OOTS #863 - The Discussion Thread

[rgrekejin]

An ex paladin loses all his special powers when he turns to evil, but will regain about the same benefits and then some (extra sneak attack dmg, smite good, extra pet, LoH) by trading in his PAL lvls. How is that not an Advantage to trade useless lvls to gain instant lvl 10 in a prestige class ?

I don't think you understand how the Blackguard/Paladin thing works.

11 or more

A fallen paladin of this stature immediately gains a blackguard level for each level of paladin he trades in.

The character level of the character does not change. With the loss of paladin levels, the character no longer gains as many extra abilities for being a fallen paladin.

Emphasis mine. Say Character A takes ten levels of the Blackguard prestige class. Character B takes eleven levels of paladin. When character B turns evil, they trade in ten levels of Paladin for ten levels of Blackguard. Since character B no longer has those ten levels of Paladin, they no longer get the extra benefits that a Blackguard gets for being a Fallen Paladin. A Blackguard who has traded in ten levels of Paladin for ten levels of Blackguard gets exactly the same benefits from his ten levels of Blackguard as a character who was never a Paladin, but took ten levels of Blackguard. If the ex-Paladin had more than ten levels of Paladin, then they're stuck with the remainder. Those levels do still qualify for the Fallen Paladin perks, but those perks are so weak when compared with what the character could have gotten by being, say, a multiclass fighter/rogue, that the Paladin really doesn't come out ahead here.

Moot point here again, are you talking real years of RPG playing or game years ? Be specific for once (like the taste of your own medicine ?). I've played some PCs for years sometimes once a week, sometimes once a day for months, and Ive always seen the same ratio of xp/session.

Who cares, and how is that even a point since you believe in bursts of experience ? They might very well not earn a single XP for months and then gain 3 levels within a week.
Did Rich draw a strip regularly over thhe past few years or did he have hiatus ?

So what, early levels are really easy to come by, this is only normal PCs should raise to lid level very quickly, then the process will slow down a lot

I really don't think you understand Kish's argument.

Your original argument was that Tarquin must be epic level because he'd been adventuring so much longer than the Order. I said that how long he'd been adventuring was not strong evidence, since adventurers level in bursts, not steadily. The Order has, indeed, gained a large number of levels in a relatively short amount of time. That's the point.

Nothing about real-world time matters at all here. What is being pointed out to you is that adventurers do not level steadily over the course of their lifetimes, but instead gain most of their levels in a few short bursts of time (usually referred to as "adventures").

Let's take Haley as an example. According to the Class and Level Geekery thread, Haley started the comic at level 8. She is now at least level 15. She has gained seven levels over the course of the comic. Haley's age is also known to be 24 or 25. The starting age for a Rogue is 15+1d4 years, so we'll say she stated at 18. That means she has been adventuring for 7 years. The events of this comic take place over, what, two years? A year and a half? We'll call it two. So, for the first five years of her career, Haley gained 8 levels, a rate of 1.6 levels per year. In the last two years, she's gained seven levels, a rate of 3.5 levels per year. That is what is meant by "gaining levels in a burst". She's gained a bunch of levels quickly over the course of an adventure. If you are correct and level gain is a constant process, then by the time she's thirty Haley should be approximately level 33 given her current rate of level gain. I think we can both acknowledge that that is probably not going to happen.

You try to correct for this by arguing that the process of leveling should slow down a lot at higher levels, which would seem to contradict the argument you're trying to make about level gain being constant, but whatever. Since your original argument was that Tarquin has to be much higher level than the OotS because he's been adventuring so much longer than them, shouldn't Tarquin have hit the wall at some point, and started to gain levels really slowly if it takes longer to gain the higher ones? If so, why does he have to be much higher level than the OotS? Maybe he's stuck just a few levels above them. Which is it - is level gain constant, or is it slower at higher levels?

You're right again I suppose, enhanced move, Evasion, a couple of extra feats, good reflex save, a bonus to save vs enchantement, possible WIS AC bonus with only a few Monk levels, and then a handy CHA bonus to every save, a couple immunities, buff spells, LoH are negligable, even more so at low-mid levels when saves are not important at all.... I'm seriously starting to wonder if we're talking about the same game -)

If you're contending that a Monk/Paladin is an overpowered class combination, maybe we're not talking about the same game. The post above this one, by Water_Bear, does as good a job as any of addressing this.

As a final note, please stop being so rude to other people just for disagreeing with you. All Kish or anyone else has done is point out various flaws in your arguments, and you're treating them like they've made some kind of personal attack. It's really very unseemly.