Random DM nagging.

[Anastasia]

Shapeshift Druid (who don't qualify for natural spell anyway)/Barbarian is a backup thought I've had swimming around.

Is that the Bear Warrior gimmick one?

On actually reading it shapeshift druid is something much more comprehensive in the PHB2. I'll read it tomorrow when I have leisure.

Druids are so great though!

Mechanically they're fearsome. It's just that I feel they don't warrant a base class of their own. It's a carryover from older editions. Every other type of specialized priest uses the cleric chassis and ACFs + PrCs and a few other tricks as needed. It bugs me that druids need an entire base class. It also annoys since it splits up the nature based spells, making playing a nature-themed cleric, which with various domains is entirely reasonable, difficult as certain thematic spells are barred to you. It's a bad split like that. I ran into this with Drena so it's fresh on my mind. I may make an Initiate of Chan feat later on to cover some of these gaps, but this is getting way afarfield from the point I'm supposedly making.

Don't let this discourage you from playing a druid if you want to, this is just my opinion.

[Ebiris]

Arrangement for the attack on Earthfall:

Army 1: PCs, Misaela, 10 graceful blow, 15 refugees, 55 air elementals.
Army 2: Drena, Crystal, Adrian, Lief, 20 pixies, 40 air elementals, 50 lycanthropes
Army 3: Annalise, Tannin, Jarl, 5 Giants, 60 air elementals, 35 lycanthropes
Army 4: Everyone else

Army 4 plays defence. Army 1 and 2 hit them at different sides to go in as fast as they can, Army 3 spreads out and mops up.

[Corwin]

There's a certain amount of time that gets wasted in any fight, and especially in army/army battles where things are hectic already by definition. I'd like to suggest ways to streamline the process and make it more fun.

-Distances. How far am I to Enemy X and the like. How about using relative distances? Pick a reference point, say the enemy army's first ranks, and list the relative distance in an ooc channel or in the init order. For example:

Afina(25)>Ogre and Goblin army(24)>Willim(20)>Misalea=Jaela(19)>Ithea(10)>Red-haired woman

would thus become:

Afina(25, 100ft)>Ogre and Goblin army(24)>Willim(20, 260ft)>Misalea=Jaela(19, 500ft)>Ithea(10, 500ft)>Red-haired woman (20ft)

Even if the battle isn't linear or is fought in 3D, it can work since you can say distances are oversimplified for convenience's sake. Since the same thing applies to everyone involved, it should be fair enough, and as we're not using models or a map it's not like we reliably keep track of it anyway.

-Full attack. Once armies inter-penetrate, how about saying that X enemies are always within melee range? Say 2 within 5ft, 3 within 10ft, 5 within 15ft... we can pick whichever numbers we want, but they could be an approximation of who we could attack instead of slowing things down by asking "who's near me?"

-Flanking. Same as above, with our troops all mixed up, how about stating when flanking happens? We can say it always takes place, or that it takes place with say half of the opponents (if we use the above suggestion, then of the 2 opponents within 5ft, one would have an ally on the other side and the other wouldn't).

-Some sort of incentive for using anything but melee or attacks against 'named' enemy characters would be nice. If, instead of advancing steadily, keeping my troops safe and then engaging in melee I had instead used my long-ranged Radiant Assault to annihilate 20ft radiuses of mooks each turn? Here, I didn't feel it'd do much of a difference, but I think using something so powerful should provide better results than just another melee attack. It might help if we actually knew how we win battles. This one ended when Afina took out the boss. Is that all we need to do, then, and the rest is pointless? I want to say no, but I'm not sure how else we can win, or how our actions can affect the outcome against a faceless horde of goons we can't even count.

EDIT: To clarify this more, I figure that before we even talk about choosing better options than melee, how about establishing some basic win conditions for army battles? Capture the flag, take out the enemy commander and the like. If we had any sort of real, measurable indication of how well the battle was going and how much of a push we needed to seal the deal, what I posted about in the paragraph above should be really easy to define.

[Anastasia]

I've read these and I'll reply to them. Right now I'm really just letting all this toss around my head for awhile.

[Ebiris]

Can Afina (or any of the pixies we have available) make special memory loss or sleep arrows?

Special Arrows (Ex)
Pixies sometimes employ arrows that deal no damage but can erase memory or put a creature to sleep.

It's in the pixie monster statblock but not a specific race ability in the pixies as characters section.

[Anastasia]

-Distances. How far am I to Enemy X and the like. How about using relative distances? Pick a reference point, say the enemy army's first ranks, and list the relative distance in an ooc channel or in the init order. For example:

Afina(25)>Ogre and Goblin army(24)>Willim(20)>Misalea=Jaela(19)>Ithea(10)>Red-haired woman

would thus become:

Afina(25, 100ft)>Ogre and Goblin army(24)>Willim(20, 260ft)>Misalea=Jaela(19, 500ft)>Ithea(10, 500ft)>Red-haired woman (20ft)

Even if the battle isn't linear or is fought in 3D, it can work since you can say distances are oversimplified for convenience's sake. Since the same thing applies to everyone involved, it should be fair enough, and as we're not using models or a map it's not like we reliably keep track of it anyway.

That's a good thought and I'll implement something like that. The exact form of it is to be decided, but you have a fine idea.

-Full attack. Once armies inter-penetrate, how about saying that X enemies are always within melee range? Say 2 within 5ft, 3 within 10ft, 5 within 15ft... we can pick whichever numbers we want, but they could be an approximation of who we could attack instead of slowing things down by asking "who's near me?"

Yeah, I came to the same conclusion myself. Once you wade into the lines, you should assume full attacking is automatically possible against the army in general.

What I'm doing is treating the army as a distinct entity with hit points, a range of attack rolls and several attacks per round. It's a fairly simplified system, where hit point damage is shown by slaying members of that army.

-Flanking. Same as above, with our troops all mixed up, how about stating when flanking happens? We can say it always takes place, or that it takes place with say half of the opponents (if we use the above suggestion, then of the 2 opponents within 5ft, one would have an ally on the other side and the other wouldn't).

Flanking is much trickier, depending on the lines, tactics involved and a lot of things. Let me see if I can work something out here.

-Some sort of incentive for using anything but melee or attacks against 'named' enemy characters would be nice. If, instead of advancing steadily, keeping my troops safe and then engaging in melee I had instead used my long-ranged Radiant Assault to annihilate 20ft radiuses of mooks each turn? Here, I didn't feel it'd do much of a difference, but I think using something so powerful should provide better results than just another melee attack. It might help if we actually knew how we win battles. This one ended when Afina took out the boss. Is that all we need to do, then, and the rest is pointless? I want to say no, but I'm not sure how else we can win, or how our actions can affect the outcome against a faceless horde of goons we can't even count.

EDIT: To clarify this more, I figure that before we even talk about choosing better options than melee, how about establishing some basic win conditions for army battles? Capture the flag, take out the enemy commander and the like. If we had any sort of real, measurable indication of how well the battle was going and how much of a push we needed to seal the deal, what I posted about in the paragraph above should be really easy to define.

Good idea. Let me work on that as well.

[Anastasia]

Can Afina (or any of the pixies we have available) make special memory loss or sleep arrows?

Special Arrows (Ex)
Pixies sometimes employ arrows that deal no damage but can erase memory or put a creature to sleep.

It's in the pixie monster statblock but not a specific race ability in the pixies as characters section.

Savage Species page 51 has prices for pixie arrows. Do me a favor and recalculate those with the 3.5 rules to make sure they're compliant? More on this after that.

[Ebiris]

Sorry, I don't understand how to recalculate them. They're unique effects. The 3.5 versions of them as per the pixie monster stats are:

Memory Loss
An opponent struck by this arrow must succeed on a DC 15 Will save or lose all memory. The save DC is Charisma-based and includes a +2 racial bonus. The subject retains skills, languages, and class abilities but forgets everything else until he or she receives a heal spell or memory restoration with limited wish, wish, or miracle.

Sleep
Any opponent struck by this arrow, regardless of Hit Dice, must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or be affected as though by a sleep spell. The save DC is Charisma-based and includes a +2 racial bonus.

I guess if you used the magic item creation rules with modify memory and deep slumber as our closest equivalents then it'd be 750gp for a sleep arrow and 2,000gp forthe memory loss one?

[Anastasia]

The idea of a spruced up paladin class isn't anything new. I've never wanted to do an official one for various reasons, including the fact that heavily modifying a base class is a much deeper change rather than just making a variant or PrC instead. This idea is a compromise, as it frankensteins the Divine Crusader PrC for ways to improve the paladin. Nothing here is original, it's all taken from paladin and divine crusader. This results in a paladin that's probably closer to a duskblade in power, if not exceeding it at late levels.

If you wanted to go further and fill in more of later dead levels, I'd suggest the following.

8th: Immunity to petrification, as angels and other celestials enjoy. Another minor immunity fits well into paladin.
13th: +4 racial bonus against poison, as celestials enjoy. One could argue for immunity, but I'd rather go with what's thematic here.
16th: Protective Aura, as an angel.
17th: Tongues, as an angel.

This class isn't official, but just a mockup I'd wanted to do for awhile.




   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fortitude Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Special
1	+1	+2	+0	+2	Aura of good, detect evil, smite evil 1/day
2	+2	+3	+0	+3	Divine grace, lay on hands
3	+3	+3	+1	+3	Aura of courage, divine health
4	+4	+4	+1	+4	Spells (1st domain), turn undead
5	+5	+4	+1	+4	Smite evil 2/day, special mount
6	+6	+5	+2	+5	Remove disease 1/week
7	+7	+5	+2	+5	Angelsight
8	+8	+6	+2	+6	-
9	+9	+6	+3	+6	Remove disease 2/week, spells (2nd domain)
10	+10	+7	+3	+7	Smite evil 3/day
11	+11	+7	+3	+7	Resistance to acid and cold 10
12	+12	+8	+4	+8	Remove disease 3/week
13	+13	+8	+4	+8	-
14	+14	+9	+4	+9	Spells (3rd domain)
15	+15	+9	+5	+9	Remove disease 4/week, resistance to acid and cold 20, smite evil 4/day
16	+16	+10	+5	+10	-
17	+17	+10	+5	+10	-
18	+18	+11	+5	+11	Remove disease 5/week
19	+19	+11	+6	+11	Resistance to acid and cold 30, spells (4th domain)
20	+20	+12	+7	+12	Perfect self, smite evil 5/day

Unless otherwise noted, assume any familiar paladin powers work as in normal for paladin. They won't be repeated here for the sake of brevity. It's just a mockup, after all.

Spells

A paladin draws directly on the spheres of influence of his patron. He casts divine spells taken from domains his deity offers. At 4th level he selects one domain, and another one every five levels after. This otherwise functions as divine crusader spellcasting. A paladin may choose any domain his deity offers (with the exceptions of the chaos and evil domains) as well as the good and law domains. If a paladin has selected all the domains his deity offers, as well as the good and law domain, he may choose a bonus feat instead of gaining another domain.

See the table below for paladin spell progression.

Angelsight (Ex)

The paladin's eyes have their own inner light that can defeat any darkness, just like the servants of good. They gain darkvision 60ft.

Energy Resistance (Ex)

At 11th level the paladin becomes closer to his celestial patrons. He gains resistance to acid and cold 10. This rises to 20 at level 15 and 30 at level 19.

Perfect Self (Ex)

At 20th level the paladin transcends this world, becoming and outsider. His type changes to outsider with the native subtype. In addition he gains damage reduction 15/evil.



   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Paladin Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
4	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5	3	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6	4	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
7	4	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
8	4	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-
9	4	4	3	1	-	-	-	-	-
10	4	4	4	2	-	-	-	-	-
11	4	4	4	3	1	-	-	-	-
12	4	4	4	4	2	-	-	-	-
13	4	4	4	4	3	1	-	-	-
14	4	4	4	4	4	2	-	-	-
15	4	4	4	4	4	3	1	-	-
16	4	4	4	4	4	4	2	-	-
17	4	4	4	4	4	4	3	1	-
18	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	2	-
19	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	3	1
20	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	2

[Merc]

I'm going to start log-diving tomorrow for stats.

Dune asked for me to add a 'damage done' category (similar to 'damage taken', will ignore DR and resistance), so going to have to start from first log again.

Is there anything else that anybody wants to see added to stats while I'm back at the beginning?

[Anastasia]

Number of battles each NPC participates in. By participate, I mean any battle that they roll initiative in or otherwise join. It's interesting to keep track, at least to me.

[Merc]

Actually, I was technically doing that already, as I do individual roll stats for initiative and attack rolls.

[Anastasia]

Oh okay, carry on!

[Anastasia]

Post clearinghouse time.

Sorry, I don't understand how to recalculate them. They're unique effects. The 3.5 versions of them as per the pixie monster stats are:

Memory Loss
An opponent struck by this arrow must succeed on a DC 15 Will save or lose all memory. The save DC is Charisma-based and includes a +2 racial bonus. The subject retains skills, languages, and class abilities but forgets everything else until he or she receives a heal spell or memory restoration with limited wish, wish, or miracle.

Sleep
Any opponent struck by this arrow, regardless of Hit Dice, must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or be affected as though by a sleep spell. The save DC is Charisma-based and includes a +2 racial bonus.

I guess if you used the magic item creation rules with modify memory and deep slumber as our closest equivalents then it'd be 750gp for a sleep arrow and 2,000gp forthe memory loss one?

That works. To be honest there's a good argument to make them some sort of racial power, but that brings in side effects and rebalancing I'm not sure I want to deal with.

-----

Re: Can Cor or someone with fast movement get back quickly?

Yes, assuming no hold ups on the way back.

---

Re: Yuth asking about Fist of the Forest.

Viable, though bear in mind Primal Living. That + living in a flying superfortress doesn't really jive. The cafeteria doesn't violate primal living's food requirements RAW, though it sort of runs odd against the likely intent of the restriction. Most of what you get out of it is a small damage bump, that one feral trance thing and a huge AC bump. It's comparable to Jaela taking Arcane Duelist. Con to AC for you  is as awesome as cha to AC is to her.

---

Re: 3.0 haste.

I'm still evaluating it, though it's clearly potent stuff. If it does get the nerf bat, any suggestions on another class feature to replace it? No decision will come until Earthfall is done, not gonna make a change midway.

---

Re: Shinear's book

This covers the Speedmaster epic PrC. I figure you put that together from context, Eb, but I never said as much. Feel free to add that book to your possessions. You're under no obligation to take that PrC beyond any Afina would feel.

[Yuthirin]

Viable, though bear in mind Primal Living. That + living in a flying superfortress doesn't really jive. The cafeteria doesn't violate primal living's food requirements RAW, though it sort of runs odd against the likely intent of the restriction. Most of what you get out of it is a small damage bump, that one feral trance thing and a huge AC bump. It's comparable to Jaela taking Arcane Duelist. Con to AC for you is as awesome as cha to AC is to her.

The benefits are huge to me, and I kind of thought that outside in the courtyard could still count as "outside," since it's a demiplane. Your call though. If I can't take it and live on Aurora, it's useless to me. As for food, I can always set a cow loose or something, chase it around the courtyard, and then preserve the meat.