ranged sunder feat for warmage?

When looking at the Warmage's spell list, one could notice that it consists of almost entirely ranged touch attack spells & mass damage area effect spells meant to be used at a distance. Therefore, it would be very beneficial for a warmage to take feats such as point blank & precise shot, or weapon focus - ranged touch (Complete Arcane). Taking it one step further, a warmage would be great at sundering with the ranged sunder feat from Complete Warrior. Since sonic attack spells completely ignore hardness, it would be extremely easy to overcome the hardness of any weapon or shield & do massive (relatively massive for a piece of equipment that is) damage to it with the lesser sonic orb spell, or the sonic orb spell. Thus even an adamantine weapon wouldn't survive long against a sundering warmage's lesser sonic orb (eventually dealing 5D6 sonic damage to any single weapon). If that wasn't enough, there's always sonic orb or orb of force. Combined with empower/maximize spell, warmage edge, & plenty of spell slots, a warmage could practically sunder anything he wants....? >;-]

Dragon Star Setting

I am starting a blog where I will build my Dragon Star Setting. www.fedragonstar.blogspot.com

I will place slowly build the setting here. Everything from what rules I plan to use and why as well as all the updates to 3.5 I think would be appropriate for the setting.

If any of you would like to assist let me know. I would like to bounce ideas here and finally post the results on the dragonstar blog. Hopefully others will catch on and we can spark more support for the setting, but that is a long shot.

UPDATE: I recieved word this morning the Fantasy Flight Games is Discontinuing Dragon Star altogether. This came from the Head of Projects Manager of Fantasy Flight Games and will poet the official announcement on their site. Also they are selling a whole number of d20 Books for $5 each. If you are interested here is the site. www.fantasyflightgames.com

House Rules

To me in D&D rules are very important. I find it misleading and a little off beat when people on the message boards talk about changing rules casually. The rules of a game, any game not just d20, represents to physics of that world. In the d20 System rules are made simple so that games flow faster, this simplicity can often take away a certain feel of realism in the game, and often people try and compensate by adding elements that often in the end bog the game down.

This is very bad, because it players loose interest quickly, and more often than not the DM looses track of all the changes to his rules and inconsistances end up destroying the integrity of the world.

Now don't get me wrong I am all for adding and changing rules to give the game a certain feel. d20 is the easiest system I have found where you can do this and I am often thinking of ways to improve the overall feeling of my games. However, when making new rules or even tweaking existing ones there are a couple of guidelines that will help you alot.

1) Make the rule affect PCs and NPCs the same. If the characters suffer from damaged armor, then NPCs in damaged armor should have the same problems.

2) Make the new rule simple and quick. Its okay to have additional math, fractions and precentages are barely used in d20, but they are often the best calculate costs of items, but too much math can really make things difficult.

3) Don't have something snuff out vital character traits, unless it is a VERY good reason. This often happens with the Evasion ability that Monk, Rogues, and Rangers use. New DMs often try to snuff this ability out which most likely kills the character. If you are trying to challenge a character don't challenge then against their strong points. A fireball against a rogue isn't going to hurt him much and its kinda wrong to take his ability just to get your way, instead try something else... like mind control or poisons.

4) Remember that your rules set the presidence for the game. If a thrown turnup does more damage than an arrow, expect your players to grow turnups to use instead of arrows. If your rule can some how be duplicated by a player, chances are they will duplicate it.

This is just my 2 cp...

Why Go Adventuring??

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20050516a

Above is a website article that is so true. It is good reading and I'm glad Typhoid X brought it to my attention.

I must say that it is the reponsibility of the Players to find a reason why their character would join a group, and why thier character is willing to risk their lives adventuring. In my experience when a DM forces a group together it rarely ends up with good group cohesion. In my games a group the isn't a team usually dies around 7th level. This is mainly because I quite playing creatures with 3 intelligence and lower, and start using real strategy to create challanges. A divided group usually doesn't last too long.

No I know that some players are Roll-players (those who are more into the wargaming aspect of D&D... *cough* Typhoid X *cough*) and not Role-Players (those who can play a whole game without opening their dice bags) but when a both players make an effort to work together, I've found games were much more interesting and fun. Plus it makes the DMs life much easier.

Making "Divine Metamagic" balanced:

There's a lot of recent discussion on the feat "Divine Metamagic" (source: Complete Divine page 80, and Complete Divine errata PDF), the consensus seem to be that its overpowered. the main complaint i've heard from a few friends I've talked to (as well as people on the D&D message boards) seem to be that clerics are able to metamagic any of their spells anyway they want with this feat, & it can be done at 1st level. Given the original requirements to quicken, persist, twin, or maximize a spell, these feats obviously weren't meant to be accomplished by a spellcaster of FIRST LEVEL. Yet under the current rules as written by WotC, Divine Metamagic allows a cleric not only to bypass those original limitations, but do so as early as first level. This is one of the reasons my DM in Reno prohibited this feat altogether.

I'm a newbie to D&D, but from what I can tell, here's the original intent of the writers when they came up with the "Divine Metamagic" feat:

As you know, there's a lot of cool prestige classes available to clerics, as well as multi-class character builds. Many, if not most of these character build possibilities do not progress their turn/rebuke abilities. This makes the turn/rebuke class feature practically useless. As you progress, the higher challenge rating undead will just sit there & laugh at you if you try to turn/rebuke them as a 6th or 7th LV cleric (even though you might be a 15th or 16th level character). Thus to keep turn/rebuke useful, the writers came up with "Divine Metamagic", allowing clerics to save a few extra higher level spell slots by spending what is now useless turning/rebuking attempts instead. Now this useless class feature can be spent on something productive. So, to maintain the original intent of the WotC authors, here are 2 simple revisions to Divine Metamagic that I think would make this feat perfectly balanced:

1. Instead of making casters spend turning attempts equal to 1 + spell slot increase, we could just make them spend a number of turning attempts equal to the spell slot increase involved. This would grant the spellcaster a little more use out of the feat.

For example, currently to maximize a spell would require spending 4 turn/rebuke attempts, the revision will only cost you 3 attempts, which is equal to the normal spell slot increase if you wanted to maximize by conventional means.

2. In order to use divine metamagic, you must be able to cast the resulting spell level. Whatever you want to use Divine metamagic with, you must be able to do it normally also as if you didn't have the feat.

For example: if you wish to empower a cure moderate wounds spell, normally you would need a 4th level spell slot to do it. so under the new rules, although you still use a 2nd level spell slot with divine metamagic (empower), you still MUST BE ABLE TO CAST 4th level spells.

I think the aforementioned revisions would satisfy both intentions of the authors: it gives casters use of turn/rebuke feats instead of wasting them if they pursue prestige classes or multi-class, this is done by giving them extra use of their metamagic capability. This also gives balance, since now they won't be able to use those divine metamagic feats until they reach a spell level where they can do it normally.

Does the spontaneous heal/wound feats make neutral clerics too flexible?

This question was prompted by Typhoid X... any comments??

Spontaneous heal/wound can be found in Complete Divine on pages 84-85. It allows a non-good or non-evil divine caster to spontaneous switch out prepared spells & cast any cure/wound spell on their list, this can be done a number of times equal to the character's wisdom modifier.

I want people's opinions on whether these feats give too much flexibility to neutral (either lawful, chaotic, or true) clerics, & reduce the incentive to play clerics of good/evil alignments.The reason I ask that is because prior to these 2 feats, if you're neutral cleric, you could be a positive or negative caster. That meant you could either turn or rebuke, you could either spontaneously cast cure (positive) or wound (negative) spells, but you can't do both.

Once the decision's made, its final & you're limited to that type of spontaneous spell casting. Now, with the addition of these 2 feats, you could do both, you could be a positive caster & turn undead as a neutral cleric, yet still spontaneously wound, or vice versa.

Compare this to clerics with a definitely leaning towards good/evil: they would be restricted in the sense that they won't be able to get the spontaneous feat opposing their alignment (spontaneous heal requires a non-evil alignment, & spontaneous wound requires the character to be non-good), and they are further restricted to what spells they can cast based on alignment (IE a lawful good cleric of Moradin probably shouldn't be casting evil spells too often). Whereas a neutral cleric wouldn't be so restricted. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any restrictions on neutral clerics casting good or evil spells.

So, what this comes down to is further reduced incentive to play a cleric of extreme alignment (or even neutral evil/good for that matter), simply because a neutral cleric would have a wider selection of spells, as well as the ability to spontaneously cast both cure AND would spells. Last but not least, granted these feats are limited by the wis modifier of the character, but a good cleric would raise his wisdom score like no tommorrow anyway, so that's not really a big limitation in my opinion.

New and House Rules by TyphoidX

RANGED FEINT

Since Complete Warrior came up with ranged maneuver feats such as ranged disarm, ranged pin, & ranged sunder, I think it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility if a “Ranged Feint” feat was introduced as well.
The whole concept of ranged feint in the D&D setting (or any other game in which you choose to apply this) is to allow a ranged combatant the ability to deceive an enemy & deny him/her the opportunity to properly defend against the next ranged attack. This is done by bluffing the enemy; misleading him/her to believe that our ranged combatant is aiming at another target or a different part of his/her body.




RANGED FEINT [GENERAL]
You can trick enemies with your aim and prevent them from dodging your ranged attacks effectively.

PREREQUISITES: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, base attack bonus +5.

BENEFIT: You may attempt to feint the enemy from a distance as a move action. Doing so requires a bluff check opposed by that enemy’s sense motive. The target may add his/her base attack bonus to this sense motive check. If the bluff exceeds the sense motive check, that enemy loses his/her Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) against your next ranged attack. This attack must be made on or before your next turn. You must be within 30 feet of the target, and be visible to the target. If one or more different enemies are within your line of sight and line of effect, you get a +2 circumstance bonus to the bluff check against your chosen target.

NORMAL: You can only feint in melee combat.

SPECIAL: A fighter may select Ranged Feint as one of his/her fighter bonus feats.

Rifts, my true RPG beginning

Recently I have been scouring message boards on various RPG Company Sites. Malhavoc Press, Wizards of the Coast, and Palladium Books mainly. Now I know that I've said that I am a HUGE d20 fan, and I still am but I must say that there is a special spot in my gaming heart for Rifts by Palladium Books.

I was in 6th grade when I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, but my family fell for that whole "DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS IS EVIL" propganda, shouted by uninformed relgious fanatics. My family wouldn't let me buy any of the books, by my sneaky nature I went to our local gaming store called the War Zone and started getting involved in Battletech. I had alot of fun with it, then one day I was looking through several books, when a friend of mine told me about Rifts.

I picked up the book and was instantly amazed by the artwork. Of the color pics in the Mainbook I first saw the SAMAS racing across the ground. I bought the book (with money from mowing lawns). My family loved the fact that I finally started reading books, and allowed me to buy any of the books as they came out. My second book was Rifts England. I played Rifts almost exclusively. Even when I finally bought AD&D 2nd Ed. I only played it as a small break from Rifts.

Once the d20 system appeared I put Rifts down and started playing D&D 3e. But this was only because I found d20 100x easier than palladium and it instantly releaved several things I didn't like about palladium. I even set out to convert Rifts to d20 because it was and still is my favorite setting. I never have been successful at it, mainly because I felt the setting was different if I did.

Now even to this day even as a d20 fanatic I long to say "you take # amount of Mega-Damage." After reading the Message boards at Palladium I found that it really was the fact that the rules were scattered and inconsistant, and that several people wrote at how this as 'good' and made good points about this.

So what does this rambling mean... probably that I may take a small d20 break and climb into my SAMAS power armor, because I feel like I want to roll some Mega-damage.