Finding Sources Without Scry Skill

[UncleHyena]

I may be getting WAY ahead of things, here, but...

The good folks at WotC have chosen to eliminate the Scry skill from D&D 3.5. Is Scry going to be added back as a Birthright specific skill, or is there some other mechanism by which an interloper can locate new sources in a magically underdeveloped province?

Uncle Hyena

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by UncleHyena@Jul 27 2003, 05:02 AM
I may be getting WAY ahead of things, here, but...

The good folks at WotC have chosen to eliminate the Scry skill from D&D 3.5. Is Scry going to be added back as a Birthright specific skill, or is there some other mechanism by which an interloper can locate new sources in a magically underdeveloped province?

Uncle Hyena
Too early to tell how this will be handled. I still don't have my copies of the 3.5 material and I'm pretty sure that the others on the development team are still processing the info.

[RaspK_FOG]

Check out the Scry spells. You no longer need to make a scry check, but there is a save versus the scrying attempt, modified by the conditions relevant to the use of the spell.

[kgauck]

ge -----

From: "RaspK_FOG" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 10:30 AM





> Check out the Scry spells. You no longer need to make a scry

> check, but there is a save versus the scrying attempt, modified by

> the conditions relevant to the use of the spell.



Absolutly the wrong direction. I want more skill checks in spellcasting,

not fewer. The bunch of dolts!



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[Osprey]

Absolutly the wrong direction. I want more skill checks in spellcasting,
not fewer. The bunch of dolts&#33;

Kenneth Gauck


I couldn&#39;t agree more. A Swedish system I used to run (Drakkar och Demoner, or "Dragons and Demons" translated) had every School and Spell be a skill that you had to check against whenver you cast it. I thought it was quite cool.

In general, as far as 3.5 is concerned, my opinion is: take what you like and ignore what you don&#39;t&#33; Of course, I&#39;m not trying to get official approval from WOTC, so it&#39;s not such an issue for me...
Osprey

[kgauck]

ge -----

From: "Osprey"

Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 3:50 PM





> A Swedish system I used to run (Drakkar och Demoner, or "Dragons

> and Demons"; translated) had every School and Spell be a skill that

> you had to check against whenver you cast it. I thought it was quite

cool.



That is intriging. I`ll have to put some of that in the stew and see how it

tastes.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[RaspK_FOG]

You may be right, but some of their new ideas are way too good:

1) Dwarves have a land speed of 20 ft. per round even when wearing medium/heavy armour and/or carrying a medium/heavy load. Dwarven waraxes and urgoshes are martial weapons for them.

2) Bards have a vaster array of weapons, are not proficient with medium armour, but ignore arcane spell failure chance normally incured by light armour. They can now change their selection of spells, and their Bardic Music has been given more powers. (wonder where the blade-singer has gone... :D ) 6 + Int skill points&#33;

3) The same concerning spell selection applies to Sorcerers.

4) Monks have finally been powered down (irrelevant; monks are not a part of Birthright).

5) Rangers are now playable&#33; At long last&#33; Whoever thought of assigning them a low Reflex save was a clot&#33; I have given my players a high Reflex for their Rangers before they corrected it... 6 + Int skill points&#33;

6) Barbarians and rogues have been thought over a lot. Better abilities or more evenly/earlier assigned.

7) Less skills&#33; Innuendo part of Bluff and Read Lips part of Spot, while Intuit Direction is automatic at 5 ranks of Survival (aka Wildernes Lore). Some are expanded. Even though I love bards and would love to see them having less trouble, it is only reasonable to expand Perform in Perform (Song), (Oratory), (Wind instruments), (Dance), etc. Also, Knowledge skills now give bonuses, even to Bardic Knowledge&#33;

8) Yada-Yada&#33; Check them out, then think it over. I generally love the new edition, only did not like some aspects (like the lack of exclusive skills).

[Mark_Aurel]

4) Monks have finally been powered down (irrelevant; monks are not a part of Birthright).

Toned down? How? The main thing I&#39;ve noticed is that they&#39;re a bit more flexible. If they indeed have been "toned down" somehow, that&#39;s bad news, not good, as monks weren&#39;t a very powerful class in 3e - they had fairly weak offensive capabilities overall - their main schtick was simply the ability to survive, which made them good for killing wizards, but not much else - they&#39;re just another class that&#39;s decent at a lot of things, but doesn&#39;t really do anything very well. At the start of 3e, I saw a big group of people complain that they thought the monk was too good - play experience tended to prove them wrong.



5) Rangers are now playable&#33; At long last&#33; Whoever thought of assigning them a low Reflex save was a clot&#33; I have given my players a high Reflex for their Rangers before they corrected it... 6 + Int skill points&#33;

Rangers were always "playable" - it&#39;s just that their good abilities all kicked in early, and then was followed by a long slump within which they gained very little new and interesting stuff. They were arguably a more powerful fighting class than I think a lot of players realized at high levels, however - courtesy of polymorph self.


7) Less skills&#33; Innuendo part of Bluff and Read Lips part of Spot, while Intuit Direction is automatic at 5 ranks of Survival (aka Wildernes Lore). Some are expanded. Even though I love bards and would love to see them having less trouble, it is only reasonable to expand Perform in Perform (Song), (Oratory), (Wind instruments), (Dance), etc. Also, Knowledge skills now give bonuses, even to Bardic Knowledge&#33;

Less skills doesn&#39;t necessarily strike me as a good thing - obviously, a compromise must be made between too many skills, which tends to give PCs some extreme specialties, and generally matter little, or too few skills, which are too broad and all-inclusive. The skills they got rid of tends to make sense, though - they were generally too narrow to be commonly selected anyway.

[RaspK_FOG]

Not wanting to insult anyone, but monks were too much... the funniest thing you can do, though, to a particularly looking-his-nose-down-at-you monk of at least 20th level is to bind them in a magic circle; LOL. It is personal experience that makes me speak: the various feats that were introduced for the monk (mostly; with Wisdom prerequisites...) were TOO good. Another good point is the evening of their number of attacks per round.

As for rangers, I agree, they were cool characters&#33; That is, at first level... That&#39;s why so many NPCs in worlds appeared in 3e with but one ranger level&#33;

As for skills... You can say I meant to say what you said.

[kgauck]

ge -----

From: "RaspK_FOG" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 4:25 PM





> You may be right, but some of their new ideas are way too good:



I`m not knocking the whole thing. The update and the new materials are

certainly worth going through, but dropping the scry skill is certainly one

of those things that goes in the wrong direction.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[CMonkey]

4) Monks have finally been powered down
I&#39;m afraid I agree with mark here, without OA (and even then...) monks are/were a very weak class. And this too is from actual experience.

CM.

[Mark_Aurel]

Not wanting to insult anyone, but monks were too much... the funniest thing you can do, though, to a particularly looking-his-nose-down-at-you monk of at least 20th level is to bind them in a magic circle; LOL. It is personal experience that makes me speak: the various feats that were introduced for the monk (mostly; with Wisdom prerequisites...) were TOO good. Another good point is the evening of their number of attacks per round.

Why would you want to insult anyone - just because the experience of other players (indeed, the great majority of other players, if ENWorld threads on this subject are any indication) have the opposite opinion of yours in terms of the power level of monks?

There are a lot of reasons why monks are a fairly weak class:
- They rely on a lot of ability scores. They "need" a high Dex, a high Wis, a high Str, a high Con - and a high Int is also very good for them, with their class skill list. Most other classes can focus on a smaller range of ability scores (wizard - Int; fighter/barbarian - Str/Con; rogue - Dex/Int, etc).
- Their combat abilities are or were fairly poor overall. They don&#39;t come near the effectiveness of fighters, barbarians, or rogues in melee, generally speaking. Now, with DRs generally being lower than they were, monks may be somewhat more useful in a few cases.
- They suffer a bit from "jack-of-all-trades-ism;" they&#39;re decent, or potentially decent, at a lot of things, and can occasionally fill in for other roles in a party, but not do anywhere near as good a job as the rogue or fighter would, of course.
- The main niche for monks is basically the ability to survive. They can run away from encounters quicker than anyone (remember, they don&#39;t have to outrun the monster, just their tank fighter companion), they generally have the best saves, and they have a fair share of class abilities that further improve on this; their skills can also help them out.

What this amounts to is generally a hard-to-play class with little actual "weight" in most scenarios. It&#39;s not a good frontline class, it&#39;s not a spellcaster, several other classes are better skill users, it&#39;s not a support class. What the monk does is survive, and that can annoy a lot of people - "hey, you didn&#39;t slay a single monster in this dungeon, but you&#39;re the only one of us that walks out alive? not fair&#33;&#33;&#33;"

Of course, if you just stare yourself blind at the inarguably huge list of class abilities granted to monks, you might miss the bigger picture - that those class abilities are generally less useful than those given most other classes.

[RaspK_FOG]

True, they had to get to assign a lot of abilities, but if you think it over and min-max your character (two brothers did this in the same campaign, both monk-lovers; at least they came up in different campaign eras&#33;), you can leave Dexterity or Intelligence off and work your skills accordingly. It can work, if you check it out.

Furthermore, some really annoying feats WotC published allowed the second brother&#39;s monk to fell almost any creature with just one hit&#33; You know, the kind of feat that says something in the line of: "If you jump that much distance, you deal more damage; make a Jump check, DC yada-yada.", or: "You attack and get off the ground, no longer being prone.", and so on...

I spoke from personal experience of min-max-ing players. And yes, his monk always survived. He even survived a situation of two brown bears while being, by choice, alone in the forest. The good part came when he started getting too cocky and forgot to play the part of the monk (that is, a mystic who tries to find enlightenment) and got his sensei&#39;s spirit slapping him for wanting more and more magic items&#33;

[Mark_Aurel]

Which feats are you talking about? I know there&#39;s some prone fighting feats (which generally doesn&#39;t strike me as all that useful), but I haven&#39;t seen any feats that allow any form of instant kill, or near-instant kill. Name and source would be appreciated; sounds as likely to me that the rules are being interpreted wrong as that the rules are broken.

I&#39;d also be interested in seeing a more specific example of the ability score and skill distribution you mention, and in what type of campaign context they fell in. I&#39;m having a hard time actually coming up with anything I&#39;d consider &#39;broken&#39; here.

[RaspK_FOG]

Quite a few from "Sword and Fist". I suppose rules misinterpretation or "breaking" could be a reason for a seeming matter like that. I have at least once caught one of the two misinterpreting the AC bonus monks get: he thought the bonus stacked. Can you imagine the AC 43 10th level monk? Campaign: Greyhawk.

Anyway, what I mostly meant was the lack of "Super Speedy Sensei"s we would see in front of us, with the "Sky Splitting Slash"es to top that (unarmoured speed and unarmed damage). The damage is more even out, dealing 2d10 at 20th level instead of 1d20 (giving more medium rolls instead of 1s and 20s), and never reaching the outrageous 90 ft. per round&#33; 60 ft. are still good, you know.
For example, a monk with expeditious retreat cast on him and a pair of boots of haste, combined with that feat that gives you 10 extra ft. per round (Dash), you would get ([90 + 10] * 2) * 2 = 100 * 4 = 400 ft. per round&#33;
Top that with an allegro spell (doubles speed and maximum jumps), and you get a nice land speed of 800 ft.

It would be true to say that the loophole of not mentioning that your land speed could not be more than doubled was the reason for all this mayhem, but it was enhanced by the 90 ft. speed of a monk. Actually, would it apply (if it were not false) that two doublings are a tripling, as per damage? Sounds more reasonable.

Furthermore, I suppose that the idea of ability distribution was quite strange, but I specifically remember that that player had given his monk a not-so-high Dexterity score. We always played in "honour system" style, not allowing others to (except if we wanted to) check on our character sheets, but I can still remember the indications: low initiative, bad ranged attacks (if he ever made more than 5), etc. His Intelligence wasn&#39;t too high either.

[Osprey]

Actually, would it apply (if it were not false) that two doublings are a tripling, as per damage? Sounds more reasonable

You&#39;ll find that this is pretty much the case in all of 3e mechanics; 2 doublings = triple, 3 doubles = 4x, etc. So 2 spells that double land speed would triple the base speed, not quadruple it.

Mmm, "allegro spell"? Not familiar with that one. Isn&#39;t it a bit redundant with Expeditious Retreat and Jump? Kind-of a "2 for 1" spell? Hate that.


Quite a few from "Sword and Fist". I suppose rules misinterpretation or "breaking" could be a reason for a seeming matter like that. I have at least once caught one of the two misinterpreting the AC bonus monks get: he thought the bonus stacked. Can you imagine the AC 43 10th level monk? Campaign: Greyhawk

AC bonuses for Dex, Wis, and class levels do in fact stack in 3e. But consider that they only get the bonuses when not wearing armor (Bracers of Armor excluded). Monks can get pretty good AC, but a 10th level monk with AC 43 is WAY out of balance with what a normal monk of that level should be capable of. I don&#39;t know what kind of insane magical gear or Abilities that character had, but that&#39;s out of control.

Osprey

[CMonkey]

Sigh. Munchkin it is then:


that feat that gives you 10 extra ft. per round (Dash),
Dash gives 5&#39; in light load and armour.


a monk with expeditious retreat cast on him and a pair of boots of haste
These things dont stack with a monks increased speed. Check your faqs.

CM.

[Osprey]

a monk with expeditious retreat cast on him and a pair of boots of haste

These things dont stack with a monks increased speed. Check your faqs

Hmm, but what about Boots of Striding and Springing? Or is monk speed simply incompatible with magical enhancements of any sort?

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Osprey@Aug 7 2003, 10:26 AM


a monk with expeditious retreat cast on him and a pair of boots of haste

These things dont stack with a monks increased speed. Check your faqs

Hmm, but what about Boots of Striding and Springing? Or is monk speed simply incompatible with magical enhancements of any sort?
The original point being made was that bonuses to speed from multiple magical items don&#39;t stack (like bonuses don&#39;t stack). A single magical enhancement normally would stack with a monk&#39;s base speed though (see below comment concerning FAQs though).

The reference to FAQs is probably refering to Sage Advice (free downloads from WotC site) I&#39;d have to check to see what the specific reference being made is, but Iwill start off assuming that there is a specifc FAQ addressing this issue.

[kgauck]

ge -----

From: "irdeggman" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 11:05 AM





> The original point being made was that bonuses to speed from

> multiple magical items don`t stack (like bonuses don`t stack). A

> single magical enhancement would stack with a monk`s base

> speed though.



The problem with this, as I see it, is that spell research can find, and

hence create spells and magic items, that ustilize different bonuses. Such

spells may be higher level. The boots of speed provide a Haste bonus (I

think quite obviously since a Haste spell is the original magic). The text

gives me three interests to balance, encouraging good play (encouraging

smart players to put together suites of effects), consistency and logic (it

makes sense that a version of expiditious retreat granting a competence

bonus could be devised), and balance (it should be as difficult or expensive

to achieve as it is useful and beneficial).



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[RaspK_FOG]

OK, maybe I was wrong concerning the expeditious retreat and haste thing, but the AC bonuses a monk gets, while stacking, which I mentioned are not the Dex, Wis and Bonus; I was referring only to the monk&#39;s bonus to AC, the man stacking it per level, instead of adding 1/4 his monk levels to AC&#33;

Allegro is one of those unique bardic spells; it doubles your speed and jumping distance (unlike jump), but affects all within 30 ft., not just you&#33; Check out "Song and Silence"; bards got some really cool spells in that book, and the spells summon instrument, sympathetic vibration, and a few others that came up in the bard&#39;s spell list for 3.5 were published there for the first time.

Lst error (I hope) is that of the Dash feat. Sorry, once again.

[Mourn]

All bonuses to speed in the core rules are enhancement bonuses, and thus do not stack with one another.

The loss of the Scry skill is a GOOD thing. What&#39;s the point of having a skill that only one spell uses, and it doesn&#39;t even implement it very well. Either all spells should rely on skills, or none should.

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Mourn" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2003 2:50 PM





> The loss of the Scry skill is a GOOD thing. What`s the point of

> having a skill that only one spell uses, and it doesn`t even

> implement it very well. Either all spells should rely on skills, or

> none should.



All spells should rely on skills. I used the scry skill as a check for all

similar spells: clairaudience, clairvoyance, wizards` eye, detect toughts,

&c &c.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[RaspK_FOG]

For those of you who really like the use of spells to be varied and not always powerful, I have to pose a variant based on the spell power variant from DMG (where it suggested you roll 1d20 instead of assuming a base 10 score for spell DCs): you roll 2d6+3 and substitute 10 with the check result...

This works with the variant that suggested defence rolls as well. The reason I find them better is that they are not so wildly variant, and the numbes are more balanced (1 is lower from 10 by 9, while 20 is higher from 10 by 10)&#33;

As for speed, I am not sure if all spells and effects gave enhancement bonuses, but some could certainly be not enhancement bonuses, and WotC gave no such restriction, so it would be best to assume that it can happen.

And yes, I have made another mistake: monks still get 90 ft./round at high levels. The interesting bit is that speed bonuses are no longer modified due to size, so a small monk gets 80 ft./round.

[Mourn]

Originally posted by kgauck@Sep 6 2003, 05:41 PM
----- Original Message -----

From: "Mourn" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2003 2:50 PM





> The loss of the Scry skill is a GOOD thing. What`s the point of

> having a skill that only one spell uses, and it doesn`t even

> implement it very well. Either all spells should rely on skills, or

> none should.



All spells should rely on skills. I used the scry skill as a check for all

similar spells: clairaudience, clairvoyance, wizards` eye, detect toughts,

&c &c.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com













I agree about that.

However, it wasn&#39;t fully implemented into the system. I see little point in using a skill that is only useful for a small subset of spells, which creates an arbitrary limitation on the caster, with the need to buy Scry. If they had fully implemented it with all spells using skill checks for various results, then I&#39;d find it useful.

Scry&#39;s nothing a Will save couldn&#39;t replace.