Book Club: Player's Handbook II [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Beni-Kujaku

2024-03-31, 03:47 PM

Even before the classes, something I found interesting was that there is a reminder for swift and immediate actions, despite them being around for a few books now. I think it's a good indicator of the main goal of PHBII being as a standalone supplement to the original core that even beginners could use, where you'd need no other book to use it.

As for the classes, I find it interesting to read how they were designed. The beguiler was based on the Warmage but using other schools instead of Evocation, and was aimed at being extremely reactively versatile and always having something it could do, and the Knight was made as a way to give battlefield control to a mundane character. In both cases, they did a great job, and the initial aim was really good too. Both classes feel really unique and attractive.

On the other hand, the dragon shaman was meant as a way to allow a party to adventure without a cleric. And on that point, I must say that it was by far the least successful class in the book. The dragon shaman lacks two things that make the cleric a good class : proactivity, and after-fight utility. In a fight, a cleric always has something they can use their actions on, and after the fight, they can convert any spells remaining to heal their comrades. The dragon shaman, especially in their first levels, has nothing they can really do with their actions except shooting a crossbow, which their class does not help at all. They just hang out with the party. It feels awful, especially when your first proactive ability is the breath weapon dealing 2d6 at level 4. That's as much damage every 1d4 rounds as the rogue does with every single attack. With a save for half! Before level 4, the dragon shaman is a worse bard with no spell. I guess they wanted to rein in the cleric power level, but this is way too much. Maybe the dragon shaman would have been better if it got its improved Lay on Hand ability at level 1, or bard-type spells, or dragonfire adept fire breathing, or all three, which probably wouldn't even put it above beguiler in power level. I think they were trying to make it so that people wouldn't just multiclass in DShaman to grab its best abilities, but it was already prevented by the abilities being so linked to DShaman class level (especially Touch of Healing).
As it is, it fails as a class, both in terms of ease of play and in what it tried to accomplish. I truly believe the cleric-like aura class should have been separated from the dragon-theme. Maybe then they would have had a better design space to make it a truly unique class rather than having to spread its abilities so thin between buffing, healing, dragon skills, fire breathing and natural armor.

The Duskblade is a weird one, just because its power level is so clearly above that of a fighter or a barbarian. But it is masterfully crafted. At that point in 3.5, they already knew about the martial/caster divide, and I think they already gave up on fixing it in this edition. So instead they made it so that magic only helped to improve the combat abilities of the Duskblade. Instead of giving it both spells and combat features, which would make most duskblades focus mainly on the power of spells, they made it so that it was optimal to go in melee and cast touch spells through your blade, giving a true vibe or magic swordsman. It is also well-designed against dip by having its most desirable ability not only be on 3rd level, but all its abilities only working on duskblade spells, but does not feel bad in the first levels since at that point simply being an armored mage already feels awesome. Truly my favorite class in the book, and a great class for beginners, since the floor power level is already pretty high, in the style of the ToB, and the sorcerer method is the easiest one to not be overwhelmed in combat by the number of possibilities.

I'm curious, what do people think of the starting packages and sample encounters for the new classes? If you had to pick a starting package for each class, which ones would you say are the best?
Ooo, new profile pic! The starting packages are a decent way to start a character for true beginners. They do not have any aim at optimization (in fact, they use the same kind of feats as sample NPCs), and really they feel like NPCs too, with little to no personality to them. But really, I think it could have been much better if they included a short paragraph for each explaining the strategies and why the choices are made this way, to make the player understand what they could do to level them up.

I'm somewhat astonished that none of the beguilers have Diplomacy, to the point where I had to look back and confirm for myself that it is actually a class skill. One of them is also using medium armor and a heavy steel shield without proficiency in either, which is...a bold choice, I gotta say, but I guess if you want to rock a 40% spell failure chance, you do you. I think the human with the trapfinding skills is probably the best one.
The beguiler's lore says that they like to lie and are kind of loners, so it's not that astonishing to me, but I agree that it would be a good addition to at least one of them. At least the Investigator. It would give them more personality, since there is no spell choice involved. 13 Cha on the Controller seems a bit low, but it's still the one I'd rather go with.

The starting packages for dragon shaman don't include which auras they chose, only which dragon. I find that odd. Honestly, all of them look pretty miserable to me. Two of them take Power Attack even though they have +0 BAB. That's so sad. I guess I'd go with the dwarf, which has Shield Specialization instead.
I think the fact that they're so sad is because the class itself has issues that make it not suitable for level 1 play (nor after, but especially not level 1). I think if they had wrote a summary paragraph, they might have seen that there was nothing there and might have changed the class itself a bit. It seems like they didn't even think of the aura, which makes the class seem even less the center of the character.

I'll say this for the duskblade starting packages, they all sure do know how to allocate their ability scores. I hate the feats on all of them, though. I'd probably pick the dwarf because I like the spell selection and dwarves at least have solid racial abilities.
Agreed, the ability scores are really good. The feats are definitely there because they do not require too much thinking in combat, since they warned the reader in a previous paragraph that sometimes the Duskblade might feel overwhelmed by having too many options to choose from.

The human knight going ham on mounted feats and not having enough money to afford a mount is such a sad thing to me. I think the dwarf is the winner of the three for me, with the most useful feat and the strongest weapon, although I respect the half-orc's higher Strength score.
What do you mean? They can buy a donkey and charge in battle as a squire to a more experimented but slightly crazy windmill-fighting knight!

Inevitability

2024-03-31, 03:59 PM

I'll write up some lengthier thoughts on the classes soon, but until then, I'll leave a very interesting snippet from a web article.

Finally, a few races in the Eberron setting often produce beguilers. Doppelgangers and changelings are foremost among these, and at the DM's discretion, a player with a changeling PC can take beguiler as his favored class instead of rogue. The other force known for its beguilers are the rakshasa. As the rakshasa are known as spirits of deception, a DM may chose to give a rakshasa the spellcasting abilities of a beguiler instead of a sorcerer -- although to gain any of the other class abilities of a beguiler, the rakshasa will need to take levels in the class.

Though wrapped in 'mays' and 'cans', it might be interesting to someone building for a competition on here.

pabelfly

2024-03-31, 04:01 PM

So I'm going to try and comment on the classes, but do it in a way where I'm not simply rehashing discussions from the tier list threads.

Beguiler

Beguiler feels like a magical rogue with a focused spell list and no Sneak Attack. In terms of party role, they have extremely similar weapon and armor proficiencies, both have lots of skill points and huge skill lists to take on all sorts of non-combat roles and both can do trapfinding. Main difference is that Beguiler is going to need other people to finish the job.

I had always thought the class was kinda weak against mindless creatures, but it’s not as bad as I had thought prior to reading up on the class. Still, I’d want to pick something else if I was in a campaign predominantly based around, say, undead. Having a solid chunk of your spell list not be usable wouldn't be fun.

Not my thing (I'm more of a blasting man) but a solid class.

Dragon Shaman

One interesting thing I would like to note about Dragon Shaman is that it only existed for four months before we got Dragonfire Adept (PHB II was released May 2006, Dragon Magic was released September 2006). Given how similar their design goals were, it makes me want to speculate that they weren't happy overall with Dragon Shaman, which leads me to wonder what the design and testing process was for the classes in the book, and if Dragon Shaman got through but was later deemed "not good enough".

Power Aura makes me want to do a multiattack + sorcerer build.

I was originally going to complain about breath weapon doing 10d6 at level 20 being more flavour than usable, and would be really hard to optimize. However, while doing some background research for the thread, I found this old article, discussing high-level combat, and at least one of the people involved were involved in design and development of 3e. (here (https://web.archive.org/web/20201111215715/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050809a)). Now, we can critique how the game was run and how the Balor was used all we want, but if you're playing the sort of game where a Wizard feels the best use of their time is using Quickened True Strike + Manyshot, doing 10d6 damage in an area probably isn't as bad an option as we think it is now.

Last observation, it's kinda weird that True Neutral characters cannot be Dragon Shamans. Makes sense given the alignments of the various MM dragons, but by the end of 3e, we had a bunch of Neutral dragons (Amethyst, Astral, Concordant, Ethereal, Lung, Mist, and Sand).

Duskblade

If I had a newbie, or even someone who wasn't deeply familiar with the rules who wanted to mix up spellcasting and swordfighting, I'd just give them a build with this class. There are stronger options but this gets the job done without undue complexity most gish builds have.

Twilight enchantment is weird to highlight. You can wear light and medium armor and up to heavy shields with no trouble but heavy armor has a minimum 30% penalty. You probably wouldn't want the mobility restriction of heavy armor with your build anyway, never mind a 20% ASF.

Knight

There seems to be a thought that heavier armor means more AC with the devs of 3e. However, the total of max dex bonus plus AC from armor class nearly always comes out to around 8 - you'll only really get higher than that with a race with a really high dex bonus, or if you're rocking some exotic heavy armor like Mountain Plate (at least, before we start book-delving).

It seems like the Knight was designed for tactical 2D combat with attempts to restrict enemy movement, with features like area control, making terrain difficult terrain, and so forth, while combat in 3e actually moves towards **** like flight, tactical teleportation, and so forth. Again, I'm wondering at what sort of playtesting happened during the development of 3e.

A lot of the discussion for the class is "Code of Conduct sucks and makes a weak class worse". That's true, but I look at it as WOTC wanting people to roleplay the whole Knights as Lawful with their Chivalric Code. If you're on-board for that, you want to adhere to the rules and the downsides of the Code of Conduct aren't really relevant.

I like the overall concept of the Knight, even though I think it needs a lot of work to mechanically support its intended use.

Tzardok

2024-03-31, 04:52 PM

Last observation, it's kinda weird that True Neutral characters cannot be Dragon Shamans. Makes sense given the alignments of the various MM dragons, but by the end of 3e, we had a bunch of Neutral dragons (Amethyst, Astral, Concordant, Ethereal, Lung, Mist, and Sand).

I think that's just a reflection of the cleric alignment restriction. Clerics after all also can't be True Neutral unless their deity is True Neutral. It is true that there are True Neutral dragon species (and gem dragons are in fact referenced in the adaptation section). On the other hand, as Beni-Kujaku observed, this book seems to be intended to be used even by people with no other books besides core, and so just focussing on the core dragons and not watering down the description with "A dragon shaman worshipping a True Neutral dragon can be True Neutral, even though there aren't any examples of that in the Monster Manual and we won't give you rules for them" makes sense.

quetzalcoatl5

2024-03-31, 05:02 PM

So how would y'all expect a four player party with one of each of the PHB2 classes? Nominally you'd have all the main bases covered, but definitely a much lower ceiling in all areas

Troacctid

2024-03-31, 08:55 PM

So how would y'all expect a four player party with one of each of the PHB2 classes? Nominally you'd have all the main bases covered, but definitely a much lower ceiling in all areas
Well, in combat, you've got beguiler as a controller, duskblade as a striker, knight as a defender, and dragon shaman as a leader, so it should at least be balanced, but the sticking points are probably going to be that dragon shaman is not a great leader and knight is not a great defender. I'd rather have two beguilers and two duskblades, to be honest.

pabelfly

2024-03-31, 09:09 PM

So how would y'all expect a four player party with one of each of the PHB2 classes? Nominally you'd have all the main bases covered, but definitely a much lower ceiling in all areas

Beguiler – would get a feat to add spells and turn into a blaster with little effort. With their extensive skill list, would be the party MVP.

Duskblade – pretty solid already, might get a healing spell or two to improve survivability

Knight – would grab an Anthro form like Lion for good base stats and to innately have pounce even though it isn’t normally a class feature for a Knight. If you can’t use Anthro forms, a volley archer wouldn’t be terrible. Knight’s Challenge boosts all attack rolls and damage against one opponent, regardless of weapon chosen, so that can include a Composite Longbow.

Dragon Shaman – this guy is probably stuck as party cheerleader. Dilate Aura will let them cover most of the field at 60ft radius instead of 30ft, and Double Draconic Aura lets him use two auras at once. Not the most thankful or enjoyable task, but the rest of the party would appreciate it.

Chronos

2024-04-01, 08:55 AM

My only criticism with the Duskblade is that their spell list is packed full with rays, but relatively few melee touch spells, so it can be unclear whether rays are supposed to work with their channeling ability. The consensus seems to be that they don't, but they should have made it explicit (and also added more spells that do work). Or made it explicit that it does work, if that was their intention.

Dragon shamans are actually fairly powerful, at least at low levels. I was in a party with one once, and the lion's share of our damage-dealing was the aura that damages enemies that attack you. The problem is just that, as others have mentioned, they can't do anything, beyond just existing. They'd probably be improved by getting their breath weapon earlier (which is useful by virtue of being an area of effect), but that'd still only give them one or two interesting actions per combat. They need something for every round.

Beguiler, I think steps a little too much on the toes of the rogue. I'd have liked the class better if it only had four skill points, lacked Trapfinding natively, but had the Find Traps spell. That way, they could still fill the rogue role in a pinch, but an actual rogue would be better at it. Their spellcasting is fine, though: Full-list spontaneity is powerful, but they make up for that with having a fairly samey list.

And I don't have a problem with the design goals of the Knight, but I feel like it would have been better as a chain of fighter feats, rather than a class. The class has a role, certainly, but I don't feel like it has a distinctive identity.

Inevitability

2024-04-01, 09:48 AM

My thoughts on the classes, mostly from a character builder's perspective. Tldr: the PHBII has the best classes that I never want to build with, and if you have new players and want to bring in a new book, let it be this one.

Beguilers
Definitely the class I have the most complicated feelings about. The concept of a skillful trickster is innately appealing, making it an intelligence-based fixed-list caster is a great bit of resonant design. Armored Mage and d6 hit die were good inclusions, Advanced Learning is brilliant (though in this particular case struggles with Shadow spells being clearly superior picks), and I like the ideas behind Cloaked Casting and Surprise Casting.

...but not the execution. Cloaked Casting's bonuses are just too low to be worth seeking out - all the way to level 13 it's just giving you +1 to DC and +2 to overcome SR. Surprise Casting is awful - the idea of a full caster tying in an overlooked mechanic like feints is great, but with Cloaked Casting so weak, it's not worth walking into melee to get. You can't even move-feint-cast without sinking two feats into the strategy. It's frustrating because I could actually see 'feinting caster' become a viable archetype (which would have made the beguiler more distinct from the wizard on top) and instead we got this.

Ultimately I feel like the beguiler's only two real advantages are role compression and ease of play. A 3-player party that needs to fold the face, trapfinder, and controller roles in one PC will love the beguiler. A party full of newbies who don't want to manage spell lists will love the beguiler. But I've only used it in a build competition once (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25885202&postcount=40), in a very unusual situation where I was stuck with Favored Class (Beguiler) and had a build unusually well-suited to feinting. It's just not a class that I find particular reason to use!

Dragon Shaman
The dragon shaman is so forgettable that I was surprised to turn the page and encounter it instead of the duskblade.

I kid, I kid. But seriously, what's the point of this class? It lacks the armor to be a tank and the weapon proficiencies and BAB to deal damage. It's a healer, but its mechanics discourage healing in-combat. It's a blaster with a breath weapon that hardly outperforms the sorcerer's reserve feat. It's got some very random flavor abilities, but realistically icewalking or permanent endure elements are situational at best. It gets an awful skill list (they had to add knowledge arcana in errata) that prevents it from fulfilling roles like scout or face even with a favorable draconic totem. It feels like it exists for players who want to be a dragon, and it was a great choice for that... for all of four months before the Dragonfire Adept got printed.

The dragon shaman isn't a powerless class: it can contribute to combat, to exploration, to social interaction - but it can't resolve those situations in the way a rogue can just pick a lock and a bard can just charm a guard. It is condemned to perpetual sidekick-hood. You maxed Hide and got skill focus in it? Well, you still don't have perceptive skills or trapfinding, but I guess you can tag along with the rogue. You've got a breath weapon with a recharge timer on it? Cool, mop up whoever the wizard didn't get. You can heal some but not all status conditions? Eh, it'll free up some of the cleric's slots. Troacctid already touched on the lackluster state of the starting packages, and I think they're emblematic of WotC not being sure what this class actually does.

I've used the dragon shaman once (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25883340&postcount=38) - on a build that could've slotted in any high-Will class and would probably have been better off with a swordsage or binder. Maybe I'll ever desperately need Skill Focus as a bonus feat, and I'll splurge two levels, or maybe one of the wackier Draconic Adaptations is essential to a weird combo, but I don't think I'll ever build a dragon shaman an sich, because the class has nothing to draw you in and nothing to keep you there.

I do like how blue dragon shamans get Ventriloquism at-will, though. It's such an unique ability and I feel like I'd have way too much fun with it if it was slightly better-supported.

Duskblade
Since times immemorial, the duskblade has been the gish-in-a-can base class. This is good, I think such a thing should exist, I understand a lot of people will come up to the table and say 'can I play a magic sword guy' and duskblade is a fine thing to point them towards. It's easy to master, powerful, well-rounded, evocative, and incredibly open to a straight 1-to-20 single-class playthrough. This canned gish has it all: good armor, good martial skill, fun cantrip-likes, free quickened spells, and a very powerful channel ability: but canned is canned.

The duskblade is a cleaner, less complicated gish than a stalwart battle sorcerer, or a snowflake wardance bard, or a jade phoenix mage, or a knight phantom. But it's so much less interesting to me. There's not much room for customization in duskblades, no possible optimization as impressive as the built-in Full Attack Arcane Channel Arcane Strike Vampiric Touch.

The existence of the duskblade has made D&D a better, more accessible game. But it doesn't excite me. I don't see the duskblade and start thinking about all the cool things I could be doing with it. I don't look for ways to overcome its flaws or amplify its strengths, because it doesn't need either. I've only once made a build with duskblade, and when I did (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25665679&postcount=15), it was a 1-level dip, made to get Arcane Attunement more than anything. The rest of the class can stay right where it is.

Knight
I actually don't know what to say about the knight. Is it one of the weakest classes in the game? Yeah. Does it force an incredibly niche sword-and-board-mounted-but-no-charging playstyle? Certainly. Are its higher-level abilities a weird mix of underwhelming debuffs and underwhelming buffs? Of course. If I wanted to play a tank, would I be better off just bringing a crusader or a devoted defender? Without question.

But the knight isn't a bad tank, at the end of the day. Test of Mettle is comprehensive in a way very few tanking abilities are, Bulwark of Defense and Shield Block are pretty fun... The knight can do very little well, but it sure can pull aggro! A lot of 3.5's worst classes fail in the painful way where something else is straight-up doing the same thing better: the monk is a worse unarmed swordsage, the healer a worse cleric, the CW samurai a fighter with pre-selected feats. But the knight is actually doing things that nobody else can replicate - they just aren't enough.

The knight is objectively the worst PHBII class, but it's got a special place in my heart. This is one class that that keeps drawing my attention, pulling me in with a weird mishmash of abilities begging someone to find synergy between them, presenting me with genuinely unique tricks begging to get showcased. I never end up using it, but I hope that one day I can.

Actually, that's not true: I used knight in the E6 round where it was a secret ingredient. But whether I'd say my much younger self did so in a way I'm proud of... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22647163&postcount=30)

Dalmosh

2024-04-02, 06:43 PM

Dragon Shaman always felt more of an NPC class to me, kind of like a Marshal but for savage tribal races like Lizardfolk or Troglodytes. It feels like it's niche is buffing a crowd of dumb, primitive enemy mooks, and its flavour is really niche even for that.

Conceptually it is a stretch to think of a Player wanting to be one when there are so many options to cut out the middle man by playing an actual draconic character or a Dragonfire Adept. Even prior to Dragon Magic, I remember this feeling unappealing compared with being a Cleric of a draconic deity.

pabelfly

2024-04-02, 07:00 PM

Conceptually it is a stretch to think of a Player wanting to be one when there are so many options to cut out the middle man by playing an actual draconic character or a Dragonfire Adept.

Dragonfire Adept came out four months after Dragon Shaman.

quetzalcoatl5

2024-04-02, 08:56 PM

I will say, thinking about these four classes as a party, that they at least are better balanced compared to other clusters of classes, like say the four base classes from the Miniatures Handbook... In a party of Healer, Warmage, Favored Soul, and Marshall, let's be real about who's doing the heavy lifting. Here, at least each one is doing a distinctly different thing. I know I keep bringing up seeing the classes as a party, but I think it's a lens to look at where the design language had settled by the time the book was printed. With PHB2 we can see that Wizards has figured out a lot about the abuses that some classes had and really reined those in and had mostly identified areas to improve. The Beguiler lacks the game breaking power of a Wizard but plays nice for an intelligent caster who plays tricks more than directly interferes. The Duskblade is a marvel of balanced game design, possessing an incredibly high floor and low ceiling for optimization. The Knight recognized that D&D knew they would need to move to some kind of marking system... and knowing is half the battle. The Dragon Shaman... like I like aura classes, but they needed some more active class features... but at least it was a swing at something they hadn't tried since the Marshall.

Wildstag

2024-04-03, 12:41 AM

I know it's not a big contribution, but I love seeing terms generally associated with 4e in this thread (leader, controller, striker, defender). It came about half a year before Tome of Battle, so the precursor to 4e was still in development (before being scrapped with ToB), but its impact is still intriguing.

Duskblade was my first class back in January 2015, and I really loved it. Beguiler was how I started my first foray into the Swiftblade, and that class too is loads of fun. The old thread The Life and Art of Beguiling (https://web.archive.org/web/20151104220235/http://www.minmaxboards.com:80/index.php?topic=387.0) was a fun read when that link still worked properly. I've always wanted to play a Knight, but they look like they're as limited as the Ranger (allegedly is)... They need a particular kind of enemy to do their signature stuff.

The two main things I wish had been done to duskblades though: their list needed actual touch spells at their higher spell levels. The surplus of rays in the list of 4th and 5th level spells always made me feel like an earlier version of the class had a "ray to touch spell" mechanic. It doesn't though, and that makes it less interesting to play post level 13. Especially since at 13 you get 4th level spells AND Arcane channeling (full attack). The other thing I wish had been made in the class is using the same spell effect on the a target more than once per round. You mostly see people arguing that it's worded so that multiple swings on the same target only transfer the spell once. Overall though, it's a fun class to play.

Dragon Shaman has literally never interested me, and I've only looked at it once, maybe twice. I can't wait to talk about chapter 3 though...

holbita

2024-04-03, 06:18 AM

If we are talking classes, I see them divided in two groups.

Duskblade and Beguiler are classes that work in literally every team, if you are not sure who else would be in your party you can probably take them and work well with the rest of the party. Everyone likes those.

And then you have Knight and Dragon Shaman... are they bad classes? yes, most of the time. But then you find yourself on a party where you are the only melee character and are in charge of keeping enemies away from your allies... while not having to worry about someone else being the target of the melee enemies allowing you to trap them around you with no targets to hit except you? oh boy... it's the knight extremely good at that.

Dragon Shaman has it a bit harder, even if we ignore the fact that no, you cannot take their vigor aura with a feat, and give them that niche of at-will healing, they are still missing a lot of stuff, basically they are a mixture of low power abilities that you would usually find in other classes that specialize in them and as such they are much better at them... healing, area damage, buffs, party face, durability, etc. you need cha for healing, con for the breath, and whatever you are going to use for fighting, and even intelligence for skill points if you want to properly do party face roles. You are going to be very hard press to find a place for them... but we played a campaign that mostly happened in the phlogiston (Spelljammer adventure), and that meant that divine casters could not really recover spell slots, suddenly the healing abilities of the dragon shaman looked much more favorable, add the good amount of NPCs that were with us in the ship and those auras were more and more appealing... basically it is hard, but you can find yourself in games where dragon shaman becomes a really good option.

Chronos

2024-04-03, 08:15 AM

Making the dragon shaman more powerful, or putting them in a context that's well-suited for them, doesn't really help, because their problem was never power in the first place. Their problem is that they're just boring. If you're aura-ing a party of 5 and shooting poorly with a crossbow, or aura-ing an army of a hundred and shooting poorly with a crossbow, either way, you're not doing anything meaningful. Any aura on that army will easily make you the most powerful member of the army, but it's still boring.

Wildstag

2024-04-03, 10:39 AM

On a separate note from Chapter 1 specifically, I want to add that PHB2 credits David Noonan as author on the front cover. Personally speaking, he is my favorite author from 3.5, and he is the author primarily responsible for the Goliaths (my favorite 3.5 race overall), the Illumians, and the Raptorans.

In general, he's a pretty good writer but most of his work appears to have been near the tail end of 3.5. He's listed as the only person under the heading of "Design" in the credits page, but a few other notable names are there as well. Christopher Perkins is listed as Design Manager, and he's still at D&D. Bill Slavicsek is listed as Director of RPG R&D, and he's been all over the RPG scene. Mike Mearls is listed on the Development Team, he himself left only a few months ago.

Several of those names were on the 4e and 5e team, and I think it's fun to look at how the classes in this book relate to classes in later editions. On the first page of the chapter, Beguiler references Warmage. Looking at the current edition, the Beguiler looks like it lent its spell list to the Arcane Trickster archetype for Rogue just as the Warmage's list lent itself to the Eldritch Knight archetype. The Knight feels very similar to what the 4e Fighter looked like, especially in its Bulwark of Defense and Vigilant Defender abilities. It feels like it embodies the idea on some forums that the Defender is just a melee Controller... but it's still 3.5 and that playstyle doesn't really do so much yet. This book clearly laid some foundations for later editions, and I think just from Chapter 1 it sets itself as one of the better books of the edition.

quetzalcoatl5

2024-04-03, 12:08 PM

This book clearly laid some foundations for later editions, and I think just from Chapter 1 it sets itself as one of the better books of the edition.

Completely agree! It's fun to look at this snapshot of design language.

TheHalfAasimar

2024-04-04, 09:39 AM

I'm just gonna pop in and say, the PHBII probably has my favorite class names. I think that Duskblade and Dragon Shaman are just cool names, and whoever was in charge of naming them should get a raise. But then again, in my head, anything with 'dragon' or 'blade' in it generally sounds cooler. Beguiler is a good name (better than, oh I don't know, Kineticist, which I know isn't a 3.5e class, but we're talking about class names and why I like them), and while I like the word 'Knight,' the Knight class... it's name is just meh.

Alabenson

2024-04-04, 10:13 AM

The Knight really suffers from the designers being so focused on solving one inherent problem with the concept of a tank class (a lack of any sort of "taunt" mechanic in D&D) that they completely overlooked the major problems melee in 3.5 has. The Knight has nothing to do with its actions besides make regular or full attacks, and being pigeonholed into a sword and board style means the Knight is inherently worse at that than other classes. Meanwhile, the Knight doesn't have any viable way of contributing outside of combat due to a complete lack of noncombat abilities, minimal skill points and a particularly anemic class skill list.

Granted, the Knight has a few moderately useful things it can do with its swift actions, but that doesn't nearly make up for its other issues.

quetzalcoatl5

2024-04-04, 08:46 PM

Inevitability

2024-04-05, 03:44 AM

You know... if the Dragon Shaman got just a few Draconic Invocations (outside of the ACF)... could have been really interesting. Like this is close enough that they had to have the idea already. Give 'em a small list of medium power options from the Warlock list if they don't have Dragonfire Adept ones ready to go yet. It would have given just a few active options for the character. And if they key off constitution, then it just further incentivizes being this big meaty hp sponge.

I still think that all the game balance concerns about constitution-based casters are just way overblown and 3.5 and 5e were fools for not having some. 4th edition had constitution-based warlocks and it served to give the class a very unique sort of niche.

Besides, "the limit on my powers is not how much I can command, the limit is how much my patron can force through my body before it breaks" is just great flavor.

pabelfly

2024-04-05, 05:56 AM

I still think that all the game balance concerns about constitution-based casters are just way overblown and 3.5 and 5e were fools for not having some. 4th edition had constitution-based warlocks and it served to give the class a very unique sort of niche.

Besides, "the limit on my powers is not how much I can command, the limit is how much my patron can force through my body before it breaks" is just great flavor.

Pathfinder had the Kineticist which ended up being a CON-based caster of sorts, but was pretty bad.

The closest you can get to a CON caster without third party or homebrew is a Stalwart Battle Sorcerer. You're not casting off CON, but you do have the equivalent of the Barbarian's hit dice, most of a Sorcerer's spellcasting, light armor for better AC, and access to all their ASFs, and only really need to invest in CHA, CON and DEX. Very underrated build on these boards, will have to remake it one day with different flavour.

Powerdork

2024-04-06, 11:17 PM

Pathfinder had the Kineticist which ended up being a CON-based caster of sorts, but was pretty bad.

This is mostly because the design figured that the primary way to base the abilities off of Constitution was by letting you deliberately tank your damage capacity to like 1.5 times your level on average, with a small splash at level 1 that gradually diminishes in effect (or even just a flat 5 per level, if your GM is kind enough to give you max HP per HD), because of how you can accept enough burn to effectively tank your Constitution to 4 regardless of what it may have been.

As for Player's Handbook II, I think the best thing they did here was outright print the full spell lists of the beguiler and duskblade in the class description, rather than relegate it to another chapter (as with the hexblade in Complete Warrior, for instance). Just being able to know which spells you can cast while the class description is only a page away is a godsend, especially now that we're in the age of digital collections.

AMFV

2024-04-07, 12:03 AM

Chronos

2024-04-07, 07:09 AM

Although then in the spells section, they printed a list of just the new spells on the Beguiler list. Leading some new players who didn't read thoroughly to think that that was the entire Beguiler list, and never casting Charm Person, Silent Image, or Sleep.

pabelfly

2024-04-07, 07:43 AM

Chapter Two: Expanded Classes

I’ve never really looked at the character theme ideas here before, so reading through them was a first for me. If you do want character or roleplay ideas to take a character class or concept, it seems like a pretty good resource. And a barbarian with a giant butterfly tattoo gets 10/10 for inventiveness, at least.

I liked a bunch of the Expanded Class options. I think quite a few hit the sweet spot for power: strong enough to be worth considering, but not so strong that they overshadow all other options available for that class. I'll post my opinions on a bunch of individual ACFs later though, and give other people the chance to give their opinions first.

Flavour-wise, the Tormented Champion archtype for the Hexblade is totally based off Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock. For those not familiar, the various fantasy serials Michael Moorcock wrote had the forces of Law and Chaos at war, with one side usually dominating. A chosen Champion representing the other side would fight and eventually bring Law and Chaos back to balance, the lead character often tormented by his past and/or the sacrifices he had to make. In fact, I’d say the whole Law versus Chaos alignment aspect of DnD was taken from the series. Nice flavour though.

But enough from me for now, what did everyone else think of the class flavour notes and the Alternate Class Features in the book?

Cygnia

2024-04-07, 11:01 AM

I've never wanted to play the Knight from PB2...everyone else, I've played in some fashion.

The ACF Dark Companion is a boon for any Hexblade. Dabbled with Bardic Knack and have made use of the Marshal's Adrenaline Boost in a group with limited healing and Charging Smite for a pally who, for RP purposes, didn't want the special mount and Distracting Attack for a Ranger who didn't want do deal with the bookkeeping for an animal companion.

Inevitability

2024-04-07, 04:54 PM

So, the ACFs.

Berserker Strength is really cool conceptually, but the numbers feel a bit awkward. A regular barbarian is getting +4 strength, +4 constitution, +2 on Will, and -2 on AC. A berserker strength barbarian is delaying all that and dropping the bonus HP for... +2 more reflex and DR 2/-? It just doesn't feel worth it unless you have some strategy based on being permanently raging (I do like how that's possible, mind you - I just wish it wasn't the sole reason to be a berserker).

...plus, there's the awkward element of being constantly locked out of rage-restricted actions if the party runs out of healing with you at low HP - there should really have been a clause allowing you to suppress your berserker strength voluntarily once combat has ended.

Bardic Knack is another example of the PHBII trying to be friendlier to low-numbered parties. I don't really have more to say about it than that: it's clearly meant as a band-aid in case there's nine or ten skills your three-man party needs covered with the last teamslot, and it does a fine job at that.

Spontaneous Domain Casting is great! Clerics have a big sameyness problem and getting to spam domain spells is a very reliable way to make yours feel less generic. Often the best choice from an optimization perspective, but superior for building interesting and fun characters as well. Easily one of the best ACFs in the book.

Spontaneous Rejuvenation is there for if you've got a druid and no cleric, I guess. And well, it's fine, though definitely best if your party has a lot of people getting about equally hurt. It's also a nice use for spell slots if you've got wild shape but no natural spell (yet) and want to heal without changing form.

Enough has been said about Shapeshift in the ~20 past years. It's great, it's simple to run, elegant, flavorful, remarkably balanced - but because the thing it's balancing is druid, it's always going to be an enormous power nerf. That's an awkward position to be in, for an ACF.

It's not an ACF, but the druid getting Fhorges as an animal companion option is interesting to me - both because they're remarkably strong for their level (dire bears are CR 7, elephants are CR 7, fhorges are CR 9) and for being (extraplanar). Does any other druid companion have that subtype barring ACFs?

Deity's Favor isn't a bad ACF, it's just... disappointing. Sure, on the right build free temporary HP will be miles more valuable than Weapon Focus... but it's boring. It doesn't combo with anything, it doesn't synergize with anything, it's not memorable or flashy or evocative, it doesn't fulfill any character concepts that buff spells weren't already fulfilling, and worst of all: it doesn't present a reason to not just be a cleric. PHBII could have fixed the favored soul - instead, we get an option that makes it more similar to the cleric, if anything.

The rest to follow.

pabelfly

2024-04-07, 11:57 PM

Chapter II: Expanded Classes

I’m not going to comment on every ACF, merely the ones I find interesting or might use in a potential build

Bardic Knack – this gives you a lot more breadth in your skill list, while Bardic Knowledge is geared towards boosting Knowledge checks. Very nice option for a skillmonkey build, and would consider on a Bard over Bardic Knowledge.

Cleric, Spontaneous Domain Casting – spontaneously being able to cast domain spells is an interesting option over Cure spells. If I was going to use prepared Cleric I’d definitely consider this.

Favored Soul, Deity’s Favor – if you don’t want to use a martial weapon, getting temp HP from your buff spells, including on yourself, is a good possible alternative. Cleric is the better buffer due to Divine Metamagic, but if you insist on using Favored Soul instead for some reason, I could see this option being useful.

Fighter, Overpowering Attack – six levels of Fighter before you can use this is fairly rough. Monk gets a better version of this with just one level.

Hexblade, Dark Companion – a -2 to the saves and AC of any enemy it stands next to, no save? That’s (roughly) a 10% higher chance to hit with your preferred spell. A very good alternative to an Animal Companion.

Monk, Decisive Strike – this is something I didn’t know existed and I really like it. Extremely similar to the Fighter’s Overpowering Attack ACF earlier, but you get it at level 1, and it only applies to Monk weapons. I’d optimize it exactly how I would with the Fighter’s Overpowering Attack ACF – Combat Reflexes, Rolibar’s Gambit and Karmic Strike, firstly. Second, large monsters with high STR and Power Attack.

Paladin, Charging Smite – two points of smite damage per Paladin level on a charging attack? I want to combine this with something like Anthro Lion just to get Pounce combined with this and get it on every attack while racking up Paladin levels.

Ranger, Distracting Attack – if you don’t want an animal companion, helping with flanking is not bad.

Rogue, Disruptive Attack – one of my constant criticisms of Rogue has been that unlike other martial builds, there are some builds that it is nearly completely ineffective against. Disruptive Attack lets you instead reduce AC on those enemies. That makes it easier for others to land their hits, including mages targeting touch AC. I’d prefer it if they could do the job themselves, but making it easier for their ally by a significant margin is a good plan B and does make Rogues much more well-rounded.

Scout, Dungeon Specialist – climb speed is nice, so is AC when next to a wall. Not a bad trade.

Sorcerer, Metamagic Specialist – add metamagic to Sorcerer spells without increasing casting time? Amazing option, I use this in most of my Sorcerer builds.

Swashbuckler – this replaces bonus AC that only targets one enemy for a stronger AC bonus that works against all enemies. I’d still not want to do Swashbuckler build though.

Warlock – trade temporary fast healing to damage melee attackers is a nice trade.

Warmage, Eclectic Learning – You get to expand your spell list, which gives you quite a few options, but the spell you get is a higher spell level than normal, so it doesn’t replace Advanced Learning. This is at a really good balance for an ACF. Different, but not markedly better or worse than the original.

Wizard – Trade away your familiar but you get immediate action options, some of which are really good. Urgent Shield, Abrupt Jaunt, Glimpse Peril are my \favourites. Instant Daze is the worst, the enemies you’d want to use it on the most will have more HD than you, so you can only use it on the chaff instead.

Overall, a lot of solid options, but little that's overpowered. I really liked them.

Inevitability

2024-04-08, 04:34 AM

Finishing up the ACFs - I'll look at pabelfly's takes after.

I think a good ACF should be three things: it should be powerful; something that can be justified over alternate options. It should be combo-friendly; able to interface meaningfully with the vast amount of material 3.5 already contains, and readily be a part of something greater than itself. And it should be memorable: flashy, impactful, fun to see used at your table.

For these reasons, I really, really, dislike Elusive Attack. Is it powerful? No, because it requires six fighter levels, and even then it struggles to make itself more valuable than a feat would've been. Is it combo-friendly? No. And is it memorable? Certainly not: who's going to remember +2 AC? I'd have loved to see something here that actually supported the idea of an elusive, steadily defensive fighter - something transformative and relevant. Getting to ignore harmful conditions a la Iron Heart Surge? Free 5 ft. steps? There's options there!

Counterattack is at least memorable, usable, and solid combo ground, but scales poorly and comes way too late - anything that takes twelve fighter levels should have a massive boon attached. The same goes for Overpowering Strike, which adds insult to injury by being in the same book as Decisive Attack.

But enough negativity, let's look at Dark Companion. I think this deserves to be called 'the ACF that redeemed a class' - if people talk about hexblade, it's often in the context of getting Dark Companion. And what a shining example of how to create class features! Something as simple as 'enemies in a small moveable zone take -2 to AC and saves' becomes evocative and interesting simply by attaching it to a memorable visual manifestation, and the effect is well-matched to the level investment it requires. My only complaint is that they should've made the panther appearance explicitly customizable: I should be able to bring an aquatic elf hexblade with a shark companion, or a goblin with a wolf, without having to bend the rules even a little.

Adrenaline Boost? PHBII has a marshal ACF? Yeah, I didn't know about this, like, at all... aaaaand it's awful. Like, as a foray into martial healing it's very significant, its value is historical if not practical, but again, you're trading a visually impactful full attack enabling mass-reposition for... a little bit of temporary HP. And it's not like Grant Move Action was ever good enough to warrant building a marshal for, either.

What's there to say about Decisive Strike? The effect is good, it's memorable, it'll be helpful for certain character concepts, and it scales very well. The only awkward snarl is that unlike Flurry of Blows it has no restriction on armor - it feels like that should be consistent one way or another.

Some parts of the PHBII give me the impression they were only written to fix some obvious problem that might come up in a PHB-only campaign. Party needs to cover casting and trapfinding with its final slot? Here's the beguiler! The only healer is a druid? Have an ACF for that. Too many skills for the bard to cover? Jack of All Trades should help. Charging Smite and Distracting Attack are clearly here in the same vein, included for campaigns where a companion creature just isn't practical. I don't have much to say about their effects - they're fine, they adequately compensate for the loss, they make good flavorful sense, maybe Charging Smite is a bit boring - but their existence as stopgap fixes is what's most interesting to me.

Actually, Disruptive Attack is in the same boat too. Will you ever want to use it when you could be getting regular sneak attack? Probably not. But will you be very happy to have it in a fight against undead or constructs? Sure! Stopgap fix for campaigns where those foes are common, plain and simple, but with an asterisk for being pretty much worse than Penetrating Strike et al. Also this really should have some kind of scaling, ideally based on the amount of SA dice you're giving up.

Dungeon Specialist is interesting! Fast Movement for a climb speed is a trade that barbarians get to make as well, it's fun, it's very memorable. My only complaint is that it comes pre-packaged with a very mediocre and antisynergistic Evasion replacement. I'd consider this on a Swift Hunter or some other kind of build that doesn't want to take scout 5.

Metamagic Specialist is boring. It's not weak, not at all, but it's just a tax. If your character concept involves spontaneous casting and metamagic, you grab this and you swallow the loss of a familiar, nothing more to it. Also intelligence as the stat of choice is questionable enough already, but especially on a sorcerer with its utter lack of good class skills.

What do I even say about Shield of Blades? If you're a swashbuckler and you TWF, you take this. Otherwise, you don't. It's not a reason to go all the way to swashbuckler 5, it's not going to combo with anything, but at least unlike Elusive Attack it doesn't demand anything from you.

...actually, on a second read, does the 'even unarmed strikes' line suggest an unambiguous resolution to the age-old 'can you dual-wield unarmed strikes' question? Clearly, Shield of Blades doesn't trigger if you attack with a dagger and then with the same dagger again, so it suggests there's ways to make multiple unarmed strikes with 'different' weapons. Also interesting to note this technically gives you a shield bonus if you spend your turn throwing daggers.

Fiendish Flamewreath is good, just held back by being so meager a feature at so high a warlock level - I guess if you're aiming to get Deceive Item, you might as well pick this up along the way. Fun visual, cute impact, a bit niche but melee warlocks are good enough to make it more than viable. I wish warlocks got more ACFs, really. Also fun how it's explicitly a light source.

Eclectic Learning... I don't know. Warmages needed a buff, sure, and arbitrary list expansion is a good enough way to do it. But it's an inelegant solution to the power issue, it's turning the class into a generalist-lite instead of a good evoker. If you committed to warmage, you probably picked it over wizard for real, meaningful reasons - and this feature doesn't play into those reasons, doesn't reward you, it just softens the blow with an unsubtle You Should Have Played A Wizard message. A must-have for warmages, but a terrible reason to play one.

And lastly we come to Immediate Magic. And boy oh boy, do I have thoughts about Immediate Magic. The power level is all over the place, and worse, seems to favor already-strong schools like Conjuration. I like how it makes school specialization matter more, I like how it's not competing for actions with regular spells, I like how flavorful it all tries to be - this is really a perfect feature, except for the utterly bungled balance.
-Instant Shield is boring - weak and boring. Just turn it into a Shield effect, if nothing else, but temporary Freedom of Movement or a reflexive dispel (or semi-dispel) would've been much more impactful and flavorful and just as true to the school.
-Abrupt Jaunt, you know about Abrupt Jaunt. Too good by far, immediate action LoE breaking is insane. Conjuring partial cover, or teleporting after the triggering action, or creating a cloud of mist for concealment would all have been much more balanced.
-Glimpse Peril? Boring again. A save reroll would've been more memorable, or brief blindsight, or even a (weakened) True Strike/True Casting effect on your next action.
-Instant Daze dooms you to single-class wizardy, which is bad. I'd instead give Enchantment the sole friendly Immediate Magic effect, which lets you briefly give morale bonuses to allies. Not enough to step on the bard's toes, but enough to be remembered.
-Counterfire... oh wow, ranged touch attacks and damage, how creative. I don't like this, I don't think the restrictions on this make sense, I think the effect is a bit bland. Temporary Darkness or Gust of Wind would've been more interesting. If we're just dealing damage, I've got half a mind to pattern that on Magic Missile instead of Generic Ray Spell, which'd help minimize the amount of off-turn dice rolling.
-Brief Figment is fine, honestly. Single-use 50% miss chance, in a cool distinctive way, sure. I like this the best of all the canon immediate magics.
-Cursed Glance needs work. I'm generally not a huge fan of Immediate Magic allowing saves, and curses aren't an iconic necromancer wizard effect (compare the levels at which clerics and wizards get Bestow Curse). I think no-save fatigue would've been interesting and impactful, while allowing a combo-focused player to escalate it into brief Exhaustion. Maybe something fear-focused, but perhaps best not to allow escalation then.
-Sudden Shift's climb speed is a bit pointless, and being the only school that gets a chiefly out-of-combat effect is strange too. Maybe this could've been a defensive transmutation, like turning briefly gaseous or jelly-like? Perhaps a downgraded Iron Body type of effect, made a bit more interesting than plain DR?

pabelfly

2024-04-08, 08:14 AM

Finishing up the ACFs - I'll look at pabelfly's takes after.

Had a read through of your stuff. A few slightly different takes, but it seems we generally agree on power level and stuff we liked. There was no particularly different take you had that I'd want to argue with you.

Inevitability

2024-04-08, 08:55 AM

Had a read through of your stuff. A few slightly different takes, but it seems we generally agree on power level and stuff we liked. There was no particularly different take you had that I'd want to argue with you.

Neither did I find much to argue with in yours! I was mildly amused to see you talk about 'an anthropomorphic lion paladin with Charging Smite', because it reminded me of Galitsur from the Zealot round of VC (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25561566&postcount=63), but for the most part, no real disagreement. We seem to evaluate features through a slightly different lens, and I think I just like temporary HP less than you, but we seem to be of one mind in most places.

Also, apologies for the slight nitpick, but you refer to overpowering attack as requiring 'six' levels of fighter, that should be sixteen (yeah). Not sure if that was a misreading or a typo.

pabelfly

2024-04-08, 09:18 AM

Neither did I find much to argue with in yours! I was mildly amused to see you talk about 'an anthropomorphic lion paladin with Charging Smite', because it reminded me of Galitsur from the Zealot round of VC (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25561566&postcount=63), but for the most part, no real disagreement. We seem to evaluate features through a slightly different lens, and I think I just like temporary HP less than you, but we seem to be of one mind in most places.

Also, apologies for the slight nitpick, but you refer to overpowering attack as requiring 'six' levels of fighter, that should be sixteen (yeah). Not sure if that was a misreading or a typo.

I got myself mixed up after reading yours - I originally had 16 levels, but changed it to 6 since I thought I must have been mistaken. Was right the first time. Oh, well.

Still, Monk does it far better with Decisive Strike, and you can even try building the character with it from first level. Maybe next time I want to challenge myself doing some char-op with a straightclassed Monk.

Inevitability

2024-04-08, 09:49 AM

Still, Monk does it far better with Decisive Strike, and you can even try building the character with it from first level. Maybe next time I want to challenge myself doing some char-op with a straightclassed Monk.

A pity how the realities of monk weaponry make it so that the best weapon to use it with is a plain boring quarterstaff, just because that one lets you add a bigger chunk of strength modifier and power attack bonus damage. Monk weapons in general feel like there's a lot of lost potential there.

pabelfly

2024-04-08, 10:22 AM

A pity how the realities of monk weaponry make it so that the best weapon to use it with is a plain boring quarterstaff, just because that one lets you add a bigger chunk of strength modifier and power attack bonus damage. Monk weapons in general feel like there's a lot of lost potential there.

Fortunately, Thurbane has come to the rescue with ways to expand your list of Monk weapons.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?653935-Expanding-Special-Monk-Weapons

There should be a few decent options in there, and if not, I've always wanted to see what I can do with unarmed strikes and Power Attack isn't a completely terrible option with Decisive Strike.

Reprimand

2024-04-08, 10:31 AM

I'm curious, what do people think of the starting packages and sample encounters for the new classes? If you had to pick a starting package for each class, which ones would you say are the best?

I'm somewhat astonished that none of the beguilers have Diplomacy, to the point where I had to look back and confirm for myself that it is actually a class skill. One of them is also using medium armor and a heavy steel shield without proficiency in either, which is...a bold choice, I gotta say, but I guess if you want to rock a 40% spell failure chance, you do you. I think the human with the trapfinding skills is probably the best one.

The starting packages for dragon shaman don't include which auras they chose, only which dragon. I find that odd. Honestly, all of them look pretty miserable to me. Two of them take Power Attack even though they have +0 BAB. That's so sad. I guess I'd go with the dwarf, which has Shield Specialization instead.

I'll say this for the duskblade starting packages, they all sure do know how to allocate their ability scores. I hate the feats on all of them, though. I'd probably pick the dwarf because I like the spell selection and dwarves at least have solid racial abilities.

The human knight going ham on mounted feats and not having enough money to afford a mount is such a sad thing to me. I think the dwarf is the winner of the three for me, with the most useful feat and the strongest weapon, although I respect the half-orc's higher Strength score.

I actually kinda like the sample second rank warrior in the book with a long spear. Actually contributes in that 5 x 5 hallway clogged with enemies and can rotate and hold its own. Its definately not a good class but I could definately see a party of like a Barbarian, Dragon Shaman, Druid, Sorceror. All sort of fitting together pretty well.

holbita

2024-04-08, 10:52 AM

Thing to note about decisive strike that tends to be overlook... it's a full round action, not a full-attack. And as such is eligible for dividing the action in two standard actions over two turns. What is interesting about this? This actually allows you to move and attack, using your monk speed and decisive strike together... something that our poor little brother flurry of attacks cannot really do by itself. That alone makes it so much better class design than the base... truth is, the monk really suffers from their kit pulling them in very different directions, it's nice they have something like this to unify their playstyle.

Reprimand

2024-04-08, 11:07 AM

holbita

2024-04-08, 11:17 AM

Actually flurry is a full attack action. They both take a full-round action to perform so usually you don't really care about the distinction but...

Start/Complete Full-Round Action: https://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#startCompleteFullRoundAction

The "start full-round action" standard action lets you start undertaking a full-round action, which you can complete in the following round by using another standard action. You can’t use this action to start or complete a full attack, charge, run, or withdraw.

Meaning that you can do this with decisive strike, but not with flurry.

Prime32

2024-04-08, 11:23 AM

Isn't flurry ALSO a full-round action? The neat part about decisive stike is that the double damage DOES apply to AoOs. I've seen some cute stunning fist AoO builds kinda pop off with pharoh's fist from SS.
I feel like there's potential in Quickening the distracting shoutCPsI power to make everyone around you provoke AoOs, but I'm not sure how to handle the non-scaling Will save to negate.

Wildstag

2024-04-09, 01:12 AM

I see a lot of people talking about the Alternate Class Features, and though they are prominent (especially on a board that loves its optimizations), I sometimes like looking through the Character Themes. This time, I looked at some of the classes I rarely pay attention to. A few highlights below. Admittedly, I do like the two Druid ACFs. They make them feel unique in a good way.

Bard: This section has a bit on "How to write a riddle" AND a section on how to write a (basic) cipher. Pretty neat even if they'd almost never show up in actual use at the table. This reminds me of the "Drink and Tell" game from Races of Stone, so maybe it's a Noonan-influenced page?

Cleric: Similarly, I love the "Giver of Blessings" and "Prayerful" pieces. They look like they'd get irritating at the table but they're neat little chunks of realness.

Favored Soul: I'm not a fan of all the prophecy aspects, but the section on "Making a Prophecy" is interesting, but doesn't look like it'd work well as a player-centric thing.

Fighter: The sidebar about scars is really fun to read. These bits of advice and guidance are why I appreciate this book.

Monk: Ugh. It's just pure cringe.

Rogue: I love the suggestions in the "Braggart" and "Common-born Hero" sections, they're really just fun to read.

Scout: The "Military Heritage" (I'd have written it as "Military Background") is a fun read with its suggested 'seven strategic principles'. I can see it being annoying, but also full of character.

Overall, a fun chapter. I love seeing those little nuggets of advice.

Darg

2024-04-09, 04:33 PM

I know I'm a little late to the party and I do agree with most of the criticisms of the PHBII classes; however, I would like to point out an avenue of discussion for dragon shaman. The book came out in 2006 and the Draconomicon came out in 2003 with the introduction of metabreath feats. While I can agree that the dragon shaman is a little lacking in most areas, it was given a 1d4 breath that specifically qualifies for these feats unlike the per day versions of half dragon, dragon disciple, and dragon samurai or the at will version from the dragonfire adept.

So while yes the dragon shaman is indeed not quite as excellent at other roles I must disagree that it's a boring class. Most classes don't usually start becoming interesting action wise until 6th level anyways and that is the first level you can qualify for a metabreath feat and they are powerful and can make the class' primary active ability quite the interesting tactical tool. Metabreath feats combine with breath channeling feats quite nicely too.

AMFV

2024-04-09, 05:07 PM

Darg

2024-04-09, 10:13 PM

The issue isn't that it's weak. The issue is that mainly you're there for your aura. So your function is to stand there. You get a metabreath feat... And then your function is to breathe one time at the start of combat and then stand there. It's just not a fun gameplay loop. The auras can be quite powerful. And The Meta breath breath weapon thing is usually impactful for at least a couple turns

Except you aren't looking at the character as a whole. The character gets medium BAB, medium armor and shield proficiency, and two good saves too. While you aren't a character with a lot of skill points, for the most part the skills you do have are useful even when not fully invested in. The combat loop is as simple as it is for any other medium BAB class and you don't see them sitting back doing nothing. Metabreaths can be incredibly powerful. Set up a heightened maximized clinging breath for 10 rounds and watch as enemies try to remove it and fail, wasting full-round actions and falling prone to improve their odds all while simply dying as you wait for their deaths or remove their heads. I'd argue that a fighter, barbarian, paladin, and ranger are even more "boring" in that they are also incredibly one note in how they approach combat. But what they don't have is an area attack that can shape the battle field to their advantage. What exactly would you argue is more fun about a barbarian mechanically? That they get a once per encounter, x per day rage they can use that gives them higher numbers and then just do the same things the dragon shaman can do without their features? Dragon shaman is not that boring mechanically and I think the issue is that the common thing to do is to conflate numbers with fun and call it a day. The dragon shaman is not a flashy class, but it doesn't need to be. It has tactical elements to it that do provide a neat interaction with combat that is different from other classes and you get unlimited uses of dragon's breath.

AMFV

2024-04-09, 10:49 PM

Except you aren't looking at the character as a whole. The character gets medium BAB, medium armor and shield proficiency, and two good saves too. While you aren't a character with a lot of skill points, for the most part the skills you do have are useful even when not fully invested in. The combat loop is as simple as it is for any other medium BAB class and you don't see them sitting back doing nothing.

You do actually unless they have some way to boost their stuff. Clerics can buff themselves up, Druids can buff themselves up. Swordsages get a lot of things so that they're only using their main attack bonus. PsyWars also have lots of self buffs. Rogues have ways of stacking a bunch more damage, and even then they require a TON of work to make decent. Monks are... pretty awful. The combat loop for almost all those classes doesn't involve using their BAB, most of them involve buffing themselves. You see that in PF1E, where they had buffed them.

Metabreaths can be incredibly powerful. Set up a heightened maximized clinging breath for 10 rounds and watch as enemies try to remove it and fail, wasting full-round actions and falling prone to improve their odds all while simply dying as you wait for their deaths or remove their heads.

Clinging breath lasts exactly two rounds

Your breath weapon has its normal effect, but also clings to anything caught in its area. A clinging breath weapon lasts for 1 round. In the round after you breathe

You're thinking of Entangling Exhalation.

When you use your breath weapon, you can choose to enmesh all creatures in its area instead of producing its normal effect. Your breath weapon deals only half its normal damage; however, any creature that takes damage from your breath weapon becomes entangled and takes an extra 1d6 points of damage, of the same energy type as normally dealt by your breath weapon, each round at the start of your turn. This effect lasts for 1d4 rounds

That lasts for a maximum of four rounds, and does only 1d6 damage per round. Damage which isn't maximized by Maximize Breath since that explicitly doesn't modify any of the other effects of the damage.

Heightened only affects the saving throw.

You'll be waiting FIVE additional rounds, so you could be waiting NINE rounds before you get to breath again. And you've spent every single feat you have on that. Every one. You can't get Metabreath feats till level 6, since you don't get your breath weapon till level 4.

Edit: what you can do is take the feat multiple times to make it last longer... But it's halving the damage every round. And you'd have to take the feat NINE times to have it last ten rounds.

I'd argue that a fighter, barbarian, paladin, and ranger are even more "boring" in that they are also incredibly one note in how they approach combat.

I mean you can build a tripping fighter, a charging fighter, a variety of different ranger builds. Paladin gets a bunch of love and options with SotAO and a few other options. They're also a little underwhelming though.

But what they don't have is an area attack that can shape the battle field to their advantage. What exactly would you argue is more fun about a barbarian mechanically?

Ubercharging is a really fun mechanic. Barbarian intimidation can be really fun. Barbarians get a lot of really fun Prestige Classes. I mean those are all fun options.

That they get a once per encounter, x per day rage they can use that gives them higher numbers and then just do the same things the dragon shaman can do without their features

Where are you getting those feats? You don't have the feats to spare for even charging much less the BAB. You're spending all your feats on your metabreath.

Dragon shaman is not that boring mechanically and I think the issue is that the common thing to do is to conflate numbers with fun and call it a day. The dragon shaman is not a flashy class, but it doesn't need to be. It has tactical elements to it that do provide a neat interaction with combat that is different from other classes and you get unlimited uses of dragon's breath.

The Dragon Shaman doesn't get "unlimited use of dragon's breath." You're thinking of the Dragonfire Adept. The Dragon Shaman gets likely one breath a combat.

Edit: Dragon Shaman is a class that could have had a lot of potential. But it just misses the mark. DFA is the class that really fulfills that fantasy in a pretty awesome way.

Darg

2024-04-10, 12:11 AM

You do actually unless they have some way to boost their stuff. Clerics can buff themselves up, Druids can buff themselves up. Swordsages get a lot of things so that they're only using their main attack bonus. PsyWars also have lots of self buffs. Rogues have ways of stacking a bunch more damage, and even then they require a TON of work to make decent. Monks are... pretty awful. The combat loop for almost all those classes doesn't involve using their BAB, most of them involve buffing themselves. You see that in PF1E, where they had buffed them.

You're comparing a noncaster with casters and pseudocasters. Not really a fair comparison there. I was never arguing the dragon shaman's power level, just the fact that they aren't actually more boring or incapable compared to other similar classes. I could argue about your characterizations of rogues and monks, but you said nothing about how they are more interesting than the dragon shaman other than the rogue does more damage, with a lot of work.

Clinging breath lasts exactly two rounds

You can stack the effect multiple times on the same breathe. You can make it last as long as you want with the corresponding number of rounds of delay for your next use.

You're thinking of Entangling Exhalation.

While I did mention breath channeling feats in my original post, clinging breath does allow those affected to take a full-round action to attempt another save to remove the effect and with a +2 if they drop prone

That lasts for a maximum of four rounds, and does only 1d6 damage per round. Damage which isn't maximized by Maximize Breath since that explicitly doesn't modify any of the other effects of the damage.

Entangling Exhalation allows your breath to do half damage initially and then 1d6 per round of entanglement. The half damage would be maximized, but the original example was clinging breath and not exhalation.

Heightened only affects the saving throw.

You'll be waiting FIVE additional rounds, so you could be waiting NINE rounds before you get to breath again. And you've spent every single feat you have on that. Every one. You can't get Metabreath feats till level 6, since you don't get your breath weapon till level 4.

Edit: what you can do is take the feat multiple times to make it last longer... But it's halving the damage every round. And you'd have to take the feat NINE times to have it last ten rounds.

You should reread the stacking rules for metabreath feats. You don't have to take the feat multiple times; you just use them multiple times on the same breath, stacking the effect and penalty.

Clinging breath doesn't halve your damage, it does half the damage every round after the first. The whole point of the heighten is to make it incredibly difficult to simply remove the effect or reduce the initial damage in the first place (which subsequently reduces the damage per round). So if I had CON 20 and heightened to +5, the total delay in rounds until I could use the breath again from my example is 1d4+17. Though, it would be unlikely that I'd need to use the breath again after that.

I mean you can build a tripping fighter, a charging fighter, a variety of different ranger builds. Paladin gets a bunch of love and options with SotAO and a few other options. They're also a little underwhelming though.

You can do a whole bunch of different things with dragon shaman based on their unique mechanics just like you are doing with all of those.

Ubercharging is a really fun mechanic. Barbarian intimidation can be really fun. Barbarians get a lot of really fun Prestige Classes. I mean those are all fun options.

Ubercharging is only fun if your DM only ever gives you flat fields and never any difficult terrain or obstacles. Not to mention all the the ways tanking your AC can be heavily exploited to flat out kill you BEFORE you attack. Dragon shaman can pump intimidation too as it's a class skill. PRCs are fully under the purview of your DM. Never are you guaranteed to have a PRC nor are splatbooks the only source of legal PRCs. In fact you are even encouraged by the DMG to design and tailor your own for your campaign.

Where are you getting those feats? You don't have the feats to spare for even charging much less the BAB. You're spending all your feats on your metabreath.

You don't need a feat to charge. The only thing that makes ubercharging stand out is that a barbarian ACF grants a feature more powerful than an epic feat at level 1. Otherwise, it's literally just charging with more attack rolls.

The Dragon Shaman doesn't get "unlimited use of dragon's breath." You're thinking of the Dragonfire Adept. The Dragon Shaman gets likely one breath a combat.

Edit: Dragon Shaman is a class that could have had a lot of potential. But it just misses the mark. DFA is the class that really fulfills that fantasy in a pretty awesome way.

Baseline the breath can be used after 1d4 rounds. If you roll a 1 there is no delay as durations end just before the initiative count they were started on. And while dragon shaman can forego the likelihood of multiple breaths, it can provide a lot of damage and options for that one breath that the DFA just can't (unless you are allowed to pick up metabreaths).

DFA is inherently a selfish class. Everything it does is for itself. Sure it gives you a more breath focused experience, but at the same time you miss out on the PHB2 auras, draconic adaptation, touch of vitality, medium BAB, and armor proficiencies of the shaman. Ultimately they are just completely different classes that fulfill completely different roles and playstyles. To say that DFA is the class that fulfills the dragon breath maniac fantasy is true, but dragon shaman was never intended to be that so comparing the fantasies just doesn't work.

AMFV

2024-04-10, 12:36 AM

You're comparing a noncaster with casters and pseudocasters. Not really a fair comparison there. I was never arguing the dragon shaman's power level, just the fact that they aren't actually more boring or incapable compared to other similar classes. I could argue about your characterizations of rogues and monks, but you said nothing about how they are more interesting than the dragon shaman other than the rogue does more damage, with a lot of work.

I was actually comparing to every medium BAB class I could think of. I guess we could add Ninja to that list.

Edit: It is pretty telling that almost every medium BAB base class is a caster or pseudocaster.

You can stack the effect multiple times on the same breathe. You can make it last as long as you want with the corresponding number of rounds of delay for your next use.

That is actually not correct. You can take the feat multiple times. Hmmm, maybe I am misreading that. It's still halving every round though so it's pretty meaningless by round 10. So yes you could apply it multiple times. But it's not going to be very meaningful because:

the clinging breath weapon deals half of the damage it dealt in the previous round - Emphasis mine.

So that would be halving damage every round. So a 20th level Dragon Shaman would do 60 damage the first round on creatures that didn't save, 30 the following the round on creatures that failed their save, then 15, then 7. That's not particularly great damage for level 20. And you'll find that's the case throughout. You're just not doing that much damage with it. Although I am glad I misread that.. That does make it more powerful.

Edit: 6 rounds would be the maximum at 20th level before it zeros out.

You should reread the stacking rules for metabreath feats. You don't have to take the feat multiple times; you just use them multiple times on the same breath, stacking the effect and penalty.

You should reread the rules for metabreath feats. The Clinging one has a special exception that allows you to use it multiple times. Heighten breath does not allow you to use it multiple times. You can increase the DC by more than 1 though. Eventually though you have to be concerned about potentially running into another combat or something. Again Clinging Breath specifically allows you to use it multiple times on the same breath

Clinging breath doesn't halve your damage, it does half the damage every round after the first. The whole point of the heighten is to make it incredibly difficult to simply remove the effect or reduce the initial damage in the first place (which subsequently reduces the damage per round). So if I had CON 20 and heightened to +5, the total delay in rounds until I could use the breath again from my example is 1d4+17. Though, it would be unlikely that I'd need to use the breath again after that.

Yeah, it's a pretty decent effect, you get to do one fun thing in the combat. And then you don't get to do anything because you have medium BAB which isn't enough to optimize any combat style and you don't have the feats to do any of that cause all your feats are metabreath to optimize the ONE time you get to breath in combat. Again it halves each round. So again at 20th level, you are doing 60 + 30 + 15 + 7 + 3 + 1... 116 damage, if you can get all the enemies that's pretty decent, but you're not likely to be able to. And honestly the enemies aren't going to burn rounds trying to stop 30 damage... or less. And that's 116 damage assuming that they never make any saves.

Edit: Let's compare to Inferno Blast a 9th level maneuver and a bad one. It does 100 damage INSTANTLY in a 60' radius, you can use that more than once in a combat. In fact you can probably use the Instant Recovery feat to use the round after next.

As part of this maneuver, you charge an opponent. In addition, all allies within 30 feet of you at the beginning of your turn can also charge this target as an immediate action. You and allied creatures do not block each other when determining if you can charge. Your charge attack deals an extra 50 points of damage, and those of your allies each deal an extra 25 points of damage. For each ally who charges, counting yourself, your charge attack and those of your allies are made with a cumulative +2 bonus (in addition to the normal bonus provided by charging). An opponent struck by you and at least one other ally is stunned for 1 round.

If you have even one guy that can charge that's WAY more than 116 damage. And we're doing that three levels before the Dragon Shaman. Like the breath is okay, but it's not past okay.

You can do a whole bunch of different things with dragon shaman based on their unique mechanics just like you are doing with all of those.

No you can't... because you spent all your feats on metabreath, if you didn't your breath sucks and if you aren't paying attention to your breath why are you playing Dragon Shaman, just play a Marshall.

Take a look at these:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?127026-3-X-Person-Man-s-Guide-to-Melee-Combos

How many of them have no feat investment? None of them. Every single combat style requires some feat investment, or spell investment.

Ubercharging is only fun if your DM only ever gives you flat fields and never any difficult terrain or obstacles. Not to mention all the the ways tanking your AC can be heavily exploited to flat out kill you BEFORE you attack. Dragon shaman can pump intimidation too as it's a class skill. PRCs are fully under the purview of your DM. Never are you guaranteed to have a PRC nor are splatbooks the only source of legal PRCs. In fact you are even encouraged by the DMG to design and tailor your own for your campaign.

I'm confused as to what point you're making here. Barbarians have more published PrCs that are good. Dragon Shamans have ZERO. Most campaigns do not involve DM tailor designed PrCs we have enough play data to know that's the case. In fact most games are not going to allow PrCs that weren't published in a first party book (maybe Dragon Magazine now, because it's become more popular to allow that)

Most enemies aren't going to be able to kill an ubercharger in one hit, they have good HP and they probably have Wall of Blades or some other defensive measure. And if they don't then that's part of that class. It is more fun to charge an enemy and die than it is to stand there doing nothing after the first round and you've blown your breath. That's the issue.

You don't need a feat to charge. The only thing that makes ubercharging stand out is that a barbarian ACF grants a feature more powerful than an epic feat at level 1. Otherwise, it's literally just charging with more attack rolls.

I mean the visual is pretty significant. You need at least a couple feats to be good at charging.

Baseline the breath can be used after 1d4 rounds. If you roll a 1 there is no delay as durations end just before the initiative count they were started on. And while dragon shaman can forego the likelihood of multiple breaths, it can provide a lot of damage and options for that one breath that the DFA just can't (unless you are allowed to pick up metabreaths).

DFA is inherently a selfish class. Everything it does is for itself. Sure it gives you a more breath focused experience, but at the same time you miss out on the PHB2 auras, draconic adaptation, touch of vitality, medium BAB, and armor proficiencies of the shaman. Ultimately they are just completely different classes that fulfill completely different roles and playstyles. To say that DFA is the class that fulfills the dragon breath maniac fantasy is true, but dragon shaman was never intended to be that so comparing the fantasies just doesn't work.

The Auras are not very good, that's why trading them for Invocations is always recommended. I mean low level some of them are okay. Draconic Adaptation only helps you. Medium BAB is not particularly useful. Armor proficiencies are inherently selfish. Dragon Shaman just doesn't do what it's supposed to. It doesn't really buff the party that much. It doesn't really make you feel like a dragon. It's just a dud. And this is coming from somebody who likes optimizing duds. The amount of work you have to do to make a Dragon Shaman playable is bonkers.

Also the DFA Entangling all the enemies round after round is pretty party friendly.

Darg

2024-04-10, 09:48 AM

I was actually comparing to every medium BAB class I could think of. I guess we could add Ninja to that list.

Edit: It is pretty telling that almost every medium BAB base class is a caster or pseudocaster.

You don't have to just compare it to other medium BAB classes. It's quite a bit more interesting than a fighter and quite as capable or more so in several ways.

That is actually not correct. You can take the feat multiple times. Hmmm, maybe I am misreading that. It's still halving every round though so it's pretty meaningless by round 10. So yes you could apply it multiple times. But it's not going to be very meaningful because:

- Emphasis mine.

So that would be halving damage every round. So a 20th level Dragon Shaman would do 60 damage the first round on creatures that didn't save, 30 the following the round on creatures that failed their save, then 15, then 7. That's not particularly great damage for level 20. And you'll find that's the case throughout. You're just not doing that much damage with it. Although I am glad I misread that.. That does make it more powerful.

Edit: 6 rounds would be the maximum at 20th level before it zeros out.

You didn't even bother to quote the entire sentence which would have clarified what you claim is incorrect.

In the round after you breathe, the clinging breath weapon deals half of the damage it dealt in the previous round.

When it says previous round it is talking about the round that you use the breath. Technically, if you're trying to make a RAW argument the one you should be making is that any round after the second does no damage because the text never says that they can do damage. Then again, that would literally defeat the purpose of being able to stack the effect so it's a loss either way.

You should reread the rules for metabreath feats. The Clinging one has a special exception that allows you to use it multiple times. Heighten breath does not allow you to use it multiple times. You can increase the DC by more than 1 though. Eventually though you have to be concerned about potentially running into another combat or something. Again Clinging Breath specifically allows you to use it multiple times on the same breath

I mean, we could get into the RAW argument about how metabreaths stack, but that would derail the thread. Just know that the "special exception" is not that they can be used more than once on a breath (that's just a general rule), but rather that they alter how combining effects work. Traditionally, if you use the same effect more than once it works exactly as stated. In the case of clinging breath this would mean that you create multiple instances of clinging breath that all would do their damage in the second round. Stack it 10 times and do 5x the original damage in the second round. The special text works by altering this and instead has it tack on extra rounds instead.

Yeah, it's a pretty decent effect, you get to do one fun thing in the combat. And then you don't get to do anything because you have medium BAB which isn't enough to optimize any combat style and you don't have the feats to do any of that cause all your feats are metabreath to optimize the ONE time you get to breath in combat. Again it halves each round. So again at 20th level, you are doing 60 + 30 + 15 + 7 + 3 + 1... 116 damage, if you can get all the enemies that's pretty decent, but you're not likely to be able to. And honestly the enemies aren't going to burn rounds trying to stop 30 damage... or less. And that's 116 damage assuming that they never make any saves.

Edit: Let's compare to Inferno Blast a 9th level maneuver and a bad one. It does 100 damage INSTANTLY in a 60' radius, you can use that more than once in a combat. In fact you can probably use the Instant Recovery feat to use the round after

Besides the incorrect premise of how clinging breath stacks, at level 1 medium BAB is only -1 AB at level 1 and only -5 at level 17. Yes, it becomes significant, but at the same time it's really not that bad overall. You aren't meant to be the martial god, but saying you can't contribute is minimalist in the extreme.

Comparing a ToB martial to a non-ToB martial is like comparing a Wizard to a warmage to prove that warmage is a terrible class. It doesn't actually do what you think it does.

If you have even one guy that can charge that's WAY more than 116 damage. And we're doing that three levels before the Dragon Shaman. Like the breath is okay, but it's not past okay.

Charging is an action anyone can make... I don't know how you think someone is doing more than 116 damage at level one. It's like you're trying to overexaggerate to prove a point that I'm failing to grasp here.

No you can't... because you spent all your feats on metabreath, if you didn't your breath sucks and if you aren't paying attention to your breath why are you playing Dragon Shaman, just play a Marshall.

Take a look at these:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?127026-3-X-Person-Man-s-Guide-to-Melee-Combos

How many of them have no feat investment? None of them. Every single combat style requires some feat investment, or spell investment.

And focusing on your breath combat style requires feat investment. Your argument here contradicts itself.

I'm confused as to what point you're making here. Barbarians have more published PrCs that are good. Dragon Shamans have ZERO. Most campaigns do not involve DM tailor designed PrCs we have enough play data to know that's the case. In fact most games are not going to allow PrCs that weren't published in a first party book (maybe Dragon Magazine now, because it's become more popular to allow that)

PRCs are alternative rules. Judging a class based on rules that aren't guaranteed and when allowed not faithfully followed is not the fault of the class itself. That's on the DM of the campaign. That's like saying being an anthropomorphic whale is better than being human. Objectively true, but it doesn't mean it's always an option.

Most enemies aren't going to be able to kill an ubercharger in one hit, they have good HP and they probably have Wall of Blades or some other defensive measure. And if they don't then that's part of that class. It is more fun to charge an enemy and die than it is to stand there doing nothing after the first round and you've blown your breath. That's the issue.

So, taking one turn and dying while losing a level is more fun than staying alive and contributing more? Your kind of fun just seems much less fun to me.

I mean the visual is pretty significant. You need at least a couple feats to be good at charging.

And again it's hard to know what you are arguing for.

The Auras are not very good, that's why trading them for Invocations is always recommended. I mean low level some of them are okay. Draconic Adaptation only helps you. Medium BAB is not particularly useful. Armor proficiencies are inherently selfish. Dragon Shaman just doesn't do what it's supposed to. It doesn't really buff the party that much. It doesn't really make you feel like a dragon. It's just a dud. And this is coming from somebody who likes optimizing duds. The amount of work you have to do to make a Dragon Shaman playable is bonkers.

Power is a free -1 to -5 for power attack, for everyone in the aura. Senses increases initiative and the ability to notice enemies before they notice you. If you don't know how powerful that is, I can't help you. Medium BAB allows you to have a decent to hit chance and medium armor allows you to wade into the melee with some protection. Making the shaman playable is only as much work as you have to put in for other noncasters/nonpseudocasters.

Also the DFA Entangling all the enemies round after round is pretty party friendly.

DFA is a pseudocaster. I get that you prefer the flavor of it over the dragon shaman, but that really has nothing to do with the merits and demerits of the dragon shaman class other than that you think the dragon breath should be the sole focus of the class.

Troacctid

2024-04-10, 11:34 AM

I like the "How I got this scar" stories for the fighter. "Yeah, turns out this girl I was seeing was actually a werewolf."

pabelfly

2024-04-10, 03:34 PM

I get why the Dragonfire Adept and Dragon Shaman get compared so often, since they seem to be in the same niche of "dragon, but a playable class". However, I think it more apt to compare Dragon Shaman to Marshall, since both are classes with auras that affect all allies around them.

DrMartin

2024-04-10, 04:41 PM

PB II includes design work from Brunner and Schwalb, which then went on to design Spellbound Kingdoms and Shadow of the demon Lord respectively, and although we cannot know for sure what each of those authors contributed to this book, I can see some of ideas from those games in some kind of proto-form being implemented here.

The four new classes in the PB II remind me a lot of the compact and thematic classes (which are called Paths) from shadow of the demon lord - each with a strong concept and a core mechanic. The concept for the knight is not just a Fighter that Fights, has its own specific role within the "dudes that fight" design space. Same for the Beguiler being a specific implementation of the "dude that casts". Other material in this book like the Heritage Feats for sorcerers or the Starting Packages suggestion for existing classes also go in this directions, trying to provide thematically cohesive bundles of features.

In a similar way, Tactical Feats remind me of the cool, flowchart based combat styles in spellbound kingdoms. The implementation in dnd is not very good - a combination of lackluster benefits, poor synergy with better options, requirements that means they don't come online early enough in a character's career to matter, and in general suffer from being an add-on tacked on the combat and feat system rather than being the base of the combat system itself. Which they are in spellbound kingdoms, and there combat styles really shine.

And one could say pretty much exactly the same thing for the Affiliations mechanics - cool concept, but in dnd it just feels "tacked on" as a floppy accessory, rather than fitting neatly into the game core. And again, another thing that Brunner implemented in a more cohesive way in Spellbound kingdoms.

AMFV

2024-04-10, 06:47 PM

You don't have to just compare it to other medium BAB classes. It's quite a bit more interesting than a fighter and quite as capable or more so in several ways.

That's not the case. Fighters have several tricks. Tripping, Charging, Dungeoncrasher. And fighter is also a problem in this area. Even the "Fighter who gets 9th level spells" as I recall, although I don't remember the specific mechanics.

When it says previous round it is talking about the round that you use the breath. Technically, if you're trying to make a RAW argument the one you should be making is that any round after the second does no damage because the text never says that they can do damage. Then again, that would literally defeat the purpose of being able to stack the effect so it's a loss either way.

Hold up, in WHAT ****ING WORLD DOES PREVIOUS ROUND NOT MEAN THE ROUND BEFORE. You are completely wrong here. If it meant "the first round" it would say that.

Edit: It can do damage for every round after it did damage. The breath weapon did damage on the second round just half. Any round until it does 1 damage.

Chronos

2024-04-10, 07:18 PM

And even aside from fighters having more ways to use their BAB, they also have more of it. Even if both the fighter and the dragon shaman are just attacking, fighters are still better at it, by virtue of having more attack bonus. And also better weapon proficiencies, better armor so they can survive being in the front line, and a bunch of feats that all support fighting with a weapon.

A fighter fights with a weapon because that's what he's good at. A dragon shaman fights with a weapon because he's got nothing better to do.

But yeah, the dragon shaman is at least significantly better than the marshal, since they at least get something other than their auras.

Wildstag

2024-04-10, 08:57 PM

I like the "How I got this scar" stories for the fighter. "Yeah, turns out this girl I was seeing was actually a werewolf."

Including a Noodle Incident in the list was a nice touch.

pabelfly

2024-04-10, 08:59 PM

But yeah, the dragon shaman is at least significantly better than the marshal, since they at least get something other than their auras.

I don't know about significantly better, since when we tiered 3e classes, Marshal was ranked slightly higher than Dragon Shaman. Marshal has more aura options and they can affect a wider choice of stats, and keying Minor Auras off Charisma means you can get fairly decent bonuses, compared to the very slow scaling of Dragon Shaman.

Still, I'd prefer Marshal (and Dragon Shaman) on either an NPC or a character mount. As stated before with much more eloquence, it just isn't very exciting knowing you've boosted the bonuses of your allies and you're not really directly contributing to combat.

AMFV

2024-04-10, 09:43 PM

I don't know about significantly better, since when we tiered 3e classes, Marshal was ranked slightly higher than Dragon Shaman. Marshal has more aura options and they can affect a wider choice of stats, and keying Minor Auras off Charisma means you can get fairly decent bonuses, compared to the very slow scaling of Dragon Shaman.

Still, I'd prefer Marshal (and Dragon Shaman) on either an NPC or a character mount. As stated before with much more eloquence, it just isn't very exciting knowing you've boosted the bonuses of your allies and you're not really directly contributing to combat.

The other big issue is that Dragon Shaman is competing with Dragonfire Inspiration Bard for "Dragony ally buffing" and DFI bard is just way better. It's going to feel much better as well.

Chronos

2024-04-11, 03:37 PM

Both marshal and dragon shaman get most of their power from their auras, and marshal's auras are better overall. But both have auras that are good enough, and both have the problem of being boring other than their auras. The dragon shaman eventually gets something cool and splashy once per combat or so, which helps that fundamental problem.

pabelfly

2024-04-12, 09:46 AM

I think what I like about this book so far is that there’s something here for you, whatever mood you’re in. If you were playing 3e back in the day, this would be a good, general pick to expand your build options if you didn’t have any specific interests, or were on a fairly tight budget. Moreover, from the options, there would be some really good new toys for you, while a good portion of it has hit the sweet spot for power – strong enough to be interesting without being too overpowered.

It's less relevant now with how cheap the official PDF sourcebook are, but I'm sure I would have really appreciated this sourcebook back during 3e's release period.

AMFV

2024-04-12, 09:54 AM

pabelfly

2024-04-14, 07:02 AM

Chapter Three: New Feats

Chapter three gives us a whole bunch of feats to choose from to support a variety of builds, classes and playstyles. I've spent way too much time writing out my opinions over the last week, but before I post my opinions, I want to give other people a chance to discuss what they thought about the feats in this book.

Wildstag

2024-04-14, 11:50 PM

STEADFAST DETERMINATION!!!!!

Yeah, that's literally my favorite feat for a martial, and it 100% justifies taking Endurance (also the Ring of Arming allows using medium armor as pajamas and real heavy armor in danger).

I like Melee Weapon Mastery as a feat, like, genuinely it's interesting even though it's bad math. And Versatile Unarmed Strike makes fists do fun things for DR bypassing (at lowish levels).

I wish Combat Form feats were actually just a feature of being Fighter, instead of eating feats. It feels like the sort of thing a 5e Barbarian or Fighter could have as an archetype.

pabelfly

2024-04-15, 12:39 AM

General Feats

Active Shield Defense – I could see this working for an Attack of Opportunity build. Robilar’s Gambit works regardless of whether an opponent hits you or not, so boosting your AC but not worrying about attack roll penalties is helpful. You could still get the benefit of a two-handed weapon with an Animated Shield, although I’d want to hunt down some armor check reduction bonuses to hopefully carry a tower shield with minimal AC penalties.

Adaptable Flanker – this could help the sneak attacker of the party out, but it's a tough ask to ask someone else to take this to benefit you when not only could you be boosting yourself instead, but the character it's aiding could die without warning.

Arcane Accompaniment – I don’t play bards, but do they have enough problems with Bardic Music that you’d want this feat, and to lose spell slots to use it each time?

Arcane Consumption – flavourful and a nice boost to spell DC, if you don’t mind the penalties attached. It’s really hard to find this sort of boost with a single feat (Pious Spellsurge comes kinda close though).

Arcane Thesis – I think this feat is too powerful, even with a relatively strict interpretation that it only works on +1 or higher metamagics. Stacking metamagic is a huge boost of power for arcane blasters, and this is probably the most potent metamagic reducer. I’ll still put it on my blasters though. Legal cheese is still legal.

Arcane Toughness – this is not bad for a caster, I feel there’s a decent length of time when you play where you can conceivably expect to reach between 0 and -10 HP when getting downed by an enemy.

Armor Specialization – no-one cares about 2/ damage reduction at level 12, and there’s nothing about stacking it with other sources of damage reduction either. Pass.

Bonded Familiar – great feat, nice flavour, and makes a compelling argument keeping your familiar, or at least getting it back on after trading it away.

Bounding Assault – this takes you four feats deep into Spring Attack, but dipping Barbarian for overpowered charging is much cheaper. Getting to move before and after an attack is nice but a much weaker playstyle

Brutal Strike – this would be a nice secondary effect for a Power Attack build at low optimization levels, but I think most of us are just OHKOing our enemies with martial builds. If you aren’t though, this is not a bad secondary effect.

Combat Acrobat – if you need to stay on solid ground for a martial build, like, say, as a charger, this can help quite a bit with that. I’d take it alongside Nimble Chare and Skill Charge, since skill tricks only work once per combat and this works every round.

Combat Familiar – making your familiar something that can contribute in combat seems like a lot of work and a lot of feats that could just be using to make yourself a better fighter, never mind that you’re much weaker if your familiar dies and you’re suddenly fighting with all of these useless feats. Same comment for most of the other Familiar-boosting feats.

Combat Tactician – this is Weapon Specialization, but it works less consistently. Pass.

Cometary Collision – here’s how I would use this. First turn, you manoeuver in front of a squishier ally, or over difficult terrain, then ready Cometary Collision. When your opponent charges during their turn, you can charge them and get a full Pounce-boosted charge off on them, and do your damage while preventing them from doing what they intended to do.

There are a few obvious points where this might not work as intended, particularly if the enemy doesn’t charge you, but it seems like an interesting enough alternate strategy, with the upside of improving your positioning and protecting squishier allies, that I might try it with the next charging build I make.

Crossbow Sniper - half dex to damage for crossbows. The synergy with dex for attack and damage rolls is nice for a ranged character, and helps make a case for itself over a composite bow.

Crushing Strike – a cumulative +1 on attack rolls with bludgeoning weapons is nice. Obviously, the more attacks you get per round, the better this is, but even with a two-handed weapon build, this can be pretty solid.

Cunning Evasion – a chance at a free hide check outside your turn, which could set you up for a sneak attack next turn. Relies on enemies using AoE spells though, so wouldn’t be my first option.

Dampen spell – this lets you lower the save of an opponent’s spell and make it easier to pass the check, and all it costs you is a spell slot. I’ve never really bothered with Counterspelling or even Improved Counterspell, but this I can see myself using. I’ll give this a try on my next spellcaster.

Deadeye Shot – hit once on flatfooted. I mean, you’ll likely not miss, but you’d hit at least once anyway in a full volley, or even a manyshot standard attack.

Defensive Sweep it gives an attack of opportunity build the chance to get more attack of opportunity triggers, but you get this late and it’s not a very consistent trigger. I’m not impressed.

Driving Attack – you can use a spear attack to knock an enemy prone. Not a bad effect.

Elven Spell Lore – +2 on dispel checks is alright, but the real reason to take this feat would be to change a spell to do a single type of damage of your choice. Let’s assume that your DM won’t allow you to change a spell to stat damage (although there is no reason you couldn’t). However, with no limitations imposed, you can pick something resisted by few enemies, or something that works for whatever is giving you caster level or spell DC bonuses. Or you could finally have a spell that deals unresisted City Damage to your enemies.

Fade Into Violence – so you can sometimes have one enemy target an ally instead of you if you’re an unarmed fighter or a quickdraw thrower. Very underwhelming.

Fiery Fist – you can spend a bonus feat, or a regular feat, to get the most widely-resisted type of elemental damage on your unarmed strike. I wouldn’t bother.

Fiery Ki Defense – you can do bonus damage to enemies that attack you in melee. The damage is the most widely-resisted, only works on melee weapons without reach, and you only deal 1d6 per hit. Not impressed.

Flay – relying on fighting enemies without an armor bonus makes this too situational for my tastes.

Grenadier – splash weapons are either weak or ridiculously expensive for being a one-time use item (see Blast Disk and Blast Globe in MIC). This feat fixes neither of those issues.

Hindering Opportunist – you can pass up an attack of opportunity to instead aid an ally against an opponent. I’d rather the attack of opportunity.

Intimidating Strike – you can put the shaken condition on something you could kill in one round. Why bother?

Indomitable Soul – Getting a +4 on most will saves is nice, but why not have it simply work for all will saves? I think there are more consistent and better options than this.

Lunging Strike – spend another feat and get Willing Deformity (Tall) or Inhuman Reach and permanently have an extra 5ft reach. Or just find a way to get Large instead. Pass.

Melee Evasion – I’d question how well this feat will work. Heck, with a bad roll, your AC could be lower than before using the feat. Pass.

Melee Weapon Mastery – Requires +8 BAB and Weapon Specialization (so probably Fighter 4) but a +2 to attack and a +2 to damage is very nice, especially when you want a character with minimal bookwork. Obviously much better the more attacks you do per round, but even with something like a Power Attack build I still think it’s a solid pick.

Overwhelming Assault – it requires a very specific set of circumstances to work, and the benefit is pretty underwhelming. Oh, and you need to have 15 BAB. Pass.

Penetrating Shot – most archers have fairly weak attacks when considered individually, so you’re unlikely to make much use out of this feat, never mind that archers are feat-intensive you won’t have room for this feat anyway.

Ranged Weapon Mastery – this is generally better for archers than Melee Weapon Mastery is for martials because of how many attacks you’re doing a round. A fighter-based archer is a solid build and are definitely finding room for this feat.

Rapid Blitz –Just find the version of Pounce you want instead and save your feat slots for something useful. Pass.

Robilar’s Gambit – a good feat that helps with a Combat Reflexes build. Yes please.

Shield Sling – throwing your shield away when your character build relies on it seems foolhardy. The fact that you can wield your shield as a thrown weapon probably doesn’t mean you can put the Returning enchant on it, but if it did I’d totally take this feat chain.

Shield Specialization – there are more efficient AC-boosting feats (I like Demonic Skin, for example) but +1 to AC isn’t bad for a prereq feat.

Shield Ward – getting your shield bonus to touch AC and resist manoeuvres is pretty nice, especially if you had a tower shield. Defensive builds aren’t great but if I was doing one I’d take this feat particularly for the bonus to touch AC.

Short Haft – getting to threaten adjacent squares with your reach weapon is pretty nice. Spiked Chain does it for an Exotic Weapon Proficiency, but if you had a build that specifically wanted/ required a spear, I’d take this feat.

Slashing Flurry – an extra attack with your weapon is very nice, even if you take a -5 penalty.

Spectral Skirmisher – the benefits aren’t bad but if you’re invisible and your enemy can’t detect you, you have an overwhelming advantage already. Pass.

Spell-Linked Familiar – another familiar buff. This one lets the familiar cast some weak spells. It’s slightly better than the other familiar feats at least, but I don’t see myself trading away a ninth-level caster feat for this.

Stalwart Defense – you need to be threatening your opponent, and if you do, you can give an ally a +2 to AC. Underwhelming.

Steadfast Determination – two feats to dump Wis and use CON instead for your will saves. Endurance is a bit of a feat tax, but this is a great feat if you have Endurance through race or you get it for free, such as with Ranger.

Telling Blow – your crits do skirmish or sneak attack damage. The problem with a crit build is when crits don’t work, not when they do.

Trophy Collector – you can get a bit of extra wealth, but the items are very situational and taking up item slots for items that can actually do things for you.

Tumbling Feint – temporary +5 to bluff if you succeed in a roll. This is only slightly better than Skill Focus, and less consistent, and Skill Focus sucks. Pass.

Two-Weapon Pounce – a ****ty version of Pounce. Just get Pounce instead.

Two-Weapon Rend – you get an extra d6 + some extra damage based on your STR, which is going to be bad because you don’t really invest in your STR for two-weapon fighting builds. Pass

Vatic Gaze – Detect Magic at will, and find out the highest level of spells a spellcaster can use. I like this feat, especially since it can often be hard or even impossible to gauge how good your enemies are, and this can help with that.

Versatile Unarmed Strike – helps punchers deal with damage resistance to bludgeoning damage, or target enemies weak to one type of weapon damage. Very nice.

Vexing Flanker – Get another +2 to attack rolls when flanking. Not bad, but not consistent enough.

Weapon Supremacy – there’s a lot of bonuses here, but the most relevant ones are adding a +5 to an attack roll, and taking 10 on an attack roll. That’s not a bad bonus. And to be honest, if you had a build with 18 levels of Fighter, are you just not going to take this?

Ceremony Feats
Very flavourful but weak mechanically. You’ll likely forget them when they apply, and your allies nearly certainly will.

Combat Form Feats
Like Abyssal Heritor feats (Fiendish Codex I), these are better if you can fit a bunch of them on your build. If I were picking three (optimal number), I’d probably go Combat Focus, Combat Defense (for a build requiring Dodge), and Combat Stability – that’s +4 to Will Saves, +2 to AC against two opponents each turn, and +8 to resist manoeuvres like Bull Rush. Not bad for three feats.

There might be other Dodge-related strategies that are worthwhile, but I won a Junkyard comp partly due to combining Combat Defense with the Word Given Mastery Martial Art from Tome of Magic. 50% evasion against attack rolls for two enemies each turn is a pretty neat combo, even if it required like eight feats to pull off. I’ll create a martial character with that feat combo for a game I actually play one day.

Divine Feats
A character with Cleric caster levels (so, Cleric or a Paladin with Practiced Spellcaster) can trade away Turn Undead uses for various effects. The Devotion Feats in Complete Champion are better and don’t require caster levels. Divine Fortune is a +4 to your saves, which could be nice for a Cleric, but if I was really worried about Cleric saves I’d just spend the two feats and lose a caster level for a Prestige Paladin dip to get WIS to all my saves instead.

Heritage Feats
They’re not bad feats, but the main concern for my sorcerer builds are typically caster level, spell DC, metamagic and metamagic reducers. Maybe my spell list if I want off-list spells. Most of these feats either don’t help with things or don’t give me what I want. I’m not really going to have the spare feats for these.

Probably the strongest feat in here is Infernal Sorcerer Heritage, which gives you two caster levels for Conjuration spells that summon evil outsiders.

Metamagic Feats
Blistering Spell – slightly more damage, with a secondary benefit of adding some negatives on some attacks and checks. I’d just go with Maximize instead, even if I specifically wanted to run a fire-themed blaster.

Earthbound Spell – I really, really like this metamagic, it gives you a lot of options.

First, gives you a chance to put down offensive spells before combat, if you can prepare the ground beforehand and guide enemies into particular spots during combat. Maybe you put up walls, or put them in front of allies to catch charging enemies. This lets you improve your action economy and allows you to get the effect of multiple spells during combat without spending time casting in combat. Not always practical if you move around a lot, but great if you have the home ground advantage.

I’d also point out this could be used on temporary buff spells for ourselves. Let’s say we are a Cleric with a potent one round/level spell like Divine Power, but we don’t want to spend Turn Undead uses to Persist the spell. We can put this in the ground in front of us for up to an hour before combat, and when combat starts, we can take a step forward (or start charging), trigger Divine Power on ourselves, while we still have the rest of our movement and a standard action to use to do what we want. Or you could set up healing spells behind a character on the back line, like an archer or a spellcaster – they can take a five-foot step back and get your healing spell cast on them while you can spend your turn doing other things.

Incredible metamagic option with some thought and the right scenario.

Flash Frost – slightly more damage, but the secondary effect of making ground areas slippery could let you ruin the day of charging enemies. I could see myself taking this for an ice-themed mage.

Imbued Summoning – while you can normally summon a creature and then cast a touch-range spell, this improves your action economy in case you have to summon, say, after an ambush or your previous summon dies or whatever. If I were running a summoning build I’d take this feat.

Smiting Spell – you can put a touch spell in a weapon for up to one minute. There’s some utility for a gish, especially one with a reach weapon. However. I think there are better ways to deliver touch spells to an enemy than this.

Tactical Manoeuvres
These feats are all flavourful but fiddly and nearly always underwhelming in power, often taking two turns to get standard or underwhelming advantages on an opponent. Let’s go through them.

Blood-Spiked Charger – you need to take Weapon Focus twice (yuck), then you have some underwhelming manoeuvres. 2x damage to STR isn’t much better than 1.5x damage to STR, spending a turn in defense to get a +2 to attack rolls is too slow, or you can spend a turn to do a single attack with a whole extra 1d6 damage.

Nice flavour at least. Pass.

Combat Cloak Expert – you can have +1 to AC (there are better ways to get this), you can spend a turn to have your enemy flatfooted next turn (good for sneak attackers, I suppose), or you can stop one enemy doing attacks of opportunity against one ally. All pretty weak. Pass.

Combat Panache – there’s one pretty good option here. After damaging an opponent one turn, the next you can intimidate as a move action, and they take a penalty on attack rolls against you equal to your Charisma. You need Bluff, Intimidate and Perform and a decent Charisma to make this work though, which is a hard venn diagram to fill. There are options from various sources with varying levels of sketchiness - the Academy Graduate feat, Anarchic Mind and Skill Prodigy, depending on what source books are allowed. You could make it work if your DM is going to be making allowances on sourcebooks, is what I’m saying.

Einhander – you can get a +2 to AC if you have a one-handed weapon with no offhand weapon or a shield, if that’s a playstyle you want to go with. The other two options are rather underwhelming.

Mad Alchemist – I said earlier that playing with grenades was an expensive and underwhelming playstyle, and this still does nothing to change it. I also feel like the Fiery Blaze option is something you could just discuss with your DM: “hey, the opponent is coated in Alchemical Fire or oil, do you think my fire item would do more damage to my opponent?

Shadow Striker – more weak options for a Rogue. If you want to get sneak attack off more often, just spend a feat to get a Wild Cohort or something else instead. Unless you really want to play the “I strike from the shadows” rogue.

Inevitability

2024-04-15, 02:51 AM

Something I like: the feats chapter starts off with a very small nod to the improved trip spiked chain fighter archetype. WotC doesn't acknowledge optimization often, but it's always fun when they do!

All in all, I think PHBII feats are slightly underpowered, but reasonably interesting in effect, and well-suited to build-arounds. The prerequisites are a bit harsh sometimes still, but miles better than the PHB with its 'four prereqs for whirlwind attack' nonsense. They're definitely great for fleshing out character concepts, but neither the concepts nor the feats themselves are guaranteed to be actually optimal. Still, I think they're definitely adding to the game, and I frequently reach for something from this book.

Some particular feats I liked:

Acrobatic Strike: Straight off the bat this is showing what I like about this book. +4 to hit is huge, though the triggering condition really drags it down... but a build specializing in swift action movement (Travel Devotion, Sudden Leap) would get a ton of payoff if they could actually slot this in. This is a good example of how a feat with a boring benefit need not be boring if it fosters interesting play.

Arcane Thesis: Probably one of the best feats in the book, and core to some very unbalanced builds, but I like it anyway because specializing in a single spell should come with a suitably large payoff.

Bounding Assault/Rapid Blitz: Actually used one of these in a build once, Spring Attack still isn't good but being able to make multiple attacks while your opponent is presumably reduced to one does fix one of the big issues with it.

Cometary Collision: Really cool visual, especially fun with those setting sun maneuvers that rely on you being charged.

Cunning Evasion: I really like this one, again it's one of those weird build-arounds where to optimally use it you either need your party to be tailored towards it or need some cheap source of AoEs on a rogue chassis. A real thinker!

Deadeye Shot: Huh, I should remember this for E6 rogues. Real fun feat, pity it just doesn't scale.

Fade Into Violence: Love this one, I love subtle support builds and this goes great with them.

Fiery Ki Feats/Ki Blast: These are really cool but really held back by stunning fist limits. Removing the Stunning Fist prerequisite and making the feats at-will would've done a lot to fix them, to be honest.

Hindering Opportunist: Just want to point out how wonkily written this is; by RAW you're forgoing attacks of opportunity to boost your opponent's attack roll.

Lunging Strike: Okay, when I praised these feats for being balanced and generally interesting, I didn't mean this. Like dang Lunging Strike is not it, I could probably figure out a way to optimize it but 'lunge to reach slightly further' isn't interesting is the problem. Short Haft is almost as bad but at least that one fixes a genuine flaw of reach weapons.

Penetrating Shot: Nevermind I like the feats again. Like what a visual this one has, just shoot straight through up to twelve guys, sure. How do you optimize it? No idea, but I'm sure there's a way!

Spectral Skirmisher: Really fun, the Evasive Reflexes combo is hilarious enough already but even as a standalone this allows for really interesting play and encourages building weird characters.

Tumbling Feint: I really don't get why a feat that encourages feinting would require an additional swift action to use, in the book that tried to make swift action feinting viable via beguiler. It still wouldn't be good (ideally this'd give some additional benefit rather than just a skill check boost) but at least it'd be less self-contradictory.

And as for the sub-category feats:

Ritual Blood Bonds: I don't have much to say about the mechanics here (it's alright, especially if you have a source of disposable minions), but did you know that in eberron, any Blood of Vol believer can take it?

Combat Form Feats: Kind of a fun concept, way too weak to be worth it. Also weird how one of those just straight up tells you people's HP totals, that's a really jarring rules/roles conflux.

Profane Aura: This actually seems kind of fun for a necromancer cleric, like sure it's not that useful directly but clogging up the battlefield while you sling spells from afar is a tried-and-true BBEG tactic.

Sorcerer Heritage Feats: I built with these once, remarkably fun and lots of flavor baked-in, I especially like Infernal Sorcerer eyes for how it encourages finding a way to get Darkness on the sorcerer list. My only complaint is that they're sorcerer-only instead of allowing other spontaneous casters access to some off-list spells.

Metamagic Feats: Quite like these, they're all very flavorful and evocative, Smiting Spell and Earthbound Spell allow for some interesting tactics, Flash Frost Spell is just stellar in terms of flavor, Imbued Summoning is amazingly versatile.

Combat Panache: Real fun, giving skills in-combat uses is something I'm always a fan of and all three effects are unique and memorable.

Mad Alchemist: My only complaint is that this isn't the start of a 5-feat chain that allows for ever greater attacks with alchemical items.

Prime32

2024-04-15, 07:46 AM

Kurald Galain

2024-04-15, 08:35 AM

pabelfly

2024-04-15, 08:51 AM

Fiery Ki Defense is such a strange feat. It requires Fiery Fist, which was already kind of meh, and then gives you an effect which is the same as Fiery Fist but harder to trigger. It feels like they were trying to emulate Dragonball, but Dragonball characters don't use auras to burn people who attack them, they just know buffs that have the side effect of making the recipient glow.

Fiery Ki Defense is weird. It says it works when you take a strike from melee, and I'm presuming that misses don't count, but you don't normally want to be taking hits in melee. We've optimized the game so we hit hard and do lots of damage. Giving an enemy 1d6 damage in return isn't a winning trade. And that's even presuming the enemy doesn't even have a slight resistance to Fire, because Fire is the most commonly-resisted element in the game (but I still wouldn't pick this if it did any other type of elemental damage).

Maybe if it scaled by 1d6 + 1d6 every fifth level it might be worth considering. It wouldn't be a great feat but at least it would support a particular type of character concept.

Kurald Galain

2024-04-15, 10:06 AM

My only criticism with the Duskblade is that their spell list is packed full with rays, but relatively few melee touch spells

The two main things I wish had been done to duskblades though: their list needed actual touch spells at their higher spell levels. The surplus of rays in the list of 4th and 5th level spells always made me feel like an earlier version of the class had a "ray to touch spell" mechanic. It doesn't though, and that makes it less interesting to play post level 13.
What's hampering the Duskblade's high "floor" is that there are quite a lot of bad spells on their (already short) list. Like, at spell level 3 you get such "gems" as Crown of Protection, Doom Scarabs, Energy Surge, Dispelling Touch (four levels after many classes get Dispel Magic), Ray of Exhaustion... even Protect from Energy is doubtful since it got Resist Energy eight levels ago. This means that almost half of its spells are decidedly meh.

And, the list should really have more spells with an attack roll and fewer with a saving throw; because a duskblade will have a much better to-hit and substantially lower save DC than a regular caster. This and the lack of melee touch spells mean that the spell list doesn't play to the class's strength.

Darg

2024-04-15, 10:28 AM

Shield Sling – throwing your shield away when your character build relies on it seems foolhardy. The fact that you can wield your shield as a thrown weapon probably doesn’t mean you can put the Returning enchant on it, but if it did I’d totally take this feat chain.

I'd say it can. Originally the only way to throw nonthrowing weapons was to make them improvised thrown weapons or attach the throwing enhancement. However, with the addition of feats that allow weapons to be thrown there's no longer such a thing as a weapon that can't be thrown. As the enhancement doesn't specify in a way that would forgo these additions, I'd say it works.

Now, to talk about the feat. I really wish it would allow you to loose the shield as a free action. As it is now you need to move to be able to get that free action. Another problem with the feat is that allowing bucklers to be thrown but literally do nothing is a little jank. Bucklers can already be thrown as improvised weapons. No reason it can't do damage at least.

Two-Weapon Pounce – a ****ty version of Pounce. Just get Pounce instead.

Two-Weapon Rend – you get an extra d6 + some extra damage based on your STR, which is going to be bad because you don’t really invest in your STR for two-weapon fighting builds. Pass[/B]

Yeah, pounce is OP. Everyone understands that. Comparing it to other forms of feat based pounce and it's at a similar power level though. Lion tribe warrior is only usable with light weapons, and blood spiked charger has a hefty feat tax.

The failing two weapon rend has is that it doesn't do weapon damage. If it were treated as an extra attack that doesn't apply precision damage it would be a two weapon staple. That said, rangers have the ability to forgo dex for a str focused TWF build, or people can just skip GTWF and only need 15 dex. Getting a +2 or +4 to dex is pretty easy to benefit from ITWF.

Vexing Flanker – Get another +2 to attack rolls when flanking. Not bad, but not consistent enough.

It's an excellent feat actually. Not for itself, but because it's the prerequisite for adaptable flanker. Adaptable flanker is good because it allows you to be your own flanker. Enlarge person makes this even better.

Blood-Spiked Charger – you need to take Weapon Focus twice (yuck), then you have some underwhelming manoeuvres. 2x damage to STR isn’t much better than 1.5x damage to STR, spending a turn in defense to get a +2 to attack rolls is too slow, or you can spend a turn to do a single attack with a whole extra 1d6 damage.

You're misreading the feat. It isn't changing your strength bonus to damage, it's adding extra damage equal to 2x your strength bonus. So in reality you're getting 3-3½ strength bonus from your shield and 2½ strength bonus for your armor spikes. If you get access to pounce such as from the lion's charge spell the bonus applies to all extra attacks. And with pounce you can get another -2 full BAB attack with TWF.

Spiked rebuke isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Fighting defensively can be extremely valuable when you need to charge into a group of enemies. It's basically a free bonus when you need it.

As for spiked slam, it works best as written rather than as the errata says it should. 2x your strength score is amazing and worth all the negatives. 2x your str bonus leaves the only real benefit as provoking an AoO to allow a flanker to move to flank without risking an AoO. Personally, if I could have been the designer for this feat, I would have instead multiplied the size bonus damage by your str bonus. It would make it competitive with other single action attacks.

Wildstag

2024-04-15, 11:15 AM

I've always wondered, who even is this Robilar?

Turns out he's an epic-level evil warrior from the Greyhawk setting, specifically a PC from the first-ever proto-D&D sessions run by Gygax himself. Huh, I wasn't expecting that. Here's an expansive Wiki article (https://greyhawkonline.com/greyhawkwiki/Robilar); I'm still wondering why he gets a feat named after him, when almost every other feat is simply named after its function. Well, at least Greyhawk is the default setting for 3E, although I don't recall it being mentioned much in the PHB line.

Robilar shows up in a number of the Dragon Magazine "Up On A Soapbox" pieces written by Gary Gygax, and is one of Robert Kuntz' characters. My personal favorite is the following image. As for why he has a feat named after him, maybe the maneuvers were supposed to be akin to spells. Some of the Circle of Eight have spells named after them (Melf and his legendary Acid Arrow, Tenser and his floating disc, Bigsby and his many dexterous hands, etc.), so Robilar's Gambit might be like that. But also, since most of Gygax's table's legends were casters, Robilar stands out as a pure-martial character.

https://i.imgur.com/DTv4QuS.png

What's hampering the Duskblade's high "floor" is that there are quite a lot of bad spells on their (already short) list. Like, at spell level 3 you get such "gems" as Crown of Protection, Doom Scarabs, Energy Surge, Dispelling Touch (four levels after many classes get Dispel Magic), Ray of Exhaustion... even Protect from Energy is doubtful since it got Resist Energy eight levels ago. This means that almost half of its spells are decidedly meh.

And, the list should really have more spells with an attack roll and fewer with a saving throw; because a duskblade will have a much better to-hit and substantially lower save DC than a regular caster. This and the lack of melee touch spells mean that the spell list doesn't play to the class's strength.

It honestly makes me wonder if at an earlier part of development they were supposed to be able to channel ray spells through their weapons, and then the devs realized they'd given the list spells such as Enervation and Polar Ray and felt like it'd be too much for a full-bab class, so they just made the channel ability melee touch spells only. Like, the few rays they have are appreciated but the list is far too narrow to be as useful as it should be.

P.S.
Steadfast Determination – two feats to dump Wis and use CON instead for your will saves. Endurance is a bit of a feat tax, but this is a great feat if you have Endurance through race or you get it for free, such as with Ranger.

The benefit that matters most isn't "dump Wis and use Con for will saves", it's that thereafter you don't automatically fail a Fortitude save on a roll of a 1. If you're already pumping con to enhance your Will save, it also makes it far less likely you'll fail certain Fortitude saves. It's not hard to end up with a high enough bonus by level 13 to automatically succeed on any Fortitude save with a DC under 25.

pabelfly

2024-04-15, 04:52 PM

Yeah, pounce is OP. Everyone understands that. Comparing it to other forms of feat based pounce and it's at a similar power level though. Lion tribe warrior is only usable with light weapons, and blood spiked charger has a hefty feat tax.

The reason I specifically mention Pounce is because it's the simplest way to get full attacks while moving. There are other great ways to get full attacks, depending on your build - a Cleric dip with Travel Devotion is arguably as good as Pounce, Dimension Hop is available for psionic characters, and Sudden Leap is great if you want to dip Swordsage or Warblade. Two-Weapon Pounce is just not very good.

The failing two weapon rend has is that it doesn't do weapon damage. If it were treated as an extra attack that doesn't apply precision damage it would be a two weapon staple. That said, rangers have the ability to forgo dex for a str focused isbuild, or people can just skip GTWF and only need 15 dex. Getting a +2 or +4 to dex is pretty easy to benefit from ITWF.

I thought about it specifically for STR-based rangers but you still need a 15 DEX for two-weapon rend.

Related question - do items count towards meeting build prereqs, or do you specifically need to innately have that quality to get that feat? Let's say I'm playing an Orc Ranger with 10 DEX and a +6 DEX item, bringing me to a total of 16 DEX. Can I get Two-Weapon Rend?

It's an excellent feat actually. Not for itself, but because it's the prerequisite for adaptable flanker. Adaptable flanker is good because it allows you to be your own flanker. Enlarge person makes this even better.

Adaptable Flanker lets you count as being in another position when you and an ally are attacking the same enemy.

My experience is that two martial characters are rarely attacking an enemy together. Maybe encounters with one or two large monsters. Otherwise martials are typically fairly far away from eachother on a battlefield.

That's my experience, of course. Perhaps your experiences with DnD combat are different such that flanking is much more of a consideration in your combat encounters.

You're misreading the feat. It isn't changing your strength bonus to damage, it's adding extra damage equal to 2x your strength bonus. So in reality you're getting 3-3½ strength bonus from your shield and 2½ strength bonus for your armor spikes. If you get access to pounce such as from the lion's charge spell the bonus applies to all extra attacks. And with pounce you can get another -2 full BAB attack with TWF.

Spiked rebuke isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Fighting defensively can be extremely valuable when you need to charge into a group of enemies. It's basically a free bonus when you need it.

As for spiked slam, it works best as written rather than as the errata says it should. 2x your strength score is amazing and worth all the negatives. 2x your str bonus leaves the only real benefit as provoking an AoO to allow a flanker to move to flank without risking an AoO. Personally, if I could have been the designer for this feat, I would have instead multiplied the size bonus damage by your str bonus. It would make it competitive with other single action attacks.

Thanks for the correction here, looks like Blood-Spiked Charger is a lot better than I thought. I might have to look into this one further.

The benefit that matters most isn't "dump Wis and use Con for will saves", it's that thereafter you don't automatically fail a Fortitude save on a roll of a 1. If you're already pumping con to enhance your Will save, it also makes it far less likely you'll fail certain Fortitude saves. It's not hard to end up with a high enough bonus by level 13 to automatically succeed on any Fortitude save with a DC under 25.

Possibly not failing on a 1 is nice, but that's generally only relevant for fairly weak effects. Otherwise, rolling a 1 will likely still be a failure, unless you have a build with crazy saves, like a Paladin.

Changing WIS for CON on will saves can be a great benefit. I've seen multiple builds go from a -1 ability score to a +3, even at moderately low level. It only gets better at higher level when you can invest in a CON-boosting item, which boosts your HP, Fort and (with Steadfast Determination) Will saves.

The saves I also think most important are Will > Fort > Reflex. A bad Will save can completely **** you up. Stuff that makes that a lot less likely to happen, like Steadfast Determination, rate pretty high in my book.

Troacctid

2024-04-15, 05:20 PM

In general, I like how this books gives a lot of interesting tools to fighters in particular, especially high-level fighters, who really got short shrift in the core feats list. A few personal favorites are Intimidating Strike, Fade into Violence, the Melee/Ranged Weapon Mastery line, the Combat Focus line, the Shield Specialization line, Robilar's Gambit, Vatic Gaze, Blistering Spell, Spell-Linked Familiar, Wanderer's Diplomacy, and Combat Panache.

The reason I specifically mention Pounce is because it's the simplest way to get full attacks while moving. There are other great ways to get full attacks, depending on your build - a Cleric dip with Travel Devotion is arguably as good as Pounce, Dimension Hop is available for psionic characters, and Sudden Leap is great if you want to dip Swordsage or Warblade. Two-Weapon Pounce is just not very good.
Travel Devotion is a lot worse than pounce, since it comes on a 1-round delay (a swift to activate it, and another swift to move).

It's an excellent feat actually. Not for itself, but because it's the prerequisite for adaptable flanker. Adaptable flanker is good because it allows you to be your own flanker. Enlarge person makes this even better.
Adaptable Flanker was pretty much obsoleted by Tome of Battle, IMO. For most builds it's just worse than Martial Stance (Island of Blades).

Darg

2024-04-15, 06:27 PM

The reason I specifically mention Pounce is because it's the simplest way to get full attacks while moving. There are other great ways to get full attacks, depending on your build - a Cleric dip with Travel Devotion is arguably as good as Pounce, Dimension Hop is available for psionic characters, and Sudden Leap is great if you want to dip Swordsage or Warblade. Two-Weapon Pounce is just not very good.

I'm not dismissing the fact that pounce is just straight up better (we homebrew the lion spirit totem pounce being equivalent to lion tribe warrior, but with any weapon used one-handed.) However, charging has a lot of support that greatly increases its ability to do damage in its own right, which other full attack options cannot provide.

I thought about it specifically for STR-based rangers but you still need a 15 DEX for two-weapon rend.

Related question - do items count towards meeting build prereqs, or do you specifically need to innately have that quality to get that feat? Let's say I'm playing an Orc Ranger with 10 DEX and a +6 DEX item, bringing me to a total of 16 DEX. Can I get Two-Weapon Rend?

Up to your DM, but the rule is just that you qualify to select or use a feat. Personally, I allow temporary sources or permanent item bonuses to qualify. They lose access to the benefit of the feat and feats that require that feat if they no longer have the bonus anyways. It allows for more flavorful character building, especially when you roll for your ability scores and they come up short to qualify for feats when you want to take them to make the kind of character you want.

Adaptable Flanker lets you count as being in another position when you and an ally are attacking the same enemy.

My experience is that two martial characters are rarely attacking an enemy together. Maybe encounters with one or two large monsters. Otherwise martials are typically fairly far away from eachother on a battlefield.

That's my experience, of course. Perhaps your experiences with DnD combat are different such that flanking is much more of a consideration in your combat encounters.

Adaptable flanker doesn't require an ally. Teaming up isn't a defined term and could practically mean anything. That leaves the benefit text to explain what the plain text is saying and it doesn't say that your ally has to be able to benefit from the feat for the feat to work. Thus you can use it just for yourself as long as you are working together to take down enemies. Pretty loose mechanically.

Thanks for the correction here, looks like Blood-Spiked Charger is a lot better than I thought. I might have to look into this one further.

It's my favorite feat from the book. It's one of the most flavorful feats that exist in my opinion and it's not actually that bad from a power standpoint. Not to mention that it combos exceptionally well with driving attack (uses text that implies it could be any full-round action that you attack only once). I've gotten some ridiculous bullrush numbers before. There's also an argument to be made that the "special bull rush attempt" isn't hindered by the size limit. So imagine hitting a colossal dragon so hard as medium size to toss them into a wall.

zlefin

2024-04-15, 07:54 PM

Steadfast determination really shines when you're adjusting the feats on monsters. There's quite a few monsters for which it can be a large boost to their will save; it also has the advantage of still being a simple numerical boost, so easy to apply. For those times when you adjust monster feats to somewhat better match higher optimization parties. Also just good because most of the monsters who benefit from it are the kind to be too vulnerable to will-based SoL.

Cygnia

2024-04-15, 08:13 PM

Steadfast Determination is on most of my Barbarian builds these days...

Zancloufer

2024-04-15, 09:09 PM

It honestly makes me wonder if at an earlier part of development they were supposed to be able to channel ray spells through their weapons, and then the devs realized they'd given the list spells such as Enervation and Polar Ray and felt like it'd be too much for a full-bab class, so they just made the channel ability melee touch spells only. Like, the few rays they have are appreciated but the list is far too narrow to be as useful as it should be.

Is there any reason a Duskblade cannot cast rays or other ranged touch attack spells via their arcane channeling? The actual ability in question says;
. . . you can use a standard action to cast any touch spell you known . . .
The thing is, it doesn't specify if it means a spell with Touch Range, a spell that makes a Touch Attack or both. All ray spells are considered touch attacks, and much like Touch range spells require an attack roll vs the target's Touch AC and can crit on a 20 (or 19-20 with the Imp Crit Feat). The only difference is touch range spells are a melee touch attack and rays are a ranged touch attack.

Suppose there are a few weird cases like Chill Touch where they just say make a touch attack and aren't called out for being touch attacks, though I think that is because they buff your hand and you can discharge the attack as a separate action. I suppose if we wanted to be really petty about RAW if you say a Duskblade can channel Chill Touch they can't channel Touch of Idiocy, and vice versa.

pabelfly

2024-04-15, 09:42 PM

Darg

2024-04-15, 09:57 PM

Is there any reason a Duskblade cannot cast rays or other ranged touch attack spells via their arcane channeling? The actual ability in question says;
. . . you can use a standard action to cast any touch spell you known . . .
The thing is, it doesn't specify if it means a spell with Touch Range, a spell that makes a Touch Attack or both. All ray spells are considered touch attacks, and much like Touch range spells require an attack roll vs the target's Touch AC and can crit on a 20 (or 19-20 with the Imp Crit Feat). The only difference is touch range spells are a melee touch attack and rays are a ranged touch attack.

Suppose there are a few weird cases like Chill Touch where they just say make a touch attack and aren't called out for being touch attacks, though I think that is because they buff your hand and you can discharge the attack as a separate action. I suppose if we wanted to be really petty about RAW if you say a Duskblade can channel Chill Touch they can't channel Touch of Idiocy, and vice versa.

Touch spells are specifically spells with a range of touch. You can find the term in the glossary.

The only reason the duskblade's list is so small is because it's literally just core + PHBII. When you actually look at the list of available arcane spells between the two, there aren't a whole lot of touch spells. Off the top of my head corrosive grasp, parching touch, and storm touch could easily be added to the spell list to help fill out the multi-hit touch spells.

Kurald Galain

2024-04-16, 12:53 AM

The only reason the duskblade's list is so small is because it's literally just core + PHBII.
Rather, I think they were just being too conservative. There's quite a lot of non-touch spells that would fit the db quite well. Some more self-buffs like Shield; defensive spells like Feather Fall; maybe some divine buffs like Longstrider; and definitely the classic Fireball. They could have easily given db more variety without broadening into BFC, summons, necromancy, or other more strictly-wizardly spells.

pabelfly

2024-04-16, 01:14 AM

Online Materials notes:

The first web material page has various rules about transferring XP, a level 1 spell, a 200GP item, and a ceremony feat. If you really wanted to dig into item crafting, I believe they'd all have their uses, depending on the situation, but (for my table and gaming experiences) I find the Ceremony feat is most interesting. There are two reasons for this - you can take it at level 1, using skill ranks you already would take. The second one is that it lets you split XP equally across all members of the Ceremony. If you're playing in a game where you use milestone levelling, this might be a way to get some crafting in without having to worry about uneven XP

The second page is adding more effects to the Deck of Many Things. A lot of these things are specific to a class or have specific feat requirements, and if you don’t meet them, you’ll have you draw again. What I don’t like is that it thins the deck out so there’s less chance to draw dangerous, character-ending effects, making the deck less risky to draw from. If you added this to a Deck, it would go from 22 cards to (roughly) eighty cards, and most of these effects are situational to “meh” overall.

The third page introduces a short adventure module, The Unwavering Path. This allows multiclassing Monks and Paladins to return to the Monk or Paladin class. While I like the idea of the module, and having to fight demons and chaotic monsters to get the class change is cool, I feel like the way to solve the module to get your class change is not as clear as it could be.

Lastly, errata. Elven Spell Lore has been fixed up to only change energy descriptor. I presume this doesn't include Positive or Negative energy, but it does let you choose from Fire, Cold, Electric, Acid and Sonic energy. That's really narrowed the scope of the feat (and Energy Substitution exists for the first four types of spells) but you can turn a regular spell into a Sonic Energy spell, if that means something to you.

Inevitability

2024-04-16, 03:45 AM

Some very very dumb argument to be made with those online rules:

Earthkin: Rebuild your character as a dwarf or gnome instead of your current race. You may choose a dwarven race with a level adjustment (such as duergar or svirfneblin), but you must lose class levels to compensate for it. If you are already a dwarf or gnome, do not rebuild your character; you must draw again. (See Savage Progressions, for information on taking only some of the template's abilities in exchange for a lower level adjustment.)

Because of some awkward phrasing this implies svirfneblin are dwarves (and presumably lesser svirfneblin are too). Therefore you can, and should, totally build the shadowcraft mage runesmith of your dreams and no DM will ever disagree with you.

...looking at that in more detail, what's up with those 'change your race' type cards? The elf and dwarf/gnome version both say you can change to a race with a LA. The orc version, on the other hand, doesn't specify you can return as an orc with a level adjustment (say, a gray orc, or a tanarukk). The human version likewise does not, despite the existence of sharakim and skulks.

"Oh, so they just looked up whether the race had a subrace with LA in the PHB? That's typical lazy WotC editing, don't worry about it."

And so it'd be, if not for the fact that halflings come with the LA clause. What's up with that? Are there even halfling subraces with LA?

Tzardok

2024-04-16, 04:00 AM

None that I could find. Maybe someone half-remembered the jerren? Or maybe they didn't even look up which races have subraces with LA, just assumed that any race in the PHB would have such a subrace?

Inevitability

2024-04-16, 04:38 AM

None that I could find. Maybe someone half-remembered the jerren? Or maybe they didn't even look up which races have subraces with LA, just assumed that any race in the PHB would have such a subrace?

Then they should've mentioned humans, right? And half-orcs (folded into orcs) maybe.

Tzardok

2024-04-16, 04:55 AM

Then they should've mentioned humans, right? And half-orcs (folded into orcs) maybe.

No one would ever make a human subrace that is mechanically different! That would be racist!

And hybrid races of course have no subraces (ignore the half-drow and half-sea elf), and orcs are of course not in the PHB, so who cares about orcs?

Wildstag

2024-04-16, 02:28 PM

I suppose while we're looking at Player's Handbook II we might as well look at the supplementary online materials

https://web.archive.org/web/20210218011855/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a
https://web.archive.org/web/20200105194858/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060614a
https://web.archive.org/web/20200105211239/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060825a

There's also the errata for Player's Handbook II Errata (https://dtdnd.neocities.org/books/player/Player's%20Handbook%20II%20[Errata].pdf)

I haven't looked at the supplementary materials yet but will dig into them later today to see what they've added and changed.

I'd like to add the Dead Levels Part 2 to the list of supplementary online materials.

https://web.archive.org/web/20161031215906/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20070227x

But um... for some reason this article doesn't include the Dragon Shaman, even if just to say (like it does for monk and barbarian in part 1) that it isn't designed with dead levels.

Chronos

2024-04-16, 03:56 PM

Quoth pabelfly:

Changing WIS for CON on will saves can be a great benefit. I've seen multiple builds go from a -1 ability score to a +3, even at moderately low level.
If that's all you're getting from it, then Steadfast Determination definitely isn't worth it. It costs you two feats (because let's be honest, Endurance itself isn't getting you much), and it's giving you +4 to one save. You can get +3 to a save with a single feat, and those are generally regarded as trash feats.

Now, on the other hand, zlefin mentioned using it on monsters. I had a thread once on changing the Tarrasque's feats, and there, it makes a huge difference.

pabelfly

2024-04-16, 04:34 PM

If that's all you're getting from it, then Steadfast Determination definitely isn't worth it. It costs you two feats (because let's be honest, Endurance itself isn't getting you much), and it's giving you +4 to one save. You can get +3 to a save with a single feat, and those are generally regarded as trash feats.

Now, on the other hand, zlefin mentioned using it on monsters. I had a thread once on changing the Tarrasque's feats, and there, it makes a huge difference.

You're right that monsters get a huge benefit from this, but this is also pretty good for players. You don't have to invest your point buy or a decent dice roll into your WIS score when making your character. A +4 to your Will save means (roughly) 20% more chance that you'll pass the will save you're trying to pass. That's not a small boost. Iron Will is only a +2 (unless you mean another feat).

Lastly, as you level higher, you get more from the feat. That +4 becomes a +7 to your will save when you get a CON-boosting item, as well as likely saving 36K gold saved, since you don't need an item to boost your WIS. Any further boosts to CON, like Rage, for example, will also boost your Will save.

There's also the whole "you don't necessarily fail Fort saves with a 1", which can be nice at higher level when fort saves are trivial.

Great feat for powering up monsters, yes, and it's also a really solid pick for players.

Chronos

2024-04-17, 02:07 PM

Yeah, I meant Iron Will, and was just misremembering it. I think I was getting it mixed up with Skill Focus. Still, the three +2-to-a-save feats are generally not worth a feat slot.

You're right that the benefit of switching stats is likely to increase with level, but you can't say that it's improving your saves and saving you money. It's doing one or the other. If you've already decided to not buy a +wis item, then it's improving your saves but not saving money, and if you've already decided to improve your wis save, then it's saving you money but not improving your saves.

Kurald Galain

2024-04-17, 02:22 PM

Lastly, as you level higher, you get more from the feat. That +4 becomes a +7 to your will save when you get a CON-boosting item
At what level can you even afford a +6 item that's not for your primary ability? I have some level-17 characters and none of them have that (because they had more important stuff to buy first). So, level 19? 20 maybe? Epic-plus? I'd say a more realistic figure is +5, not +7.

And I don't think spending two feats for +5 (or even for +7) on will saves is a good deal. There are much better feats.

(edit) it's a different matter if you get Endurance for free, or from a cheap item, or if you need that as prereq to something else.

Inevitability

2024-04-17, 02:40 PM

Darg

2024-04-17, 03:19 PM

Steadfast Determination isn't worth getting on any random PC, but there's a lot of contexts where it becomes an interesting pick.

A build that's getting Endurance for free (say, because they're a ranger) would do well picking it up. A build that's already racking up constitution boosts (dragonborn mongrelfolk) might be interested in having it. A build that already needs Endurance for something else would benefit much. And a build trying to do something silly that requires never failing a particular Fortitude save (Poison Healer stuff, wielding a chunk of voidstone as a club), similarly wants Steadfast Determination. There's just a lot of situations where you can justify it!

Meanwhile, Great Fortitude is basically never worth it, unless it's as a prerequisite.

I'd say steadfast determination is useful for a frenzied berserker with all the will saves you'll likely need to make. Though indomitable will would have been preferrable, the feat tax is too burdensome. Endurance is just one of those feats that would be extremely useful, but is extremely hard to justify as a feat choice because it's benefit is extremely niche in effect.

Inevitability

2024-04-17, 03:43 PM

I'd say steadfast determination is useful for a frenzied berserker with all the will saves you'll likely need to make. Though indomitable will would have been preferrable, the feat tax is too burdensome. Endurance is just one of those feats that would be extremely useful, but is extremely hard to justify as a feat choice because it's benefit is extremely niche in effect.

You mean Indomitable Soul? Rolling two dice is overrated, it's numerically inferior to a +4 bonus; any berserker worth their salt should get more out of Steadfast Determination.

The niche for Indomitable Soul lies on reducing the chance of a natural 1 on saves that'd otherwise be trivial, but that's not really the problem that frenzied berserkers struggle with.

pabelfly

2024-04-17, 03:53 PM

At what level can you even afford a +6 item that's not for your primary ability? I have some level-17 characters and none of them have that (because they had more important stuff to buy first). So, level 19? 20 maybe? Epic-plus? I'd say a more realistic figure is +5, not +7.

And I don't think spending two feats for +5 (or even for +7) on will saves is a good deal. There are much better feats.

As someone who typically plays melee characters (mundane, gish and a melee caster once), CON is a pretty important stat to me. I'd generally have a +2 CON item around level 9, a +4 item around level 13, and a +6 CON item around level 15.

Inevitability also has a point that any build that gets Endurance for free, like Ranger (and I'd add some races like Frostblood Orc), can much more easily justify the feat. I've also picked up the feat on a few Fighter builds, when I have my damage sorted out through fighter feats and have spare general feats and want to fix up my Fighter's low Will save.

If you specifically want to fix the will save of your character, and Paladin isn't an option, Steadfast Determination can be a pretty decent option.

Darg

2024-04-17, 10:30 PM

You mean Indomitable Soul? Rolling two dice is overrated, it's numerically inferior to a +4 bonus; any berserker worth their salt should get more out of Steadfast Determination.

The niche for Indomitable Soul lies on reducing the chance of a natural 1 on saves that'd otherwise be trivial, but that's not really the problem that frenzied berserkers struggle with.

Indomitable Soul comes with a +2 bonus to will saves from Iron Will. The advantage of rolling two die is that you get more predictable outcomes in the most "swingy" of zones. With a DC of 20, if your saves are between 6 and 16, rolling twice will be better than a +4 bonus. Which is where you'll spend most of your time as a frenzied berserker. A +4 is better when you only need to roll a 2 to 6 or 16 to 19

Anyways, getting iron heart surge is probably the best way to guarantee you drop your frenzy.

pabelfly

2024-04-21, 06:24 AM

Chapter 4: New Spells

So here we have a bunch of new spells added in this book. So, what did everyone think of the spells on offer in this book? I'm not an expert on spellcasting, but post my impressions of some spells in a day or two (have been busy this last week).

Inevitability

2024-04-21, 09:41 AM

I really like Dual-School spells; they're still pretty conservative here (compare dragon magic) but I'd have loved it if they were a bigger part of the 3.5 landscape. Much easier to make schools matter if a lot of spells share schools, from a design standpoint.

Alter Fortune... not a fan. XP costs on spells are an iffy topic to begin with, but if you must have them, my philosophy is that they should either serve as a last-ditch balancing factor on what'll otherwise be an indefinite boon (Awaken Undead, Permanency), or as a way to gate out big plotline-altering spells (Wish, Heart of Stone, True Creation, Commune). Alter Fortune would be perfectly balanced without the XP cost if you just upped its level by two or three, and would've been much better had it been printed that way.

I like Blade Brothers, it's just a flavorful effect that encourages party synergy. The various Bigby's spells are also pretty fun, I've toyed with the idea of making a hand-themed wizard centered around them and Create Crawling Claw.

Blinding Color Surge, another spell that's just fun and flavorful. Is it as good as Glitterdust? Certainly not, but it's much cooler.

Burning Rage is fun, I like things with built-in drawbacks that you can negate in a variety of ways. Sure, you can just cast it on a fireblood dwarf or lesser tiefling, but how about inviting the party totemist to shape his Phoenix Belt for the day?

The Celerity spells... obviously broken if you put in the effort to get daze immunity, but even without, I don't think the party wizard should get to take his turn whenever at the cost of some spell slots! It really messes with the flow of combat if at any point, one of the players can stand up and say 'I would like to cast a few spells now, we'll get back to you in a sec Gary'.

Channeled X is interesting, I like the use of casting time as a variable mechanic, definitely not spells I mind existing even if the practical value is limited.

Crown of X is another series of spells trying to push design space, but this one with a bit less success. The hour/level bonuses are just a bit too low to be actually worth going for, and the big discharge effects are just too limited in scope. Also, it eats body slots for some reason.

Detonate is... not a very good spell, and could probably stand to be dropped a few levels, but again, it's fun, it's cool, it's memorable.

Drifts of the Shalm isn't something I was actually aware existed? But honestly, I like it, there's ways to exploit spells that create difficult terrain and this even comes with a little added bonus.

Explosive Rune Field - just why? Why invoke the iconic Explosive Runes name if you're just going to make it a Fire Damage Zone? At least add a clause that blindness confers immunity or something, give it some personality.

Hunter's Eye is just poor design. I'm not saying that a spell that grants sneak attack is inherently a mistake, but on a book-standard ranger this is never going to add more than 3d6 and that's honestly not worth bothering with. Like, I think the real takeaway is that rangers having half-CL was a mistake, but the practical effect is that lots of ranger spells now exclusively show up as unseen seer grabs.

Luminous Assassin is weird because the created luminous beings are, by RAW, humans. I don't know, just wanted to draw attention to that. Also they come with equipment - can you take and use that for yourself before the duration wears off? And why, for the love of pelor, do they have Improved Initiative if their turn is determined by yours?

Scattering Trap is another fun spell where I'm not sure what the actual use case is. Like maaaaybe you could argue it works with Desert Diversion somehow, but that really requires stretching 'similar spell'.

Stay the Hand is fun for doing just that little bit more than just forcing a retarget.

Vertigo Field I feel could drive the 'vertigo' theme home a bit better, but I do like it just for being a fortitude-targeting illusion, those are rare.

Zancloufer

2024-04-21, 09:45 AM

So many new spells to look through. Could probably make a thread on just discussing some of them. Some takes (starting alphabetically)

Alter Fortune seems good and would be worth using, if not for the EXP cost. 200 EXP for a re-roll that might not even change anything seems pretty steep. Not to mention the opportunity cost of a 3rd level spell and your immediate action.

Animalistic power Mass is for some reason a 7th level spell. Not sure why they decided +2 for 3 stats was equal to +4 for 1 stat, but the one AoE needs to be up-tiered. Especially bad as while at level 3 you probably don't have any +2 items, by level 13+ you almost definitely have a +2 [or better] item to at least one of your physical stats.

As the Frost is cool. Pretty much a specific energy immunity, but some cool extras that may or may not do anything. Making a spell more (or less) flexible in exchange for power works well.

Baleful Blink seems like inverse Blink, but again up-tiered. Not sure if it's worth a higher level spell slot unless your fighting one enemy with a bad For save.

All the Bigby's Hand spells; Seriously under-powered. No really, they all target one creature (at a time), have one effect and have one or two ways they can fail. "Oh noes, single target must make STR check or move at half speed! If only there was another 1st (let alone 2nd) level spell that just made an entire group of enemies move at half speed no save!". "Oh no, you have to make a DC 16 Concentration check or fail your spell is distributed!".

Black Karma Curse: Stop hitting your-self the spell. Only down side is it's mind effecting, but still for a 2nd level spell there are enough beat stick enemies with bad save but enough big stick damage for it to be good. Flavorful and powerful, but only if used on the right target.

Blades of Blood: It's not bad. Swift action for more weapon damage is good on a Gish. Except this got printed along side a Dusk-blade, the class most likely to use it, who at 3rd level gets an ability that renders the spell useless. Also no scaling, and the take 5 damage to deal ~6 damage is kind of crap. At the level 6 extra damage matters, well you just dealt it to yourself as well. . .

Bleakness: Nice buff for undead, or casters that mass them as minions. Counters light spells and stacks with (un)-Hallow. Can make undead (almost) un-turnable at that point.

Blessing of the Righteous: +1d6 damage for a 4th level spell??? I suppose you also counter DR/Good so your Paladin can let the party punch Angels in the face for an extra 1d6 hold damage. I don't even this spell. Under-tuned and makes no thematic sense.

Blinding Colour Surge; Invisibility, but trades away 90% of it's [theoretical] duration in exchange for a 1 round save or suck? I uh, don't get it. If you invisible the enemy is functionally blind already it's not like they can be double blind.

Blood Creepers: Save or Suck that also has 3 other ways to break free. I guess chip damage is okay, but they can still take any action other than movement and by level 10 it's not like a DC 20 Str check or 25 skill check is hard. If only there was another 5th level Druid spell that was Fort save or Super Loose. . .

Bones of the Earth: This one is cool It's like Wall of Stone, but you can attempt to crush your foes with them and it's summoned over multiple rounds. It takes longer to fully summon the pillars, but they are much thicker and can used as crowd control/damage. No really, those pillars are ****ing huge, at level 11 it's about 10 times the square footage of Wall of Stone, in exchange for taking 5 rounds to fully cast.

Uh, enough this for now. Might come back and review more spells later.

Kurald Galain

2024-04-21, 11:43 AM

Blades of Blood: It's not bad. Swift action for more weapon damage is good on a Gish. Except this got printed along side a Dusk-blade, the class most likely to use it, who at 3rd level gets an ability that renders the spell useless.
I'm pretty sure the dusky can stack a regular spell with a swift spell like this one.

Troacctid

2024-04-21, 12:52 PM

Darg

2024-04-21, 04:40 PM

Dual-school spells were a good idea that I wish had been explored more. There are for sure some PHB spells that I think should have been dual-school too, if the technology had existed at the time. Demand is an obvious example—it's literally an enchantment spell stapled onto an evocation spell—and a lot of the various "spell traps" could have been abjuration plus whatever school the output of the trap belongs to (necromancy for symbol of death, evocation for explosive runes, and so on). If there were more interplay between the schools, I think it would make specialist wizards more interesting.

Definitely would have made more sense if the CArc orb spells were Conj/Evoc rather than just Conj.

Then again I'm on the fence. I get why dual schools is a fun concept, but on the otherhand, the schools are there to categorize spells that exist. If dual school spells exist, you're basically saying 64 different schools should actually exist to accurately reflect spells' properties. It simply just makes things more complicated for no reason.

Inevitability

2024-04-21, 05:49 PM

Then again I'm on the fence. I get why dual schools is a fun concept, but on the otherhand, the schools are there to categorize spells that exist. If dual school spells exist, you're basically saying 64 different schools should actually exist to accurately reflect spells' properties. It simply just makes things more complicated for no reason.

I mean, no matter how you split up spell schools, sometimes a very cool and coherent effect is going to be stepping across school lines. Either you refuse to print such effects and impoverish the game, you force them into a single school and reduce the meaning schools have, orrrr you just print a handful of dual-school spells and explicitly denote effects that don't fit neatly in a single box as such. The last one seems like the best option here, especially if you're also printing a ton of support for individual schools that players now get to mix and match.

Darg

2024-04-21, 09:21 PM

I sort of like the fact that spell schools are debatable. It brings a sort of flavor to the game that the players can be just as much a scholar of magic capable of debating how to classify spells. Troacctid brought up demand as an example because the the earlier spell in the chain is sending which is an evocation spell. Personally, I'd argue that sending shouldn't be an evocation spell in the first place and is really either a universal spell or, if you really had to have a school then, divination. Telepathy falls under divination after all (which we could also debate is correctly identified). When you break spells apart into hybrid spells it sort of breaks that scholarly pursuit which would honestly be more flavorfully done by creating a new categorical system. Yes, dual schools are more accurate to their effect; however, I'd argue that schools matter little to the actual mechanics of the game so having dual schools really just makes these spells slightly less accessible to specialized wizards.

Kurald Galain

2024-04-22, 03:22 AM

Chronos

2024-04-22, 03:59 PM

My top spell from the PHB2 is Linked Perception (I think that's where it's from; away from books at the moment). It gives the entire party a buff to Listen and Spot, equal to twice the number of creatures in the party. Untyped. Find a way to get a hundred allies, get +200 to your perception skills. D&D has a sort of arms race between stealth and detection, but at the highest levels and highest optimization, nothing beats a sufficiently-high Spot check, other than an even higher Hide check, and thanks to this spell, you'll never get that even higher Hide check.

With dual-school spells, I think the biggest problem is that it's basically all drawback. Mostly the only thing that interacts with spell schools in any meaningful way is a specialist wizard's banned school, and if you've banned either of the schools of a dual-school spell, you can't cast it. So you'd basically never want a spell to be dual-school.

Troacctid

2024-04-22, 07:50 PM

With dual-school spells, I think the biggest problem is that it's basically all drawback. Mostly the only thing that interacts with spell schools in any meaningful way is a specialist wizard's banned school, and if you've banned either of the schools of a dual-school spell, you can't cast it. So you'd basically never want a spell to be dual-school.
That's not true—there's also the bonus specialist spell slot, as well as Spell Focus, Improved Counterspell, reserve feats, advanced learning, and many similar effects.

pabelfly

2024-04-22, 10:36 PM

So, there were several spells that had damage over time effects in PHB II. I think most of us would agree that they're extremely weak.

So, let's discuss a theoretical damage over time spell, using the Fireball spell as our baseline. Assume that besides damage happening once a round instead of at once, everything else is the same - damage type, applicable metamagics, saving throw, range and size, caster level cap, spell slot, everything.

1) How many rounds does combat last for you,
2) How much damage would this theoretical spell need to deal for you to think it on the same level as a Fireball?

My combats typically last 4 or so rounds, and I think if the damage was caster level/2, including half dice (so at level 7 it does 3d6 + 1d3 damage each round), I'd at least give them a go.

pabelfly

2024-04-23, 12:31 AM

Alter Fortune – Even though I understand intellectually that 200XP isn’t that much at level 5-6 when you’d first get this spell, and it’s trivial at higher level, the penalty still makes it unattractive to me. And I’ve never been in a battle so close that it could have been decided by a single saving throw. Pass.

Animalistic Power – Couple this with the Ability Enhancer feat for +4/+4/+4 to physical stats instead of the +6 you’d get from an enhanced Bull’s Strength, etc. Would you forgo the extra +2 to STR for +4 to DEX and CON? I think I would.

Baleful Blink – 50% miss chance on melee or ranged attacks is a good effect, but the martials that would be most crippled by it have good fort saves and casters have plenty of other options besides spells with touch attack rolls. Doesn’t seem too effective to me.

Bigby’s Warding Hand – reducing move speed is a decent effect but most martials are STR-based, and this is roughly a coinflip against them. I’m not sure it’s worth preparing for the uncommon chance you run into the occasional dex-based martial or spellcaster that wants mobility.

Blade Brothers – if you have someone with a high set of saving throws (eg the one person in the group who dipped Paladin 2) this could be a really neat way to negate the effects of a spell. The short duration really weakens its effectiveness though. Maybe a Persist Cleric could make use of it?

Bleakness – 1d6 damage a round in an area, very short duration, and some minor boosts to Undead. This seems rather weak for a fourth-level spell, what am I missing?

Blessing of the Righteous – might be alright for characters with lots of hits each round, like volley archers or multiweapon fighters, but surely there are better things to do with a fourth-level spell slot.

Blinding Colour Surge – blind an enemy and give yourself invisibility? Pretty decent use of a second-level spell slot, IMO.

Blood Creepers – immobilizes and entangles. Not sure how this compares to other control spells but seems pretty decent.

Bones of the Earth – 4d6 damage per round is weak for a sixth-level spell. The other problem with damage per round spells is that enemies can just move out of the way, and enemies can still attack and hurt you. It’s better to just do damage all at once and try to kill them quickly.

Burning Rage – a +1 on attack rolls and +2 on damage rolls is a nice bonus for a first-level spell. Just find a way to get fire damage reduction to negate the normal downside to this spell, but that isn’t too hard.

Call to Stone – immobilizes an opponent over several turns, with saving throws allowed each turn.

Celerity – you don’t need me to tell you that taking your turn before it’s your turn is an incredibly potent option.

Chain Dispel – I don’t often play high-level games to make generalizations about combat or typical enemy encounters. It’s easy to see it would be devastating to use against a group of players, especially when you have fifteen plus levels worth of gear possibly being negated if this is successful. Now, does that work just as well against enemies you’d typically see at level 15? No idea, and I suspect the answer is: “know your DM and know your game.”

Channeled Spells – if you’re casting for more than one round, you are taking a risk that your spell won’t be disrupted, that the targets of that spell won’t move, and so forth. While there is a reward that you’ll do extra damage or healing without using extra spell slots, I think that the benefit should have been doubled if you cast for two rounds. At least for the blasting spell. A healing spell is often used out-of-combat and doesn’t need such a high reward.

Channeled Divine Health – this seems generally weaker than the generic Cure Critical Wounds, excepting you can boost the range and maybe get slightly more health above CL 15, but would take longer to cast to get that benefit. Pass.

Channeled Divine Shield – I could see getting DR 10/evil off a third-level spell slot being pretty decent for a DMM Cleric, depending on what you expected to face as an enemy.

Channeled Pyroburst – the first proper blasting spell and it’s pretty underwhelming. As a standard action, it does up to 10d6 damage in a 10ft radius (Fireball is better and only a third-level spell), and as a full-round action, it does 10d8 in a 15-foot radius. I’m sure you can find a +1 metamagic to do more damage with Fireball with the same casting time, and in a larger radius.

Chasing Perfection - +4 to all ability scores? And it becomes a +6 if you get the Ability Enhancer feat? Very nice.

Cloud of Knives – dealing a small amount of damage as a free-round action, once per turn. Nice flavour but I think you could do better with a second-level spell slot.

Crown of Might – if you want an enhancement spell that boosts your strength, Bull’s Strength lasts all day. I suppose this might be useful to the Duskblade, given their anemic spell list.

Crown of Protection – after casting this spell, as an immediate action, you can dismiss it for a +4 to saves or a +4 to AC for one round. That’s like adding a 20% miss chance.

Crushing Grip – the -2 to defensive stats is okay, and paralysis is nice, but it takes a while for it to have effect. Hold Person is a second-level spell, I’d just use that instead.

Curse of Arrow Attraction – -5 AC against ranged attacks is a pretty solid option, especially if there are several people in a party that could make use of this.

Dancing Blade – you could abuse this with a colossal weapon, since there’s nothing here that restricts the weapon you can choose by weight or size. A Sugliin would cost about 500 gold and do 12d6 damage a round. If you’re not using obvious cheese, I’d be pretty underwhelmed if I used a level 5 spell to do, say, 2d6 damage a round.

Deflect – the AC bonus only applies to one attack, but there’s no cap on your caster level determining the bonus.

Detonate – lets you slay an enemy (that’s not immune to fire) and do 20d6 fire damage in a 20ft radius. No doubt there are better ways to spend a ninth-level spell slot as a blaster, but seems like a fun spell.

Dimension Hop – there is a lot of utility in short-drange teleport, but offensively, this would let you drop enemies off bridges or cliffs, or putting enemies inside the range of someone with strong attacks of opportunity. Seems like a fun spell to add to your list if you can fit it in.

Dispelling Touch – you can use a touch spell to try to dispel one active effect, but not an item, unfortunately. My question would be, do other players find it typical for enemies to have dispellable spells on them at low level, and if that is a regular thing, would it be worth spending a turn and a spell slot to dispel that effect?

Doom Scarabs – 1d6 per two levels seems weak for a fourth-level spell, and I’m not sure you’d get much temp hit points.

Dragonshape – you can turn into a mature adult red dragon. Shapechange lets you pick any creature up to 25HD, including mature adult red dragons, and lasts several hours instead of a couple of minutes. While this is slightly better for this one specific monster, the extremely flexible nature of Shapechange makes it a far better spell choice.

Electric Vengeance – this would be a really nice spell for a low-level melee caster. 2d8 + Caster Level is a decent amount of damage at level 3 or 4.

Electric Vengeance, Greater – 5d8 at level 9 is not a bad amount of damage, but can also daze them until the end of your next turn.

Energy Aegis – this spell can save you up to 20 damage from one elemental attack. I could see this being quite useful even at high level, since it only uses a third-level spell slot and an immediate action.

Energy Surge spells – these spells aren’t bad, especially if you can cast your spells on an ally who does a lot of attacks, or the enemy is vulnerable to specific elemental types.

Energy Vulnerability – creating a weakness in an enemy that can be exploited would be quite nice for party members that can only deal certain types of damage, or for blasters fixated on a single elemental type. I had plans for an cold elemental Sorcerer, so this would be great on its spell list.

Evard’s Menacing Tentacles – weird spell, it relies on your STR for attack rolls and damage. I suppose you have one reason at least to make a muscle wizard.

Explosive Runes Field – I’m not sure this is a decent area control spell. If you want to slow enemies down, they might choose to ignore your attempts at area control, taking the 4d6 fire damage instead.

Field of Resistance – lets characters in an area gain spell resistance. Very nice effect, pity its so short.

Halt – Stops movement for one round, but also works on an enemy’s turn. Reminds me of Temporal Spiral (Truenamer Utterance), which doesn’t have the immediate action effect but lasted a lot longer. Makes me wonder how I could go about (ab)using this spell.

Healing Spirit – the autonomy of the healing spell is nice but this is pretty weak. 1d8 at level 7 isn’t going to do much at all.

Hesitate – reduces an enemy’s turns to a move action only. Nice effect since it targets Will saves, a typical weak spot of characters like martials who rely on moving to attack.

Hunter’s Eye – Sneak attack damage, but the duration is painfully short and being a ranger exclusive means you’re going to have terrible caster level. I hate that the first way to optimize the spell is to say that someone besides the Ranger should be casting it.

Incite Riot – looks like a fun mass combat spell.

Increase Virulence – increasing poison DC is very nice, but would have been a lot better if the duration wasn’t so painfully short.

Inevitable Defeat – I’d normally complain about damage over time effects, but being able to deal nonlethal damage might have some niche uses. I don’t mind the trade that the damage is extremely slow to happen in exchange.

Insight of Good Fortune – giving an ally a reroll is quite nice. I could see myself putting this on a support caster.

Invest Protection Line – two weak effects in one spell. I’d probably prefer one of the effects instead and for that effect to be stronger.

Kelgore’s Fire Bolt – this isn’t bad for a first-level spell.

Kelgore’s Grave Mist – for a level 2 spell, you can fatigue someone, which kills running and charging builds and adds a penalty to STR and DEX. Oh, and no saving throw. Seems like a really good spell to me.

Legion of Sentinels – attack rolls for this are based on your caster level (see errata), but your caster level is going to be low and so is the damage. I suppose you can cast this to help out the party Rogue, but still seems weak.

Longstrider, Mass – there are probably worse ways to use a fourth-level Ranger spell slot or a fifth-level Druid spell slot, but I don’t know them.

Luminous Assassin line – it feels pretty weak for their spell level.

Mana Flux – 20% chance of spell chance failure is a good effect but I don’t know if I’d spend a fifth-level spell slot to achieve this.

Mark of Doom – very cool, very flavourful effect. I dig it.

Mark of Judgement – attackers gain two points of damage back per hit. Most builds are going to based on doing a few powerful hits, so this isn’t going to be too effective, unless you have a group that all likes playing “death by a thousand cuts” builds.

Master’s Touch – cast to give someone a +4 on a one-round skill check. I mean, if there was really a skill check you absolutely needed to pass this might be useful.

Melf’s Unicorn Arrow – damage plus the potential to knockback. What I want to know is, can you knock someone into a wall with this spell, and if so, how much damage would it do? This could make the spell much more interesting to cast.

Meteoric Strike – this isn’t capped by caster level (but you’ll only find more things immune to fire at higher level). It’s some nice bonus damage for a gish when they’re not immune, though.

Mystic Aegis – gain spell resistance against one spell. This is a really good option, especially if you’ve been working on boosting your Abjuration casting level.

Mystic Surge – you can spend a standard action to boost the DC and casting level of you spell. If there’s a spell you really want to be sure works, and didn’t mind spending two rounds worth of actions to cast it, this would be an option, but I’m struggling to see it.

Overwhelm – it’s a pretty high-level spell, but if you need to knock out an enemy without killing them, this will do it.

Phantom Battle – no attacks of opportunity and all enemies are flanked. Doesn’t seem like a great effect for a fourth-level spell.

Plague – this seems more like a spell for DMs rather than players. I could imagine an evil necromancer using this against a weak human army trying to fight them, but I can’t really imagine a player in a situation where this is a good use of their spell slot or their turn.

Prismatic Mist – the effects are too random to care about, and a bunch are very underpowered for the level. Even if there is a good effect there, you might not necessarily get the good effect you want that effectively assists the team.

Pulse of Hate – a seventh-level spell that only does 2d6 damage a turn. Pass.

Radiance – the Dazzled condition is a -1 on attack rolls, search and spot checks. Oh, and it banishes darkness spells. Definitely not worth a fifth-level spell slot.

Ray of the Python – this is a weird spell. You stop enemies from making more than one attack a round, but that’s largely how many attacks a martial typically does at ECL 3-4, and TWF builds aren’t a big concern as two-hander builds per hit. I suppose you can Heighten the spell to boost its DC at higher level

Regroup – I suppose you can use this to bring characters back to you if they’re in a dangerous situation or get trapped somewhere, but there’s only so many spell slots or so many spells you can have on your spell list and niche spells like this are going to be hard to justify.

Renewed Vigor – is there really going to be many situations where you need to wholesale remove Fatigued and lessen Exhaust across multiple characters at once? Panacea is a single-target touch-range option that removes both Fatigue and Exhaust (not allieviates) and also removes a bunch of other options. I’d take that instead.

Righteous Burst – healing allies and hurting enemies at the same time is a good combo, pity this spell is way too weak.

Rouse – you can waken sleeping creatures with a spell. Is sleep something you’d worry about often?

Scattering Trap - … why?

Seeking Ray – 4d6 electrical damage isn’t bad for a second-level blasting spell, especially one with medium range.

Share Talents – you can use a second-level spell slot so characters can aid one another at a distance. Weak bonus but a fairly long effect time. Might be some edge cases where this is useful.

Slashing Dispel – dispel but with extra damage. Losing 2HP per spell level seems like it could add a decent amount of damage and it can work on multiple spells at once. Could be quite devastating against the right build.

Sonic Shield – by level 9 you’ll probably have a +1 ring of Deflection so this ends up being a +3 Deflection AC and some weak Sonic damage for a fifth-level spell slot. Pass.

Stand – when you’re prone you typically have at least one enemy next to you. This helps you stand up without taking attacks of opportunity. Oh, and it’s an immediate action too. I really like it.

Stay the Hand – forces one enemy to change their target with reduced accuracy. It doesn’t stop them dealing damage and it doesn’t stop others targeting you. Meh.

Stifle Spell – a chance to disrupt an enemy spellcaster. Since it only costs an immediate action this is quite a good spell to have on-hand.

Stretch Weapon – A spell slot used up so one weapon has some reach for one attack? Underwhelming.

Summon Golem – you can spend a ninth-level spell slot to summon a ECL 13 ally on the field. When you get this, you’re going to be, at a minimum, ECL 17, so it’s going to be pretty underwhelming support. It might be useful for flanking, I suppose, but if you really want to support the team melee character, there are better ways to spend a ninth-level spell slot. And if you want to summon it for utility, it’s hard to see what this particular summon will do that a summon from a lower-level spell slot won’t.

Thunder Field – knocks enemies prone and does a small amount of damage. Weak for a sixth-level spell slot.

Toxic Weapon – 1d10 Con is roughly 5.5 HP per level, which is a good amount of HP to lose on one attack. Pity so many things are immune to poison, especially at moderate to high level.

Trollshape – just get Polymorph instead and have infinitely more flexibility.

Vertigo – a DC 10 Balance check is less than 50% chance of failure, and that presumes they didn’t succeed on their Will save, and this spell will only become more useless at higher level. I can only see a Beguiler using it, and only for a short time, but more likely, they won’t.

Vertigo Field - a spell to create difficult terrain is very nice, especially against chargers, and the 20% miss chance and potential for nausea are icing on the cake. I like this.

Whelm Line[B] – more options for nonlethal damage are nice. Sometimes you want to win combat without necessarily killing the opponents.

[B]Wrack Earth – decent damage and difficult terrain. Ruined by the high spell level slot it needs, making stacking metamagic on it more difficult.

Kurald Galain

2024-04-23, 04:17 AM

Cloud of Knives – dealing a small amount of damage as a free-round action, once per turn. Nice flavour but I think you could do better with a second-level spell slot.
This becomes pretty good if you can manage to sneak attack with it, e.g. with Greater Invis up.

Crown of Might – if you want an enhancement spell that boosts your strength, Bull’s Strength lasts all day. I suppose this might be useful to the Duskblade, given their anemic spell list.
Not really good for the duskblade either, because any frontliner worth his salt already has an enhancement bonus. Frankly, spells like this are the reason why their list is so anemic.

Dispelling Touch – you can use a touch spell to try to dispel one active effect, but not an item, unfortunately. My question would be, do other players find it typical for enemies to have dispellable spells on them at low level, and if that is a regular thing, would it be worth spending a turn and a spell slot to dispel that effect?
I'm not sure why you'd want to use this spell (which requires two rolls to remove an effect) when Dispel Magic is right there and requires only one. And has better range, too.

Hunter’s Eye – Sneak attack damage, but the duration is painfully short and being a ranger exclusive means you’re going to have terrible caster level. I hate that the first way to optimize the spell is to say that someone besides the Ranger should be casting it.
I think there was a way to add this to the wizard list, and then combine it with Cloud of Knives.

Regroup – I suppose you can use this to bring characters back to you if they’re in a dangerous situation or get trapped somewhere, but there’s only so many spell slots or so many spells you can have on your spell list and niche spells like this are going to be hard to justify.
The other way around works better. Move up so you're almost adjacent to an enemy, then cast this spell and place all your melee allies in front of you. Boom! Full-party pounce.

Stand – when you’re prone you typically have at least one enemy next to you. This helps you stand up without taking attacks of opportunity. Oh, and it’s an immediate action too. I really like it.
Works on allies, too. Yes, a nice support ability.

pabelfly

2024-04-23, 07:18 AM

This becomes pretty good if you can manage to sneak attack with it, e.g. with Greater Invis up.

I suppose there are magical rogue builds that could really use it. Good point.

I think there was a way to add this to the wizard list, and then combine it with Cloud of Knives.

Man, if only there was a thread about adding spells to spell lists.

The other way around works better. Move up so you're almost adjacent to an enemy, then cast this spell and place all your melee allies in front of you. Boom! Full-party pounce.

Hey, that's a neat idea. Good work.

Zancloufer

2024-04-23, 03:02 PM

Bleakness – 1d6 damage a round in an area, very short duration, and some minor boosts to Undead. This seems rather weak for a fourth-level spell, what am I missing?

Turn Resistance +4 is pretty strong. IIRC the only other core sources are Unhallow (which is a level higher, takes 24 hours to cast and has a 1k+ GP component) or Bolster Undead (which is a Neutral/Evil Cleric specific application of Turn Undead which actually grants +/-4 Resistance depending on the check). So not only is it the cheapest and most reliable source of Turn Resistance, it is also available to Wizards. This is before mentioning that it also STACKS with Unhallow or other sources of turn resistance.

Turning resistance doesn't grant a penalty to the d20+cha check the Cleric makes, it increases the undead's effective HD when it comes to being turned. 10-12 on the check will let a cleric turn an undead of equal level, but if they have turn resistance +4 the cleric needs to roll 22+. Doesn't hurt that the Cleric can't turn undead that are more than 4 levels above them and undead usually have very low CR/HD or posses turn resistance to start with.

TLDR: It's the quickest, cheapest and most reliable method of turn resistance AND stacks with other sources.

Bullet06320

2024-04-23, 05:15 PM

Cloud of Knives – dealing a small amount of damage as a free-round action, once per turn. Nice flavour but I think you could do better with a second-level spell slot.

the trick here is to use arcane thesis and metamagic the crap out of it for best effect
there's a few threads out there optimizing it

pabelfly

2024-04-23, 11:15 PM

the trick here is to use arcane thesis and metamagic the crap out of it for best effect
there's a few threads out there optimizing it

Sure, but that works for any spell you do it with. It speaks more about how broken Arcane Thesis and Metamagic stacking is, rather than how broken Cloud of Knives is.

Bullet06320

2024-04-24, 06:13 PM

tru enuf, i just happen to have used cloud of knives and arcane thesis a few times to good effect, so its a combo i like

Endarire

2024-04-26, 01:27 PM

Having read over the base classes, Beguiler is the winner because it's an INT-based spontaneous caster that also has Trapfinding and Rogue-like skills.

Knight felt like a prototype for ToB's Crusader.

Dragon Shaman is useful for its Vigor aura, but we can get that through the feat Draconic Aura (Vigor).

Duskblade felt like a prototype PF Magus. To me, martial adepts did the 'sorta caster' thing better, and Eldritch Knight is core. Plenty of other PrCs help the martial side while progressing casting.

pabelfly

2024-04-26, 01:50 PM

Duskblade felt like a prototype PF Magus. To me, martial adepts did the 'sorta caster' thing better, and Eldritch Knight is core. Plenty of other PrCs help the martial side while progressing casting.

Duskblade is a pretty good gish-in-a-can class. You get to start gishing at level 1, you get some interesting and fun class abilities that support adding spells to martial attacks, and you don't have to take any feat taxes or the like to play it. Sure, you don't get ninth-level spells, but the power level for the class is actually pretty reasonable.

As for martial adepts, I feel like they play and feel sufficiently differently to casters to be considered their own thing.

Definitely understand the Magus comparison, though. Definitely felt it took some cues from the Duskblade.

Chronos

2024-04-26, 02:50 PM

To me, what defines a gish isn't just that they can cast and swing a weapon. They have to have abilities that integrate both of those together. The duskblade has that, while most other gishing options don't.

pabelfly

2024-04-28, 08:46 AM

Chapter 5: Building Your Identity

So, if the previous chapters have all been providing new material to help someone create a new character, we’re now at the point where we’re deciding how to roleplay that character.

If you need a bit of help roleplaying, this seems pretty solid – you’re given a bunch of different backgrounds, roleplay prompts, and character arc suggestions to use.

However, I’d question the potential disparity between the roleplay and a character’s skill points. Skill points would help reinforce character backgrounds mechanically, but nothing is given here to support that. For example, its suggested that a drifter can find shelter anywhere they go, and have lots of stories to tell about various locations, but that’s not going to be supported by the game if you don’t have ranks in Survival and Knowledge (Local). It would have been nice if they’d perhaps thrown in some traits to support this.

But what does everyone else think about the chapter?

Inevitability

2024-04-30, 03:35 AM

The background sections are alright. Like, they're nice prompts for someone looking to flesh out their character some, the little bops of roleplaying suggestions are fun. I don't actually like the youth bits that much: if your farming background is already comfortably established, you don't need a section that says 'as a kid, you did chores on the farm'.

Definitely agreeing with pabel that the lack of actual mechanical benefit here limits how much you can actually get use out of this: if the designers did not want to include another mechanic, they could at least have hedged a little there.

That is, instead of writing "as a gladiator you're an expert on armor, weapons, or fighting styles" they could put something like "your training as a gladiator must have exposed you to many armor, weapons, and fighting styles - did that knowledge stick? If you still can't tell a glaive from a guisarme, how did you survive your gladiatorial matches? Or perhaps some injury robbed you of your skill - a result of the fights, or something inflicted deliberately?"

Like, a guy with a gladiatorial background who's now a cloistered cleric is interesting, but it will have people asking why your former gladiator can't wield a sword to save his life, and the book should pre-empt that and provide some suggestions.

An artisan without ranks in Appraise or Craft might've been a spoiled noble brat pushed into a cushy guild position and allowed to pass the work of apprentices off as his own - did their resentment build into something more? Alternatively, he might be from a place (or time) far removed from ours, and his craftsmanship no more practically applicable than a knack for carving moon rocks would be. An ascetic without knowledge ranks might come from an incredibly dogmatic place that did not permit outside works, or might have received a training focused on the development of personal power over the acquisition of knowledge - why these skewed priorities? A drifter without ranks in survival might've gotten by on charitable aid: what organization provided it, and what's your relationship with them now? Etc etc.

pabelfly

2024-05-01, 02:34 PM

Since we're about two weeks away from the end of the book, I think it's time to start asking what our next book will be.

I'd like to alternate between first-party and third-party stuff. Does anyone have any suggestions on good third-party material we could look at?

Wildstag

2024-05-01, 03:39 PM

I've always appreciated this chapter, it's the sort of thing that should have been in the PHB, all too often D&D fans focus exclusively on mechanics and not on the roles they're actually playing. This provides some aid for people that aren't so creative on their own. Plus, I don't think some of the examples given here are necessarily good.

Like, just because you've traveled doesn't mean you know much about the localities or should have a bonus to it. You have personal stories to tell, or maybe at most the rumors heard at the dinner table between your hosts and yourself. That's not necessarily knowledge though. Examples such as the ascetic quoting scripture isn't necessarily information relevant to Knowledge (Religion) checks. In books like the Races of X, you get examples of phrases your character might use to express their faith or their culture. It's nice spice for a character.

As far as the weeks go, we've got three chapters left in this book, so we should be done by the end of May. My vote is one of the "Races of" books, maybe starting alphabetically? It'd be less focus on mechanics and more on that flavorful spice I mentioned earlier, but they're still great.

holbita

2024-05-02, 05:52 AM

pabelfly

2024-05-02, 10:08 AM

As far as the weeks go, we've got three chapters left in this book, so we should be done by the end of May. My vote is one of the "Races of" books, maybe starting alphabetically? It'd be less focus on mechanics and more on that flavorful spice I mentioned earlier, but they're still great.

I think a Races book would be a pretty good choice after we've done a third-party book.

Either "Magic" or "Secrets" from AEG.

I had a quick look at Secrets, and that seems promising - a variety of content and some interesting presentation there.

Magic is interesting for being written by the future lead designer of 5e, and has a lot more variety than I first thought it would.

Anyone else got any opinions on what our next book should be?

Troacctid

2024-05-02, 11:31 AM

I'd like to do a DM-facing book like Exemplars of Evil, Fiendish Codex I, or Elder Evils. Alternatively, it would be pretty cool to do an issue of Dragon or Dungeon Magazine.

Inevitability

2024-05-02, 11:33 AM

I'd like to do a DM-facing book like Exemplars of Evil, Fiendish Codex I, or Elder Evils. Alternatively, it would be pretty cool to do an issue of Dragon or Dungeon Magazine.

I like these ideas! I'd be much less interested in 3rd-party work.

pabelfly

2024-05-02, 04:22 PM

I'd like to alternate between first-party and third-party stuff. Does anyone have any suggestions on good third-party material we could look at?

Well, it looks like most other people aren't particularly interested in third-party stuff (and maybe we can go as far as Dragon Magazine). Fair enough, I'll drop the idea.

I'll keep an eye on what everyone is suggesting. Thanks for the responses so far.

Wildstag

2024-05-02, 07:24 PM

Magic is interesting for being written by the future lead designer of 5e, and has a lot more variety than I first thought it would.

I'm fairly certain that's the case for most of AEG's work. Or at least, I've seen Good and Evil in the same book store and they both have Mearls in the Writing credits. Good even has him as the Project Manager.

pabelfly

2024-05-05, 05:48 AM

Chapter 6: The Adventuring Group

This chapter covers the background lore for why a team forms, if you wanted to improve your roleplay here. There’s also some advice on how to play well with a group. If you’re someone who struggles with social etiquette, and aren’t sure how to interact with others, I could see this being rather handy advice.

Next up, we have something called “Teamwork Benefits”, which I was unaware of before reading this chapter. I really appreciate Book Club for little nuggets like this. If you and at least one other person in the party meet prerequisites, typically having skill ranks, you can get some benefits. Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be everyone in the party. Some of these each are suited for adventurers, others might be more useful for DMs looking to slightly boost enemies, and some are so absurdly specific I don’t see them happening at all.

I’ll give a chance for other posters to give their opinions first, before I post my reviews of each Teamwork Benefit.

Lastly, admin stuff - I'm still looking at suggestions for our next book in two weeks. Since two people like the idea of doing a DM support book, I'm happy to look at one of those, unless another suggestion gains traction. It seems that crunch like alternate classes, feats and so forth gets more discussion than RP guidance, so I'll dig through the suggested DM-oriented books to see what of the suggested books are best for this.

Inevitability

2024-05-06, 03:14 AM

I like the adventuring party backgrounds: reminds me a little of Blades in the Dark, which effectively turned that into a full-blown game mechanic with your party-as-a-whole being one of several different types and leveling along with the players.

I like how the little so-this-is-a-barbarian section needs to dance around the fact that barbarians don't get Spot while calling them 'great scouts'. Also beautiful how they all but outright say 'monks can do nothing but stay alive'.

Interesting how the 'missing warrior' bit doesn't even bring up summoning despite mentioning druids by name.

Will also have a better look at the teamwork benefits before posting about them.

pabelfly

2024-05-06, 03:32 AM

The quick summary:
Best player options: Awareness, Camp Routine, Group Trance, Massed Charge, and Steadfast Resolve. They have the best benefits and you’re most likely to qualify for these ones.

Best DM options: Awareness, Cunning Ambush, Steadfast Resolve, Team Shield Manoeuver, Wall of Steel. If you want to add a bit of bulk or some slightly better numbers or strategies to your enemy stats, these are your best options.

The essay version:
The first problem with Teamwork Benefits is that this wants players to have skill points partially invested in the same skills, but players generally have other skills relevant to their character they’re fully investing in instead. Fortunately, there’s enough options that you’ll have a few you’ll qualify for, and the best ones are pretty easy to qualify for.

Last, these benefits will be more useful for larger groups, where it’s more likely that you’ll have a few people meet the prerequisites to take advantage of them.

Awareness – this setup seems like it is common enough, given that Listen and Spot are common skills to take, and you’ll typically be within 30ft of your allies most of the time. This one is worth remembering.

Camp Routine – take a single rank in Survival to get a conditional +2 to Listen and Spot. Very good deal, this will probably be what you want to get at level 5.

Circle of Blades – having someone with Weapon Specialization and someone else with Sneak Attack isn’t going to be common. And if you somehow meet that requirement, you need to ready an action. And if you do all that, you get a +2 to damage. I don’t see this happening often or being worthwhile to train in for when it does, is what I’m saying.

Crowded Charge – the problem with this is that characters who don’t want to be jumping about (so, anyone that’s not an ubercharger) aren’t taking ranks in Jump.

Cunning Ambush – my experience is that characters are typically travelling to a problem and don’t have the opportunity to ambush enemies. Maybe a DM can make use of this one, though.

Expert Mountaineer – I have never played a character that took any ranks in Use Rope, and I’ve rarely climbed mountains. There might be games where this is useful but I don’t play in them.

Foe Hunting – if you have Favored Enemy +4, you can flank to do extra damage. But you already should be doing pretty good damage if you have a +4 to said damage rolls, never mind the other bonuses Ranger can get to their favoured enemies.

Group Trance – if you’re an Elf or half-elf, this lets a party member gain the benefits of sleep with just four hours of rest. No-one is using half-elf, but Elf is pretty solid for many casting types. If you’re in a situation where time is of the essence and you need to recover spells, this could be useful. The requirements of team members are suitably low too.

Indirect Fire – if you’re in the right position, you can spend a move action to help an archer mitigate the effects of cover on a target, or give them a +2 to attack rolls. The problem will be being in the right position, and then having the move action to spare in the specific turn you’d need to spend it. This is too narrow a use case to train in over other, more broader options.

Like a Rock – you can give adjacent allies a +4 against Bull Rush checks. Unfortunately, Bull Rushes aren’t that common. Secondly, allies don’t normally stand next to eachother in combat for a variety of reasons.

Massed Charge – this is pretty good, provided your Team Leader with the high Balance skill has a good initiative. This means a bunch of your allies can attack sooner, and I think we all know how to optimize a charge.

Missile Volley – my dnd group typically has zero or one person doing an archery build, this requires that you have two of them with specific feats. But let’s say you do meet these circumstances. You’ll be trading multiple attacks for a single, slightly more accurate attack. Not a good trade.

Steadfast Resolve – Iron Will is a common prereq feat for a bunch of prestige classes, including Ur-Priest and Incantatrix, as well as the Reserves of Strength feat. So, occasionally, you’ll meet this requirement in the party, and if you do, you can also pencil in a +2 to certain Will saves, which is a nice free boost.

Superior Team Effort – my experience, the person who is taking skill focus for a skill has so thoroughly optimized for that particular skill that Aid Another isn’t relevant for passing the DC of the intended skill check. And taking Skill Focus is rather rare anyway, since it’s horribly underpowered.

Team Rush – does anyone care about overland movement speed being different for different party members?

Team Melee Tactics – first, Combat Expertise and Dodge are occasional feat taxes for melee builds, so you might sometimes qualify for this one. You still won’t have someone who wants to trade their turn for someone else, and if you do, that boost in accuracy is 5% - not really worth bothering about for one single attack.

Team Shield Manoeuver – using a shield is a suboptimal strategy, so having two people in the group using one would be rare, and even then, the two have to be adjacent to eachother to get this effect. I just don’t see this happening often in play.

Wall of Steel – as above, and an arcane spellcaster has much better options to boost their AC than this.

Inevitability

2024-05-06, 03:52 AM

Awareness: This feels... incredibly bland. And kind of useless, to boot, given that this is D&D 3.5 and by the time you hit level 9, giving a +2 to the uninvested 10 wisdom fighter doesn't really matter when enemy sneaks have stealth modifiers hovering around the low twenties. Just poor design.

Camp Routine: Rather weak, but at least there's something here. A clear use case for why we'd care about the low-perception guy getting a bonus, a benefit for the highly invested party members still, and some fun flavor.

Circle of Blades: Readied action attacks aren't the greatest strategy (I guess this might be fun in E6?), and what's up with the prerequisites? What is it about 'hitting a guy at the same time' that specifically calls for fighter/rogue synergy?

Crowded Charge: Now this I like; a very clean solution to a problem likely to arise in certain parties. The requirement is meaningful without being punishing and has some innate synergy with Leap Attack, Tiger Claw maneuvers, etc.

(Improved) Cunning Ambush: Another fun one! Ambushes aren't the most common but this makes them a lot more viable. My only qualm is the random-seeming Listen requirement. The improvement is great as well. This is what a teamwork benefit should look like: a way to enable a whole new way of play on the party-wide level.

Expert Mountaineers: I dislike this solely because 'climbing' should rapidly stop being a tool in your arsenal around level 5. Outside of that, it's great: the skillful character gets a time to shine and everyone else benefits.

Foe Hunting: A bit bland, but I'll take it. Encouraging flanks is nice and I like the flavor of the ranger imparting some of his favored enemy knowledge.

Group Trance: Miles better than Camp Routine, but race-restricted so w/e. I like this a lot; very elegant design.

Indirect Fire: I get why this had to be a teamwork benefit, and I don't even think it's weak, but that's about it. The action required feels really rough for whoever is pointing out the invisible foe, though I guess a caster might not mind that much.

Like a Rock: Very situational, but at least it's flavorful.

Massed Charge: Sure, it requires a very specific kind of party, but it's cool! There's not a lot of teamwork benefits where I'd show them to my table and ask everyone to build around it, but this might be one of them. I think some White Raven maneuvers qualify also.

Missile Volley: All-archer is significantly harder to make work than all-charger. It's neat.

Steadfast Resolve: Fear can be nasty, but this still feels like a lot of investment (Iron Will? Really?) for not all that much payoff.

Superior Team Effort: I question how many parties even use Aid Another to begin with, but the design is impeccable: let the skill-booster shine while everyone else gets to meaningfully contribute.

Team Melee Tactics: I think there's 1 feat in tome of battle that kinda somewhat encourages using aid another for attack rolls? And that one opportunity attack feat? But generally, this keys off of an action that's simply not worth doing. The combat expertise requirement kills it dead for me.

Team Rush: I kinda like this one! Not sure how it works, but I like the mental image of a 40 ft. speed orc barbarian dragging along the poor little gnome fighter.

Team Shield Maneuver: 3.5 design keeps assuming that characters falling to the negatives is a common occurrence, instead of something that mathematically stops happening as HP scales. The effect is cool, when it applies, so points for that, but shields need all the help they can get and I'd have liked to see this be a bit stronger.

Wall of Steel: Very exploitable: I like it! I think I saw someone use this with Inlindl School to get incredibly high to-hit. But also in general just a nice way to protect your allies; great, evocative design.

Darg

2024-05-06, 08:40 AM

Lilapop

2024-05-07, 04:41 AM

Clerics and druids are competent warriors in their own right, and with the right set of buff spells [...], they can be the equals of nearly any warrior-type character.
Wow, did they actually start playing their own game after like six years?

(such as bull’s strength, magic weapon, and the like)
Nope, they still haven't a clue. If the first thing that comes to mind here is NOT divine power, then I guess we shouldn't be surprised they are thinking about high-AC, attritional fighting when talking about the monk

Team Rush – does anyone care about overland movement speed being different for different party members?
Overland speed is a function of tactical speed, and your fastest party member can easily have more than double that of the slowest. So if you key your overland to exclusively the high number, it too doubles. That may be meaningless in some campaigns, but in others it could be quite crucial. Of course, you could achieve the same by the barbarian wearing the tibbit as a fur stole and the sorcerer riding on the dire wolf animal companion (or popping feathers [legendary eagle] plus some other druid spells for an easy 264 miles/day).

pabelfly

2024-05-07, 05:36 AM

So, I agree with most of Inevitability's assessments, just a few comments to add.

Awareness: This feels... incredibly bland. And kind of useless, to boot, given that this is D&D 3.5 and by the time you hit level 9, giving a +2 to the uninvested 10 wisdom fighter doesn't really matter when enemy sneaks have stealth modifiers hovering around the low twenties. Just poor design.

I kind of disagree with you there. This applies to all team members, so it's going to apply to both the Fighter that has no Spot and Listen, and the Ranger who has full ranks in both. If you've got a caster that wants to do stuff like alarms and whatever, this is less relevant, but if you want to use skill checks, this is pretty decent.

(Improved) Cunning Ambush: Another fun one! Ambushes aren't the most common but this makes them a lot more viable. My only qualm is the random-seeming Listen requirement. The improvement is great as well. This is what a teamwork benefit should look like: a way to enable a whole new way of play on the party-wide level.

It's been my experience that party members don't normally get the chance to set up an ambush. However, I think this is good for the DM though, if he wants a mechanical justification for setting up an ambush that's hard for the players to detect.

Massed Charge: Sure, it requires a very specific kind of party, but it's cool! There's not a lot of teamwork benefits where I'd show them to my table and ask everyone to build around it, but this might be one of them. I think some White Raven maneuvers qualify also.

This is a pretty fair point. Hell, I might do that for my table myself.

Steadfast Resolve: Fear can be nasty, but this still feels like a lot of investment (Iron Will? Really?) for not all that much payoff.

I wouldn't pick Iron Will in of itself for a build or this ability, but there's a few different reasons to get it - classes like Incantatrix, Ur-Priest, and Runescarred Berserker require it, and you need it for the Reserves of Strength feat, among other less-likely use cases. If I got Iron Will on my build for some reason, this would be a nice secondary benefit I could pass around.

Inevitability

2024-05-07, 07:58 AM

I kind of disagree with you there. This applies to all team members, so it's going to apply to both the Fighter that has no Spot and Listen, and the Ranger who has full ranks in both. If you've got a caster that wants to do stuff like alarms and whatever, this is less relevant, but if you want to use skill checks, this is pretty decent.

[...]

I wouldn't pick Iron Will in of itself for a build or this ability, but there's a few different reasons to get it - classes like Incantatrix, Ur-Priest, and Runescarred Berserker require it, and you need it for the Reserves of Strength feat, among other less-likely use cases. If I got Iron Will on my build for some reason, this would be a nice secondary benefit I could pass around.

Fair point on Steadfast Resolve; I hadn't considered the case where you've got Iron Will anyway, and I really should have. It's pretty good then yeah.

As for Awareness: perhaps 'useless' was the wrong word, but 'pointless as a teamwork benefit' seems accurate. A teamwork benefit, by design, is meant to create synergy between a highly skilled leader and several less-skilled members; typically by the latter assisting the former, but sometimes the other way around. This doesn't do either.

If you've got one party member with maxed Spot and Listen and three with no investment, the only meaningful effect awareness has is that it gives +2 to the perceptive guy's skills. It's a 'teamwork benefit' that doesn't really involve the team at all - it just improves the PC who was going to be making the check anyway. Where's the teamwork?

If I had to make a teamwork benefit for spot/listen (difficult given how much spot/listen is a skill where you really only need one person to pass) my first thought would've been something more like Indirect Fire, and my second a way to prevent allies from being surprised/flanked/flat-footed if you yourself are not. If I was going to make it a plain bonus, I'd at least have it scale to the number of allies within 30 feet.

Darg

2024-05-07, 01:39 PM

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that not every teamwork benefit works for every group and not every party member needs to be part of every team. Teamwork benefits are there to be something extra and not really a "build your character around" type of set up.

Awareness: Got 2+ classes with spot as a class skill as part of your party? Investing 2 ranks isn't going to harm them in any way shape or form and you get the benefit of more easily spotting enemies. This stacks with Camp Routine and is practically free with Indirect Fire.

Camp Routine: 1 rank isn't much of an investment and stacks with Camp Routine. In scenarios where this would be valuable, the endurance feat can be as well. These combo well with the Team Rush benefit.

Circle of Blades: This is one of those that are best as a passive benefit as it isn't exactly a stretch that a fighter would have weapon specialization and rogues can't take extra attacks using a standard action anyways. This also combos well with a character making use of the spring attack feat.

Crowded Charge: Obviously good and combos well with Massed Charge.

Cunning Ambush: Both it and the improved version are simply excellent.

Expert Mountaineers: Stacking bonus to climb checks from strongest to weakest climbers in a group for 1 rank? Yes please. Despite Inevitability's claim, options for allowing a team to traverse climbing terrain over the course of a day are pretty limited until higher levels as they only last rounds/1-10 minutes per level. Not every group has an abundance of casters either.

Foe Hunting: Lots of teamwork benefits need a rank of survival and so this is pretty much free damage for parties with a ranger in the group.

Group Trance: I've always been a fan of elves' meditation to skip sleep. If you have a group with 0 arcane casters you just gained yourself 4 hours per day. Otherwise you've gained the ability to reduce the number of watches and increase the number of eyes on watch. Combos well with the spot and survival benefits.

Indirect Fire: A group wide melee AND ranged blindfight and sharp shooting feats and location pinpointing unseen creatures for just the cost of a single move action and 3 ranks in spot? Oh heck yes.

Like a Rock: It's basically a free benefit. 1 rank isn't going to kill anyone and you need the rank anyways for Massed Charge.

Massed Charge: Bigger power attacks or more likely to hit. No real downside unless you are low in the initiative order.

Missile Volley: Assumes your team isn't a bunch of muscleheaded uberchargers. PBS and rapid shot are actually excellent feats usable with thrown weapons in melee too. Might be unattainable if you didn't know that, but if you did it's pretty likely you'll get access to this benefit. This benefit helps everyone hit at the cost of their less likely to hit attacks. Win win at all ranges in my book.

Steadfast Resolve: I mean, if you have 8 ranks of concentration AND iron will, why not? Considering the necessity for a less than necessary feat I can't say this is ever going to see play. Might be worth it if the benefit stacked with itself, but the wording seems to preclude that interpretation. Recommended: remove the iron will requirement and replace it with a Wisdom score of 15.

Superior Team Effort: If you use aid another to help with a particular skill check that a character has skill focus for then it's perfectly fine. Combos well with cunning ambush though. Outside of that, can't really see this getting much use. Recommend just removing the skill focus feat requirement.

Team Melee Tactics: If your build uses combat expertise and dodge, it's free. Using aid another to improve another's attack roll is already really rare and magic is available for hard to hit enemies. I just don't think this will ever see much use. Maybe if it had the benefit of causing the creature hit to provoke an AoO?

Team Rush: If you don't or can't use mounts, can speed up travel a lot. Please say thank you to your monk travel mule.

Team Shield Maneuver: Shield Specialization gives access to some decent PHB2 shield feats. If you got that already this is a 100% free benefit. Not great if you are using animated shields as the game eventually assumes you will.

Wall of Steel: If you have a fighter, this is 100% free and has a great effect. Even though you can't stack the benefit of this benefit with itself, giving up to a +7-10 AC to another is a huge advantage.

pabelfly

2024-05-07, 03:41 PM

Steadfast Resolve: I mean, if you have 8 ranks of concentration AND iron will, why not? Considering the necessity for a less than necessary feat I can't say this is ever going to see play. Might be worth it if the benefit stacked with itself, but the wording seems to preclude that interpretation. Recommended: remove the iron will requirement and replace it with a Wisdom score of 15.

I did look up Iron Will to see what prestige classes required it, and the most popular options would be Incantatrix, Ur-Priest, and maybe Nar Demonbinder. There's also the Reserves of Strength feat that also requires Iron Will. If I were running a build with one of those classes (or one of the other less-likely options that requires both Iron Will and Concentration ranks), I'd strongly consider sharing this teamwork benefit with the rest of the party.

pabelfly

2024-05-13, 03:44 AM

Chapter 7: Affiliations

Chapter 5 was about roleplaying as an individual, and Chapter 6 discusses roleplaying as part of a party. Expanding again in scope, Chapter 7 gives roleplaying, rules and rewards for playing as part of an affiliation.

We get some background on the use of affiliations in campaigns and how to handle their scaling and growth. You can donate money to have an affiliation quickly expand, but it’s not necessary, and even before the scaling jump at level 11, becomes very expensive very early. It would also take nearly a century for an organization to go from scale 1 to scale 20 without any outside investment to hasten its rise, and that’s presuming nothing happens that would stunt organizational growth.

Lastly, an organization will have three bonuses: violence, espionage and negotiation, and how well these scale depends on the organization. However, there are no DCs given for the rolls, nor any relevant modifiers. I suppose this is all left to the DM.

After that, we get to example affiliations, with the disclaimer that each affiliation is adaptable, should be revised for your specific world or table, and they’re at the behest of the DM. Lastly, if you don’t like the affiliations here or they don’t match your character, you can work with the DM to customize one to suit you.

I'll give everyone else a chance to post their opinions on the various affiliations and their rules before I post my thoughts.

Inevitability

2024-05-13, 04:05 AM

The example evil affiliation on page 163 ("it could subtly undermine the faith of a paladin king..." seems like a fairly explicit allusion to Lord Soth. He didn't get mentioned much throughout 3rd edition, did he?

Also fun to see WotC's enduring struggle about the proper adjective for Wee Jas. It's 'Jasian' here, 'Jasite' elsewhere.

Will comment on anything but the chapter's first page soon.

pabelfly

2024-05-13, 06:22 AM

Okay, boring admin stuff:

This week's reading is Chapter 8 and the appendix, then we move on to our next book.

I'd like to do a DM-facing book like Exemplars of Evil, Fiendish Codex I, or Elder Evils. Alternatively, it would be pretty cool to do an issue of Dragon or Dungeon Magazine.

After doing a bit of digging, I think we'll do issues 310-312 of Dragon Magazine, unless I hear a better suggestion. They cover the transition from 3.0 to 3.5 and have a bunch of alternate class options for the Core classes, and in general have a good variety in terms of content for both general players and DMs.

That said, I'm open to alternate suggestions.

Tzardok

2024-05-13, 06:44 AM

That does sound interesting.

pabelfly

2024-05-13, 05:53 PM

I don’t think there’s actually much point getting too deep into critiquing the specific progressions, rules, or rewards of each affiliation. As stated several times, they need to be tweaked for individual players and their characters. The power level of each affiliation is all over the place.

I think that an expected character level would have been helpful here. Even if you like the flavour of a particular progression and think it would suit a player, you’re going to have to tweak the rewards to suit their character level.

Lastly, diplomatic bonuses within the group should have been baked-in for each affiliation, not a reward for progression.

Anyway, here's some affiliation opinions.

Bloodfist Tribe – the half-orc Barbarian tribe option. The benefits aren’t too big, but the cost of joining is commensurably low.
Brightmantle – the weapon trader option. There’s a lot of words on duties and risk, but very little on benefits. However, at the highest level, you can borrow 30K gold and repay it a year later, when presumably you’ve made several levels and the effort to get 30K at that time is far less than the effort it would have been a year prior. Still, I would have preferred more word on what a mid-level Subguild Head gets for the risk they take on.
Caravan of Shadows – the criminal halfling option. You can sell a bunch of items above half price, if that’s relevant to you, there’s a bunch of nice bonuses to rogues and roguelikes, and the +2 bonus on saving throws is very appealing. Decent.
Castle Mairo – the Castle Knight option. Kind of weak in terms of benefits. Knight Baronet giving you followers might be okay, depending on level, but I’d only consider this if somehow your DM wasn’t okay with the Leadership feat but was fine with this affiliation’s benefits.
The Chalice – the roaming Knight option. Free spells (except for materials) up to fourth level, and “raise dead” that only costs faction reputation are both good benefits. You can also borrow one weapon for a week once a year. Maybe if you have a tough foe to fight, there might be value in borrowing a weapon that specifically counters that enemy (such as a Bane weapon for a difficult fight). Very good group.
Darkspire College – the DnD Harry Potter option. A 90% cost of crafting magical items is nice. I’m not so sure about the capstone benefit though. What level does the devs expect you to be at to have 30 affinity with the college, but borrowing 750 gold in consumables is a significant benefit?
Dragon Island – the dragon rider option. The benefits here seem weak. Leadership to get a dragon is underpowered compared to simply taking the Dragon Cohort feat. You can get immunity to Frightful Presence at least. Cool flavour, but definitely needs reworking.
Elves of the High Forest – the forest elf option. Some nice benefits for elves that want to do various skill-based checks. The +2 to caster level for Druid and Ranger spells is decent too.
Golden Helm Guild – the gnome crafter option. Some nice crafting bonuses here, including a free feat and reduced XP costs.
The Land of Honor – the Japanese Samurai option. You get some bonuses for wielding a katana, and some Intimidation bonuses. Not the most powerful affiliation, but if you want to play samurai, here you go.
Merata Kon – the roaming barbarian option. Not too impressed with the bonuses though, and Leadership is better.
The One and the Five – the secretive Wizard option. Extra wizard spells each level is nice, so is the reduced magic costs, and borrowing items worth 10K for a week can be very nice if you have specific items that would work in a specific encounter but aren’t great as general items.
Restenford Guild of Insurers, Solicitors, and Beggars – the shady guild option. The problem with this affiliation is that it really limits you in terms of available items. Getting up to 1,600 gold/month worth for being a member is a very nice bonus, depending on level, but the item restriction kills it, except maybe if you have severe restrictions on allowed items.
Restenford Sewer Workers Guild – the sewer worker option. There’s some really minor situational bonuses on offer here. You’d probably want to rework this one if you wanted to join this guild in a game.
Sharulhensa, The Alabaster Towers – the half-elf mage option. This continues a time-honoured tradition of half-elves just being a bad choice. I appreciate that. The two highlights are a +1 to enchantment spells and spell-like abilities, and Detect Magic usable at will. I’d pick another group, even if I was (for some reason) playing a half-elf mage.
Sun Fane – the temple option. The bonuses here are also really weak.
The Thunder Sail Argosy – the piracy option. The capstone of this is pretty good – while the followers can be gotten elsewhere, the pirate ship you’re loaned, while not specified, could be worth thousands or even tens of thousands of gold.
Wintervein Dwarves – the dwarven warrior option. There’s some free feats for this, which are nice if you want to be a Dwarf using dwarven weapons, and there are some nice bonuses to attacks and damage if you’re going to be fighting the enemies of Dwarves often.

I’m not even touching the custom affiliation rules, if I were at that point, I’d just make my own progression from scratch.

What I would bring up as a potential concern with affiliations, is that working for an organization often seems at odds with typical play, at least from my experience. Your DM might have a story or goals they want to achieve, or a module they want to run, which might have little to nothing to do with furthering the goals of an affiliation. A lot of these affiliations are very time-consuming, especially if you want to take on missions to improve your standing. This might be less of an issue if the entire party wants to join the same affiliation, but that seems like a very big “if”.

Affiliations might be more fun if your group decides to all work together to further the goals of an affiliation, though.

Overall, though, I think this is pretty decent content. There’s a lot of great flavour here with the various affiliations, and it’s given me ideas to see if I can use it to influence my own sessions in the future.