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Josh_Kablack
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### [Tome of Yinz Jagovs] The Sand Mage

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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Nov 25, 2010 1:56 am

because I needed something like this an' yinz ur jagovs hoo ain't wridden none I can swipe annat.
The Sand Mage
Sand mages derive magic from the harsh deserts in which they live. They use their magic both to protect themselves against the desert and to use its harsher extremes against their foes.
Making a Sand Mage: Sand mages' magic all runs off of Int. But they do use rays and touch attacks, so Dex and Str may also be important.
Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: The Sand Mage's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Concentration (Con), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge Nature (Int)) Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (-), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Medium (as Cleric),
Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Good
Level : Special
1: Hand of the Desert, Sand Blast, Desert Dweller, Instant Oasis
2: Energy Resistance, Mirage, Shifting Sands,
3: Dust Devil(small), Wear Away the Mountain, Sirocco
4: Desiccation, Every Stone a Story, Scorpion King
5: Burning Sands, Dust Devil (medium)
6: Stone Working, Lens Flare
7: It Is Written, Dust Devil (large)
8: Blistering Sun,
9: Wind Walk, Dust Devil (huge)
10:Sandstorm
11:Dust Devil (greater)
12:Call Forth the Hidden City
13:Dust Devil (elder)
14:Return to Sand
15:Dust Devil (pair)
16:Fossilize
17:Dust Devil (four)
18:A Mighty Wind
19:Dust Devil (eight)
20:Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty
All of the following are Class Features of the Sand Mage class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Sand Mages are proficient with all simple weapons, as well as the shortbow, bola, and all sizes and varieties of scimitar (including falchions). Sand Mages are proficient with light armor but not with shields of any kind. If a sand mage wears armor or uses a shield they are not proficient in, then their spell-like abilities suffer from arcane spell failure chance.
Hand of the Desert (Sp) Anyone stuck by a sand mage's unarmed, natural weapon or weapon attacks must make a fortitude save (DC = 10 + 1/2 level + Int ) or become fatigued for one minute. Unlike normal fatigue, this has no effect on a target who is already fatigued and the effect ends after one minute.
Sand Blast (Sp) As a standard action, a sand mage can attack with a high velocity blast of hot sand. This is a Close range, ranged-touch attack that deals 1d4 per class level in force damage. It can also be used to remove soot from structures or rust from metals.
Desert Dweller:(Su) A sand mage is immune to any magical effect which causes fatigue or exhaustion. Additionally, a sandmage is protected by a constant Endure Elements effect. If dispelllled, the sandmage can resume this with a free action
Instant Oasis:(Sp) A sand mage can cause groundwater to spring out of the earth, creating a pool of drinkable water. This provides 2 gallons of clean and drinkable water per class level each hour and lasts until the sand mage dismisses it or creates a new one somewhere else. Using this ability may, at the DM's discretion, provide a circumstance +2 bonus to Survival rolls made to get along in the the wild.
Resist Any Extreme(Ex) : Deserts are places of varying extremes, and sand mages are well adapted to live in a wide variety of extremes. A sand mage gains resistance equal to half his character level against any all energy types as well as to more the obscure forms of magical damage. (This includes Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, Sonic, not to mention Light, Poison, Dehydration, Divine Power, Force, Raw Magic, Psychic, untyped, etc. If any spell, (Sp) or (Su) ability deals hit point damage to the sandmage, then this resistance applies)
Petty Digression
The suggested wording 'improvement' of "All damage from spells, SLAs, Ex and Su abilities is reduced by 1/2 level." would mean an ability that would not work against campfires, planar traits, flasks of acid, lava pools and would be arguable for frost and similar weapons. Therefore that wording would not achieve the design intent.
Mirage:(Sp) at 2nd level, a Sand Mage may use Silent Image at will. Save DC is 10 + 1/2 level + Int Modifier.
Shifting Sands:(Sp) At second level a sand mage may use Fog Cloud at will.
Dust Devil (Sp): at 3rd level, a sand mage gains the ability to summon a small air elemental as a full round action. The elemental appears within Close range and remains until dismissed, dispelled, slain or forced to move further than Close range away from the Sand Mage. A sand mage may use this ability at will, but may only have one such Air Elemental at a time. As the sand mage gains levels, the power of the dust devil increases: at 5th level a sand mage may summon a medium air elemental, at 7th level a sand mage may summon a large air elemental and at 9th level a sand mage may summon a huge air elemental. At level 11 a sand mage may summon a greater air elemental. At level 13, a sand mage may summon an elder air elemental. At 15th level a sand mage may summon a pair of elementals, at 17th level a sand mage may summon up to 4 such elementals, and at 19th level, a sandmage may summon up to 8 such elementals. Summoning multiple elementals at the same time is still only one full round action.
Wear away the Mountain (Sp): Every single grain of sand was once part of something much bigger. At 3rd level, a sandmage gains the ability to use Soften Earth and Stone at will. DC is 10 + 1/2 level + Int Mod.
Sirocco (Sp) : At 3rd level, a sandmage gains Gust of Wind as an at-will spell-like-ability. Save DC = 10 + 1/2 lvl + Int Mod.
Desiccation (Sp): At 4th level, the sandmage gains the spell-like ability to drain moisture with a touch. They may destroy up to 2 gallons of water per level with a touch, and they may automatically dispel any [Water] effect at touch range and they gain a touch attack which deals 1d8 damage per level to plants, [water] or [aquatic] creatures, 1d6 damage per level to living creatures without those tags and nothing to other types of creatures (such as constructs and undead) nor to objects. (This ability is equivalent to a 2nd level spell, unless you game with a 3.5 developer in your group, in which case it is inexplicably equivalent to an 8th level spell)
Every Stone a Story (Sp): At 4th level, a sandmage gains the ability to use Stone Tell at will.
[sidebar]
Sand or Stone:
The D&D rules do not provide a hard-and-fast rule on how much quartz silica counts as "stone" and not as "sand". Current geological specifications classify particles of less than 2 mm (about 1/12 inch) diameter as sand; particles of 2 mm to 64 mm (about 2 1/2 inches) as gravel, granules or pebbles; particles of diameter 64 mm to 256mm (about 10 inches) as cobble; and particles larger than 256 mm as boulders.
If you want to stay with the sand theme, you may wish to let the sandmage's stone abilities work on even fine grains of sand, as it's all the same substance regardless of size. In this case you should expect sandmage players to carry around pockets full of sand to toss it around on enemies spider-tracer style and shape into lockpicks or other useful tools whenever they need.
If instead, you wish to limit the sandmage's abilities to only working on stones and justify that due to the existence of rocky deserts, that's fine too. But in that case a minimum size of rock needed for Every Stone a Story and Stone Working should be clarified between the player and Mister Cavern upfront. If you're going this route, I suggest going all the way and using the boulder classification of rocks for this. Without a beast of burden or some sort of magical luggage, a sandmage is unlikely to be able to tote more than a couple such rocks around for use with Stone Working and hiding them as recording devices is difficult. It's also important to realize that in this case, characters in the game world will be aware of the limitation on sandmage divination and they will take care to remove any appropriately large stones before holding secret meetings or otherwise engaging in actions they don't want a mage to find out about.
[/sidebar]
Scorpion King (Ex) A sandmage becomes immune to the poisons of any type of vermin.
Burning Sands (Sp): At 5th level the sand mage gains the ability to heat sand and stone. At up to medium range, a sandmage may heat up to one 20' square of sand, stone, rock or bare earth per level. This ability does not work in areas of mud, undergrowth or wooden floors. Anyone walking through the area takes 1d4 fire damage per 5/moved (spell resistance applies) and anyone who takes damage must also make reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 level + Int Mod) or have their land movement reduced my half until they are cured or healed (heal check DC = save DC). The heated stone or sand remains dangerously hot for 1 hour per class level or until dismissed or dispelled. (This ability is equivalent to a 3rd level spell)
Stone Working (Sp): At 6th level, a sandmage may use Stone Shape at will
Lens Flare (Sp): At 6th level, a sandmage can evoke the heat of the noonday desert sun with some neat camera tricks. They gain Sunbeam as an at will ability. Save DC = 10 + 1/2 level + Int Mod
It Is Written (Sp): At 7th level, a sandmage gains the ability to use Find the Path at will
Blistering Sun (Sp): At 8th level, a sandmage may use Sun Burst at will. Save DC = 10 + 1/2 lvl + Int Mod
Wind Walk (Sp): A 9th level sand mage can invoke or terminate wind walk at will as a Swift Action.
Sandstorm (Sp): At 10th level, the sandmage may call forth a great sandstorm once per hour. This works just like acid fog, but the damage is force-typed. Save DC = 10 + 1/2 lvl + Int Mod
Call Forth the Hidden City(Sp) At 12th level, a sand mage may call forth an effect very much like Wall of Stone at will. The sand mage may only create walls in sandy or desert terrain, but a sand mage's walls do not need to be anchored to existing stone.
Return to Sand (Sp) At 14th level, a sand mage may use Disintegrate at will. Save DC = 10 + 1/2 level + Int Mod
Fossilize(Sp) At 16th level, a sand mage may use Flesh to Stone at will. Save DC = 10 + 1/2 level + Int Mod
A Mighty Wind(Sp) At 18th level, a sand mage may use Whirlwind at will. Save DC = 10 + 1/2 level + Int Mod
Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty At 20th level, the sand mage destroys all great monuments in play (no save) and wins D&D.
Notes: Minor edits, cleaned up wording, made Hand of the Desert work on weapon attacks as a slight low-level offense increase. Added 'Sand or Stone" sidebar and petty digression. Added 11th-20th abilities. Added catharz godfoot's flavor suggestion.
More Recent Edits: added ASF for armor-non proficiency and fixed links, added Hide to skill list, added explicit text about ad-hoc bonus to Instant Oasis. And despite all that Happy went and played a white mage....
Balance-wise, this is supposed to be roughly on par with Fire Mage, Snowscaper, Frank's Green Mage, and the Tome Samurai. I'm a little concerned about making just about everything at-will, but that seems far and away the simplest resource management scheme for my players (and likely yours too) to handle.[/i]
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Fri Jun 17, 2011 1:20 am, edited 19 times in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Orca
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Post by Orca » Thu Nov 25, 2010 2:29 am

Amazing defence and utility, but what's its offence at low levels?
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Nov 25, 2010 2:48 am

For levels 1 and 2 they are probably using shortbows and scimitars for offense.
At level 3 and above Sand Blast is probably better than weapons.
At level 4, Desiccation does 1d6/level to most monsters.
That is less offense than the Fire Mage, but these seem to get a bit more utility.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Thu Nov 25, 2010 3:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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JonSetanta
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Post by JonSetanta » Thu Nov 25, 2010 3:02 am

Well that was fast. Nicely done and diverse abilities, but what does "Yes attack action" mean? Some kind of shorthand for provokes AOO or can be used as an attack action....

> The Adventurer's Almanac wrote: ↑
> Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:25 pm
> Nobody gives a flying fuck about Tordek and Regdar.

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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Nov 25, 2010 3:31 am

That's supposed to means it works as an attack, not as a standard action - so it can be used multiple times per round with iterative attacks, flurry of blows or as an AoO, etc. Will clarify later.
For offensive comparisons to things I care about, a fire mage
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=40208
walks in at level 1 with a 1d6+1 fire bolt as a ranged touch close range attack and also a 1d6+1 10" burst (reflex for half) centered on self)
Frank's green mage
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51 ... c&start=20
gets a 1d4/level sonic blast at 1st level and then gets a 1d6/level shocking grasp at 2nd. They also get to add staff enhancement bonuses to those damages.
The 1d4/level force blast is a bit behind those, but as Force is one of the easter egg damage types, that's intentional. The game I wrote this for is gonna start at 3rd level, but if someone wants to start at first or second, it's worth considering a minor powerup to Sand Blast.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Thu Nov 25, 2010 6:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Thu Nov 25, 2010 9:02 am

1) Why the fuck does Sandblast attack the Ethereal plane? Just make it untyped.
2) Rewrite Energy Resistance, like right now, to something not stupid. most of those are not energies, and you can't have energy resistance against them.
Write it better, like "All damage a Sandmage takes from X is reduced by Y."
3) Probably allow some sort of sand shaping as well as the stone shape. Same for Sand Tell as well as Stone Tell.
4) Maybe a little more offense in the form of something being usable as a swift action? Not gust of wind, you bastard, since that's already the Storm Lords.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Nov 25, 2010 5:35 pm

> Why the fuck does Sandblast attack the Ethereal plane? Just make it untyped.

* Untyped magical damage is poor design (see below, and I refuse to contribute). Of the more standard energy types, the best fits are either Fire or Force. The fire mage already gets fire, so force it is. If I was crazy enough to rewrite the elemental wheel to make sense, it could be Earth or Abrasion or somesuch better fit. But I am not doing that.
* Because it's a magical effect like magic missile, has an earth-magic flavor like a basilisk's gaze and it totally blahblahblah's just like the tome samurai's ancestral weapon. If you want explain the in-game justification for why precisely those get to work as cross dimensional attacks, go right ahead - you can just assume sand blast is similar to whatever justification you come up with for those. I'm going with the Great Desert being the site of an ancient magical civilization's cross-planar exodus and the sand containing traces of the Mcguff-phlebotinum left over from that, but it really doesn't matter.
* Because this is for a game with a limited number of spellcasters available, so there need to be ways for the available PC classes to handle Phase Spiders, Ethereal Maraduars and such.

> Kaelik wrote:2) Rewrite Energy Resistance, like right now, to something not stupid. most of those are not energies,

Like hell they ain't.
They shouldn't be, but given the amount of rewriting I'm willing to do, and my desire for compatibility with existing material. I'm stuck with the ass-tastic system of 5 elemental damage types that are actually listed as such and like another three dozen that they fucking hid in tiny corners of the ruleset. Magic Missile deals Force Damage, Searing Light and Lantern Archons deal Light damage, Rainbow Beam can deal Poison Damage (as did the 3.0 version of Cloudkill, Inflict spells deal Negative energy damage (which has specific spells to resist it in the ruleset) and so on and so forth.
The total resistance is only 1/2 level, which means that whatever crazy crap energy type effect gets sprung, a Sandmage is still gonna take damage from it. Seriously, against the 1d6/level + Cha-or-Level damage that the fire mage is doing, resisting 1/2 level damage is only around a 10% reduction. For an ability that shallow to be at all meaningful it has to be stupidly broad.

> 3) Probably allow some sort of sand shaping as well as the stone shape. Same for Sand Tell as well as Stone Tell.

Those are potentially good ideas, are there any pre-existing spells in It's Hot Outside or somewhere?

> 4. Maybe a little more offense in the form of something being usable as a swift action? Not gust of wind, you bastard, since that's already the Storm Lords.

For this particular play group, swift action spells are a horrid idea - they'll just make the time between turns for any given player go up from too-damn-long, to we-can't-even-finish-this-fight. That's one of the many reasons why I can't use your Storm Lord anyways.
For offensive powerups they should either

- get a low-level area attack,
  and/or
- Get a low-level ability that buffs scimitar or shortbow attacks somehow
  and/or
- add their Int bonus to Sand Blast damage
  and/or
- get to add scimitar enhancements to (Sp) attacks and damage like Frank's green mage does with the staff

"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Thu Nov 25, 2010 6:14 pm

> Josh_Kablack wrote:Untyped magical damage is poor design (see below, and I refuse to contribute).

No, untyped damage is fine for some effects, since it interacts as you want it to with the ruleset without creating extra bullshit categories.

> Josh_Kablack wrote:Because this is for a game with a limited number of spellcasters available, so there need to be ways for the available PC classes to handle Phase Spiders, Ethereal Maraduars and such.

There should be a fucking note*
*This class has a bunch of retarded shit that makes it not make sense/suck because it's overly tailored to my specific group.

> Josh_Kablack wrote:Like hell they ain't.
> They shouldn't be, but given the amount of rewriting I'm willing to do, and my desire for compatibility with existing material. I'm stuck with the ass-tastic system of 5 elemental damage types that are actually listed as such and like another three dozen that they fucking hid in tiny corners of the ruleset. Magic Missile deals Force Damage, Searing Light and Lantern Archons deal Light damage, Rainbow Beam can deal Poison Damage (as did the 3.0 version of Cloudkill, Inflict spells deal Negative energy damage (which has specific spells to resist it in the ruleset) and so on and so forth.

Okay, since apparently you are stupid, I'll explain this slowly.
Energy types are defined in the goddam rules, and most of those are not energy types. They are damage types, but not energy types. Suck a dick.
I'm just trying to explain the actual rules, of which Force, Poison, Light, Negative, Vile, Profane, Exalted, Holy, ect are not energy types, and cannot have energy resistance. So just say "All damage from spells, SLAs, Ex and Su abilities is reduced by Y."

> Josh_Kablack wrote:The total resistance is only 1/2 level, which means that whatever crazy crap energy type effect gets sprung, a Sandmage is still gonna take damage from it. Seriously, against the 1d6/level + Cha-or-Level damage that the fire mage is doing, resisting 1/2 level damage is only around a 10% reduction. For an ability that shallow to be at all meaningful it has to be stupidly broad.

So the fuck what? Did you see me complaining about it being too much? Of course not, so why the fuck are you saying this.

> Josh_Kablack wrote:Those are potentially good ideas, are there any pre-existing spells in It's Hot Outside or somewhere?

No. Just say "And it works on Sand." problem solved.

> Josh_Kablack wrote:For this particular play group, swift action spells are a horrid idea* - they'll just make the time between turns for any given player go up from too-damn-long, to we-can't-even-finish-this-fight. That's one of the many reasons why I can't use your Storm Lord anyways.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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JonSetanta
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Post by JonSetanta » Thu Nov 25, 2010 7:20 pm

IMO Sandblast should do Earth damage. It's nonexistent as a type to the point where it would indeed penetrate defenses, unless there was some special energy resistance to Earth.
.. and it won't hit Ethereal target like Force does.

> The Adventurer's Almanac wrote: ↑
> Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:25 pm
> Nobody gives a flying fuck about Tordek and Regdar.

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angelfromanotherpin
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Post by angelfromanotherpin » Thu Nov 25, 2010 7:39 pm

Conceptually speaking, hitting with a whole bunch of tiny rocks shouldn't do a different damage type than hitting someone with a regular rock. Sand Blast should do *physical* damage, the kind that's blocked by DR. It should penetrate DR as magical, because it is magic sand. If that means you have to tweak the damage upward, do it.
If you really want it to deal force damage, throw in an ability at some appropriate level called something like 'Sand Gets In Everywhere' which specifically converts the sand-based effects to force nonsense by kicking the all-invading nature of sand up to the metaphysical.
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Fri Nov 26, 2010 5:57 am

> Okay, since apparently you are stupid, I'll explain this slowly.
> Energy types are defined in the goddam rules, and most of those are not energy types. They are damage types, but not energy types. Suck a dick.
> I'm just trying to explain the actual rules, of which Force, Poison, Light, Negative, Vile, Profane, Exalted, Holy, ect are not energy types, and cannot have energy resistance. So just say "All damage from spells, SLAs, Ex and Su abilities is reduced by Y."

So your whole fucking argument is that the Argent Savant's (comp arcane)
Ablate Force ability is fine as is, but somehow wouldn't follow the rules if it were instead named Resist Force :urr: ? Even though it interacts with force damage in precisely the same way as Resist Fire interacts with fire damage!?!
That's retarded.
But you know what's even more retarded? Arguing about the RAW for a ruleset which is "SRD + stuff Josh pulled of the internet and then wrote some customization for"
You want to argue RAW, go right ahead. The current thread for the current Third Edition RAW is right here. Have fun.

> Just say "And it works on Sand." problem solved.

Okay, genius, lemme just sub in "Sand" for Stone the Stone Shape text
"You can form an existing piece of sand into any shape that suits your purpose.".......
Oh, wait, that doesn't work like you want at all.

> There should be a fucking note*
> *This class has a bunch of retarded shit that makes it not make sense/suck because it's overly tailored to my specific group.

There are two threads on this forum discussing the constraints of my game group and my design decisions for the setting, and as you haven't read those, I doubt you would read such a disclaimer anyways. Furthermore, even when I explained such things in response to your questions you respond with yet more hostility for the sake of hostility, so I have to assume you would have done so if it had been there initially.
So in the interest of managing my time instead of being dragged into pointless argument, I'm just gonna stop caring about the value of your insights - useful though they tend to be, right now the cost of my own reaction to them is greater than their worth to me.
Congrats, you win, onto ignore you go.
And as a general statement of principle: anyone is free to rewrite anything I post to suit their own tastes and game style.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Fri Nov 26, 2010 5:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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JonSetanta
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Post by JonSetanta » Fri Nov 26, 2010 6:25 am

You could make sand powers use Bludgeoning and/or Slashing damage (Sand Sword?) since that's physical, if you don't want to take the uncommon energy type route.
IMO the game should have anticipated by RAW the existence of new and exotic energy types yet still provide protection for characters by means of resistance... but it didn't.
Consider the existence of Steel element in Pokemon. It was added after the first few games (Gen 2) and had to be implemented with its own better than/worse than pairings regarding the other sixteen elements.
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Steel_%28type%29
And yet it works. This might be due to the doubling/halving nature of Pokemon elemental damage vs. creature types, but they have a system that readily accepts the invention of new elements.
Hell, you could throw in another 20 elements and have them interact fine with the pre-existing monsters.
D&D might be like this, but if would need to include an "against all energy types" clause for certain non-specific resistances, which pretty much don't exist.

> The Adventurer's Almanac wrote: ↑
> Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:25 pm
> Nobody gives a flying fuck about Tordek and Regdar.

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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Fri Nov 26, 2010 4:59 pm

The RAW declaration that energy resistance only applies to Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, and Sonic is actually a pretty late entry. The actual DMG doesn't say that. It only mentions Cold, Electricity, and Fire and uses the words "such as". The statement that it came in precisely five flavors comes from the Rules Compendium, a source which is regarded as the true and final word by basically no one.
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Fri Nov 26, 2010 5:55 pm

But this argument has made me realize that I very much DO want to go with the slightly unusual energy type. Yeah, it's not a perfect fit, and there are some decent arguments here for changing it to various other types -feel free to do that if you want to use this in your game - but for the game I wrote this for, I have more than adequate balance reasons and enough of a setting justification to use force.
At least to me, a mechanic that is used in the real world to remove soot (which is intangible) deposits from a surface without damaging the surface itself being able to damage ethereal critters seems a heck of a lot like Magic Missile being able to damage Shadows but not padlocks.

> Hell, you could throw in another 20 elements and have them interact fine with the pre-existing monsters.

One could, and quite probably, one should. But I cannot, as I have real time constraints to get things setup for this game.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Fri Nov 26, 2010 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik » Thu Dec 09, 2010 2:56 pm

I like your resist any extreme change of wording.
However, FYI, Stone tell really doesn't allow you to hear conversations that occurred within X range of the stone. I mean, it is entirely DM adjudication spell, but conversations that occurred in the past near a stone is probably something the stone can't understand well enough to relate. Maybe let them know a conversation was there, but even that's stretching it. If a stone can detect vibrations well enough to translate back to words, then it can tell the mage with perfect accuracy the number of horses a mile away.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Thu Dec 09, 2010 7:23 pm

This is purely flavor, but I'd change create water to instant oasis, and have the sand mage draw pure water up from the ground. You could even make it an actual oasis that sticks around until the sand mage creates a new one.
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Post by Kaelik » Thu Aug 04, 2011 12:04 am

Any suggested feats for a Sand Mage? Tome or not.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Thu Aug 04, 2011 12:36 am

> Kaelik wrote:Any suggested feats for a Sand Mage? Tome or not.

Legendary Wrangler.
Oh, and Product of Infernal Dalliance.
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Thu Aug 04, 2011 12:53 am

Quick Thoughts on feats:
Sandmages get illusions, concealment and a fair amount of blinding, so the 9 rank ability of Ghost Step (tome Move Silently Skill feat) that counters blindsight, tremorsense and so on is pretty useful.
Stuff that helps with touch attacks is obviously useful - and for all such attacks against wrangling a way to deny an opponent their dex is gonna usually be bigger than increasing your attack bonus, so Expert Tactician or other swift-feint feats are a thought, but feinting generally only applies for melee attacks so it matters more once you have Dessication.
The core Augment Summon is a straight-up bonus to your dust devil if your MC isn't splitting the hairs between (Sp) abilities that summon and summon spells to closely. Not sure if I'm missing a saner tome version of Augment Summon somewhere for that sort of thing.

> Oh, and Product of Infernal Dalliance.

If you're going that route, Sting of the Scorpion is thematically appropriate. And then layering Supernatural Virulence is either kinda sweet for Dessication or kinda silly for Sirocco.
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Thu Aug 04, 2011 1:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Kaelik » Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:27 am

How about just non Tome.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by Koumei » Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:24 am

> sigma999 wrote:You could make sand powers use Bludgeoning and/or Slashing damage (Sand Sword?) since that's physical, if you don't want to take the uncommon energy type route.

A couple of effects (Dust Mephit breath, It's Hot Outside spells, Sand Dragon breath) exist to copy from, but that would involve:
A. Caring very much about those precedents (assuming they even all use the same type)
B. That typing probably not filling the purpose in-game (such as hitting ghosts).
And technically, MM doesn't deal Force damage. It deals damage and is a [Force] effect, in the same way that the Dex damage of Shivering Touch isn't Cold Dex damage (which would be multiplied against Fire elementals), it's just Dex damage on a [Cold] effect. But everyone calls it Force damage, so w/e.

> Consider the existence of Steel element in Pokemon. It was added after the first few games (Gen 2) and had to be implemented with its own better than/worse than pairings regarding the other sixteen elements.
> http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Steel_%28type%29
> And yet it works.

That largely works because it has that existing handy "Double/Halve" chart going on. Note that with the 3e Pokemon project, there were a couple of creatures that took bigger effects from some elements (Gyarados with lightning), but it wasn't really hardcoded in, then some attacks were described as being super-effective against various subtypes in various ways - including "My Lightning attack is extra hardcore against Flying things and Gyarados also takes double damage, so this is even more super effective!" ...that was actually a bit of a mess (that part was my fault, not that of the original), and a basic "Super-effective Chart" at the start would have fixed that, as opposed to sometimes writing it into individual entries, and sometimes not.
So introducing a new elemental damage type into D&D at this point would really require going through a list of things it specially interacts with. As well as possibly making a note to re-classify some existing effects.

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