Any practical optimizers out there?

[redking]

Practical optimization (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=4136.msg56582#msg56582) is about reading information in context and using common sense about what will fly at the table of a normal gaming group.

1. Not everything needs to be stated explicitly in the rules; some things just are.
A human doesn't have a hundred and fifty-seven arms, even though the rules don't explicitly say that he doesn't. A character doesn't continue running around after he dies, even though the rules don't explicitly list any negative effects for death. If the designers spelled out every single thing explicitly...even the glaringly obvious...the core rulebooks would be larger than the Encyclopedia Brittannica, and would likely cost as much as a Ferrari.

2. "The rules don't say I can't!" is not practical optimization.
The second commandment is like unto the first. There are many things that the rules don't explicitly say you can't do. The rules don't explicitly say you can't do the "I'm a Little Teapot" dance and instantly heal back to full starting hit points as a result. The rules don't explicitly say your first level character can't have a titanium-reinforced skeleton and cybernetic weaponry. This is because the rules are structured in such a way as to tell you what you can do--not what you can't. An underlying assumption is that, apart from common-sense actions which anyone can perform, the system will tell you if a given character has a given ability.

3. RAW is a myth.
This is one of the dirty little secrets of the board. The Most Holy RAW is invoked continuously by those who want to give their arguments the veneer of officiality. The problem is, RAW is generally applied not as "The Rules as Written," but rather as "The Rules As I Interpret Them And You Can't Prove I'm Wrong, Nyeah." The RAITAYCPIWN. Not quite as catchy an acronym, granted, but that's what it boils down to. This game cannot be played without interpretation and the judicious application of common sense. Try to play the game strictly and exclusively by the rules as written, and you have an unplayable game. Using "RAW" as a defense is similarly meaningless--particularly when your defense rests on interpretation. If you're going to claim that your build is RAW, you'd better be able to make sure that the rules specifically uphold your claim...not simply that they're sort of vague and COULD be interpreted in such a way as to not FORBID your claim.
This becomes particularly important when your claim is especially controversial. Yes, builds should adhere to the rules as written. Yes, any exceptions to that should be noted. But the RAW as some sort of entity unto itself, capable of rendering a build immune to criticism, is not a useful construction, and causes more problems than it solves.

4. Common sense is not a bad thing.
The rules were designed to be read with common sense. Yes, common sense will vary from person to person, but there has to be some basic level at which we agree on core assumptions, or the game is meaningless. If we have one interpretation of the rules where two levels of a prestige class give you infinite caster level, and another interpretation where two levels of that same prestige class give you two caster levels, then common sense tells us that the latter interpretation is the correct one. If a character reaches negative ten hit points and dies, common sense tells us that he doesn't spring back to his feet and continue fighting unimpeded.

5. Intent matters.
I know, I know..."Blasphemy! No man may know the intent of the Most Holy Designers!" Except that, in some cases, we can. In some cases, the intent is glaringly, painfully obvious. In other cases, the intent has been clarified by various WotC sources, such as CustServ. It makes sense to take these sources at their word, people. They work with the folks who design the game, they have access to them. If a conflict comes up, then it can be resolved, but I can't help but notice that for all the talk about how CustServ never gives the same answer twice, they've been remarkably consistent of late. It's one thing to say "This rule is vaguely worded, and we don't know the intent." It's another thing to say, "The rule is vaguely worded, and therefore I can ignore the intent." The first is sensible caution; the second is rules lawyering. When an ambiguity has been clarified, that should be the end of it.

6. Mistakes happen.
Everybody's human. You're human; I'm human; the folks at WotC are human. Sometimes, humans make mistakes. That shouldn't be seen as an opportunity to break the game. Take the Vigilante from Complete Adventurer, for instance. Anyone out there seriously believe that his rather abrupt jump from 1 third level spell at level 6 to 20 at level 7 is NOT a mistake? There are two ways to deal with a mistake like this: a sensible way, and a silly way. The sensible way: "Hmm. There's a column for fourth level spells with no numbers in it, and a column for third level with numbers that can't be right in it. Clearly, this was a typesetting error, and the second digit in the third level spells column is supposed to be in the fourth level spells column." The silly way: "Rules are rules! The rulebook says 20 third level spells at seventh level! If you do it any other way, you're houseruling! I'm gonna make some GREAT builds based on this rule!" Basing a build on an obvious mistake isn't optimizing; it's silly.

7. Simple Is Good.
There are a LOT of WotC sourcebooks out there. I did a rough estimate on the value of my collection just of hardcover rulebooks; it cost more than my car. Not everyone has that kind of cash to spend on this hobby. Not only that--a lot of people simply don't have the time to commit several thousand pages of rules, hundreds upon hundreds of prestige classes, and thousands of feats to memory. So: builds which are simple are good. There's nothing WRONG with a build that incorporates eight different prestige classes from seven different sources, and then tosses in feats from five more...but that build is going to be useful only to the people who have those sources, whereas the Druid 20 build that doesn't go outside of Core is useful to everybody. Sometimes, simplicity is worth more than raw power.

8. Tricking the DM is Bad.
We see a lot of "Help me trick my DM!" or "Help me make my DM cry!" requests on these boards. We see builds that are designed to look innocuous while at the same time being devastating to campaign balance. The idea is to lull the DM into allowing the character, then unleash its full power. Bad idea. Bad, BAD idea. At all times, two things should be borne in mind about the DM. One: he's in charge. If you try to trick him, he's totally within his rights to toss your character or YOU out of the game. Two: he's your friend. Trying to deceive your friends is bad. Be honest with your DM about what you want to do. If he says "No," deal with it. That's part of a DM's job. If you don't think he's going to say "Yes" to something, then trying to sneak it into the game on the sly is a sure way to make him mad.

9. Respect the parameters of the request.
This used to be a given, but people have been backsliding a lot lately. Someone comes on and says, "Hey, I'd like to play a Bard 4/Cleric 4. Can anyone help me optimize this? He immediately gets responses which boil down to, "Only an idiot would play that! You should be playing Pun-Pun, he's MUCH more powerful!" Sometimes they're more nicely phrased than this, other times they're not. The point is: people aren't offering him suggestions on how to make his character of choice better. They're telling him that he's "wrong" for playing that character, and that he should be playing a different character. The same goes for threads in which the poster explains the DM's house rules and restrictions at the beginning of the thread. More often than not, if these restrictions amount to more than "No infinite power at first level," someone will respond with the oh-so-helpful suggestion "Your DM sucks. Quit his game and never talk to him again."
I only wish that were hyperbole. It's word-for-word from a thread a while back. Optimization is about working within the rules to greatest effect. ANYONE can optimize in an environment with no restrictions. It takes skill to optimize where options are limited. Threads like these should be seen as an opportunity to demonstrate that skill...not belittle the poster or the DM.

10. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
I remember bounding onto the boards many moons ago, shortly after the first release of the Persistent Spell feat, to declare that I had discovered (ta da!) the UNBEATABLE COMBO. Since Time Stop was a Personal effect spell, it could be Persisted! (Oooh, aaah!) I couldn't imagine why nobody had thought of this before. Of course, as it turned out, LOTS of people had thought of this before. Within about five minutes, I was directed to a ruling that said, "You can't do it." I was disappointed, sure...but I accepted it and moved on. There are a LOT of folks here with a lot of knowledge of the rules. Some of 'em are a little scary. They love nothing better than to go over a new rulebook with a fine-toothed comb looking for hidden gems. Sometimes, a genuinely overlooked concept will turn up. The recent builds using Sanctum Spell are a good example. The feat's been around for a while, but nobody really looked at what could be done with it.
More often, though, if a seeming "rules loophole" is being ignored by the boards, it's because it's been hashed out in the past and found not to work. Perhaps there's something elsewhere in the rules that nullifies it; perhaps there was a clarification. Very occasionally, there's simply a board-wide agreement that the rule is wrong...as with the recent FAQ claiming that Polymorph allowed the use of templated forms. If it turns out that your discovery falls into this category, the best thing to do is accept it and move on. Maybe the next one won't.

I couldn't imagine being a DM at a table where some players insisted that venerable dragonwrought kobolds are true dragons and thus count as epic characters for taking epic feats and epic PrCs. Or if some players insisted that mystic theurge should be double counted and that I am not sticking to the rules as written by not allowing it. Or that successfully using UMD on a monk's belt gives you X levels of monk + the 5 levels of monk abilities that the belt gives you explicitly.

Can you think of any other theoretical optimizations that give you a bad day? Practical optimizers represent!

[pabelfly]

I think the real practical answer is that context matters. If someone told me about wanting a Dragonwrought Kobold to get epic feats as a sorcerer, I'd straight up tell them no and to pick something else. However, if someone told me they wanted to try out a Dragonwrought Kobold to get epic feats while going Swashbuckler 20... I'll at least hear them out. I'm personally of the opinion that it's quite acceptable to add some serious cheese to otherwise weak classes or build ideas.

[redking]

If someone told me about wanting a Dragonwrought Kobold as a sorcerer, I'd straight up tell them no and to pick something else.

What is wrong with a Dragonwrought Kobold as a sorcerer? +3 for all mental stats and no loss to physical stats as a venerable Dragonwrought Kobold is lulzy as a 1st level character, but it is intended by the rules. Is that the issue?

[Beni-Kujaku]

What is wrong with a Dragonwrought Kobold as a sorcerer? +3 for all mental stats and no loss to physical stats as a venerable Dragonwrought Kobold is lulzy as a 1st level character, but it is intended by the rules. Is that the issue?

Well, it is extremely strong, much more than almost anything else available by this level. And the problem lies less with +3 in mentals and more with something like sovereign archetypes giving it +1 sorcerer level

[mattie_p]

The challenge is that, in my opinion, the authors of each individual splatbook intended for that particular book to be used with the core 3, or maybe the core 3 plus a campaign setting book. Very few books reference anything outside of that scope. There's a few of course, PHB2 comes to mind, but they are the minority.

Dragonwrought Kobold isn't that huge a boost in and of itself. But then add a sovereign archetype from Dragons of Eberron. And then it grants a dragonpact. And then its a Stalwart + Battle sorc. And then it takes domain sorcerer. And then it dips a level of savage bard and before you know it its a sublime chord. And it took ur priest and now it's a theurge with double 9ths. And anything it traded away doesn't matter anymore because what it gets back is twice as strong or stronger.

When there's more than 100 books and each one has idk 150 pages of rules, that's 15,000 pages + to keep track of. Any new feature is going to be nifty. But somewhere out there, in the playground or elsewhere, is like "Hmm, what if I..."

[redking]

Well, it is extremely strong, much more than almost anything else available by this level. And the problem lies less with +3 in mentals and more with something like sovereign archetypes giving it +1 sorcerer level

The sovereign archetype specifically refers to 'true dragons', so if you aren't accepting dragonwrought kobolds as 'true dragons' then you don't have a problem. I think the dragonwrought kobold has decent potential as practical optimization. Giving the DM a role playing reason why the dragonwrought kobold waited until he was a senior citizen before starting adventuring at 1st level is another matter altogether.

[Silly Name]

One piece of advice I give to my players is "try to contribute a bit in most situations, but don't try to do everything yourself. You also don't necessarily need a mechanical input to contribute: ingenuity and roleplay can work just fine".

This means: don't overspecialise on a single thing. If you're a combatant, have options for when your main technique may not be usable; if you're a caster, it's ok to focus on a certain kind of spells but try to have a few options just in case; at the same time, I have no interest in watching players argue about who's the best damage dealer or who has the best spell selection or who gets to talk to NPCs because they have optimised for it the most... Play the game, cooperate with your party members, seek common goals and find solutions that try to involve your friends. No need to upstage people.

Another important bit is that "optimise to the table" includes the DM: while a good DM tries their best to provide adequate encounters and campaigns to the players, the players also should try to gauge the difficulty level the DM is good with and not try to force it. If you're steamrolling every challenge and then complain that stuff's too easy, take a step back and try to figure out if you're being too hard on the DM.

[Xervous]

Well, it is extremely strong, much more than almost anything else available by this level. And the problem lies less with +3 in mentals and more with something like sovereign archetypes giving it +1 sorcerer level

Even disregarding the “DWK are true dragons” debacle of a debate the Greater Draconic Rite of Passage forces them as auto picks for sorcerer with a free effective level of Sorc. No other sorcerer is going to have 4ths at level 7. And this doesn’t even come with any restrictions that prevent the DWK sorc from prestiging out of sorc. This comes in on top their +3 CHA which either grants a higher cast stat in the odd inherent gain ranges, and/or frees up a not so insignificant slice of their point buy.

Venerable desert DWkobold

-4 STR / +2 DEX / +3 INT / +1 WIS / +3 CHA

VS -2 STR / +2 CHA

25pb

SDCIWC

Kobold: 6/12/14/12/10/20 (keeping STR the same for ease of comparison, getting even INT and WIS). Greed kobold: 4/16/14/11/9/20

Other: 6/11/14/8/8/20

[AvatarVecna]

3. RAW is a myth.
This is one of the dirty little secrets of the board. The Most Holy RAW is invoked continuously by those who want to give their arguments the veneer of officiality. The problem is, RAW is generally applied not as "The Rules as Written," but rather as "The Rules As I Interpret Them And You Can't Prove I'm Wrong, Nyeah." The RAITAYCPIWN. Not quite as catchy an acronym, granted, but that's what it boils down to. This game cannot be played without interpretation and the judicious application of common sense. Try to play the game strictly and exclusively by the rules as written, and you have an unplayable game. Using "RAW" as a defense is similarly meaningless--particularly when your defense rests on interpretation. If you're going to claim that your build is RAW, you'd better be able to make sure that the rules specifically uphold your claim...not simply that they're sort of vague and COULD be interpreted in such a way as to not FORBID your claim.
This becomes particularly important when your claim is especially controversial. Yes, builds should adhere to the rules as written. Yes, any exceptions to that should be noted. But the RAW as some sort of entity unto itself, capable of rendering a build immune to criticism, is not a useful construction, and causes more problems than it solves.

It's not a dirty little secret, it's a limitation of the medium that everybody who so much as dips their toe into optimizing understands. The rules are frequently incomplete, nonexistent, or even outright contradictory. In a normal game, with real people, we're not gonna sit around looking at the rulebooks shrugging our shoulders, we're going to have a DM, and a DM can make a call on how it's supposed to work. The DM is, in fact, allowed to do this even when the rules are very clear-cut but obviously have balance issues. A DM is allowed to buff monk or nerf wizard or vice versa if he feels they're particularly problematic for his game.

RAW as an argument isn't people hiding behind the letter of the law when they present things to their DM, because the DM's authority being ultimate is just part of the social contract all D&D games are based on. RAW as an argument is about "what is the default state of the game, prior to a DM making changes for the sake of clarifying the rules, or balancing things". And how to read things as they're written sometimes ends up in some strange places just because the game wasn't exactly written with a very high standard of quality.

(Which isn't to say that WotC is incapable of writing in such a way - they've done exactly that for M:tG. They just don't care as much about D&D being internally consistent because it makes way less money.)

This ends up running into the other problems mentioned. Why can't we use common sense? Because it's not actually that common. You even address this, but you brush it aside as if the unreasonable people will just have to agree with you or the game becomes meaningless, but that's kinda the point: in their eyes, you're the one being unreasonable. This isn't just a matter of people being in another reality or not - some people hold to a particular reading just because it's how their home group has always done it. And this kinda touches on another way things could get interpreted: balance. And the reason interpreting for the sake of balance is a problem is because we have to pick a starting point. We have to point to a thing and say "this is balanced, everything else needs to be in line with this", and if we do that, we have to change basically everything, because basically nothing is well-balanced against basically anything else in the same category. And the issue with approaching things like that on a message board is that everybody will point to something different (which gets into that "everybody thinks everybody else is being unreasonable" thing).

Maybe X or Y or Z is the balance point for your home table, but it's different for mine, or somebody else's, and it's basically always going to be different from a given other person's. So when somebody comes onto the board, we can't necessarily make assumptions about what they think is normal, or about what their DM might allow - not unless they've said something to address that in specific. I've had DMs ban monks for being overpowered, and I've had DMs allow epic spellcasting abuse because "everybody is doing it, so it's fine". "What a reasonable DM would allow" isn't as consistent a framework as you might think, because it requires us to all agree on what constitutes a reasonable DM or a reasonable allowance. There is no common sense because there is no "bad wrong fun" way to play D&D.

One might say "the game scales into infinite in epic, and if casters have exponential options, high-epic combat gets infinitely complicated; therefore, the simpler combatant of Fighter must be the appropriate balance point". Another might say "the appropriate balance point is where fun is maximized for the whole table, and having to sit out 80% of the game because you're **** at everything other than poking bad guys with sharp sticks isn't fun; therefore, casters are the most balanced, because they're capable of at least contributing a bit even if they're built more for a particular situation, just because spellcasting is so versatile". Yet another might say "the CR/EL system clearly indicates that increasing your level by 2 is expected to double your total power; fighters can't meet that (since their numbers don't double every 2 levels) and most casters exceed that by a great deal, therefore the most balanced class is something like rogue, which comes close to doubling its power every couple levels".

And the thing is...none of these people are wrong. They're just going on different assumptions for what "balanced" should mean. One could just as easily say that everybody being able to always contribute at least a little is anti-fun because it takes away niches - nobody gets to feel special for specializing in a thing, since everybody can help out a bit, for example. But this also means that when we come onto the forum, we can't really make assumptions about the other person being in one particular camp or the other - unless they've presented information to the contrary, we've got to operate on the assumption that there's some basic version of the game. Finding that basic version of the game, the default from which all others are variants (for good or ill) is the point of RAW.

So when it comes to discussing things on message boards, basically everything gets tossed out. No assumptions! There is no DM making rulings from on high, we are not making assumptions about the designer's intentions, we're not assuming it was written with common sense in mind (because god's better at making idiots than WotC is at making idiotproof text), we're not assuming any particular balance point, we're not assuming it was all a mistake. We're just reading the words on the page and figuring out what they mean as written. We can worry about the spirit of the law when we're talking with another human being about how to apply things at the actual table, but when we don't have a DM to discuss things with, when we don't have a designer to question, when we don't have a forum consensus survey to peruse, all we've got to work with is the letter of the law. And it so happens that the letter of the law is frequently weird, obtuse, inconsistent, buggy, nonsensical, or broken.

And that's okay. It's okay for RAW to not be usable at your table. It's okay for RAW to not be acceptable at any table. But there is still value in knowing what it is, because it helps us to make decisions on how the game should work when we bring it to the real table. Where this becomes a problem is where people have disagreements on the nature of the discussion at hand: are we having a discussion on "how the game should work" (as in "if you read the rules and understand english and look up definitions and make no assumptions, it should have this result") or are we having a discussion on "how the game should work" (as in "the game doesn't work like this by default, but I think it should because common sense/DM ruling/balance/designer intentions).


8. Tricking the DM is Bad.
We see a lot of "Help me trick my DM!" or "Help me make my DM cry!" requests on these boards. We see builds that are designed to look innocuous while at the same time being devastating to campaign balance. The idea is to lull the DM into allowing the character, then unleash its full power. Bad idea. Bad, BAD idea. At all times, two things should be borne in mind about the DM. One: he's in charge. If you try to trick him, he's totally within his rights to toss your character or YOU out of the game. Two: he's your friend. Trying to deceive your friends is bad. Be honest with your DM about what you want to do. If he says "No," deal with it. That's part of a DM's job. If you don't think he's going to say "Yes" to something, then trying to sneak it into the game on the sly is a sure way to make him mad.

I see a lot of those threads, from people on both sides of the screen. I see them because I, like many others, look for threads like those. Because it's a bad thing to do, and there's only really one appropriate response: whatever is going on here, it's an out-of-character issue that can't be solved with shiny math rocks and legal arguments - you need to sit down with your DM/player and have a conversation with them about the game and about fun and about assumptions.


More often, though, if a seeming "rules loophole" is being ignored by the boards, it's because it's been hashed out in the past and found not to work. Perhaps there's something elsewhere in the rules that nullifies it; perhaps there was a clarification. Very occasionally, there's simply a board-wide agreement that the rule is wrong...as with the recent FAQ claiming that Polymorph allowed the use of templated forms. If it turns out that your discovery falls into this category, the best thing to do is accept it and move on. Maybe the next one won't.

At least with FAQ, I'm pretty sure it's a thing because "frequently asked questions" tend to be something that a lot of people have noticed is causing an issue in their game. The answer comes about, and it addresses the questioned asked, but in the process it either blatantly contradicts existing clear-cut rules, or it causes issues in other places (like, the answer balances the thing that was being asked about, but unbalances two more things, or something like that). This is just a matter of everything in the game being interconnected - you can't just alter a spell to be less broken without new stuff interacting with it that didn't before. Because it's so frequently causing issues like this with no clear communication that the answers causing breaks in the system is intentional, the FAQ tends to be ignored. For something similar, look at statblocks: most of them will not be legally built in one way or another. Is this designer intent that they meant for that feat's prereqs to be changed, or for that PrC ability to interact with this spell, or whatever the thing may be? Or is this a mistake? Well they literally answered a question so it's gotta be designer intent in some fashion, but they probably didn't mean for it to break things. So then how should this ruling interact with the things it would otherwise break? It's difficult to say, at least without asking further questions (which isn't how FAQs work - they can't answer follow-up questions that have yet to be asked about the answer they just gave unless it's a live FAQ) or making some serious assumptions (which tends to get into murky grey area where most people who don't have authority over the game will disagree for one reason or another, as previously discussed).


Can you think of any other theoretical optimizations that give you a bad day? Practical optimizers represent!

One definite thing that bothers me is mixing arguments. If you're pulling something that wouldn't fly at 90% of tables and you know it, there's some arguments you can make. Maybe you Wish for more wish-granting genies via a common sense argument ("I wish for more wish-granting genies bound within this summoning circle" is a perfectly kosher wish in-universe), or you use a RAW argument (you can use Wish to replicate Planar Binding, which can bind wish-granting genies), but generally you can't mix them together. If your argument is something that wouldn't fly at most tables for one reason or another, and your only refuge is the letter of the law, then you need to make sure you've crossed your t's and dotted your it's.

"This is silly, but it's RAW, so we need to follow RAW" is a perfectly cromulent argument.

"This is RAW, but it's silly, so we need to ignore RAW" is also a perfectly cromulent argument.

But if the bulk of your trick leans heavily on the former argument, you can't have the latter present or you just look like a cheese weasel. If a ruling in your favor is required to make your trick work, and the rest of the trick requires a DM who isn't making rulings...you failed, and that's that. The DM who let's RAW make 90% of your trick work is well within his rights (and almost obligated) to use RAW to shut down the 10% that depends on a permissive DM.

[Biggus]

Practical optimization (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=4136.msg56582#msg56582) is about reading information in context and using common sense about what will fly at the table of a normal gaming group.

1. Not everything needs to be stated explicitly in the rules; some things just are.
A human doesn't have a hundred and fifty-seven arms, even though the rules don't explicitly say that he doesn't. A character doesn't continue running around after he dies, even though the rules don't explicitly list any negative effects for death. If the designers spelled out every single thing explicitly...even the glaringly obvious...the core rulebooks would be larger than the Encyclopedia Brittannica, and would likely cost as much as a Ferrari.

2. "The rules don't say I can't!" is not practical optimization.
The second commandment is like unto the first. There are many things that the rules don't explicitly say you can't do. The rules don't explicitly say you can't do the "I'm a Little Teapot" dance and instantly heal back to full starting hit points as a result. The rules don't explicitly say your first level character can't have a titanium-reinforced skeleton and cybernetic weaponry. This is because the rules are structured in such a way as to tell you what you can do--not what you can't. An underlying assumption is that, apart from common-sense actions which anyone can perform, the system will tell you if a given character has a given ability.

3. RAW is a myth.
This is one of the dirty little secrets of the board. The Most Holy RAW is invoked continuously by those who want to give their arguments the veneer of officiality. The problem is, RAW is generally applied not as "The Rules as Written," but rather as "The Rules As I Interpret Them And You Can't Prove I'm Wrong, Nyeah." The RAITAYCPIWN. Not quite as catchy an acronym, granted, but that's what it boils down to. This game cannot be played without interpretation and the judicious application of common sense. Try to play the game strictly and exclusively by the rules as written, and you have an unplayable game. Using "RAW" as a defense is similarly meaningless--particularly when your defense rests on interpretation. If you're going to claim that your build is RAW, you'd better be able to make sure that the rules specifically uphold your claim...not simply that they're sort of vague and COULD be interpreted in such a way as to not FORBID your claim.
This becomes particularly important when your claim is especially controversial. Yes, builds should adhere to the rules as written. Yes, any exceptions to that should be noted. But the RAW as some sort of entity unto itself, capable of rendering a build immune to criticism, is not a useful construction, and causes more problems than it solves.

4. Common sense is not a bad thing.
The rules were designed to be read with common sense. Yes, common sense will vary from person to person, but there has to be some basic level at which we agree on core assumptions, or the game is meaningless. If we have one interpretation of the rules where two levels of a prestige class give you infinite caster level, and another interpretation where two levels of that same prestige class give you two caster levels, then common sense tells us that the latter interpretation is the correct one. If a character reaches negative ten hit points and dies, common sense tells us that he doesn't spring back to his feet and continue fighting unimpeded.

5. Intent matters.
I know, I know..."Blasphemy! No man may know the intent of the Most Holy Designers!" Except that, in some cases, we can. In some cases, the intent is glaringly, painfully obvious. In other cases, the intent has been clarified by various WotC sources, such as CustServ. It makes sense to take these sources at their word, people. They work with the folks who design the game, they have access to them. If a conflict comes up, then it can be resolved, but I can't help but notice that for all the talk about how CustServ never gives the same answer twice, they've been remarkably consistent of late. It's one thing to say "This rule is vaguely worded, and we don't know the intent." It's another thing to say, "The rule is vaguely worded, and therefore I can ignore the intent." The first is sensible caution; the second is rules lawyering. When an ambiguity has been clarified, that should be the end of it.

6. Mistakes happen.
Everybody's human. You're human; I'm human; the folks at WotC are human. Sometimes, humans make mistakes. That shouldn't be seen as an opportunity to break the game. Take the Vigilante from Complete Adventurer, for instance. Anyone out there seriously believe that his rather abrupt jump from 1 third level spell at level 6 to 20 at level 7 is NOT a mistake? There are two ways to deal with a mistake like this: a sensible way, and a silly way. The sensible way: "Hmm. There's a column for fourth level spells with no numbers in it, and a column for third level with numbers that can't be right in it. Clearly, this was a typesetting error, and the second digit in the third level spells column is supposed to be in the fourth level spells column." The silly way: "Rules are rules! The rulebook says 20 third level spells at seventh level! If you do it any other way, you're houseruling! I'm gonna make some GREAT builds based on this rule!" Basing a build on an obvious mistake isn't optimizing; it's silly.

7. Simple Is Good.
There are a LOT of WotC sourcebooks out there. I did a rough estimate on the value of my collection just of hardcover rulebooks; it cost more than my car. Not everyone has that kind of cash to spend on this hobby. Not only that--a lot of people simply don't have the time to commit several thousand pages of rules, hundreds upon hundreds of prestige classes, and thousands of feats to memory. So: builds which are simple are good. There's nothing WRONG with a build that incorporates eight different prestige classes from seven different sources, and then tosses in feats from five more...but that build is going to be useful only to the people who have those sources, whereas the Druid 20 build that doesn't go outside of Core is useful to everybody. Sometimes, simplicity is worth more than raw power.

8. Tricking the DM is Bad.
We see a lot of "Help me trick my DM!" or "Help me make my DM cry!" requests on these boards. We see builds that are designed to look innocuous while at the same time being devastating to campaign balance. The idea is to lull the DM into allowing the character, then unleash its full power. Bad idea. Bad, BAD idea. At all times, two things should be borne in mind about the DM. One: he's in charge. If you try to trick him, he's totally within his rights to toss your character or YOU out of the game. Two: he's your friend. Trying to deceive your friends is bad. Be honest with your DM about what you want to do. If he says "No," deal with it. That's part of a DM's job. If you don't think he's going to say "Yes" to something, then trying to sneak it into the game on the sly is a sure way to make him mad.

9. Respect the parameters of the request.
This used to be a given, but people have been backsliding a lot lately. Someone comes on and says, "Hey, I'd like to play a Bard 4/Cleric 4. Can anyone help me optimize this? He immediately gets responses which boil down to, "Only an idiot would play that! You should be playing Pun-Pun, he's MUCH more powerful!" Sometimes they're more nicely phrased than this, other times they're not. The point is: people aren't offering him suggestions on how to make his character of choice better. They're telling him that he's "wrong" for playing that character, and that he should be playing a different character. The same goes for threads in which the poster explains the DM's house rules and restrictions at the beginning of the thread. More often than not, if these restrictions amount to more than "No infinite power at first level," someone will respond with the oh-so-helpful suggestion "Your DM sucks. Quit his game and never talk to him again."
I only wish that were hyperbole. It's word-for-word from a thread a while back. Optimization is about working within the rules to greatest effect. ANYONE can optimize in an environment with no restrictions. It takes skill to optimize where options are limited. Threads like these should be seen as an opportunity to demonstrate that skill...not belittle the poster or the DM.

10. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
I remember bounding onto the boards many moons ago, shortly after the first release of the Persistent Spell feat, to declare that I had discovered (ta da!) the UNBEATABLE COMBO. Since Time Stop was a Personal effect spell, it could be Persisted! (Oooh, aaah!) I couldn't imagine why nobody had thought of this before. Of course, as it turned out, LOTS of people had thought of this before. Within about five minutes, I was directed to a ruling that said, "You can't do it." I was disappointed, sure...but I accepted it and moved on. There are a LOT of folks here with a lot of knowledge of the rules. Some of 'em are a little scary. They love nothing better than to go over a new rulebook with a fine-toothed comb looking for hidden gems. Sometimes, a genuinely overlooked concept will turn up. The recent builds using Sanctum Spell are a good example. The feat's been around for a while, but nobody really looked at what could be done with it.
More often, though, if a seeming "rules loophole" is being ignored by the boards, it's because it's been hashed out in the past and found not to work. Perhaps there's something elsewhere in the rules that nullifies it; perhaps there was a clarification. Very occasionally, there's simply a board-wide agreement that the rule is wrong...as with the recent FAQ claiming that Polymorph allowed the use of templated forms. If it turns out that your discovery falls into this category, the best thing to do is accept it and move on. Maybe the next one won't.

I couldn't imagine being a DM at a table where some players insisted that venerable dragonwrought kobolds are true dragons and thus count as epic characters for taking epic feats and epic PrCs. Or if some players insisted that mystic theurge should be double counted and that I am not sticking to the rules as written by not allowing it. Or that successfully using UMD on a monk's belt gives you X levels of monk + the 5 levels of monk abilities that the belt gives you explicitly.

Can you think of any other theoretical optimizations that give you a bad day? Practical optimizers represent!

I love that practical optimization article. I get tired of seeing people ask for build advice for an actual game and being recommended things so cheesy that upwards of 95% of DMs won't allow them, in a tone which implies they're perfectly reasonable suggestions, or even that you're a fool if you don't use them.

Having said that, optimization is probably my favourite part of the game. I actually find it a more interesting challenge to optimize within a more restricted design space, when all of the blatantly overpowered options have been taken off the table. Similarly, like pabelfly I like to take a relatively weak class or concept and see if I can make it very strong.

As for specifics, there are several that come up frequently (the Dark Chaos shuffle, Thought Bottle shenanigans etc) but I think my personal bugbear is when people take the specifically stated general guideline (from the otherwise much-maligned FAQ) that you can apply bonuses/abilities in whatever order is most beneficial to you as though it were cast-iron RAW.

[redking]

Even disregarding the “DWK are true dragons” debacle of a debate the Greater Draconic Rite of Passage forces them as auto picks for sorcerer with a free effective level of Sorc. No other sorcerer is going to have 4ths at level 7. And this doesn’t even come with any restrictions that prevent the DWK sorc from prestiging out of sorc. This comes in on top their +3 CHA which either grants a higher cast stat in the odd inherent gain ranges, and/or frees up a not so insignificant slice of their point buy.

That is intended by the rules. That will cost a kobold two feats. One for the Dragonwrought feat and the other for the Draconic Reservoir, which is a prerequisite for Greater Draconic Rite of Passage (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a) ritual. Pretty good for 2 feats and the loss of 3 HP. For that reason it amazes me that people would risk a DM banning dragonwrought from the table by making extravagant demands that dragonwrought kobolds be considered 'true dragons'.

I would put that in the realm of practical optimization. Whether a DM will allow an elderly dragonwrought kobold at 1st level is another matter altogether.

[daremetoidareyo]

I love how 90% of the thread is about dragonwrought kobolds.

[Darg]

I think my personal bugbear is when people take the specifically stated general guideline (from the otherwise much-maligned FAQ) that you can apply bonuses/abilities in whatever order is most beneficial to you as though it were cast-iron RAW.

Ugh I hate this so much. My tables don't even use the FAQ and it hurts. Who would ever think that they could use a single feat to get around the defining feature of a wild mage? Certainly not anyone that actually wants to be a wild mage.


Play the game, cooperate with your party members, seek common goals and find solutions that try to involve your friends. No need to upstage people.

One thing my groups have found that helps in cooperation is that rules say that you can hold the charge of a touch spell and then touch 6 friends as a full-round action. It makes the person using their spell slots for the good of the group content with helping the party and they get to benefit too. It doesn’t increase the power of a party much, but it does increase the amount of resources they have. At low level this makes playing a caster more fun when helping the party, and at higher levels doesn't really change much.

[Gnaeus]

Posting for the guide to PO in my signature.

[DigoDragon]

I love how 90% of the thread is about dragonwrought kobolds.

I recently made a DWK for my local group's new campaign, and I did two things differently because of the backstory I wanted to play-- one, he's not venerable (age 15), and two, not a sorcerer (wizard).

I like some optimization, but I don't worry about maximizing a commitment to the best build out there. I think playing a wizard by itself is strong enough to get through the adventuring day, and I have a lot of fun playing essentially a kobold Shmendrick the Magician. XD

[gijoemike]

I wish to expand the conversation on rule 7 given above about Simple being better. In official play under 5th ed, a player is allowed to reference the PHB and i think at most 2 splat books for everything. Granted 5th end has far far far fewer books than 3.X, but this still limits the builds pretty hard. Most of the builds I see presented here on the board for 3.X use a dozen books or more. A base class from book X, and ACF from book W mixed with one from book H, a second base class from book Y, flaws from a web supplement , feats from books A and B and C, A prestige class from books D and Z, and then magic items from a specific setting Z, and the MIC. Then a ritual from book U to retrain some of those feats and trade out some features. DO NOT EVEN START on spells.

The build is so complex it needs a bibliography with citations and a timeline graph to show the swaps to keep it straight and prove its legality. And I am not exaggerating in the least bit. Most GM's I know would shoot it down just because it is so hard to follow rules wise, regardless of concept.

Keeping it to 1 or 2 base classes and 1 or 2 PrC makes it LOOK simpler and more friendly to say the least.

[InvisibleBison]

Can you think of any other theoretical optimizations that give you a bad day? Practical optimizers represent!

Something that always bugs me is when people fixate on a single sentence, or even a single phrase, that seems to uphold their interpretation of the rules, and ignore all the surrounding text that undermines their interpretation.

[Gnaeus]

I wish to expand the conversation on rule 7 given above about Simple being better. In official play under 5th ed, a player is allowed to reference the PHB and i think at most 2 splat books for everything. Granted 5th end has far far far fewer books than 3.X, but this still limits the builds pretty hard. Most of the builds I see presented here on the board for 3.X use a dozen books or more. A base class from book X, and ACF from book W mixed with one from book H, a second base class from book Y, flaws from a web supplement , feats from books A and B and C, A prestige class from books D and Z, and then magic items from a specific setting Z, and the MIC. Then a ritual from book U to retrain some of those feats and trade out some features. DO NOT EVEN START on spells.

The build is so complex it needs a bibliography with citations and a timeline graph to show the swaps to keep it straight and prove its legality. And I am not exaggerating in the least bit. Most GM's I know would shoot it down just because it is so hard to follow rules wise, regardless of concept.

Keeping it to 1 or 2 base classes and 1 or 2 PrC makes it LOOK simpler and more friendly to say the least.

To me this just highlights the benefits of things like the PFSRD or AoN. Just because it IS impractical to carry an 80 pound crate of books to whoever is hosting that week.

I think it is deceptive though to argue that ^ is essentially poor PO. At a mid op table, that could just be someone whose concept is “I want to play a soulknife and hold my own weight”. It’s almost certainly weaker than Druid 10/planar shepherd 10. If it supports the concept you want to play and balances to table, I think that’s what all those books and web supplements are for.

[RandomPeasant]

If it supports the concept you want to play and balances to table, I think that’s what all those books and web supplements are for.

In practice, there's an amount of shenanigans your DM will tolerate, and it's not that strongly correlated with the overall power level of your build. If you start pulling from web enhancements and errata and appendixes and FAQs and setting-specific material and dubious RAW, your DM will shut you down, even if the end result is balanced. This is why things like the Artificer, Erudite, and Archivist tend to be worse in practice than optimizers think they are. When your plan involves explaining to your DM "well there's this PrC called a Demonologist -- no, I'm not playing one, but it's in the BoVD -- and they get planar binding as a 4th level spell...", your plan gets shut down not because it's OP, but because your DM is not going to put up with you doing that (and he's especially not going to put up with you doing that over and over for all the dumpster-dived spells you wanted).

One of the core tenants of PO, IMO, is getting the maximum bang for your buck. Every RAW argument you have to explain to your DM, ever magic item you have to convince him to let you buy, ever book he has to okay runs through a limited resource (DM patience). So make sure the things you choose add as much value to your character concept as they can, rather than looking for ever marginal upgrade, or trying to voltron together a half-dozen mediocre abilities. Play a Warblade over a Fighter not because you can't build a good Fighter, but because it involves getting your DM to approve a half-dozen sources, while a good Warblade can be built with Core + ToB.

[pabelfly]

What is wrong with a Dragonwrought Kobold as a sorcerer? +3 for all mental stats and no loss to physical stats as a venerable Dragonwrought Kobold is lulzy as a 1st level character, but it is intended by the rules. Is that the issue?

I was talking about the context of trying to use a Dragonwrought Kobolld to get Epic feats on a non-Epic character as the thread started to complain about. Sorcerer, for example, would be a hard no. Swashbuckler, I'd hear them out. Could have been more clearer on that, sorry.

[Gnaeus]

In practice, there's an amount of shenanigans your DM will tolerate, and it's not that strongly correlated with the overall power level of your build. If you start pulling from web enhancements and errata and appendixes and FAQs and setting-specific material and dubious RAW, your DM will shut you down, even if the end result is balanced. This is why things like the Artificer, Erudite, and Archivist tend to be worse in practice than optimizers think they are. When your plan involves explaining to your DM "well there's this PrC called a Demonologist -- no, I'm not playing one, but it's in the BoVD -- and they get planar binding as a 4th level spell...", your plan gets shut down not because it's OP, but because your DM is not going to put up with you doing that (and he's especially not going to put up with you doing that over and over for all the dumpster-dived spells you wanted).

One of the core tenants of PO, IMO, is getting the maximum bang for your buck. Every RAW argument you have to explain to your DM, ever magic item you have to convince him to let you buy, ever book he has to okay runs through a limited resource (DM patience). So make sure the things you choose add as much value to your character concept as they can, rather than looking for ever marginal upgrade, or trying to voltron together a half-dozen mediocre abilities. Play a Warblade over a Fighter not because you can't build a good Fighter, but because it involves getting your DM to approve a half-dozen sources, while a good Warblade can be built with Core + ToB.

That would be YOUR DM. My DM will approve anything on the PFSRD that comes from Paizo or Dreamscarred press…. IF it matches the power level of the party. (And in the unlikely event it isn’t on the PFSRD I have to buy him the PDF). Usually high op T3/low op T2. I couldn’t even tell you what books most of my stuff comes from. And we did the same in 3.5, it just took us more work finding the text of spells.

Oh, and I played a chameleon, so your example about finding classes with lower than normal level spells was exactly what my spell list looked like. Had I tried it on an archivist, it would never have been allowed. Because the difference in power between dumpster diving 6th level classes and 9th level ones is large. And we did limit planar binding, because it is OP, at least at a T3 table.

If I had a DM reject a character due to number of sources, my response would be to hard check his game mastery and consider leaving. Now, the quality of the sources? Like if something is an odd regional thing from a setting specific source? Sure. The end result? Like something doing damage as a limiting factor combined with immunity to that damage, or some other real sum greater that the total of the parts optimization? Absolutely. But “that build uses too many books?” I’d ask if he had ever played 3.5 before.

I actually agree with the statement about shenanigans. I would just never include number of sources as a shenanigan. Shenanigans are something that warps setting or game play. Like maximized shivering touch to one shot bosses. Not “I applied a bunch of acfs and feats to my monk so I can stand next to that warblade.” The best reason to play 3.pf over 5e is so you can mix and match for appropriate power.

[Telonius]

Part of the problem is selection bias. Forumites are (generally) much more system-savvy than the average D&D player. Their threshold for PO versus TO is going to be a lot higher. My own table, for example - at higher levels, getting Persistent buffs is kind of a given. But something like that would be considered dreadful cheese to a lot of groups. (They'd probably have a heart attack if they saw the damage output of some of the Warblades we've had). That's not even on the more extreme end of things, either; my group would probably look really oddly at somebody trying to pull off a Dark Chaos Shuffle, but apparently for other groups on the boards it's within-bounds.

Just in general, it can be hard to tailor advice if you don't have an idea of what the power level of the table is. It used to be kind of a polite thing (not sure if it was outright recommended or not) that people looking for advice would post the general party description, along with what sources were and weren't allowed. The idea was that nobody would suggest a Planar Shepherd or a Beholder Mage to a group with a Swashbuckler and Blaster Wizard in it

[RandomPeasant]

That would be YOUR DM. My DM will approve anything on the PFSRD that comes from Paizo or Dreamscarred press…. IF it matches the power level of the party.

And that is not typical. Especially not if we're talking about 3.5, where there is not a (legal, searchable) online collection of all the material from everything. You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but most DMs do not have an unlimited tolerance for dumpster diving. I mean, really, can you honestly say that "dumpster diving" has positive, or even neutral, connotations in the general community?

[Gnaeus]

Part of the problem is selection bias. Forumites are (generally) much more system-savvy than the average D&D player. Their threshold for PO versus TO is going to be a lot higher. My own table, for example - at higher levels, getting Persistent buffs is kind of a given. But something like that would be considered dreadful cheese to a lot of groups. (They'd probably have a heart attack if they saw the damage output of some of the Warblades we've had). That's not even on the more extreme end of things, either; my group would probably look really oddly at somebody trying to pull off a Dark Chaos Shuffle, but apparently for other groups on the boards it's within-bounds.

Just in general, it can be hard to tailor advice if you don't have an idea of what the power level of the table is. It used to be kind of a polite thing (not sure if it was outright recommended or not) that people looking for advice would post the general party description, along with what sources were and weren't allowed. The idea was that nobody would suggest a Planar Shepherd or a Beholder Mage to a group with a Swashbuckler and Blaster Wizard in it

This is true, but I think there is also a selection bias in play just by virtue of playing a game that is 10+ years out of print. I don’t expect to see many first time 3.5 DMs. And I generally assume that most people for whom the basic characteristics of 3.5 are bad things have by now either switched systems or changed the game into something they like. I do expect occasional new PLAYERS. And even DMs with preferences (like I don’t like psionics or Bo9S for whatever reason). But I don’t think springing new sources on a DM should be much problem at this point. Not that it never happens but it can’t be common now.

[pabelfly]

And that is not typical. Especially not if we're talking about 3.5, where there is not a (legal, searchable) online collection of all the material from everything. You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but most DMs do not have an unlimited tolerance for dumpster diving. I mean, really, can you honestly say that "dumpster diving" has positive, or even neutral, connotations in the general community?

I'm going with Gnaeus here. Our table allows 3.5, Dragon Magazine, and will consider feats from 3.0 and Pathfinder, and not care how many different sources were used, as long as the end result isn't too overpowered compared to the rest of the group.

As for online, most builds will pull from a whole bunch of different sources. Especially competition builds. Last competition build I entered used seven different sourcebooks outside of the PHB, and I've just finished judging a bunch of builds that each pulled from a bunch of different splat books as well as online.

[Thurbane]

The problem is, RAW is generally applied not as "The Rules as Written," but rather as "The Rules As I Interpret Them And You Can't Prove I'm Wrong, Nyeah."

So much this.

Honestly, D&D players (RPGers in general) can be the very best of people, and also the very worst.

Some of the 3 or 4 (or more) page RAW debates I see here and elsewhere evoke images of two children yelling "Are not!" "Am too!" back and forth.

Heaven forbid you try to reply with "agree to disagree": this concept simply cannot exist in their world. The fact that someone they will never game with (quite often on the other side of the planet) doesn't accept their reading as gospel is simply intolerable. :smallbiggrin:

[gijoemike]

That would be YOUR DM. My DM will approve anything on the PFSRD that comes from Paizo or Dreamscarred pressÂ…. IF it matches the power level of the party. (And in the unlikely event it isnÂ’t on the PFSRD I have to buy him the PDF). Usually high op T3/low op T2. I couldnÂ’t even tell you what books most of my stuff comes from. And we did the same in 3.5, it just took us more work finding the text of spells.

Oh, and I played a chameleon, so your example about finding classes with lower than normal level spells was exactly what my spell list looked like. Had I tried it on an archivist, it would never have been allowed. Because the difference in power between dumpster diving 6th level classes and 9th level ones is large. And we did limit planar binding, because it is OP, at least at a T3 table.

If I had a DM reject a character due to number of sources, my response would be to hard check his game mastery and consider leaving. Now, the quality of the sources? Like if something is an odd regional thing from a setting specific source? Sure. The end result? Like something doing damage as a limiting factor combined with immunity to that damage, or some other real sum greater that the total of the parts optimization? Absolutely. But “that build uses too many books?” I’d ask if he had ever played 3.5 before.

I actually agree with the statement about shenanigans. I would just never include number of sources as a shenanigan. Shenanigans are something that warps setting or game play. Like maximized shivering touch to one shot bosses. Not “I applied a bunch of acfs and feats to my monk so I can stand next to that warblade.” The best reason to play 3.pf over 5e is so you can mix and match for appropriate power.

1st. 20 years ago in order to play 3.0 I carried a suitcase with me to every game session. I wasn't the only person in my group doing this. And we didn't really use that many of the same book. And it was stupid that we had to do that back then. I am a bit embarrassed to even admit this. And I also agree the SRD and PFSRD are amazing tools that frankly have kept the game alive since it is all out of print now.

BUT, assuming all the content on those sites are from one source is a or count as one source is wrong. Huge sections and sub systems are marked as do not use when we start up a campaign. Almost always it is the physic classes and feats. There is so much hate for those systems from the poor job 3.0 did. Most of those are under powered though. Certain feat chains ( especially regional ones) are off limits too which is similar to your comment. But if I take a class from book a, then book b, then c, then d, then e. then PrC from F and g, it doesn't matter what the concept is or how the power matches something smells fishy. One should not need 12 books to do normal or high power level In 3.5 it was easy to use 5 or 6 books. I am referring to the outliers of 12 or more books/web articles to create the framework of a character. Forget gear, I mean the levels, feats, acfs, and rituals that go into making the character.

One of the most important jobs of the GM is to put limits on the players and the game. "Yes, I understand that book has a rule to do X. But we haven't introduced anything else from that book and it has a different feel from the rest of your character and the setting so we aren't going to use that." is perfectly fine. Questioning the competency of the GM for doing his/her job seems quite short sighted.

[Fizban]

I take a generally negative view of the term "practical optimization," because every time I've seen a thread claiming it, said thread has been full of overpowered cheese- which is to say, the term means nothing. Obviously I don't find their optimization "practical." The term means whatever is acceptable to the person using it, but attempts to gain more significance by claiming a "respectable" title.


Sadly, part of the reason that threads asking for not-max-power advice get it anyway, is because they had to ask. If you already know what's available, you don't have to ask. If you know there's more power available but don't know how far it goes, you by definition cannot stipulate how far you want people to go, and thus someone will always go farther than you wanted. Only the rare case where someone has the partial knowledge to give a ceiling but still has room to ask for smaller esoteric bits, can the overall problem be avoided.

It would help if people didn't ask for optimization advice, but rather just for suggestions, or even better to ask for help building a specific character for their game (with as much party build info as possible)- this would still attract people with far higher power levels, but without any way to claim that the purpose of the thread is to showcase the greatest amount of optimization.

[AvatarVecna]

I take a generally negative view of the term "practical optimization," because every time I've seen a thread claiming it, said thread has been full of overpowered cheese- which is to say, the term means nothing. Obviously I don't find their optimization "practical." The term means whatever is acceptable to the person using it, but attempts to gain more significance by claiming a "respectable" title.

There's a similar sentiment in PvP video games that comes in a few flavors: anybody doing worse than me is a useless noob, anybody doing better than me is cheating or has no life outside of gaming". "Practical optimization" tends to be drawing an arbitrary line in the sand on an infinitely-long beach. The closest it gets to a definition is that it's defined by community consensus, which means it's not a static point. Indeed, online forums such as this do a good job of illustrating something akin to the Overton Window (just applied to balance and optimization instead of political views).

[redking]

I take a generally negative view of the term "practical optimization," because every time I've seen a thread claiming it, said thread has been full of overpowered cheese- which is to say, the term means nothing. Obviously I don't find their optimization "practical." The term means whatever is acceptable to the person using it, but attempts to gain more significance by claiming a "respectable" title.

Well, yes. That is because people that proffer theoretical optimizations usually claim that their out of context readings are reasonable and practical. In practice, these builds do not get played at the table. There was a guy here (sadly recently banned because his threads were entertaining in a train wreck kind of way) that said his DM was "RAW or die". But within a few weeks he had to switch between several builds because no doubt his DM did not accept his reading of RAW (among them, free psionic items from wish spells). In practice, his DM saw that giving the PC a blank cheque to backdoor psionic items would completely destroy the game, and shut it down.

Its practical optimization because we KNOW that Pun-Pun isn't getting played at the table, unless what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and the DM is using these tricks too. Now, it is possible that a player might trick the DM into allowing the PC's dragonwrought kobold to be a 'true dragon', but it will soon upset the other players unless they are also dragonwrought kobolds. Once the DM wises up to the trick, it gets shutdown. Its not practical.

Practical optimization is what is likely to be accepted by the gaming table, using context and common sense. Perhaps there are players out there that think having a mirror mephit under control means they win the game. A good DM will disagree.

[Twurps]

There's a similar sentiment in PvP video games that comes in a few flavors: anybody doing worse than me is a useless noob, anybody doing better than me is cheating or has no life outside of gaming". "Practical optimization" tends to be drawing an arbitrary line in the sand on an infinitely-long beach. The closest it gets to a definition is that it's defined by community consensus, which means it's not a static point. Indeed, online forums such as this do a good job of illustrating something akin to the Overton Window (just applied to balance and optimization instead of political views).

Fully agree. No 2 persons (or at least: No 2 gaming groups) will draw the line at the same place in the sand. Personally: I think that is what makes this game great, but unfortunately, it's also where 'practical optimization' gets its bad rep from. People are comparing their line in the sand with that of others, and are disliking the difference. Don't.

I would actually go a step further and say that theoretical optimization is by extension an equally subjective line in the sand. It's higher up the power scale than practical optimization which is subjective, and the upper limit of it is also arbitrary. I mean: once you've done Pun-Pun, you've done anything and everything already. So any optimization after that usually has some self imposed restrictions to not end up with PunPun, such as: What's the maximum power I can squeeze out of class X / race Y, feat Z, etc.





I couldn't imagine being a DM at a table where some players insisted that venerable dragonwrought kobolds are true dragons and thus count as epic characters for taking epic feats and epic PrCs. Or if some players insisted that mystic theurge should be double counted and that I am not sticking to the rules as written by not allowing it. Or that successfully using UMD on a monk's belt gives you X levels of monk + the 5 levels of monk abilities that the belt gives you explicitly.

Can you think of any other theoretical optimizations that give you a bad day? Practical optimizers represent!

So dragonwrought 'true dragon' Kobolds are beyond your line in the sand. I would personally love to play a true dragon cheesed out kobold sorcerer. But only if the others in the group play something equally powerful, and the DM feels able/ is willing to provide encounters/ a game world that would challenge such players.

I would also like to cheese out a monk with vow of poverty one day, but again: only if the others in my group play something equally powerful and the DM feels able/ is willing to provide encounters/ a game world that would challenge such players.

What I'm getting at is: context matters. Non of the examples are BadWrong per se. They can be BadWrong in the wrong group, but so can the VoP monk. (by being to weak, but also by being to powerful believe it or not)

There's no such thing as: theoretical optimization =/= practical optimization.
Instead: theoretical optimization = practical optimization, just not for your current group.

[Gnaeus]

One of the most important jobs of the GM is to put limits on the players and the game. "Yes, I understand that book has a rule to do X. But we haven't introduced anything else from that book and it has a different feel from the rest of your character and the setting so we aren't going to use that." is perfectly fine. Questioning the competency of the GM for doing his/her job seems quite short sighted.

Questioning a first party rule because it is in a different book seems quite short sighted. Questioning a DM whose rulings one regards as short sighted with a disregard for game balance is a good way to not end up in poor quality games. This is less a “I don’t use Psionics because it doesn’t mesh with my world” and more of an “I nerf monks because they are too strong” rule,

Questioning it because that thing doesn’t mesh with the character or setting is something else entirely. We routinely (like every campaign) have the discussion of whether to allow firearms. Because while they match our power level some people really hate guns in their magical elf game. But disallowing the gunslinger variant that uses crossbows for no reason other than because it is in the same book as the guns is absurd.

[redking]

There's no such thing as: theoretical optimization =/= practical optimization.
Instead: theoretical optimization = practical optimization, just not for your current group.

They do exist. Theoretical optimization relies on the DM not using the same tricks on the players.

[Troacctid]

Just for the record, the epic feat trick only cares if you're a dragon. You don't have to be a true dragon. So, the fact that dragonwrought kobolds are lesser dragons doesn't really have any bearing on their ability to exploit it; it only matters whether or not they have the dragon type, and they do. Totally different rules debate.

Just wanted to clear that up. Carry on, folks.

[Darg]

Just for the record, the epic feat trick only cares if you're a dragon. You don't have to be a true dragon. So, the fact that dragonwrought kobolds are lesser dragons doesn't really have any bearing on their ability to exploit it; it only matters whether or not they have the dragon type, and they do. Totally different rules debate.

Just wanted to clear that up. Carry on, folks.

Old dragons actually. And every dragon type can reach old age.

[InvisibleBison]

Just for the record, the epic feat trick only cares if you're a dragon. You don't have to be a true dragon. So, the fact that dragonwrought kobolds are lesser dragons doesn't really have any bearing on their ability to exploit it; it only matters whether or not they have the dragon type, and they do. Totally different rules debate.

Just wanted to clear that up. Carry on, folks.

Except that passage is in the Draconomicon, where "dragon" without any qualifiers means "true dragon", not "creature of the dragon type".

[Remuko]

Except that passage is in the Draconomicon, where "dragon" without any qualifiers means "true dragon", not "creature of the dragon type".

RAI maybe, but you cant glean context from RAW. Context requires interpretation and making assumptions (even if theyre super obvious).

[redking]

RAI maybe, but you cant glean context from RAW. Context requires interpretation and making assumptions (even if theyre super obvious).

No. The context is clear and is repeatedly and clearly stated.

[Thurbane]

The thing with any ridiculous (bordering on) TO trick a player can come up with, unless the PCs are the first sentient beings in the game world, someone else has had the opportunity to do it before.

I don't know if there is a clear line between PO and TO, or at least none that would be universally agreed on, but I think every table needs some kind of "gentlemen's agreement" on what is generally acceptable.

[redking]

The thing with any ridiculous (bordering on) TO trick a player can come up with, unless the PCs are the first sentient beings in the game world, someone else has had the opportunity to do it before.

The tricky player is 100% reliant on the DM not deploying the same tricks for their tricks to work.


I don't know if there is a clear line between PO and TO, or at least none that would be universally agreed on, but I think every table needs some kind of "gentlemen's agreement" on what is generally acceptable.

Take the monk's belt. Some people claim that UMD allows you have the abilities of X level of monk (lets say monk 20 because why not?), simply because you have UMD'd a magic item. The TOer needs the DM not to do the same with the NPCs for any optimization to take place. Otherwise its an equal playing field, and probably worse for the PC than in a normal game, because something being optimal or not is relative to the other PCs and NPCs in the game. Practical optimization is the slight edge, often just by avoiding bad choices. For example, there was a recent example of a feat which granted a little bit of extra wealth from the Ravenloft setting. That is a terrible waste of a feat and avoiding it is an example of practical optimization.

[Remuko]

No. The context is clear and is repeatedly and clearly stated.

Context isn't RAW. interpretting that context instead of just taking the rules as they're written (it just says dragon), no matter how reasonable, is no longer "RAW".

[Twurps]

Context isn't RAW. interpretting that context instead of just taking the rules as they're written (it just says dragon), no matter how reasonable, is no longer "RAW".

I'm not even getting into the whole dragon debate, but it always irks me when people say there's no interpretation needed in RAW. Yes there is. Text without interpretation is just a series of letters. ANY reading requires interpretation. Even a decent pure RAW reading.

What irks me is the people leaving out just enough context/interpretation to get to the argument they want and then calling that 'The only and true RAW'.

Come to think of it: This way of 'RAW abuse' is much more prevalent in TO than in PO. Maybe confusing RAW abuse with TO is what's putting off OP as well.

[RandomPeasant]

Context isn't RAW. interpretting that context instead of just taking the rules as they're written (it just says dragon), no matter how reasonable, is no longer "RAW".

But saying that "dragon" includes "Dragonwrought Kobold" is also "context". Specifically the context where "dragon" means "creature with the Dragon type" and not "big scaly lizard that breathes fire". The game is built out of a pile of definitions that apply in specific contexts, and claiming you can ignore them is not RAW. It's like saying that charm person works on a Hill Giant because it's "humanoid" in the colloquial sense and the notion of a Humanoid type is "context" that has no bearing on RAW.

[Darg]

But saying that "dragon" includes "Dragonwrought Kobold" is also "context". Specifically the context where "dragon" means "creature with the Dragon type" and not "big scaly lizard that breathes fire". The game is built out of a pile of definitions that apply in specific contexts, and claiming you can ignore them is not RAW. It's like saying that charm person works on a Hill Giant because it's "humanoid" in the colloquial sense and the notion of a Humanoid type is "context" that has no bearing on RAW.

But ignoring the context where the books say that these specific dragons are true dragons, these specific dragons are lesser dragons, does not default DWK as a true dragon. Neither does claiming that advancement through age categories counts for kobold age categories as advancement through age categories is already an actual game mechanic and DWK has no textual evidence that backs them up in this regard other than playing dictionary tag.

Edit: we should probably stay on topic and relegate DWK discussion here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?634182-Old-Dragonwrought-Kobold-Epic-PrC-access-pre-level-21/page2).

[Awakeninfinity]

In my experience; my real life group and I have completely different understanding of how the game works- which means in order to achieve practical optimization sync; they must actually discuss their characters with me or I inevitably build well above or under their play level and hold back unless necessary or spend the entire game in constant state of frustration (which do you think I choose when possible?).

This has taught me that it is very much a subjective thing; and requires social interaction with everyone involved or people are just not going to have fun.

[Quertus]

Dear OP,

Please read everything AvatarVecna posted, especially the stuff in the Spoiler, and understand that they have my full support. Also, I endorse their candidacy for President.

Regards,
Quertus


That would be YOUR DM. My DM will approve anything on the PFSRD that comes from Paizo or Dreamscarred press…. IF it matches the power level of the party.

This has been true at every table I've played at, even back in the 2e days.

Although, to be fair, at least one of those tables has *also* tried limited sources, for giggles. It… ended poorly.


If I had a DM reject a character due to number of sources, my response would be to hard check his game mastery and consider leaving. But “that build uses too many books?” I’d ask if he had ever played 3.5 before.

Harsh but fair.

"Today we're going to imitate Starry Night, but we're going to use a single color, and solid geometric shapes. For inspiration, we'll listen to Beethoven's 5th, as performed by a single instrument playing a single note."

The only thing worse than people who don't get art are those who try to enforce their drab existence on others. Those who do not appreciate the beauty of a thing are ill qualified to make decisions regarding it.

I'm just trying to picture it: "I'll allow a world where a +1,000,000 jump check will let you jump to the moon, because that's simple. But a system where you can fly around in space ships? Do you have any idea how complex those would be?"


I actually agree with the statement about shenanigans. I would just never include number of sources as a shenanigan. Shenanigans are something that warps setting or game play. Like maximized shivering touch to one shot bosses. Not “I applied a bunch of acfs and feats to my monk so I can stand next to that warblade.” The best reason to play 3.pf over 5e is so you can mix and match for appropriate power.

Strongly agree with the bolded part - or, rather, my version of that would be, "3e designers may have failed spectacularly at creating 'balance' as a default state, but succeeded equally spectacularly at creating a system with nearly unparalleled ability to allow players to implement nearly any character concept at nearly any balance point, by nearly any metric of 'balance¹'."

Not sure we agree on what constitutes "setting warping", though. Care to explain your reasoning there?

¹ yes, even those tables that think Monk is OP


And that is not typical. Especially not if we're talking about 3.5, where there is not a (legal, searchable) online collection of all the material from everything. You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but most DMs do not have an unlimited tolerance for dumpster diving. I mean, really, can you honestly say that "dumpster diving" has positive, or even neutral, connotations in the general community?

Honestly? I may be atypical here, but I tend to have a lot of Green friends, who loath the wastefulness of humanity, and who view dumpster diving as a mark of pride, even IRL.

So, I'm not sure if that skewed the results of polling the tables I've played at, but I find a) "GMs allowing all sources" to be typical; b) "dumpster diving" to be viewed positively (it strongly correlates to a skilled player who cares).

Maybe if more GMs looked on dumpster diving favorably, we'd have fewer GMs complaining about players who aren't engaged and/or don't show up.

Food for thought.


I'm going with Gnaeus here. Our table allows 3.5, Dragon Magazine, and will consider feats from 3.0 and Pathfinder, and not care how many different sources were used, as long as the end result isn't too overpowered compared to the rest of the group.

Balance to the table. It's baffling how people will get hung up on irrelevant details. I'm reminded of a scene from Eric the Viking, that concludes with the line "that… doesn't matter!".

-----

Now that I've hopefully made my position abundantly clear, is there anything that goes too far for me? Well, yes: people who insist that there's only one possible reasonable way to read something… when my first reading of the text produced a different result… and they cannot show how my reading is wrong… yet still insist that their interpretation is the only possible valid one.

Other than that, balance to the table, and who cares about the rest?

[Akal Saris]

I consider myself a practical optimizer, so I (1) try hard to avoid cheese that I wouldn't allow as a DM when designing characters, and (2) try to create builds that are interesting and powerful from 1-20, rather than the many builds that a miserable to play early on but get good after lvl 10.

A few things that annoy me (I'm not debating if they 'work' but I avoid them in most of my builds):

Embrace/spurn the dark chaos feat shuffling, especially combined with racial feats like an elf's effective MWP's or an Otyugh hole. *BUT I don't mind so much if otyugh hole is used specifically for Iron Will
Assuming that template level buybacks are in effect and stacking many templates *BUT I fully support allowing template buybacks to help a PC with a terrible build, like a half-dragon sorcerer
Stacking of bloodlines (UA) for nonsensical things
Metamagic spell reduction gimmicks (for a twinned empowered maximized ocular fell drain Orb of Fire) tend to make me roll my eyes because I've seen it so much and it almost always ends up with a build that doesn't do anything interesting for ~14 levels and then is completely borked for ~6 levels. *BUT I don't mind if the build is instead taking a terrible concept like Lord of the Uttercold and making it usable
WBL and crafting abuse. It's just too easy to do and I've had too many players do it.
Any kind of silly 'infinite power' loopholes like candle of invocation wish abuse, infinite nightstick stacking, tainted spellcasting, polymorph any object abuse, consumptive field with a bag of rats, etc.



As a DM, I've mostly only had to shut down greater Planar Binding shenanigans, and even then mainly due to it taking too much table time and that character overshadowing other PCs.

As a player, it's funny to me when I've had DMs that were unfamiliar with basic optimization, because the things that freaked them out were always mid-power splatbook things while the truly powerful core stuff went under their radar. Like rangers using swift action spells kicked off all sorts of alarms while the wizard ending the encounter with a single spell got a shrug.

[Awakeninfinity]

As a player, it's funny to me when I've had DMs that were unfamiliar with basic optimization, because the things that freaked them out were always mid-power splatbook things while the truly powerful core stuff went under their radar. Like rangers using swift action spells kicked off all sorts of alarms while the wizard ending the encounter with a single spell got a shrug.

Yeah; my IRL group seems to have a similar issue; if I deal 60 damage per hit a level 14 we have an issue; but if someone uses an item in a way it is definitely not intended to it's fine.

But that only reinforces my earlier post; People often have different expectations (and sometimes have issues expressing it; in a game as diverse as 3.5e)

To be honest; the worst outcome that can happen is to be kicked from the table- even playing a character that has difficulty standing with the party they are with can be more optimal than that.

3.5e groups aren't infinite in number; and reputations can travel far afield.

[Crake]

I think the real practical answer is that context matters. If someone told me about wanting a Dragonwrought Kobold to get epic feats as a sorcerer, I'd straight up tell them no and to pick something else. However, if someone told me they wanted to try out a Dragonwrought Kobold to get epic feats while going Swashbuckler 20... I'll at least hear them out. I'm personally of the opinion that it's quite acceptable to add some serious cheese to otherwise weak classes or build ideas.

One thing i personally value as a DM and as a player is consistency. If I make a ruling, it applies across the board. Dragonwrought kobolds either are or aren't true dragons, doesn't matter what build you're playing. Personally at my table they aren't.

Anyway, my point basically is that what is or isn't allowed at the table does apply to the context of the table, but that's where the line ends for me. It either is, or it isn't. No edge cases for niche builds.

[pabelfly]

One thing i personally value as a DM and as a player is consistency. If I make a ruling, it applies across the board. Dragonwrought kobolds either are or aren't true dragons, doesn't matter what build you're playing. Personally at my table they aren't.

Anyway, my point basically is that what is or isn't allowed at the table does apply to the context of the table, but that's where the line ends for me. It either is, or it isn't. No edge cases for niche builds.

Just to clarify, if I were DM, it wouldn't be me saying "no, this doesn't work" but "this is going to be too powerful compared to the rest of the party." I can then offer alternatives to the player that I would think more suitable - using Dragonwrought Kobold cheese on a weaker class, or keeping Sorcerer and using a more standard character race. No inconsistency in rules, but a focus on bringing balance to a game where one party member could be a Fighter while another is a Druid with their own animal companion that's as strong as, if not stronger, than a regular Fighter.

[Emperor Tippy]

Define practical optimization.

Say I decide to play a Sorcerer and hit level 12, getting access to 6th level spells. I take Planar Binding, allowing me to call up and bind 12 HD outsiders. I bind a Lantern Archon because it has at will Continual Flame as a Spell Like Ability, then I have that Lantern Archon go around casting all of the Continual Flames that the city needs. This lets me avoid the 50 GP per casting material component and the spell slot expenditure, in one day that Lantern Archon could (for example) cast 14,400 Continual Flame spells on wooden "lightbulbs"; no fire hazard and no need to replace torches.

I took a core class, took a core spell (and one that is thematically made for a Sorcerer), used it to call a 1 HD core monster, and gave that core monster a task that costs it nothing but time and is entirely within its abilities. If it is acceptable to call up a Lantern Archon to make one Continual Flame torch, then why does it suddenly become an issue to have it do that same task ten thousand times?

But take the next point. A Hound Archon is a 6 HD monster, again perfectly in line with what you would expect to Call with Planar Binding. Except that Archons, including Hound Archons, get at-will Greater Teleport for themselves plus fifty pounds of gear. So I hand the Hound Archon my Bag of Holding, jump inside, and have it Greater Teleport to my destination before letting me out of the bag. I am a level 12 character but now I have at-will Greater Teleport outside of combat, and I could get that at level 10 because Hound Archons are valid targets for Lesser Planar Binding. Again, this all is entirely in line with the rules and thematically in character; every individual facet is the rules also being used not just as written but as explicitly intended and often used in D&D fluff.

But now the next step up the chain, I'm level 16 now and gained Greater Planar Binding. I Call up a Planetar and bind it to my service. It's 14 HD so entirely in line with what would be expected power wise. Except that Planetars cast spells as a level 17 Cleric.

And the next step, I reach level 18 and Gate in a Solar. It has both Wish and Permanency as Spell Like Abilities (thus free of XP or material components). I have it use its Wish to give me a +1 Inherent bonus to a specific stat and have it use its Permanency to make Permanent three castings of Prismatic Wall that I cast along the outside of my Wizards Tower (got to protect the stone work from pesky enemy action). Even using Gate to only bind the Solar to my service for one round per caster level, I got 17,000 XP worth of spells out of 1,000 expended XP. And, again, every single individual facet of that enterprise is entirely in line with not just the rules as written but the rules as intended and the thematic (and historical) basis for the entire Sorcerer class and those spells.

At what point does any of that cease to be Practical Optimization?

How about Calling up Devils and binding them to a Sorcerer's service? I mean that is literally the historical meaning of the world Sorcerer (one who binds demons). A Bearded Devil is a 6 HD creature that is a valid target for Lesser Planar Binding. It also has at-will Greater Teleport and is a CR 5 creature. My Sorcerer spends a few months Calling and Binding Bearded Devils, he can do say two a day safely and without undue expenditure of time or resources. Thirty days later he unleashes sixty Bearded Devils on an enemy city in the middle of the night, with orders to flee to another enemy town/city/etc. if they take any damage and do this all night. My Sorcerer just decimated an enemy nation for minimal effort.

Greater Planar Binding lets you bind a Pit Fiend. They have at-will Greater Teleport and at-will Fireball. How well do you think a nation handles that let off the leash? Especially if someone tosses a Mindblank on it to block divination.

At what point does the Planar Binding line cease to be practical and become theoretical?

Or the same question about the Teleport line? Resilient Sphere blocks Line of Effect, which means it blocks every teleport blocking effect except (arguably) Weirdstones (at least for escape). Throw up a Resilient Sphere and then the entire party is teleported out of the dungeon, or have the party sneak do their thing before using a scroll of Resilient Sphere to create a space for the rest of the party to teleport into.

Or what about the Rogue who UMD's a scroll of Selective Anti-Magic field made by the party wizard and that is Selective for the Rogue. So he gets to use all of his own magical gear and anyone within a ten foot radius has basically all of their magic shut down. Oh, but don't forget, the Rogue also gets an Improved Invisibility and some other useful buffs, including a Lesser Ironguard (making him immune to metal and able to simply walk through metal). The party Wizard makes up a few scrolls and suddenly the party Rogue (or tank) is crushing most opposition. In that practical optimization or something more?

Basically, is PO a matter of power for you or a matter of not twisting the rules (say Astral Seed rebirth to gain monster abilities) so support what you want? Because if PO is solely a matter of using things as they are, in isolation, stated and intended to be used in a given manner to, in combination, achieve some powerful effect then much of which gets called TO is really PO

----
Personally, I see PO as using the rules as intended (in isolation) to best realize whatever idea one has in line with the parties intended playstyle, goals, and power level.

[vasilidor]

In a game I am currently playing, I was wanting to be a spellcaster of some sort, I was thinking wizard. just straight wizard. I went alchemist instead because it would have been too easy to outshine the rest of the group who were new to the game without intending to. I could also with the selection of a couple spells and one class feature make the rest of the party more effective overall quite easily. as it is almost every encounter throughout the game (with the exception of a few things so far out of our weight class we only won by virtue of artifacts and the DM being generous) could have been rofl stomped with a single spell in the wizard spell list.

[Thurbane]

Define practical optimization.

Anything that wouldn't be at home in the Tippyverse?

[icefractal]

As several posts have shown, I don't think there's a line between PO and TO that all tables would agree on, in terms of power. And I'm not even sure there's one in terms of rules-usage, outside of the more obvious edge case examples (and even then, I'm sure there are groups out there who use Drown Healing or Artifact-Filled Component Pouch).

One way you could define it is in terms of optimization scope. By which I mean something like:
Piecewise Optimization: Evaluating each character ability separately.
Whole-Build Optimization: Evaluating character abilities as part of an entire build, factoring in synergies, anti-synergies, and opportunity costs. This is the level where you realize that Mystic Theurge isn't very good (with a typical entry, at least).
Campaign Optimization: Including the party composition and the type of challenges likely to be present in a particular campaign as parameters. Like, Mass Snake's Swiftness is a great spell in some parties, not very effective in others.
Table Optimization: Factoring in the personal tastes of the GM and other players, as well as OOC factors like "this skill will be spotlighted for a short/long amount of real-time".

At its full extent, Table Optimization could be defined as "What should I write on this character sheet to produce the RL experience I want for the game?"

PO could be defined as leaning more heavily to the larger scopes of optimization. If you use that definition though, it's not surprising you'd see more "non-PO" online, because when discussing it through a forum we're not in the same campaign and we're especially not at the same table. The most you can go for general discussion purposes is half-way into Campaign Optimization, by considering how something would fare with various party compositions or types of challenge. Even then, it includes a fair amount of work that's not useful if you're not playing in this particular type of campaign, so I can understand why people stick to Build scope.

Also, not everyone enjoys Table Optimization on an aesthetic level. While it's arguably the most useful, it can feel more like "playing the GM" than playing the game. Build optimization can often be viewed as an IC pursuit: your character is like Bruce Lee - studying many styles, keeping what's effective and discarding the rest. Something like "this GM really likes Samurai and attaches importance to class names, so I should play a CW Samurai because I'm virtually certain to end up with amazing ancestral gear better than any class features"? That's obviously in the OOC realm.

[RandomPeasant]

As several posts have shown, I don't think there's a line between PO and TO that all tables would agree on, in terms of power. And I'm not even sure there's one in terms of rules-usage, outside of the more obvious edge case examples (and even then, I'm sure there are groups out there who use Drown Healing or Artifact-Filled Component Pouch as normal things).

I mean, it's just the Heap Problem. It may be that there's no objective definition of a heap. It may be that different people think different-sized piles of stuff are or aren't heaps. But the term "heap" is still useful.

[Emperor Tippy]

Well there is also impractical optimization.

Otherwise known as optimization that would realistically be essentially impossible in game "Ah yes, I have belonged to eight different guilds located across three different continents, visited two different mystical locations, and had carnal relations with a fey under the full moon; all before the age of 22 and as the child of commoner paupers living in a tiny village in the back end of beyond." Or the "No, you can't become a Cleric of this one god who is only worshipped by this weird race three planes over when you don't even know what another plane is or what that weird race is. I don't care that it has the extra special combination of domains and sets you up for this one PrC in twelve levels." issue.

Basically, if it would take telling an entire campaign (or writing a few novels) to justify just how your level three character actually came to exist then you are impractically optimizing. :D

[daremetoidareyo]

Using myself as an example, can not one be both a PO or TO optimizer?

Like, through these forum contests I’ve discovered all sorts of bonkers stuff: from primevals su ability to infinitely regress to the I scream of Djinni hexblade build, to scruffy the fuglimancer. That’s two and a half TO builds. But there has been a number of other fun things that are more PO, neat little tricks of rules interactions that actually add an interesting narrative to a character. And I think people have this impression that TO time is spent for power gaming instead of sharing a mutual love of rules dysfunction. Then other people sort of parrot that.

[Gnaeus]

Not sure we agree on what constitutes "setting warping", though. Care to explain your reasoning there?

Well, first, in PO context we don’t really need to agree. It’s going to come down to table preference. Shivering touch is essentially a no save just suck power that one shots most large enemies at spell level 3. And a 7kgp lesser maximize rod is easily available not long after. Or a 10k 50 charge wand. I’m not going to say what I think RAI was with this spell but it is clearly an encounter winner against lots of high CR foes. Like I see several things on the CR 12 list that essentially just die with no relevant defense.

So given that we have a table where the DM likes customizing challenges to be difficult for PCs, one of a few things has to happen.

1. Every monster that isn’t a mook has a hard defense to Shivering touch. Either cold subtype, immunity to ability damage, or amazing touch AC. We feel that is unrealistic to our campaigns and also shuts down options that are more in keeping with our table play. Like, we never see purple worms again because the fights only last until the arcane caster’s or UMDers turn, unless they all have the cold subtype for some reason. So it warps the campaign in the sense that this power, easily available at level 5, pretty much just removes a sizable chunk of pretty iconic monsters from our PCs existence.

Or

2. Shivering touch is banned/nerfed/raised in level. I think we usually treat it as a penalty with a minimum of 1. (Like touch of idiocy, one level lower, which only does 1d6 and is also mind affecting.)
(I suppose we could gentleman’s agreement it like we do with planar binding, but I think “you can only use shivering touch when it sucks” wouldn’t please anyone).

[Yogibear41]

The thing with any ridiculous (bordering on) TO trick a player can come up with, unless the PCs are the first sentient beings in the game world, someone else has had the opportunity to do it before.

I don't know if there is a clear line between PO and TO, or at least none that would be universally agreed on, but I think every table needs some kind of "gentlemen's agreement" on what is generally acceptable.

Pretty much this.

I like to think I am a practical optimizer, being powerful but not broken. I would say I have the reputation of being the "optimizer" or "power-gamer" at our table for a long time. But most of my characters are actually rather simple and just do basic things that are effective like boosting my Strength on a melee character or boosting my AC on the "Tank character" with classes that people generally consider "lower-tier"

[Quertus]

@Gnaeus,

Or

3. You encounter more than just a single enemy, so that a single shivering touch does not end the encounter.

Or

4. You accept that these encounters - much like rain clouds, bunny rabbits, gentle breezes, locked doors, and getting dressed - aren't intended to provide the challenge for these characters.

The setting can retain its integrity, just the GM has to accept that this particular foe isn't as challenging *for this party* as they expected sight unseen.

[Gnaeus]

@Gnaeus,

Or

3. You encounter more than just a single enemy, so that a single shivering touch does not end the encounter.

Or

4. You accept that these encounters - much like rain clouds, bunny rabbits, gentle breezes, locked doors, and getting dressed - aren't intended to provide the challenge for these characters.

The setting can retain its integrity, just the GM has to accept that this particular foe isn't as challenging *for this party* as they expected sight unseen.

That is the definition of setting warping. You have this spell from a regional splat so now iconic monsters are instadead piles of exp and loot. I can imagine running updated versions of classics like against the giants and watching the wizard auto kill everything in it with one third level wand (maybe 4th, with metamagic reach spell.) And comparing cloud giants and purple worms to bunny rabbits and removing them from play because they get auto one shot by a wizard 5 or a rogue 5 with a wand is vastly more problematic than fixing the one offending spell. Oh or I guess we could have our 8th level party face multiple CR12s. Because using the RAW on that spell won’t have any impacts on play when you are getting the exp and loot from solo chain ganking things 4 CR above party level. With Assay Spell Resistance it also no save one shots every printed dragon. And any enemy NPC who was relying on saves and AC. Oh Snap. It’s Verminaard the evil cleric highlord boss and his red drag…. (Rogues turn, wizards turn) oh, you didn’t roll 1s. Well, you win, let’s break out Settlers of Catan.

Or, as mentioned, it’s pretty rude coming the other way too. Since it also one shots most fighter types and divine casters with no save, and two shots rogues. It’s poorly balanced from either side of table so we fix it.

[Darg]

It’s Verminaard the evil cleric highlord boss and his red drag…. (Rogues turn, wizards turn) oh, you didn’t roll 1s. Well, you win, let’s break out Settlers of Catan.

What about Energy immunity/Resist Energy? A red dragon and other cold vulnerable dragons would likely protect themselves from their weakness. If the encounter doesn't last longer than a single round, the encounter wasn't set up well. It's a powerful spell sure, but it does have a lot of weaknesses that can be passively exploited.

[Crake]

What about Energy immunity/Resist Energy? A red dragon and other cold vulnerable dragons would likely protect themselves from their weakness. If the encounter doesn't last longer than a single round, the encounter wasn't set up well. It's a powerful spell sure, but it does have a lot of weaknesses that can be passively exploited.

Resist energy does nothing about shivering touch, and energy immunity is a 6th level cleric, and 7th level wizard spell, that's 3-4 spell levels higher, or 6-8 character levels higher than when you gain access to shivering touch. If we assume that bosses will be 3-4 levels higher than the party, that's still 3-4 levels where the party have access to a one-shot spell. For dragon's it's even worse, because their spellcasting is typically well behind their CR.

[Emperor Tippy]

Shivering Touch is a great spell and probably should have been written differently, but it shouldn't be one shotting noteworthy encounters.

It's a touch range spell which means the caster either needs to invest resources in upping the range or get into melee range of the enemy. Arcane Reach and Reach Spell are both solid choices in the first place, but Arcane Reach comes online late (you need Archmage) and Reach Spell is a feat. Again, neither are bad options but both take build resources. The bigger issue is something like the party Rogue getting a Wand of Maximize Shivering Touch and dropping 18 points of Dex damage onto an enemy in the Surprise round. A caster delivering it as a touch spell though gives the enemy every opportunity to punish the attempt hard.

It's SR: Yes. Again, SR isn't a huge thing later game but pretty much anything that could get called Shivering Touch worthy is rocking enough SR that the caster fails to penetrate at least a third of the time. That check being made after succeeding on the Touch Attack. It's a touch attack so it's not horrid but absent other build investment you are still probably looking at around a 50% failure chance on the Touch Attack; remember that this is a melee touch attack and not a ranged touch attack so you are adding Str instead of Dex to your BAB. A Wizard 5 is rocking a BAB of +2 and is probably happy if their Str is positive at all. Touch AC is generally relatively weak but even a Touch AC of 10 is going to result in whiffing ~40% of the time. This generally gets worse as level increases, as monster Touch AC (or other defenses that mitigate against melee touch attacks) tends to increase faster than caster BAB+Str. Again less of an issue with another character using a Wand or Scroll to deliver the spell.

Enemies with resources, intelligence, and/or casting should be prepared for things like Shivering Touch and ability damage more broadly. A Craft Contingent Restoration or Heal set to trigger on Ability Damage would negate at least the first Shivering Touch. Lesser Globe of Invulnerability just flatly negates Shivering Touch; it doesn't last very long but it will last the combat.

The foe most often brought up in regards to Shivering Touch is dragons. Well if a Dragon is getting hit by Shivering Touch then your DM needs to stop sandbagging when playing dragons. Any dragon with more than 20 HD can take Permanent Emanation. A scroll of Selective (the Dragon) Anti-Magic Field and Permanent Emanation should be basically the first thing grabbed by any dragon that makes it to Adult. These are creatures with hundreds to thousands of years of experience, Intelligence well beyond merely human genius, and thematic experience/knowledge of magic. For proper fun, layer on a Permanent Emanation: Repulsion and force a Will save for them to even move towards you.

An Adult or older dragon should not be treated merely as its basic stat block but as what it is; an intelligent apex predator who has survived a century plus, was born with racial knowledge of the arcane, is a natural spell caster, and is at least as smart as an adult human. They have feats (and no, they aren't taking the crap that WotC said they "favor"), they have magic items (triple treasure even), they have allies, they have prepared ground if attacked in their lair, they can have class levels.

----
"Optimization" isn't something that should only be done to NPC's. It should, at the very least, also be done to important/iconic/named NPC's who are actual characters as opposed to bags of XP.

This includes things like even a relatively low level enemy Teleporting away when they realize that a combat is lost and then attacking them that very night as they try to rest. But then, when is the last time that your DM actually had you fighting the Boss only for a well built (PC standards) Rogue like character to teleport in and backstab the party wizard? Or for the Evil Sorcerer (level 12) to have his lair protected by a Called Dretch with Mindsight who has his prepared throne room covered by a Mage's Private Sanctum with a pre-cast Persistent Image set to show him sitting on his throne and handle the initial interaction with the party, with the room having a Permanent Invisible Solid Fog in effect and the Sorcerer hiding behind the Permanent Image that is the ceiling. The room, naturally, has a Selective (the Sorcerer) Forbiddance to shut down teleportation for the party. And hidden inside the walls of the room (including the floor and ceiling) are a few hundred Wraiths under the Sorcerer's thrall. The party comes in, sees what they expect to see and might or might not see through the illusion, finds themselves unable to move more than 5 feet per turn, have masses of incorporeal undead attacking them, can't teleport, are in a room whose entire area is covered by illusions that are constantly shifting, has no natural light at all, and also has a Sorcerer dropping the odd Fell Drain Magic Missile on the party (great from a Wand, and at CL 7 it gets you four missiles per use).

That entire setup can easily be done by a Sorcerer 12 without much investment. If you don't like the Wraiths, replace then with a few dozen Dretches hiding behind the illusory ceiling each with a Fell Drain MM wand.

But then, when's the last time you saw a DM actually use a Permanent Invisible Solid Fog to lock down a room in a dungeon so that the dozens of Lantern Archons hanging around can blast you for the lulz? Better hope you have some magical AoE's on tap.

The biggest issue with optimization isn't the PC's level of power, it is the DM's unwillingness to optimize the world and the NPC's to the same degree. Yes, this breaks down with some of the more extreme stuff and at higher levels but it isn't much of a problem at lower levels.

Hell, when's the last time you faced an enemy who used an Energy Substitution: Sonic Fireball on the party while they were in the middle of another combat?

[holbita]

To me is extremely simple, session 0:

Hi guys, so... what is it the level of play we are going to be using? Incantatrix and Nightsticks Divine Metamagic Clerics? Monks and CW Samurai? or something in between? Everyone agrees on an optimization level and tries to stick to it as much as possible.

Having said that, as a DM I would never go for extremely high optimization play because suddenly you need be tweaking every creature on your world if you want to have the players challenged during their adventures, which is fine but... it takes too much effort, I prefer using my time as a DM to work on the story over random encounters every day of the week.

[redking]

Any level of optimization is fine, with qualification. If the ice assassin spell is the best spell available, then the PCs aren't the first to discover it. Ice assassins should be running around everywhere, under the control of NPCs, government, organized religion and so on.

Players that insist that their PCs can take epic feats at level 1 (and the like) need to DM to restrain themselves from doing the same to NPCs for their 'optimization' tricks to work. As long as the PCs and NPCs are playing by the same rules, its cool. But these players do not want that. They want the advantage, not an equal playing field.

Often people claiming RAW justification for theoretical optimization simply have poor comprehension skills. Its sad to see.

[RandomPeasant]

Any level of optimization is fine, with qualification. If the ice assassin spell is the best spell available, then the PCs aren't the first to discover it. Ice assassins should be running around everywhere, under the control of NPCs, government, organized religion and so on.

People suggest this solution a lot, and it's good within reason, but it can get frustrating if applied too aggressively. In the real world, there was a first person (or sometimes independent first people) to figure out any particular trick. Someone invented gunpowder, and computers, and tanks, and all the other things that have been invented, and often that was long after it would've been possible to do so. The PCs don't have to be the first ones to figure out every trick they come up with, and other people should adopt things the PCs discover, but they should sometimes get to be the first person to figure things out. Especially for stuff that's more complicated than "cast spell that's good".

[Gnaeus]

Shivering Touch is a great spell and probably should have been written differently, but it shouldn't be one shotting noteworthy encounters.

It's a touch range spell which means the caster either needs to invest resources in upping the range or get into melee range of the enemy. Arcane Reach and Reach Spell are both solid choices in the first place, but Arcane Reach comes online late (you need Archmage) and Reach Spell is a feat. Again, neither are bad options but both take build resources. The bigger issue is something like the party Rogue getting a Wand of Maximize Shivering Touch and dropping 18 points of Dex damage onto an enemy in the Surprise round. A caster delivering it as a touch spell though gives the enemy every opportunity to punish the attempt hard

A lesser metamagic rod of reach spell is 3kgp. Trivially available by a wizard 5. Also, spectral hand is a second level spell (which also gives a hit bonus). Also if the wizard wins initiative, the enemy will be paralyzed before any punishing can take place.



It's SR: Yes. Again, SR isn't a huge thing later game but pretty much anything that could get called Shivering Touch worthy is rocking enough SR that the caster fails to penetrate at least a third of the time. That check being made after succeeding on the Touch Attack. It's a touch attack so it's not horrid but absent other build investment you are still probably looking at around a 50% failure chance on the Touch Attack; remember that this is a melee touch attack and not a ranged touch attack so you are adding Str instead of Dex to your BAB. A Wizard 5 is rocking a BAB of +2 and is probably happy if their Str is positive at all. Touch AC is generally relatively weak but even a Touch AC of 10 is going to result in whiffing ~40% of the time. This generally gets worse as level increases, as monster Touch AC (or other defenses that mitigate against melee touch attacks) tends to increase faster than caster BAB+Str. Again less of an issue with another character using a Wand or Scroll to deliver the spell.

A purple worm is cr12, touch AC 4. Kracken CR 12, touch AC 6. A cloud giant is CR 11, Touch AC 9. Leaving aside gishes or rogues with wands and the like, we both know it isn’t difficult to swing a +8 ranged touch attack by level 7. Particularly because the party in most cases is going to be an active force going through a dungeon or cave or castle, and so can be reasonably expected to be buffed. A gnome wizard with spectral hand and heroism isn’t anything special.

By mid levels, where those monsters could reasonably be on level enemies, the wizard just adds more cheese. For example, against any CR 9+ thing without high SR, quickened true strike (spell level 5) maximized reach shivering touch (Spell level 4 and a cheap rod) is 95% kill for anything without SR and 18 dex or less. (And honestly, if they have 19-27 dex, it’s pretty crippling for them too, and they just get zapped by a wand on round 2).



Enemies with resources, intelligence, and/or casting should be prepared for things like Shivering Touch and ability damage more broadly. A Craft Contingent Restoration or Heal set to trigger on Ability Damage would negate at least the first Shivering Touch. Lesser Globe of Invulnerability just flatly negates Shivering Touch; it doesn't last very long but it will last the combat.

Craft contingent spell requires an 11th level caster. So that’s 12th level feat if they are lucky. Could be 15th.

Also, Tippy, all due respect for your work and all, but PO in your game isn’t close to PO in mine. No shade, really I’m a fan, but we have bosses in our games that aren’t full casters, and we like it that way. I’m not saying Shivering Touch is theorycrafting. But it’s a problem for a mid-op group.

In defense of your point, the level appropriate response is Mirror Image. But again, lots of things aren’t casters. And wizards are pretty good at winning the initiative game against non wizards.

Also, there are plenty of spells and abilities that do ability damage that are more on line with our play level, and if everyone is immune because shivering touch, it just means the guy with a poisoned weapon is screwed that much more than he already was. If everything has sky high touch AC, that nerfs shivering touch, but also vampiric touch, bestow curse, and a bunch of other touch spells that aren’t as problematic.



The foe most often brought up in regards to Shivering Touch is dragons. Well if a Dragon is getting hit by Shivering Touch then your DM needs to stop sandbagging when playing dragons. Any dragon with more than 20 HD can take Permanent Emanation. A scroll of Selective (the Dragon) Anti-Magic Field and Permanent Emanation should be basically the first thing grabbed by any dragon that makes it to Adult. These are creatures with hundreds to thousands of years of experience, Intelligence well beyond merely human genius, and thematic experience/knowledge of magic. For proper fun, layer on a Permanent Emanation: Repulsion and force a Will save for them to even move towards you.

An Adult or older dragon should not be treated merely as its basic stat block but as what it is; an intelligent apex predator who has survived a century plus, was born with racial knowledge of the arcane, is a natural spell caster, and is at least as smart as an adult human. They have feats (and no, they aren't taking the crap that WotC said they "favor"), they have magic items (triple treasure even), they have allies, they have prepared ground if attacked in their lair, they can have class levels.

So, like, a CR 15 red dragon can protect itself from a spell readily available at level 5. If it were, maybe, a 6th level spell instead of a third, that would be very persuasive. A CR 10 16 HD Juvenile lacks SR and casts first level spells, and would in most respects be a very solid boss fight against a level 6-7 group. A young adult probably just dies too. By the time you fight the CR 13 dragon, Assay Resistance seems likely, and SR is its only real defense unless it was fortunate enough to prebuff and likely even then.

And if you give them class levels, that just jacks their CR higher. And heaven forbid you give monsters class levels that aren’t full caster.

Also, in general and in my group in particular, really high level play is uncommon. If we ever saw an adult or older dragon with class levels, it would be as the final boss of a campaign. We are pretty firmly on the “if you play a published adventure, you have to max the monsters HP and swap out trash feats, maybe occasionally replace fighter with Warblade ” level. Our problems are “the rogue spotted a big monster but when we prepared spells we didn’t know it had this template” problems. Which are way, way different than “I wonder what epic feats this thing has” problems.

[Quertus]

That is the definition of setting warping. You have this spell from a regional splat so now iconic monsters are instadead piles of exp and loot. I can imagine running updated versions of classics like against the giants and watching the wizard auto kill everything in it with one third level wand (maybe 4th, with metamagic reach spell.) And comparing cloud giants and purple worms to bunny rabbits and removing them from play because they get auto one shot by a wizard 5 or a rogue 5 with a wand is vastly more problematic than fixing the one offending spell. Oh or I guess we could have our 8th level party face multiple CR12s. Because using the RAW on that spell won’t have any impacts on play when you are getting the exp and loot from solo chain ganking things 4 CR above party level. With Assay Spell Resistance it also no save one shots every printed dragon. And any enemy NPC who was relying on saves and AC. Oh Snap. It’s Verminaard the evil cleric highlord boss and his red drag…. (Rogues turn, wizards turn) oh, you didn’t roll 1s. Well, you win, let’s break out Settlers of Catan.

Or, as mentioned, it’s pretty rude coming the other way too. Since it also one shots most fighter types and divine casters with no save, and two shots rogues. It’s poorly balanced from either side of table so we fix it.

"Oh or I guess we could have our 8th level party face multiple CR12s." Our 16th level party could probably face quite a few of them. And if our 8th level party faces one, then they fluffy bunny it. Unless they encounter it while the Wizard is unconscious / petrified / dead / playing videogames / out of shivering touch, in which case they struggle as much as you'd expect.

It might violate your expectations regarding how much the party will struggle with each individual encounter, but afaict that doesn't "warp the setting", it just says something about this party and your expectations.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not a fan of the spell. I just dislike it (and any other spell that gives penalties to stats (and any other spell / power / whatever that gives *temporary* bonuses/penalties unless it is Persisted / can be "mathed" during downtime)) because of its effects on the game's *speed*, not because I would build anything differently.

Balance to the table… and the module. Either it's fine for the Wizard to "one-shot one-kill" these creatures… and for the Fighter to turn them into a fine red mist… and the Rogue to show them their kidneys… and the Cleric, not to be left out, to summon his deity to kill the 4th one for him (extreme wealth-mancy), or it's not.

But if Mr. Max Shivers is teamed up with a sword-and-board Petal Ranger, a UMD healbot Rogue, and a "find traps with face" Trollblooded Barbarian party Face *and* the group isn't happy with the Wizard carrying the team? Then there has been a failure to balance to the table.

Now, if there was a DC 5, free to cast ritual that allowed anyone with an int score to fly or plane shift? That would be setting warping. But "D&D has a conditional no save just lose" spell? Power Word: Kill has been around forever. "The game isn't balanced" / "Wizards are OP"? That's… not exactly news. Nothing here really changes the setting.

I can't see any problem that Shivering Touch causes that isn't caught by "balance to the table", except…

"it also one shots most fighter types and divine casters with no save, and two shots rogues" - I'm not aware of any creatures that possess it natively. Do such exist, and should they have taken over the world on the strength of this spell? If so, then sure, the logical consequences of that spell could be setting warping.

But if the sentence reads, "but Shivering Touch could beat…", and I can replace "Shivering Touch" with "a sufficiently high-level party"? Then it doesn't really warp the setting. It just says that, sometimes, *this* party can hit above their weight class.

Imagine a party of nothing but max stealth rogues going through a remake of [giant module]. Nothing sees them ever. Setting breaking, or just coolness points for that party?

EDIT: really, "fix the spell" is a fine answer to balance, if that works for your table (and you're not rewriting the whole system, just hammering down a few outliers). I suspect my main point is simply with describing it as "setting breaking".

[Gnaeus]

"Oh or I guess we could have our 8th level party face multiple CR12s." Our 16th level party could probably face quite a few of them. And if our 8th level party faces one, then they fluffy bunny it. Unless they encounter it while the Wizard is unconscious / petrified / dead / playing videogames / out of shivering touch, in which case they struggle as much as you'd expect.

It might violate your expectations regarding how much the party will struggle with each individual encounter, but afaict that doesn't "warp the setting", it just says something about this party and your expectations.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not a fan of the spell. I just dislike it (and any other spell that gives penalties to stats (and any other spell / power / whatever that gives *temporary* bonuses/penalties unless it is Persisted / can be "mathed" during downtime)) because of its effects on the game's *speed*, not because I would build anything differently.

Balance to the table… and the module. Either it's fine for the Wizard to "one-shot one-kill" these creatures… and for the Fighter to turn them into a fine red mist… and the Rogue to show them their kidneys… and the Cleric, not to be left out, to summon his deity to kill the 4th one for him (extreme wealth-mancy), or it's not.

But if Mr. Max Shivers is teamed up with a sword-and-board Petal Ranger, a UMD healbot Rogue, and a "find traps with face" Trollblooded Barbarian party Face *and* the group isn't happy with the Wizard carrying the team? Then there has been a failure to balance to the table.

Now, if there was a DC 5, free to cast ritual that allowed anyone with an int score to fly or plane shift? That would be setting warping. But "D&D has a conditional no save just lose" spell? Power Word: Kill has been around forever. "The game isn't balanced" / "Wizards are OP"? That's… not exactly news. Nothing here really changes the setting.

I can't see any problem that Shivering Touch causes that isn't caught by "balance to the table", except…

"it also one shots most fighter types and divine casters with no save, and two shots rogues" - I'm not aware of any creatures that possess it natively. Do such exist, and should they have taken over the world on the strength of this spell? If so, then sure, the logical consequences of that spell could be setting warping.

But if the sentence reads, "but Shivering Touch could beat…", and I can replace "Shivering Touch" with "a sufficiently high-level party"? Then it doesn't really warp the setting. It just says that, sometimes, *this* party can hit above their weight class.

Imagine a party of nothing but max stealth rogues going through a remake of [giant module]. Nothing sees them ever. Setting breaking, or just coolness points for that party?

EDIT: really, "fix the spell" is a fine answer to balance, if that works for your table (and you're not rewriting the whole system, just hammering down a few outliers). I suspect my main point is simply with describing it as "setting breaking".

If it were a sufficiently high level party, that would be true. You say that like it is no big thing when in fact it is huge. PW kill isn’t broken, is in fact pretty weak, when you get it. It has lots of relevant defenses… when you get it. If it were a 4th level spell, it would absolutely be a game changer. I don’t even object to the speed of shivering touch. Could a cloud giant fail a save to a SoL? Absolutely. But he has a defense. Could a sufficiently optimized caster get a DC30 SoL so he fails on a 19? No doubt. And in that game, assuming those things were available at a similar level, I would expect shivering touch to be in play also.

Honestly if it were even 4th level rather than third, so you can’t reach or maximize with a lesser rod, it would be better. I’d peg it closer to 5th, so things have a shot against it, and everyone and their brother won’t run out and buy a wand.

But a world where the kingdoms leading archmage can one shot kill stuff weaker than himself is pretty standard. A world where wizard 5s can no defense kill CR 12s, like that level 15 orc Barbarian warlord, isn’t the same AT ALL. And a big part of the reason we DONT play a lot above about ECL 12-15 is that we find “I auto win unless you have the cancel my auto win power” distasteful and high level optimized play can get that way.

And it isn’t that this party can hit above their weight class. It’s that every party can hit above their weight class. I expect most parties to be a bit better than game math would indicate. But I also expect a bruiser 4CR above APL to have a chance to go past round 1. It’s option limiting for the DM, when a single spell takes whole categories of monsters out of play. It’s option limiting to PCs, in that your character is an idiot if he doesn’t take the broken spell.

And if PCs are using it the NPCs will be also. It isn’t some odd combo that takes game mastery. It’s everyone with this spell is better than everyone without it. That means when you fight that drow raiding party they all have 5 charge wands of shivering touch in wand chambers. Because they would be stupid not to. It’s cheaper than a +1 weapon.

And we don’t care about the math difficulty. I understand your games policy. But our most common fix actually makes that more likely, by adding the (minimum of 1) language like bestow curse and touch of idiocy have, which lets you debuff but not one shot. Of course, D20 pro usually handles the math for us anyway, so it’s just the DM setting the correct penalty.

[Darg]

Resist energy does nothing about shivering touch, and energy immunity is a 6th level cleric, and 7th level wizard spell, that's 3-4 spell levels higher, or 6-8 character levels higher than when you gain access to shivering touch. If we assume that bosses will be 3-4 levels higher than the party, that's still 3-4 levels where the party have access to a one-shot spell. For dragon's it's even worse, because their spellcasting is typically well behind their CR.

Why wouldn't Resist Energy work? It deals damage and it has the energy type of cold. If the Descriptor doesn't govern the type of damage done, then Energy Substitution doesn't change a cold fireball's damage from fire to cold. I find it hard to believe that the spell doesn't protect from Shivering touch.

[GeoffWatson]

Often people claiming RAW justification for theoretical optimization simply have poor comprehension skills. Its sad to see.

It's usually intentional. They "somehow" missed the next sentence with limitations, or whatever.

[Crake]

Why wouldn't Resist Energy work? It deals damage and it has the energy type of cold. If the Descriptor doesn't govern the type of damage done, then Energy Substitution doesn't change a cold fireball's damage from fire to cold. I find it hard to believe that the spell doesn't protect from Shivering touch.

Ability damage is it's own type of damage, there's no such thing as "cold" ability damage, or "nonlethal" ability damage, or "fire" ability damage. "Ability" is the type already. It specifically calls out that immunity to cold makes you immune to the spell, if it intended for cold resistance to reduce the ability damage, it would have mentioned that in there as well.

Now, of course, it would be totally fine to houserule energy resistance to help protect, but then at the same time, energy substitution would also help circumvent that, and there's also metamagic feat called piercing cold that lets you bypass resistances. But at the end of the day, it's just not reasonable to expect all your enemies to have some kind of protection against the spell, especially when many of them are monsters who have no access to such magic.

A better solution would be instead to either make it more in line with ray of stupidity, dealing a smaller amount of instantaneous damage, or make it a penalty, and have it reduce the score to minimum of 1, since the spell itself has a duration, which makes no sense for damage, which is supposed to be an instantaneous thing.

[Darg]

Ability damage is it's own type of damage, there's no such thing as "cold" ability damage, or "nonlethal" ability damage, or "fire" ability damage. "Ability" is the type already. It specifically calls out that immunity to cold makes you immune to the spell, if it intended for cold resistance to reduce the ability damage, it would have mentioned that in there as well.

Not true. It's a type of ability score loss, but "dexterity" is the pool of points that the damage affects. You don't take damage to your fire do you? Likewise, you don't take 3d6 points of dexterity damage to your dexterity. You take 3d6 points of damage to your dexterity. You can easily substitute dexterity with hit points here. This isn't a monster ability and the damage type is not mentioned unlike a spell like Chill Touch. The Cold descriptor tells you how the spell interacts with things. As the spell uses cold energy and deals damage Resist Energy protects you from it. Intention can only be extrapolated, not determined, by the spell description.


Now, of course, it would be totally fine to houserule energy resistance to help protect, but then at the same time, energy substitution would also help circumvent that, and there's also metamagic feat called piercing cold that lets you bypass resistances. But at the end of the day, it's just not reasonable to expect all your enemies to have some kind of protection against the spell, especially when many of them are monsters who have no access to such magic.

A better solution would be instead to either make it more in line with ray of stupidity, dealing a smaller amount of instantaneous damage, or make it a penalty, and have it reduce the score to minimum of 1, since the spell itself has a duration, which makes no sense for damage, which is supposed to be an instantaneous thing.

I don't have to houserule it. That's how it already works. I'm not arguing that it isn't a misleveled spell because it is.

[Gnaeus]

Ability damage is it's own type of damage, there's no such thing as "cold" ability damage, or "nonlethal" ability damage, or "fire" ability damage. "Ability" is the type already. It specifically calls out that immunity to cold makes you immune to the spell, if it intended for cold resistance to reduce the ability damage, it would have mentioned that in there as well.

Now, of course, it would be totally fine to houserule energy resistance to help protect, but then at the same time, energy substitution would also help circumvent that, and there's also metamagic feat called piercing cold that lets you bypass resistances. But at the end of the day, it's just not reasonable to expect all your enemies to have some kind of protection against the spell, especially when many of them are monsters who have no access to such magic.

A better solution would be instead to either make it more in line with ray of stupidity, dealing a smaller amount of instantaneous damage, or make it a penalty, and have it reduce the score to minimum of 1, since the spell itself has a duration, which makes no sense for damage, which is supposed to be an instantaneous thing.

I agree with your reading. And your solutions. I am, however, unsure about your contention that energy immunity (spell) blocks it when resist energy doesn’t. The spell says creatures with cold subtype are immune, not creatures with immunity to cold damage, we agree cold damage isn’t ability damage caused by a spell with cold descriptor, and energy immunity specifically only protects against cold damage, not other effects of cold spells. (Polymorph gives subtype so that would work as a defense)

(Raw argument only, I would also have no problem with a Common sense based table ruling)

[RandomPeasant]

Not true. It's a type of ability score loss, but "dexterity" is the pool of points that the damage affects. You don't take damage to your fire do you?

Do you not see how that proves the opposite of your point? If "Dexterity Damage" reduces your Dexterity, but "Fire Damage" doesn't reduce your Fire, that implies they're different things and don't need to interact with other rules in the same way. You need to proactively provide a citation that says Energy Resistance reduces Ability Damage, not just say "it says Damage in both places, it must be the same", because that's not how it works.

[Thurbane]

Isn't Shivering Touch the main reason that pretty much every dragon should have Scintillating Scales?

Yay for arms races! :smallyuk:

[Darg]

Do you not see how that proves the opposite of your point? If "Dexterity Damage" reduces your Dexterity, but "Fire Damage" doesn't reduce your Fire, that implies they're different things and don't need to interact with other rules in the same way. You need to proactively provide a citation that says Energy Resistance reduces Ability Damage, not just say "it says Damage in both places, it must be the same", because that's not how it works.


energy damage: Damage caused by one of five types of energy (not counting positive and negative energy): acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic.


The descriptors are acid, air, chaotic, cold, darkness, death, earth, electricity, evil, fear, fire, force, good, language-dependent, lawful, light, mind-affecting, sonic, and water.

Most of these descriptors have no game effect by themselves, but they govern how the spell interacts with other spells, with special abilities, with unusual creatures, with alignment, and so on.


Choose one type of energy (acid, cold, electricity, or fire). You can then modify any spell with an energy descriptor to use the chosen type of energy instead. An energy substituted spell uses a spell slot of the spell's normal level. The spell's descriptor changes to the new energy type—for example, a fireball composed of cold energy is an evocation [cold] spell.

Shivering touch is a cold spell. This means that it uses cold energy as expressed by energy substitution. If the descriptor doesn't express the type of energy the spell uses, then a Fireball [cold] still does fire damage.


This abjuration grants a creature limited protection from damage of whichever one of five energy types you select: acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic. The subject gains energy resistance 10 against the energy type chosen


A creature with resistance to energy has the ability (usually extraordinary) to ignore some damage of a certain type (such as cold, electricity, or fire) each round, but it does not have total immunity.

Ability damage is also not a type of damage just as hit point damage is not a type of damage.


Damage types include weapon damage (subdivided into bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing) and energy damage (positive, negative, acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic).

Ability damage is more akin to lethal/nonlethal as it tells you where the damage is going.

There is nothing inherent in "fire damage" that makes it do hit point damage other than it is not automatically ability damage. There are ways to add extra fire damage to a weapon, and if that weapon does ability damage instead of hit point damage then it does extra fire typed ability damage.

I guess we are probably not going to agree on this if this doesn't convince anyone, but the evidence is just as inconclusive the other way too. I don't need to cite an example because this is such a niche case. I don't recall ever coming across a case where WotC clarifies how these things interact. As such I am basing it on the evidence I've come across. Shivering Touch does damage using cold energy and resistance doesn't require that the damage be to hit points. In conclusion, energy resistance would prevent damage done by shivering touch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Isn't Shivering Touch the main reason that pretty much every dragon should have Scintillating Scales?

Yay for arms races! :smallyuk:

Scintillating scales works for higher CR Dragons that can afford persistent spell. 1 round/level spells generally aren't precast on a regular basis, at least in my games unless they have some sort of foreknowledge.

[Gnaeus]

Scintillating scales works for higher CR Dragons that can afford persistent spell. 1 round/level spells generally aren't precast on a regular basis, at least in my games unless they have some sort of foreknowledge.

I think it’s a minute per level, but valid point anyway.

But also

The CR 10 red dragon and CR 11 green and blue and CR 14 black can’t even cast it. So until about party level 9-10 it isn’t even relevant for bosses 4 CR over level.

If the dragon loses initiative they die before they cast it.

If the dragon wins initiative they waste their first turn casting it instead of attacking.

It is pretty at odds with the stated arrogance of many dragons.

If every dragon has to take it, it is reducing the versatility of enemies.

If every dragon has to take it and cast it on turn 1, it nerfs a pile of touch spells that aren’t op, because of one spell that is.

[RandomPeasant]

This means that it uses cold energy as expressed by energy substitution.

So, first of all: "we can deduce the general rule from how I think this specific metamagic feat works" is a terrible argument.

But you're reading that metamagic feat wrong. It doesn't modify the damage type because it changes the descriptor, it modifies the damage type ("use the chosen type of energy instead") and also it modifies the descriptor ("descriptor changes to the new energy type"). Those things are not causally related. In fact, insofar as it makes sense to talk about "before" and "after" in this context, the descriptor changes after the damage type, so that you're not dealing Cold damage with a [Fire] spell.

[Second Wind]

It is difficult to get a player to understand something, when their optimization depends on not understanding it.

[redking]

It is difficult to get a player to understand something, when their optimization depends on not understanding it.

Indeed. GeoffWatson noted upthread -


It's usually intentional. They "somehow" missed the next sentence with limitations, or whatever.

I suspect that trying to sneak up on the DM with self-serving interpretations is the cause of group breakdown and unnecessary squabbling at the table. There was a guy here that insisted that the 9th level power reality revision could create magical items for free (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?611320-proofread-my-psion-please).


reality revision can create nonpsionic items upto 25000gp cost.
this means i can make a wand of improvisation at cl33
or a scroll of simulacrum at cl37.
so i just make a wand of improvisation, scroll of surge of fortune, and then use all 3 to umd that scroll of simulacrum.
this upto 37hd simulacrum supported by 9th level astral constructs is my endgame strategy.
fate of one is used to reroall a 1 on the umd. precognition greater is used to umd the wand easier.

I said that he should ask his DM about this first. He said his DM is "RAW or die", and since magical items are non-psionic, then reality revision can create them at no additional cost. Instead of asking his DM, he ended up having to change his build a few weeks later. He tried to sneak an exploit up on his DM, and got shot down. I expect that this is the norm, which makes all of this nonsense meaningless.

[Thurbane]

Scintillating scales works for higher CR Dragons that can afford persistent spell. 1 round/level spells generally aren't precast on a regular basis, at least in my games unless they have some sort of foreknowledge.

With high fly speeds, they can, depending on terrain, fly behind cover for a round if they need to. Flyby Attack also helps.

They might not have SS up at first, but once they know they are facing a caster, and especially if they get hit with ST and managed not to get taken out on the first hit, it's a legit tactic.

[Aharon]

About this whole Shivering Touch discussion...
It certainly works on lots of creatures. But dragons - even low level ones - can put a lot of space between them and the caster. Do PC groups typically wander into the dragons lair, where it can't benefit from its mobility? Or are they rather trying to defend against a Smaug burning down Lake Town situation?

In the second case, the dragon is in the air and probably won't be reached. Now maybe this is too meta as a DM, but I think it is well within believability that dragons know about a single, very deadly spell and protect against it. Metabreath: Enlarge Breath, Metabreath: Shape Breath, Flyby Attack and Flyby Breath, and even a Wyrmling could wreak havoc while out of range of most low-level wizards.

[Darg]

By 11th level, a wizard can quicken a spectral hand and then cast a maximized shivering touch. Distance means nothing when WotC gave wizards the ability to arbitrarily remove any such restriction with such ease. Reach spell is for less godlike casters. Honestly, I think spectral hand is more broken as written than shivering touch even if resistance doesn't apply to it. Even if you have to spend a move action to redirect it, the fact that you more than triple a +2 metamagic for a measly 2nd level spell that also improves your chance of hitting is honestly unbalancing considering the power of touch spells. The only real defense against it is an AoO with a 50% chance of hitting IF the attack is magical, and that is only if the hand isn't cast into range as a swift action or the AoO isn't already spent.

[Gnaeus]

About this whole Shivering Touch discussion...
It certainly works on lots of creatures. But dragons - even low level ones - can put a lot of space between them and the caster. Do PC groups typically wander into the dragons lair, where it can't benefit from its mobility? Or are they rather trying to defend against a Smaug burning down Lake Town situation?

In the second case, the dragon is in the air and probably won't be reached. Now maybe this is too meta as a DM, but I think it is well within believability that dragons know about a single, very deadly spell and protect against it. Metabreath: Enlarge Breath, Metabreath: Shape Breath, Flyby Attack and Flyby Breath, and even a Wyrmling could wreak havoc while out of range of most low-level wizards.

First, it’s against their stated tactics and personalities. Blues regard running from a fight as cowardly, reds prefer engaging with tooth and claw to avoid damaging treasure, etc.

Second, if every dragon in the world has to be a hit and run expert because of “a single very deadly spell”, that highlights the fact that the problem is the “single very deadly spell”. And that it is quite literally campaign changing.

Third, as mentioned, reach spell is a one level metamagic, and spectral hand lets you use touch spells at a range of 150+ feet. So they aren’t doing anything from outside effective range but magic missile. (A large dragon with enlarge breath is a 120 line). For that matter, for most of this level range, the counter is: (1. party delays until after dragon’s turn. 2. Wizard D Doors cleric & rogue to dragon 3. Cleric & rogue shivering touch dragon).

Now they could avoid reach spell (not spectral hand or D Door) by never closing to within 70 feet. And only using their line breath weapon every d4+ metamagic rounds. But the meta part there is that is a pretty crummy encounter for most members of your party. The wizard can engage at that range. The melee fighter can plink single longbow shots. The rogue and cleric are basically sitting there. This seems like “you don’t get to fight dragons” by another name.

[redking]

I wasn't familiar with shivering touch, so I looked it up. I could see DMs banning Frostburn at their table because of that spell. When you compare shivering touch to bestow curse or greater bestow curse, the difference in power is stark. Just ban it.

[sreservoir]

I don't need to cite an example because this is such a niche case. I don't recall ever coming across a case where WotC clarifies how these things interact. As such I am basing it on the evidence I've come across.

Well, there's one case where WotC ... makes how these things interact even more confusing: Complete Arcane's "weaponlike spells" rules introduces a whole mess of interactions that I don't think make any sense at face value, but in particular compare the effect of Point Blank Shot (page 73, +1 attack and damage, except ability damage and energy drain don't get the damage) with the completely left field exception for sneak attack (page 86, it adds deals negative energy damage instead??).

Anyway, while I get the appeal of applying cold resistance to shivering touch directly, the next best thing is Lahm's finger darts, which even has Medium range naturally. Empowered finger darts at CL 7 is still pretty good at one-shotting things, and you don't even need an attack roll for it.

[Gnaeus]

Anyway, while I get the appeal of applying cold resistance to shivering touch directly, the next best thing is Lahm's finger darts, which even has Medium range naturally. Empowered finger darts at CL 7 is still pretty good at one-shotting things, and you don't even need an attack roll for it.

I agree it is the next best thing. But at least you can usually justify everyone and their brother not firing their fingers at the enemy. It’s corrupt and evil so many PCs won’t use. It’s 3.0. You don’t get your fingers back for 3 days or until lesser restorationed. I don’t think it’s a no brainer that everyone is going to pack finger dart wands.


I wasn't familiar with shivering touch, so I looked it up. I could see DMs banning Frostburn at their table because of that spell. When you compare shivering touch to bestow curse or greater bestow curse, the difference in power is stark. Just ban it.

But frostburn has a bunch of good stuff in it. Don’t throw the armored bear out with the bathwater.

[redking]

But frostburn has a bunch of good stuff in it. Don’t throw the armored bear out with the bathwater.

I agree. I think DMs get exhausted from having players try to sneak stuff up on them so they ban entire publications. Dragon Magazine is especially affected by this tendency, even though there is plenty of good material in it.

Players have to be upfront with their DM about what they are planning. It's not enough to ask the DM "can I use shivering touch from Frostburn?", because the DM may well be unaware of the implications of that while the player is fully aware. Then at some point the DM is forced to use anti-shivering touch tactics in combat with NPCs, which reduces the realism and makes combat seem targeted at that specific PC, or has to shutdown shivering touch altogether mid game. Either outcome leads to bad feelings all around.

Shivering touch doesn't jive with the power level of spells of the same level, so this is one case where I am happy to just ban it altogether. But I'd hope that if I was running a game and a player wanted to use shivering touch, that the player would approach me first and be fully upfront about it and the implications of it. That goes for anything else too.

[RandomPeasant]

Anyway, while I get the appeal of applying cold resistance to shivering touch directly, the next best thing is Lahm's finger darts, which even has Medium range naturally. Empowered finger darts at CL 7 is still pretty good at one-shotting things, and you don't even need an attack roll for it.

Yeah, the real issue is not shivering touch. The real issue is ability damage. Rather than finger darts, consider ray of stupidity. No alignment requirement, no weird costs, and it's 3.5 material. It's a OHKO against every animal ever printed -- you don't even have to use any metamagic on it at all. And unlike dragons, animals don't have any tricks that even might beat it. The mightiest of dire animals is helpless in the face of a 3rd level Wizard.

The fact that there's no real correlation between CR and a creature's lowest ability score means ability damage has a tendency to randomly punk things out, and the fact that the effects of non-lethal amounts of it are typically trivial (even against a Wizard, ray of stupidity is probably not worth the action if it isn't a kill) combine to make it a mechanic that is honestly just kinda bad for the game.

[Gnaeus]

Yeah, the real issue is not shivering touch. The real issue is ability damage. Rather than finger darts, consider ray of stupidity. No alignment requirement, no weird costs, and it's 3.5 material. It's a OHKO against every animal ever printed -- you don't even have to use any metamagic on it at all. And unlike dragons, animals don't have any tricks that even might beat it. The mightiest of dire animals is helpless in the face of a 3rd level Wizard.

The fact that there's no real correlation between CR and a creature's lowest ability score means ability damage has a tendency to randomly punk things out, and the fact that the effects of non-lethal amounts of it are typically trivial (even against a Wizard, ray of stupidity is probably not worth the action if it isn't a kill) combine to make it a mechanic that is honestly just kinda bad for the game.

I don’t disagree. I find RoS less problematic than ST simply because animals are less likely to be cinematic encounters than the stuff ST one shots. And ST can be so easily cranked up to 18 dex damage. So it isn’t as broadly (ab)usable but when it is it is just another way to one shot encounters way above APL.

The problem for me again is that the easy solutions (you can’t reduce abilities to 0) tend to kill lower op methods, like poison. If you can hit something with exhaustion and then poison it a few times to drop its Str or dex to 0, that’s tactical, IMO, and if you ban it you have to figure out other ways for poison to work.

We would rather make sure that “no save just L” abilities have a save or other relevant defense. Ray of stupidity is mind affecting. If it required a will save, it really wouldn’t be a problem. We are also considering “you always get at least one save before ability damage drops you to 0” as a broader rule.

[Thurbane]

First, it’s against their stated tactics and personalities. Blues regard running from a fight as cowardly, reds prefer engaging with tooth and claw to avoid damaging treasure, etc.

How odd: most pre-published adventures I can recall explicitly state that true dragons make use of their flight and speed to strafe the PCs and use hit-and-run tactics.

If you look at the sample dragons in Draconomicon, a lot (most, even) have Flyby Attack in the stat blocks, including the blues and reds. What's the purpose of the feat if not for hit-and-run tactics?

[Gnaeus]

How odd: most pre-published adventures I can recall explicitly state that true dragons make use of their flight and speed to strafe the PCs and use hit-and-run tactics.

If you look at the sample dragons in Draconomicon, a lot (most, even) have Flyby Attack in the stat blocks, including the blues and reds. What's the purpose of the feat if not for hit-and-run tactics?

Primary source rule. MM1.

Also, the hit and run doesn’t work very well. See above.

To answer your question, the purpose is to avoid engaging obviously superior foes. Not every human ever.

[Thurbane]

Does "primary source" apply to fluff?

[mattie_p]

Primary source rules apply whenever they are brought up.

[Gnaeus]

Yes, but what if it doesn’t?
Being swift but not particularly agile fliers, they (Red Dragons) often choose to fight on the ground if they can…
It uses its breath weapon judiciously so as to avoid incinerating spoils of victory(Drgn p52)
Large dragons are no longer afraid of wading right into the thick of melee (Drgn 59)
It can throw itself into melee for a few rounds, then, in the round before it can use its breath weapon again, it can make a single attack and change position to make the best use of its breath weapon the next round (Drgn 63)

There are also descriptions of dragons avoiding combat. But more than enough details about dragons preferring melee to indicate that dragons who voluntarily enter melee are common.

[icefractal]

Shivering Touch isn't impossible to defend against, but it's pretty far into the "warps the game in undesirable ways" category, because most of the defenses against it render a large swath of valid tactics unworkable.

Same thing with uberchargers, really. Yes, you can make foes where even "being able to make a melee attack against them" is the result of a challenging defense-removal game, and so the fact that when they do get hit they die instantly isn't a problem. However, that means anybody who's making non-instakill weapon attacks is super pointless. Not a desirable state of affairs, IMO.

Uberchargers have an additional problem though, and that's that they often have no fallback plan. If a Wizard is throwing Shivering Touch at everything, and then the party starts facing more cold-immune or ability-damage-immune foes, they can adapt by just changing their prepared spells. An ubercharger against foes who can't be melee attacked is probably going to suck.

IME/IMO, you need to let the GM have fun too, and for many GMs that means having "major" foes actually pose a threat and not die instantly or be rendered useless. Yes, since the GM has a large supply of foes compared to the PCs' few, it's less of a problem when the PCs auto-pwn one than vice-versa, but that doesn't go infinitely far.

[Thurbane]

I mean, there's no right and wrong way to play monsters as a DM, but I tend to play very intelligent beings who've been alive a long time, and almost guaranteed to have encountered adventurers before, to the best of their abilities.

Dragons can deal impressive amounts of damage on a full attack, that's for sure, but most should have a pretty solid grasp of tactics.

Dragons are also largely arrogant, and tend to underestimate "lesser" races. But unless low Int, they should be able to adapt their tactics on the fly.

I guess it's all a matter of balancing how arrogant dragons are with how clever they are.

[RandomPeasant]

I think that in a world with shivering touch any dragon that lasts particularly long will do so because it has figured out some kind of anti-shivering touch technique, in the same way that adventurers who jump immediately to "invade and conquer Hell" don't tend to be the ones who get to high levels. That said, I don't think that's a good reason to allow shivering touch, because the defenses against it are not particularly tactically interesting, so allowing shivering touch means doing a bunch of extra prep work to get encounters to the place they would have been if you'd just banned shivering touch.


I donÂ’t disagree. I find RoS less problematic than ST simply because animals are less likely to be cinematic encounters than the stuff ST one shots. And ST can be so easily cranked up to 18 dex damage. So it isnÂ’t as broadly (ab)usable but when it is it is just another way to one shot encounters way above APL.

But the fact that dragons are cinematic encounters makes it easier to justify investing the effort to equip them with a counter to shivering touch. Similarly, while it's true that you can invest resources in making shivering touch better, ray of stupidity requires absolutely nothing to negate every encounter with an animal for the rest of the campaign.


The problem for me again is that the easy solutions (you canÂ’t reduce abilities to 0) tend to kill lower op methods, like poison. If you can hit something with exhaustion and then poison it a few times to drop its Str or dex to 0, thatÂ’s tactical, IMO, and if you ban it you have to figure out other ways for poison to work.

The problem is that with ability damage there are really no "lower op methods", just worse targets. The amount of STR damage that drops one monster in a satisfying multi-round combo kills a different monster in one hit. The save makes poison less powerful than shivering touch or ray of idiocy, but fundamentally ability damage is going to be useless against some monsters (10 points of DEX damage against a Balor is barely worth mentioning) and deadly against others (10 points of DEX damage turns a Great Wyrm Red Dragon into a punching bag). You can make someone worse at executing that strategy, and maybe if you do that enough the strategy won't be overpowered, but it's just not a very interesting strategy.


Uberchargers have an additional problem though, and that's that they often have no fallback plan. If a Wizard is throwing Shivering Touch at everything, and then the party starts facing more cold-immune or ability-damage-immune foes, they can adapt by just changing their prepared spells. An ubercharger against foes who can't be melee attacked is probably going to suck.

I think this is an underrated strength of casters from a game design perspective. It is much, much easier to police specific problematic strategies from a Wizard or Druid, because they have other stuff to fall back on. If you don't want to deal with shivering touch, you can just ban it and the Wizard will be fine. He probably won't even want to change his build. But if you try to knock the Ubercharger down a peg, all you can really do is numbers tuning (which tends not to solve problems with play patterns) or banning someone's entire character (which is a huge feel-bad).

[RexDart]

I wasn't familiar with shivering touch, so I looked it up. I could see DMs banning Frostburn at their table because of that spell. When you compare shivering touch to bestow curse or greater bestow curse, the difference in power is stark. Just ban it.

Is Frostburn in general something of an outlier among official books? I've noticed that more than one spell from that book seem to be overpowered, albeit usually only by a little bit.

[vasilidor]

the more vulnerable to adventurers are the young adult to adult dragons. these are the ones that are grown into a regional threat and have not learned to be wary.
when they get to be wyrms, the ones who lived that long, should know better. they may know that most humans are no match for them, but every once in a while, some wizard or such gains enough power to be a threat.
I figure in most campaign worlds, only half of everyone ever makes it to the next level, what ever level they are now. this makes a level 10 wizard a 1 in 1024 of wizards and a level 20 is 1 in 1024 of those level 10 wizards.
well, other than campaign worlds like forgotten realms any how.
however it could be argued that once they get to level 10 they can then start easy farming xp as most things that adventurers run into by that point would not be CR 10 or higher monsters. I generally do not have higher than CR 10 monsters on my random encounter chart regardless. with the level -8 being the lowest any challenge can be and still get XP, old wizards would eventually become level 18 with level 9 spells, if they kept busy.
what would the average intelligence of a wizard be anyway?

Now as far as spells like shivering touch go, it would be one of those things that would come and go in popularity. As wizards start to favor it, more dragons and whatnot go out of their way to aquire defenses against it. as popularity wanes, the effort to defend against it would also wane. I figure the best way to determine if a given dragon would have a defense against that particular spell, or any given spell, is if it has reason to expect that spell. there are other magics out there that can KO a dragon, and the dragon is going to prepare defenses against what it knows to be coming.

[Fizban]

Is Frostburn in general something of an outlier among official books? I've noticed that more than one spell from that book seem to be overpowered, albeit usually only by a little bit.
There's a sidebar somewhere (possibly in Rules Compendium?)* where they mention that when writing Sandstorm they took lessons from a bunch of mistakes made in Frostburn. Not that there's any errata or updates given. Even the vaunted Spell Compendium isn't actually updating from Frostburn when it has random piles of cold stuff spells- they list the web articles. Which Frostburn also draws from, many of which are pre-3.5, and as articles have fewer cooks but also fewer eyes to catch mistakes. It's the first one of the "outside" group released, in Sept '04, which is not very long at all after the start of 3.5 and just before Complete Arcane.

I've just gone through all the Frostburn spells actually, and while plenty of stuff in the book is good, the spells have a lot of trash. A bunch of "X spell but Cold instead of alignment or whatever," "X spell but cold and also just better," "let's pretend snow and ice are equivalent to flowing water," "let's make a bunch of spells that ignore previously unbeatable conditions and also let you impose them on foes all day for cheap," and of course, "let's make a bunch of cold offensive spells main cleric because we want clerics of cold deities to have them and can't figure out how to compartmentalize." It's also the Book of Ability Damage Spells, something so rare it's hard to parse an expected spell level in other books, but is just overflowing in Frost. Some spells with particular problems seem to be from making up threatening supernatural weather/hazards, and then trying to force them into spells- these problems persist into Sandstorm and Stormwrack, even when some other problems do seem to be addressed.

Binding Snow reduces movement by half. . . in snow, which already reduces movement by half depending on size. Blood Snow does ability drain at 2nd level. Bilizzard kills an army (not in bits like an Insect Plague, though it might be based on 3.0's version, except still an order of magnitude larger and 4x as much damage). Boreal Wind does d4/level/round, which is only matched by Ball Lightning. Brumal Stiffening is just worse than Shatter-ing the item directly. Column of Ice creates a massive 10' diameter pillar of Permanent magical ice with 16 hardness, one more than mithral, at 4th level (Wall of Stone/Iron, ha), Conjure Ice Beast says "nah, summon restrictions are for squares." Control Snow and Ice is a massive no-save barrier creation this time down to 3rd level. Death Hail deals str and con damage, not drain, 4 levels later (at 6th) compared to Blood Snow. Fimbulwinter just kills an entire region. Float sounds fine but also has a ludicrous Long range at 1st level for no discernible reason. Gelid Blood has an effective no-save 25% action fail which is quite possibly a major problem. Hibernal Healing is another "hey Druids get Heal on a very obviously intentional delay, so let's actually give them Heal early instead (see also Rejuvenation Cocoon),." Ice Rift is Earthquake at -2 levels. Ice Ship suggests the smallest ship can go up to 80 mph when wind driven ships don't go anywhere near that speed. Ice Skate gives a ridiculous +60' speed (at 1st level even). Ice Slick is Grease but larger and for Clerics. Snow Walk gives +10' speed so it's Longstrider on top of the primary terrain negation (for creature/level, at 1st) effect. Obscuring Snow is completely useless without Snowsight, at which point it is essentially Blacklight but a level lower and hours instead of rounds and impossible to negate except by means of this one specific spell (where Blacklight's magical darkness is seen through by at least one category of monster and a couple spells), which is easily cast on the rest of the party. Raise Ice Forest is just, okay you made a bunch of ice trees for some reason? Shivering Touch is of course all the problems of Shivering Touch.

And of course Ice Shield is uber Stoneskin, Ice Web is uber Web, Wall of Coldfire is not so uber Wall of Fire, Waves of Cold is Waves of Fatigue but targeting [fire] creatures, Glacial Ward/Greater is Dispel Evil/Holy Aura but minus most of the effect and vs [fire] creatures, and Globe of Glacial Invulerability doesn't even have a corresponding Greater version and is just a -1 level for reduced scope anyway.

Seriously. Half of Frostburn's spells are unimaginative cold swaps which make everything look bad by association, ridiculously huge in scope and crushing any but the most similarly OP core effects like Control Winds, or have been priced as if the player was choosing how much effort they want to put into ignoring X/Y/Z hazards (so zero). There's a ton of spells that can only be justified by someone deciding that "only useful in snowy environments" meant the spells should be two levels lower or include a bunch of free stuff if it was already low level, instead of priced correctly because they negate terrain hazards and are only used when those hazards are present, and even a -1 level for restricted offense is still an effect that was originally priced 2 character levels higher which you're getting to use right now.

Compared to all of that, the problems with with PrCs such as Frost Mage (ah yes, give part but not all of the Conjure Ice Beast line, because reasons), or Piercing Cold (ah yes, the metamagic for haruming cold resistant/immune creatures doesn't work on the single most common source of that immunity), are trivial in comparison.

*Ah, yes, page 140, "We learned a lot of lessons with Frostburn, but apparently not enough." They're referring specifically to the complexity of the various heat danger rules, which were scaled back and streamlined. But if that's the lesson they didn't learn fast enough, it implies that some lessons they did. And Frosbturn is full of problem spells, while Sandstorm's spells are, possibly almost entirely, much more tame.

Edit: I think that's the edits done?

Edit2: And of course Ice Assassin, the spell so ridiculous I completely breezed past it and redking had to bring it up :smallamused:

[icefractal]

A lot of the Frostburn spells are on the higher end of the power curve, but for many of them "two wrongs make a right" and you end up with (for example) blasting spells that are actually pretty decent without metamagic abuse.

Like, Ice Rift - even if you don't consider being more situational a balancing factor, how often have you seen any PC cast Earthquake?

I think some of those others are missing important qualifying factors. Is Column of Ice harder than iron or stone? Yes. Is it shapeable like Wall of Stone or usable as raw materials like Wall of Iron? No. You could build (slowly) a fortress wall out of ice pillars, but it's rather crude for building, and can be dispelled.

[Fizban]

A lot of the Frostburn spells are on the higher end of the power curve, but for many of them "two wrongs make a right" and you end up with (for example) blasting spells that are actually pretty decent without metamagic abuse.

Like, Ice Rift - even if you don't consider being more situational a balancing factor, how often have you seen any PC cast Earthquake?

I think some of those others are missing important qualifying factors. Is Column of Ice harder than iron or stone? Yes. Is it shapeable like Wall of Stone or usable as raw materials like Wall of Iron? No. You could build (slowly) a nice wall out of ice pillars, but it's rather crude for a real building, and can be dispelled.
If your thresholds of power are "blasting spells actually suck so I want them to be more powerful," "selling wall of iron," or "building fortresses," sure.

Boreal Wind is the only blasting spell on there, and in addition to comparing only to Ball Lightning, it's also a line area. To Long range. And Druid 4 even. And a spell that I'm not sure I've ever heard someone mention besides myself. Even by the power creep'd orb-stravaganza/lol damage sux benchmark, that's still incomparable.

Earthquake isn't that great for an 8th level spell, requiring open ground and having only a 50% chance to land its save or die effect, but it's still 8th level so unless you change that Ice Rift remains inappropriate.

Column of Ice says nothing about not being shapeable, and there is ice Shape right there. The point isn't building, the point is the same as any wall: one action places a barrier between you and the enemy, possibly plugging an existing corridor. Except instead of being inches thick with a hardness of 8 or 10 at 5th level, this one is 10 feet thick with a hardness of 16. And the majority of enemies do not in fact have Dispel Magic, which would have to win a roll to work. Even if the size is a detriment, the ridiculous, massive increase in effect is more than enough to offset that detriment and demand at least equal level- but I'd bet the level is assigned based on the 4d6 damage someone gave it instead.

You can walk up to any individual spell and declare that well maybe it's not so bad because X, but if half the spells in the book need qualifiers, I think that signifies a greater problem.

[Thurbane]

You know, almost sounds like Frostburn should have been an FR splatbook. :smallbiggrin:

[Fizban]

You know, almost sounds like Frostburn should have been an FR splatbook. :smallbiggrin:
I'll try and remember to get back to you when I go over the FR books directly- 'cause I wouldn't be surprised if they actually have less problems on average. Since a bunch of problem FR spells became so when Spell Compendium buffed them and/or removed their limits. FR brings a large number of individually "lol this old-school/character named spell is just better," sure, but those are pretty specific, whereas Frostburn is just so thick it's a whole different thing. But since I'm sort of working backwards from SpC with an initial focus on spells for a (very wide) base class list, I haven't actually hit the original sources there yet.

[redking]

I've just gone through all the Frostburn spells actually, and while plenty of stuff in the book is good, the spells have a lot of trash

You missed ice assassin, also from Frostburn.

Fluff: The ice assassin possesses all the skills, abilities, and memories possessed by the original, but its personality is warped and twisted by an all-consuming need to slay the original.

Rules: The ice assassin is under your absolute command.

Which of course meant that players would create ice assassins of their own PCs.

[Thurbane]

While looking for the quote about Frostburn in the RC, I was surprised to see how many other books mention Frostburn. I honestly thought Frostburn was much later in 3.5 than it was; when I saw it referenced in Complete Arcane, it blew my mind.

Live and learn.

[redking]

While looking for the quote about Frostburn in the RC, I was surprised to see how many other books mention Frostburn. I honestly thought Frostburn was much later in 3.5 than it was; when I saw it referenced in Complete Arcane, it blew my mind.

Live and learn.

I feel the same about Libris Mortis which came out about the same time as Frostburn. Perhaps I wasn't paying attention, but I had thought that it was one of the later 3.5 products to be released when it was actually one of the earliest.

[Aharon]

First, it’s against their stated tactics and personalities. Blues regard running from a fight as cowardly, reds prefer engaging with tooth and claw to avoid damaging treasure, etc.
You are summarizing the stated tactics and personalities to strongly. Blues like to attack from above, and reds have many strategies for attacking laid out beforehand.


Second, if every dragon in the world has to be a hit and run expert because of “a single very deadly spell”, that highlights the fact that the problem is the “single very deadly spell”. And that it is quite literally campaign changing.
It's a general solution to the big boss problem - if they are encountered alone, action economy is against them. Hit and Run tactics help against that. And if they are not alone, their mooks can run interference against the shivering touch (disrupting the spell, opportunity attacking the rogue, etc.).


Third, as mentioned, reach spell is a one level metamagic, and spectral hand lets you use touch spells at a range of 150+ feet. So they aren’t doing anything from outside effective range but magic missile. (A large dragon with enlarge breath is a 120 line).
Enlarge Breath can be applied multiple times to the same breath.


For that matter, for most of this level range, the counter is: (1. party delays until after dragon’s turn. 2. Wizard D Doors cleric & rogue to dragon 3. Cleric & rogue shivering touch dragon).
Multiple applications of enlarge breath could help against this, but I agree that a fight where the dragon only strafes the PCs every three-and-a-half minutes is a bit boring.
On the other hand, I think the tactic is fine, because it requires quite some ressource expenditure (spell slots for fly, dimension door, and/or a way to prevent falling damage). As the boss encounter is usually at the end of the adventure, you are rewarded for not using those slots


Now they could avoid reach spell (not spectral hand or D Door) by never closing to within 70 feet. And only using their line breath weapon every d4+ metamagic rounds. But the meta part there is that is a pretty crummy encounter for most members of your party. The wizard can engage at that range. The melee fighter can plink single longbow shots. The rogue and cleric are basically sitting there. This seems like “you don’t get to fight dragons” by another name.
But that is not a problem of Shivering touch, but rather a party that has different levels of optimization...

[redking]

But that is not a problem of Shivering touch, but rather a party that has different levels of optimization...

When you have 1% of the spells causing 99% of the problems, just get rid of the troublesome 1% like shivering touch.

[Gnaeus]

Dragons are also largely arrogant, and tend to underestimate "lesser" races. But unless low Int, they should be able to adapt their tactics on the fly. .

When I think of “adapt tactics on the fly” I think of things like “oh, these guys are immune to my breath weapon, I’ll do something different” or “wow, that hit hard! Maybe I should withdraw and strafe them for a while” rather than “oh, there is an adventurer wearing either robes or armor, I should never ever ever get near him.”


the more vulnerable to adventurers are the young adult to adult dragons. these are the ones that are grown into a regional threat and have not learned to be wary.
when they get to be wyrms, the ones who lived that long, should know better. they may know that most humans are no match for them, but every once in a while, some wizard or such gains enough power to be a threat. .

Or Dragonomicon says that the larger the dragon, the more likely they are to melee.



Now as far as spells like shivering touch go, it would be one of those things that would come and go in popularity. As wizards start to favor it, more dragons and whatnot go out of their way to aquire defenses against it. as popularity wanes, the effort to defend against it would also wane. I figure the best way to determine if a given dragon would have a defense against that particular spell, or any given spell, is if it has reason to expect that spell. there are other magics out there that can KO a dragon, and the dragon is going to prepare defenses against what it knows to be coming.

There is almost never a point when shivering touch, coupled with any of the listed tactics (reach spell, spectral hand, maximize rod) isnt an optimized choice. If every dragon in the world were immune to it, it would still be worth taking to one shot every classed NPC who isn’t a rogue or monk. 5 charge wands in chambers or a couple of scrolls would still be a great buy for everyone with UMD, the SorWiz list or the Cleric list. It clearly outcompetes every other touch spell of its level range.


You are summarizing the stated tactics and personalities to strongly. Blues like to attack from above, and reds have many strategies for attacking laid out beforehand.

My point isn’t that dragons never strafe. My point is that dragons often melee. Yeah, the blue should typically attack from above with his breath…. Before he closes to bite. So “the dragon could be strafing” isn’t an answer to ST. He could also be meleeing. I should have cited that “reds have many strategies” myself. They don’t have one strategy, to hit and run from extreme range. And again, there is no indicator that any given PC is going to one shot you with this spell before they one shot you.



It's a general solution to the big boss problem - if they are encountered alone, action economy is against them. Hit and Run tactics help against that. And if they are not alone, their mooks can run interference against the shivering touch (disrupting the spell, opportunity attacking the rogue, etc.)

If one spell prevents big bosses from meleeing, the problem is the spell. There are lots of potential big brute bosses, from dragons to giants to Barbarian warlords. Some boss encounters should involve hit and run. But all is boring.



But that is not a problem of Shivering touch, but rather a party that has different levels of optimization...

Not in the slightest. Wizards have good long range spells. The lowest op wizard has magic missile and fireball. Clerics have less long range attack spells. Rogues can’t do sneak attack at long range, and are often optimized for close range tactics (like TWF/flask or stab). Optimized fighters are usually good at one thing, and unless that thing is longbow, they will be meh at fights that take place in long range. It’s different optimization in the sense that someone wrote Sor or Wiz on their sheet and someone else wrote Rog or Cru. Requiring major fights to take place at 160+ feet with monsters that have 150+ move is inherently rude to some PCs. Not that it should never happen. But I’d be pretty mad if I was a trip fighter in a game where all the important fights happened from opposite sides of a football stadium. We had a guy who tripped a dragon a couple campaigns back and it was literally the high point of the campaign for him. He renamed himself Rex the Dragon Tripper.

[Aharon]

Not in the slightest. Wizards have good long range spells. The lowest op wizard has magic missile and fireball. Clerics have less long range attack spells. Rogues can’t do sneak attack at long range, and are often optimized for close range tactics. Optimized fighters are usually good at one thing, and unless that thing is longbow, they will be meh at fights that take place in long range. It’s different optimization in the sense that someone wrote Sor or Wiz on their sheet and someone else wrote Rog or Cru. Requiring major fights to take place at 160+ feet with monsters that have 150+ move is inherently rude to some PCs. Not that it should never happen. But I’d be pretty mad if I was a trip fighter in a game where all the important fights happened from opposite sides of a football stadium.

So we agree that encounters can - and should - be taylored around the PCs, at least a bit? Then it would make sense to use other measures to make the fight more interesting. Have the dragon have half-dragon children that act as interference, for example, while the dragon sits on its hoard and only uses its breath-weapon. This would fit a "These adventurers are so far below me, they don't deserve the honor of fighting me in melee."

Or have a few kobold sorcerers around that ready actions to cast magic missiles to interrupt spellcasting/magic item activating. That is a relatively low damage way that forces concentration checks with 10 to 55% failure rate for highest-level spells - if the sorcerers are 5 levels lower than the adventurers (data found here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?498396-Short-guide-to-forcing-concentration-checks-and-other-mean-caster-blockers)).
Yes, shivering touch is a very powerful spell. It can be countered by the same methods other spells can be countered by, though.

[Gnaeus]

Or have a few kobold sorcerers around that ready actions to cast magic missiles to interrupt spellcasting/magic item activating. That is a relatively low damage way that forces concentration checks with 10 to 55% failure rate for highest-level spells - if the sorcerers are 5 levels lower than the adventurers (data found here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?498396-Short-guide-to-forcing-concentration-checks-and-other-mean-caster-blockers)).
Yes, shivering touch is a very powerful spell. It can be countered by the same methods other spells can be countered by, though.

So we walk into the room. The wizard wins initiative. Casts reach ST and fight ends before the sorcerers can ready. Or the sorcerers cast MM and it bounces off his extended shield spell and the fight ends. Or the sorcerers disrupt the wizard and the cleric casts ST and the fight ends. Or the sorcerers hear someone invisible casting a spell and then the fight ends. Or the rogue uses a wand, gets hit with magic missiles but that doesn’t cause a concentration check on a spell trigger item and the fight ends. The fact that there exist anti wizard tactics doesn’t mean individual spells aren’t problems.

Ideally what you would want is a multiple round fight, where the dragon is using different dragon stuff and the PCs are casting buffs and debuffs and cc and damage spells and making weapon attacks and all their varied signature stuff. All your tactic does is make it so the PC casters are struggling to get off the encounter ending tactic and whoever gets to cast the spell wins the fight. That’s all kinds of wrong.

[Aharon]

So we walk into the room. The wizard wins initiative. Casts reach ST and fight ends before the sorcerers can ready. Or the sorcerers cast MM and it bounces off his extended shield spell and the fight ends. Or the sorcerers disrupt the wizard and the cleric casts ST and the fight ends. Or the sorcerers hear someone invisible casting a spell and then the fight ends. Or the rogue uses a wand, gets hit with magic missiles but that doesn’t cause a concentration check on a spell trigger item and the fight ends. The fact that there exist anti wizard tactics doesn’t mean individual spells aren’t problems.

You are playing Schroedinger's PC group. Of course the solutions I described won't defeat - or even be a danger - to every single PC group. If you posted 1 specific set-up of wizard, cleric, rogue and fighter at level 5 (when ST comes online) or 7 (when your Dimension door tactic comes online) I could create an interesting and challenging encounter for that specific group.


Ideally what you would want is a multiple round fight, where the dragon is using different dragon stuff and the PCs are casting debuffs and damage spells and making weapon attacks and all their varied signature stuff. All your tactic does is make it so the PC casters are struggling to get off the encounter ending tactic and whoever gets to cast the spell wins the fight. That’s all kinds of wrong.
Well... no? Congrats, you just expended most of your higher level spells to deal with the main threat - now you don't have these ressources to deal with the rest of the challenge. It could be anticlimatic - it could also be like the coolest scene in The Last Jedi, where Snoke dies unexpectedly fast and then the Guards are the real challenge.

[Gnaeus]

You are playing Schroedinger's PC group. Of course the solutions I described won't defeat - or even be a danger - to every single PC group. If you posted 1 specific set-up of wizard, cleric, rogue and fighter at level 5 (when ST comes online) or 7 (when your Dimension door tactic comes online) I could create an interesting and challenging encounter for that specific group

First, I did nothing of the sort. I assumed a standard party of 4. And basic adventuring tactics. Including “wizard eats a face full of magic missiles and then someone else casts the spell.” And “I could win initiative”. Your tactic literally doesn’t survive any pc caster winning initiative. And basic spells, like shield and invisibility, that PCs commonly use when exploring dungeons. Your solution doesn’t beat any pc party in the world, because every PC rogue in the world is carrying “5 charge wand of broke L3 spell”, unless they have “5 charge wand of broke L3 spell with reach metamagic”. I didn’t even have like a familiar with a wand of ST. The wiz or rogue could have used Swift invisibility. The rogue could be sneaking. Does that make him schroedingers rogue because he uses the hide skill? Again, I think that subset is pretty much every rogue. The fighter could be a ToB guy and White Raven Tactics any caster.

Having tactics designed to counter PCs is good. Having to build specific tactics to make sure no PCs cast spells in fights is bad. Are your kobolds not going to use MM because the wizard casts extended shield? That’s pretty cheating. I’m not going to use meta knowledge to punish wizards for casting shield as a solution to an underleveled spell.



Well... no? Congrats, you just expended most of your higher level spells to deal with the main threat - now you don't have these ressources to deal with the rest of the challenge. It could be anticlimatic - it could also be like the coolest scene in The Last Jedi, where Snoke dies unexpectedly fast and then the Guarts are the real challenge.

No I didn’t. The worst case for what I mentioned was “wizard casts a 3rd level spell, fails, cleric casts spell” or maybe “rogue uses one wand charge”. For most of the level range in question, I probably didn’t use a single one of my top level spells. That also throws off your magic missile math btw. The first pc who casts successfully, wins, so pretty much by definition it is close to minimum resource expenditure for the fight. A big part of why the spell is such a problem is that it is very low level.

[RandomPeasant]

When I think of “adapt tactics on the fly” I think of things like “oh, these guys are immune to my breath weapon, I’ll do something different” or “wow, that hit hard! Maybe I should withdraw and strafe them for a while” rather than “oh, there is an adventurer wearing either robes or armor, I should never ever ever get near him.”

It's not "never get near him", it's "if you're going to get near him, make sure you kill him". And I don't really think that's an unreasonable tactical adaption when things like irresistible dance exist. The issue is that A) shivering touch is available ten levels sooner than irresistible dance and B) there are things that can make that tactic ineffective, and shivering touch is low enough level that you can reasonably employ them.

[Gnaeus]

It's not "never get near him", it's "if you're going to get near him, make sure you kill him". And I don't really think that's an unreasonable tactical adaption when things like irresistible dance exist. The issue is that A) shivering touch is available ten levels sooner than irresistible dance and B) there are things that can make that tactic ineffective, and shivering touch is low enough level that you can reasonably employ them.

By near I really mean within close range where a readied reach ST could drop you. Not necessarily melee. So like flyby attack/bite the wizard from range is too close.

[Aharon]

First, I did nothing of the sort. I assumed a standard party of 4.
I don't think there is such a thing. Expectations and abilities vary wildly. To find common ground, we would actually need a statted-out party, in my opinion.


And basic adventuring tactics. Including “wizard eats a face full of magic missiles and then someone else casts the spell.”
Maybe you play in more cooperative groups than I do, but the wizard risking death that way isn't usual for the players I know.


And “I could win initiative”. Your tactic literally doesn’t survive any pc caster winning initiative.
You'll likely shoot that down with some reason, but just of the top of my hat: Make a Rod of bodily restoration part of the treasure of the encounter, and have one of the mooks use it on the dragon.


And basic spells, like shield and invisibility, that PCs commonly use when exploring dungeons.
You are assuming that the PCs arrive with all their spells per day unused at the center of the dragon's lair. I assume that they had fights on the way there, and are not at 100% of their capacity.


Your solution doesn’t beat any pc party in the world, because every PC rogue in the world is carrying “5 charge wand of broke L3 spell”, unless they have “5 charge wand of broke L3 spell with reach metamagic”. I didn’t even have like a familiar with a wand of ST.
Yeah... because all DMs allow partially charged wands to be bought...


The wiz or rogue could have used Swift invisibility. The rogue could be sneaking. Does that make him schroedingers rogue because he uses the hide skill? Again, I think that subset is pretty much every rogue. The fighter could be a ToB guy and White Raven Tactics any caster.
Yes, there is a multitude of possible options to approach encounters. I know those my players have access to, and can build challenging encounters accordingly.


Having tactics designed to counter PCs is good. Having to build specific tactics to make sure no PCs cast spells in fights is bad. Are your kobolds not going to use MM because the wizard casts extended shield? That’s pretty cheating. I’m not going to use meta knowledge to punish wizards for casting shield as a solution to an underleveled spell.
Extended Shield lasts 10 to 14 minutes, and a 5 or 7th level wizard will have a limited 2nd level slots. So if the wizard does keep this spell in reserve for the big boss fight (or casts it several times, and therefore can't use other more Battlefield-Control focused spells), that is a meaningful ressource expenditure and the first round, the kobolds would still target him and waste their magic missiles.



No I didn’t. The worst case for what I mentioned was “wizard casts a 3rd level spell, fails, cleric casts spell” or maybe “rogue uses one wand charge”. For most of the level range in question, I probably didn’t use a single one of my top level spells.
What level range are you thinking of? I was thinking 5th to 7th - at which Shivering Touch would be rather high level.


That also throws off your magic missile math btw. The first pc who casts successfully, wins, so pretty much by definition it is close to minimum resource expenditure for the fight. A big part of why the spell is such a problem is that it is very low level.
At higher levels, more elaborate counter-measures should be expected, of course.

[Gnaeus]

Then post that "standard party", please

Cleric, Wizard, Rogue, Melee. Certainly it gets a lot better from there but that’s normal enough.



Maybe you play in more cooperative groups than I do, but the wizard risking death that way isn't usual for the players I know

He knew they had readied magic missiles? Well then I guess he lets the cleric cast first. Or drops a Swift invisibility.



You'll likely shoot that down with some reason, but just of the top of my hat: Make a Rod of bodily restoration part of the treasure of the encounter, and have one of the mooks use it on the dragon.

If a spell requires every meaningful encounter to have one specific magic item, with a mook standing beside the boss ready to use it, in order for the encounter to not be pointless, the problem is again the spell, not the counter.



You are assuming that the PCs arrive with all their spells per day unused at the center of the dragon's lair. I assume that they had fights on the way there, and are not at 100% of their capacity

PCs arrive buffed with min/level spells is generally a good assumption for boss fights. Not a guarantee. But likely enough you should expect it.



Yeah... because all DMs allow partially charged wands to be bought..

Honestly, don’t even need them. Wizard doesn’t even have to know the spell. The cleric knows it. Wizard can make wands. That’s 5kgp for all the bad touches you will ever use. (The wizard should probably know it anyway, to allow maximized reach ST, but maybe we’re level 5 and he doesn’t have the rod yet so he could wait until 6).



Yes, there is a multitude of possible options to approach encounters. I know those my players have access to, and can build challenging encounters accordingly.

I can cheat to prevent you from using a broken spell isn’t something my group finds palatable. It’s actively worse than nerfing/releveling/banning the spell.



Extended Shield lasts 10 to 14 minutes, and a 5 or 7th level wizard will have a limited 2nd level slots. So if the wizard does keep this spell in reserve for the big boss fight (or casts it several times, and therefore can't use other more Battlefield-Control focused spells), that is a meaningful ressource expenditure and the first round, the kobolds would still target him and waste their magic missiles
Well since there isn’t a second round, that’s all it takes. And it isn’t like the shield is only good for this fight. This could be the second or third fight where it helps him. It will still be up in 18 seconds when the dragon and some low level sorcerers are dead.



What level range are you thinking of?

5-14 ish. When it is readily available, before on level dragons likely have SR and Scintillating Scales. Before most equivalent tricks like Irresistible Dance come online at basic op.


I don't think there is such a thing. Expectations and abilities vary wildly. To find common ground, we would actually need a statted-out party, in my opinion. .

Good to know that you have another false opinion.



What level range are you thinking of? I was thinking 5th to 7th - at which Shivering Touch would be rather high level..

One or two top level or second top level spells or wand charges for a boss fight seems like a steal to me. Again, if I were planning a boss fight, I would want it to last multiple rounds of PCs and dragon showing out their cool stuff, rather than spamming an I win button twice until it works.

[Aharon]

Cleric, Wizard, Rogue, Melee. Certainly it gets a lot better from there but thatÂ’s normal enough.
Depending on optimization level, that group could be anywhere between one-shotting all encounters, and having problems with a single CR+0 foe.


If a spell requires every meaningful encounter to have one specific magic item, with a mook standing beside the boss ready to use it, in order for the encounter to not be pointless, the problem is again the spell, not the counter.
I proposed other solutions for the encounter not to be pointless, which you also objected to, for other reasons.


PCs arrive buffed with min/level spells is generally a good assumption for boss fights. Not a guarantee. But likely enough you should expect it.
Yep. As I said, if the buffs weren't used before-hand, that seems perfectly okay.


Honestly, donÂ’t even need them. Wizard doesnÂ’t even have to know the spell. The cleric knows it. Wizard can make wands. ThatÂ’s 5kgp for all the bad touches you will ever use. (The wizard should probably know it anyway, to allow maximized reach ST, but maybe weÂ’re level 5 and he doesnÂ’t have the rod yet so he could wait until 6).
Yeah.. at level 5 that would mean the wizard takes Craft Wand (taking one important build ressource) and about 16% of the group's total WBL. That's not peanuts. And at higher levels, the wand will be next to useless because it doesn't beat anybody's Spell Resistance.


I can cheat to prevent you from using a broken spell isnÂ’t something my group finds palatable. ItÂ’s actively worse than nerfing/releveling/banning the spell.
I just don't find that spell so terrible. It is very strong, but there are quite a few defenses against it, too. And in the campaign setting it is from, almost everything and it's mother has the cold subtype, so I think that should also be taken into account when judging the spell :smalltongue:



Well since there isnÂ’t a second round, thatÂ’s all it takes. And it isnÂ’t like the shield is only good for this fight. This could be the second or third fight where it helps him. It will still be up in 18 seconds when the dragon and some low level sorcerers are dead.
Ok...


5-14 ish. When it is readily available, before on level dragons likely have SR and Scintillating Scales. Before most equivalent tricks like Irresistible Dance come online at basic op.
I don't think we can meaningfully discuss this range, it is too big.


Good to know that you have another false opinion.
I find this uncivil, and unfriendly. It would be nice if you could expand on your rebuttal in a factual way.


One or two top level or second top level spells or wand charges for a boss fight seems like a steal to me. Again, if I were planning a boss fight, I would want it to last multiple rounds of PCs and dragon showing out their cool stuff, rather than spamming an I win button twice until it works.
Well, in this group (that has spend a sixth of its wealth on that wand), the wand kind of is the cool stuff they want to show, isn't it? And we seem to have different opinions about what is the dragon's cool stuff - you seem to focus on it going in with claws and bite attacks, for me it would be more the use of its' breath weapon...

[Remuko]

Enlarge Breath can be applied multiple times to the same breath.

Source?


The length of your breath weapon increases by 50% (round down to the nearest multiple of 5). For example, an old silver dragon breathing an enlarged cone of cold produces a 75-foot cone instead of a 50-foot cone. Cone-shaped breath weapons get wider when they get longer, but lineshaped breath weapons do not. When you use this feat, add +1 to the number of rounds you must wait before using your breath weapon again.

It doesn't say anywhere in the Benefit text of the feat that it can be applied more than once.

[icefractal]

This is what I meant by "game warping in a bad way". Suddenly, every dragon (and many other creatures) need to employ specific tactics to deal with this one spell. Tactics which make it hard to use any other spells or attacks against them, as well - fighting a kiting foe is not something most players enjoy doing on a regular basis.

Now you might say: Doesn't teleportation do that? Don't illusions do that?
Yes, but they're worth it, and Shivering Touch isn't.

Admittedly, that's a personal opinion. But when you consider the benefits of those types of magic in terms of cool plans and also genre emulation, vs Shivering Touch (it's either a debuff or an insta-kill, both of which there are already dozens of), the latter seems like a much worse deal for the cost.

[Lorddenorstrus]

Y'all are literally creating an arms race here and someone is still ... I really would like to insert some choice words here. IT'S AN ARMS RACE. THAT IS LITERALLY GAME WARPING.

A; adventurers are smart and use Shivering touch vs all things crap in Dex. Entire world has to warp to fix because anything incapable of surviving is now dead. One spell below 6th lvl shouldn't even be capable of warping the world.

B; It's a rare spell, but the second Dragons drop left and right their entire race has to learn to adapt or be nigh extinct.

BOTH ARE ARMS RACES. The combat scenarios described above are even worse they are rocket tag. Rocket tag while amusing in TO doesn't make for interesting gameplay among anybody I have ever known to play this game.

Shivering Touch is a poorly designed spell. This isn't new. Personal opinion Stat Drainage in general is poor design, but like again mentioned above poisons would have to be widely redesigned. 3.5 has done a lot of amazing things, it's wide options of character design range. But, 5e did a FEW good things by removing sections of poor design. Stat drain being a major one. It's incredibly anticlimactic to instantly end fights with a spell and be working towards a different "HP" pool while your other party members work against a bosses Actual HP.

I try to limit bans at my table but combat ending crap like Shivering is one. It's boring. And if you want to bring a nuke to the table and argue over it, I'll bring a DMs nuke out and you die instantly. k cool nukes aren't fun lets go back to real gameplay.

[InvisibleBison]

Source?



It doesn't say anywhere in the Benefit text of the feat that it can be applied more than once.

It's in the general rules for metabreath feats on page 66 of the Draconomicon.

[Thurbane]

Not sure if this has been brought up already, but there is one very controversial defence that Dragons have against ST.

Reaching 0 Dex causes "paralysis". Dragons are immune to paralysis.


Dexterity 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He stands motionless, rigid, and helpless.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with this reading, but I definitely have seen it debated when Shivering Touch is discussed.

[Remuko]

It's in the general rules for metabreath feats on page 66 of the Draconomicon.

ah kk, missed/forgot that.


Not sure if this has been brought up already, but there is one very controversial defence that Dragons have against ST.

Reaching 0 Dex causes "paralysis". Dragons are immune to paralysis.



I'm not saying I agree or disagree with this reading, but I definitely have seen it debated when Shivering Touch is discussed.

oooo I like this. I'd consider that.

[Saintheart]

Not sure if this has been brought up already, but there is one very controversial defence that Dragons have against ST.

Reaching 0 Dex causes "paralysis". Dragons are immune to paralysis.


And it's here we get into stupid RAW debates again, because by RAW the condition of "paralyzed", i.e. paralysis, =/= DEX 0.


Immunities (Ex)
All dragons have immunity to sleep and paralysis effects.


A paralyzed character is frozen in place and unable to move or act. A paralyzed character has effective Dexterity and Strength scores of 0 and is helpless, but can take purely mental actions. A winged creature flying in the air at the time that it becomes paralyzed cannot flap its wings and falls. A paralyzed swimmer can’t swim and may drown. A creature can move through a space occupied by a paralyzed creature—ally or not. Each square occupied by a paralyzed creature, however, counts as 2 squares.


Dexterity 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He stands motionless, rigid, and helpless.