Odds and ends

[Corwin]

January 27, 1974?  >_>

[Anastasia]

January 27, 1974?  >_>

There is forums magic you barely even begin to comprehend.

[Anastasia]

Added folding open lock into disable device into the house rules.

Added a house rule about half-elf paragons, it's a minor one that doesn't impact any of you.

[Anastasia]

Are any of you guys planning on using Knock or using Disable Device? I'm toying around with changing Knock from an auto-win versus locked doors. Any opinions?

[Ebiris]

As the rogue analogue I have disable device and will use it. Since I have UMD I may even be interested in scrolls of knock for stubborn doors later on. Having it work as in Pathfinder with a CL check +10 vs the lock's DC isn't a bad idea, though.

[Anastasia]

As the rogue analogue I have disable device and will use it. Since I have UMD I may even be interested in scrolls of knock for stubborn doors later on. Having it work as in Pathfinder with a CL check +10 vs the lock's DC isn't a bad idea, though.

That's essentially what I was thinking of by modifying it.

[Corwin]

I'm not particularly invested in this either way, but why modify everything? Knock seems a pretty innocuous spell.

[Anastasia]

Why not modify?

Okay, okay, that's unproductive. Serious answer? There's a mechanism in place that allows for picking locks. It scales up in difficulty and works well if you invest skill points. Knock can bypass all of this with a second level spell, no matter how hard a lock it is to deal with. Why not change it so there's a mechanism that deals with it fairly without making the party rogue lose out?

[Corwin]

Because it didn't bother the party rogue one bit the previous game, despite both options being in play? It's just such a pointless change, to me, that I literally can't predict the next one. Epic balance lets you hop from cloud to cloud, levitate/fly does it easily with a spell. Jump makes it pointless to take any points in the jump skill, ever. Swimming is made redundant by either the spell that grants it or any of the transformations like alter self. Survival is fairly meaningless outside its tracking options if you can just produce water/sustenance. With Alarm around, you don't terribly need to leave a guard for the night. Flight+invisibility as a combination makes it improbably anyone but the insanely dedicated would notice anything with skills; you'd probably need truly epic uses of spot/listen there.

My point here is that Knock/DD (or Open Lock, which is now folded into DD) is far more benign than many of these examples and surely others I didn't bother with.

[Merc]

I kinda agree with Cor. Generally, the idea is that the skill, sure, it's not as good as the spell, but it's free, you can use it whenever. You enter a building with 300 locked doors, caster can't get them all, not without taking a month where a rogue would take a few hours, or spending 42k gold in scrolls.

The rogue gets all the doors he can, but if there's a particularly tricky lock, that's where the caster comes in.

[Ebiris]

Or failing a handy Knock spell, I haven't met the door that couldn't be destroyed by a power attacking fighter, often just as quickly as a lockpick would do it (albeit far louder)

[Corwin]

Something that occured to me. The nerfing of Freedom of Movement in a similar fashion came to eliminate an immunity to several special attacks/dangers like grapple and what not, and without getting into the details of whether it's a good change or not, it made perfect sense due to this. Just eliminating something that solves a trivial problem like Knock/skills to open doors is more like eliminating rings of sustenance because adventurers must forage for food. You know, just nowhere in that league of relevance.

[Yuthirin]

I'm gonna have to side with Corwin on this one. I think that, while handy to have the Knock spell, it can't really be spammed constantly over and over. A skilled rogue is needed. Knock is mostly situational, like if the caster is locked in a room alone/without a rogue.

[Anastasia]

Fair enough then, not gonna push something fringe through if most of you are fine with it.

[Merc]

[01:59] <Merc> Hey Ko, question for the purpose of known world: So east there's the ice-border of chillander, endless ocean to the west of dwarven lands, north is ocean and ice. What about south? Wastelands on the south-west of malmuth/baronies/desert/kelara. And south-east? Just endless ocean like to the west?
[02:00] <KOHOUND> Ask me in the morning? I'm dozing on and off mostly, not coherent.
[02:00] <Merc> heh, I'll post it on odds/ends