The Gaming Den

hyzmarca wrote:

RadiantPhoenix wrote:

hyzmarca wrote:

It could plausibly be a sexy human that doesn't bathe. Or that uses skunk spray as perfume. That's not a very inviting prostitute, of course, but still, a hole is a hole, even if that hole is probably diseased. That's what condoms are for.

I would imagine that it would be difficult to fuck while incapacitated.

Clothespin on nose, the standard method for defeating all smell-based attacks.

If the smell is bad enough, it could presumably get in through your mouth.

I'm looking for a setting with three criteria.

1) No Masquarade, or at least loose enough that the undead have civil rights.

2) Traditional voodoo-style smart zombies.

3) Modern setting, with smartphones and twitter.

FrankTrollman wrote:In 3e D&D, anything that gets separated from your body reverts to its original form.

In other news, Fire Elementals, Babaus and Balors can never pass for realistic humans when polymorphed.

nockermensch wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:In 3e D&D, anything that gets separated from your body reverts to its original form.

In other news, Fire Elementals, Babaus and Balors can never pass for realistic humans when polymorphed.

Well, if the polymorph effect doesn't suppress their 'discharge' (Supernatural abilities, in your examples), that seems a logical consequence.

FrankTrollman wrote:The thing that got me about the gulguthydra polymorphed into a prostitute was that it was the authors trying to be more clever than they actually were. They were like "Yo! gulguthydras have high charismas for being scary or something, so when we turn them into sexy ladies they are high charisma sexy ladies! Aren't we clever?" And the answer of course, is no. You are not fucking clever, because that's stupid.

-Username17

So if high charisma == sexy, why would you need to polymorph them in the first place?

ishy wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:The thing that got me about the gulguthydra polymorphed into a prostitute was that it was the authors trying to be more clever than they actually were. They were like "Yo! gulguthydras have high charismas for being scary or something, so when we turn them into sexy ladies they are high charisma sexy ladies! Aren't we clever?" And the answer of course, is no. You are not fucking clever, because that's stupid.

-Username17

So if high charisma == sexy, why would you need to polymorph them in the first place?

They're sexy to other gulguthydras. They still get the "is a gulguthydra" penalty with other races

CHA is the key stat for both Intimidate and whatever skill you'd use for hooking, whether that's Diplomacy, Bluff, or Perform. The actual consequence of this is that a gulguthydra totally can be a high-paid escort, because being real good at being scary is the same as being real good at being sexy. Not just for people who are into scary sex, but generally. Obviously doing something like applying an "is a gulguthydra" penalty to prevent gulguthydras from being sexy while un-polymorphed is a reasonable patch, but the heart of the problem is that the traditional six stats are rubbish, and using a polymorph spell doesn't actually change that. Gulguthydras shouldn't be better at being sexy no matter what you polymorph them into, because that's not what their high CHA is for.

Chamomile wrote:CHA is the key stat for both Intimidate and whatever skill you'd use for hooking, whether that's Diplomacy, Bluff, or Perform. The actual consequence of this is that a gulguthydra totally can be a high-paid escort, because being real good at being scary is the same as being real good at being sexy. Not just for people who are into scary sex, but generally. Obviously doing something like applying an "is a gulguthydra" penalty to prevent gulguthydras from being sexy while un-polymorphed is a reasonable patch, but the heart of the problem is that the traditional six stats are rubbish, and using a polymorph spell doesn't actually change that. Gulguthydras shouldn't be better at being sexy no matter what you polymorph them into, because that's not what their high CHA is for.

All true, but I am still going to be amused that ghasts make amazing phone sex operators by the RAW.

There's a comic strip called "Short Cuts" that had a joke called "call ghouls":

the follow up page is here: (NSFW I guess) http://www.citymanga.com/short_cuts/chapter-2/8/

virgil wrote:

nockermensch wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:In 3e D&D, anything that gets separated from your body reverts to its original form.

In other news, Fire Elementals, Babaus and Balors can never pass for realistic humans when polymorphed.

Well, if the polymorph effect doesn't suppress their 'discharge' (Supernatural abilities, in your examples), that seems a logical consequence.

In the case of a fire elemental at least, they don't even have an aura of fire worth noting on their sheets. They are, however, made of fire, and should therefore be Very Hot (not even Ex, just Very Hot).

So if the particles leaving a polymorphed Otyugh body revert to being Otyughish and resume smelling bad, the particles leaving a polymorphed fire elemental's body should also resume being Very Hot. And Mount Celestia forbids a polymorphed fire elemental from getting sweaty. Because every sweat drop that leaves the surface of its body becomes fire.

OgreBattle wrote:There's a comic strip called "Short Cuts" that had a joke called "call ghouls":

the follow up page is here: (NSFW I guess) http://www.citymanga.com/short_cuts/chapter-2/8/

That's not a ghoul, that's a fomorian from Werewolf (yes, there was an option, illustrated no less, to have faces on their breasts).

hyzmarca wrote:I'm looking for a setting with three criteria.

1) No Masquarade, or at least loose enough that the undead have civil rights.

2) Traditional voodoo-style smart zombies.

3) Modern setting, with smartphones and twitter.

Uh... I don't know of any game settings (except maybe Shadowrun?), I can think of two literary settings that (sort of) would- Discworld and the Southern Vampire Mysteries/True Blood. Possibly Hellboy/BPRD and Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse.

Discworld has no masquerade, the zombies are people who refused to die and are smart (there's a zombie lawyer and a zombie who fought and died in the Les Mis. style revolution of Ankh-Morpork), and while it's not a modern setting, because it's a satire on modern society, it has magicized versions of things like the internet and pdas.

The True Blood/Southern Vampire Mysteries setting has little to no masquerade, vampires are known to exist and their rights are, so far as I know, a focus of some of it, it's modern, so there are smartphones and twitter. I just don't know if there are zombies.

Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse may or may not have a masquerade (I don't think it does) and otherwise fits your needs. The protagonist is an intelligent zombie.

Hellboy/BPRD has no masquerade in the comics. Intelligent Voodoo Zombies are something I'm not aware of, but should be in there, and the tech level is generally a few decades back, but could easily be advanced to modern.

There's also Beautiful Creatures, which is sort of a Twilight knockoff, but actually good and not reprehensible, and with witches. But there's a masquerade there. You could also look at Dresden Files- there's a sort of masquerade, but Harry's a wizard for hire in the phone book who works with the police. I don't remember whether there are zombies, but I do know that wizards, at least, would not be using smartphones and twitter, as they fuck with technology in their vicinity.

If the Tome Monk is to run around with other post Races of War Tome classes, would it be too powerful if it starts getting master fighting styles at level 5? Other Tome classes tend to get a game changer around that level, e.g. Soulborn gets better soulmelds, the Soldier gets mighty stances at 4 and Totemist gets better soulmelds at 4.

Also, do you guys use any d20 stuff from outside this site? Just wondering what other good and/or interesting homebrew is out there.

radthemad4 wrote:If the Tome Monk is to run around with other post Races of War Tome classes, would it be too powerful if it starts getting master fighting styles at level 5? Other Tome classes tend to get a game changer around that level, e.g. Soulborn gets better soulmelds, the Soldier gets mighty stances at 4 and Totemist gets better soulmelds at 4.

Also, do you guys use any d20 stuff from outside this site? Just wondering what other good and/or interesting homebrew is out there.

So to be clear, you found a class that is balanced against Wizards without Tome feats, then you gave it tome feats, then you said, "HOW CAN I BUFF THIS CLASS MORE!"

I was comparing them to the Tome Soulborn. If I'm wrong about Tome Monks seeming to be a bit lacking in comparison from around the 4-6 range till they get Master Fighting Styles, I'm all ears as to why and how to better play Monks.

radthemad4 wrote:I was comparing them to the Tome Soulborn. If I'm wrong about Tome Monks seeming to be a bit lacking in comparison from around the 4-6 range till they get Master Fighting Styles, I'm all ears as to why and how to better play Monks.

Well for starters, you could accept that the Tome Soulborn is probably bullshit. Alternatively you could accept that not everything has parity at every level.

I had a player run as a Tome Soulborn, and my experience was that it looked a deal better than it actually was. People read it and squeed in their pants, but the actual in-play outputs were completely innocuous.

I remember someone mentioning at one point that 4E created legitimate debates as to whether fire abilities could create lighting in a room? Does anyone remember the details/source of this?

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I had a player run as a Tome Soulborn, and my experience was that it looked a deal better than it actually was. People read it and squeed in their pants, but the actual in-play outputs were completely innocuous.

Which is odd because I played in a game with a Tome Soulborn who basically couldn't miss outside a 1 or 2 and took out about everything the DM came up with in one or two hits, except the big megaboss monsters.

Tome Soulborn seems to be pretty crazy. The Soulblade is a d10 light weapon so you might as well TWF it. It also has a crit range of 18-20. Also, it bypasses hardness and DR and can hit incorporeal stuff so even more reason to TWF it.

Unlike fighting styles, you can have multiple soulmelds out simultaneously in addition to your soulblade(s) and other nifty class features like permanent Arcane Sight and AoOs on 5 foot steppers. You get a lot of soulmelds known (you can even swap an old one every level for a better one and you can use this to get more from better lists) and it takes a minute to swap them (or a full round action of you take the feat).

At level 6 you can smite at will so you add CHA and your level to all your attacks and you can take extra arms to use four soulblades to smite with (for kicks take Experimental Stock and get a non claw natural weapon and smite with that too). Each soulmeld also gives you a numeric bonus in addition to an ability.

I have never seen Tome Monks underperform, and they're often a staple that I go to. I mean as enemies they have the usual probolems that "Class levels on a human" enemies do, but as a player character, they're solid. A bit boring at the first few levels where nobody should play the game, but after that you have options and have actual tricks available.

The Soulborn... yeah, I played one and it was pretty over the top. The numbers stacked up high, and it's very easy to get around "Nope" based defences (flight, incorporeality, miss chances, barriers, whatever). Oh and you can chuck Save or Suck on basically every attack, and later on get a cohort which I've learned actually is a big enough deal to warrant assuming not every game will allow them and providing an alternative ability whenever mentioned on a class. Now I was also granted some other major stuff in that game, as we all gained character-specific cool stuff, but the class alone did most of the heavy lifting there.

virgil wrote:I remember someone mentioning at one point that 4E created legitimate debates as to whether fire abilities could create lighting in a room? Does anyone remember the details/source of this?

I don't remember an argument about light, but I recall a debate (on another forum?) about a Gust of Wind at-will not being able to clear smoke "because that's too good an effect for at-will, maybe if it were a Daily". And I remember one of the designers saying a fire spell couldn't melt ice, because it only targets a creature (note: every effect targets one or more creatures, and the designers should know this) and not an object.

Yeah, the Monk is awesome, but I still think it needs a bit more if RoW classes are in play (ignoring the fighter, the samurai and barbarian also seem kinda powerful).

Dean once suggested giving Monks weaboo fightan warblade progression. I kinda like that idea, though I'd like to remove discipline restrictions and maneuver prerequisites other than level.

It's not as crazy a 5th level master fighting styles, but adds more options. Also, boosts and counters can't usually be used simultaneously with fighting styles.

If my campaign setting is set on a planet who has a non-standard day/night cycle (each lasting the equivalent of 7 earth days) what is the best non-stupid way to determine things like when to refresh arcane spell slots, items and abilities with usage per day, etc...

Arcane spell slots reset when you rest for 8 hours, regardless of what the sun is doing. For things that are actually based on the sun, just have it be every 24 hours.

Is there a software people used for dungeon maps? Like, oldschool black (or blue) and white grids. I know IRL you'd use graph paper, but I imagine that works less well for actual publishing.