"Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection

[Kazyan]

In Magic of Incarnum, the Frost Helm soulmeld gives you a ray attack when bound to the Crown chakra. It doesn't tell you what the range is, though.

[Telok]

It's houseruled/handwavy, but I've resolved this in my setting by equating experience to life-energy. (You get it when you kill things or grow in a significant way, losing it diminishes you, gaining it makes you more difficult to kill.) Every living thing requires a minimum amount of it to exist.

I did something similar back with AD&D a long time ago. I took inspiration from Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" and "Not Long Before the End" and ran magic like soil fertility.

Every area of the world had a mana level from 0 to 100. Spells and magical effects drained this mana either temporarily or permanently depending on the spell level and the local mana level. If a spell was [level < mana level/10] then the mana went down by the spell level and would regenerate in six months, in a 65 mana area a level 3 spell would reduce the mana level to 62 for six months. If a spell was [level > mana level/10] then the spell failed but the mana level was still reduced by the spell level for a year so in the now 62 mana area a level 9 spell would reduce the mana to 53 for a year (although in six months it would go up to 56). As a special corner case if the spell level was equal to the mana level/10 (like a level 5 spell in a mana level area of 50 to 59) then the spell would work but the mana level would be reduced permanently.

I abandoned the idea when it became obvious that the bookkeeping was insane.

[nedz]

I did something similar back with AD&D a long time ago. I took inspiration from Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" and "Not Long Before the End" and ran magic like soil fertility.

Every area of the world had a mana level from 0 to 100. Spells and magical effects drained this mana either temporarily or permanently depending on the spell level and the local mana level. If a spell was [level < mana level/10] then the mana went down by the spell level and would regenerate in six months, in a 65 mana area a level 3 spell would reduce the mana level to 62 for six months. If a spell was [level > mana level/10] then the spell failed but the mana level was still reduced by the spell level for a year so in the now 62 mana area a level 9 spell would reduce the mana to 53 for a year (although in six months it would go up to 56). As a special corner case if the spell level was equal to the mana level/10 (like a level 5 spell in a mana level area of 50 to 59) then the spell would work but the mana level would be reduced permanently.

I abandoned the idea when it became obvious that the bookkeeping was insane.

You could have done this with a probabilistic approach.
Every time someone casts a spell there is an X% chance that the spell fails because the mana has run out, where X is the spell level.
If you made the mana return random in some way then you could avoid book-keeping almost completely.

It would impact game-play somewhat as the attacking force could simply Buff up until the mana is drained, and then attack. Thus denying the defenders any spells. You could avoid this by making it on a per-caster basis, but then you would have lost your original intent.

[willpell]

Every area of the world had a mana level from 0 to 100. Spells and magical effects drained this mana either temporarily or permanently depending on the spell level and the local mana level.

I like the general idea here, but having a spell that takes six seconds to cast, with a range of 50 feet and a radius burst of 10 feet at the target point, deplete an entire region's mana supply for months is silly. Cities have populations in the thousands, with hundreds of spellcasters casting spells a dozen or more times a day; there'd never be a wizards' school, spellcasting would be illegal for much the same reason that spraying truckloads of nuclear waste is illegal IRL. There needs to be a much more comparable scale, and you could avoid the bookkeeping by assuming that one-off spells have no significant effect, any more than firing a water pistol depletes the hydrosphere. Now, if someone starts mass-producing Permanencied spells, magic items, traps, Contingency statues and so forth, THEN you roll to see if the magic level depletes for a month because they've gobbled up 0.1% of the entire regional mana supply. Look at real-world resource-management statistics; a world is BIG, the amount of mana is not going to be measured in metaphorical cupfuls any more than an oil reserve is measured in literal ones. But it's still a really big deal if you take a tiny fraction of a percentage of the entire world supply of an insanely useful resource that society depends on to function basically-at-all.

[Telok]

Well it was for an AD&D game where there wasn't a caster on every street corner like there is these days. Back then 10 clerics and 20 wizards with a max level of 12 was a fair magical population for a large city. Further I don't think that the mana regions were all that large, a couple of city blocks or several acres I think.

It wouldn't work today with 2/3 of the classes being casters of some sort.

[willpell]

The most common reference cases are things like "I'm a mid-level binder who can bind 5th level vestiges. Chupoclops sounds cool; can I bind him yet?"

If you were building a level 1 binder and weren't forced to pass over Chupoclops on your way to Leraje or Malphas, you wouldn't even know he existed, so you wouldn't need to concern yourself with what he did. But you would need to know what all five level 1 vestiges, or all nine level 1-2 vestiges if you take the proper feat, do. You need to know it inside and out so you know how to pick your bind for the day, and to do that, you need to read them all, repeatedly, so they stop becoming random names with cool stories attached, and start becoming "my combat powersuite" or "my Party Face powersuite" or "my stealth powersuite". You need to familiarize yourself with them, you need them in a bunch that you can browse through without having to skip lots of irrelevant information, you need a quick-reference to them and only them.

Once you have that, and have had it for a while, you'll have fully internalized the knowledge of level 1 (and probably 2) vestiges, and then you'll level up and gain access to 4 more, and you'll learn those the same way. You'll want them in their own place, NOT mixed in with the ones you're already familiar with. This continues in stages, so once you can bind Shax, you won't have much trouble figuring out what level she is, because it'll be the level of vestiges you can bind now but couldn't bind before. You'll be familiar with all the lower levels from long experience during play, and other things will be instantly knowable just by their novelty, so having all of THOSE things in one place for quick study is still a good thing.

The only case where the current alphabetical arrangement is actually better is if you're building your character starting at at least Binder level 8 (with the feat) or 10 (without it). In that case, more than half the vestiges are in your pocket, so the alphabetical guide begins to become more useful than a level-sorted one, given that the levels have stopped mattering and you don't have the play-experience bias. So perhaps the writers were assuming players would start at a high level, but IMO they should not have done so.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Spoilering this, since WotC's organizational scheme is off-topic.

Spoiler

Show

If you were building a level 1 binder and weren't forced to pass over Chupoclops on your way to Leraje or Malphas, you wouldn't even know he existed, so you wouldn't need to concern yourself with what he did. But you would need to know what all five level 1 vestiges, or all nine level 1-2 vestiges if you take the proper feat, do. You need to know it inside and out so you know how to pick your bind for the day, and to do that, you need to read them all, repeatedly, so they stop becoming random names with cool stories attached, and start becoming "my combat powersuite" or "my Party Face powersuite" or "my stealth powersuite". You need to familiarize yourself with them, you need them in a bunch that you can browse through without having to skip lots of irrelevant information, you need a quick-reference to them and only them.

1) You should concern yourself with what the higher-level vestiges do. Unless you take zero binding-related feats and pick vestiges at random, you'll want to know which vestiges synergize and what kinds of things you can do with them for future reference. Flipping a few extra pages is a small price to pay between sessions.

2) Needing to know all the vestiges' power suites on the one hand and needing to browse them on the other is somewhat of a contradiction. All you need to know if they're alphabetical is "Malphas = scouting" or "Paimon = mobile fighting" and you can look up the details from there. You'd only need them all in a bunch if you don't know anything about what they can do in general terms, and that's as irresponsible as a bard not knowing what his songs do in general or a druid not knowing his animal companion's capabilities.

Once you have that, and have had it for a while, you'll have fully internalized the knowledge of level 1 (and probably 2) vestiges, and then you'll level up and gain access to 4 more, and you'll learn those the same way. You'll want them in their own place, NOT mixed in with the ones you're already familiar with. This continues in stages, so once you can bind Shax, you won't have much trouble figuring out what level she is, because it'll be the level of vestiges you can bind now but couldn't bind before. You'll be familiar with all the lower levels from long experience during play, and other things will be instantly knowable just by their novelty, so having all of THOSE things in one place for quick study is still a good thing.

You're assuming that you're creating a binder at 1st level, that you're playing it long enough to internalize the details enough to not need to reference them, that you don't favor any vestiges, that you play frequently enough for them to stick in your mind, and that you're not referencing them for other reasons.

By your logic, dictionaries should be organized with simpler words in front and harder words in back, since when you're first learning words as a kid you'd only need the ones in front. You're never going to need to randomly look up the definition of "epicurean" later in life, you're never going to forget how to use "whom," and you're never going to look ahead to see what words would work well with your existing vocabulary.

The only case where the current alphabetical arrangement is actually better is if you're building your character starting at at least Binder level 8 (with the feat) or 10 (without it). In that case, more than half the vestiges are in your pocket, so the alphabetical guide begins to become more useful than a level-sorted one, given that the levels have stopped mattering and you don't have the play-experience bias. So perhaps the writers were assuming players would start at a high level, but IMO they should not have done so.

3e is a game of builds: with all the prerequisites and fiddly bits, you really need to know what you're planning to do with your character 3 or 4 levels from now to decide what to do with your character now. When you sit down to make a 1st-level binder, you should really be looking at the 2nd level vestiges (to know whether you want Improved Binding to access them at 1st level), the 3rd level vestiges (which you get right around when PrCs start becoming available, so you know whether there's anything you want or whether you can PrC out to something you find more interesting), and the 4th level vestiges (because you can get them at the same time as the 3rd-level ones with Improved Binding). So unless you're committed to taking nothing but Binder levels and no binding-relevant feats, and don't want a backup plan if you become dissatisfied with the higher-level vestiges, you hit the vestige halfway point right at character creation.

Whether you like the prerequisite structure or not, that's the way the game works, and the same holds for at minimum every class in the game with selectable abilities and really for all of them because you should know what you're getting into when you pick a class.

On the magic waxing/waning topic, I ran a campaign once where magic was entirely based in astrology. The gods didn't exist (or at least weren't proven to exist), so instead of domains being granted by the gods they were granted by the planets and moons associated with their themes while your patron religion determined what portions of the cleric list you could cast. Prepared Arcane casters used star charts and constellations instead of spellbooks and libraries to record and research new spells, while spontaneous arcane casters and psionicists had the theme of their spells/powers known determined by the sign they were born under.

The ambient magical power of the world fluctuated based on the phase of the moon, the dominant astrological sign, the positions of the planets, the time of day, and other astrological phenomena like eclipses and comets in a fairly complicated manner. For instance, if it's a crescent moon, the sign of the Basilisk is ascendant, Ares is in the house of Demeter, and there's a new comet in the sky, then perhaps the maximum spell level you can prepare or refresh is 3rd, the maximum spell level you can cast is 5th, and no magic items with a caster level above 6th will function, with spells/powers/items associated with fire and plants increasing the limit by +1 level/+2 CL and those associated with the weather and summoning decreasing it by -2 levels/-4 CL, while cold/ice spells are subject to wild magic and items using them are de-magicked entirely. I don't remember the exact parameters because it was a long time ago and I wrote a calendar program to handle all the variables for me, but that was the general idea.

So while magic isn't finite and you can't "use it up" in a given area, it is unreliable, and not always in a predictable fashion. The motions of the heavens are widely known and well-plotted for obvious reasons, but there are plenty of periods of instability when unknown astrological phenomena interfere with things or when the divinations spellcasters are using to gather some of this information are interfered with themselves. Spellcasters are loath to craft items when they might not last longer than the next full moon, and "common" magic items are those that have been determined to be worth the investment. Casters don't like casting too many of their spells at once, because they could be left without their top-level spells tomorrow while their enemies retain them if they don't have them already prepared. Relying on magic as the foundation of society wasn't a good idea, because your infrastructure can fail without them and even without magic plenty of monsters are deadly, so technology rather than magitek was the order of the day. Suddenly, wizards building towers to study the stars and tell the future is more lucrative than adventuring; better to make lots of money from the people who want to know how magic will work a month from now than expose yourself to monsters when your magic might not work.

[Lapak]

Iiinteresting. That sets up a very useful dynamic, I think. You might have to tweak it to account for undead creatures being able to have XP, but other than that it seems very workable.

Oh, that's easy too, and explains why creating them is also seen as Evil even if they're mindless workers. The creator is anchoring life-energy in an unliving shell to make it walk around, just like a permanent magical item. But you're investing more energy to make a mockery of life than it takes to make an actual living person, which means that undead-creating societies slide rapidly into undead-ONLY societies in blasted lands where nothing can grow.

I did something similar back with AD&D a long time ago. I took inspiration from Larry Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" and "Not Long Before the End" and ran magic like soil fertility.

[...]

I abandoned the idea when it became obvious that the bookkeeping was insane.

Yep, that's why I called mine handwavey. It's an effect that only shows up in areas with massive, widespread magical item production (with undead counting as 'magic items' for this purpose.) On a small scale - a single caster making a magic cloak for his buddy, a few small groups of high-level adventurers wandering around - there's no impact that you could detect without carefully controlled scientific studies. Let everyone live forever and grow to near-Epic levels, you'll see birthrates drop drastically because you're tying your species' XP up in a few individuals - think the elves of Middle-Earth here. Sell a magic food-making oven and permanent torches and a heating-cooling block of metal and etc. to everyone in the capital city and you'll see birthrates drop AND turn the surrounding area into a wasteland in a generation or two, because you're tying everything's XP up in non-living mechanisms.

[willpell]

In Magic of Incarnum, the Frost Helm soulmeld gives you a ray attack when bound to the Crown chakra. It doesn't tell you what the range is, though.

I would assume that this means the range defaults to "line of sight".

[Boci]

I would assume that this means the range defaults to "line of sight".

I would assume it defaults to a close (25ft + 5/2 manifester levels), since that is the range of a ray spell.

[eggs]

I'd be lying if I said the level-by-level organization didn't play any part in my use of Secrets of Pact Magic's binders instead of Wizards of the Coast's original.

[Qwertystop]

I'd be lying if I said the level-by-level organization didn't play any part in my use of Secrets of Pact Magic's binders instead of Wizards of the Coast's original.

Where is that? I'm not searching because I have a feeling that the phrase will lead to a very large amount of other stuff, mostly irrelevant and lots of it squicky. Just from the phrase.

[eggs]

The web site is here and excerpts are here. It's one of the 3rd party books that doesn't just collapse under Sturgeon's Law.

(And, um, to make this post topical, I'm going to guess no one's mentioned OA's Ancestral Vengeance spell - it's clearly supposed to be a devastating blast against Undead, but it allows a fort save and doesn't affect objects... yeah.)

[Arbane]

(And, um, to make this post topical, I'm going to guess no one's mentioned OA's Ancestral Vengeance spell - it's clearly supposed to be a devastating blast against Undead, but it allows a fort save and doesn't affect objects... yeah.)

ON that note, the Pathfinder Witch's Ice Tomb Hex. It has a Fort save, so by the rules, it should do absolutely nothing to undead, despite doing damage. And the writers neglected to give it a range. Or explain how it works on things that are immune to paralysis. Or whether it melts. Or...

[Venger]

I would assume it defaults to a close (25ft + 5/2 manifester levels), since that is the range of a ray spell.

that's not true, there are a number of ray spells that have ranges other than close (targeting ray, blast of force, freeze, etc)

1+essentia d6 damage at unlimited range does seem like a little much, especially if you've shaped a meld that lets you fly

[Boci]

that's not true, there are a number of ray spells that have ranges other than close (targeting ray, blast of force, freeze, etc)

Well it was the range of a ray spell when I checked the PHB, so I'd stick with that interpretation reguardless of exceptions.

[TuggyNE]

Well it was the range of a ray spell when I checked the PHB, so I'd stick with that interpretation reguardless of exceptions.

It's the range of most PHB ray spells. However, there are three exceptions just within core: searing light, dimensional anchor, and disintegrate. The basic description of ray spells doesn't note any particular range, and even more importantly, the listing in Special Abilities explicitly says they have varying ranges. There is therefore no reason to assume a particular default range for rays, and a strong precedent for all rays (including spells) to set their ranges specifically, rather than with a general rule.

[Boci]

It's the range of most PHB ray spells. However, there are three exceptions just within core: searing light, dimensional anchor, and disintegrate. The basic description of ray spells doesn't note any particular range, and even more importantly, the listing in Special Abilities explicitly says they have varying ranges. There is therefore no reason to assume a particular default range for rays, and a strong precedent for all rays (including spells) to set their ranges specifically, rather than with a general rule.

Fair enough. I'd still stick with close, but each to their own.

[mattie_p]

1+essentia d6 damage at unlimited range does seem like a little much, especially if you've shaped a meld that lets you fly

Only if it is unlimited range. Otherwise it is awfully similar to a warlock.

[willpell]

Continuing the off-topic....

Spoiler

Show

1) You should concern yourself with what the higher-level vestiges do. Unless you take zero binding-related feats and pick vestiges at random, you'll want to know which vestiges synergize and what kinds of things you can do with them for future reference. Flipping a few extra pages is a small price to pay between sessions.

I guess this is just an "agree to disagree"; I never want to know about what my character will be capable of at future levels, it's unnecessary cognitive load and it tends to make me impatient to arrive at those levels already. I worry about my current capabilities only; this hardly means picking "at random". If I'm building a level 1 without Improved Binding - which, yes, I did, because it was my first time and I didn't want those extra four options - then I know that I have five "modes" to decide among, and just learning exactly what they all do is going to keep me plenty well occupied. I'll pick a feat which either works with my favorite of the five, with all of them, or is useful in general. There's always Retraining later.

You'd only need them all in a bunch if you don't know anything about what they can do in general terms

Which is exactly where a player is when they first play a binder.

and that's as irresponsible as a bard not knowing what his songs do in general or a druid not knowing his animal companion's capabilities.

You're really not big on the experience of discovery, are you? I want to figure out these things in play. The moment when I try to get my animal companion to do something that it doesn't know how to do, and instead it does something problematic, can be a great roleplaying experience. You do read the webcomic, yes? Think how much more boring it would be if all the characters were competent and they only made optimal choices.

You're assuming that you're creating a binder at 1st level, that you're playing it long enough to internalize the details enough to not need to reference them, that you don't favor any vestiges, that you play frequently enough for them to stick in your mind, and that you're not referencing them for other reasons.

Yep, that strikes me as the default situation.

By your logic, dictionaries should be organized with simpler words in front and harder words in back, since when you're first learning words as a kid you'd only need the ones in front.

Where do you get the idea that Tome of Magic is a "dictionary" for the language of binding? It's at least as much a "How to play a Binder" guide, and therefore it needs to be user-friendly first, or you'll get frustrated and not play the class long before you'll ever say "damn, I wish this was more like an authoritative reference". The dictionary doesn't have the most commonly-used words in the front, but a Berlitz book does exactly that. When you get to the point of needing a binding "dictionary", it makes sense to have like an index or table of contents or something that lists them alphabetically and then points to their page number; a little extra page-turning on those occasions is far less of a problem than a LOT of extra page-turning all at once when you're first figuring the class out.

and you're never going to look ahead to see what words would work well with your existing vocabulary.

The rest of your analogy is okay, but this part makes absolutely no sense. You're not barred from using higher-level words; looking one up is the same as gaining the ability to use it. (I shudder to think what would happen if that was how spells worked.)

3e is a game of builds: with all the prerequisites and fiddly bits, you really need to know what you're planning to do with your character 3 or 4 levels from now to decide what to do with your character now.

You can always work with your GM to rebuild your character later on; you don't even need to go with the rather restrictive rebuilding rules. Just say "Y'know, I've been having fun roleplaying this Wisdom 8 halfling ranger, but since I'm not going to cast spells, maybe I should have been a barbarian all along, except I'd like to keep my animal companion so I'll give up, I dunno, Damage Reduction and Trap Sense." There may be more negotiation to it than that, but really, "builds" are only necessary in optimization challenges; for an actual game it's more important to have an enjoyable play experience, and to me at least that means organically growing into my character's powers, not meticulously mapping them out and then figuring out how many more warrens full of goblins I have to grind before I get to finally use the trick I picked out three months ago.

When you sit down to make a 1st-level binder, you should really be looking at the 2nd level vestiges (to know whether you want Improved Binding to access them at 1st level), the 3rd level vestiges (which you get right around when PrCs start becoming available, so you know whether there's anything you want or whether you can PrC out to something you find more interesting), and the 4th level vestiges (because you can get them at the same time as the 3rd-level ones with Improved Binding). So unless you're committed to taking nothing but Binder levels and no binding-relevant feats, and don't want a backup plan if you become dissatisfied with the higher-level vestiges, you hit the vestige halfway point right at character creation.

Okay, I'll concede that that's an interesting and reasonable-seeming way of looking at it. Maybe it's just that the book is old hat to you; I first read it probably 2-4 months ago, and have built a few sample binders of which the highest is 8th level and none have done more than started working toward a PrC. I'm not bored enough with the binder to need to plan ahead when working on one. If it's not optimal enough, I'll just scrap it and make another one from scratch using my new knowledge, or else rebuild as suggested above.

Whether you like the prerequisite structure or not, that's the way the game works, and the same holds for at minimum every class in the game with selectable abilities and really for all of them because you should know what you're getting into when you pick a class.

I for one don't pick a class based on its selection of abilities, but rather on its concept. The appeal of playing a Wizard to me isn't about access to Glitterdust and Polymorph Any Object, it's about being able to play a bookish nerd who can rewrite the laws of the universe by wiggling his fingers funny. Figuring out the exact details are at best a task I'm content to prolong, if not a bothersome chore. Though admittedly Wizard is actually relatively safe for that attitude, and it's much more dangerous for eg a Sorcerer, who can't throw away his crappy old spellbook and build a new, more useful one for only the loss of a little gold. Binder, however, is even safer than Wizard; you can't really screw it up since you have access to everything and don't really need any particular stats, items, or even feats, so at worst you'll be a little sub-par and kinda boring, but never entirely useless. Combined with the class's awesome fluff, that's more than good enough for me.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Off-topic:

Spoiler

Show

I guess this is just an "agree to disagree"; I never want to know about what my character will be capable of at future levels, it's unnecessary cognitive load and it tends to make me impatient to arrive at those levels already.

...yeah, this is definitely an "agree to disagree" thing, particularly if you regard actually figuring out what you can do at current and later levels as a "bothersome chore" as you say later.

You're really not big on the experience of discovery, are you? I want to figure out these things in play. The moment when I try to get my animal companion to do something that it doesn't know how to do, and instead it does something problematic, can be a great roleplaying experience. You do read the webcomic, yes? Think how much more boring it would be if all the characters were competent and they only made optimal choices.

I'm not asking for optimality, or even efficient use of resources. You might not know exactly what your animal companion can do, or Elan might not know how his Fascinate ability works, but you do know that you have and animal companion and Elan does know he can talk and make people listen.

That's the kind of thing I was talking about: putting all level X vestiges in a bunch for you to browse is only worthwhile at all if you don't even know that you can bind "a talky vestige" and "a mounted combat vestige" and "an archer vestige" or whatever, and I'd say knowing that (not exact abilities, just general them) is a minimum level of knowledge for playing a binder with level X vestiges, just like the minimum level of knowledge for playing a dungeoncrasher fighter with Shock Trooper is "charging things into walls is good" even if you have to look up the rules for both of those every single time.

When you get to the point of needing a binding "dictionary", it makes sense to have like an index or table of contents or something that lists them alphabetically and then points to their page number; a little extra page-turning on those occasions is far less of a problem than a LOT of extra page-turning all at once when you're first figuring the class out.

Again, you can spend all the time you want out of game going over the mechanics. Flipping pages then isn't an unusual thing; to learn how to build a fighter, probably the simplest core class to play, requires flipping between the Abilities chapter, the Fighter description, the Feats chapter, and the Combat chapter, at a minimum. In game, you want a quick reference speed so if you forget what Ronove (or Power Attack or whatever) does you can look it up then.

Would you also endorse organizing fighter feats in the PHB by the first level you can meet their prerequisites? In both cases you have lots of things to look through before making your character and lots of fiddly bits you can use in play.

The rest of your analogy is okay, but this part makes absolutely no sense. You're not barred from using higher-level words; looking one up is the same as gaining the ability to use it. (I shudder to think what would happen if that was how spells worked.)

First of all, it's not at all the same; I know far too many people who have looked up "further" and "farther" many times and yet can't use them correctly in common usage (or "literally," or "less" and "fewer," and so on). Second, if you're the kind of player who refuses to think ahead for your character, that part of the analogy wouldn't make sense anyway.

You can always work with your GM to rebuild your character later on; you don't even need to go with the rather restrictive rebuilding rules. Just say "Y'know, I've been having fun roleplaying this Wisdom 8 halfling ranger, but since I'm not going to cast spells, maybe I should have been a barbarian all along, except I'd like to keep my animal companion so I'll give up, I dunno, Damage Reduction and Trap Sense." There may be more negotiation to it than that, but really, "builds" are only necessary in optimization challenges; for an actual game it's more important to have an enjoyable play experience, and to me at least that means organically growing into my character's powers, not meticulously mapping them out and then figuring out how many more warrens full of goblins I have to grind before I get to finally use the trick I picked out three months ago.

This may also need to be an "agree to disagree" line of reasoning. The topics of player accommodation, not letting the group down, and playing by the rules could take up a whole new thread.

Also, it's funny you used that particular example of a ranger that doesn't have the Wis to cast spells. If you were playing that ranger and had bothered to look ahead for possible options for him, you might have discovered that there's a non-casting ranger variant in the books, and that if you really really wanted to change to a barbarian there's a feat to get an animal companion if you wanted to keep that.

On-topic:

1+essentia d6 damage at unlimited range does seem like a little much, especially if you've shaped a meld that lets you fly

As with the Distant Shot epic feat and Eldritch Spear, unlimited range only really matters if you can see them, and with the encounter distances and Spot penalties that's not very likely. Even in open plains you can't really see past 1,440 feet.

[Mystify]

Some things are nearly useless in general practise, yet highly exploitable.

[noparlpf]

As with the Distant Shot epic feat and Eldritch Spear, unlimited range only really matters if you can see them, and with the encounter distances and Spot penalties that's not very likely. Even in open plains you can't really see past 1,440 feet.

One word. Scrying.

[eggs]

The thing that makes the Binder's organization obnoxious isn't the arrangement of in the book as much as the lack of a level-by-level summary of what the Binder does.

It's a pain to say "I'm making a level 6 Binder, what can my character do?" and have to go from index of uninformative names to the individual vestige entry to see what the vestige does, back to the index, to the next entry, back to the index... compared to just reading the abilities in order. Especially if you scan the book for tablet use.

But TBH, that could be fixed more easily (and more fittingly, given that the ToM Binder basically doesn't care about vestige levels) by sucking it up, sitting down for a half hour and typing out an informative index like:

Spoiler

Show

"LEVEL 1

Amon

Grumpy, has to save against helpful spells.
Darkvision - Darkvision 60ft
Fire Breath - Line of 1d6 Fire damage per binder level, usable once every five rounds
Ram Attack - Gain 1d6 damage ram attack as natural weapon, extra 1d8 damage while charging

Aym

Greedy, has to pay dwarfs.
Dwarven Step - Ignore movement penalties in medium and heavy armor.
Halo of Fire - Deal 1d6 fire damage to creatures attacking you in melee, gain 1d6 Fire damage as a touch attack
Improved Sunder - Gain Improved Sunder as a bonus feat
Medium Armor Proficiency - Gain Medium Armor Proficiency as a bonus feat
Resistance to Fire - Gain fire resistance 10
Ruinous Attack - Deal double damage to objects with melee attacks

..."

And since I've dug up ToM anyway, I don't recall anyone mentioning Flicker's explicit parameters for being cast in response to attacks, despite its standard action casting time (which basically means it won't be cast in response to any attacks).

[Necroticplague]

Not quite sure if it's disfunctional, but it certainly seems stupid:Epic BAB and Save progression. This following scenario can occur:two level 20 barbarians Decide to go seperate ways after leveling. One continues as a barbarian, the other becomes a monk. 5 levels later, they meet up, only to realize they have the same chance to hit things and to avoid special effects.

[Mystify]

Im away from book, but I'm pretty sure flicker is something you cast once, then you have a teleport you can dog each round for a lesser cost. It is this lesser cost ability you can use in response to attacks

[PairO'Dice Lost]

One word. Scrying.

The encounter distances in different terrain types are supposed to represent line-of-sight blockage rather than vision limitations, as I recall. You can scry on the targets all you want, but if you can't shoot through mountains and trees, it doesn't really matter. And if you can get through a mountain in one shot, well, I don't think the range is the problem.

The thing that makes the Binder's organization obnoxious isn't the arrangement of in the book as much as the lack of a level-by-level summary of what the Binder does.

It's a pain to say "I'm making a level 6 Binder, what can my character do?" and have to go from index of uninformative names to the individual vestige entry to see what the vestige does, back to the index, to the next entry, back to the index... compared to just reading the abilities in order. Especially if you scan the book for tablet use.

Definitely this. Incarnum has the same "But what does it do?" problem with not listing chakra bind abilities in their short summaries, and the solution (make a better by-level index) is the same. Doesn't mean the soulmelds and vestiges need to be ordered by level, just the short descriptions, just like spells, powers, mysteries, and all the other systems.

Not quite sure if it's disfunctional, but it certainly seems stupid:Epic BAB and Save progression. This following scenario can occur:two level 20 barbarians Decide to go seperate ways after leveling. One continues as a barbarian, the other becomes a monk. 5 levels later, they meet up, only to realize they have the same chance to hit things and to avoid special effects.

It's kind of stupid conceptually, but it's how WotC decided to solve the problem of stat divergence with uncapped levels: if you have someone with full BAB and a poor save and someone else with 3/4 BAB and a good save, by 60th level they have a BAB difference of +15 and a save difference of +12, and someone who multiclasses a bunch could have an even wider divergence. With that kind of spread, someone that the full BAB guy hits on a 6 is hit only on a 20 by the 3/4 BAB guy, and considering that 3/4 BAB classes have things to spend resources on aside from boosting their to-hit, it might be even worse.

There are other ways to solve it (give bigger attack bonuses in certain situations to the 3/4 BAB classes, give abilities to mitigate bad saves, give the full-BAB classes ways to trade attack for X that they'll use a lot to keep the spread down, etc.) but I wouldn't expect any better from the company that thinks Epic Spellcasting and Multispell are worth the same feat slots as Armor Skin and Epic Weapon Focus.

[willpell]

Spoiler

Show

Off-topic:
That's the kind of thing I was talking about: putting all level X vestiges in a bunch for you to browse is only worthwhile at all if you don't even know that you can bind "a talky vestige" and "a mounted combat vestige" and "an archer vestige" or whatever, and I'd say knowing that (not exact abilities, just general them) is a minimum level of knowledge for playing a binder with level X vestiges

Right, and putting the vestiges in level-order would accomplish exactly that.

Would you also endorse organizing fighter feats in the PHB by the first level you can meet their prerequisites?

That is in fact exactly the way I did it when I made my personal quick-reference to the FBFs (I'm working on one for Vestiges as well, it's just taking a bit longer since they have more moving parts than feats).

Also, it's funny you used that particular example of a ranger that doesn't have the Wis to cast spells. If you were playing that ranger and had bothered to look ahead for possible options for him, you might have discovered that there's a non-casting ranger variant in the books

Assuming you mean the one in Complete Warrior, he's crap. You give up the ability to use wands of Ranger spells, despite your atrocious Wisdom, and you gain nothing in exchange until like level 5.

and that if you really really wanted to change to a barbarian there's a feat to get an animal companion if you wanted to keep that.

IIRC, Wild Cohorts aren't exactly the same as animal companions.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=PairO'Dice Lost;14072640]Definitely this. Incarnum has the same "But what does it do?" problem with not listing chakra bind abilities in their short summaries, and the solution (make a better by-level index) is the same. Doesn't mean the soulmelds and vestiges need to be ordered by level, just the short descriptions, just like spells, powers, mysteries, and all the other systems.QUOTE]

Agreed, Incarnum is the other book which I think badly needed a better editor, along with TOM.

But TBH, that could be fixed more easily (and more fittingly, given that the ToM Binder basically doesn't care about vestige levels) by sucking it up, sitting down for a half hour and typing out an informative index like:

Yeah something like this would be quite useful.

And since I've dug up ToM anyway, I don't recall anyone mentioning Flicker's explicit parameters for being cast in response to attacks, despite its standard action casting time (which basically means it won't be cast in response to any attacks).

Yeah, Flicker is screwy.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Spoiler

Show

Right, and putting the vestiges in level-order would accomplish exactly that.

It is one way to do it. It's not necessarily a better way, and certainly isn't the best way. Expanding the brief vestige list to give more details, just like every other subsystem in the game, would be the better choice for the reasons I've already stated.

Assuming you mean the one in Complete Warrior, he's crap. You give up the ability to use wands of Ranger spells, despite your atrocious Wisdom, and you gain nothing in exchange until like level 5.

IIRC, Wild Cohorts aren't exactly the same as animal companions.

Granted, featless rangers are crap (but then, so are low-Wis rangers in general) and Wild Cohort =/= animal companions, but the point was that there's one way to make your character work within the rules and one way that requires you to ask the DM to change the rules...and how would you know that a featless ranger is bad unless you look ahead and see how your ranger will turn out at later levels? Maybe you get something that's worth giving up ranger wands, maybe you don't, but making "organic" characters and refusing to look ahead just limits your options there. And I highly doubt that when you made that Wis 8 ranger you didn't consider loss of spellcasting as a factor; it's kind of hard to notice the spells per day chart and deliberately ignoring the spellcasting section is just being obtuse.

So, this tangent has been going on for a while. I say we either drop it or take it to PMs. Which would you prefer?

[mattie_p]

So, this tangent has been going on for a while. I say we either drop it or take it to PMs. Which would you prefer?

Or, it could be a new thread?