The General D&D thread

Just thought of these feats, pretty simple fare.

Fine Manipulation
Prereq: Diplomacy 5, Bluff 5
For any check with which both may apply, you may roll both Diplomacy and Bluff and take the better result.

Empty Threats
Prereq: Bluff 5, Intimidate 5
For any check with which both may apply, you may roll both Bluff and Intimidate and take the better result.

Talking Softly
Prereq: Intimidate 5, Diplomacy 5
For any check with which both may apply, you may roll both Intimidate and Diplomacy and take the better result.

Courtly Manner
Prereq: Bluff 5, Diplomacy 5, Intimidate 5
For any check with which all may apply, you may roll Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate and take the best result.

edited 12th Feb '13 9:57:25 PM by God_of_Awesome

Interesting concept. Being able to roll the best of 2d20 instead of 1d20 typically leads to about a +3 average increase in one's roll, though since it's pass/fail, the real impact on success or failure may be a bit more complicated than that.

And also your bluff, intimidate and diplomacy ranks are likely to be different. Though Courtly Manner might need another prerequisite, since it's pretty much better than the other three? (On the other hand, I suppose it wouldn't be worth the investment if you didn't have one of the three as a class skill, huh?)

It's up to the player, I'm sure, but would the roll that you go with determine how you "come across" to the other person?

edited 12th Feb '13 11:38:06 AM by Durazno

Depends on your intelligence score really. Your max Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate are all the same (Ranks+Cha Mod) barring Skill Focus or the like, so if you max them out, you generally have the same check modifier.

I see those feats being used more as "max out whichever one is a class skill, put 5 ranks in the other one and keep it there".

That probably wouldn't work if you had to designate the dice beforehand (e.g. "Blue die is diplomacy, red die is intimidate, green die is bluff.") If you left bluff and intimidate at 5 and then maxed out diplomacy, you'd reach a point where they have basically no chance to be higher.

It's less to exploit the opportunity to pick the better of two outcomes, and more like having to only devote skill ranks in one skill in the long term, leaving you some extra to spend on other things.

Or if the other one is a cross-class skill, giving one the opportunity to make it just as good as though it were a class skill.

edited 12th Feb '13 6:27:59 PM by KylerThatch

But you can only use it if you would be able to just straight-up use the better skill anyway.

EDIT: Never mind. I misread "either may apply." I thought it was "if you could justify using either bluff or diplomacy in this case, you can try to use both at once," not "if you are confronted with a situation where you need to use diplomacy, you can use intimidate in addition."

edited 12th Feb '13 6:52:56 PM by Durazno

It's supposed to be the first thing you said.

I would rule that you had to designate which die is which before rolling

Aha!

How can we clear up this ambiguity, then? Perhaps by replacing "either" with "both" in the first three? "For any check where both Bluff and Diplomacy could apply, you may roll both and take the better result"?

So I'm developing the encounters for the Part II endgame (that is, 15th and 16th level) for my campaigns. I am just having all kinds of fun. The party gets to Persona 4 it up, by fighting mirrors of themselves that reflect their character's respective insecurities, and using abilities that are relevant to said characters.

It's some of the most innovative encounters I've ever designed, so I'm enjoying it. Generally, the design is "Boss that self damages itself, and otherwise can only be damaged by the respective PC (or in the leader's case, only by P Cs benefiting from the PC's power); boss summons add on enemies (which is what causes itself damage)"

In particular, the fight where they have to knock a badguy into a black hole should be pretty awesome.

So I was thinking about how one might make a version of D&D inspired by Exalted. Feat system as the base. Everyone picks up several feats a level. Feats are marked for individual class, groups of classes or available to all and feats with similar prerequisites are balanced against each other. Spell casters get Initiation feats which grant them access to a list of spells, more powerful spells may get Initiations to themselves. All classes are considered fantastic, even the martial ones, Barbarians can get some druidic flavoring, Paladin some cleric, make a Knight class with wizard flavoring and Fighters are just look mundane but actually awesome. Their feats would reflect that, growing to ridiculous levels of ability at higher levels.

Rogues can slip through holes smaller then themselves, Barbarian call upon the inner beast, Paladins fly on angel wings, Fighters craft a non-magical sword so awesome it has spell-like effects, Knights shine with an inner glory to bolster armies of NP Cs, Bards are unnaturally good diplomats with hypnotic sounds.

AND THEN THEY SPLIT THE ATOMOS WITH IT AND BLOW UP THE CONTINENT

Can anyone give some advice to an aspiring GM? My friends and I want to start a DND campaign and I already have the core three books for fourth edition, but some new stuff has come up that's thrown me for a loop. You see, I got the 4e books pretty early on, and since then I've heard that Wot C has released tons of errata and rebalancing stuff, not to mention new products such as Essentials and Gamma World. So with that and a $50 budget in mind, I have a few questions to ask:

1. How does the errata work? Are there newer releases that incorporate it, or do I need to get the PDF and edit my books accordingly?
2. should I use DND Essentials, and if so, which ones should I get?
3. What about Gamma World? I'm thinking the more zany and random atmosphere might make it easier for everyone to roleplay, and the setting, while sparse, seems easier to build a campaign around. (Some of my friends prefer fantasy settings, which is why I'm doing DND.)

So with these questions to consider, it would be great if you guys could offer some suggestions on what to get.

If you just want a bare bones game without spending too much, buy the Rules Compendium and Heroes of the Fallen Lands. You could alternatively pick up Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms.

Sadly, there's not a lot in the way of magical item support with just those two books. You could pick up the DM Kit, but unless you buy everything cheaply used online or something, that may put you over the 50 dollar limit.

Of course, as I understand it, Gamma World is self-confined, so you could just pick up that. I honestly don't know much about it.

edited 15th Feb '13 11:34:26 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

Yeah, maybe just give the Knights magic weapon, make an Artificer class with gadgets and Fighters get TACTICAL GENIUS. They didn't teleport, they knew to be there in that spot and how to get there in that instant. They didn't fly, they coincided there maneuver at the same time as a Roc migration, snagging a grappling hook on one to take them for a ride. They didn't make a wish, they set a master plan into motion days ago to make it all happen. They didn't cast resurrect, they just know CPR. He'd been dead for weeks? They're really good at CPR.

So, I've been skimming through the spell list in the 3.5 Player's Handbook, and...I feel like what spells get labeled as "Evil" are kind of arbitrary. Namely, the deathwatch spell. All it does is let the caster know the current degree of dying-ness of all creatures in a certain area (so, whether they're dead, injured, critical condition, etc.).

But it's listed as an evil spell. Why? I'm pretty sure a few Heal checks would have the same effect, and there's plenty of other necromantic spells that are "darker" but aren't regarded as evil (command undead comes to mind). What makes deathwatch so evil?

It's a question of "how" not "what."

But the methods behind deathwatch don't seem evil, either. Not any more evil than any other necromantic spell, anyway (and like I said, there's plenty that aren't listed as evil). The worst it has is the text describing it as a "foul sight," not really expanding on what that means. It definitely seems like it could at least be used for the purposes of good.

Well, you could always decide that the alignment system is ridiculous in the first place like I do :P

Eh, I think it's a mostly-pretty-good ruleset. I just don't like its application to spells.

Especially since it's...kind of pointless. There's no real mechanical influence on evil spells, so it's completely okay for good characters to use evil spells. Heck, they practically lampshade this in the Player's Handbook; there's a picture that depicts Jozan (the neutral good cleric) casting symbol of pain (an evil spell). Not entirely sure if the lampshading was intentional or they just made a slight, of course...

That's because Jozan actually prays to Pelor, The Burning Hate.

...Now I really want to run an adventure that revolves around a conspiracy involving Pelor and his clerics. The idea of an evil god disguising himself as good is very intrigueing.

@Tomu I'm not particularly worried about magic items, I'm more concerned about whether or not Essentials is compatible with the core 3 rulebooks. On that note, I could really could use an answer to question #1. If there are updated rulebooks, then that might just change everything. (Unless my local game shop will offer some sort of trade-in discount.) While I'm at it does anyone know of some good free modules to use? I know Keep on the Shadowfell is free but It'd be nice to have some other options.