Need help increasing my Barbarian's AC

[quark12000]

Playing DnD 3.5. Any help is appreciated.

[emeraldstreak]

Playing DnD 3.5. Any help is appreciated.

Is there anything set about your Barbarian yet?

How much? Coz it becomes gamebreaking* after a certain point.

*unless you'll be facing optimized enemies

[quark12000]

Don't really understand what you're asking. He's level 9 and AC currently is 15.

[emeraldstreak]

Don't really understand what you're asking. He's level 9 and AC currently is 15.

Level and race. Also, do you have casters in your party (or Use Magic Device users) who will be willing to buff your AC with the right spells?

[Nifft]

We know nothing about the choices you've made, so it's difficult to tell you which ones could be improved.

Post your character.

[quark12000]

Level 9 Half-orc Barbarian

Str 20
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 10
Cha 10


My party has a Wizard, Druid, 2 Rogues, Fighter and Cleric. What else would you like to know?

[Razade]

Level 9 Half-orc Barbarian

Str 20
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 10
Cha 10


My party has a Wizard, Druid, 2 Rogues, Fighter and Cleric. What else would you like to know?

Literally everything else. Feats? Skills? What can your party do to help increase your AC? What armor are you wearing. Any magical items yet? I mean like...anything. Anything and everything about your character build.

[Nifft]

Feat choices, class levels (if they're not all Barbarian), your magical equipment, and your current treasure budget.

Also, house rules in effect, and what sources you're allowed to use for your character.

Also also: do the Wizard / Cleric / Druid have any item-crafting feats?

Are the Wizard / Cleric / Druid the sort of people who would buff you?

[quark12000]

Okay,

Feats - Weapon Focus - Greataxe, Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Overrun.
Skills - Climb, Intimidate, Jump, Listen, Wilderness Lore.
Armor - Chain shirt
Magical item - +1 Greataxe

[Fizban]

Don't for get weapon choice and personal preferences. 'Cause otherwise I'm just gonna tell you to use a shield. Also you should just use a shield.

Does your DM allow retraining of some sort? That's where the sources come in, because basic rage gives you an AC penalty, while there's more powerful alternate rages that increase it instead.

Edit: ah, well there's your first problem, all you have is a +1 weapon. You should have about eighteen times as many gp worth of magic items at this level. Which would be enough to afford a slew of +2 armor, +2 shield, +2 dex, +1 ring of protection, +1 amulet of natural armor.

If your DM isn't giving out magic items, your AC is going to be terrible, period. That actually does create the situation where it's better to ignore it and just pump hp and ask for Blur and Displacement spells for miss chances.

[quark12000]

Feat choices, class levels (if they're not all Barbarian), your magical equipment, and your current treasure budget.

Also, house rules in effect, and what sources you're allowed to use for your character.

Also also: do the Wizard / Cleric / Druid have any item-crafting feats?

Are the Wizard / Cleric / Druid the sort of people who would buff you?

We have a good bit of wealth, but that doesn't really help. The wizard can brew potions and craft rods, but that's not a help as we're in the middle of a massive dungeon. All the players are friendly.

[tyckspoon]

The vast majority of your AC will or should be coming from items. At higher levels, mostly magic items or magically buffed items. This means you need your DM to be following or at least trying to come somewhere close to the Wealth By Level guides, and also either deliberately placing useful/usable items or providing opportunities for your party to spend their treasure to buy what they need. An AC of 15 at level 9 suggests you have either been completely ignoring AC items, or you have next to no character wealth.. if it's the second, that is something to bring up with your DM. There isn't a lot you can easily do to gain AC without items.

What you should probably have at Level 9, at a minimum:
A Ring of Protection +1
An Amulet of Natural Armor +1
Breastplate or Chainmail +2(same AC bonus, differences in ACP and Dex mod cap. You don't have enough Dex to care too much about the difference.)

that would yield an AC of 19, +1 for Dex mod, for a total of 20. Still low for the level, but that's bargain-basement stuff. Add a shield if you want (the shield should have the same enhancement as your armor) for another +3 or 4, but you probably prefer two-handing a weapon for the classic smashy Barbarian and would want to put the rest of the equipment budget you don't actually have into Strength and weapon bonuses.

Edit: Yup, your problem is you're dramatically undergeared for your level. This is probably not fixable without your DM doing something to help you out - non-magic using characters in D&D rely almost entirely on items to get their basic numbers (stats, saves, AC, attack rolls, etc) where the system expects them to be, and there isn't a ton feat or class selection can do to paper over that. The Rogues and Fighter are probably experiencing similar problems. Note that at 9th level 5th level spells are available to your casters, which means it takes heavier and heavier DM or world controls to stop you from just taking a day off from the dungeon to go shopping thanks to effects like Teleport and Transmute Rock To Mud - it's at the point where your DM either has to railroad you into playing the 'you have no resources, good luck' game he apparently wants or yield and let you go buy the stuff you need.

..you wouldn't happen to be in World's Largest Dungeon, by chance? It's rather notoriously player-unfriendly in a rather heavy-handed fashion.

[quark12000]

Don't for get weapon choice and personal preferences. 'Cause otherwise I'm just gonna tell you to use a shield. Also you should just use a shield.

Does your DM allow retraining of some sort? That's where the sources come in, because basic rage gives you an AC penalty, while there's more powerful alternate rages that increase it instead.

We only have the basic books. Can't use a shield with the greataxe.

[quark12000]

The vast majority of your AC will or should be coming from items. At higher levels, mostly magic items or magically buffed items. This means you need your DM to be following or at least trying to come somewhere close to the Wealth By Level guides, and also either deliberately placing useful/usable items or providing opportunities for your party to spend their treasure to buy what they need. An AC of 15 at level 9 suggests you have either been completely ignoring AC items, or you have next to no character wealth.. if it's the second, that is something to bring up with your DM. There isn't a lot you can easily do to gain AC without items.

What you should probably have at Level 9, at a minimum:
A Ring of Protection +1
An Amulet of Natural Armor +1
Breastplate or Chainmail +2(same AC bonus, differences in ACP and Dex mod cap. You don't have enough Dex to care too much about the difference.)

that would yield an AC of 19, +1 for Dex mod, for a total of 20. Still low for the level, but that's bargain-basement stuff. Add a shield if you want (the shield should have the same enhancement as your armor) for another +3 or 4, but you probably prefer two-handing a weapon for the classic smashy Barbarian.

Don't have any of that stuff. As I said, we have a lot of money, just no where to spend it. Shops don't sell magic items.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Tell the Wizard to cast (Lesser Rod of Extended) (Greater) Mage Armor on you every day, or have the Wizard or Druid or Cleric cast (Extended) (Greater) Luminous Armor on you every day.

Otherwise, get some decent medium armor. You have Dex 12, so the max dex bonus of your armor shouldn't matter. Breastplate or Mithral Full Plate is good, if you can afford it. Have the Cleric cast (Lesser Rod of Extended) Magic Vestment on your armor every day to make it +2. Ideally, he can cast Magic Vestment on the (Greater) Mage Armor or (Greater) Luminous Armor effect to further enhance it.

Have the Druid cast Barkskin on you.
Have the Cleric cast Shield of Faith on you.
Have someone cast Cat's Grace on you.

Try to get a +1 Animated heavy shield. Once the party is level 12+ you should get the Cleric to cast (Lesser Rod of Extended) Magic Vestment on that every day as well to make it +3.



At your current level:
Dexterity +1, or +3 with Cat's Grace for 9 minutes or 90 rounds.
Breastplate, Magic Vestment +2: +7 Armor
+1 Animated Heavy Shield: +3 Shield
Barkskin, 90 minutes (three hours Extended): +4 Natural
Shield of Faith, 9 minutes or 90 rounds: +3 Deflection
Rage: -2
Total AC: 26, or 28 with Cat's Grace.

[Fizban]

New thread so fast.

So you're in a megadungeon and the DM is just giving you straight cash instead of the items you're going to need? That's pretty bad form. If you're allowed to leave the dungeon, get the heck out and go buy some better gear.

Either way, if you're a core barbarian using a two-handed weapon, you just can't expect your AC to ever be that effective. Don't leave it at zero, but with a -2 from rage and no shield you're just gonna get hit a lot.

Edit again: ah, your DM doesn't allow magic item mart. In that case you're going to need to retcon one of your casters into having Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Wondrous Item (and probably Forge Ring too). The cleric is a solid bet. If one caster doesn't have the spell you need to make an item, they can work together with the other spellcasters to supply that spell, but you still need at least one person with the feats.

[emeraldstreak]

Level 9 Half-orc Barbarian

Str 20
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 10
Cha 10


My party has a Wizard, Druid, 2 Rogues, Fighter and Cleric. What else would you like to know?

That's enough for me. Here are some options:


This involved the assistance of your Wizard, Druid, and Cleric (and theoretically the rogues for really obscure spells or psionics, but those aren't really needed).

You buy them Pearls of Power or scrolls or wands of the spells you'll need, and they buff you with them. You don't waste their gold, only a bit of their time.

Common buffs include:
- Alter Self (humanoids with higher natural armor than the Half-Orc's zero, aim for at least +6, there are good guides on that)
- Barkskin (enhancement natural bonus armor that stacks with natural armor)
- Shield of Faith (deflection)
- a spell that gives Insight bonus to AC (depends on the books you use)
- Greater Luminous Armor (this is from Book of Exalted Deeds and quite powerful and includes -4 penalty on melee attacks on top of the armor AC; it also allows your character to not wear armor at all and so use Cat's Grace without worrying about. It does cause damage to the caster, so buy a wand of Lesser Restoration to compensate him)



For a Barbarian, that would be a mithral Full Plate (counts as medium) with whatever enhancement bonus you can get, as well as Amulet of natural armor and Ring of deflection. None of these are cost particularly effective. (Also, presuming you are two-hand fighting as you should be).



If casters won't help even if you pay for the buffs, you can still Alter Self with a Spelltouched feat from Unearthed Arcana. There are other such ways, like Dragonmark that gives you Shield, potions with the spell buffs above, psionic tattoo with Force Screen. But that's just average...

Better multiclass as Cleric with the Magic domain for just one level, now you can use all Cleric and Wizard wands and low-level scrolls with great odds for success. Hello buffs (including Personal range ones like Shield and non-AC ones like Flight)




This involves buying Spellcasting Service in a metropolis for Polymorph Any Object (and permanently becoming something with far more natural armor than puny HalfOrcs...or at least as long as the spell lasts) or race-changing shenanigans so that you become a race far better suited for high AC than Orcs. Not for the faint of heart (DMs included).

[quark12000]

I can't wear Medium Armor, can I?

Mage Armor wouldn't help. What is 'Luminous Armor'? What does (Extended)(Greater)(Lesser Rod of Extended) mean? Not familiar with that.

[emeraldstreak]

I can't wear Medium Armor, can I?

Mage Armor wouldn't help. What is 'Luminous Armor'? What does (Extended)(Greater)(Lesser Rod of Extended) mean? Not familiar with that.

Of course you can wear Medium Armor, reread Barbarian Player's Handbook entry.

Greater Mage Armor, Luminous Armor, and Greater Luminous Armor are like Mage Armor, but better. They are not from the Player's Handbook though.

[Fizban]

You can wear medium armor, it just reduces your speed- but you keep the fast movement bonus, so your speed in medium armor is still 30'.

The (extended) stuff is about a magic item that you probably don't have, Metamagic Rods that let casters use metamagic feats for free- they're in the 3.5 DMG but all you guys have is cash. Luminous Armor is a spell that you probably don't have, because it's in Book of Exalted Deeds.


Now, if your DM doesn't want you guys changing your feats (even though you're trying to fix their mistake), then there's a slightly more advanced trick you can do, core-only, though it will still require the DM to cooperate with you:

First, you need your DM to agree that magic items can be bought and sold on other planes, you know where all the angels and demons and whatnot live. Your Cleric can cast the spell Lesser Planar Ally. This calls a creature to the material plane so you can bargain with it to have it work for you: its really there, it takes any items that you give it home when the service is done, and any items it brings with it can be given away. So you call up a trustworthy outsider, preferably a Hound Archon. You negotiate a deal for it to take a pile of cash and return home, buy you guys a bunch of magic items, and then you'll cast Lesser Planar Ally again to bring it back to the material plane and hand of the items (at which point it recieves its payment for doing the shopping for you).

It doesn't really matter how the DM wants to charge it (some flat rate, some percentage of the transaction, whatever), as long as they'll let you fix the problem they've created by only giving you cash instead of the magic items you need to compete with monsters as you level up. Casting the spell twice will cost your Cleric 100xp and you'll be paying market price rather than crafting price, but this is the fastest and easiest way to fix the problem.

[emeraldstreak]

So you're in a megadungeon and the DM is just giving you straight cash instead of the items you're going to need? That's pretty bad form.

Agreed.

If the DM intends to keep it that way...well, it's possible to take Heavy Armor Proficiency and wear full plate (Dex is lowish anyway) for a net gain of 4 AC...however, he's level 9, already took a feat, and level 12 is a long way away.

Frankly, it would be better to multiclass, or outright reroll as a Druid built for no items game.

[quark12000]

Of course you can wear Medium Armor, reread Barbarian Player's Handbook entry.

Greater Mage Armor, Luminous Armor, and Greater Luminous Armor are like Mage Armor, but better. They are not from the Player's Handbook though.

If they are armor bonuses like Mage Armor, I can't see how they'd help.

[quark12000]

You can wear medium armor, it just reduces your speed- but you keep the fast movement bonus, so your speed in medium armor is still 30'.

The (extended) stuff is about a magic item that you probably don't have, Metamagic Rods that let casters use metamagic feats for free- they're in the 3.5 DMG but all you guys have is cash. Luminous Armor is a spell that you probably don't have, because it's in Book of Exalted Deeds.


Now, if your DM doesn't want you guys changing your feats (even though you're trying to fix their mistake), then there's a slightly more advanced trick you can do, core-only, though it will still require the DM to cooperate with you:

First, you need your DM to agree that magic items can be bought and sold on other planes, you know where all the angels and demons and whatnot live. Your Cleric can cast the spell Lesser Planar Ally. This calls a creature to the material plane so you can bargain with it to have it work for you: its really there, it takes any items that you give it home when the service is done, and any items it brings with it can be given away. So you call up a trustworthy outsider, preferably a Hound Archon. You negotiate a deal for it to take a pile of cash and return home, buy you guys a bunch of magic items, and then you'll cast Lesser Planar Ally again to bring it back to the material plane and hand of the items (at which point it recieves its payment for doing the shopping for you).

It doesn't really matter how the DM wants to charge it (some flat rate, some percentage of the transaction, whatever), as long as they'll let you fix the problem they've created by only giving you cash instead of the magic items you need to compete with monsters as you level up. Casting the spell twice will cost your Cleric 100xp and you'll be paying market price rather than crafting price, but this is the fastest and easiest way to fix the problem.

We don't really use (or understand) the Metamagic stuff.

The DM gives us stuff, but the armor we've gotten is mostly low level magic that he can't use. I was sure Barbarians could only wear light armor. Are you sure?

[Fizban]

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

A barbarian is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, light armor, medium armor, and shields (except tower shields).

Fast Movement (Ex)

A barbarian’s land speed is faster than the norm for his race by +10 feet. This benefit applies only when he is wearing no armor, light armor, or medium armor and not carrying a heavy load. Apply this bonus before modifying the barbarian’s speed because of any load carried or armor worn.
Nothing in the barbarian entry restricts them to light armor man.

The bigger problem is that medium armor isn't actually worth it, because the best medium armor is only +5, while chain shirt is +4. Whoever wrote that table makes me rage.

[quark12000]

So he can wear medium armor and still have fast movement? Nice!

[quark12000]

Nothing in the barbarian entry restricts them to light armor man.

The bigger problem is that medium armor isn't actually worth it, because the best medium armor is only +5, while chain shirt is +4. Whoever wrote that table makes me rage.

Well, 16 is better than 15!

[Fizban]

You keep fast movement but you still take the armor's speed penalty, so you move at 30', not the 40' you've been moving at.

[quark12000]

You keep fast movement but you still take the armor's speed penalty, so you move at 30', not the 40' you've been moving at.

Ah, that's not good.

[quark12000]

Well, thanks for the help for this newcomer! Barkskin will help, and Cat's Grace to a lesser extent. Probably won't last for most encounters, but it'll help.

[Rebel7284]

Mithral Full plate is medium armor because of how Mithral works.

Also, if you can get Cloak of Displacement, Minor, that would help a fair amount.

[DMVerdandi]

PHB only?

LOL, SD yourself and recreate a druid as your character's older brother. Never turn back.
Pick up natural spell, and just buff yourself with things that give you natural attacks.

[weckar]

Now, now. Let's not get mean. If the table is as unoptimised as the OP is making it seem, a straight Barbarian is perfectly viable.

You mention you got armor, but can't use it. What exactly DID you get?

[quark12000]

PHB only?

LOL, SD yourself and recreate a druid as your character's older brother. Never turn back.
Pick up natural spell, and just buff yourself with things that give you natural attacks.

Yes, we use the player's handbook. We have a lot of books for Pathfinder, but DnD just the basic books (PHB, MM, DMG).

What does SD mean?

[quark12000]

Now, now. Let's not get mean. If the table is as unoptimised as the OP is making it seem, a straight Barbarian is perfectly viable.

You mention you got armor, but can't use it. What exactly DID you get?

First of all, what do you mean 'unoptimised'? Not familiar with that term.

Magic armor-wise we've gotten a couple +1 shields which my character can't use +1 Chainmail, which I now know he could use but that load of treasure is back in town and we now seem to be under time constraints, and Full plate and Half plate, both +1.

Oh, by the way, we're doing the Temple of Elemental Evil if that helps.

[quark12000]

Mithral Full plate is medium armor because of how Mithral works.

Also, if you can get Cloak of Displacement, Minor, that would help a fair amount.

I've never seen any mithral, either for sale or as treasure. I've never seen any magic items for sale.

[haplot]

Is it possible for you to swap your str and con scores at all? So you can stack hp rather than ac.

Also would having a con of 20 give you access to the toughness feats, one of them gives damage reduction. Cant remember name of it off top of head, but you need a high con score for it.

If you've just got the basic books, would your DM allow you to use the monster manual feats?

Oh and for extra hitting and staying power, and youve got the room, enlarge person

[quark12000]

Is it possible for you to swap your str and con scores at all? So you can stack hp rather than ac.

Also would having a con of 20 give you access to the toughness feats, one of them gives damage reduction. Cant remember name of it off top of head, but you need a high con score for it.

If you've just got the basic books, would your DM allow you to use the monster manual feats?

Oh and for extra hitting and staying power, and youve got the room, enlarge person

The answer to both those questions would, and should, be no.

[ViperMagnum357]

I've never seen any mithral, either for sale or as treasure. I've never seen any magic items for sale.

So...you are going through a dungeon and collecting treasure, mostly GP or equivalent, but you have no place to spend it? Your DM needs to make some alterations to the campaign. 3/3.5 is balanced against wealth by level-the encounters you face assume you will be able to gain a certain amount of treasure, then turn that treasure into magic items useful to your character. While there are a few campaigns that do not have regular markets, like The World's Largest Dungeon, such modules are specifically designed to compensate with traders within as well as strongly tilting loot towards magic items useful to most classes.

The entire system is built around increasing your power through magic items, most of which the majority of classes are expected to buy with cash. If your DM is not allowing you to do that, the entire system is tilted heavily against the PCs and will dramatically worsen as you increase in level. This sounds like a DM problem, not an AC problem.

[quark12000]

So...you are going through a dungeon and collecting treasure, mostly GP or equivalent, but you have no place to spend it? Your DM needs to make some alterations to the campaign. 3/3.5 is balanced against wealth by level-the encounters you face assume you will be able to gain a certain amount of treasure, then turn that treasure into magic items useful to your character. While there are a few campaigns that do not have regular markets, like The World's Largest Dungeon, such modules are specifically designed to compensate with traders within as well as strongly tilting loot towards magic items useful to most classes.

The entire system is built around increasing your power through magic items, most of which the majority of classes are expected to buy with cash. If your DM is not allowing you to do that, the entire system is tilted heavily against the PCs and will dramatically worsen as you increase in level. This sounds like a DM problem, not an AC problem.

I'm pretty sure she's following the module as written. The party hasn't really been to any big cities, where I assume the magic items are sold, just small towns. Like I said earlier, there seems to be a time constraint involved here, and it takes a week to get to the nearest town, so the party only leaves the dungeon when it's absolutely necessary.

[ViperMagnum357]

I'm pretty sure she's following the module as written. The party hasn't really been to any big cities, where I assume the magic items are sold, just small towns. Like I said earlier, there seems to be a time constraint involved here, and it takes a week to get to the nearest town, so the party only leaves the dungeon when it's absolutely necessary.

Leaving a Dungeon and coming back better equipped is standard practice for adventuring parties-and based on your equipment, it is time to spend some cash. The DMG has guidelines for this-there is supposed to be downtime between adventures, and especially after gaining a level-in game, this represents time spent acclimating to new abilities and getting settled. Also includes things like Wizards learning and scribing the bonus spells they get at each level, Clerics in prayer and meditation as they connection to the Divine increases, and so on. Marathon dungeon crawls can happen, but the module needs to be specifically set up for it, and it sounds like it is not-most published adventures have numerous sidebars suggesting good breakpoints for the party to recuperate and spend cash ahead of the next slog.

The first half of the DMG has a lot of world building, and more importantly explains the systems for the game-every player should read at least the first half of the book and be able to recall the gist. Also, BTW, there are no prohibitions against PCs using feats out of the Monster Manual, or anywhere, really. Obviously rule 0, but very few things are specifically not for PCs as a rule-monsters without LA being the big one.

[quark12000]

Leaving a Dungeon and coming back better equipped is standard practice for adventuring parties-and based on your equipment, it is time to spend some cash. The DMG has guidelines for this-there is supposed to be downtime between adventures, and especially after gaining a level-in game, this represents time spent acclimating to new abilities and getting settled. Also includes things like Wizards learning and scribing the bonus spells they get at each level, Clerics in prayer and meditation as they connection to the Divine increases, and so on. Marathon dungeon crawls can happen, but the module needs to be specifically set up for it, and it sounds like it is not-most published adventures have numerous sidebars suggesting good breakpoints for the party to recuperate and spend cash ahead of the next slog.

The first half of the DMG has a lot of world building, and more importantly explains the systems for the game-every player should read at least the first half of the book and be able to recall the gist. Also, BTW, there are no prohibitions against PCs using feats out of the Monster Manual, or anywhere, really. Obviously rule 0, but very few things are specifically not for PCs as a rule-monsters without LA being the big one.

Like I said, this is the Temple of Elemental Evil, a published module. Not sure what you mean by downtime between adventures, we've been working on this dungeon for a long while. When the characters level up, we just update our character sheets.

I'm sorry, but you'll have to explain that last sentence to me. What do "Obviously rule O" and "monsters without LA" mean? I didn't know there are feats in the MM, but aren't they just for monsters?

[ViperMagnum357]

Like I said, this is the Temple of Elemental Evil, a published module. Not sure what you mean by downtime between adventures, we've been working on this dungeon for a long while. When the characters level up, we just update our character sheets.

I'm sorry, but you'll have to explain that last sentence to me. What do "Obviously rule O" and "monsters without LA" mean? I didn't know there are feats in the MM, but aren't they just for monsters?

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest this is 'Return to The Temple of Elemental Evil', a module that very specifically takes place over a long period of time and has 3 settlements within walking distance-one with a 40,000 GP limit-and the 4th page on the intro specifically mentions this adventure is predicated on the group frequently leaving and coming back with better equipment-even suggesting to gloss over trips to town to keep the action going. If your DM is not allowing you to leave by fiat, that is a problem to discuss.

'Rule 0' means what the DM says, goes, when there is a something not spelled out by the rules-usually, this refers to the DM picking the books/content in the campaign, and coming up with ad-hoc adjustments on the fly for unusual situations. And there is no restriction on feats unless the DM explicitly says so-they are open to anyone who qualifies; the Monster Manual feats are of little use to core PCs because they mostly rely on things such PCs will not have, like natural armor or Huge size. Some of them are useful even in core, like Ability Focus, and one, Craft Construct, is designed for PCs.

'LA' is 'level adjustment', which is used to balance PCs made from monster races, like Bugbears or Trolls. Something with LA - is not considered suitable for a PC, like a Titan.

[quark12000]

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest this is 'Return to The Temple of Elemental Evil', a module that very specifically takes place over a long period of time and has 3 settlements within walking distance-one with a 40,000 GP limit-and the 4th page on the intro specifically mentions this adventure is predicated on the group frequently leaving and coming back with better equipment-even suggesting to gloss over trips to town to keep the action going. If your DM is not allowing you to leave by fiat, that is a problem to discuss.


Thanks for the clarifications. To ask for another one, what is meant by 'settlement...with a 40,000 GP limit'?

It might be 'Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil' as you say, but there is only one town and it takes a week to get there. We always have encounter checks and watch checks at night when traveling there and back. And, of course, when we get back to the temple it is repopulated, so we have to clear it out again. The problem, specifically for my character, is that we're getting to higher level enemies, so he gets hit on every turn and even though he has good HP, I think, I can see it becoming a problem.

[emeraldstreak]

Thanks for the clarifications. To ask for another one, what is meant by 'settlement...with a 40,000 GP limit'?

A town where magic items of 40,000 gp cost or lower are available. Like, all the stuff you need but you don't have.


It might be 'Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil' as you say, but there is only one town and it takes a week to get there. We always have encounter checks and watch checks at night when traveling there and back. And, of course, when we get back to the temple it is repopulated, so we have to clear it out again.

That doesn't sound right.


The problem, specifically for my character, is that we're getting to higher level enemies, so he gets hit on every turn and even though he has good HP, I think, I can see it becoming a problem.

Your character is way behind the curve. He's a wet rag I wouldn't bet on against a 1-st level optimized character, let alone a CR 10 monster.

[quark12000]

Thanks for the clarifications. To ask for another one, what is meant by 'settlement...with a 40,000 GP limit'?


A town where magic items of 40,000 gp cost or lower are available. Like, all the stuff you need but you don't have.

Okay, thanks.


It might be 'Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil' as you say, but there is only one town and it takes a week to get there. We always have encounter checks and watch checks at night when traveling there and back. And, of course, when we get back to the temple it is repopulated, so we have to clear it out again.



That doesn't sound right.

Well, that's what's happened. Don't know what to tell you.



Your character is way behind the curve. He's a wet rag I wouldn't bet on against a 1-st level optimized character, let alone a CR 10 monster.

Um, alright. What do you mean by 'optimized'? Someone else used that term but never explained it. Do you mean 18 in all stats? Because that doesn't sound fair, or fun, to play.

[emeraldstreak]

Well, that's what's happened. Don't know what to tell you.

No need to say anything, the situation at hand isn't your doing.



Um, alright. What do you mean by 'optimized'? Someone else used that term but never explained it. Do you mean 18 in all stats? Because that doesn't sound fair, or fun, to play.

Nope, same stat rolls as you, but more synergy in class/race/feat choices, and most of all, correct and level-appropriate itemization.

[quark12000]

Nope, same stat rolls as you, but more synergy in class/race/feat choices, and most of all, correct and level-appropriate itemization.

Oh, you mean that the RPG Bot stuff? They use a lot of stuff from other books we don't have access to, I think.

[ViperMagnum357]

Okay, thanks.






Well, that's what's happened. Don't know what to tell you.




Um, alright. What do you mean by 'optimized'? Someone else used that term but never explained it. Do you mean 18 in all stats? Because that doesn't sound fair, or fun, to play.

Optimization simply means finding all the parts for a character that increase its power, flexibility, and reliability, so that on a level playing field an optimized character will hit more often, do more damage, take out enemies more quickly, and be harder to bring down relative to an unoptimized character.

IE, in core, the Paladin has no bonus feats, so trying to build one as a two-weapon fighter is going to more difficult and less rewarding than simply using a Fighter, who has bonus feats to spare and can take Weapon Specialization and Improved Weapon Specialization; allowing the Fighter to consistently deal more damage than the Paladin whenever the Paladin is not Smiting. Conversely, the Paladin gets an intelligent Special Mount; Whereas a mounted Fighter has to deal with a Horse or whatever with animal intelligence and needs to find a place to park it in tight spaces, the Paladin's mount is intelligent, like another character, and can be called/dismissed each day as necessary; making a mounted Paladin more effective, even with less feats than a Fighter.

[ericgrau]

Since your DM is stingy on magic items shops, ask the casters nicely if they will pick up a crafting feat or two and make AC items for you. Pay them a little if you have to. You said you had plenty of gold but no where to spend it right? This should mean about 32,000 gp. If you have a lot less than this, then your DM messed up the game completely with low wealth and your only choice is to retire your barbarian and play a caster. Please don't waste any more time on a bad game setup if you have no way to get the items that the game expects.

Assuming you have around the gold mentioned above and your allies agree to craft, here's how: Magic vestment can mostly replace magic armor at your level. The +2 cap is why it isn't a true full replacement. Likewise the greater magic weapon spell helps (but isn't a full replacement). So one of them can get the craft wondrous item or forge ring feat. The added benefit is that they can make items for the casters in the party with these feats too. Barkskin can work in dungeons but not in wilderness due to duration. The harder AC to get comes from the ring of protection and dusty rose prism ioun stone, so they are the best items to get crafted first.

EDIT: Or reading more you said that there's a town that has items. Ok, go there.

[emeraldstreak]

Oh, you mean that the RPG Bot stuff? They use a lot of stuff from other books we don't have access to, I think.

You can always optimize. For example, having your situation in mind, let's review your level 9 feat choice: Improved Overrun.

Who will you be overrunning (for the dubious benefits successful overrun yields) with a Strength 20 Medium creature (24 when raging)? Considering you are a party of six level 9 characters, let's review the Monster Manual CR 9-11 monsters...

Bone devil (osyluth) . . . . . . . . 9
Delver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Dire shark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Dragon turtle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Elemental, greater (any) . . . . . 9
Giant, frost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Giant, elder stone . . . . . . . . . . 9
Hydra, eight-headed cryo-. . . . 9
Hydra, eight-headed pyro- . . . 9
Hydra, ten-headed . . . . . . . . . 9
Monstrous centipede,
Colossal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Naga, spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Nessian warhound
(hell hound) . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Night hag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Roc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Slaad, green . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Squid, giant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Tojanida, elder . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Triceratops (dinosaur) . . . . . . 9
Vrock (demon) . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Yrthak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Zelekhut (inevitable). . . . . . . . 9
Animated object, Colossal . . 10
Bebilith (demon). . . . . . . . . . 10
Couatl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Formian, myrmarch . . . . . . . 10
Giant, fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Golem, clay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Hydra, eleven-headed . . . . . . 10
Hydra, nine-headed cryo- . . . 10
Hydra, nine-headed pyro- . . . 10
Monstrous scorpion,
Gargantuan. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Naga, guardian . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Rakshasa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Salamander, noble . . . . . . . . 10
Slaad, gray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Barbed devil (hamatula) . . . . 11
Cauchemar (nightmare) . . . . 11
Devourer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Elemental, elder (any). . . . . . 11
Giant, cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Golem, stone . . . . . . . . . . . . 11



The majority of them are Large, Huge, even Colossal creatures that easily have more than 20 Strength. Improved Overrun is a feat for your past, when you faced kobolds or whatever.

Meanwhile, something like Heavy Armor Proficiency addresses your plight at the present, and will let you utilize that +1 Full Plate no one on your team needs. That going 15->20 AC immediately, for the loss of...nothing, as without Improved Overrun you'll be doing more productive things like beating big monsters with your axe.

[Fizban]

The fastest way to explain what people mean when they say optimize is this: have you ever played an RPG video game, where you level up and pick traits and get items? And when playing said game you pick stuff that works together and try to make the best character you can?

That's optimizing. The difference is that DnD 3.5 has literally dozens of books, and lots of people on the internet have spent that last decade making the best characters they can (for whatever their definition of "best" is), under the assumption that they can use any and all books they want with no DM interference.

Now, your group is playing core-only with a strict DM who isn't running the module as suggested and doesn't understand the importance of magic items (or they would have compensated for the way they're running it). That's. . . not great. The module gives you cash specifically so you can go spend it on the items you want, at the town mentioned in the module, and expects you to do so in order to keep up, because that's standard 3e. If you aren't allowed to do that because they've made it a huge pain the rear by forcing you to roll a ton of random encounters and then re-fight the entire dungeon every time, there's only one person at fault for that. If you guys were overpowered and needed to play on hard mode that'd be one thing, but this is just gratuitous.

But I will continue to re-iterate that even fixing your lack of gear problems won't stop you from being hit all the time. You're a low-dex barbarian that doesn't use a shield, your AC will slightly blunt underleveled foes and that's it. From what I've read Return to the Temple is not a very high powered module, but standard attack bonus at this level is +10-15 and your base is 16 in medium armor, 14 when raging.

Oh, noticed something else: that skill list says Wilderness Lore. They're using 3.0 books, so check your sources.

[quark12000]

You can always optimize. For example, having your situation in mind, let's review your level 9 feat choice: Improved Overrun.

Who will you be overrunning (for the dubious benefits successful overrun yields) with a Strength 20 Medium creature (24 when raging)? Considering you are a party of six level 9 characters, let's review the Monster Manual CR 9-11 monsters...

Bone devil (osyluth) . . . . . . . . 9
Delver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Dire shark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Dragon turtle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Elemental, greater (any) . . . . . 9
Giant, frost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Giant, elder stone . . . . . . . . . . 9
Hydra, eight-headed cryo-. . . . 9
Hydra, eight-headed pyro- . . . 9
Hydra, ten-headed . . . . . . . . . 9
Monstrous centipede,
Colossal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Naga, spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Nessian warhound
(hell hound) . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Night hag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Roc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Slaad, green . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Squid, giant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Tojanida, elder . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Triceratops (dinosaur) . . . . . . 9
Vrock (demon) . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Yrthak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Zelekhut (inevitable). . . . . . . . 9
Animated object, Colossal . . 10
Bebilith (demon). . . . . . . . . . 10
Couatl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Formian, myrmarch . . . . . . . 10
Giant, fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Golem, clay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Hydra, eleven-headed . . . . . . 10
Hydra, nine-headed cryo- . . . 10
Hydra, nine-headed pyro- . . . 10
Monstrous scorpion,
Gargantuan. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Naga, guardian . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Rakshasa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Salamander, noble . . . . . . . . 10
Slaad, gray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Barbed devil (hamatula) . . . . 11
Cauchemar (nightmare) . . . . 11
Devourer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Elemental, elder (any). . . . . . 11
Giant, cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Golem, stone . . . . . . . . . . . . 11



The majority of them are Large, Huge, even Colossal creatures that easily have more than 20 Strength. Improved Overrun is a feat for your past, when you faced kobolds or whatever.

Meanwhile, something like Heavy Armor Proficiency addresses your plight at the present, and will let you utilize that +1 Full Plate no one on your team needs. That going 15->20 AC immediately, for the loss of...nothing, as without Improved Overrun you'll be doing more productive things like beating big monsters with your axe.

I took Improved Overrun because we seem to be facing a lot of guards and I thought it would help. I don't want to lose my fast movement, so heavy armor really wouldn't be an option anyway. I believe that the straight Fighter of the group took the Full plate mail.

[quark12000]

Since your DM is stingy on magic items shops, ask the casters nicely if they will pick up a crafting feat or two and make AC items for you. Pay them a little if you have to. You said you had plenty of gold but no where to spend it right? This should mean about 32,000 gp. If you have a lot less than this, then your DM messed up the game completely with low wealth and your only choice is to retire your barbarian and play a caster. Please don't waste any more time on a bad game setup if you have no way to get the items that the game expects.

Assuming you have around the gold mentioned above and your allies agree to craft, here's how: Magic vestment can mostly replace magic armor at your level. The +2 cap is why it isn't a true full replacement. Likewise the greater magic weapon spell helps (but isn't a full replacement). So one of them can get the craft wondrous item or forge ring feat. The added benefit is that they can make items for the casters in the party with these feats too. Barkskin can work in dungeons but not in wilderness due to duration. The harder AC to get comes from the ring of protection and dusty rose prism ioun stone, so they are the best items to get crafted first.

EDIT: Or reading more you said that there's a town that has items. Ok, go there.

No, sorry if I wasn't clear. He's never been to a town with any magic items for sale.

[quark12000]

The fastest way to explain what people mean when they say optimize is this: have you ever played an RPG video game, where you level up and pick traits and get items? And when playing said game you pick stuff that works together and try to make the best character you can?

That's optimizing. The difference is that DnD 3.5 has literally dozens of books, and lots of people on the internet have spent that last decade making the best characters they can (for whatever their definition of "best" is), under the assumption that they can use any and all books they want with no DM interference.

Now, your group is playing core-only with a strict DM who isn't running the module as suggested and doesn't understand the importance of magic items (or they would have compensated for the way they're running it). That's. . . not great. The module gives you cash specifically so you can go spend it on the items you want, at the town mentioned in the module, and expects you to do so in order to keep up, because that's standard 3e. If you aren't allowed to do that because they've made it a huge pain the rear by forcing you to roll a ton of random encounters and then re-fight the entire dungeon every time, there's only one person at fault for that. If you guys were overpowered and needed to play on hard mode that'd be one thing, but this is just gratuitous.

But I will continue to re-iterate that even fixing your lack of gear problems won't stop you from being hit all the time. You're a low-dex barbarian that doesn't use a shield, your AC will slightly blunt underleveled foes and that's it. From what I've read Return to the Temple is not a very high powered module, but standard attack bonus at this level is +10-15 and your base is 16 in medium armor, 14 when raging.

Oh, noticed something else: that skill list says Wilderness Lore. They're using 3.0 books, so check your sources.

So, you're saying just give up because I'm going to be hit no matter what I do?

The wilderness lore thing - I'm just using a 3.0 Character Sheet. We use the 3.5 books. I think it's Survival in those.

[tyckspoon]

So, you're saying just give up because I'm going to be hit no matter what I do?


The answer to your problem is magic items. Your DM appears to be deliberately going out of his way to make sure you can't have any. So.. yes? As a Barbarian your AC is probably never going to be amazing (in a low-optimization game, 'good' AC requires either using a lot of spells and actions on buffing every fight or two, or heavy armor + a shield), but appropriate items would at least allow you to avoid getting beat up by CR 1 junk enemies that aren't supposed to be any real threat at your level.

[Remuko]

No, sorry if I wasn't clear. He's never been to a town with any magic items for sale.

You seem to still not be understanding. Your problem isnt your problem. Your DM isn't doing something right. The town(s) available in this module as written have magic items available to buy, if the DM isnt letting you, there's nothing you can do but talk to the DM about it. This game requires characters, especially ones like a Barbarian, to have proper magical gear to properly fight and you have gear a lvl 5 would laugh at.

[ViperMagnum357]

So, you're saying just give up because I'm going to be hit no matter what I do?

The wilderness lore thing - I'm just using a 3.0 Character Sheet. We use the 3.5 books. I think it's Survival in those.

It is not that you are guaranteed to get get hit-just that high AC is no guarantee of not being hit. There are a lot of attacks and spells that will hit touch AC, or just have such a high to-hit roll that they will usually hit regardless of your AC. Hence, most veteran players will suggest other defenses-resistances, immunities, Damage Reduction, more HP, boosting saves; and gaining a miss chance, preferably from concealment like the Blur or displacement spells, since that will also block most forms of precision damage.

Long story short-the entire game system is built around acquiring and using magic items-if your DM is hamstringing your loot and preventing you from gaining access, they are intentionally breaking the system, which is not fun for anyone.

[quark12000]

You seem to still not be understanding. Your problem isnt your problem. Your DM isn't doing something right. The town(s) available in this module as written have magic items available to buy, if the DM isnt letting you, there's nothing you can do but talk to the DM about it. This game requires characters, especially ones like a Barbarian, to have proper magical gear to properly fight and you have gear a lvl 5 would laugh at.

Do you know the name of the town that has the magic items? I'll ask her about it.

[ViperMagnum357]

Do you know the name of the town that has the magic items? I'll ask her about it.

Hommlet and Rastor are two small towns close by the Temple; Verbobonc is the name of the nearest city, and is explicitly suggested as the place for the PCs to go to reequip and buy magic items.

[Fizban]

So, you're saying just give up because I'm going to be hit no matter what I do?
No, I'm saying that even after you fix the problem you're still going to get hit a lot, because you've chosen to play a character who gets hit a lot.

If you're currently being hit 75-95% of the time, and you boost your AC by +5 all the time, you'll only be hit 50-70% of the time, which is a huge improvement. And you're still being hit more than half the time, which is going to feel like you're getting hit all the time. And that's what you bought into by playing a two-handed barbarian. I'll telling you to understand that.

[quark12000]

No, I'm saying that even after you fix the problem you're still going to get hit a lot, because you've chosen to play a character who gets hit a lot.

If you're currently being hit 75-95% of the time, and you boost your AC by +5 all the time, you'll only be hit 50-70% of the time, which is a huge improvement. And you're still being hit more than half the time, which is going to feel like you're getting hit all the time. And that's what you bought into by playing a two-handed barbarian. I'll telling you to understand that.

Ah, I see. Yeah, I probably have been getting hit all the time, it's just recently that he's been getting close to death because the monsters are doing a lot more damage.

[quark12000]

Hommlet and Rastor are two small towns close by the Temple; Verbobonc is the name of the nearest city, and is explicitly suggested as the place for the PCs to go to reequip and buy magic items.

Hommlet and Rastor sound very familiar. I think that's where they've been going on the rare occasions they had leave the temple. Like I said, it takes at least a week to get to the nearest one (think it's Rastor). I'm pretty sure they've never been to Verbobonc. That doesn't sound familiar at all. I think they also went through an abandoned town that was haunted by a ghost or something similar.

[DMVerdandi]

I think this thread is an example of why:

1. 3.5 Takes a lot to *into*
2. The ivory tower is REAL, especially when restricted to PHB [Splat books are the saving grace of 3.5]
3. Having a DM who actually follows the rules of the game is extremely important to learning how to play
4.Unless you know the game in and out, playing a core only game is suffering.

@OP, When everyone is talking about optimization, think of it like pokemon/ yugioh cards or decks, except this time you have been restricted to using one of the starter decks. Thing is, you are also limited to the flaws of what the starter deck has inherently. The game itself, especially with CR appropriate monsters is throwing blue eyes white dragons all in your face, and the monster you decided to go with is a kuriboh.



Now, the thing is, you didn't know how suck it was going to be, as the imagery in your head is probably something close to an unstoppable berserker with skin like bronze, and breath so hot with fury it roasts coals. The PROBLEM is , this is a rules based game. HEAVILY[rather than imagination based]. So the options you have for that fellow aren't really that great, and furthermore, all of the best options are locked away in books you can't have. The rules are stacked against you, and you didn't know that. You couldn't know that, because it takes at least a couple of years of lurking and absorbing game knowledge on the internet to actually understand WHY the rules are stacked against you.


You couldn't know that 3.5 expresses rather poorly a skilled and powerful rage machine, or any martial really, until tome of battle. 4e does it well. Heck, even pathfinder barbarians are awesome, but 3.5 doesn't give melee anything.


You would have been able to hedge your bets if you DID know how to build a barbarian well, and had options that supported that, but you have no lion spirit totem option, and you have no whirling frenzy. You can't get runescarred berserker, and you haven't been given the option to even use your WBL. A knowledgeable and perceptive DM, even knowing you all were not well stocked and equipped would have at least sent a dungeon dwelling merchant, or had a teleportation circle transport you all to the town, or SOMETHING. THOSE are the choices a good DM makes, not just trying to kill you all gygax style.





In core you have 2 ways of improving one's barbarian, which cannot be done by normally choosing different types of class features. The first is feats, and the second is equipment. Without re-training your feats [An option that lets you pay gp to change previous decisions you made in feat, class or skill options] you have all but locked in every feat you have. So until the next one is due, you can't make any changes.
And your DM is too inexperienced to guide you in what are optimal choices for gear, and has stuck you all in a dungeon that seems to be without options for spending money so, my former reply stands true.


The two best classes in the PHB are Cleric and Druid respectively. The reason is they have variety, flexibility, and scalability that starts at level 1 and just keeps getting better. You already have a cleric in the party, which is why I suggested druid. Thematically, it is very similar to a barbarian (wilderness/nature type), and is for all intended purposes, fool-proof.
Need a weapon? Grab a stick. That is a club. Cast shileighleigh, and you are doing decent damage. Don't want to do that? Do something else. it gives you options where you have none.

[Fizban]

Pretty sure the OP hasn't said anything about their barbarian being bad or them not having fun.

On the other hand, this massive reaction to how the guy doesn't know what "optimize" means in regards to forum discussion of DnD, I think that's the example to learn from here. The OP asked for help boosting their barbarian's AC, and it quickly became apparent that their DM was not running the module in the usual way, but the biggest thing here is simply not realizing that a two-handed barbarian is going to have bad AC. Which is a fairly common failing of char-op as well: the dismissal of AC as unimportant or impossible due to focusing entirely on two-handed builds.

There is absolutely nothing the OP has said here that warrants a sudden demand for more books and optimization and a crash course in why cleric and druid are the best thing ever and he should suicide and make a new character.

[DMVerdandi]

Pretty sure the OP hasn't said anything about their barbarian being bad or them not having fun.

On the other hand, this massive reaction to how the guy doesn't know what "optimize" means in regards to forum discussion of DnD, I think that's the example to learn from here. The OP asked for help boosting their barbarian's AC, and it quickly became apparent that their DM was not running the module in the usual way, but the biggest thing here is simply not realizing that a two-handed barbarian is going to have bad AC. Which is a fairly common failing of char-op as well: the dismissal of AC as unimportant or impossible due to focusing entirely on two-handed builds.

There is absolutely nothing the OP has said here that warrants a sudden demand for more books and optimization and a crash course in why cleric and druid are the best thing ever and he should suicide and make a new character.

I mean...he isn't getting results. Not to go full munchkin, but...
Personally, knowing what I know, I probably skipped out on the game itself. And there is nothing wrong with that. If I wanted to play poker, and everyone else wants to play hearts, and I know that I don't care for hearts, it doesn't mean I don't care for the people playing it, just don't care for the game. Call me back over when you guys get bored of hearts.

I think the problem is Op "wanted to play poker", everyone else is playing hearts, but he didn't know they weren't playing poker because he doesn't know how to play both. And it's not Op's fault.


IDK maybe it's a really comfy game, and maybe I am projecting. OP, if you are having fun, more power to you. BUT, for the next game, discuss what you can do, find out your limits to the game, Create a character concept, and look up some old threads or handbooks so you can make adjustments to fully execute concept, because fluff without crunch is just that.

[Remuko]

Pretty sure the OP hasn't said anything about their barbarian being bad or them not having fun.

On the other hand, this massive reaction to how the guy doesn't know what "optimize" means in regards to forum discussion of DnD, I think that's the example to learn from here. The OP asked for help boosting their barbarian's AC, and it quickly became apparent that their DM was not running the module in the usual way, but the biggest thing here is simply not realizing that a two-handed barbarian is going to have bad AC. Which is a fairly common failing of char-op as well: the dismissal of AC as unimportant or impossible due to focusing entirely on two-handed builds.

There is absolutely nothing the OP has said here that warrants a sudden demand for more books and optimization and a crash course in why cleric and druid are the best thing ever and he should suicide and make a new character.

you keep going on and on about shields but given his situation, even in best case, he'd be using a 1d8 weapon + str + 1 + non-2h power attack, and have maybe 2-3 more ac from a shield. That doesn't help him at all. a shield doesn't solve his issue. if he had access to magic stuff AND a shield it might, but alone the shield is far from the problem. if he had magic items he could get a decent ac with or without the shield, without them he cant get decent ac even with the shield. so you going on and on about how he should switch to sword and board, is honestly not helpful at all.

[emeraldstreak]

Even in the Core a two-handed weapon Barbarian can have high AC, but it requires Alter Self, some enhancement to armor, NA, deflection, and eventually animated shield.

Typical unoptimized groups are squeamish about deploying Alter Self to full power though.

[ViperMagnum357]

I think we have strayed pretty far off-topic, but the salient point seems to be the DM needs to make some changes to the campaign.

As for the original point of this thread...in 3/3.5, AC for most classes is only improved through magic. Classes with access to shapeshifting can go looking for combat forms, but pretty much everyone else without Vow of Poverty; even classes ostensibly built around AC like the Monk, need magic to keep apace of monsters and NPCs that are balanced against PCs with what the designers considered 'typical' builds: basic improvements to weapon damage, AC, and saves with lots of consumables.

Barbarian is typically a low AC class-they are designed for the front line, but their marquee ability reduces their AC, they lose class features in heavy armor they are not proficient in anyway, and they are built to compensate. They get a D12 Hit Die, bonus HP from Rage, and damage reduction that cannot be pierced by most weapons.

Honestly, apart from 'convince your DM to make magic items available in the campaign', I am not sure what else we can say.

[quark12000]

I think this thread is an example of why:

1. 3.5 Takes a lot to *into*
2. The ivory tower is REAL, especially when restricted to PHB [Splat books are the saving grace of 3.5]
3. Having a DM who actually follows the rules of the game is extremely important to learning how to play
4.Unless you know the game in and out, playing a core only game is suffering.

@OP, When everyone is talking about optimization, think of it like pokemon/ yugioh cards or decks, except this time you have been restricted to using one of the starter decks. Thing is, you are also limited to the flaws of what the starter deck has inherently. The game itself, especially with CR appropriate monsters is throwing blue eyes white dragons all in your face, and the monster you decided to go with is a kuriboh.


Ok, wow, lots to get to here. You'll have to explain those first two sentences. I have no idea what you mean by "into" or ivory tower or splat books.

3. I'm pretty sure we're following the rules, at least as best we can. 4. Suffering? In what way is what we're doing suffering?

Last, I've never played pokemon/ yugioh, whatever that is. I'm still very confused by all this "optimization" talk.

[quark12000]

Even in the Core a two-handed weapon Barbarian can have high AC, but it requires Alter Self, some enhancement to armor, NA, deflection, and eventually animated shield.

Typical unoptimized groups are squeamish about deploying Alter Self to full power though.

See, this is one of the things I'm talking about. That last sentence is all English words, but it might as well be Mandarin for all the sense I can make of it. "Unoptimized groups"? "deploying Alter Self"? (I do know that Alter Self is a spell, but "deploying"?) "full power through"?

[ViperMagnum357]

See, this is one of the things I'm talking about. That last sentence is all English words, but it might as well be Mandarin for all the sense I can make of it. "Unoptimized groups"? "deploying Alter Self"? (I do know that Alter Self is a spell, but "deploying"?) "full power through"?

Optimization is simply making the most of available resources-the difference between a Wizard who picks spells and feats at random and a Wizard who carefully selects spells and feats to get the most out of their spellcasting are like night and day. An 'optimized group' is simply a group where all of the players know the system well and have built characters that work very well for their intended purpose. An unoptimized group is the one that picks spells, classes, feats and whatnot either at random or because they have something that caught their eye, and the result are a bunch of characters that are not very good at their intended jobs.

Alter Self is the name of a low level spell that is very powerful-it basically lets you switch your race. That allows you to pick and choose a race well suited for a particular situation, combat or otherwise, and gain advantages like flight or natural AC without the baggage of actually being those races all the time. 'Optimizing' it simply means being aware of the most useful forms to change into, and knowing when and when not to use each one.

[ericgrau]

No, I'm saying that even after you fix the problem you're still going to get hit a lot, because you've chosen to play a character who gets hit a lot.

If you're currently being hit 75-95% of the time, and you boost your AC by +5 all the time, you'll only be hit 50-70% of the time, which is a huge improvement. And you're still being hit more than half the time, which is going to feel like you're getting hit all the time. And that's what you bought into by playing a two-handed barbarian. I'll telling you to understand that.

That's about 2/3 as many hits though which is effectively +50% HP. That's a big deal. Not even counting special effects. Plus many monsters have secondary attacks with a penalty to hit. Those only hit 50-70% of the time currently, which could be cut almost in half to 25-45%. So overall the benefit is equal to a little more than +50% HP. Maybe +55% to +60%. That's a major step towards fighting another round before fleeing and hurting baddies that much longer. Plus not dying. I'd say 2 extra rounds but there are sometimes non HP effects too.

And at his level he should get at least +2 armor, +1 ring of protection and +1 amulet of natural armor, so at least +4. Next up for the 5th +1 would be a +2 dex item which also helps with touch AC, initiative and reflex save so it's not a bad time to get it. And his armor is scale mail I presume. He could at least get breastplate for 1 more AC. Total investment ~12,000 gp of his hopefully ~32,000 gp. Of course since he's asking party members for buffs and crafting it'll be more like magic vestment, greater magic weapon, maybe barkskin, ring, dex item. Probably less expensive even after paying them a little extra for their trouble. Again, quark, if you don't have that much gold then retire the barbarian and play a caster. It's not fair to be shorted on treasure when your class depends on wealth much more than a caster does. A caster primarily uses items for more spells, minor defense and minor increase in spell power. They last a little longer and get a little more versatile from items, but gain almost no raw power. Almost all your defense and much of your offense comes from items. Most of your versatility too. There are lots of little cheap magical trinkets you should have but don't. They let you pull lots of tricks and don't cost much. Basically look at the magic items tables sorted by cost and go to town on the cheapies and one-offs.

[quark12000]

And at his level he should get at least +2 armor, +1 ring of protection and +1 amulet of natural armor, so at least +4. Next up for the 5th +1 would be a +2 dex item which also helps with touch AC, initiative and reflex save so it's not a bad time to get it. And his armor is scale mail I presume. He could at least get breastplate for 1 more AC. Total investment ~12,000 gp of his hopefully ~32,000 gp. Of course since he's asking party members for buffs and crafting it'll be more like magic vestment, greater magic weapon, maybe barkskin, ring, dex item. Probably less expensive even after paying them a little extra for their trouble. Again, quark, if you don't have that much gold then retire the barbarian and play a caster. It's not fair to be shorted on treasure when your class depends on wealth much more than a caster does. A caster primarily uses items for more spells, minor defense and minor increase in spell power. They last a little longer and get a little more versatile from items, but gain almost no raw power. Almost all your defense and much of your offense comes from items. Most of your versatility too. There are lots of little cheap magical trinkets you should have but don't. They let you pull lots of tricks and don't cost much. Basically look at the magic items tables sorted by cost and go to town on the cheapies and one-offs.

Please explain that second sentence: "Next up for the 5th +1 would be..." is the part I don't understand.

As far as how much money he has, we pool all treasure as a party. I have no idea how much it's worth because a lot are gems, jewelry and art items.

He has a chain shirt for armor.

[Nifft]

So, here's the fast and easy guide to not getting hit so much:

1 - Ask for buffs. Ask your Wizard / Cleric / Druid friends for buff spells.
Polymorph (Wizard) is great. Look for 9 HD (and lower) monsters which you can become that will give you higher AC. Duration: one fight.
Greater magic weapon (Wizard or Cleric) is a day-long buff, your weapon becomes +2 for 9 hours.
Magic vestment (Cleric) is a day-long buff, your armor becomes +2 for 9 hours.
Barkskin (Druid) is +4 AC for 90 minutes, which might be several fights. It's amazing value for the low slot.
Mage armor (Wizard) is a day-long buff which might replace your armor if you polymorph into something that can't wear armor. It's also great against incorporeal attacks.
Protection from evil (Cleric or Wizard) is a one-fight buff, +2 to AC and saves, plus immunity to some nasty stuff. Low-duration but it's just a level 1 slot so that's not too bad. Upgrade to magic circle against evil (Cleric or Wizard) for 90 minutes of protection in a 10 ft. radius.
Protection from arrows (Wizard) is a day-long buff, or until it runs out. Level 2 slot, very effective protection if you suffer from mundane archers.
Blur / displacement (Wizard). Both are really, really good -- they remove 20% or 50% of hits. There's a magic item that gives you blur all day for 24k gp: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#cloakofDisplacementMinor
Haste (Wizard) is a one-fight buff, but it buffs the whole party. Your Wizard should be casting this. The Rogues, the Fighter, and the Druid's animal companion will all benefit from haste.
Bane / prayer (Cleric) and slow (Wizard) are de-buffs which can help the party stay alive by hindering the enemy's attacks.

Those are all lower-level spells -- highest is polymorph, which is below the top spell for a level 9 caster -- so the casters ought to help you and the Fighter & Rogues significantly while retaining their "big guns" for their own awesome attacks.

If they dislike the idea of spending spell slots to buff you, offer to buy them some Pearls of Power (which give them back a spell they just cast), especially level 1 and level 2 pearls.


2 - Pay for magic gear. This could be in a city where magic gear is sold, or it could be that you pay party members to make you gear. The most important gear might not be your weapon & armor -- you might want Gloves of Dexterity +4 or a custom-made Helm of Alter Self (which would be like a hat of disguise except give you alter self at-will instead of disguise self).


3 - Casters do more battlefield control before you leap in. This includes stuff like entangle and web and even wall of ice or wall of stone to remove the ability for some enemies to engage in melee. Divide the enemy, kill half of them, then kill the rest when you're done. Not something you can do yourself, but perhaps you can encourage better group tactics.

[Fizban]

you keep going on and on about shields but given his situation, even in best case, he'd be using a 1d8 weapon + str + 1 + non-2h power attack, and have maybe 2-3 more ac from a shield. That doesn't help him at all. a shield doesn't solve his issue. if he had access to magic stuff AND a shield it might, but alone the shield is far from the problem. if he had magic items he could get a decent ac with or without the shield, without them he cant get decent ac even with the shield. so you going on and on about how he should switch to sword and board, is honestly not helpful at all.
This isn't a disagreement with me? I always go on about shields because they're important, but there's two parts to that statement: two-handed and also barbarian. That's 3-4 points lost from heavy armor as well as the 2 lost from the shield, and another 2 after magic (as you should have +2/+2 at this level). Then another 2 points lost from rage. Two-handed characters lack shields, barbarians without a ton of dex aren't running at max armor+dex capacity, and standard rage gives a penalty.

Animated shields, while ridiculous, aren't as huge as people think they are thanks to the +2 cost. You'd pay 9,000 for +3 AC, which is essentially the same as a +0 shield. Two less than if you were wielding it properly, or 24,000gp to upgrade from +5 to +5 animated. They devalue a core balancing mechanic (having been added in 3.5), presumably in response to people whining about two-handers getting hit all the time, but it still comes as some amount of cost for a while at least.

That's about 2/3 as many hits though which is effectively +50% HP. That's a big deal.
Exactly. Getting hit on 50% of those first attacks is still going to feel like you're getting hit all the time because humans are bad at objective statistical analysis, but you still want even the 4 points you could get from a +3 breastplate anyway, along with anything else you can get. A standard heavy armor+shield fighter would have even more and last even longer, but that doesn't mean a two-handed barbarian should ignore AC.


Please explain that second sentence: "Next up for the 5th +1 would be..." is the part I don't understand.
You only have 12 dex, which means a +2 dex item will increase your dex bonus by 1, which will give you +1 AC (and +1 reflex and +1 initiative etc). +2 stat items are 4,000gp, so you want to buy those after your armor (and shield if any) are +2, but before you upgrade the ring or amulet to +2. Priorities change if your spellcasters are applying regular buffs depending on what buffs they're using.

[quark12000]

So, here's the fast and easy guide to not getting hit so much:

1 - Ask for buffs. Ask your Wizard / Cleric / Druid friends for buff spells.
Polymorph (Wizard) is great. Look for 9 HD (and lower) monsters which you can become that will give you higher AC. Duration: one fight.
Greater magic weapon (Wizard or Cleric) is a day-long buff, your weapon becomes +2 for 9 hours.
Magic vestment (Cleric) is a day-long buff, your armor becomes +2 for 9 hours.
Barkskin (Druid) is +4 AC for 90 minutes, which might be several fights. It's amazing value for the low slot.
Mage armor (Wizard) is a day-long buff which might replace your armor if you polymorph into something that can't wear armor. It's also great against incorporeal attacks.
Protection from evil (Cleric or Wizard) is a one-fight buff, +2 to AC and saves, plus immunity to some nasty stuff. Low-duration but it's just a level 1 slot so that's not too bad. Upgrade to magic circle against evil (Cleric or Wizard) for 90 minutes of protection in a 10 ft. radius.
Protection from arrows (Wizard) is a day-long buff, or until it runs out. Level 2 slot, very effective protection if you suffer from mundane archers.
Blur / displacement (Wizard). Both are really, really good -- they remove 20% or 50% of hits. There's a magic item that gives you blur all day for 24k gp: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#cloakofDisplacementMinor
Haste (Wizard) is a one-fight buff, but it buffs the whole party. Your Wizard should be casting this. The Rogues, the Fighter, and the Druid's animal companion will all benefit from haste.
Bane / prayer (Cleric) and slow (Wizard) are de-buffs which can help the party stay alive by hindering the enemy's attacks.

Those are all lower-level spells -- highest is polymorph, which is below the top spell for a level 9 caster -- so the casters ought to help you and the Fighter & Rogues significantly while retaining their "big guns" for their own awesome attacks.

If they dislike the idea of spending spell slots to buff you, offer to buy them some Pearls of Power (which give them back a spell they just cast), especially level 1 and level 2 pearls.

Wizard doesn't have Polymorph, Greater Magic Weapon, Protection from Evil, Protection from Arrows, Displacement, Haste or Slow. He does have Blur, which could help. Mage Armor just replaces your current armor, I believe, so that doesn't really help.



2 - Pay for magic gear. This could be in a city where magic gear is sold, or it could be that you pay party members to make you gear. The most important gear might not be your weapon & armor -- you might want Gloves of Dexterity +4 or a custom-made Helm of Alter Self (which would be like a hat of disguise except give you alter self at-will instead of disguise self).

I guess I didn't make it clear, but the shops in the towns we've been to don't sell magic items. The mage can brew potions and craft rods, but that's it, and we don't really understand the rules for doing that anyway.



3 - Casters do more battlefield control before you leap in. This includes stuff like entangle and web and even wall of ice or wall of stone to remove the ability for some enemies to engage in melee. Divide the enemy, kill half of them, then kill the rest when you're done. Not something you can do yourself, but perhaps you can encourage better group tactics.

This could help. The wizard does have Wall of Flame. He had just been using it as a wall to block all enemies temporarily.

[Nifft]

Wizard doesn't have Polymorph, Greater Magic Weapon, Protection from Evil, Protection from Arrows, Displacement, Haste or Slow. He does have Blur, which could help. Mage Armor just replaces your current armor, I believe, so that doesn't really help. Cleric can cast some of those. Wizard can learn all of those. Look for a scroll shop in the city you visit (see below); perhaps offer to pay part of the scroll cost for buffs.


I guess I didn't make it clear, but the shops in the towns we've been to don't sell magic items. The mage can brew potions and craft rods, but that's it, and we don't really understand the rules for doing that anyway. You did say that you haven't been to a city with a magic shop.

I'm telling you to go find one.

Start a new adventure: Quest for the City with a Magic Shop

You're allowed to do more than just react to monsters. Take some time, find a city -- a new place, since the places you've been so far were not sufficient. Get your whole party on board, and go on a quest.


This could help. The wizard does have Wall of Flame. He had just been using it as a wall to block all enemies temporarily. That's a great start. The Wizard might also have grease. Show the Rogues how grease forces balancing, which denies the victim Dex to AC (and that enables Sneak Attack). You won't be the only one asking for debuffs!

The Druid can do the same thing, plus lay down entangle / soften earth and stone / spike growth / spike stones.

[quark12000]

Cleric can cast some of those. Wizard can learn all of those. Look for a scroll shop in the city you visit (see below); perhaps offer to pay part of the scroll cost for buffs.

You did say that you haven't been to a city with a magic shop.

I'm telling you to go find one.

Start a new adventure: Quest for the City with a Magic Shop

You're allowed to do more than just react to monsters. Take some time, find a city -- a new place, since the places you've been so far were not sufficient. Get your whole party on board, and go on a quest.


The mage only gets so many spells per level and he has been using them for illusions and offensive spells i.e. fireball.

And, like I said earlier, we're under a time constraint to prevent some ceremony in the temple, so just leaving to find a city with a magic shop isn't an option.

[Nifft]

The mage only gets so many spells per level and he has been using them for illusions and offensive spells i.e. fireball. Wizards can also learn new spells from scrolls.

You can buy scrolls when you complete the Quest for the City with a Magic Shop


And, like I said earlier, we're under a time constraint to prevent some ceremony in the temple, so just leaving to find a city with a magic shop isn't an option. Dying because you don't have enough gear won't stop the ceremony.

Take a day or two and teleport back, with the teleport spell that the Wizard will buy.

[quark12000]

Wizards can also learn new spells from scrolls.

You can buy scrolls when you complete the Quest for the City with a Magic Shop

Dying because you don't have enough gear won't stop the ceremony.

Take a day or two and teleport back, with the teleport spell that the Wizard will buy.

Er, remember the nearest town is a week away. The nearest city would be farther still (I don't remember the party ever entering a city, so it must be very far).

Also, I must not be understanding wizards, but they only learn new spells when they level up, right?

[Galacktic]

If they have a scroll and money they can learn whatever spell is on that scroll over the course of like 8 hours or something. I'm away from books" so I don't know the exact amount of time.

[quark12000]

I know they can use scrolls on a one time only basis, but I thought for daily spells they needed to be in their spellbook for wizards.

[Nifft]

I know they can use scrolls on a one time only basis, but I thought for daily spells they needed to be in their spellbook for wizards.

A Wizard can copy a scroll into her spellbook, costing only time and money.

After that, she can cast the spell as if she learned it on level-up.

Wizards are very powerful because of this ability.

[quark12000]

A Wizard can copy a scroll into her spellbook, costing only time and money.

After that, she can cast the spell as if she learned it on level-up.

Wizards are very powerful because of this ability.

Oh, wow. Okay, I don't think he knows this.

[Nifft]

Oh, wow. Okay, I don't think he knows this.

PHB, page 179.

Tell the Wizard he owes you a LOT of buffs for providing this info.

:wink:

[martixy]

Oh, wow. Okay, I don't think he knows this.

Tell me, are you enjoying this plunge into the shallows of this game system? :) (we haven't reached the depths yet)

[Fizban]

Quest for the city with a magic shop, not sure if better or worse than "quest to find some specific magic item the DM said we have to quest for."

Wizard didn't learn Teleport as their first 5th level spell?

And I've seen no response to my Planar Ally suggestion. If the DM says no cities on the material plane sell magic items after you learn Teleport, force the question on the outer planes and call in an order.

[quark12000]

Tell me, are you enjoying this plunge into the shallows of this game system? :) (we haven't reached the depths yet)

I'm afraid I don't understand the question.

[quark12000]

Quest for the city with a magic shop, not sure if better or worse than "quest to find some specific magic item the DM said we have to quest for."

Wizard didn't learn Teleport as their first 5th level spell?

And I've seen no response to my Planar Ally suggestion. If the DM says no cities on the material plane sell magic items after you learn Teleport, force the question on the outer planes and call in an order.

Again, we're under a time constraint to stop some ceremony. Don't have months to be traipsing around the countryside looking for a city that might or might not be there.

He learned Telekinesis and some illusion spell for his 5th level.

Sorry, I had forgotten your suggestion. Looking back at it now, I can't find that spell, but if it costs the cleric XP, I wouldn't ask him to do it.

Perhaps you could tell be what DMVertlandi meant with this:

1. 3.5 Takes a lot to *into*
2. The ivory tower is REAL, especially when restricted to PHB [Splat books are the saving grace of 3.5]
3. Having a DM who actually follows the rules of the game is extremely important to learning how to play
4.Unless you know the game in and out, playing a core only game is suffering.


Other than line 3, I have no idea what they're talking about. And, by the way, I'm pretty sure we are playing by the rules.

[Florian]

Playing DnD 3.5. Any help is appreciated.

There's no way to help you with this, because your gm does something wrong here.

This is d20, so its inbuilt that you must use some kind of magic, either spells or magic items, to advance your stats further and stay effective against equal CR enemies.

Take a look at the "Wealth by Level" table (WBL) and the accompanying explanation how that should be broken down in permanent and consumable equipment.

The module has some gm advice that Verbobonc is explicitly there to shop for items up to a worth of 40.000 gp and that enemies should not be restocked but rather moved from other encounter areas, because this is no MMO, so no auto-respawn when you don't clear the level or other some such nonsense.

If your gm doesn't want you to shop, he should replace the raw monetary loot straight with items, rolling on the necessary DMG charts r handing out class-relevant items for you all to directly use.

[Fizban]

Again, we're under a time constraint to stop some ceremony. Don't have months to be traipsing around the countryside looking for a city that might or might not be there.
Hence why most people learn Teleport as soon as possible. If you can survive long enough to gain another level, they can pick it up then and you can visit every major city on the continent in a few days. At 11th you could just use Transport Via Plants or Wind Walk, but you'd have to survive two levels for that and the game would probably be close to ending.

Also, I'm starting to wonder if the rest of us aren't barking up the wrong tree, because I don't remember any time limits in Return to the Temple. I haven't read it cover to cover, but there's no mention of a time limit in the intro or final chapter. It's possible this DM might be running a 3.5 adaptation of the original adventure, if that had a time limit, or otherwise modifying it.

Sorry, I had forgotten your suggestion. Looking back at it now, I can't find that spell, but if it costs the cleric XP, I wouldn't ask him to do it.
You gain 750xp per encounter, Lesser Planar Ally costs 100xp, and you only need two castings. Crafting the gear yourself would cost far more xp.

Perhaps you could tell be what DMVertlandi meant with this:
Well to put it bluntly, it's just plain elitism. Some people play the game very differently than others, and some of those people can't seem to handle other people not playing the game the same way. If you were complaining about feeling useless in some way the comments might be a little bit appropriate, but you haven't yet, so they're not.

Essentially the core of this philosophy is that casters are better than everyone else, and this is bad. 3.5 takes a lot to get into because you either need to play a spellcaster and know all the spells, or you need to know even more feats and classes and ACFs and magic items and spells to make non-casters that can compete with casters, with casters sitting up in their "ivory tower" (an old way of describing elites lording it over everyone else from an unassailable position), and without non-core books you don't have even a hope of touching them, so you should never play core-only because it's "only suffering."

All of this is complete garbage of course. Casters are intentionally overpowered (by standards that see the party as competing against each other), the party members aren't (supposed to be) competing against each other, and saying someone else can't have fun with something just because you can't is the height of arrogance.


Line 3 is presumably referring to how the DM isn't running the module "right" and seems to not know how they've reduced the party's effectiveness by not adjusting the treasure, though I've been trying to avoid saying that directly since the DM can run it however they want. If they consciously decided to run a low-magic-item+ time limit version of the module, that's up to them, but that also means they need to be more receptive if the players point out that these changes are hurting their characters.

If they didn't realize how low-magic-items goes against the design of 3.5, that is unfortunate, but hardly worth an accusation of "not knowing the rules," -else I could slam every single hardcore char-opper with reams of rules violations for not understanding a whole pile of things. I can argue about it, but all of these things are up to DM authority (indeed, pretending there's no DM is "rule violation" #1). And while it shouldn't need to be said: the DM can't break the rules, because the DMG explicitly gives them the power to break the rules whenever they feel like it. The only way the DM can break the rules is if the entire group, including the DM, agrees that there are certain rules the DM has to follow- and I highly doubt that your group drew up a contract that said the DM had to run the module as written and/or guarantee a certain amount of WBL and magic shops.

So, it's basically just the same thing as the rest: "Having a DM who actually follows the rules of the game is extremely important to learning how to play," if you expect all DMs to run the exact same game as I do..

[emeraldstreak]

See, this is one of the things I'm talking about. That last sentence is all English words, but it might as well be Mandarin for all the sense I can make of it. "Unoptimized groups"? "deploying Alter Self"? (I do know that Alter Self is a spell, but "deploying"?) "full power through"?


Alter Self-ing into a troglodyte gives +6 natural armor for 90 minutes.

Que excuses why it can't be done.

[Fizban]

It is also, as the name implies, a personal-only spell. Of 2nd level. The only way to get it on a barbarian is a custom item (requiring DM approval), or by actually being a barbarian with 3-4 levels of wizard, sorcerer, or bard.

Polymorph replaces your stats, so polymorphing into a trog or lizardfolk is probably trading a lot of strength for AC. Ogre or troll would be the easiest choices there, but going up to large size means you need large weapons and armor (which don't resize by default), and time spent putting on armor is spell duration wasted. Of the core options, pretty much anything you polymorph into at this level isn't going to have more than 19 AC it looks like, not really any better than you should be getting from your own armor.

[emeraldstreak]

It is also, as the name implies, a personal-only spell. Of 2nd level. The only way to get it on a barbarian is a custom item (requiring DM approval), or by actually being a barbarian with 3-4 levels of wizard, sorcerer, or bard.

Polymorph replaces your stats, so polymorphing into a trog or lizardfolk is probably trading a lot of strength for AC. Ogre or troll would be the easiest choices there, but going up to large size means you need large weapons and armor (which don't resize by default), and time spent putting on armor is spell duration wasted. Of the core options, pretty much anything you polymorph into at this level isn't going to have more than 19 AC it looks like, not really any better than you should be getting from your own armor.

Or just 1 level of Cleric with the Magic domain, some cheap scrolls, and some easy caster checks.

[Fizban]

And a magic mart that's pumping out 150gp scrolls of Alter Self, and at least 12 Int, or 12 Wis if the DM is letting you count your cleric casting ability score with the wizard scroll.

And while we're at it, the DM's agreement that you know what a Troglodyte is, and are sufficiently familiar with it to Alter Self into one. For which the minimum brute force method is ranks of Knowledge (Local) for an area where trogs live and a non-repeatable knowledge check of DC 12- note that there's actually no provision in the knowledge skill to ever gain a retry.

[emeraldstreak]

And a magic mart that's pumping out 150gp scrolls of Alter Self, and at least 12 Int, or 12 Wis if the DM is letting you count your cleric casting ability score with the wizard scroll.


If you can't find a 150gp item in the mageshop, what can you find? The ability requirement is more significant, and the easy way around it at level 9+ is buying a wand for the whopping price of 4,500gp - half what +2 enhancement to natural armor costs.

[ericgrau]

It's 30 minute duration on the uncommon times you're allowed to plan. Otherwise alter self costs you a precious round of combat. Alter self is a trap for AC. A round of combat is too expensive for +6 AC. A dip and losing a +1 to hit is too expensive, besides the difficult of getting scrolls and 10% scroll failure. A custom 2,400+ gp 1+/day item is too expensive for the benefit. Plus the likely lost round of combat at the same time as the build/wealth costs. No matter how you slice it the benefit minus the cost is between marginal and negative.

Only way I'd get alter self is if the DM allowed custom 300 gp tokens of alter self. I would wait for dungeon entrances and buffing rounds to use them. I would never ever use them otherwise. That way you can pick up 3-4 and use them only at the times that they don't cost you a precious round. And that way it doesn't hurt your build. This is just something that helps now and then though. It doesn't solve the AC problem at all.

Seriously I think the answer is to retire the barbarian and play a full caster. 3.5 D&D is not at all made to work without magic items.


If you can't find a 150gp item in the mageshop, what can you find? The ability requirement is more significant, and the easy way around it at level 9+ is buying a wand for the whopping price of 4,500gp - half what +2 enhancement to natural armor costs.
I don't think they can find anything. They don't have time to stop at a town. Which means they probably don't have time for the casters to nab a feat and craft either. It's time to reroll.

[tyckspoon]

Hence why most people learn Teleport as soon as possible. If you can survive long enough to gain another level, they can pick it up then and you can visit every major city on the continent in a few days. At 11th you could just use Transport Via Plants or Wind Walk, but you'd have to survive two levels for that and the game would probably be close to ending.

Also, I'm starting to wonder if the rest of us aren't barking up the wrong tree, because I don't remember any time limits in Return to the Temple. I haven't read it cover to cover, but there's no mention of a time limit in the intro or final chapter. It's possible this DM might be running a 3.5 adaptation of the original adventure, if that had a time limit, or otherwise modifying it.


Not a 'hard' limit in the sense of 'once the characters enter this dungeon they have X days to complete the module or Evil Wins', but there should be some sense of urgency once the party has started to interfere with the Temple's plans and especially if they're in the middle of dealing with one major section. On the other hand, the module does advise that running the entire thing may take weeks or months of in-game time to complete, mentions that the DM should keep the effects of changing seasons in mind, and includes advice for building in side-adventures and excursions that may not be directly related to the main Temple plot. A given DM is naturally free to modify any of that, but there's a clear expectation throughout the module that the party can take a pretty relaxed pace to a lot of it.

For the travel times - Verbobonc is described several times as being roughly a day's travel (30 miles/10 leagues - a somewhat exhausting day's march or a pretty easy ride for most character) from Hommlet. In fact, almost all of the interesting locations in Hommlet's region shouldn't be more than about a day away, with the first significant dungeon only being a couple hours off. Part of the issue might be the maps provided in the module, tho - the scales on the overland maps do not agree with the text descriptions at all. By the map, Verbobonc is nearly four times as far away from Hommlet, and the adventure locations in the immediate area of Hommlet are almost twice as far. I can see how that could provoke some anxiety about spending too long walking somewhere else if the DM is going with those maps over the text.

Although given the lack of attention to detail on some rules shown earlier (Barbarian not knowing they could use Medium armor, Wizard not knowing they could copy scrolls to the spellbook) I wouldn't be much surprised to find out the GM and/or players just don't know how far they're supposed to be able to travel in a day - those are relatively more obscure and unlikely to be referenced rules in most situations. Those rules are found at http://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm#overlandMovement.

[Fizban]

If you can't find a 150gp item in the mageshop, what can you find? The ability requirement is more significant, and the easy way around it at level 9+ is buying a wand for the whopping price of 4,500gp - half what +2 enhancement to natural armor costs.
A 50gp item :smalltongue: Or more specifically, 100gp in a hamlet and 40gp in a thorp. Or none if your DM doesn't allow magic shops.

It remains an incredibly specific optimization example being suggested for a character it doesn't match at all- and yeah a lot of people aren't really into the idea that every character aware of Alter Self would immediately go nuts over the idea of spending a bunch of money (and even build points) turning themselves into a trog for every battle. I'd expect "deploy OMGSLTBBBQPOUNCE" as something that would come up more often. Alter Self as being a problem is just a subset of the "casters always invincible because buffs" and "everyone must be gishes or full casters" problem. Casters that don't go out of their way to leverage Alter Self to maximum effect and parties that only have one arcane caster who isn't taking hits all the time, aren't so much afraid of deploying it as it is they have no reason.

Though I still use the 3.0 version of Alter Self which is actually a disguise with utility rather than an encouragement to hunt for natural armor values and obscure humanoids. When you remove problem spells, you don't have to worry about them at all.


Those rules are found at http://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm#overlandMovement.
And for the love of all that is holy, buy a horse! Multiple horses! Learn to hustle- you can get 3 extra hours of mileage with a handle animal check, or more if you're on foot and have decent hp and a cure spell. And buff everyone with Longstrider! An adventuring party can easily double or triple their base overland speed even without splat spells.

[King of Nowhere]

Don't have any of that stuff. As I said, we have a lot of money, just no where to spend it. Shops don't sell magic items.

so, the DM gives you plenty of money, but no way to spend it? what's the point of giving money in the first place then?

[quark12000]

Hence why most people learn Teleport as soon as possible. If you can survive long enough to gain another level, they can pick it up then and you can visit every major city on the continent in a few days. At 11th you could just use Transport Via Plants or Wind Walk, but you'd have to survive two levels for that and the game would probably be close to ending.

Also, I'm starting to wonder if the rest of us aren't barking up the wrong tree, because I don't remember any time limits in Return to the Temple. I haven't read it cover to cover, but there's no mention of a time limit in the intro or final chapter. It's possible this DM might be running a 3.5 adaptation of the original adventure, if that had a time limit, or otherwise modifying it.

Well, everyone we talk to seems to be pressing the fact that the ceremony's happening soon. That's the big reason we only leave when of utmost necessity. After a big battle we might hole up in a room for a few days 'til everyone can get healed up.



You gain 750xp per encounter, Lesser Planar Ally costs 100xp, and you only need two castings. Crafting the gear yourself would cost far more xp.

Two things: One, it costs xp to craft items?! That's kind of crazy. And B, still haven't found that spell. Is it in another book?

[quark12000]

It is also, as the name implies, a personal-only spell. Of 2nd level. The only way to get it on a barbarian is a custom item (requiring DM approval), or by actually being a barbarian with 3-4 levels of wizard, sorcerer, or bard.

Polymorph replaces your stats, so polymorphing into a trog or lizardfolk is probably trading a lot of strength for AC. Ogre or troll would be the easiest choices there, but going up to large size means you need large weapons and armor (which don't resize by default), and time spent putting on armor is spell duration wasted. Of the core options, pretty much anything you polymorph into at this level isn't going to have more than 19 AC it looks like, not really any better than you should be getting from your own armor.

Nah, he would probably never multiclass, especially into a spellcaster. He's learned to read and tries to control his temper, but he's accepted what he is.

[quark12000]

For the travel times - Verbobonc is described several times as being roughly a day's travel (30 miles/10 leagues - a somewhat exhausting day's march or a pretty easy ride for most character) from Hommlet. In fact, almost all of the interesting locations in Hommlet's region shouldn't be more than about a day away, with the first significant dungeon only being a couple hours off. Part of the issue might be the maps provided in the module, tho - the scales on the overland maps do not agree with the text descriptions at all. By the map, Verbobonc is nearly four times as far away from Hommlet, and the adventure locations in the immediate area of Hommlet are almost twice as far. I can see how that could provoke some anxiety about spending too long walking somewhere else if the DM is going with those maps over the text.


Don't think we've ever heard of Verbobonc. That doesn't sound familiar at all. We always travel by foot since there's no way to care for horses at the temple.

All I know is that the nearest town (could be Hommlet, I don't remember) is a week from the temple. I think we've had to return there twice and both times we had a week's worth of encounters both ways plus night watch encounters and the temple was repopulated when we got back.

[quark12000]

so, the DM gives you plenty of money, but no way to spend it? what's the point of giving money in the first place then?

He who dies the richest wins? We do buy supplies sometimes, rations and the like.

[Fizban]

First: you can multiquote with the quotation mark button, or copy/paste from a separate tab and then close it. Second, you can edit posts with the edit post button. Making a bunch of posts in a row is frown upon by the forum rules.


Two things: One, it costs xp to craft items?! That's kind of crazy. And B, still haven't found that spell. Is it in another book?
Yes, it's right there in the crafting feats. Even potions and scrolls. The spell is in the PHB. It will be under "Planar Ally, Lesser." Or just use this link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarAllyLesser.htm).

[quark12000]

First: you can multiquote with the quotation mark button, or copy/paste from a separate tab and then close it. Second, you can edit posts with the edit post button. Making a bunch of posts in a row is frown upon by the forum rules.
Oh, geez, sorry about that. Didn't realize. Won't happen again



Yes, it's right there in the crafting feats. Even potions and scrolls. The spell is in the PHB. It will be under "Planar Ally, Lesser." Or just use this link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarAllyLesser.htm).

Never looked at the craft feats before. Huh, that's kind of nuts. If you were a wizard making a lot of scrolls, you'd never leave first level and never get access to the other craft feats!

Okay, I see the spell now. I was looking under "Summon Lesser Planar Ally". Yeah, I won't be asking him to do that. My character needs healing, he doesn't need to be ticking off our cleric!

[Fizban]

You would have to craft 75 1st level scrolls to put yourself one fight behind leveling up from 1st to 2nd. Your cleric would be spending 1/4 of one fight's worth of xp in order to shower the party with magic items where you currently have almost none, making literally every battle for the rest of the game easier.

The main sticking point here should be getting the DM to agree that you can even send an outsider on a shopping trip for you- there is no cost/benefit analysis that says 200xp for one character is worth more than having magic items at 9th level.

[quark12000]

You would have to craft 75 1st level scrolls to put yourself one fight behind leveling up from 1st to 2nd. Your cleric would be spending 1/4 of one fight's worth of xp in order to shower the party with magic items where you currently have almost none, making literally every battle for the rest of the game easier.

The main sticking point here should be getting the DM to agree that you can even send an outsider on a shopping trip for you- there is no cost/benefit analysis that says 200xp for one character is worth more than having magic items at 9th level.

The Planar Ally idea is interesting, but I'd never ask another character to give up XP for me, and I highly doubt it would be allowed anyway.

[Recherché]

Well, everyone we talk to seems to be pressing the fact that the ceremony's happening soon. That's the big reason we only leave when of utmost necessity. After a big battle we might hole up in a room for a few days 'til everyone can get healed up.

Quick question but how are you handling healing and why is it taking multiple days to heal up?

[tyckspoon]

Don't think we've ever heard of Verbobonc. That doesn't sound familiar at all. We always travel by foot since there's no way to care for horses at the temple.

All I know is that the nearest town (could be Hommlet, I don't remember) is a week from the temple. I think we've had to return there twice and both times we had a week's worth of encounters both ways plus night watch encounters and the temple was repopulated when we got back.

Your characters should be aware of the where the local 'big city' is; if not as a general knowledge thing (they probably traveled through it on their way to the adventure site) a fairly easy Knowledge: Local or Knowledge: Geography check would give it. Or just ask the people of your nearest small village where they go when they need to sell a harvest/talk to a regional official/participate in a special festival/whatever else you can't do in a tiny village. Ask your DM how far it is to that village, too. Not 'how many days travel', because at this point I would bet that number is being artificially increased, but how long the actual path back to whatever counts for the nearest civilization is, preferably in miles.


Quick question but how are you handling healing and why is it taking multiple days to heal up?

I was kind of curious about this too. I'm guessing it has to do with being a large, undergeared party causing them to take much more HP damage than they really should be (The Barbarian and Rogues are probably getting savaged pretty badly in any AC/HP-centered fight, at least), but even with that the Druid and Cleric should be able to get everybody stood back up. Might take almost their entire daily spells dumped into Cures, but they should be able to do it.

[quark12000]

Quick question but how are you handling healing and why is it taking multiple days to heal up?

The Cleric and Druid handle healing. I should mention that the Cleric is a recent addition to the party and is lower level, 6 or 7 I think.


Your characters should be aware of the where the local 'big city' is; if not as a general knowledge thing (they probably traveled through it on their way to the adventure site) a fairly easy Knowledge: Local or Knowledge: Geography check would give it. Or just ask the people of your nearest small village where they go when they need to sell a harvest/talk to a regional official/participate in a special festival/whatever else you can't do in a tiny village. Ask your DM how far it is to that village, too. Not 'how many days travel', because at this point I would bet that number is being artificially increased, but how long the actual path back to whatever counts for the nearest civilization is, preferably in miles.

As I remember, and this is a while ago, we met up in Hommlet as first level characters to begin the adventure. Don't remember coming through any city. If we go back to the nearby town, Hommlet or Rastor I can't remember which, I'll have my guys ask.




I was kind of curious about this too. I'm guessing it has to do with being a large, undergeared party causing them to take much more HP damage than they really should be (The Barbarian and Rogues are probably getting savaged pretty badly in any AC/HP-centered fight, at least), but even with that the Druid and Cleric should be able to get everybody stood back up. Might take almost their entire daily spells dumped into Cures, but they should be able to do it.

Oh no, lately we've been taking a lot of damage. My guy has almost a hundered hit points and he's been getting close to death, been knocked out a few times. Hie and the Fighter have been getting a lot of attacks. The Fighter doesn't get hit near as much as my guy and most everyone else uses ranged attacks. But with a large fight, eight to ten opponents, folks get hurt bad and it takes a couple days to get healed. That day, the Cleric can drop spells for healing, but we have to wait for the next day for Cleric and Druid to get their maximum number of cure spells. If that's enough to heal everyone we then wait one more day so the Cleric and Druid can get their regular spells. So, after a big battle that's two days downtime minimum.

[Recherché]

I was actually wondering about what kinds of spells and abilities the cleric and druid are using for healing.

You know that the cleric can spontaneously convert other spells into healing spells (unless they're evil), right? So after a big battle they can turn every spell they have into a healing spell and cast them all over the next few minutes.

Also on the planar ally plan, you know the cleric would be getting as much good out of it as you would. If you split up the accumulated loot evenly they'd also get a chance to buy items and gain benefits. At the very least with a magic armor and shield they'd be getting +2 AC for their 100xp. If they don't want to do that then it's their call but you aren't asking the cleric to sacrifice XP for just you. They're making a small sacrifice for the entire party including themselves.

[Fizban]

An ounce of Barkskin and Shield of Faith is worth a pound of Cure- preventing damage is way easier than healing it. The Druid might also want to look up Unicorns on Summon Nature's Ally 4, since a Unicorn can heal more damage than a single Cure Serious, and also comes with a free Neutralize Poison and Magic Circle effect.

[quark12000]

I was actually wondering about what kinds of spells and abilities the cleric and druid are using for healing.

You know that the cleric can spontaneously convert other spells into healing spells (unless they're evil), right? So after a big battle they can turn every spell they have into a healing spell and cast them all over the next few minutes.


The Cleric and Druid are using the standard Cure spells for healing. Occasionally the Druid would use Goodberry when they were in a wilderness area.

Yes, we know about clerics dropping spells for Cure spells. However, usually after a battle he doesn't have many spells left.

[King of Nowhere]

He who dies the richest wins? We do buy supplies sometimes, rations and the like.

well, you should have at least 10000 gp each, and rations and supplies cost a few tens of gp at the most. Unless he vastly inflated prices, that it.

Now, maybe it is all part of the campaign the DM wants to make, but I'd at least make sure it was a conscious decision, and not something done in ignorance.

[Remuko]

This isn't a disagreement with me? I always go on about shields because they're important, but there's two parts to that statement: two-handed and also barbarian. That's 3-4 points lost from heavy armor as well as the 2 lost from the shield, and another 2 after magic (as you should have +2/+2 at this level). Then another 2 points lost from rage. Two-handed characters lack shields, barbarians without a ton of dex aren't running at max armor+dex capacity, and standard rage gives a penalty.

Animated shields, while ridiculous, aren't as huge as people think they are thanks to the +2 cost. You'd pay 9,000 for +3 AC, which is essentially the same as a +0 shield. Two less than if you were wielding it properly, or 24,000gp to upgrade from +5 to +5 animated. They devalue a core balancing mechanic (having been added in 3.5), presumably in response to people whining about two-handers getting hit all the time, but it still comes as some amount of cost for a while at least.

None of that matters though as he doesnt have access to magic gear. So as most he could get a heavy shield which is what +2 ac? Thats not enough to help him.


Wizard doesn't have Polymorph, Greater Magic Weapon, Protection from Evil, Protection from Arrows, Displacement, Haste or Slow. He does have Blur, which could help. Mage Armor just replaces your current armor, I believe, so that doesn't really help.

Mage armor doesn't work like that (afaik). Its an intangible field of force over the subjects body. It doesnt stack with other similar spells, and overlaps (does not stack) with the magic bonus on an armor but Chain Shirt + Mage Armor does stack iirc but if you had chain shirt +1 the +1 on the shirt wouldnt stack with mage armor. To simplify; Mage Armor +4, Chain Shirt + 4 = +8 AC. +1 magic chain shirt +5, Mage Armor +4 = +8 AC (because the magic +1 on the chain shirt is overlapped with mage armor).

So yeah a casting of mage armor on you would increase your AC by 4 for the duration, a decent boost if you cant convince your DM to let you guys go buy magic items. Because as it is, you guys are likely going to lose if he doesn't so the bad guys will win by killing you or by you leaving. Also I saw one of your other comments about horses. You guys need to not be walking, and horses are cheap and good. You leave them outside the temple with some food, they will be fine.

[emeraldstreak]

If that's enough to heal everyone we then wait one more day so the Cleric and Druid can get their regular spells. So, after a big battle that's two days downtime minimum.

You can waste days healing, but you don't have the time to go to a town and shop, including for wands of cure light wounds?

[emeraldstreak]

Mage armor doesn't work like that (afaik). Its an intangible field of force over the subjects body. It doesnt stack with other similar spells, and overlaps (does not stack) with the magic bonus on an armor but Chain Shirt + Mage Armor does stack iirc but if you had chain shirt +1 the +1 on the shirt wouldnt stack with mage armor. To simplify; Mage Armor +4, Chain Shirt + 4 = +8 AC. +1 magic chain shirt +5, Mage Armor +4 = +8 AC (because the magic +1 on the chain shirt is overlapped with mage armor).

So yeah a casting of mage armor on you would increase your AC by 4 for the duration, a decent boost if you cant convince your DM to let you guys go buy magic items. Because as it is, you guys are likely going to lose if he doesn't so the bad guys will win by killing you or by you leaving. Also I saw one of your other comments about horses. You guys need to not be walking, and horses are cheap and good. You leave them outside the temple with some food, they will be fine.

Err, no. Mage Armor and a chainshirt won't stack at all (unless attacked by incorporeal creatures who would ignore the shirt but not Mage Armor).

[Fizban]

None of that matters though as he doesnt have access to magic gear. So as most he could get a heavy shield which is what +2 ac? Thats not enough to help him.
Except it is, +2 is +2. There was also mention of a (possibly magical?) suit of medium armor which would get that total up to +3 or +4. I wouldn't actually recommend giving up the +1 greataxe for a nonmagical heavy shield with low or nonmagical armor, but it would, mathematically, make him get hit less.

[quark12000]

So yeah a casting of mage armor on you would increase your AC by 4 for the duration, a decent boost if you cant convince your DM to let you guys go buy magic items. Because as it is, you guys are likely going to lose if he doesn't so the bad guys will win by killing you or by you leaving. Also I saw one of your other comments about horses. You guys need to not be walking, and horses are cheap and good. You leave them outside the temple with some food, they will be fine.

My reading of Mage Armor is that it grants an armor bonus, the same thing that armor gives, so they don't stack.

We tried taking horses to the moathouse place and when we came back they were all gone. Now we walk everywhere.


You can waste days healing, but you don't have the time to go to a town and shop, including for wands of cure light wounds?

Um, as I've said many times, shops do not sell magic items.

[EldritchWeaver]

We tried taking horses to the moathouse place and when we came back they were all gone. Now we walk everywhere.

No clues, why the horses were gone? Could have hired people to guard the horses? You have certainly the money to get higher-level ones.



You can waste days healing, but you don't have the time to go to a town and shop, including for wands of cure light wounds?

Um, as I've said many times, shops do not sell magic items.

The point is, the ceremony can't happen that soon, if you can heal yourself up over the course of several days, which you could spend instead traveling to the next town, which does sell magic items.

[quark12000]

No clues, why the horses were gone? Could have hired people to guard the horses? You have certainly the money to get higher-level ones.

Of course there were clues. 'They got et' as we used to say. Guess we could have hired someone to watch them. But if they get attacked by something, they'd probably just run.


The point is, the ceremony can't happen that soon, if you can heal yourself up over the course of several days, which you could spend instead traveling to the next town, which does sell magic items.[/QUOTE]

Well, healing is a matter of necessity, not choice. And I don't think the party wants to be on the road while they're injured. And, again, the town doesn't sell magic items.

[Recherché]

For that matter at this point hiring a small army might be the best use of your money possible. If you can't spend it on the items you need to be effective then spend it on getting enough people (and horses and wards and African swallow) to make up for your lack of items. I mean as it is now your so called wealth practically means nothing when you can't use it for anything.

Note: Doing this may make your GM upset about having to deal with the logistics of taking an army through a dungeon.

[quark12000]

Ha! Wouldn't know where to hire an army anyways.

[Nifft]

My reading of Mage Armor is that it grants an armor bonus, the same thing that armor gives, so they don't stack. You are correct.


We tried taking horses to the moathouse place and when we came back they were all gone. Now we walk everywhere. You gotta get more horses.


Well, healing is a matter of necessity, not choice. And I don't think the party wants to be on the road while they're injured. And, again, the town doesn't sell magic items. Healing is going to happen via magic, not at the natural rate. Being on the road will not impair healing time.

Do not delay the Quest for a City which Sells Magic Gear

[Recherché]

Ha! Wouldn't know where to hire an army anyways.

You hire the townsfolk and/or pay a bard to start spreading word that you're looking for mercenaries and will pay ridiculously high wages.

On a more serious note the lack of magic items and having some party members at lower levels is probably the root of all the problems. Your GM seems to be taking a very Old School (AKA pre 3.0) and troll-y approach to this module and its causing some issues because it doesn't match up to the math for 3.5

[quark12000]

You hire the townsfolk and/or pay a bard to start spreading word that you're looking for mercenaries and will pay ridiculously high wages.

On a more serious note the lack of magic items and having some party members at lower levels is probably the root of all the problems. Your GM seems to be taking a very Old School (AKA pre 3.0) and troll-y approach to this module and its causing some issues because it doesn't match up to the math for 3.5

Yeah, the levels are all over the place, from 6 to 9, I believe.

I'm pretty sure it's a 3.0 module that she is running for 3.5.

[Fizban]

Return to the Temple is 3.0, but there's barely any updates needed to change modules to 3.5 and you can generally run them without if you want. No changes were made to the underlying math, the biggest core-only change there would be the addition of animated shields to two-handed builds. (Plenty of other changes that do so more indirectly by changing spells and making metamagic rods a thing, but this is the only direct one I can think of).

[quark12000]

Return to the Temple is 3.0, but there's barely any updates needed to change modules to 3.5 and you can generally run them without if you want. No changes were made to the underlying math, the biggest core-only change there would be the addition of animated shields to two-handed builds. (Plenty of other changes that do so more indirectly by changing spells and making metamagic rods a thing, but this is the only direct one I can think of).

Okay, good. By the way, Merry Christmas everybody!

[Florian]

Ha! Wouldn't know where to hire an army anyways.

We´re running in circles a bit.

Temple is set in the World of Greyhawk, which is one of the oldest campaign settings around, and the module just provides information on the immediate areas surrounding the dungeon. The rest of the world with all its countries, cities and people is still there.

The module itself is designed around and based on the idea that the gm knows the rules, especially when it comes to the CR system and WBL, adapting what's given in the module to the general rules and the party that is running it.

Throughout this whole discussion, you're telling us what your character doesn't know or doesn't want to do - the list grows longer. What advice do you hope to get here?

[Remuko]

Err, no. Mage Armor and a chainshirt won't stack at all (unless attacked by incorporeal creatures who would ignore the shirt but not Mage Armor).

I feel very dumb as an old player (but I dont play casters much much less ones that rely on mage armor and when i do use its its usually not on armored folk so it wasnt an issue) but yeah for some reason I always thought mage armors armor bonus functioned identically to an enhancement armor bonus on armor. That it wouldnt stack with the +ac bonuses on enhanced armor but did stack with the innate armor bonus. TIL!

[Nifft]

Mage Armor is a good thing to have on if you get polymorph'd into something that doesn't fit into your chain shirt.

Since polymorph is awesome, you should consider getting mage armor'd every day.

The bonus vs. incorporeal (shadows / ghosts / etc.) is just gravy.

[quark12000]

We´re running in circles a bit.

Temple is set in the World of Greyhawk, which is one of the oldest campaign settings around, and the module just provides information on the immediate areas surrounding the dungeon. The rest of the world with all its countries, cities and people is still there.

The module itself is designed around and based on the idea that the gm knows the rules, especially when it comes to the CR system and WBL, adapting what's given in the module to the general rules and the party that is running it.

Throughout this whole discussion, you're telling us what your character doesn't know or doesn't want to do - the list grows longer. What advice do you hope to get here?

Sorry, but isn't it obvious from the title? I asked for help increasing my character's AC. I've already learned a few things (Barbarians can wear Medium Armor, Barkskin will help a lot) and for that I am very appreciative. Some of the advice has been unusable due to the way the module's being run, but that's okay. I'm just enjoying being here and learning.

[Dimers]

You can fight defensively as a standard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#fightingDefensivelyasaStandard Action) or full-round action (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#fightingDefensivelyasaFullRoun dAction), making attacks at -4 to hit and gaining +2 AC until the start of your next turn. Or you can just go all-out on defensive maneuvering (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#totalDefense) to get +4 AC.

Against ranged attacks (and also reach attacks, I think) getting behind an object like a tree or short wall can help by providing cover (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#cover), improving AC and Reflex saves. Smoke/mist/darkness/etc can give you concealment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#concealment) so that attacks have a percent chance to miss you completely.

Against creatures that can't compete with your physique, trip attacks and grappling can keep them from approaching you or using their preferred weapons. Check out the guisarme (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#guisarme) -- when you're armed with one of those, you can make a trip attempt against critters that try to get adjacent to you*. If you succeed, they stop 10 feet away, prone!**

* Because you can make a trip attempt in place of an attack of opportunity. You get the AoO when the creature moves to leave a square in your threatened area, which is now 10' from you, unless its only movement that turn is a five-foot-step.

** If you fail, they're in an area you can't attack using the guisarme, so it's good to have a spiked gauntlet (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#gauntletSpiked) or armor spikes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/armor.htm#armorSpikes) that you can still use against adjacent creatures.

[quark12000]

You can fight defensively as a standard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#fightingDefensivelyasaStandard Action) or full-round action (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#fightingDefensivelyasaFullRoun dAction), making attacks at -4 to hit and gaining +2 AC until the start of your next turn. Or you can just go all-out on defensive maneuvering (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#totalDefense) to get +4 AC.

Against ranged attacks (and also reach attacks, I think) getting behind an object like a tree or short wall can help by providing cover (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#cover), improving AC and Reflex saves. Smoke/mist/darkness/etc can give you concealment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#concealment) so that attacks have a percent chance to miss you completely.

Against creatures that can't compete with your physique, trip attacks and grappling can keep them from approaching you or using their preferred weapons. Check out the guisarme (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#guisarme) -- when you're armed with one of those, you can make a trip attempt against critters that try to get adjacent to you*. If you succeed, they stop 10 feet away, prone!

* Because you can make a trip attempt in place of an attack of opportunity. You get the AoO when the creature moves to leave a square in your threatened area, which is now 10' from you, unless its only movement that turn is a five-foot-step.

I don't know, can you Rage and fight defensively? Doesn't make much sense to me. Taking cover doesn't really fit him either. The stuff about trip and grappling I knew already, but I appreciate you bringin it up. We fought a young blue dragon once and I wanted to try grappling him but didn't get the chance. Thanks for the info!

[Dimers]

I don't know, can you Rage and fight defensively?

Arguably, yes, though I had to double-check to make sure. The only statement against it is that you can't use 'any abilities that require patience'. Since you think it's questionable, ask your DM.

It is a pretty odd juxtaposition. "I'm so pissed off, I'm going to stand here DEFLECTING BLOWS! Rrraaaagh!"

[Nifft]

arguably, yes, though i had to double-check to make sure. The only statement against it is that you can't use 'any abilities that require patience'. Since you think it's questionable, ask your dm.

It is a pretty odd juxtaposition. "i'm so pissed off, i'm going to stand here deflecting blows! Rrraaaagh!" Perhaps...

"I AM ANGRY ABOUT GETTING HIT! I AM NOT GOING TO LET YOU HIT ME!"

[Fizban]

What, you've never got mad at someone hitting you and started trying to smack their weapon out of their hand? Other rules designers don't seem to have a problem with it, as there's two printed rage variants that increase dex or AC directly (both of which are actually available for free online, I'd recommend this (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) one, since the other is a straight upgrade in power.

But that's kinda the point we're getting at- you asked for ways to increase your AC, but you've nope'd pretty much everything we've suggested. Its fine if you can't rebuild your character or use a shield, you can't buy magic items, you can't fight defensively when raging, but that's pretty much everything you can do. Aside from reading off the core spells that boost AC and telling your casters to do it, there's nothing left.

[quark12000]

I don't know, can you Rage and fight defensively?


Arguably, yes, though I had to double-check to make sure. The only statement against it is that you can't use 'any abilities that require patience'. Since you think it's questionable, ask your DM.

It is a pretty odd juxtaposition. "I'm so pissed off, I'm going to stand here DEFLECTING BLOWS! Rrraaaagh!"

Yeah, it's kind of weird. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ask if you could do it by the rules, I would think that you could. I was just trying to wrap my head around the idea. Thinking about it some more, I could see, say, the Hulk becoming angry and swatting away anyone who came near him without actually straight up attacking, especially if he was protecting someone.


What, you've never got mad at someone hitting you and started trying to smack their weapon out of their hand? Other rules designers don't seem to have a problem with it, as there's two printed rage variants that increase dex or AC directly (both of which are actually available for free online, I'd recommend this (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) one, since the other is a straight upgrade in power.

But that's kinda the point we're getting at- you asked for ways to increase your AC, but you've nope'd pretty much everything we've suggested. Its fine if you can't rebuild your character or use a shield, you can't buy magic items, you can't fight defensively when raging, but that's pretty much everything you can do. Aside from reading off the core spells that boost AC and telling your casters to do it, there's nothing left.

Sorry, don't mean to be argumentative. If something isn't possible for my character, I can only say so. I greatly appreciate the advice that I've been given. I hope I don't seem ungrateful.

[Fizban]

You're not being argumentative, we're just figuring out if there's any options left. The first and last option is to talk to your DM anyway.

If they recognize that your barbarian is now getting hit too often to do their job, they should help you find a way to boost that AC. If they won't let you do it with magic items, then they should let you rebuild the character or modify class features until the problem is fixed.

Unlike other buff spells (such as Resist Energy, Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Water Breathing, etc) which are expected to come from the spellcasters, front line characters are not expected to rely on buff spells for their AC. Having AC and hit points is their job, and at higher levels that includes magic items. No magic items means there's a hole in the system.

[quark12000]

You're not being argumentative, we're just figuring out if there's any options left. The first and last option is to talk to your DM anyway.

If they recognize that your barbarian is now getting hit too often to do their job, they should help you find a way to boost that AC. If they won't let you do it with magic items, then they should let you rebuild the character or modify class features until the problem is fixed.

Unlike other buff spells (such as Resist Energy, Death Ward, Freedom of Movement, Water Breathing, etc) which are expected to come from the spellcasters, front line characters are not expected to rely on buff spells for their AC. Having AC and hit points is their job, and at higher levels that includes magic items. No magic items means there's a hole in the system.

So, stuff like 'Barkskin' should be used for casters, and secondary fighters like rangers and rogues. Yeah, I can see that.

Now I can't wait until the next time we play to talk to the DM! I'm sure it's just some kind of misreading of the module or DM's guide. She's a very nice young lady.

[Fizban]

Barkskin (or Shield of Faith) is used on whoever you want to use it on. If used on a front line character who has the usual magic items, it will still increase their AC by quite a bit, which will make them better at their job. It's just not assumed that you'll need to do it, the same way those other spells are. AC bonuses are cheap while other stuff is expensive.

[ViperMagnum357]

So, stuff like 'Barkskin' should be used for casters, and secondary fighters like rangers and rogues. Yeah, I can see that.

Now I can't wait until the next time we play to talk to the DM! I'm sure it's just some kind of misreading of the module or DM's guide. She's a very nice young lady.

Sort of-generally, front line warriors are responsible to taking the initial shots in an encounter, and run the highest risk of getting plastered by 'kill radius' abilities like Grappling, Swallow Whole, aura effects, and full attack routines. So, most invest their magic items in a few areas-miss chance, saves, HP, AC, flight, and enhancements to physical ability scores. At lower levels, many of these things, especially AC and miss chance, should be things your spellcasters are casting on you during the 1 or 2 major encounters in the day. As you advance in level, you should be able to take care of the basics with your own permanent magic items.

At higher levels, with these basics taken care of, your spellcasters should be casting things on you that are either not readily accessible via items, or prohibitively expensive. IE, Haste is a third level spell, easily accessible multiple times a day for a Sorcerer/Wizard above level 5-the permanent version of an extra attack in a full attack routine, the Speed enchantment, is a +3 Bonus-running you a minimum of 32,000 GP for a +1 weapon with it plus the base cost of the weapon; and giving no bonus to AC and Reflex saves.

EDIT: Ah, bad example because I am tired, Divine power is personal only-I guess a better example would be Bear's strength or the other enhancement spells.

[Fizban]

Divine Power is personal-only, but yes, you're supposed to get stat enhancement items. One of the reasons why they dropped the duration from hour/level to minute/level.

[King of Nowhere]

I don't know if it has been brought up, and I'm ccertain you will not be able/allowed to do it anyway, but you may try to retroactively take a vow of poverty. you give up on having any possession excepting a simple nonmagical weapon, but you gain bonuses almost equivalent to those you should be getting by magic items. and since you have virtually no magic items you don't lose much...
if your dm is not giving magic items, then she won't let you take a vow of powerty anyway, but may be worth a try.

[Recherché]

Unfortunately vow of poverty is from the Book of Exalted Deeds which I'm pretty sure Quark doesn't have access to. However if you're willing to bring in some Pathfinder you could possibly talk to Your GM about using Pathfinder's Automatic Bonus Progression (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/unchained/magic/automaticBonusProgression.html)to alleviate the need for magic items. It's not perfect but it's free as is pretty much all of Pathfinder.

Pathfinder is a sorta successor to 3.5 that's about as close to 3.5 as 3.0 is. Maybe even a little closer. It tends slightly more powerful and slightly more balanced though not by a huge amount. Because it's so close to 3.5 it's very possible to mix the two into a hybrid game called 3.pf with some minimal issues. Paizo, the company that makes pathfinder, releases everything in the books for free on their srd page a couple months after it's released in book form so it's pretty much all legally free if you want to bring in some Pathfinder to your game for variety.

[quark12000]

Unfortunately vow of poverty is from the Book of Exalted Deeds which I'm pretty sure Quark doesn't have access to. However if you're willing to bring in some Pathfinder you could possibly talk to Your GM about using Pathfinder's Automatic Bonus Progression (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/unchained/magic/automaticBonusProgression.html)to alleviate the need for magic items. It's not perfect but it's free as is pretty much all of Pathfinder.

Pathfinder is a sorta successor to 3.5 that's about as close to 3.5 as 3.0 is. Maybe even a little closer. It tends slightly more powerful and slightly more balanced though not by a huge amount. Because it's so close to 3.5 it's very possible to mix the two into a hybrid game called 3.pf with some minimal issues. Paizo, the company that makes pathfinder, releases everything in the books for free on their srd page a couple months after it's released in book form so it's pretty much all legally free if you want to bring in some Pathfinder to your game for variety.

Thanks! Yeah, I know about Pathfinder. We're actually playing a Pathfinder adventure at the same time with a bunch more people. We have a lot of the Pathfinder books. I actually prefer it to 3.5, but the DM wanted to play this module, so we made up 3.5 characters.

[Metahuman1]

Couple of questions:


1: Maybe it's just fatige talking, but something seems a tad, odd about your grammar. Is English a second language for you by chance? (I only ask because if it is I might try to phrase things differently. Try to minimize using slang for example.)

2: Your Dungeon Master, do they have a lot of back ground with D&D and AD&D from the 70's and 80's and into the 90's? From Pre year 2000 (When 3.0 AKA 3rd edition was released.)?

I ask because they seem to be treating the rules of the adventure very poorly and in a fashion that is down right adversarial. And that is the sort of thing those editions often did and encouraged. Also, there missing things like how important owning magic items is in this edition. Things that were a LOT less important in those earlier editions form those listed decades.

I'm wondering if perhaps they do have background, and as a result there perhaps getting rules form previous rules editions mixed up or there just defaulting on experience form running it before and failing to properly take changes into account.

[Mutazoia]

Well....

Start putting your stat increases into Wisdom.
Take a level of Monk (add your wisdom bonus to your AC...stacks with armor and Dex)
Take the Mind over body feat from Forgotten Realms (adds +1 to your AC that stacks with the rest)
Take Combat Reflexes...take penalties to hit to get the same bonus to your AC...with your str. bonus, this should pretty much work out in your favor, even if you go for the max of -5/+5.

[quark12000]

Couple of questions:


1: Maybe it's just fatige talking, but something seems a tad, odd about your grammar. Is English a second language for you by chance? (I only ask because if it is I might try to phrase things differently. Try to minimize using slang for example.)

No, English is my native language. I tend to write a lot more formally than I speak, especially since I'm new here. That said, I don't know a lot of the jargon that is used here, so I ask a lot of questions about definitions of terms.


2: Your Dungeon Master, do they have a lot of back ground with D&D and AD&D from the 70's and 80's and into the 90's? From Pre year 2000 (When 3.0 AKA 3rd edition was released.)?

No, I'm the old timer when it comes to D&D. I haven't played a whole lot, but I did play back in high school when AD&D first came out. She's a good bit younger than I.


I ask because they seem to be treating the rules of the adventure very poorly and in a fashion that is down right adversarial. And that is the sort of thing those editions often did and encouraged. Also, there missing things like how important owning magic items is in this edition. Things that were a LOT less important in those earlier editions form those listed decades.

I'm wondering if perhaps they do have background, and as a result there perhaps getting rules form previous rules editions mixed up or there just defaulting on experience form running it before and failing to properly take changes into account.

I don't really know what other editions she's played or how much. I do think this is her first time DMing. Like I said, I'm the one who's played other editions, which is probably why I didn't notice that magic items were so scarce. We never used a lot of them when I used to play, as I remember. When did magic items become so important? Reading the PHB, I haven't really seen many mentions of magic items.

[Fizban]

That's because magic items aren't actually the purview of the players: they're still the purview of the DM.

However, the DMG where all the magic items are, makes it clear to the DM: here's your treasure tables, here's the magic item tables, and here's a table that says how many gp worth of magic items a character should have if the PCs are starting above 1st level (and there's another table that shows how the treasure tables actually give out a bit more than that so you can use some potions without falling behind).

It's not actually guaranteed anywhere near as exact a science as people will talk about it online, but the math behind the scenes (on monster stats) expects you to be slowly getting better magical bonuses as you level up. The cost of items and the treasure found both go up exponentialy (roughly on the treasure), so the bonus progression isn't actually that huge, but it's supposed to be there.

Like I said before, by 9th level a two-handed character should probably have +3 armor (full plate for a fighter), and possibly a +1 ring of protection and amulet of natural armor, and probably a cloak of resistance +2. You should also have at least a +2 weapon, either raw enhancement bonus or +1 flaming or something. That still leaves room for more trinkets, consumables, backup weapons, horses, whatever, or maybe even push the weapon up to +3 total (it's a very lowball list I gave).


It's entirely possible your DM hasn't actually read the DMG- a lot of serious DMs have whole sections they've never read because they only look up certain rules or tables. The PHB has the main game rules and you could run a module without the DMG, not knowing that missing information.

[Florian]

When did magic items become so important? Reading the PHB, I haven't really seen many mentions of magic items.

Unlike AD&D or later 5th edition, the whole of 3rd, 4th and Pathfinder included magic items as automatic part of character advancement. You will always find a Wealth by Level table, and the gm is responsible to hand out the appropriate loot/gp and provide shopping opportunities, which are also explained in the gms section on how to run the game - therefore workarounds like the Pathfinder Automatic Bonus Progression or 3.5 Vow of Poverty. Also take a look into Pathfinder Unchained for auto-leveling items that scale along, as well as the tables that explain what stats are expected for monsters at each CR and why.

[Fizban]

For 3.5, you can use the Ancestral Relic feat from Book of Exalted Deeds, or check out DMG2 for magic item bonding rituals. Both let you have an item only works for you, which you can improve without needing a spellcaster to to the crafting. There are rules and guidelines for combining items, so you can make that one do a lot of work if you want.

Ancestral Relic is a feat that works with an heriloom or something from your church, and requires you to meditate in a sanctified location for days, but you can "sacrifice" anything of value to power it. You pay the normal market price in stuff sacrificed.

DMG2 bonding rituals require Xgp of unspecified ritual stuff (the same way crafting requires unspecified crafting materials, you just buy them in town), but they're mostly very quick and are of the "kill powerful monster or survive awesome thing, upgrade item" variety, with a couple more mundane meditative fall back options. You pay the normal crafting price, which is half the market price in xp and 1/25 in xp (which you personally pay, no one else).


The DMG2 bonding rituals never get any press, which is kinda odd considering how essential magic items are- it goes to show just how much most people assume the magic item mart *must* exist that it's always either "make the DM pony up" or "remove items entirely," even when there are two zero-downside ways to get an item and people will sling the DMG2 mundane item templates around without batting an eye. Ancestral Relic is in the same book as Vow of Poverty even.

Or you could just have people's favorite items "level up" with them and get magical, equivalent to WBL.

[quark12000]

It's entirely possible your DM hasn't actually read the DMG- a lot of serious DMs have whole sections they've never read because they only look up certain rules or tables. The PHB has the main game rules and you could run a module without the DMG, not knowing that missing information.

I think that's what we're looking at. I think she looks up experience for random encounters and everything else is coming from the module.

[Fizban]

And yea did the quote ring throughout the land, "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance," and thus was the vast majority of bad things in the world explained. Should have thought of that sooner.

[Metahuman1]

Ok.


Is there any chance of you getting your DM on this forum to talk to us? So that we can sort of try to explain that mathematically, she is kind of making a miss-step and what needs to happen to correct it? (Or else find out if there is some detail she knows but you don't that changes the equation all together.)

[Pugwampy]

Take one level of fighter and get yourself fullplate and a towershield and dodge feat .

If you are totally attached to your greataxe , at least get fullplate . Armour is there to compensate for your sucky DEX , and you have serious sucky DEX bro .
The only thing your chainshirt is offering you is the luxury of sleeping with it on . High AC is ten times more important than extra 10 movement speed .

Magic goodies that pump your dex stats , boots of speed is awesome for barbarians . Amulets of natural armour or mage armour .

[quark12000]

Ok.


Is there any chance of you getting your DM on this forum to talk to us? So that we can sort of try to explain that mathematically, she is kind of making a miss-step and what needs to happen to correct it? (Or else find out if there is some detail she knows but you don't that changes the equation all together.)

I very much doubt it. I think she'd be very upset with me for posting this stuff.

[quark12000]

Take one level of fighter and get yourself fullplate and a towershield and dodge feat .

If you are totally attached to your greataxe , at least get fullplate . Armour is there to compensate for your sucky DEX , and you have serious sucky DEX bro .
The only thing your chainshirt is offering you is the luxury of sleeping with it on . High AC is ten times more important than extra 10 movement speed .

Magic goodies that pump your dex stats , boots of speed is awesome for barbarians . Amulets of natural armour or mage armour .

Well, when I was making him I wanted to put my highest scores in STR and CON, so my DEX ended up with a 12. Fullplate really doesn't fit my concept of him, Breastplate would be okay, I think. Perhaps you didn't read the earlier posts that magic items can't be bought in stores, and we rarely go to town anyway.

[Sewercop]

One thing that no one asked, as far as i could see, is a simple question:
Is the rest of the group on the same level of optimization?

If so, it is not that bad really.

[quark12000]

One thing that no one asked, as far as i could see, is a simple question:
Is the rest of the group on the same level of optimization?

If so, it is not that bad really.

Um, since I don't know what levels of optimization are, I'd say maybe? What level of optimization is he at?

[Sewercop]

Um, since I don't know what levels of optimization are, I'd say maybe? What level of optimization is he at?

Pretty basic, like how most characters will be when a player starts playing a game.
As long as the rest of the group are on a even playing field, there is no reason you cant have fun or evolve alongside
the rest of the group. And in that I include the GM evolving as well.

Optimization is a term that you can use in most settings in the world.
Take two cars, the steering, grip , everything is equal besides that one car has 100 horsepower and the other has 200.That is a significant difference and will make it an uneven "race/playing" field.
One is simply more optimized in most circumstances.

To learn how to optimize is a skill that can be applied in many settings in life, not just rpgs.
Just as the ability to understand how to read rules, makes you able to understand more legal papers and how to
apply them in life. Mechanical understanding and critical thinking is a skill that can be learned and is very useful outside of rpgs.

Summed up, increasing your armor class is dependent on the willingness of you to learn the rules and understanding mechanics, and maybe the hardest, how to bring that up within the group and to your gm without bruising any egos......

Thats the hard part

[quark12000]

Pretty basic, like how most characters will be when a player starts playing a game.
As long as the rest of the group are on a even playing field, there is no reason you cant have fun or evolve alongside
the rest of the group. And in that I include the GM evolving as well.

Optimization is a term that you can use in most settings in the world.
Take two cars, the steering, grip , everything is equal besides that one car has 100 horsepower and the other has 200.That is a significant difference and will make it an uneven "race/playing" field.
One is simply more optimized in most circumstances.

To learn how to optimize is a skill that can be applied in many settings in life, not just rpgs.
Just as the ability to understand how to read rules, makes you able to understand more legal papers and how to
apply them in life. Mechanical understanding and critical thinking is a skill that can be learned and is very useful outside of rpgs.

Summed up, increasing your armor class is dependent on the willingness of you to learn the rules and understanding mechanics, and maybe the hardest, how to bring that up within the group and to your gm without bruising any egos......

Thats the hard part

Okay, but how do you tell what level of optimization your character's at?

[Sewercop]

Okay, but how do you tell what level of optimization your character's at?

It depends on the group. That is the easy answer.
The difficult answer is that it`s subjective,complex and require a great understanding of the mechanics.

The reason i say it depends is because at some tables your barbarian will be the average, the norm.
While at other tables it will be seen as a liability and severely lacking in ability to contribute.

If we put aside tables,groups and game masters and pretend your character exist in a vacuum you can find a lot of information to read up on. From what I have seen so far in this thread, you struggle a bit with understanding what people try to explain when it comes to mechanics.

Do you play world of warcraft? MMOs? other strategic games? even counterstrike etc

[EldritchWeaver]

Okay, but how do you tell what level of optimization your character's at?

You are supposed to win and expend a number of encounters of a certain difficulty without requiring rest. If you can hit the expected numbers, you are normal, if your group wipes out (not to mismanagement or merely bad luck), then you are below normal, if you can handle even more difficult encounters, then you are optimized.

It is to an extent relative. Being able to do more things and doing them well compared to a similar character means, that you are better optimized. It is possible that an optimized character can do something that a specialized character can do, but possible even better, while this is not even the niche for the optimized character.

In the end, if you can't tell if a character you created is optimized, then he likely isn't. On the other hand, an optimized character can dominate the game. That is definitively noticeable by asking the question: "Does the character need you other guys?"

[quark12000]

It depends on the group. That is the easy answer.
The difficult answer is that it`s subjective,complex and require a great understanding of the mechanics.

The reason i say it depends is because at some tables your barbarian will be the average, the norm.
While at other tables it will be seen as a liability and severely lacking in ability to contribute.

If we put aside tables,groups and game masters and pretend your character exist in a vacuum you can find a lot of information to read up on. From what I have seen so far in this thread, you struggle a bit with understanding what people try to explain when it comes to mechanics.

Where do I find this information? I've seen a few builds, RPGBOT and the like.

What part of the mechanics do you see me as not understanding? I'm not disagreeing, just wondering what I need to improve.



Do you play world of warcraft? MMOs? other strategic games? even counterstrike etc

In order: No, I used to play SWTOR but not for a long while, no (sorry, never heard of counterstrike)

[quark12000]

You are supposed to win and expend a number of encounters of a certain difficulty without requiring rest. If you can hit the expected numbers, you are normal, if your group wipes out (not to mismanagement or merely bad luck), then you are below normal, if you can handle even more difficult encounters, then you are optimized.

It is to an extent relative. Being able to do more things and doing them well compared to a similar character means, that you are better optimized. It is possible that an optimized character can do something that a specialized character can do, but possible even better, while this is not even the niche for the optimized character.

In the end, if you can't tell if a character you created is optimized, then he likely isn't. On the other hand, an optimized character can dominate the game. That is definitively noticeable by asking the question: "Does the character need you other guys?"

I'm sorry, but this is just frustratingly vague to me.

[Florian]

Okay, but how do you tell what level of optimization your character's at?

That requires general knowledge of the game system and the rules, so you can check your character against the general expected performance.

One step up from that is looking at the so called "floor" and "ceiling" (terms describing the minimum and maximum expected power level of a class before building a character with it) of a class and compare if a build manages to either raise that or perform on a level of a more powerful class. (You might have noticed that we tend to group classes into tiers, based on what "ceiling" they have).

Another aspect is resource management. How do you get the most mileage out of what you have at hand, better yet, how do you reduce your resource cost? (Example: A +1 keen furious falchion can be better than a +3 falchion, when you get your wizard to cast greater magic weapon (+2 and up) on it, effectively making it a +5 weapon for a while, or a +5 armor and a cloak of displacement can be better protection than a +10 armor)

Edit: You're playing Pathfinder, so I give you an example based on that.

Generally speaking, the Fighter is a stable but low-tier class. Now there's the Barroom Brawler feat, which lets you use a combat feat that you don't know 1/day. A Fighter can pick Abundant Tactics when gaining Weapon Mastery I to give one feat mire daily uses, so this goes to Barroom Brawler.
Now we also have the Item Mastery feats, allowing a martial to copy some of the most common utility spells, like Fly, Teleport, Scry and so on. As those are combat feats, we can get them via Barroom Brawler, which we have upgraded to have multiple uses. This way, we've now upgraded the range of possible actions of a Fighter, pushing the class to the next higher tier.

[Sewercop]

Where do I find this information? I've seen a few builds, RPGBOT and the like.

What part of the mechanics do you see me as not understanding? I'm not disagreeing, just wondering what I need to improve.

In order: No, I used to play SWTOR but not for a long while, no (sorry, never heard of counterstrike)

You find it all over the net, but builds means nothing if you don`t understand the mechanics behind them. Start simple, read the players handbook,dm guide, monster manual. Compare your own character to the monsters according to your level. See how you stack up against it. While doing that you will look up the rules for the different feats, giving you an understanding of how you stack up against what you are supposed to handle. You are supposed to win 50% of the time against a foe of appropriate level. So if you manage that, you are fine. If not, your characters build is not pulling the weight the manual assumes. Which in the long run is bad for all.

For example, while playing swtor you could build your character, you see what gear is best, what skills and attacks is the best. That is optimization. If you never do that, just click whats cool , disregarding what the actual mechanics are, going for fluff(aka the story, impression , what seems cool) you will never manage to have a character that brings something to the table.

Imagine going hunting for a bear and you have a knife.
A friend offers you a rifle, but you turn it down because you like the idea of the knife and it would make a cool story.
In the end it just makes you dead.

A powergamer would bring a nuke,tank, and a air carrier to win.
Reasonable optimization is to accept the rifle instead of dying.

That is what it seems you dont understand, that you make choices based on whats cool instead of how things actually work. In the end it just brings frustration.. After all.. you are here asking for help, but disregarding it due to a cool story instead.

[quark12000]

That requires general knowledge of the game system and the rules, so you can check your character against the general expected performance.

One step up from that is looking at the so called "floor" and "ceiling" (terms describing the minimum and maximum expected power level of a class before building a character with it) of a class and compare if a build manages to either raise that or perform on a level of a more powerful class. (You might have noticed that we tend to group classes into tiers, based on what "ceiling" they have).

Could you point me in the right direction for learning this stuff? Google gives so many different replies to "d and d optimization" it's a bit overwhelming.


Another aspect is resource management. How do you get the most mileage out of what you have at hand, better yet, how do you reduce your resource cost? (Example: A +1 keen furious falchion can be better than a +3 falchion, when you get your wizard to cast greater magic weapon (+2 and up) on it, effectively making it a +5 weapon for a while, or a +5 armor and a cloak of displacement can be better protection than a +10 armor)

On the first example: I know that keen doubles the critical range for a weapon (nice for the falchion), and I looked up furious, which gives an extra +2 while raging. So that gets us to +3. The Magic Weapon, Greater spell gives an enhancement bonus, however high that would be. The weapon already has a +1 enhancement bonus, so those don't stack, right? So it would also be a +3 weapon with a much greater critical range, but your mage has used up a 3rd level spell.

On the second example: The cloak of displacement, depending on whether it's minor or major, gives either a 20% miss chance continuously, or a 50% miss chance for 15 rounds a day. Can you please explain how this is better than an AC that is 5 higher?


Edit: You're playing Pathfinder, so I give you an example based on that.

I'm sorry for the confusion. I'm playing two different games at the moment. The barbarian is in a D&D 3.5 game. The Pathfinder game (where I'm playing a Cavalier, by the way) is the one with 11 party members.


Generally speaking, the Fighter is a stable but low-tier class. Now there's the Barroom Brawler feat, which lets you use a combat feat that you don't know 1/day. A Fighter can pick Abundant Tactics when gaining Weapon Mastery I to give one feat mire daily uses, so this goes to Barroom Brawler.
Now we also have the Item Mastery feats, allowing a martial to copy some of the most common utility spells, like Fly, Teleport, Scry and so on. As those are combat feats, we can get them via Barroom Brawler, which we have upgraded to have multiple uses. This way, we've now upgraded the range of possible actions of a Fighter, pushing the class to the next higher tier.

I didn't analyze this because of the confusion. I assume these are Pathfinder feats?

[quark12000]

You find it all over the net, but builds means nothing if you don`t understand the mechanics behind them. Start simple, read the players handbook,dm guide, monster manual. Compare your own character to the monsters according to your level. See how you stack up against it. While doing that you will look up the rules for the different feats, giving you an understanding of how you stack up against what you are supposed to handle. You are supposed to win 50% of the time against a foe of appropriate level. So if you manage that, you are fine. If not, your characters build is not pulling the weight the manual assumes. Which in the long run is bad for all.

By "stacks up against it" do you mean compare ACs, ability scores, attack bonuses and the like? Are Challenge Rating and character level comparable?


For example, while playing swtor you could build your character, you see what gear is best, what skills and attacks is the best. That is optimization. If you never do that, just click whats cool , disregarding what the actual mechanics are, going for fluff(aka the story, impression , what seems cool) you will never manage to have a character that brings something to the table.

Imagine going hunting for a bear and you have a knife.
A friend offers you a rifle, but you turn it down because you like the idea of the knife and it would make a cool story.
In the end it just makes you dead.

A powergamer would bring a nuke,tank, and a air carrier to win.
Reasonable optimization is to accept the rifle instead of dying.

That is what it seems you dont understand, that you make choices based on whats cool instead of how things actually work. In the end it just brings frustration.. After all.. you are here asking for help, but disregarding it due to a cool story instead.

I'm sorry, but what exactly are you referring to?

[Pugwampy]

Well, when I was making him I wanted to put my highest scores in STR and CON, so my DEX ended up with a 12. Fullplate really doesn't fit my concept of him, Breastplate would be okay, I think. Perhaps you didn't read the earlier posts that magic items can't be bought in stores, and we rarely go to town anyway.


Did you want to keep him within your concept or did you want more AC ? pick one . Sad fact is DEX is more important than CON and both give you more benefits than STR.


How do you survive going to town only rarely ? You need to sell loot , get temple healing , tavern beds n booze n whores. Towns are your umbilical cord

[quark12000]

Did you want to keep him within your concept or did you want more AC ? pick one .

Isn't it possible to do both? I'm not trying to max out my AC, just get it better than it is.



Sad fact is DEX is more important than CON and both give you more benefits than STR.

Could you please explain this? In the PHB it clearly states that STR is the most important stat for a barbarian and that CON is also very important.


How do you survive going to town only rarely ? You need to sell loot , get temple healing , tavern beds n booze n whores. Towns are your umbilical cord

If you go back through the thread, you'll see that we're in a temple with an implied time constraint and we have to stop a ceremony from being performed. We just pile our loot in one of the rooms for now, our cleric and druid handle the healing.

[Sewercop]

By "stacks up against it" do you mean compare ACs, ability scores, attack bonuses and the like? Are Challenge Rating and character level comparable?

Yes it is. Alone you should have a 50 50 chance of walking out of it alive.
You can compare stats, but without understanding of mechanics it will not translate to anything for you.
Its like looking at statistics and not understanding what they are for.

Find a monster, or 10, of your own CR(level) and try fight it in an open room trying to kill your own character.
Can you handle that? Can you win? Or do you die 9 out of 10 times?


I'm sorry, but what exactly are you referring to?

I am referring to you in the thread saying you cant see your character doing certain things or behaving a certain way. You are not willing to give up movement for survival in a bigger armor, that is just suicidal. Just an example.

Imagine yourself at work, what is the three four core things that is important for you to be able to do that job?
Im not joking... ok, thinking of it?

Now imagine a guy that will not do those basic things just because it is not cool enough for him.
Do you want to work with him?
Thats your barbarian

In this thread, there are tons of explanations,hints, tips, advice, how to counter it. Frankly put, You dont seem to understand it or not willing to put the work into making it work. Because all you need is in the thread.

[Florian]

@quark12000:

The best entry point to optimization are probably the class guides that have been written by people who have mostly already done the whole number-crunching. It´s important to look at more than one class, compare the results and find out, for example, why one feat combo is good for one class, and a trap for another.

The two item examples are based on cost-benefit calculations and also hint a bit at the benefits of team play. The Wizard player should see that enhancing the combat prowess of a dedicated melee character is a better use of a 3rd level slot then casting a fireball spell, the Barbarian player should see that planning to accept and also ask for certain buff spells (especially Haste) is beneficial for all.

As for the armor and cloak, this is a bit about the diminishing returns of investing in protective items. There will come the point when monster to hit chance outpaces AC. Second important point is that AC doesn't really protect you against (ranged) touch attacks, which miss chance does.

I gave you an Pathfinder example because you mentioned your group has a lot of books, so you'd have the chance to recherché the feats I mentioned and think about the concept.

[quark12000]

Yes it is. Alone you should have a 50 50 chance of walking out of it alive.
You can compare stats, but without understanding of mechanics it will not translate to anything for you.
Its like looking at statistics and not understanding what they are for.

Yes, and I'm trying to understand the mechanics. Can you recommend a site or book?



Find a monster, or 10, of your own CR(level) and try fight it in an open room trying to kill your own character.
Can you handle that? Can you win? Or do you die 9 out of 10 times?

I am referring to you in the thread saying you cant see your character doing certain things or behaving a certain way. You are not willing to give up movement for survival in a bigger armor, that is just suicidal. Just an example.

Imagine yourself at work, what is the three four core things that is important for you to be able to do that job?
Im not joking... ok, thinking of it?

Now imagine a guy that will not do those basic things just because it is not cool enough for him.
Do you want to work with him?
Thats your barbarian

But, we're supposed to be playing a character, right? If I have a concept of the character, shouldn't I hew to that as closely as the rules will allow? I don't say he wouldn't do certain things because they're not "cool", it's because they're out of character. Like Pugwampy suggested taking a level of Fighter and getting full plate armor. I'm sorry, but no, I can't see this character ever restricting his movement like that. It's completely out of character.


In this thread, there are tons of explanations,hints, tips, advice, how to counter it. Frankly put, You dont seem to understand it or not willing to put the work into making it work. Because all you need is in the thread.

You're right, I don't understand a lot of it. Saying so doesn't help me.


@quark12000:

The best entry point to optimization are probably the class guides that have been written by people who have mostly already done the whole number-crunching. It´s important to look at more than one class, compare the results and find out, for example, why one feat combo is good for one class, and a trap for another.

The two item examples are based on cost-benefit calculations and also hint a bit at the benefits of team play. The Wizard player should see that enhancing the combat prowess of a dedicated melee character is a better use of a 3rd level slot then casting a fireball spell, the Barbarian player should see that planning to accept and also ask for certain buff spells (especially Haste) is beneficial for all.

As for the armor and cloak, this is a bit about the diminishing returns of investing in protective items. There will come the point when monster to hit chance outpaces AC. Second important point is that AC doesn't really protect you against (ranged) touch attacks, which miss chance does.

I gave you an Pathfinder example because you mentioned your group has a lot of books, so you'd have the chance to recherché the feats I mentioned and think about the concept.

Well here we have one person saying don't look at the builds and one saying look at the builds. Can you understand why it's frustrating for those of us trying to learn?

Oh, by the way Florian, was I right about that spell not being able to stack with the weapon's enchantment? I remember reading somewhere that the same kinds of bonuses can't stack, for example Mage Armor doesn't stack with physical armor because they both give an armor bonus.

I don't know if she would allow Pathfinder feats, but I can certainly ask.

[Sewercop]

Yes, and I'm trying to understand the mechanics. Can you recommend a site or book?

As others have mentioned, the d20srd works fantastic. I said the three core books, players guide, dm guide and monster manual. Thats the core mechanic


But, we're supposed to be playing a character, right? If I have a concept of the character, shouldn't I hew to that as closely as the rules will allow? I don't say he wouldn't do certain things because they're not "cool", it's because they're out of character. Like Pugwampy suggested taking a level of Fighter and getting full plate armor. I'm sorry, but no, I can't see this character ever restricting his movement like that. It's completely out of character.

Thats the thing, many say my character would never do that, and it is fair. But then you have to ask yourself if your character is wishing to die. Because one thing is to find it out of character, another thing is to kill yourself by disregarding common sense. So if he dont want to die, and he refuses to restrict his movement.... That character should just maybe... in the words of louis ck.. just maybe... just walk away from certain death in a temple of evil monsters and try to do some else? or evolve and adapt


You're right, I don't understand a lot of it. Saying so doesn't help me.
That is why I straight up ask. Because I wanted to know if you understand the basic advice given out. Are there any effective characters in your group? experienced players that deal more damage, find it easy?




Well here we have one person saying don't look at the builds and one saying look at the builds. Can you understand why it's frustrating for those of us trying to learn?


There is no point in you looking at builds until you understand the basics of the game(In my opinion). Often players copy a build online and bring it to a table only to bog gameplay down with confusion and not understanding rules.

Are you good at math,statistics, texts, etc?

[Recherché]

Part of why you're getting contradictory advice is that the playground isn't actually a hive mind. Different people have different opinions. Some people find looking at sample characters helpful. Some don't. I personally didn't find reading builds very useful until I got pretty far along already and I could see how all the pieces fit together easily. For me the various handbooks especially the ones that explain their ratings were much more helpful when I was starting out. I still made a lot of mistakes then that I'd wince out now. (Not-optimal choices are not mistakes. Mistakes were when I didn't understand how things worked and made characters that didn't work the way I intended them to.)

On another note, I tend to think of my character fluff as somewhat flexible based on what would actually be effective in game. I'd rather have a character that's alive and good at their specialty than one who fits my mental image down to every quirk but that's a personal choice. I also like to draw inspiration from the mechanics though and think through what knowing that heavier armor would make you get hit less often and suffer fewer painful injuries would do to a character's mindset. The other question here being once this character dies from lack of armor whether or not you'll chose to make your next character more open minded about defense methods or keep trying the same things?

[Florian]

Well here we have one person saying don't look at the builds and one saying look at the builds. Can you understand why it's frustrating for those of us trying to learn?

Oh, by the way Florian, was I right about that spell not being able to stack with the weapon's enchantment? I remember reading somewhere that the same kinds of bonuses can't stack, for example Mage Armor doesn't stack with physical armor because they both give an armor bonus.

I don't know if she would allow Pathfinder feats, but I can certainly ask.

Totally understandable, yes, but different folks, different strokes, and there's just no "one true way" to gain system mastery.

Reading a guide or looking at an example build doesn't help when you don't get the underlying math, but it can help by giving directions for what you have to look for and give some deeper thoughts.
For example, you'll find that in both editions, 3.5E and Pathfinder, most barbarian builds are based on the "Ubercharger" concept in one way or another. This can be a starting point to find out how and why it´s important in this system and with that class.

Most types of bonus don't stack. If you have two identical sources, they don't cancel each other out, be the higher of the one is active while the other is suppressed. In case of the weapon, a Greater Magic Weapon spell would override the basic +1 bonus, but keep the other enhancements intact.

[quark12000]

Thats the thing, many say my character would never do that, and it is fair. But then you have to ask yourself if your character is wishing to die. Because one thing is to find it out of character, another thing is to kill yourself by disregarding common sense.

A barbarian clanking around in full plate armor, that makes sense to you?



That is why I straight up ask. Because I wanted to know if you understand the basic advice given out.

A lot of the advice has been great. Using the Barkskin and Magic Vestment spells will help a lot. Some of it has been not so good. Advising me to buy some or other magic armor (which I don't have access to) or taking a particular feat in a supplemental book(ditto). So now, even though I know he'll never be what people here would call 'optimal', I want to focus on improving him as much as possible.

[/QUOTE]

Are there any effective characters in your group? experienced players that deal more damage, find it easy?

Well, he's gotten to level 9, he must be somewhat effective. My character deals the most damage, followed by the fighter.


There is no point in you looking at builds until you understand the basics of the game(In my opinion). Often players copy a build online and bring it to a table only to bog gameplay down with confusion and not understanding rules.

Are you good at math,statistics, texts, etc?

I'm very good at math. I know a little about statistics. Texts? Do you mean books?

[Recherché]

A barbarian clanking around in full plate armor, that makes sense to you?

A barbarian who's been traveling with more civilized folks and facing down enemies in heavy armor picking up some tricks from them including wearing heavy armor? Yes it does to me.

[quark12000]

A barbarian who's been traveling with more civilized folks and facing down enemies in heavy armor picking up some tricks from them including wearing heavy armor? Yes it does to me.

Good point.

I'm also tentatively thinking about finding some way to get two more ponts to his WIS and take three levels of Druid so he can just cast Barkskin on himself. How would that work since Druids can't wear metal armor? Would he have to always wear hide armor or lose his spells?

[Recherché]

Pretty much. I don't think it would be worth it personally if you can instead rely on the party druid.

[DrMotives]

Good point.

I'm also tentatively thinking about finding some way to get two more ponts to his WIS and take three levels of Druid so he can just cast Barkskin on himself. How would that work since Druids can't wear metal armor? Would he have to always wear hide armor or lose his spells?

Sure, but druids do have some other armor options when you get into playing with exotic materials. Main one is dragonhide, which is crafted by someone with the feat from Draconomicon allows the armor to be one catagory lighter, much like mithral. So a dragoncrafted fullplate is medium armor with a nonmagical +8 ac, although a max dex bonus of just +1 and an armor check penalty of -4.

Also, if you go druid as a dip on barbarian, you might as well go druidic avenger ACF. It's a druid that trades in animal companion for barbarian rage.

[Recherché]

If magical items are almost completely unavailable and getting to town and back is a major pain in the ass then I'm assuming getting access to the more exotic and expensive armor materials is a no go as well. Plus books are extremely limited.

[quark12000]

Pretty much. I don't think it would be worth it personally if you can instead rely on the party druid.

Yeah, I would just hate for her to be using a second level slot every day when it could be for cure spells. Could it be put into potion form? I don't know if the Druid has that feat, but I know the Wizard does. Could he make them? I'm not sure what all goes into making potions. I'll have to look it up.

[quark12000]

If magical items are almost completely unavailable and getting to town and back is a major pain in the ass then I'm assuming getting access to the more exotic and expensive armor materials is a no go as well. Plus books are extremely limited.

It's not that magic items are nonexistent, it's just that there's nowhere to buy them, other than, I think, scrolls and potions in Hommlet. We find magic items all the time, it's just rare that they're very useful to us.

Getting to Hommlet takes a week each way and we seem to be in a rush to stop this ceremony from happening, so leaving, unless someone dies, really isn't an option. We only have the core books. I have a Kingdoms of Kalamar book, but that's 3.0. Looking through my books I did find a couple Forgotten Realms books, too. Also 3.0.

[Recherché]

Barkskin can be made into a potion but in order to make a potion of Barkskin you have to be able to cast the Barkskin spell so your wizard can't do it.

The thing to think about here is that casting barkskin is likely to make it so that the Druid doesn't need to heal you as much. Level 2 is a cure moderate wounds so that's what 2d8+6? AKA 15 HP on average. If barkskin stops you from taking 15 damage it's an even trade. Any more and it's a steal. Sometimes you gotta use resources to get something.

[quark12000]

Barkskin can be made into a potion but in order to make a potion of Barkskin you have to be able to cast the Barkskin spell so your wizard can't do it.

Dang it!


The thing to think about here is that casting barkskin is likely to make it so that the Druid doesn't need to heal you as much. Level 2 is a cure moderate wounds so that's what 2d8+6? AKA 15 HP on average. If barkskin stops you from taking 15 damage it's an even trade. Any more and it's a steal. Sometimes you gotta use resources to get something.

I just looked it up, and there is no second level cure spell for Druids. CMW is a third level spell. Okay, I'll see if she's willing to keep a Barkskin spell at the ready for me. The only problem would be the duration, so I'll just wait until we're up against something really nasty to have her cast it.

[WesleyVos]

I just looked it up, and there is no second level cure spell for Druids. CMW is a third level spell. Okay, I'll see if she's willing to keep a Barkskin spell at the ready for me. The only problem would be the duration, so I'll just wait until we're up against something really nasty to have her cast it.

Just an FYI: Cure spells on a druid are mostly a waste of spell slots, unless she's casting from the Vigor line out of combat. Potions can do most of that work, and you said you do find a lot of them/can resupply from Hommlet if need be.

There is a lot a druid could do with a level 3 slot that is more effective than CMW. If you're in contact with her, have her read through Eggynack's Druid Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?439991-Being-Everything-Eggynack-s-Comprehensive-Druid-Handbook) - it's the best resource on Druids I've seen. Some of the third level options that are really good: Heart of Water (Complete Mage p. 107), Primal Instinct (Dragon Magazine, 72 - I know, not a great source, but if you can get it in, wow), Mass Resist Energy (Spell Compendium, 174), Sleet Storm (SRD), Spike Growth (SRD), Stone Shape (SRD), and Wind Wall (SRD - great anti-archery spell).

[Recherché]

I just looked it up, and there is no second level cure spell for Druids. CMW is a third level spell. Okay, I'll see if she's willing to keep a Barkskin spell at the ready for me. The only problem would be the duration, so I'll just wait until we're up against something really nasty to have her cast it.

My mistake there. I'm used to playing cleric. But the principle still applies that preventing damage is usually better than curing it

[quark12000]

Just an FYI: Cure spells on a druid are mostly a waste of spell slots, unless she's casting from the Vigor line out of combat. Potions can do most of that work, and you said you do find a lot of them/can resupply from Hommlet if need be.

We do have a good many CLW potions, only a couple each of CMW and CSW. Going to Hommlet is something we only do in emergencies. It's two weeks travel time and the temple is repopulated when we get back, plus now we're under a time constraint to stop a ceremony.


There is a lot a druid could do with a level 3 slot that is more effective than CMW. If you're in contact with her, have her read through Eggynack's Druid Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?439991-Being-Everything-Eggynack-s-Comprehensive-Druid-Handbook) - it's the best resource on Druids I've seen. Some of the third level options that are really good: Heart of Water (Complete Mage p. 107), Primal Instinct (Dragon Magazine, 72 - I know, not a great source, but if you can get it in, wow), Mass Resist Energy (Spell Compendium, 174), Sleet Storm (SRD), Spike Growth (SRD), Stone Shape (SRD), and Wind Wall (SRD - great anti-archery spell).

Thanks for the tip on the Druid guide. Many of the spells are unavailable to us, but quite a few are in the PHB. I'll let him know (the player's a guy, character's a female)..


My mistake there. I'm used to playing cleric. But the principle still applies that preventing damage is usually better than curing it

Yeah, I get that. Thanks.

[Metahuman1]

A barbarian clanking around in full plate armor, that makes sense to you?


Conan was known to do it in the original Robert E Howard stories when he had the option of going in knowing in advance he was going in for a pitched fight, and preparing for it.

He's sort of the Archetypical Barbarian Warrior.



Your cleric can even cast Magic Vestment, which if I recall right is a 1st level spell, and you can have the armor give extra bonus on top of that that lasts basically all day.







But yeah, the part were your DM is upset that you went and checked there math and there math appears to be VERY much wrong, but doesn't want to hear that, concerns me greatly.


I REALLY feel like it would be best if they would just come on here and talk to us about what's going on with this. Because like it or not, the module is suppose to give you room to buy magic items OTHER than scrolls or Potions with out the world ending while you travelling too and from town to do so. And that's really the crux of your problem.

[quark12000]

Conan was known to do it in the original Robert E Howard stories when he had the option of going in knowing in advance he was going in for a pitched fight, and preparing for it.

He's sort of the Archetypical Barbarian Warrior.

Conan is definitely the iconic barbarian. Then again, he's not a half-orc. ;) But the point is taken, along with Recherche's point of him being among civilized folk for a while now. Assuming we find the stuff, I think I'll start easing him down the armor chart.



Your cleric can even cast Magic Vestment, which if I recall right is a 1st level spell, and you can have the armor give extra bonus on top of that that lasts basically all day.

Actually, it's a third level spell, but yes if he's amenable, I'll be asking about that. I think he's 6th or 7th level, so that would be an additional +1.



But yeah, the part were your DM is upset that you went and checked there math and there math appears to be VERY much wrong, but doesn't want to hear that, concerns me greatly.

I REALLY feel like it would be best if they would just come on here and talk to us about what's going on with this. Because like it or not, the module is suppose to give you room to buy magic items OTHER than scrolls or Potions with out the world ending while you travelling too and from town to do so. And that's really the crux of your problem.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. She's not upset that I've posted here. I don't think she knows this website exists.

Would you happen to know where in the module it says about being able to leave the temple or where there's a town with a magic item shop? Someone else mentioned a city, but I think that is in the opposite direction from the temple, so would take very long to get there and back, especially on foot.

[ViperMagnum357]

Conan was known to do it in the original Robert E Howard stories when he had the option of going in knowing in advance he was going in for a pitched fight, and preparing for it.

He's sort of the Archetypical Barbarian Warrior.



Your cleric can even cast Magic Vestment, which if I recall right is a 1st level spell, and you can have the armor give extra bonus on top of that that lasts basically all day.







But yeah, the part were your DM is upset that you went and checked there math and there math appears to be VERY much wrong, but doesn't want to hear that, concerns me greatly.


I REALLY feel like it would be best if they would just come on here and talk to us about what's going on with this. Because like it or not, the module is suppose to give you room to buy magic items OTHER than scrolls or Potions with out the world ending while you travelling too and from town to do so. And that's really the crux of your problem.

This. And the module is specifically built not to be repopulated wholesale-the module only replaces basic enemies and NPCs over a period of weeks, or months in the case of monsters-the temple is just so massive that you are supposed to leave and come back to do it in sections-this is not The World's Largest Dungeon.

[Metahuman1]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. She's not upset that I've posted here. I don't think she knows this website exists.

Would you happen to know where in the module it says about being able to leave the temple or where there's a town with a magic item shop? Someone else mentioned a city, but I think that is in the opposite direction from the temple, so would take very long to get there and back, especially on foot.

Not off the top of my head.


But an idea occurs to me.


Perhaps consider going online and buying or otherwise legally acquiring a copy of the module, and looking it over so that you can find that rule, as well as the rule that the temple isn't suppose to be repopulating, and the rules that show that the monsters are suppose to be dropping actual magic weapons and armor and rods and other magic items at times?

That way you can show your DM that the rules say to do X, and then show her the forum we can explain WHY the rules say to do X and WHY it's important to pay attention to that.

[Nifft]

Would you happen to know where in the module it says about being able to leave the temple or where there's a town with a magic item shop? Someone else mentioned a city, but I think that is in the opposite direction from the temple, so would take very long to get there and back, especially on foot.

Ahem.


Do not delay the Quest for a City which Sells Magic Gear

Talk to your DM about this.

"Hey, our wealth-by-level is worthless until we are allowed to convert it into magic gear. We must have heard of a city nearby where we can go shopping and maybe have some social intrigue encounters. We need to get some gear and also some kind of magic transportation, like maybe a flying carpet or a scroll of teleportation for the Wizard to learn."

[Metahuman1]

Ahem.



Talk to your DM about this.

"Hey, our wealth-by-level is worthless until we are allowed to convert it into magic gear. We must have heard of a city nearby where we can go shopping and maybe have some social intrigue encounters. We need to get some gear and also some kind of magic transportation, like maybe a flying carpet or a scroll of teleportation for the Wizard to learn."

Right, but if he can show the DM were the city is, and much more importantly, that 1) THE TEMPLE IS NOT SUPPOSE TO REPOPULATE! and 2) THEY NEED THIS THE MATH SAYS SO!! and 3) THE WORLD SHOULD NOT END BEFORE THEY CAN GET BACK AND FINISH UP!!!, then it will help make that actually happen. Hence my above suggestion.

[ViperMagnum357]

Right, but if he can show the DM were the city is, and much more importantly, that 1) THE TEMPLE IS NOT SUPPOSE TO REPOPULATE! and 2) THEY NEED THIS THE MATH SAYS SO!! and 3) THE WORLD SHOULD NOT END BEFORE THEY CAN GET BACK AND FINISH UP!!!, then it will help make that actually happen. Hence my above suggestion.

The reinforcement rules are on page 38-humanoid NPCs are replaced at roughly 20% a week, and monsters 10% a week; which is very low for most dungeon crawls. If the group depopulates one of the sections, the DM is encouraged to pull more monsters and NPCs from other areas. Since the group is supposed to gain 10 levels over the adventure, replacements 1 for 1 should be little more than speed bumps on return visits.

As for the towns-Hommlet and Rastor are detailed because they have significant NPC interactions and plot points. The city with a Magic Mart, Verbobonc, is on page 4 and is specifically not detailed, because it is not an adventure town-it is a large city with a 40,000 GP limit which is specifically placed in the module within walking distance of the temple so that the group can leave and have access to most of the standard magic items to spend cash on. That is literally the purpose of the the city in the module-the DM is even encouraged to "handle trips to the city quickly and without much wasted adventure time". IE, keep the wilderness encounters to a minimum, gloss over the details, and ensure the group has access to almost anything level appropriate without wasting table time or rolling piles of random encounters.

[RazorChain]

Playing DnD 3.5. Any help is appreciated.


I recommend something like this


AC 21......AC 29


and just hope your DM doesn't notice

[Metahuman1]

And yet, per the OP, the DM is ignoring everything you've stated.


100% of monsters are back in the temple whenever they come back apparently. Or close too it.

Trips take extensive periods of time no matter were there going and ALWAYS have metric tones of encounters both ways.

The DM doesn't even want to mention any hooks that aren't crawling through the temple itself in any towns, and either doesn't realize or care the city is there to be used by the PC's.

And the world will end if they take "Took Long." which seems to be that even 1 trip past the 2 nearest towns rendered now useless for the PC's by the DM, is going to result in the world ending before they can get back and wade back through the temple to the point they were at when they decided to go to the city.



This. Is. Awful. Dungeonmastering.

Which is why I'm suggesting the DM needs to be talked too about this. None of these are the way they are suppose to be, and that needs, evidently, to be spelled out crystal clear for the DM.

[Fizban]

As for the armor and cloak, this is a bit about the diminishing returns of investing in protective items. There will come the point when monster to hit chance outpaces AC.)
Hey now, you should know better after seeing me in the other thread- for two-handed weapon users, sure. But overall, AC keeps up just fine in 3.5- as long as you have full magic items and use a shield.

As stated up above, this is a two-handed barbarian with no magic items, but they're not yet at a level where they can't scrape up enough AC to reduce incoming damage by some in spite of those penalties.

Second important point is that AC doesn't really protect you against (ranged) touch attacks, which miss chance does.
Depending on the source though, their attack bonus may actually be low enough that you don't need very much. A little dex, a little deflection (which is one of the standard AC items and does protect against touch attacks), and a little Fight Defensively or the Combat Expertise feat, and that wizard or beholder is wishing they had an area spell instead of a ray. I think a lot of laser monsters are actually expecting touch AC as a counter, and would be less threatening if people didn't just give up on the idea.


I gave you an Pathfinder example because you mentioned your group has a lot of books, so you'd have the chance to recherché the feats I mentioned and think about the concept.
Standard caveats apply of course- I've no idea how standard AC vs monster attacks compare in Pathfinder.


Back to Quark re: barbarians in full plate- if the barbarian has full plate proficiency, absolutely. Rage and Uncanny Dodge are your two most important features, and armor doesn't affect them. That Duelist prestige class in the DMG that's all about dex and light weapons and not wearing armor? Their best features don't actually care about armor and I'd totally make a low-dex build in full plate (if the best class feature wasn't delayed until a combined level of 14th).

Your dex is actually perfectly fine, 12 is the exact amount you want. . . for full plate. A barbarian that started with 13 dex, increased it to 14 from level up bonuses at 4th or 8th, and got Gloves of Dexterity +2, would be just at home in Breastplate. With 12 dex, you can accept a Cat's Grace spell for +4, which will gave you the same total of Dex 16 needed to fill out Breastplate.

(Each armor has a maximum amount of dexterity bonus you can use with the armor. For full plate it's +1, for Breastplate it's +3, and for Chain Shirt it's +4. You usually want to wear the heaviest armor you can fill up the dex bonus on, otherwise your total AC is less than it could be).

And regarding 2nd level slots for Barkskin: it's a simple bit of math to figure out the efficiency. How much damage do you usually take per hit? How many hits will you avoid if you have +3 or +4 AC from Shield of Faith or Barkskin (or +7 from both)? Unless you're being attacked by surprise and your cleric deals so much damage it would be a waste of their turn to boost your AC, it's almost certain that the buff spell is worth more than the healing. In-combat healing isn't nothing, but it is less efficient than buffing people first: less damage and faster kills thanks to buffs means your healing will stretch a lot further.

[emeraldstreak]

Combat Expertise can't be used while raging, so stop bringing it up.

Multiclassing as a Cleric is superior to multiclassing as a Druid for this character.

[Fizban]

I was making a general comment on touch AC, so I don't care?

[emeraldstreak]

I was making a general comment on touch AC, so I don't care?

We know you don't care.

[Metahuman1]

I was making a general comment on touch AC, so I don't care?

Having confirmed that you don't care, please, stop. It's incredibly unhelpful to the matter at hand.

[Fizban]

I have provided as much information regarding this specific character as anyone else in the thread- but the second someone says "touch AC doesn't matter" and I correct them on the fact that touch AC does matter, suddenly people are offended because I mentioned the dread Combat Expertise again. You realize that you're the ones who are making this a big deal right? There are four things in that sentence, three of which are not Combat Expertise, one of which actively supports your own freaking arguments by pointing out that deflection applies to touch AC, when you're trying to push the guy into taking cleric.

But sure, I'm being unhelpful for including general advice rather than just mashing the same button you are.

[quark12000]

First of all, please note that his INT is much too low for Combat Expertise, so it's a moot issue. I appreciate ALL the help I've been getting, but I certainly don't want to be the cause of any arguments or hard feelings. You're all trying to help, so thank you all!



Talk to your DM about this.

"Hey, our wealth-by-level is worthless until we are allowed to convert it into magic gear. We must have heard of a city nearby where we can go shopping and maybe have some social intrigue encounters. We need to get some gear and also some kind of magic transportation, like maybe a flying carpet or a scroll of teleportation for the Wizard to learn."

I broke down and looked at the map from the module (the regional one, not the temple!) and the city of Verbobonc is more than twice the distance from the temple as Hommlet, which takes two weeks travel time to and from the temple. So Verbobonc would be over a month away from the temple!


Right, but if he can show the DM were the city is, and much more importantly, that 1) THE TEMPLE IS NOT SUPPOSE TO REPOPULATE! and 2) THEY NEED THIS THE MATH SAYS SO!! and 3) THE WORLD SHOULD NOT END BEFORE THEY CAN GET BACK AND FINISH UP!!!, then it will help make that actually happen. Hence my above suggestion.

Forgive my thickheadedness, but exactly which math are we talking about here?

[ViperMagnum357]

Forgive my thickheadedness, but exactly which math are we talking about here?

Presumably, the math of the basic system. Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 and 3.5 are structured around a few simple pieces of math-players gain levels that improve a selection of basic abilities (HP, saves, BAB, etc.) while providing additional benefits. As characters grow in level by gaining experience, they need to be confronted by stronger and stronger enemies. Enemies are determined to be appropriate encounters at certain levels determined by their CR (challenge rating). In order to construct appropriate encounters, enemies gain abilities determined by class or racial Hit Dice, and either possess treasure or equipment appropriate to their CR.

Now, all of that is just rehashing what every player should learn as they read the PHB and DMG; where this 'math' comes in is with a handful of assumptions to make the system work. IE, encounters are by default balanced against a party of 4 players-with five or more/three or less, opponents and experience gain need to be adjusted. Another assumption to enable the system to work is that certain things will be available to the PCs-ranging from at least some people in the world accepting cash and treasure in exchange for goods and services.

The salient 'math' here is wealth by level-in the DMG, there is a table providing what should be an acceptable average value of personal wealth owned by each player of a typical group, at each level. This is calculated by by taking the expected treasure gain and deducting a nominal percentage to account for most players spending money to stay alive via investing in things besides gear; IE, food and lodging, basic gear like torches and hirelings, and spending some money on consumables to survive, like scrolls and potions.

A related assumption to make the system work is magic access; that while it may sometimes be inconvenient or unavailable, players not specifically playing in a low magic campaign should be able to locate and afford spellcasting and magic gear via the treasure they find. Now, bugging out every other day for a run to the magic mart is not always possible, but the DM is not supposed to prevent the group from getting magic equipment or locating spellcasters they can hire for something they cannot provide themselves.

What Metahuman1 is saying is that your DM is breaking the system-the system is built around magic gear, and almost literally every possible class and build in the game is at least partially dependent on magic gear access. Now, if your DM said you were running a low/no magic campaign, that is one thing. But based on your info, you are running through a module that expects you to leave and come back at least a few times in order to get better equipped. If the DM is using the threat of ending the world to keep you from leaving, then A-you are being railroaded by a DM with a poor grasp of the system, and B-the module specifically has a fuzzy timeline to allow the PCs all the time they need to prepare, and even has sidebars for incorporating other adventures into the campaign, regardless of the timeline.

You started this thread asking about AC, and you have already been given most of the solutions present in Core; what everyone is now saying is that your AC problem is merely the symptom of a much more significant problem with the campaign.

[quark12000]

Presumably, the math of the basic system. Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 and 3.5 are structured around a few simple pieces of math-players gain levels that improve a selection of basic abilities (HP, saves, BAB, etc.) while providing additional benefits. As characters grow in level by gaining experience, they need to be confronted by stronger and stronger enemies. Enemies are determined to be appropriate encounters at certain levels determined by their CR (challenge rating). In order to construct appropriate encounters, enemies gain abilities determined by class or racial Hit Dice, and either possess treasure or equipment appropriate to their CR.

Now, all of that is just rehashing what every player should learn as they read the PHB and DMG; where this 'math' comes in is with a handful of assumptions to make the system work. IE, encounters are by default balanced against a party of 4 players-with five or more/three or less, opponents and experience gain need to be adjusted. Another assumption to enable the system to work is that certain things will be available to the PCs-ranging from at least some people in the world accepting cash and treasure in exchange for goods and services.

The salient 'math' here is wealth by level-in the DMG, there is a table providing what should be an acceptable average value of personal wealth owned by each player of a typical group, at each level. This is calculated by by taking the expected treasure gain and deducting a nominal percentage to account for most players spending money to stay alive via investing in things besides gear; IE, food and lodging, basic gear like torches and hirelings, and spending some money on consumables to survive, like scrolls and potions.

A related assumption to make the system work is magic access; that while it may sometimes be inconvenient or unavailable, players not specifically playing in a low magic campaign should be able to locate and afford spellcasting and magic gear via the treasure they find. Now, bugging out every other day for a run to the magic mart is not always possible, but the DM is not supposed to prevent the group from getting magic equipment or locating spellcasters they can hire for something they cannot provide themselves.

What Metahuman1 is saying is that your DM is breaking the system-the system is built around magic gear, and almost literally every possible class and build in the game is at least partially dependent on magic gear access. Now, if your DM said you were running a low/no magic campaign, that is one thing. But based on your info, you are running through a module that expects you to leave and come back at least a few times in order to get better equipped. If the DM is using the threat of ending the world to keep you from leaving, then A-you are being railroaded by a DM with a poor grasp of the system, and B-the module specifically has a fuzzy timeline to allow the PCs all the time they need to prepare, and even has sidebars for incorporating other adventures into the campaign, regardless of the timeline.

You started this thread asking about AC, and you have already been given most of the solutions present in Core; what everyone is now saying is that your AC problem is merely the symptom of a much more significant problem with the campaign.

I get it. Now, I haven't read much of the DMG (back when I first played, players were forbidden from looking at it, so I guess there's a little psychological carryover), but could anyone site a chapter or specific passages that I could show her, specifically where it says about the system being built around magic items and that we need to be able to buy them? Thanks.

[Fizban]

Unfortunately it's not made quite as explicit as it could be- unlike in 4e, 5e, and Patfhfinder, 3.5 doesn't have a table of expected monster values that you can easily look at to see what the PCs are expected to fight. You're just supposed to make sure people get items, and verify that they can handle your encounters by comparing the PCs to the encounters yourself.


Treasure starts on DMG page 51 and tells you how much treasure the PCs should be earning, with a bunch of tables and average results- but while there are magic item rolls, a lot of the wealth on the tables is cash and art objects. (There's also a sidebar on 54 that makes it clear you aren't supposed to be penalized for using consumables like potions and scrolls or paying people to cast spells for you, because the treasure tables produce a little more than your total expected wealth- but this isn't your main problem right now.)

Wealth by Level is on page 135, but it's phrased as a cap for making sure players don't get out of control- it does include an example of "No adventure meant for 7th level characters will require or assume that the party possesses a magic item that costs 20,000gp," but again that's phrased as a limit.

Community Wealth and Population on page 137 is where community gp limits are explained, and includes the "rule" regarding magic item shopping, which is "Anything having a price under that limit is most likely available, be it mundane or magical." -emphasis mine.

Handling Magic Items on page 212 says "Including magic items as a part of treasure is a vital task of the DM . . . (A smaller number of DMs make the opposite mistake of being too stingy and handing out too few magic items). . . But if the PCs don't get enough magic items, they won't be powerful enough do deal with the challenges that have been balanced for characters of their level. . . The treasure tables (pages 52-53) were designed to help in this regard . . Occasionally, however, you'll want to give your players items you have hand-picked as especially suitable for their characters."-emphasis mine


That last one is the most explicit, and it is fittingly right at the start of the massive section of the book that is purely magic items. The PCs won't be powerful enough if they don't have enough magic items, and some of those items should be especially suitable for their characters. The DM can place these personally, but if they don't then logically the players will need to do it themselves by buying them in town. The writers were actually a lot more worried about people giving out too many magic items, so a lot of the references are phrased as limits, but they do mention the problem of too little.

There's also the definition of Market Price on 215, the price someone should expect to pay to buy an item, and of course there's Selling Loot on PHB 112 that tells you the basic sell for half rule, and Special Items on PHB 168 that says the party should sell magic items that no one wants for half the price listed in the DMG if they can find a buyer- and of course Community Wealth in the DMG includes rules for how much cash a city can come up with even when you're trying to sell something crazy expensive, but most magic items you'd sell fall well under the gp limit for things you could already buy in medium to large cities.


The current problem is a simple result of running the module half as written: it has a standard amount of treasure (or at least it should), but they left most of it as cash and expected the DM to let the players use that to buy what they wanted. A DM that doesn't like the magic-mart plan could run it that way, but it would then be their responsibility to replace a lot of that cash with items hand-picked for each of the PCs.

[quark12000]

Unfortunately it's not made quite as explicit as it could be- unlike in 4e, 5e, and Patfhfinder, 3.5 doesn't have a table of expected monster values that you can easily look at to see what the PCs are expected to fight. You're just supposed to make sure people get items, and verify that they can handle your encounters by comparing the PCs to the encounters yourself.


Treasure starts on DMG page 51 and tells you how much treasure the PCs should be earning, with a bunch of tables and average results- but while there are magic item rolls, a lot of the wealth on the tables is cash and art objects. (There's also a sidebar on 54 that makes it clear you aren't supposed to be penalized for using consumables like potions and scrolls or paying people to cast spells for you, because the treasure tables produce a little more than your total expected wealth- but this isn't your main problem right now.)

Wealth by Level is on page 135, but it's phrased as a cap for making sure players don't get out of control- it does include an example of "No adventure meant for 7th level characters will require or assume that the party possesses a magic item that costs 20,000gp," but again that's phrased as a limit.

Community Wealth and Population on page 137 is where community gp limits are explained, and includes the "rule" regarding magic item shopping, which is "Anything having a price under that limit is most likely available, be it mundane or magical." -emphasis mine.

Handling Magic Items on page 212 says "Including magic items as a part of treasure is a vital task of the DM . . . (A smaller number of DMs make the opposite mistake of being too stingy and handing out too few magic items). . . But if the PCs don't get enough magic items, they won't be powerful enough do deal with the challenges that have been balanced for characters of their level. . . The treasure tables (pages 52-53) were designed to help in this regard . . Occasionally, however, you'll want to give your players items you have hand-picked as especially suitable for their characters."-emphasis mine


That last one is the most explicit, and it is fittingly right at the start of the massive section of the book that is purely magic items. The PCs won't be powerful enough if they don't have enough magic items, and some of those items should be especially suitable for their characters. The DM can place these personally, but if they don't then logically the players will need to do it themselves by buying them in town. The writers were actually a lot more worried about people giving out too many magic items, so a lot of the references are phrased as limits, but they do mention the problem of too little.

There's also the definition of Market Price on 215, the price someone should expect to pay to buy an item, and of course there's Selling Loot on PHB 112 that tells you the basic sell for half rule, and Special Items on PHB 168 that says the party should sell magic items that no one wants for half the price listed in the DMG if they can find a buyer- and of course Community Wealth in the DMG includes rules for how much cash a city can come up with even when you're trying to sell something crazy expensive, but most magic items you'd sell fall well under the gp limit for things you could already buy in medium to large cities.

Thanks! That "Handling Magic Items" sections sounds like just the ticket. I kinda doubt she's read that, so I'll try to nicely point it out to her. Now, I just need to find a way to get them to that city in a normal amount of time. Over a month a way from the temple sounds like a really bad idea.

[Metahuman1]

My first though on that would be to show this to the DM, as your already planning to do. Once the DM has seen and understands the nature of the mistake and it's effects, they may either come up with something on there own to get you guys to the city and back in a timely fashion, or ask if anyone has any ideas for that.

If the latter, or if she just flat says nothing, nicely offer a suggestion.

The next room they go into has a small book shelf or chest, and some very, VERY weak monsters guarding it. the reason there weak is this isn't meant to be a challenge, in fact, make them so weak there's no XP and there gear so bad that it has no value.

Make one exception.

They have among them a scroll of teleportation.



Explain to the Wizard that he can scribe the scroll. Leave and do that, and then teleport to the city.




Mention that this has minimal interruption to in game events, and allows the party to get to the city with there money quickly, and do what needs to be done, and then come back. Perhaps before that nights session is over if the fight and searching of the bodies goes smoothly and quickly. The party are there and back within a day or two, right at were they were before. And then the game runs as intended.

Suggest even talking with the party about just having an agreement that if no one's in immanent danger of dying, you only go to town when you gain a level. And then you wait till next level to go back. You get the upgrades the game math assumes at roughly the assumed pace, but it's not too crazy for the DM to handle that way and doesn't hurt the narrative.

[Mutazoia]

So, just out of curiousity, have you considered of taking the opposite route? Instead of increasing your AC, try increasing your HP and becoming a damage sponge? Maybe a PRC such as "Bear Warrior"? When you rage, you turn into a bear, gaining a bonus to Str. Dex and Con, which will help make the AC penalty for raging a little less, as well as giving you more HP to help soak up what does hit you.

[emeraldstreak]

With 13 AC and 100hp when raging he's already on that route. Problem is it doesn't work well when the DM is withholding all the wands with cheap healing.

[Florian]

Now, I just need to find a way to get them to that city in a normal amount of time. Over a month a way from the temple sounds like a really bad idea.

That doesn't really matter.

As you're now aware, the game system has the fundamentally inbuilt assumption that a certain amount of gear is part of each character and the CR/EL system takes this into account.
For example, look up (and point to your GM) the Monster Manual/Bestiary appendix that lists what kind of Damage Reduction should be common and appropriate at each CR (DR 5/magic should start at around CR3, indicating that weapon-based classes should own a magic weapon at that point or be useless).

The WBL chapter, especially "Creating characters above level 1" also offers a percentile break-down how items should be distributed (like 25% each in weapons, defensive stuff, one-use items..), giving the gm that doesn't do shopping a clue how many and what kinds of items should be placed as CR-appropriate loot (instead or raw GP), also taking into account that players should actively use that stuff and not hoard it.

That also touches on the "respawn" issue you have: Kill them once to get the loot, use the loot to kill them the second time, just faster, replace what you used for it with new loot...

The main goal of integrating a "shopping opportunity" is the constant out-scaling of earlier loot and not clogging up WBL, distorting the basic calculation, i.e. having 100 +1 Longsword might be worth 100.00 gp, but is ultimately useless, so you should sell that (with the inbuilt 50% loss), buy a decent weapon for your level and gain more level-appropriate loot later.

That's more or less why traveling distances and time are not so relevant. It´s part of the underlying assumption what an adventurer does in this game world, that's also the reason why nearly no published module has a real time limit or "race to stop the ritual", because that doesn't work in D&D or Pathfinder, if the module is not especially designed to handle that situation, like using lower-CR monsters or weaker/mook type monsters to off-set the different between actual and expected performance - which Temple of Elemental Evil absolutely doesn't do, like, at all.

[EldritchWeaver]

I broke down and looked at the map from the module (the regional one, not the temple!) and the city of Verbobonc is more than twice the distance from the temple as Hommlet, which takes two weeks travel time to and from the temple. So Verbobonc would be over a month away from the temple!

Your GM is incorrectly applying a 1 week distance to Hommlet, instead of a single day. So this skews the entire map. Still, in regards to the supposed deadline, do you actually know, when the deadline actually ends? If not, do you know how many days you need to clear the entire rest of the temple? If not, make the case that it takes too long to clear the temple with your current equipment and that you need to upgrade it. If the GM insists that you do not need to worry about the deadline that much, then make the case that getting upgraded equipment, inclusively the spell teleport to make other shopping tours faster, is a god use of your time.

If the GM insists that you have to worry about the deadline then repeat that getting upgraded equipment is particularly important or you have already lost. If you still do not get any destination where you can get your equipment upgraded without violating your deadline, state that there is no way to win the game then. Talk about being presented an unwinnable scenario and about how the game assumptions are being (un)intentionally violated. If there is no convincing the GM, consider switching the GM or leaving the group.

[quark12000]

Your GM is incorrectly applying a 1 week distance to Hommlet, instead of a single day. So this skews the entire map.

I actually don't think so. By the map, the temple looks to be about 100 miles from Hommlet. Our slowest members (Halfling, gnome, human in plate) move at 20 fpm. This works out to 16 miles per day. 100 divided by 16 is 6.25 or very nearly a week. So, she's right about that.

[ViperMagnum357]

I actually don't think so. By the map, the temple looks to be about 100 miles from Hommlet. Our slowest members (Halfling, gnome, human in plate) move at 20 fpm. This works out to 16 miles per day. 100 divided by 16 is 6.25 or very nearly a week. So, she's right about that.

You are supposed to have mounts, either horses or ponies-there is a stable in Hommlet with a functionally unlimited number of mounts available for sale, and several areas in the start of the module like the moathouse where mounts can be safely stored for days at a time without supervision while you adventure; provided you clear the area and make an effort to hide them, and leave them with food/water for a few days at a time. Saying 'oops, something stole/ate your mounts' should only happen if you did a very sloppy job clearing the area, or made zero effort hiding them. The journey to or from Hommlet should only take a couple days at a canter, or less than a day at a push.

[tyckspoon]

I actually don't think so. By the map, the temple looks to be about 100 miles from Hommlet. Our slowest members (Halfling, gnome, human in plate) move at 20 fpm. This works out to 16 miles per day. 100 divided by 16 is 6.25 or very nearly a week. So, she's right about that.

The maps are.. weird, in the module; the scale meters on them are completely at odds with the written descriptions of how far away things are. As I mentioned earlier, Verbobonc (the 'City with Magic Items') is said several times to be about 30 miles away from Hommlet, and should be about the same from Rastor as Rastor is from Hommlet(sp - the shady town at the base of the mountains where the second act of the module happens with the elemental temple.) That village should not be more than 48 miles away from Hommlet, based on an event described in the Moathouse section of the adventure - if you allow the clerics there to escape or send for help, a wagon bearing reinforcements and supplies will arrive from Rastor in 72 hours. That's 3 days travel, and wagons only make 16 miles a day; the same as the foot speed of your slowest members. The distance a wagon covers in 3 days should only take 1 for a mounted party, possibly with an hour or two of Hustling or Forced March to make some extra distance. None of the notable areas for this module are meant to be more than about 2 days away from any other if you have a reasonable travel speed.

If your DM has already stated what the distances are, I wouldn't expect them to be changed.. but that's where part of the oddness about this is coming from. As it is, it's on you to figure out how to travel at a more acceptable pace. The obvious one is mounts; if you really don't think you can keep real horses around (Hommlet, Rastor, and Verbobonc should all have stabling services you can use to store them while you travel on foot to the immediate destinations around them.. I just wouldn't leave anything valuable on the horses while in Rastor, at least, because you can probably count on whoever you pay to take care of the horses but your luggage may get searched) then your Wizard could learn Mount or Phantom Steed and create your own horses. Mount can get you temporary horses for an entire party for a day at the cost of most of the Wizard's lower level spell slots; Phantom Steed can get one or two people a reaaaallly fast horse for a day. With that spell, even with the extended map distances you could send one or two trustworthy party members to do the shopping inside of a couple days while the rest of the party secures their beachheads in the adventure site.

[WesleyVos]

I'm going to make this as simple as possible.

From page 4 of the module:


Although the adventure details two different communities, at some point the characters likely will want to purchase equipment, particularly magic items, that they cannot find in either Hommlet or Rastor. The city of Verbobonc lies about thirty miles northwest of Hommlet (see map 2). Treat this as a large city with a gold piece limit of 40,000 (see page 137 in the DUNGEONMASTER’s Guide). Verbobonc can offer the characters virtually anything that they want to buy or have made with the treasure that they gain in the adventure.

By the map of the module, if Verbobonc is 30 miles northwest of Hommlet, then Hommlet should be about 8-9 miles outside the Temple.

Also, from page 38 of the module:


The Temple replaces losses of humanoids with like humanoids at a rate of 20% per week. If six gnolls and fourteen human guards are killed in the Main Gate area, a gnoll and three humans show up to replace them within a week (or two gnolls and two humans—the DM can choose). Nonhumanoids, such as giants, magical beasts, and so on, have only a 10% replacement rate per week.

You really need to bring both of these up with your DM.

[Fizban]

As before, core-only speed tricks are pretty much limited to buying a horse, hiring someone to watch the horse, hustling, and casting longstrider on every pair/quad of feet that are on the ground.

If the druid is at least 8th level, they can turn into large creatures, such as horses and dire wolves (much higher str, good in a fight), and then a party member or two can ride on them. If they don't yet have an animal companion, horses and dire wolves are on the list. Even if they're not 8th, as long as they're 5th they can still use another technique: have the druid carry as much stuff as they can (up to their heavy load), then wild shape into something. All worn/carried gear melds into their animal form, poof weight is gone. And even without all of that, you're a high enough level that you can just make them sweat for it. Hustling 4 hours is only 7 damage, which you'll heal naturally over night. Hustling for 6 is still a manageable 31 damage.

Cast longstrider on the slow people and they move at 30'. Hustle for 4 hours and you're making 36 miles a day. Put the slow people and the heavy stuff on and in the druid, cast longstrider on the remaining faster people, hustle for 4 hours, make 48 hours a day.

When you get to town you can acquire copies of Mount and Phantom Steed for the wizard. Put the small people on summoned light horses for 60' speed, put the heavy people on phantom steeds, morph the druid into a horse, move at 60', make 72 miles a day. Turn the druid into an eagle, put everyone else on phantom steeds, up to 80', 96 miles a day. Put everyone on phantom steeds, move 2mph per caster level.

In short, you have the ability to get back to town in two days right now, and then back to the dungeon in as little as one (even if you have to spend 8 hours writing Phantom Steed into a book, you can make the return trip in a single day by casting it for everyone, while moving fast enough anything that's not a dragon can't even catch you to force a random encounter).

[quark12000]

By the map of the module, if Verbobonc is 30 miles northwest of Hommlet, then Hommlet should be about 8-9 miles outside the Temple.


Which map are you looking at? The one I saw showed 90 miles equivalent to about an inch of map distance and Verbobonc at least an inch and a half from Hommlet.

[WesleyVos]

Which map are you looking at? The one I saw showed 90 miles equivalent to about an inch of map distance and Verbobonc at least an inch and a half from Hommlet.

What I mean is the description from page 34 (which I quoted) says that Verbobonc is 30 miles from Hommlet. So looking at the map and comparing distances, that would mean Hommlet has to be less than 10 miles from the Temple. Text trumps map in all cases, since it is the more specific rule (and the rule is that specific trumps general), so the distance from Hommlet to Verbobanc cannot be more than 30 miles. That's about 1-1.5 days walking from Hommlet. By the same scale, Hommlet can be no more than 9-10 miles from the Temple, if you're going by the map. Even if you're not, if you're taking a trip to Hommlet you wouldn't be taking much more time by adding in the 2-3 days that it would take to get to Verbobanc, and doing so would let you clear the Temple much more easily.

Finally, the bigger issue is repopulation. Make sure you quote the module text to your DM - the monsters repopulate at 10-20% per week. So even if the trip to Hommlet does take a week, or even two, you should only have an additional 20-40% of the monsters that you cleared, and you'll have a much easier job doing it the second time because you'll be properly equipped.

[Dimers]

Now, I just need to find a way to get them to that city in a normal amount of time. Over a month a way from the temple sounds like a really bad idea.

The DM could have someone come to Hommlet without retconning, since you can definitely get that far. Wandering merchant with a wagon? Teleporting wizard/cleric who just happens to need cash for some project?

[Fizban]

Really, as much as I'll push the fact that you can zero-point optimize your way out of most of your travel time problems (seriously, 3 day and you're back in), I don't think it's the better solution.

The DM has made it clear they don't think you should be able to buy magic items in town.

The DMG says the characters need magic items, and while buying magic items is normally allowed it's not even emphasized- what is emphasized is that the DM should place items that are good for the characters.

The obvious solution is that once the DM understands the party needs some magic items to catch up, they (most likely with the help of the players) pick out some magic items and put them in the dungeon. Maybe you find some dead adventurers with sick loot left forgotten down a pit trap, maybe you find some goon's secret stash, maybe you fight off a rival adventuring party, maybe the next few lieutenants you fight are abnormally well equipped, the possibilities are wide open. You'll have more "treasure" than you "should," but since you can't spend the money on anything that helps you win at adventuring it doesn't actually matter.


But, I think the bigger problem is still. . . the timeframe. From the way the OP has described the implied urgency of the ritual (indicating some knowledge of it), combined with some of the party being 9th level while others are lower (which means some characters died along the way and the current party may also be under-leveled), I get the feeling that they're actually most of the way through the dungeon already. So if they've fought through most of the dungeon without any serious magic items showing up, it "wouldn't make sense" that they'd suddenly find a bunch.

Still bogus compared to the many, many possible explanations combined with the mechanical game needs, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the DM's response even after they've had the DMG quoted at them.

[Metahuman1]

Really, as much as I'll push the fact that you can zero-point optimize your way out of most of your travel time problems (seriously, 3 day and you're back in), I don't think it's the better solution.

The DM has made it clear they don't think you should be able to buy magic items in town.

The DMG says the characters need magic items, and while buying magic items is normally allowed it's not even emphasized- what is emphasized is that the DM should place items that are good for the characters.

The obvious solution is that once the DM understands the party needs some magic items to catch up, they (most likely with the help of the players) pick out some magic items and put them in the dungeon. Maybe you find some dead adventurers with sick loot left forgotten down a pit trap, maybe you find some goon's secret stash, maybe you fight off a rival adventuring party, maybe the next few lieutenants you fight are abnormally well equipped, the possibilities are wide open. You'll have more "treasure" than you "should," but since you can't spend the money on anything that helps you win at adventuring it doesn't actually matter.


But, I think the bigger problem is still. . . the timeframe. From the way the OP has described the implied urgency of the ritual (indicating some knowledge of it), combined with some of the party being 9th level while others are lower (which means some characters died along the way and the current party may also be under-leveled), I get the feeling that they're actually most of the way through the dungeon already. So if they've fought through most of the dungeon without any serious magic items showing up, it "wouldn't make sense" that they'd suddenly find a bunch.

Still bogus compared to the many, many possible explanations combined with the mechanical game needs, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the DM's response even after they've had the DMG quoted at them.




And that's cause for alarm if they do.

Seriously, it is NOTHING to leave A scroll of Teleportation in a stupidly easy to locate spot for the party to find, or give it to a minor opponent so that when the party kills it and loots the body they find it. It is nothing for the DM to allow the party to whole up and the wizard to scribe the scroll into his book, and allow the party to rest for the night, and prep the spell, and teleport to the city the very next morning.

It is nothing for the DM to allow you to spend what gold you've got. (Also, note: that 40,000 GP limit? That's not total limit of all things the party can buy. Repeat, that is NOT what that is. It's a limit on the price tag of the most expensive single item the party can buy. I say this cause it's an important distinction.). It is nothing for the DM to allow you to teleport back that night, rest for 9 hours to get full spells on everyone, and allow you to proceed.

That's 2 days. The World should not end in 2 days because you needed better equipment. And maybe 5% of the monsters you've beaten, at the most, should be repopulated.

Again, this is nothing for the DM to correct. Nothing. I can do it blindfolded, and I'm not a particularly good DM. I've seen Good DM's who could cover this in half an hour game time in the in universe time I described, backwards, while hanging upside down, and doing it in a language they only have a tenuous grasp of the basics of.




The DM does that, and the travel time only remains relevant if the DM is being a stubborn pigheaded buffoon, or is actively being malicious.

If the DM does either, frankly, I think you should show this to the rest of the party, and explain it to them, and ask them if they would be up for either confronting the DM about this as a group to have it corrected, or in just not showing up next session and going and finding another DM to run the module for them.

[Fizban]

You do realize that people are allowed to run games where magic is rare and un-purchasable, right? It doesn't matter how "easy" it is, if the DM wants a world where you can't buy magic, they can do that, and I'm pretty sure that's what they've been doing. Forcing them to change it because you demand magic-mart is not as one-sided an argument as you're presenting it. As long as the DM ensures the party gets appropriate magic items, the only real complaint dries up.

I did have to go a bit afield for the concrete reference that the DM is allowed to run low-magic campaigns, but Complete Warrior 137 has it under Warriors in the Campaign, with suggestions on how one might limit spellcasting and magic items if they choose to do so, and a (fairly lacking) description of some of the problems mostly from the player's point of view.

Going back further, Arms and Equipment Guide (3.0) also has a section on Adventuring in Low or No-Magic Campaigns, page 27. This one has more of the DM's side, obliquely mentioning healing spells without properly mentioning all the status effects other than limb loss, and making a point of damage reduction (which in 3.0 required not just a magic weapon, but one of +X based on the monster), but most importantly with an explicit call out that some monsters have their CR based on access to that "healing" magic and that when that magic is limited the DM must assign ad hoc xp increases to account for the increased difficulty.


Although, as usual, while searching for the quote to support my own point I found the quote the opposition should be using: DMG 142, Magic In Your World- Magic Items, "The magic items described in Chapter 7 all have prices. The assumption is that, while they are rare, magic items can be bought and sold as any commodity can." This is the most direct quote in support of the idea that the DM must allow magic item marts.

And it is admittedly pretty strong, but as always, no rule in the DMG trumps the first rule that the DM is in charge. If they didn't make a point of telling the group this is a restricted magic item campaign then they messed up (or in this case they simply hadn't read the DMG cover to cover), but that doesn't mean the players get to stage a revolt and demand the world change.

[Recherché]

She's certainly allowed to run a low magic item campaign but if she doesn't or can't rebalance the game to compensate and the players are getting frustrated by this then the players have the right to ask her to change that,

[Metahuman1]

You do realize that people are allowed to run games where magic is rare and un-purchasable, right? It doesn't matter how "easy" it is, if the DM wants a world where you can't buy magic, they can do that, and I'm pretty sure that's what they've been doing. Forcing them to change it because you demand magic-mart is not as one-sided an argument as you're presenting it. As long as the DM ensures the party gets appropriate magic items, the only real complaint dries up.

I did have to go a bit afield for the concrete reference that the DM is allowed to run low-magic campaigns, but Complete Warrior 137 has it under Warriors in the Campaign, with suggestions on how one might limit spellcasting and magic items if they choose to do so, and a (fairly lacking) description of some of the problems mostly from the player's point of view.

Going back further, Arms and Equipment Guide (3.0) also has a section on Adventuring in Low or No-Magic Campaigns, page 27. This one has more of the DM's side, obliquely mentioning healing spells without properly mentioning all the status effects other than limb loss, and making a point of damage reduction (which in 3.0 required not just a magic weapon, but one of +X based on the monster), but most importantly with an explicit call out that some monsters have their CR based on access to that "healing" magic and that when that magic is limited the DM must assign ad hoc xp increases to account for the increased difficulty.


Although, as usual, while searching for the quote to support my own point I found the quote the opposition should be using: DMG 142, Magic In Your World- Magic Items, "The magic items described in Chapter 7 all have prices. The assumption is that, while they are rare, magic items can be bought and sold as any commodity can." This is the most direct quote in support of the idea that the DM must allow magic item marts.

And it is admittedly pretty strong, but as always, no rule in the DMG trumps the first rule that the DM is in charge. If they didn't make a point of telling the group this is a restricted magic item campaign then they messed up (or in this case they simply hadn't read the DMG cover to cover), but that doesn't mean the players get to stage a revolt and demand the world change.

You do realize the players have the right to say "We want X as a matter of reasonable fairness." and if the DM refuses it, they also have the right to say "Ok, then were going to go find a different DM to run the module for us.". Right?




If there not literally systematically reworking every single mechanical aspect of every single fight you get into and about half the none fights (since skills and saves assume magic item support as well.), then actually, it's EXACTLY as one sided as I'm presenting it. Pretending anything else is inviting a whole lot of miserable and not fun sessions, PC deaths, death spirals and TPK's.




AAEG and CW are both banned by this DM. The book that explicitly provides the counter argument you cited is however in use.

If the DM is banning the books with the counter argument she wants to use, she can't use it by her own rules. If she's including the argument your pointing out to her that disagrees with how she wants to do it, that's unfortunate, but if she's not willing to listen to that or to do ALL the extensive extra work and book keeping to give herself the room to have it her way anyway, then were right back to my the points I've covered in this and my previous post.





And again, it's possible the DM is just missing the information and is going to respond with "Oh crap, I'm so sorry! Oh crap, how do I fix this?!"

[quark12000]

And again, it's possible the DM is just missing the information and is going to respond with "Oh crap, I'm so sorry! Oh crap, how do I fix this?!"

And I'm sure that's what's going on. I'm sure she's just giving the items that the module is telling her to give and using the map the way it is.

[Florian]

And I'm sure that's what's going on. I'm sure she's just giving the items that the module is telling her to give and using the map the way it is.

*Sigh*

The module is not self-contained and includes only the module-specific rules that are not covered in the DMG (For example, the reinforcement rates).
The module itself lists the additional sources it needs to be played in the first place, namely the 3 3.5E core rulebooks, else it doesn't work.

(It´s a weird non-argument to say "But she uses the module as written", when it´s written in the preface of the module to use the DMG rules as basis)

[Metahuman1]

With respect to that, I'm not telling you she's necessarily malicious.


But I am trying to make it clear that even if she thinks she's using the rules correctly, she is rather grievously in error about the rules and how they work, as we have illustrated for you.

[quark12000]

*Sigh*

The module is not self-contained and includes only the module-specific rules that are not covered in the DMG (For example, the reinforcement rates).
The module itself lists the additional sources it needs to be played in the first place, namely the 3 3.5E core rulebooks, else it doesn't work.

(It´s a weird non-argument to say "But she uses the module as written", when it´s written in the preface of the module to use the DMG rules as basis)

I meant as far as treasure and magic item placement in rooms and on enemies.

[tyckspoon]

I meant as far as treasure and magic item placement in rooms and on enemies.

I'm sure she is. The module also assumes you are going to use that treasure to go buy the magic items you want, and that travel to a place where you can do so is relatively easy - both of those assumptions are explicitly stated at least once in the adventure's advice for DMs, and implicit in various descriptions of events throughout the module. If only one side of that is true (the treasures are as given in the module, but you cannot readily turn them into usable items), then your DM is not running the module as expected. Again, this does not mean your DM is operating with malice, but she is at a minimum missing or ignoring important information about the expectations the module was written with. She needs to be made aware of that, and encouraged to make appropriate changes. That might mean changing the module so that the treasures found contain those useful items. It might mean changing her random encounter rules or letting up on the 'the world is going to end!!' pressure so you can travel with less worry that your neglect is going to destroy everything. It might mean making an agreement not to attack your horses so you're not limited to traveling at the foot speed of your slowest members for fear of having your horses eaten or wander away on the road. But ultimately, if your party is having a problem, it's because of something your DM is doing and something your DM will have to correct.