at once, spontaneously cast from three entire spell lists, and counterspell 4-5 spells per round.

I'm currently playing in one campaign where I'm the only noncaster, having tired of the support caster role. Via template and bloodline (ab)use my character is an unarmed combatant who can essentially kill every enemy with fewer than 8 HD within 40 feet of him each round and fly at Mach 11 outside of combat, all while sitting in a 24/7 antimagic field, and he hasn't failed a save or been hit in the past 10 levels. Our party casters are utility-focused, meaning they let me and the other martial character in the group (a stupidly-long-range thrower/archer and the party face) take care of most large-scale combats while the arcane heirophant builds cities and fleets to upgrade our military capabilities, the diviner keeps tabs on enemy operations on all three continents, and the necromancer and his bard cohort provide us with competent manpower.

Our current DM is very good at running these sorts of games (I've taught him [almost] everything I know, they grow up so fast *sniff*), and can challenge the party with scenarios where we have to be creative even with all the power at our disposal; last session we had to deal with a triple-bluff scenario on our enemies' party that we only found out about at all thanks to our diviner's paranoia, and even with all three of the staffs of passage at our disposal we weren't able to prevent two of our cities from being destroyed because we were too busy hopping back and forth between the other three to defend them. The agreement we have with the City of Brass allows us a certain amount of efreet-binding for wishing back our depleted magic item reserves after most major offensives, but even with those sorts of resources at our disposal there are only so many PCs and cohorts to go around, so it's a good thing we have the home-team advantage; when we go attack the enemy on their home continent, it's not going to be pretty.

So while we're not exactly at TO territory and not quite on Emperor Tippy's tier, our group does plenty of things that would never fly in other DMs' campaigns, and much of what the Playground considers "cheesy" would have us asking for a bit more Parmesan for our D&D pasta. Of course, that's only with my current college group; one of my groups back home favors more intrigue-based games with less combat optimization on the part of the PCs and more social/stealth/wealth/follower optimization and another group is generally low-op because with their time constraints they'd rather do lots of one-shots than play semester-long campaigns with the same characters.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Nope. Book and SRD state that you are immediately killed if it's sundered, Monster Manual says that a Silver Sword needs to sunder a hardness 10 hp 20 object to sunder the cord.

@^: The Simulacrum would be a level 10 wizard, that probably would not be able to pull off the awesome feat of magic necessary for summoning the Elder Evils. Assuming the level 20 wizard had to actually be in the same place for the 5 years to summon them, what divinations/defenses would he need?

I don't believe you quite understand...

The simulacrum isn't there to attack anything. It's a decoy. Bait. A proxy by which a sufficiently paranoid wizard interacts with what lesser mortals fondly refer to as 'reality'.

Your problem isn't going to be the simulacrum attacking anything, and it probably would get slaughtered if any serious opposition were to attack it (although even a properly prepared 10th level wizard can still be a lively challenge for an epic level party which doesn't have a caster).

Your problem would be that you just struck at the fake... the real one is still out there... somewhere... lurking amongst the planes... and far more powerful than you can imagine.

It would be like landing a Great White... with the Megladon lurking in the depths below, waiting patiently for you to get just a bit too lax in your defenses before snapping you up whole, leaving no trace behind but a ripple along the very fabric of existence.

[Varil]

Bah, nevermind. Someone misquoted the Rainbow Servant class feature. It doesn't say anything about spells known at all.

Edit 2 : Actually, RE-rereading it, it doesn't say anything about class lists, either. It just says you can learn and cast the spells, without providing any information about the mechanics which would allow you to learn said spells. So, uh....I got nothing.

[Flickerdart]

Nope. Book and SRD state that you are immediately killed if it's sundered, Monster Manual says that a Silver Sword needs to sunder a hardness 10 hp 20 object to sunder the cord.

Aha, that was one of the changes made in 3.5 then. The 3.0 PsHB entry for Githiyanki has a DC13 Will save offered VS returning to your home plane (which is the bit I was thinking of), and also has mind blank making the user impervious to the sword.

[Talakeal]

Reading the rainbow savant class it merely says the character can learn the spells. It gives absolutely no mechanism for how the spells are learned. Therefore, any interpretation is going to be more or less a house rule for a class that doesn't already have a mechanic for learning spells.

Personally I would say war mages would get all the cleric spells as that is their classes mechanic for learning spells, but that does make for an extremely OP class, and if I had a War Mage / Rainbow Servant in a game I ran I would probably come up with some house rule letting them learn X spells per level or something like that, but it would be a true house rule, certainly not be RAW, RAI, or RAMS.

[Answerer]

Sigh, I feel like an ass then: having reread the entire thing, they do dance around the term "spell list" and do not seem to actually add the spells to the spell list: they literally seem to spell out that they behave exactly as spells on one's list would behave, but they seem to maintain that distinction so that they are spells on your list in all but name. Which probably matters for the Warmage interaction. By RAW, I'm not entirely sure what the Warmage does or doesn't get.

The spells from the Domains are definitely added though, per the rules in Complete Divine for gaining Domains as a not-Cleric.

[Douglas]

Look up Team Solar. It's the most egregious example of optimization that I know has actually seen play.
It's unfortunate the DM for that game disappeared after the 10-day forum downtime all those years ago. I was interested to see what he'd try challenging me with next.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Sigh, I feel like an ass then: having reread the entire thing, they do dance around the term "spell list" and do not seem to actually add the spells to the spell list: they literally seem to spell out that they behave exactly as spells on one's list would behave, but they seem to maintain that distinction so that they are spells on your list in all but name. Which probably matters for the Warmage interaction. By RAW, I'm not entirely sure what the Warmage does or doesn't get.

I was thinking that they got them myself, but looking the exact wording, I'm convinced they don't. Warmage specifically says that they know "all the spells for that level listed on the warmage spell list." While a Rainbow Servant "can learn and cast spells from the cleric list, even if they don't appear on the lists of any spellcasting class he has."

[Fable Wright]

I don't believe you quite understand...

The simulacrum isn't there to attack anything. It's a decoy. Bait. A proxy by which a sufficiently paranoid wizard interacts with what lesser mortals fondly refer to as 'reality'.

Your problem isn't going to be the simulacrum attacking anything, and it probably would get slaughtered if any serious opposition were to attack it (although even a properly prepared 10th level wizard can still be a lively challenge for an epic level party which doesn't have a caster).

Your problem would be that you just struck at the fake... the real one is still out there... somewhere... lurking amongst the planes... and far more powerful than you can imagine.

It would be like landing a Great White... with the Megladon lurking in the depths below, waiting patiently for you to get just a bit too lax in your defenses before snapping you up whole, leaving no trace behind but a ripple along the very fabric of existence.

Alright, now that that issue is out of the way, the party gets a favor from Fharlaghn so that he'll use his Domain Sense to tell you whenever the main wizard moves and/or from Boccob so he tells you where the wizard surrounded by enchantment is. That's 2 adventures there, plus one where you find the Simulacrum. The party has located the Wizard, and the Wizard may or may not know it (depending on whether or not everyone has mindblanks). Still missing another 17-27. Once the wizard has been located, what other defenses does the Wizard have? The party wizard Polymorphs everyone into Dire Tortoises, possibly with land speed enhancers, Wishes everyone right in close to the target wizard, with the fighter teleported adjacent to it with an antimagic field contingent on coming into melee range with the Wizard, whose readied action to Grapple the poor commoner goes off. Wizard doesn't get time to react because Wish was used, and so the party appears without warning, doesn't have a shot at getting to annihilate the party's defenses because as soon as they appear the antimagic field causes everyone to stop being turtles and prevents the wizard's Celerity, while the fighter suddenly snaps the spine of the elderly commoner. What defenses does the Wizard have against this that would require another 17 sessions to get around?

[2xMachina]

It requires PO to keep up with T1 classes and still be relevant. The point of the game is to have fun. It's not a lot of fun if you are just holding the coattails of a T1 class who keeps you around for some unknown reason since you don't meaningfully impact the game.

Oh, I thought you meant PO'ed T1, which is pretty crazy. No need to run around with Planar Shepherds, Dweomerkeeper, Incantatrix/IotSV.

[Rejusu]

I don't think TO shouldn't just not see play but rather can't be played at all. You said it yourself. How do you challenge a party of Pun-Puns? There's a reason it's called game-breaking, it literally breaks the game. Frankly the game will just come down to who wins initiative order as they'll be the first one to ascend.

What you've probably seen is people assuming that the cheesier side of PO is something that see's play at every table. Which is always something that's bugged me. I've seen so many people bring up things as solutions to problems that most sane DM's would throw out the window.

Manifester arrows as a solution to low power points is something that really grinds my gears. I mean really most DM's are just going to look at that and say "No".

[Jandrem]

Just to chime in on the Warmage "learning," the flavor text of the class states that Warmages go through intensive training early in their career of all spells on their spell list, at the very least extensive familiarizing of the spells, so that when they level up, they gain the power to actually use those spells they spent so long studying.

They don't simply "POOF! Warmage knows every spell." There actually is an explanation of countless hours studying and preparing. It's a pretty weak justification, but it's there nonetheless. Flavor text saves the day?

So, by that explanation, I would NOT allow a Rainbow Servant in my games to simply "POOF! gain ALL Cleric spells." The PrC is worded poorly, so that's my interpretation.

[Answerer]

Just to chime in on the Warmage "learning," the flavor text of the class states that Warmages go through intensive training early in their career of all spells on their spell list, at the very least extensive familiarizing of the spells, so that when they level up, they gain the power to actually use those spells they spent so long studying.

They don't simply "POOF! Warmage knows every spell." There actually is an explanation of countless hours studying and preparing. It's a pretty weak justification, but it's there nonetheless. Flavor text saves the day?

So, by that explanation, I would NOT allow a Rainbow Servant in my games to simply "POOF! gain ALL Cleric spells." The PrC is worded poorly, so that's my interpretation.
That's... not an interpretation; that text is not rules and has no bearing on anything except, perhaps, how you might decide to houserule things.

Because the obvious extension of that fluff, assuming a Warmage in question is even using it, is that they've either entered into some sort of intensive training for the spells being added to their list, or extrapolated from their prior training a new regimen for them to learn the new spells.

But it doesn't really matter; as Quellian-dyrae said, it specifically says that you can learn Cleric spells "even if they are not on your list," which implies that Rainbow Servant isn't adding them to your list.

The three Domains that Rainbow Servant adds are still added to the Warmage's list.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Alright, now that that issue is out of the way, the party gets a favor from Fharlaghn so that he'll use his Domain Sense to tell you whenever the main wizard moves and/or from Boccob so he tells you where the wizard surrounded by enchantment is. That's 2 adventures there, plus one where you find the Simulacrum. The party has located the Wizard, and the Wizard may or may not know it (depending on whether or not everyone has mindblanks). Still missing another 17-27. Once the wizard has been located, what other defenses does the Wizard have? The party wizard Polymorphs everyone into Dire Tortoises, possibly with land speed enhancers, Wishes everyone right in close to the target wizard, with the fighter teleported adjacent to it with an antimagic field contingent on coming into melee range with the Wizard, whose readied action to Grapple the poor commoner goes off. Wizard doesn't get time to react because Wish was used, and so the party appears without warning, doesn't have a shot at getting to annihilate the party's defenses because as soon as they appear the antimagic field causes everyone to stop being turtles and prevents the wizard's Celerity, while the fighter suddenly snaps the spine of the elderly commoner. What defenses does the Wizard have against this that would require another 17 sessions to get around?

If you're going to GM fiat, then go ahead and GM fiat. Deities are not going to interfere with mortals to that extent.

[Fable Wright]

If you're going to GM fiat, then go ahead and GM fiat. Deities are not going to interfere with mortals to that extent.
I didn't necessarily say it was easy; Tippy used getting an artifact for Vecna in exchange for preventing the Wizard's divinations from detecting the party's activities as one entire adventure arc for the party. I was assuming that was an acceptable parameter for what qualified as an 'adventure' for his estimation of 20-30 adventures needed to take out the wizard. I'm just wondering what defenses would need to be bypassed after finding the wizard that would take the party another 18-28 adventures to get around.

[Malachei]

Deities are not going to interfere with mortals to that extent.

Now that is fiat.

[Flickerdart]

Now that is fiat.
Um, no. "A hugely powerful being allows you the use of its immense powers" is fiat. "A god doesn't care about the daily lives of mortals" is the default.

[Emperor Tippy]

I didn't necessarily say it was easy; Tippy used getting an artifact for Vecna in exchange for preventing the Wizard's divinations from detecting the party's activities as one entire adventure arc for the party. I was assuming that was an acceptable parameter for what qualified as an 'adventure' for his estimation of 20-30 adventures needed to take out the wizard. I'm just wondering what defenses would need to be bypassed after finding the wizard that would take the party another 18-28 adventures to get around.

1: Learning that there was a threat in the first place. (came as part of an adventure to stop a minion of the BBEG acquiring an object he needed that the PC's got involved in preventing, at the end they found out that there was a BBEG)
2: Learning who the BBEG was and what his end goal was. (this was mostly a political and tracking adventure with the players tracking down clues from adventure 1 and investigating, included a couple encounters in ancient ruins to gain some ancient information).
3: Vecna blocking divination so that the PC's could take active steps to stop the BBEG without him finding out with divination's (involved recovering an artifact from a demon lord)
4: Finding out how to stop the BBEG's ritual (involved multiple encounters across the planes)
5: Investigating the BBEG's entire history (involved the kidnapping of one of his Similcarum, breaking it's defenses while under constant attack by most of the BBEG's army that was being wished in every few rounds, using Mindrape on it, using Mindrape on the party Psion to dump all the information to him, and having the party Psion use my modified version of the save game trick to pick up the memories in the past without the BBEG ever being the wiser)
6: Using the information gained from step 5 to delay the BBEG's plans as long as possible while we worked on a counter to him (again, multiple encounters; mostly stealthy sabotage type missions)
7: Going back in time over a thousand years to tweak the BBEG's versions of Simulacrum and Ice Assassin (there existence actually became a closed time loop as the PC's "invented" the spells) so that they had a critical flaw and could all be destroyed at once. (again multiple encounters and missions in this adventure)
8: Getting an artifact that would utterly destroy every version of the person it's used against that exists and time lock their personal timeline across the entire multiverse (multiple encounters and missions involved).
9: Finding the portal in Sigil needed to get to his demiplane and then shutting down any ability to leave it so long as at least one of the party members lived. (multiple encounters and missions involved)
10: Fighting our way across the BBEG's personal demiplane before fighting and killing him.

Everyone of those ten adventures involved an average of three missions and six encounters. In story it took approximately 5 years on the characters personal time lines, and the after effects caused one of the largest wars in the recorded history of the planes (it was really not a good thing when every single Ice Assassin and Simulacrum in existence promptly fell apart and couldn't be recreated until the PC's turned off the artifact that they had made in the past when they "invented" the spells).

You will note how much "DM fiat" was involved in fighting and defeating the BBEG wizard, that's because if you go by RAW it's not really possible to do. That game also played with restrictions on just how broken you could go (no-one was allowed to become an Aleax for example).

[Malachei]

Um, no. "A hugely powerful being allows you the use of its immense powers" is fiat. "A god doesn't care about the daily lives of mortals" is the default.

That is RAI ;) IMO, the default is not defined in the RAW.

Also, more seriously: Your mortal is trying hard to become a god or messes with your solars or your high priests or your favorite worshiper or your demigod son or... Plenty of reasons, really.

Saying he does not get involved is fiat, just as saying he gets involved is.

[Flickerdart]

That is RAI ;) IMO, the default is not defined in the RAW.

Also, more seriously: Your mortal is trying hard to become a god or messes with your solars or your high priests or your favorite worshiper or your demigod son or... Plenty of reasons, really.

Saying he does not get involved is fiat, just as saying he gets involved is.
The default assumption of any situation is that you can't just go to the gods and get them to do it. Otherwise there would be no game.

[The Crash Man]

To be fair, if the fate of the planes are at stake and for some reason the gods are powerless to intervene, having them grant their favor to the party might actually make for a pretty awesome plot.

As for the argument of TO vs. PO, TO should never see the light of day in a game unless everyone knows what they're getting into. If somebody brought Pun-Pun or a Jumplomancer to a normal DnD table, they'd probably be kicked out in seconds. PO, on the other hand, is a blurrier line.

The group should adjust to each other's optimization levels, I feel. You don't make an Abjurant Champion or ubercharger in the same party as a Vow of Poverty monk. Give those who don't know optimization advice, but at the same time don't dramatically overshadow them. And if you just can't help going full-out PO at least make a DFI bard or something, so you'll be building everyone else up in the process.

[Fable Wright]

Out of curiosity, for the DMs in the thread, given the situation of the extremely optimized wizard Emporer Tippy described, how would you handle a Wish to transport travelers adjacent to the wizard? (Phrasing it as "I Wish to be transported within 10ft of the Wizard who this simulacrum was modeled after.")

[nedz]

Deities are not going to interfere with mortals to that extent.
Now that is fiat.
Fiat if he does, Fiat if he doesn't.
So DM's can't escape Fiat then ?


Out of curiosity, for the DMs in the thread, given the situation of the extremely optimized wizard Emporer Tippy described, how would you handle a Wish to transport travelers adjacent to the wizard? (Phrasing it as "I Wish to be transported within 10ft of the Wizard who this simulacrum was modeled after.")
Sounds reasonable especially since you have part of the person; though not by emulating Greater Teleport. It could go very wrong however.
Hopefully the DM knows exactly where the Wizard is at that precise moment, or fiat will occur. I suspect that fiat is likely because of this.

Wish is the mightiest spell a wizard or sorcerer can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter reality to better suit you.

Even wish, however, has its limits.

A wish can produce any one of the following effects.

Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
Duplicate any other spell of 6th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 7th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
Duplicate any other spell of 5th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
Undo the harmful effects of many other spells, such as geas/quest or insanity.
Create a nonmagical item of up to 25,000 gp in value.
Create a magic item, or add to the powers of an existing magic item.
Grant a creature a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score. Two to five wish spells cast in immediate succession can grant a creature a +2 to +5 inherent bonus to an ability score (two wishes for a +2 inherent bonus, three for a +3 inherent bonus, and so on). Inherent bonuses are instantaneous, so they cannot be dispelled. Note: An inherent bonus may not exceed +5 for a single ability score, and inherent bonuses to a particular ability score do not stack, so only the best one applies.
Remove injuries and afflictions. A single wish can aid one creature per caster level, and all subjects are cured of the same kind of affliction. For example, you could heal all the damage you and your companions have taken, or remove all poison effects from everyone in the party, but not do both with the same wish. A wish can never restore the experience point loss from casting a spell or the level or Constitution loss from being raised from the dead.
Revive the dead. A wish can bring a dead creature back to life by duplicating a resurrection spell. A wish can revive a dead creature whose body has been destroyed, but the task takes two wishes, one to recreate the body and another to infuse the body with life again. A wish cannot prevent a character who was brought back to life from losing an experience level.
Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.
Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event. The wish forces a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a wish could undo an opponent’s successful save, a foe’s successful critical hit (either the attack roll or the critical roll), a friend’s failed save, and so on. The reroll, however, may be as bad as or worse than the original roll. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.

Bolded section is relevant.

This spell functions like teleport, except that there is no range limit and there is no chance you arrive off target. In addition, you need not have seen the destination, but in that case you must have at least a reliable description of the place to which you are teleporting. If you attempt to teleport with insufficient information (or with misleading information), you disappear and simply reappear in your original location. Interplanar travel is not possible.
The spell is location dependant, and is not keyed to a specific person.

[Shadowknight12]

Out of curiosity, for the DMs in the thread, given the situation of the extremely optimized wizard Emporer Tippy described, how would you handle a Wish to transport travelers adjacent to the wizard? (Phrasing it as "I Wish to be transported within 10ft of the Wizard who this simulacrum was modeled after.")

Automatically bypasses any defences the wizard might have set in place against uninvited guests, unless they are specifically crafted using Contingencies or Craft Contingent Spells versus Wish. Effectively, it is as if reality is rewritten so that the traveller has always been there. Traveller gains a surprise round, unless wizard has Foresight or is similarly immune to surprise. Nothing is triggered upon "entry" or "arrival" but other effects (such as auras) will trigger normally starting from the moment Initiative is rolled.

[Flickerdart]

Effectively, it is as if reality is rewritten so that the traveller has always been there... Nothing is triggered upon "entry" or "arrival" but other effects (such as auras) will trigger normally starting from the moment Initiative is rolled.
[citation needed]

Wish explicitly moves the people, which means that they do indeed "arrive" and "enter".

[Shadowknight12]

[citation needed]

Wish explicitly moves the people, which means that they do indeed "arrive" and "enter".


Wish is the mightiest spell a wizard or sorcerer can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter reality to better suit you.

Emphasis mine.

[Flickerdart]

Emphasis mine.
Uh, yeah. You alter reality by picking people up and moving them. You don't change the past. They still arrive at their destination.

[nedz]

Wish is the mightiest spell a wizard or sorcerer can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter reality to better suit you.Emphasis mine.

Well there are situations; say, the target has used a Wish to alter reality to better suit him; but they would have to be a paranoid wizard to do that.

There are many other situations too which could cause embarassment to the uninvited guests, ending up in a block of stone being the most obvous risk.

[Shadowknight12]

Uh, yeah. You alter reality by picking people up and moving them. You don't change the past. They still arrive at their destination.

That would duplicate a Plane Shift or Teleport spell. Clearly that's not the case. By RAW, Wish only does two things, either it duplicates a spell or it rewrites reality.

[Flickerdart]

That would duplicate a Plane Shift or Teleport spell. Clearly that's not the case. By RAW, Wish only does two things, either it duplicates a spell or it rewrites reality.
No, because that's not how Plane Shift or Teleport work. They have their own mechanics. Wish transports travellers. That's what the option is even called. What you're suggesting isn't transporting, but some kind of weird alternate universe thing.

[Water_Bear]

Effectively, it is as if reality is rewritten so that the traveller has always been there.


By RAW, Wish only does two things, either it duplicates a spell or it rewrites reality.

I'm not sure about that. The Transports Travelers part, by definition involves Transport of people who can be called Travelers. It's a little pedantic I know, but that seems to imply they are actually being moved to their destination, rather than having always been there.

I'm also always hesitant about magic which alters the past. There are a lot of ways your interpretation could cause headaches for a DM without a clear set of time-travel rules.

[Shadowknight12]

No, because that's not how Plane Shift or Teleport work. They have their own mechanics. Wish transports travellers. That's what the option is even called. What you're suggesting isn't transporting, but some kind of weird alternate universe thing.

What? No. I never said that. I said it alters reality. Yes, the travellers are being transported since that's what an observer sees (They used to be in Point A, now they're point B), but that doesn't mean that they actually arrive anywhere.


I'm not sure about that. The Transports Travelers part, by definition involves Transport of people who can be called Travelers. It's a little pedantic I know, but that seems to imply they are actually being moved to their destination, rather than having always been there.

I'm also always hesitant about magic which alters the past. There are a lot of ways your interpretation could cause headaches for a DM without a clear set of time-travel rules.

Where are you getting this "altering the past" thing? Or time travel? The heck? Wish literally alters reality. It's what the spell says. This transportation does not happen because it emulates a spell, so clearly the only way it happens is that it rewrites reality so that the traveller(s) simply "is" there when the spell is completed. He does not "arrive" per se.

[Flickerdart]

A person disappears from place A and appears at place B. Looks a whole lot like arriving and departing to me.

[Shadowknight12]

A person disappears from place A and appears at place B. Looks a whole lot like arriving and departing to me.

It does not "appear" per se. To me, it just "is" there when the spell is cast. The way I see it, Wish does not alter or affect or move the traveller, but everything else. It's like that spaceship that flies by moving the rest of the universe around it. It's not applicable to say that the traveller arrives anywhere, you ought to say that reality arrives to the traveller.

[Flickerdart]

It does not "appear" per se. To me, it just "is" there when the spell is cast. The way I see it, Wish does not alter or affect or move the traveller, but everything else. It's like that spaceship that flies by moving the rest of the universe around it. It's not applicable to say that the traveller arrives anywhere, you ought to say that reality arrives to the traveller.
It's a shame that the spell explicitly states it transports travellers, not reality.

[Shadowknight12]

It's a shame that the spell explicitly states it transports travellers, not reality.

How can you transport reality? That makes no sense.

[Flickerdart]

How can you transport reality? That makes no sense.
And yet that's what you're saying it does.

[Shadowknight12]

And yet that's what you're saying it does.

No, I am saying travellers are transported by altering reality. Anything else I've said have been examples and analogies to help understand my point of view.

[Flickerdart]

Right, but they're still transported, which involves arrival and departure.

[Shadowknight12]

Right, but they're still transported, which involves arrival and departure.

The problem here is that I must agree and disagree with you simultaneously. Yes, speaking in plain terms, you're right. However, when it comes to rules, Wish does not mention arrival or departure, and specifically calls out to altering reality as its method of accomplishing its tasks (save, of course, when it comes to duplicating another spell), so I would rule that any effects that are triggered when creatures arrive or depart are bypassed when using transportation via Wish.

[Water_Bear]

Wish does not mention arrival or departure, and specifically calls out to altering reality as its method of accomplishing its tasks (save, of course, when it comes to duplicating another spell), so I would rule that any effects that are triggered when creatures arrive or depart are bypassed when using transportation via Wish.

I think I understand your reasoning better now. Initially you had said something like Wish changes reality so that "they had always been there" which is why I thought you meant time-travel or creation of an alternate universe.

So in essence this boils down to a semantics issue; if they move from Point A to Point B then they can Arrive, but if they aren't moving then they can't Arrive even if they appear in that location. A Contingency's trigger based on when or if someone Arrives in the specified location would indeed depend on the resolution of this issue.

My opinion, as I've posted before, is that you should always try to read the rules as natural speech, and allow minor phrasing errors or ambiguities to be made clear through context clues. With that method of reading the spell description it is clear that they are indeed Arriving, because that is the best English word to describe the state of suddenly being in a new location.

[Shadowknight12]

I think I understand your reasoning better now. Initially you had said something like Wish changes reality so that "they had always been there" which is why I thought you meant time-travel or creation of an alternate universe.

So in essence this boils down to a semantics issue; if they move from Point A to Point B then they can Arrive, but if they aren't moving then they can't Arrive even if they appear in that location. A Contingency's trigger based on when or if someone Arrives in the specified location would indeed depend on the resolution of this issue.

My opinion, as I've posted before, is that you should always try to read the rules as natural speech, and allow minor phrasing errors or ambiguities to be made clear through context clues. With that method of reading the spell description it is clear that they are indeed Arriving, because that is the best English word to describe the state of suddenly being in a new location.

That's correct. I do not believe the travellers are actually moving (even if they are being transported), so they cannot actually arrive or depart. It's like turning your head away from an empty train track, then turning your head back and finding a train on the tracks. Did it arrive? Did it depart from somewhere else? I'd have to say no.

Having said that, I happen to have a polar opposite opinion from you. I am fluent in two languages and I can read another five (but don't ask me to interpret spoken words), so I have some experience when it comes to how languages work. And let me tell you, languages are treacherous and untrustworthy. People are even more untrustworthy, because they will take something inherently tricky (language) and then proceed to make their own interpretations of it, further muddying the issue.

My personal tactic is to turn rules as computer-like and logical as possible, to avoid discussions and different interpretations.