New to D&D: A lot of not-so-simple questions

[RndmNumGen]

Well, despite having read Order of the Stick for a while now, and despite having played a large amount of computer games directly based off of D&D, I only recently played my first game. I ended up rolling a Druid because I wanted to be able to cast spells while still maintaining some physical integrity and melee ability. I had quite a bit of fun, and soon after I got to play another game, this time as a Cleric. Anyway, I had quite a few questions since then, and I thought I might ask here, because well... OotS is based on D&D. Anyway, onto the questions:

1) I originally was going to roll my cleric as a worshiper of Vecna, but was persuaded not to since Evil clerics had to prepare their healing spells directly, so I would have been less useful and had less flexibility. Later in the game, wands and scrolls became so abundant that having healing spells prepared seemed less important, though. While wiping out hordes of skeletons with good Turn Undead rolls was fun, I still want to play an Evil cleric. Are they really that bad?

2) Similar question pertaining to Sorcerers and Wizards. It seems to me that having more spells per day(and a bigger variety) is a good thing, so why are sorcerers considered weaker?

3) Can monks use weapons effectively, taking advantage of the speed and ki benefits, or are they relegated to hand-to-hand? I'm wondering because polearms are my favorite weapon, and in several games I've played Monks have made very powerful polearm users.

4) Aside from flavor elements, does religion have any effect for non-clerics? Would it be possible to play as a fighter following an evil god as an evil paladin-esque character?

5) What on earth is the point of a Scroll of Read Magic?

[jiriku]

1) No. Evil clerics can be just as powerful. They just do their business a little differently.

2) A bigger variety of spells to choose from is more useful than extra spells per day. Wizards tend to accumulate a LOT of spells. Thus wizards generally come out ahead.

3) In D&D, monks really don't do anything very well. The class is poorly made.

4) The deity you worship determines the devotion feats available to you if you have Complete Champion. Otherwise, it's just flavor. Yes, you can flavor a religious fighter as an evil paladin. Or you could play the paladin of tyranny or paladin of slaughter variant classes from Unearthed Arcana.

5) You can write your grocery list on the back of it if there's nothing else handy.

[aje8]

Answer to 1: Common DnD Misconception: The importance of healing. Honestly, most of the healing you will be doing will be out of combat anyway and it's really not that crucial a thing. You will be completley fine playing an evil cleric.

In fact, I would reccomend that you be careful you don't heal too much. In battle, dropping the enemy faster with an attack, offensive spell or buff spell is usually going to save more damage then a heal spell because if the enemy dies faster he makes less attacks. Be sure to do most of healing out of comabt and not prepare too many heal spells.

jiriku answered the other questions pretty throughly.

Though I'll add this: Wizards are generally accepted as being way stronger than Sorcerers because the Wizard can wake up each morning and change his entire game plan. One day he can be a undead controller, the next a buffer, the next an offensive caster. The Sorcerer can only a fraction of these things and only knows limited spells.

[Mando Knight]

On 2), though, it's important to note that a Wizard who doesn't plan his game correctly will be weaker than a Sorcerer who picks the right general-use spells. Having 4 marginally useful spells of a given level is less powerful than having 6 marginally useful spells, especially when the one with 6 can also make decent untrained checks to make people be nice to him. (Bards still do it better, though)

For 3), it's important to note that only weapons specified as Monk weapons will work with the Monk's Flurry of Blows, which is really the only reason to pick its full attack progression as compared to the Fighter or other such characters. It's also important to note that excepting the to-hit bonus from having an enhanced weapon on hand, a Monk's best weapon quickly becomes his unarmed strikes, which eventually deal more base damage than a greatsword.

[RndmNumGen]

One more: What would be the advantages/disadvantages of rolling a character dedicated to a single element, like fire or lightning? What would be the best class to do so?

[Dienekes]

One more: What would be the advantages/disadvantages of rolling a character dedicated to a single element, like fire or lightning? What would be the best class to do so?

Don't?

It's incredibly limiting. As there are certain characters who are immune to such things as electricity and fire (definitely fire, everything and their grandmother is immune to fire)

As for best, it'd be wizard again.

[Ixcuazl]

1: They're okay, really. Spontaneous curing is more useful than spontaneous harm, but the true ultimate power of the cleric lies not in healing but in buffing himself (and others) into invincibility, then smashing everything before it hurts you.

Evil clerics do get to rebuke undead, which is nice. Better to gain allies than destroy enemies.

2: The main difference is that sorcerers have to pick spells that are always useful, while wizards can pick and choose based on the situation. There are a lot of spells which are either highly situational or rarely used, but nonetheless extremely handy when called for.

Theoretical wizards also get to abuse divination to find out exactly what spells to prepare. That said, most theorycraft super-wizards require the DM to play along.

In real games they both do just fine, plus the sorcerer doesn't have to spend an hour deciding which of his 359 spells to memorise today

3: I'm not sure, but a monk with a reach weapon would be able to attack both at range with the polearm and close-in with their fists.

Monks don't get to use their improved base damage unless they're using one of their special-monk-weapons, though. Your DM may let you claim a glaive or something as a monk weapon, since it's not terribly unreasonable. Make it eastern-sounding and you're using the same logic as the rest of the list.

If not, I seem to recall seeing a feat which lets you pick another monk weapon. I can't find it, though, and I'm not sure where (or if) I saw it.

Monks need a bit of a power boost to be decently effective, though. Something like having full BAB and being able to use wis instead of str for attack and damage.

4: Nup. It's all RP, so do whatever you like. Makes things interesting. Although there are evil paladin variants, if you'd rather.

5: Uh... I suppose if you had spellcraft and UMD ranks and no casting ability, you might... hm. Well, you can sell it to some idiot shopkeeper for a few coins. Coins are nice.

Edit: 6: Advantage: it's kinda cool. Disadvantage: energy resistance.

There's a nice feat which lets you turn half your fire damage into irresistable super-fire. That way you can burn things which are made of fire. That alone makes it worth technically being weaker than Mr. Regular Wizard.

[Grynning]

On the Monk-with-a-polearm thing, I'm pretty sure there's a feat in a book somewhere that lets you use a certain type of polearm as a monk weapon. There's definitely one for longswords and a couple of other weapons.

Also remember that most of the monk-y goodness you get out of the first two levels. So going Monk 2/Psychic Warrior X/Prestige Class or a similar build is probably your best bet to build that type of character.

I know you're new to the game, but there is an excellent (but somewhat controversial) book for 3.5 called the Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords. It has alternate combat classes with wuxia/action movie inspired moves that are generally considered a good deal more powerful than the basic melee classes. If you want to build a polearm wielder that feels like a monk, it's one of the books you should look in to.

[jiriku]

+1 to using Tome of Battle for your polearm wielder. As Grynning mentioned, there is a feat that lets a monk flurry with a longspear (worst polearm in the game), but it's better to take, for example, the unarmed variant of the swordsage in ToB, pick a discipline of martial powers that supports a polearm, and then pwn face.

[elliott20]

Yeah, ToB is a pretty standard suggestion for most people who want to play any kind of melee warrior.

It's also one of the most multi-classing friendly books out there too.

[Temet Nosce]

One more: What would be the advantages/disadvantages of rolling a character dedicated to a single element, like fire or lightning? What would be the best class to do so?

I'd actually recommend a Sorcerer as a direct damage blaster. Go with Fire, take Searing Spell (lets you ignore 1/2 of fire immunity), Reserves of Strength, Maximize Spell, Twin Spell, Admixture, Practical Metamagic, et al... Go into Incantatrix, and use Orb of Fire, Lesser with the Reserves of Strength feat and persisted Arcane Spellsurge in Arcane Fusions to deal thousands of damage a round.

The disadvantage... Well, fire immunity still reduces the damage by half and direct damage isn't that great in the first place. Albeit in this case you'll be one shotting most things anyways.

[Tyndmyr]

1) I originally was going to roll my cleric as a worshiper of Vecna, but was persuaded not to since Evil clerics had to prepare their healing spells directly, so I would have been less useful and had less flexibility. Later in the game, wands and scrolls became so abundant that having healing spells prepared seemed less important, though. While wiping out hordes of skeletons with good Turn Undead rolls was fun, I still want to play an Evil cleric. Are they really that bad?

Nah, they're just fine. Healing is not the only powerful aspect of the cleric....it just happens to be the most popular aspect to those getting healed. It's really amazing how many players will insist on the need for a healbot, yet don't care enough to play one.

My personal opinion is that healing is something best done between battles anyway, and since you can replace a healbot with a wand...why bother being just a healbot?

2) Similar question pertaining to Sorcerers and Wizards. It seems to me that having more spells per day(and a bigger variety) is a good thing, so why are sorcerers considered weaker?

Flexibility. Sorcerers have a very limited number of spells known, so wizards actually get more variety. The tradeoff is, a wizard has to prepare his spells in advance. Also, the wizard gets free metamagic or item crafting feats, and gets higher level spells one level earlier.

That said, a sorcerer is definitely not weak, and while flexibility is great, sheer volume of spell slots is a really nice thing to have, especially in an encounter heavy game.

3) Can monks use weapons effectively, taking advantage of the speed and ki benefits, or are they relegated to hand-to-hand? I'm wondering because polearms are my favorite weapon, and in several games I've played Monks have made very powerful polearm users.

Sort of. There are a bunch of monk based weapons that they can use, but in general, damage with them doesn't scale as well as unarmed. If you want to be a martial polearm wielding type, I'd suggest picking a different melee class. Sure, you *can* do it as monk, but it's just likely to not be as effective.

One level of barbarian will get you a speed boost, by the way, so if you're looking to be a speedy type(which can be handy), that's an easy way to boost that.

4) Aside from flavor elements, does religion have any effect for non-clerics? Would it be possible to play as a fighter following an evil god as an evil paladin-esque character?

There are a few specific exceptions, but in general, religion is mostly fluffy. You don't even need to be the exact same alignment as the god you worship. In general, go with whatever you think sounds cool with your character concept.

And yeah, you can do evil fighter as a paladin-styled theme. Remember, character class is a strictly mechanical thing. Positions and such in the D&D world can vary significantly, and are certainly not always class dependent.

5) What on earth is the point of a Scroll of Read Magic?

I have no frigging idea. I came up with half a dozen different ideas, but all them turned out to be completely pointless. Honestly, I'd just write it off as the designers not thinking about how rules intersect. Happens a lot.

[tyckspoon]

5) What on earth is the point of a Scroll of Read Magic?

The only thing I can think of is the rather absurdly specific situation where you have two undeciphered scrolls. One is Read Magic. The other is.. well, some random 9th level scroll. You have sufficient Spellcraft to decipher the Read Magic scroll, but not the 9th level scroll. You can use the Read Magic scroll to read the 9th level scroll. Assuming you can't wait a day and put Read Magic in one of your cantrip slots, or didn't already have Read Magic in one of them, because what the heck else are you going to use it for?

[Dixieboy]

Also remember that most of the monk-y goodness you get out of the first two levels. So going Monk 2/Psychic Warrior X/Prestige Class or a similar build is probably your best bet to build that type of character..

First game, let's keep the suggestions on PrCing and multiclassing on standby.

[Curmudgeon]

The feat you're looking for is Serpent Strike (Eberron Campaign Setting), which allows use of the longspear as a special Monk weapon.

[Zen Master]

Answer to 1: Common DnD Misconception: The importance of healing. Honestly, most of the healing you will be doing will be out of combat anyway and it's really not that crucial a thing. You will be completley fine playing an evil cleric.

Honestly, I consider a well-designed combat encounter to be one you cannot survive without healing at some point. And an encounter that leaves the cleric drained of healing is even better - tho hopefully that's the last encounter of the day.

[Gan The Grey]

Actually there are a large amount of very cool polearm/spear feats in the Dragon Compendium, one specifically for monk that allows him to choose (or assigns) a polearm as a monk weapon. This opens up another few feats for him, like one that gives him deflect arrows when ever he is using his polearm. I highly suggest Dragon Compendium if you plan on making a spear fighter.

[Temet Nosce]

Honestly, I consider a well-designed combat encounter to be one you cannot survive without healing at some point. And an encounter that leaves the cleric drained of healing is even better - tho hopefully that's the last encounter of the day.

That's... evil. Since healing is basically only needed in a case where someone would be dropped to negative HP, you're talking about encounters that nearly guarantee a death.

... I like it. Albeit, the lethality rate would probably mean you'd need to warn your players beforehand. Still, with revivify it might work out. Be an interesting game.

[Eldariel]

Honestly, I consider a well-designed combat encounter to be one you cannot survive without healing at some point. And an encounter that leaves the cleric drained of healing is even better - tho hopefully that's the last encounter of the day.

Generally, Heal is the only healing spell worth casting mid-combat; few other healing spells can heal as much damage as is being dealt (an argument could be made for Summon Nature's Ally V-IV summoning a herd of unicorns being action-efficient, of course), and as much you would've stopped with an offensive action or an action-negating action.

Slugging matches really drain the party's resources and are rarely the best strategic alternative available. It really comes down to party's tactical and strategical savviness as much as it comes down to encounter design. If the only way to win an encounter is to start healing your own instead of stopping the enemy from harming you...something is wrong (outside some "boss fights" anyways).

[Kurald Galain]

1) I still want to play an Evil cleric. Are they really that bad?

Bad as in nasty, yes. Bad as in mechanically weak, certainly not.

2) Similar question pertaining to Sorcerers and Wizards. It seems to me that having more spells per day(and a bigger variety) is a good thing, so why are sorcerers considered weaker?

(a) bonus feats, (b) getting every spell level a level earlier, (c) if it's a specialist wizard or focused specialist wizard, the difference is much less, (d) workable metamagic. Sorcerers are easier to play for new players, though.

3) in several games I've played Monks have made very powerful polearm users.

Not in D&D.

4) Aside from flavor elements, does religion have any effect for non-clerics?

In most settings, no.

5) What on earth is the point of a Scroll of Read Magic?

The same as a Ring Of Extra Ring Wearing (which is a magical ring that allows you to wear an additional magical ring!)

[Schylerwalker]

One level of barbarian will get you a speed boost, by the way, so if you're looking to be a speedy type(which can be handy), that's an easy way to boost that.

That's technically impossible, because of the alignment requirement. Barbarians can't be lawful; monks MUST be lawful. So unless you're using one of those alternative monk things (Which in my opinion are RETARDED), you can't. Though that would cool. You'd be so fast. Toss some scout in there...you'd be INVINCIBLE.

Edit: A battle dancer/barbarian, however, would work beautifully.

Anyways, I digress. I rarely, if ever, play even a GOOD cleric that focuses in healing. Unless you're high level. A mass cure light wounds cast at ninth level heals everyone 1d8+9 hitpoints. Everyone. And has a chance of damaging any undead you're fighting as well. Have the Augment Healing feat? That's 1d8+19 to everybody. However, I prefer playing a cleric who focuses in buffing and buy a freaking wand. Imagine a cleric with the Destruction and Strength domains. Pop both of those, swing at an opponent while large-sized and buffed out to hell? The fighter will turn green with envy.

Also, if you can get your DM to agree with it, make up your OWN magical healing items. This is entire legit; if you look up the calculations for how much certain magical items cost, a wondrous item that can cast cure minor wounds at will (1 hp a round) costs a mere 1,000 gp. That's right, 1k gold. Out of combat? Okay, everyone, hold still. This might take awhile. And cure light wounds would only cost a few k. Anything higher than that though, and the price skyrockets.

Wizards get bonus feats and are more versatile. A sorcerer, however, can keep plugging an opponent with the same goddamn spell over and over again. For example, a friend of mine and I got into an argument to see which is more powerful, a wizard or a sorcerer. We fought six times, with different condition each time. We both won three times. Why? Well, three of those times, we each got an opportunity to buff. Being a sorcerer, I had hardly any buffing spells. With my limited amount of spells known, I couldn't dare waste them on buffing spells. He, being a wizard...well, a combination of resist energy, spell turning, and improved invisibility kicked my sorry ass. I won each time we couldn't prepare, he won each time we could prepare. Arcane Spellsurge is such an amazing spell for sorcerers.

Monks? I don't play monks. They...well, they don't suck, but I'd prefer to play a fighter with Unarmed Strike focusing feats. I would never play a swordsage or whatever, because those classes are freaking overpowered. I mean...holy crap!

Oh, and a scroll of read magic, and the point of one there being? What if you didn't both to prepare the spell? A cleric can read a scroll of read magic just find as long it's a divine spell; the same if it's arcane and it's a wizard or a sorcerer. Badaboom badabang. However, again; 0 level spell, at will, caster level 1; 1k gold.

That's MY two cents.

[DragoonWraith]

First game, let's keep the suggestions on PrCing and multiclassing on standby.

Why on earth would you do that? It's not that complicated to suggest a PrC, it's one of 3.5 biggest strong-suits, it's interesting and more fun, etc etc. Your suggestion makes no sense to me.

Multiclassing and Prestige Classes are the reasons I find D&D interesting. They let you be far more creative with your character than you can be otherwise.

[Kaiyanwang]

One more: What would be the advantages/disadvantages of rolling a character dedicated to a single element, like fire or lightning? What would be the best class to do so?

A lot of critters are immune to this or that energy. Nevertheless, the edition is an huge toolbox and is very difficult NOT find a way to overcome a problem.

For [Fire] and [Cold] spells, there are two feats in (respectively) Sandstorm and Frostburn splatbooks allowing to overcome the resistance. In frostburn there is a flavourful (not so powerful but nice) PrC for mages that want to deal cold damage to everybody.

More, the energy substitution feat allows to convert a spell dealing an energy damage in another energy damage (like fire--> frost) so you could gather up different spells.

Consider that "blasting", dealing direct damage with spell is not always considered the best choice (even if is FUN!). so you could choose spells that deal damage and inflict a condition (like Icelance), through the spell effect or by other tricks. Ask specifically in the future and the playground will answer (say, "I want to built a frost mage..").

[Kaiyanwang]

Honestly, I consider a well-designed combat encounter to be one you cannot survive without healing at some point. And an encounter that leaves the cleric drained of healing is even better - tho hopefully that's the last encounter of the day.

That's a bit exaggerating. You could have an encounter that is made in a way allowing the PCs to act like a SWAT. Surpire round, everybody dispatched, win.

Nevertheless, I consider the "no healing in fight" quite dumb. Can happen that the healer must run to save the **s of a PC because the enemies focused him. O a single 1st level orc barbarian critted him for 53 damages.

The thing that makes interesting this game is that fights change a lot, enemy and allies defense and offense can change a lot, as well as terrain and tactical advanatages. PC and DM (as monsters and NPC) must ADAPT.

[Dingle]

the Ring Of Extra Ring Wearing could be powerful if you combined it with another effect. At high levels, adding Of Extra Ring Wearing to a magic ring would cost 1.5 times the cost of a Ring Of Extra Ring Wearing, which could be considerably less than half the cost of, say, a Ring Of Epic protection +10 (2,000,000 gp).

[Foryn Gilnith]

Honestly, I consider a well-designed combat encounter to be one you cannot survive without healing at some point. And an encounter that leaves the cleric drained of healing is even better - tho hopefully that's the last encounter of the day.

The cleric would ideally use cheap wands to heal the party to full before each combat, and thus rarely "run out" of healing.

[lvl 1 sharnian]

For element blasting, Fire and Cold are best,

For fire, take searing flame from sandstorm and take levels in Santified One of Kord, have to worship Kord though

For cold, take Piercing Cold And Lord of the Uttercold

For either one, Maybe consider a few levels of Elemental Savant, it converts all your energy spells to one energy type

[Myrmex]

The biggest problem with evil clerics is that they prepare their spells at night. Unless the whole party doesn't mind adventuring in the dark (not such a big problem underground), you can't cast buff spells at the beginning of the day, pray, and recover all your spells.

Prepared casters + extend spell can be really good if they have a day to prepare a bunch of buff spells, put them up for a few hours, refresh their spell slots, and march to battle.

[Siosilvar]

The biggest problem with evil clerics is that they prepare their spells at night. Unless the whole party doesn't mind adventuring in the dark (not such a big problem underground), you can't cast buff spells at the beginning of the day, pray, and recover all your spells.

They don't have to. See Complete Warrior for an example: The LE Typhos grants spells at dawn.

[Sinfire Titan]

That's technically impossible, because of the alignment requirement. Barbarians can't be lawful; monks MUST be lawful. So unless you're using one of those alternative monk things (Which in my opinion are RETARDED), you can't. Though that would cool. You'd be so fast. Toss some scout in there...you'd be INVINCIBLE.

You lie. Monk 2/Barbarian 1 only loses the ability to multiclass back into Monk by becoming Chaotic. He can stay in Barbarian, and still have all of his Monk class features at no penalty other than that. If he went Barbarian 2/Monk 1, then he would lose the ability to Rage, but could get it back upon returning to a Chaotic alignment (which then prevents him from taking more levels in Monk, which doesn't matter because he's multiclassing anyway).

Monks? I don't play monks. They...well, they don't suck, but I'd prefer to play a fighter with Unarmed Strike focusing feats. I would never play a swordsage or whatever, because those classes are freaking overpowered. I mean...holy crap!

You lie twice in one paragraph. Monks do suck. Swordsages are not overpowered. These are debates for different threads however, and not appropriate conversation for this topic. If you wish to debate it with me, then either start a new thread or PM me.