Quote:
Originally Posted by Dryad
OP:
I quite agree with the spirit of the tightening of rules, but some (GM may simply decide that cheesy strats don't work) should be... Well; self-explanatory, since the game tells us that whatever the GM decides is right, basically.
Other things are possibly solutions that only work against people who treat the system as a book of law, and try to find any loophole. To people like me, they don't mean much, and seem to overcomplicate things.
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Indeed; a notable portion of this (NOT all, though) is really just meant to make such things clearly not be an issue. Others are actually really needed even in a normal game, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ziegander
That's even stupider, sorry if I offend, but the only saving grace that could possibly be gleaned from the "max 23" rule was helping to provide some parity between PC and monster ability scores. Now you are simply making melee impossible and PC save DCs are going to be FAR outpaced by monsters save DCs.
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Nonsense, for several reasons:
1. It's not meant to provide parity between PC and monster ability scores, but rather less difference between a PC's most important score (where he can no longer apply inherent bonuses on top of advancement increases) and secondary abilities (where now he can apply more than 5 from wishes and tomes/manuals).
2. Melee is nowhere near impossible. You can still reach 23 before bonuses, meaning 29 (+9 bonus) with bonuses (even restricting things to items), so even a fighter who picks entirely useless feats (which is essentially an NPC class) can get 20+9+5(weapon enhancement)=+34 bonus. That's quite enough to hit anything (except a defensively optimized PC-type) with a very decent chance.
3. PC save DCs will actually tend to improve as a result of this change, since the "inherent bonus" slot will boost their secondary abilities rather than primary abilities, and saves are usually based off secondary abilities. This was actually part of the original goal of the change.
Remember, in the old system you were also capped at 18+1/4 HD, simply because there's no way to start with more than 18 or increase the base score more than once every 4 levels. So the only way it weakens PCs is by removing inherent bonuses with the replacement not being usable on the key ability score.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Realms of Chaos
Um... the alteration to the ability score caps, as currently written, doesn't actually do anything. Because it wasn't specified that racial bonuses don't count (which I think was the intention), no bonus other than that gained through HD (which can't raise your ability scores above 18 + 1/4 HD) counts towards that maximum.
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As I said to Ziegander, it indeed would do nothing by itself. But when combined with the change to inherent bonuses (which turns them into an actual increase to an ability score), it does provide a much-needed cap on those.