The General D&D thread

But how do you convert between in-game units (damage) and physical units ?

For this math you will require:

-The real life amount of joules of energy of a lightning bolt -The power points investiture necessary to create said lightning bolt (eg 5-10 depending on interpretation) -The amount of joules of energy corresponding to the weight moved through an equal amount of power points using telekinetic abilities. Telekinetic Thrust is a good choice to start from, since that is also "burst" energy.

Telekinetic Thrust can hurl 250 lbs up to 300 feet (20th level manifester). We can assume this happens over the course of 1 to 6 seconds (as a round is 6 seconds long, but presumably the items don't take the entire round to get there). Ergo, we can assume that with 5 power points, we have the energy of 250 lbs being sent at a rate of around 150 feet per second.

Compare this to the damage of a lightning bolt; if the amount of power points necessary to duplicate the lightning bolt is more than five, adjust proportional energy downwards as is appropriate. Compare the number of joules for the thrown object with the joules of a lightning bolt.

This gives us the "energy efficiency" of psionics. Then we just have to think "how efficient is electricity at propelling railgun slugs." Presumably, a percentage of the energy is lost in the process, so we'd just adjust the lightning method's joules per PP down appropriately.

The final answer gives us our "most efficient" method of creating a Railgun with psionics.

After doing the math, we're let with this: Telekinetic thrust produces 120,000 joules of telekinetic force. A lightning bolt, on the other hand, produces a billion. This means that, in terms of raw energy, electrokinesis is ten thousand times as efficient at producing energy. Even if we assume that a 5d6 Energy Bolt power only deals 1% the damage an actual lightning bolt would deal (suggesting that a REAL lightning bolt would deal 500d6 lightning damage), Telekinetic Thrust is still an order of magnitude lower in terms of energy efficiency.

tl;dr version, electrokinesis OP. Nerf plz.

edited 21st Jul '15 5:32:25 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Lightning effects are vastly more energetic than any other kind of spell if you assume real-world properties of electricity. They must be considered an outlier for the rules to make any sense.

Well, let's be honest: are they really?

It's pretty obvious that it's meaningless to think that damage against organic creatures (eg characters that have HP based on class level etc) is in any way reflective of the game world. But what if we look at the destructive power against structures and other significant objects?

If a building is struck by lightning, you're going to see a lot of damage. But it's not like most structures are outright leveled. Compare that to having a structure be hit by an explosive with a 20 foot blast radius. What kind of damage are we seeing?

The energy of a bolt of lightning doesn't really correspond with how much damage it does. I don't think it's really an outlier just on lightning's sake.

Part of it is that, there's no such thing as an instantaneous effect in the real world. Fire and even lightning cause damage over time. So it's actually hard to compare.

I've been thinking : the mechanics for the wizard and the sorcerer don't match the way their respective magics work. Wizards must painstakingly learn each spell before they can cast them : they should be the one who have a limited list of known spells, while sorcerer would be able to cast any spell since their magic is innate and they don't control what they can and can't do.

A wizard's "spells known" aren't really known in the sense of memorized, they're just copied into the wizard's spellbook. Take their spellbook away and they can't cast any spells (barring feats and junk that let them for-reals memorize spells in the "can prepare without consulting their cheat sheet" sense, anyway).

Sorcerers, on the other hand, know all their spells known. They don't need to study their notes to refresh their memory to prepare a spell beforehand by making sure its fresh in their mind. A sorcerer's spells are always fresh in their mind, because they know their spells intuitively, rather than learning them by rote.

So sorcerers know fewer spells at a time, but can cast any of them instantly, while wizards have more spells available, but have to prepare them beforehand.

But why would a wizard go through the effort of writing down every spell ever ? And how can a sorcerer choose the spells they know if it comes innately ?

To a wizard, their spells known are their power, their purpose. So a wizard will always seek to increase their spell knowledge, even if it means lugging around an extradimensional library. Wizards are Batman: there is no such thing as too many tools in their utility belt.

To a sorcerer, their spells are innate, learned by virtue of the power inborn in them. "Choosing" spells is a game mechanic; one might as well say that as they gain power, they unlock more of that innate knowledge. But they have no training in the study of magic; they're winging it, so they have a very limited repertoire.

edited 22nd Jul '15 4:07:29 PM by Fighteer

Sorcerers also know their spells as ways to use their inate power. Kinda like a martial artists knows moves and maneuvers. Sorcerers DO require training to do what they do, just less than a Wizard. the spell known are ways the Sorcerer has learned to "express" his magical powers. A sorcerer just doesn't require academic knowledge of magical theory and the like.

edited 22nd Jul '15 4:22:19 PM by CobraPrime

Hum, right. Makes sense.

Changing topic : I hear a lot that a cleric (or other support class) should not be a healbot, should focus on buffing/debuffing in combat, and save the healing for the aftermath unless there's a real emergency. That's all well and good, and it certainly seems more fun to play that way. Except... it doesn't really match my (admittedly limited) experience. In my group, there was always someone on the brink of death, and the party cleric had to keep healing the most wounded round after round. He's the only one who never went unconscious, if if he had it would probably have been a TPK. And that's even though we used full HD for our HP (e.g. if you have a d8 HD, you get 8+CON HP per level).

So what was wrong ? Did the GM (he was new at GMing) make the encounters too tough ? Or was it because of a bad party composition ? I'm thinking we didn't have any controller role.

edited 23rd Jul '15 10:18:17 AM by Aetol

What edition were you?

If you're talking 4E, the "more than a healbot" issue is already fixed because heals are minor actions not standard actions.

If you're talking 3E, well, that was before the "more than a healbot" ideology came out.

If you're talking 5E, Healing Word is a bonus action; if you use it to stabilize a creature, they don't have to worry about their previously failed death saves, so it works just as well as Cure Wounds. Heals a little less HP, but only 2 per spell level, and it's better action economy wise. That being said, you can't trade an action to a bonus action, so if you ever need to heal two people in a round, yeah, you'd use Healing Word as a bonus and Cure Wounds as a standard.

If I were to posit as to what went wrong, your DM may be misreading the encounter building rules. The DMG says "Okay, so, like, build your encounter budget of XP, but oh by the way if you have more than one monster, multiple the total XP of the encounter by this modifier depending on the total number of monsters in the encounter."

But, to be frank, without a lot more information, it's pretty much impossible to make an accurate assessment of what went wrong. You could have inferior gear, could have poorly rolled stats, could be using the wrong spells, could be failing to take full advantage of terrain, etc. Lots of things can go wrong.

edited 23rd Jul '15 10:26:39 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

Oh, right, sorry. It was 3.5.

So... that was actually normal ? How is the cleric one of the most powerful classes then ?

Level 9 at the start of the campaign, 17 at the end.

edited 23rd Jul '15 10:29:22 AM by Aetol

Because if you had swapped out all your non-clerics for clerics, you probably wouldn't have had to have the clerics cast healing spells.

Well, that, or you're low level. I don't know what your gear or level is like, and let's be frank, CR in 3.5 is a complete and total crapshoot. Especially if the DM throws templates around.

edited 23rd Jul '15 10:28:03 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

in our last game, our clerics were /supposed/ to be healing because everyone was hovering between 13 and -9 health all battle except me, but instead opted to set things on fire. so my paladin with a far better strength score was on healing duty, and had to resort to a couple of "shield other" spells to keep her idiot teammates alive.

Really, the best strategy in a healing environment is based on initiative.

If you heal an ally and they act before the enemy, then by healing them, you're getting an extra ally turn out of it, and also making it harder for them to die.

If, however, you heal an ally and then the enemy immediately attacks, you've pretty much spent your turn to force the enemy into reducing the ally back into the negatives.

On the flip side, if you have a turn and you can kill enemies with your action, then you deny them not only their immediate turn, but also future turns.

In short, the question of "whether to heal or to keel" (fancy way of saying kill) is based on what tradeoffs you're operating with.

It doesn't help that in 3.5, healing doesn't start from 0; you cast Cure Light Wounds, you may not even make your ally conscious. And then they're still a coup de grace away from dying, and you basically just wasted your action.

DOUBLE POST ATTACK DESU!

So I know I said I was converting to 5E full time, but I take that back. It's better for a lot of things, but for what I'm about to try to do, 4E still works a lot better.

I'm thinking of running a post-apocalyptic campaign, where the characters are part of the psionics using human resistance against the nanotech robots who are basically trying to wipe out the remnants of humanity.

The idea is that characters use 4E rules, but heavily reskinned. By focusing on the six psionic disciplines, characters have to think about how their character operates outside of just the mechanics that grant them those abilities.

Still working on the underlying framework. May not amount to anything in the end, but I thought it was nifty.

Well of course it works better. Psonic rules are only in light draft form at the moment in 5e.

I've got a plan to be a weapons-dealing wizard - capture some rust monsters (somehow), discreetly sneak them into the armories of two warring factions, let them their thing, then sell magically-fabricated weapons to the two factions at a ridiculous markup. Much profit.

Still need to hash out exact details, but for now I've got a vague plan.

edited 23rd Jul '15 7:19:55 PM by MarkVonLewis

Welp, the players balked at my campaign ideas, so now one of the other players has decided to run a Mutants and Masterminds game.

A cleric is literally two spells away from being a better fighter than the fighter, and still have spells.

I mean, at level 9 Divine Power + Righteous Might will give a 10 STR Cleric:

A Strength of 20, 16 more HP, DR 3/ (Evil or Good), and a couple of other minor bonuses.

Their full attack will become +13/+8 which compares favorably with a fighter (Since they'll have BAB as a fighter.)

It's kind of sad that thats basically all it takes for a cleric to replace a fighter. And this is all assuming the Cleric has made no investment into fighting with stabbing.

And that's just two spells. They can still drop some Hold Persons or Commands to help remove people from the fight when you're not doing the fighter's job for them.

And even better, you have access to every cleric spell from a book that's allowed. Unlike the wizard, you don't have to search for them- you can just speed-dial your deity for any old spell. Don't need buffy fighting spells today? Pick up something else. Know you're gonna fight some dragons? You can literally take every anti-dragon spell in the game and prepare as many as you have slots for. The world is your oyster, and it's people will fear you lest you destroy them with the power divine.

I understand that, but all this is wasted if, as Tomu says, the party cleric is just supposed to heal and heal and heal.

Yea people who only heal with a cleric clearly haven't looked at their spell list. They've got options, and quite a bit of punch.

But what I was saying is, our cleric had to always heal. There was always someone about to die.

No no no.

The power of the cleric is, you LET your weakling allies die, and replace them with more clerics.

Being one of the weakling allies myself, I have to object.

edited 24th Jul '15 11:27:45 AM by Aetol