The Order of the Stick: Rules Discussion

Adding intelligence to the mix only heightens the pleasure.

Sure, a smart dragon is smart enough to know that he has no use for gold and other people do. The fact that other people want the gold just makes having it even better.

Sure, if you want to dick over people and establish, beyond a shred of a doubt, your position at the top of the food chain, you can fly around burning villages and stuff. But having 80% of the world's economy sitting unused in your bedchambers so you can roll around in it and revel in how awesome you are is like burning every village at once.

Dragons are proud. Dragons are greedy. Dragons are envious. Dragons are gluttonous. Dragons are cruel. Dragons are lustful. Dragons are slothful.

Dragons are to humans what humans are to everything else. The apex predator, the dominant species, the callous ruling class who give zero shits about how the rest of the world suffers under their self-interest. Pick a sin and it will tell you why dragons like treasure.

edited 30th Jan '16 10:51:07 AM by TobiasDrake

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"Genetic Memory."

Ha! I like that. Works particularly well since, if you go back far enough, everybody's ancestors were Barbarians...

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I wonder if anyone's ever used the justification for dragons hoarding gold and jewels that they're just returning them to the mountain? Maybe they're some kind of genius loci for the mountain, and the removal of its gold and gemstones physically pains them. They can't fuse them back into the rock, but they can at least make a giant pile of them in that big cavern the crunchy little gold-removing animals carved out.

edited 4th Feb '16 12:27:43 PM by johnnye

That doesn't tend to come up because it would turn them into Gaia's Vengeance, rather than majestic, prideful apex predators.

There are more appropriate mythical creatures to represent the natural world striking back at mankind.

edited 4th Feb '16 12:32:46 PM by TobiasDrake

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Like the Owlbear.

Not like it would be the first time dragons were made sympathetic. Yes, all the myths emphasise how greedy and ruthless dragons are; but bear in mind those are the myths written by their prey...

Something I've been wondering about the Sorcerer/Wizard divide; couldn't a Sorcerer just multiclass to Wizard? So they'll always have the spells they can do naturally and compensate with something they can't perform innately?

Is that not possible by game mechanics or would it just be very difficult pull of because they use different stats or something (Charisma and Intelligence respectively right)?

A Sorcerer can multiclass as Wizard, sure. As you noted, they would have to have both high Intelligence and high Charisma scores to make good use of both classes, and they would have lower caster levels than they would if they remained single-class, since Sorcerer and Wizard caster levels don't stack.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Huh, sort of sounds like a best of both worlds things for the Sorcerer assuming they can pull it off.

Sorc/Wizards are pretty pathetic level per level compared to single class builds.

Mystic Theurge helps a little, but you're still talking -4 levels spells per day wise, which means -2 spell levels. That's the difference between being able to cast Fireball and being able to cast Magic Missile.

More like the worst of both worlds, since you've gimped your spell progression and now all you have are low-level spells. If you're a Wizard 5/Sorcerer 5, you're going to be facing 10th level challenges, but you'll have the power of a 5th level character. That's not a recipe for success.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

So math makes it not worth it? I figured it was something like that.

Multiclassing in general is really punishing for casters in 3.5- a single class caster gets access to another tier of spell every two levels, and access high-end magic increasing becomes their main advantage. But every time you take a level in a different class, you're delaying that next tier of spells.

To put it in in-universe terms, a Sorcerer multi classing into Wizard would be spending his time researching stuff he's already instinctually figured out. Yes, the formal training might teach him a few new tricks, but they won't be as strong as the things he can do already, and a fair amount will just be useless overlap. Better for the Sorcerer to use that time to hone his natural abilities.

It's not the math, it's the opportunity cost. If you do a side-by-side comparison against a single-classed character, the multiclass character will just be worse every single time. (Well, maybe not at level 2.)

There is a way to make it work, though, if you have Complete Mage: the Ultimate Magus prestige class lets you progress your Wizard and Sorcerer casting simultaneously, so while you're still a little behind, it's much more reasonable overall.

edited 5th Feb '16 8:17:04 PM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Ahh yes, I said Mystic Theurge but meant Ultimate Magus. Oops.

So characters can multiclass all they want (to great detriment but still) but can they drop a class or is it something you're stuck with once you pick it up?

Well, it's possible to permanently lose levels through various means. You'll be earning your replacement levels back the hard way, though.

Does a multiclassed character get to pick which class they lose the levels from?

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If I remember the rules correctly, they either come off of your highest class level or the one you most recently earned, but for the latter you'd have to have been keeping track.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

There's not much point in dropping a class. It's not that being multiclassed lowers your strength, it's just means that you're not as high level in your other class. You are literally two lower level classes at the same time. They don't stack at all, unless you're in a Prestige Class that allows them to. A level 10 wizard/sorcerer is just a level 5 wizard and level 5 sorcerer, but with only one round of actions per round, since they're only one person. That's basically the same as being level 5.

edited 9th Feb '16 12:57:42 PM by Clarste

The point, I think, would be undoing the mistake that was multiclassing in the first place.

By dropping the 5 Sorcerer levels, you become an effective level 5 Wizard with a character level of 5 instead of a character level of 10. Then you can earn back the 5 levels you lost but take Wizard levels instead.

It's effectively taking a mulligan on your levelling choices. It's also probably much harder and more complicated to pull off than just making a new character.

edited 9th Feb '16 1:30:23 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Don't forget, in 3.x, the XP you earn is based on your character level. So, losing levels would make it much easier to advance, given the same encounters.

There is a pretty crazy exploit that you can do that involves losing levels. Becoming a lycanthrope causes you to gain animal hit dice, increasing your level. So you become a weretiger, gain 6 levels, and use the extra levels to qualify for the prerequisites to that awesome prestige class you normally wouldn't have been able to take. Then you cure your lycanthrope, removing the extra levels, and now you have your sweet high-level prestige class at a much earlier level than you're supposed to.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Are there actually prestige classes whose requirement are based on hit dice? All prestige classes I remember reading about had requirements in skill ranks...

(that said, I'm not a D&D player; the closest I've seriously played is Star Wars d20)

edited 11th Feb '16 1:27:09 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Not hit dice, but hit dice confer Base Attack Bonuses, which is used to qualify for certain PrCs.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Ah. I thought only class levels did, but it's obvious in hindsight that it can't be the case for class-less monsters...

edited 11th Feb '16 9:48:08 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."