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

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Or, it could be a new thread?

I doubt it's enough of a debate to make a new thread. Though something like "How should one best organize material in rulebooks?" might garner some interest in Homebrew.

[willpell]

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?

I've about said my piece; if there are a few more points to make, I don't see any harm in continuing the digression, a certain amount of off-topicness is both healthy and inevitable in forum discussion. PMs are not an option because the pathetically tiny 100-message capacity of my inbox is almost entirely full; I have room to receive one message, send a response to it, and then I have to delete two messages I've been saving, so given any alternative I won't PM at all.

I doubt it's enough of a debate to make a new thread.

Precisely. It's just a few extra thoughts that came up in the course of organic discussion of the main topic.

[TuggyNE]

I've about said my piece; if there are a few more points to make, I don't see any harm in continuing the digression, a certain amount of off-topicness is both healthy and inevitable in forum discussion. PMs are not an option because the pathetically tiny 100-message capacity of my inbox is almost entirely full; I have room to receive one message, send a response to it, and then I have to delete two messages I've been saving, so given any alternative I won't PM at all.

Might I suggest archiving the entire contents of your inbox and sent items into a CSV/etc file, then deleting the whole thing? There's a built-in link to do the archiving.

[willpell]

Even more off-topic than usual for me.

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Might I suggest archiving the entire contents of your inbox and sent items into a CSV/etc file, then deleting the whole thing? There's a built-in link to do the archiving.

I don't know what a CSV is, and am extremely suspicious of any format other than plain .txt; every time I change computers, all my old files stop working because they're no longer encrypted right, so if at all possible I avoid using any file format that even might have technical issues, regardless of how primitive that makes me.

[Mystify]

Even more off-topic than usual for me.

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I don't know what a CSV is, and am extremely suspicious of any format other than plain .txt; every time I change computers, all my old files stop working because they're no longer encrypted right, so if at all possible I avoid using any file format that even might have technical issues, regardless of how primitive that makes me.

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CSV is comma serpeated valeus. It basically IS .txt, except it has commas for delimitations. It is as basic a format as you can get.

[willpell]

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CSV is comma serpeated valeus. It basically IS .txt, except it has commas for delimitations. It is as basic a format as you can get.

Sounds like it would make quote-boxes and such unreadable. Ideally I would want to be able to view them in exactly the same way that they are currently viewable through a web browser, but independent of the rest of the webpage (and, in a perfect world, all messages of a single conversation on one page). Is there a can-be-done-in-five-minutes-with-no-skill-for-no-money way of making that happen?

[Sith_Happens]

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Sounds like it would make quote-boxes and such unreadable. Ideally I would want to be able to view them in exactly the same way that they are currently viewable through a web browser, but independent of the rest of the webpage (and, in a perfect world, all messages of a single conversation on one page). Is there a can-be-done-in-five-minutes-with-no-skill-for-no-money way of making that happen?

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Depends: How fast are you at pasting screenshots into MSPaint and clicking the "Save As" button?

[willpell]

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Depends: How fast are you at pasting screenshots into MSPaint and clicking the "Save As" button?

I thought of that, actually, but Paint is exactly the program that I'm talking about which has gone wrong on me and destroyed my old files as a result of Microsoft "improving" it.

[TuggyNE]

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I thought of that, actually, but Paint is exactly the program that I'm talking about which has gone wrong on me and destroyed my old files as a result of Microsoft "improving" it.

... What?

In any case, possible MSPaint proprietary formats aside, PNG (Portable Network Graphics) file format is almost absurdly reliable; it's free to use and designed expressly to be interoperable, and can be viewed in innumerable browsers, image viewers/editors, and even in many file managers (such as Explorer). (JPEG and GIF are also nearly as good, but not quite so stellar.)

You could also find a free PDF writer from somewhere, and accordingly convert the messages to PDFs. (Again, PDFs [Portable Document Format] are designed to be interoperable, and the standard is very well known.)

.CSV is also extremely reliable, chiefly by virtue of being perhaps the second-simplest file format in existence. I'm having trouble conceiving of a way it could become impossible to read it ... at that point, the only things likely are some weird file encoding problems. Or bad line feeds. (XML wouldn't be a bad choice, but it's nowhere near as simple as CSV, and not as readable in plain-text form either.)

Failing all else, or if you like a slightly more human-readable form than CSV, just use the provided plain text link. I've just tested it, and it produces decent, though not terribly attractive, results; it's not going to do anything surprising to you.

[willpell]

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... What?

I had a LOT of very simple, very useful BMP files that I created myself by putting one pixel at a time exactly where it needed to be, resulting in little geometric tiles that I could combine, easily alter, and use for numerous purposes. I did all this back when I was using Windows 95. At some point in the transition to modern versions of Windows, they decided that the Paint program needed to have a higher number of different colors, which didn't appear in the controls, and that every image created without those extra colors needed to gain them. So now, what used to be a very neat, quickly adjustable file is now a murky impossible-to-edit mess which barely looks like the original (since one of the original's defining features was not having blurry outlines of similar-but-not-identical colors around each solid), and is impossible to use for many of my original purposes. And it does this the moment you open the old file with the new Paint, and there's no opportunity to abort this change and revert to the original version. So every time I go six months without looking at a Paint file and forget this problem exists, then think up a reason to want to use one of my graphics and go load that graphic up, I've destroyed it forever (I may have backups somewhere of files I've lost this way, but they would suffer the same problem, and they might have been overwritten with the "better" version already).

So yeah, kinda paranoid about file formats that are anything other than exactly what I expect.

[TuggyNE]

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I had a LOT of very simple, very useful BMP files that I created myself by putting one pixel at a time exactly where it needed to be, resulting in little geometric tiles that I could combine, easily alter, and use for numerous purposes. I did all this back when I was using Windows 95. At some point in the transition to modern versions of Windows, they decided that the Paint program needed to have a higher number of different colors, which didn't appear in the controls, and that every image created without those extra colors needed to gain them. So now, what used to be a very neat, quickly adjustable file is now a murky impossible-to-edit mess which barely looks like the original (since one of the original's defining features was not having blurry outlines of similar-but-not-identical colors around each solid), and is impossible to use for many of my original purposes. And it does this the moment you open the old file with the new Paint, and there's no opportunity to abort this change and revert to the original version. So every time I go six months without looking at a Paint file and forget this problem exists, then think up a reason to want to use one of my graphics and go load that graphic up, I've destroyed it forever (I may have backups somewhere of files I've lost this way, but they would suffer the same problem, and they might have been overwritten with the "better" version already).

Now I'm even more puzzled, because that's exactly the sort of thing I'd expect to be aware of, in general (both because I'm interested in backwards compatibility, and because I too used to edit BMP files in the bad old days of 95), and Microsoft is usually a lot more sensible about upgrading than that. (Silent data loss on open, in particular, is extremely unusual, and would require several horrendous bugs to come together at once.)

Going briefly still further off topic, I might suggest trying something like Paint.NET or IrfanView for this sort of conversion, as those are generally fairly reliable and flexible.

[rockdeworld]

I doubt it's enough of a debate to make a new thread.

Precisely. It's just a few extra thoughts that came up in the course of organic discussion of the main topic.

You guys have written over a page of off-topic posts on the subject, and half the posts on this page are spoilered. I think it's enough of a debate.

On-topic: Open Lock vs. a wand of Knock
Disable Device can open locks.
A wand of Mnemonic Enhancer can give you 150 extra spell levels in one day. They can be any level.
Probably V's use of Suggestion (for a low-power example).

[Telok]

Disable Device can open locks.

A wand of Mnemonic Enhancer can give you 150 extra spell levels in one day. They can be any level.

Disable Device jams locks. In order for a well made lock to open it must either function correctly or be damaged beyond utility (as a lock, it still works as a fishing weight). Sadly my players never considered jamming someone's locks and setting themselves up as wandering lock vendors.

RE: Mnemonic Enhancer
For 21,000 gp a day I hope it does something impressive. Stick a nice nasty curse on that wand and give it to your players a loot. Then sit back and watch them struggle between the curse and the power.

I am so totally doing that. Now I need a good curse on it. Age 2% of your original lifespan per charge? Grow 6 inches of total coverage body hair per use? Lose one permanent hit point? Random curse table!?!

[willpell]

Had it not been for the latest couple of posts, Rock, I'd still disagree with you. But as it is, I think we've finally gotten past "one guy is talking and a couple others are responding" and into "an actual discussion is happening, with a topic of its own that merits full public address". So without further ado...

Back on-topic at last, take a look at page 200 in the DMG. While the fact that the "Special Creatures as Cohorts" section is nowhere near the rest of the Cohort rules certainly qualifies for my "atrociously poor organization in Wotco books" derail, we also have an actual piece of rules wonkery on top of that. Because here we have a "Leadership and Mounts" section where, if you already have a special paladin mount, you take a -2 to your Leadership score. Then, in the next section, it says that if you want to have your cohort also be a special mount, it gets a +2 to its ECL. The designers probably intended for these clauses to be redundant, one or the other applying depending on whether you applied Special Mount status to an existing cohort or Cohort status to an existing special mount. But I'm pretty sure that, as written, you can end up getting stuck with both of them.

For example, say I want to ride a unicorn (it's the stupidly obvious choice, but that's totally appropriate here) and be a Paladin of Freedom. But for some reason I've dumped Charisma, so my Leadership score would be just about zilch at level 6, and I'm not really planning ahead anyway. So at level 5, I just take a horse as my holy paladin mount, and go pack on a bunch of levels. At level 6 I don't take Leadership because of the crappy score, and I continue adventuring until I reach level 9, by which time I've got enough Levels that, even with a -1 to Charisma, I could still manage to have a 4-HD, +4 LA unicorn for a cohort. Except that, because of the horse I rode in on, I get a -2 to my leadership score. So let's say I buy a Cloak of Charisma to make up for the penalty there, and I tell my holy horse to take a holy hike....but I already "attracted" my unicorn cohort while taking the -2 leadership, so now if I apply special mount status to it, its LA increases to +6, making it ECL 10, and my leadership score is still only 9 because I had the +2 cloak and the -2 for having previously had a mount. So at best, my unicorn isn't going to level* until I'm up to 11 leadershp, and it's possible I can't have it until then at all.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but at the very least, having the two separate sections makes it fairly easy to read it wrong, when they could have just rewritten the two short paragraphs that are right next to each other to clarify how they would interact. I say that suffices to count as "dysfunctional".

* That's assuming a paladin mount levels at all, even when using the cohort rules; per RAW it gets bonus hit dice based on my level but never otherwise improves, but the cohort rules say it earns 2/3 the XP I do and gains levels appropriately, capped at my own level -2. Which of these rules takes precedence, I'm not sure.

A wand of Mnemonic Enhancer can give you 150 extra spell levels in one day. They can be any level.

Run that one by me again? While you can get 150 levels worth of spells, I'm pretty certain none of them can be above 3rd level, because each casting of Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer is its own separate spell; I see nothing allowing you to combine the effects of multiple castings.

[rockdeworld]

Run that one by me again? While you can get 150 levels worth of spells, I'm pretty certain none of them can be above 3rd level, because each casting of Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer is its own separate spell; I see nothing allowing you to combine the effects of multiple castings.

Ignore that, I mentally inserted a "can" in the prepare version.

[Wookie-ranger]

I was going over the item creation rules in the DMG and found this little gem of loop hole.

The rules say that you cannot create magical weapons above a enchantment bonus of +6 (or equivalent)
BUT by RAW you can make an infinitely powerful weapon by simply 'adding' magical properties to an already existing item.

DMG. p.288 and SRD

Adding New Abilities
A creator can add new magical abilities to a magic item with no restrictions. ...

emphasis mine.

no restriction. i like the sound of that!
no where in the section about Adding New Abilities does it say that there is a limit on how much you can add; And as i pointed out it specifically says that there is NO limit.

happy crafting

[TuggyNE]

I was going over the item creation rules in the DMG and found this little gem of loop hole.

The rules say that you cannot create magical weapons above a enchantment bonus of +6 (or equivalent)
BUT by RAW you can make an infinitely powerful weapon by simply 'adding' magical properties to an already existing item.

DMG. p.288 and SRD
emphasis mine.

no restriction. i like the sound of that!
no where in the section about Adding New Abilities does it say that there is a limit on how much you can add; And as i pointed out it specifically says that there is NO limit.

happy crafting

That's at least dubious; it refers to a "creator" being able to add it, it's in the section on "creating" magic items, and therefore there's an argument to be made that it's still under the rules for the maximum enhancement bonus of items you can "create". (It's also sensible because adding new abilities presumably uses the existing rules for creating new magic weapons.)

Of course, it's still clumsily-written either way, since it forces you to resolve a conflict of specificity.

[Wookie-ranger]

That's at least dubious; it refers to a "creator" being able to add it, it's in the section on "creating" magic items, and therefore there's an argument to be made that it's still under the rules for the maximum enhancement bonus of items you can "create". (It's also sensible because adding new abilities presumably uses the existing rules for creating new magic weapons.)

Of course, it's still clumsily-written either way, since it forces you to resolve a conflict of specificity.

the "creator" mentioned in the entry can easily be argued to be the original creator of the item. (that would probably be another dysfunctional part.)

If we would apply the general rule of "Specific trumps general" we get the following:
the general: you cannot create a magic item above +6 by none epic means.
the specific: the adding magical abilities on existing weapons has no restriction.

or am i missing something?
I mean, yeah, this is broken and on a similar level as drown-healing. no one would tell this to their DM in a serious tone without a DMG proof helmet. but RAW is RAW, as broken as it might be. It is bad wording then intentional.

[Quellian-dyrae]

I've been under the impression that this is normal and expected. A high-level character is perfectly likely to have, say, a Vorpal Longsword +5 (or, more likely, a Collision Speed Life Draining Sure Striking Longsword +1 to be enhanced daly with Greater Magic Weapon, but whatever).

Unless you're trying to say that "no restriction" means "without paying the normal costs to create or upgrade a magic item". Which...strikes me as kind of like saying that the fact that a road doesn't have a speed limit means you are spontaneously able to run 1,000 MPH.

[Boci]

I've been under the impression that this is normal and expected. A high-level character is perfectly likely to have, say, a Vorpal Longsword +5 (or, more likely, a Collision Speed Life Draining Sure Striking Longsword +1 to be enhanced daly with Greater Magic Weapon, but whatever).

Unless you're trying to say that "no restriction" means "without paying the normal costs to create or upgrade a magic item". Which...strikes me as kind of like saying that the fact that a road doesn't have a speed limit means you are spontaneously able to run 1,000 MPH.

He's implying that the "no restrictions", by RAW, allows you to make a magical weapon with a bonus higher than +10.

[Heliomance]

He's implying that the "no restrictions", by RAW, allows you to make a magical weapon with a bonus higher than +10.

You can. However, per the Epic rules, any weapon with a bonus higher than +10 is an Epic weapon, and thus has its cost multiplied by 10.

[TuggyNE]

the "creator" mentioned in the entry can easily be argued to be the original creator of the item. (that would probably be another dysfunctional part.)

If we would apply the general rule of "Specific trumps general" we get the following:
the general: you cannot create a magic item above +6 by none epic means.
the specific: the adding magical abilities on existing weapons has no restriction.

or am i missing something?
I mean, yeah, this is broken and on a similar level as drown-healing. no one would tell this to their DM in a serious tone without a DMG proof helmet. but RAW is RAW, as broken as it might be. It is bad wording then intentional.

My point was that there's a decent RAW argument to be made that you can only add magical abilities to existing weapons by "creating" them, which then uses the full set of restrictions (must have the gold and XP to spend, must have the spell[s] in question, must work in a quiet place with the right materials, must have the right crafting feat, can't go beyond +5 numeric enhancement, can't go beyond +10 enhancement equivalent). Why they wrote "no restrictions" when they actually meant something closer to "you can mix and match magical weapon abilities freely" I don't know.

To put it another way: either you operate under the restrictions of creating magic items when improving them, or you don't; if you don't, then making a +6 vorpal longsword of speed pre-epic is the least of your concerns. But I'd peg this under "RAW is confusingly worded", not "RAW is completely insane". *shrug*

[willpell]

This is more like fluff dysfunction than rules, but: Rogues take longer to qualify as Temple Raiders of Olidammara (the god of thieves) than Rangers, since the class has a BAB prerequisite of +5 which a rogue can't meet by the time he can achieve the Search preq of 8 ranks.

[toapat]

This is more like fluff dysfunction than rules, but: Rogues take longer to qualify as Temple Raiders of Olidammara (the god of thieves) than Rangers, since the class has a BAB prerequisite of +5 which a rogue can't meet by the time he can achieve the Search preq of 8 ranks.

i think this can just be summarized as PRC Prerequisites are dysfunctional

[Sith_Happens]

i think this can just be summarized as PRC Prerequisites are dysfunctional

Why hello there Dodge and Mobility. Care to explain why you're blocking my way to every melee PrC ever rather than sitting in the corner like I told you to?

[toapat]

Why hello there Dodge and Mobility. Care to explain why you're blocking my way to every melee PrC ever rather than sitting in the corner like I told you to?

more accurately, Dodge and mobility, why are you standing in my way to getting Shot on the Run and Spring Attack?

And Whirlwind attack, why do you blow?

[willpell]

Why hello there Dodge and Mobility. Care to explain why you're blocking my way to every melee PrC ever rather than sitting in the corner like I told you to?

more accurately, Dodge and mobility, why are you standing in my way to getting Shot on the Run and Spring Attack

I think of this as a good excuse to take feats that you otherwise would ignore, because they eventually lead to good abilities (or at least interestingly unique ones). Nothing in the game ought to be "useless", but I'm fine with "use-impaired". As long as there's some reason you might want what comes next, forcing you to take something you'd otherwise have ignored strikes me as good use of design resources.

[noparlpf]

I think of this as a good excuse to take feats that you otherwise would ignore, because they eventually lead to good abilities (or at least interestingly unique ones). Nothing in the game ought to be "useless", but I'm fine with "use-impaired". As long as there's some reason you might want what comes next, forcing you to take something you'd otherwise have ignored strikes me as good use of design resources.

Maybe in a game where you don't only get seven feats, IF you survive that long.

[willpell]

Maybe in a game where you don't only get seven feats, IF you survive that long.

There really ought to be more ways of getting Feats, I agree with that. Stuff like the Otyugh Hole ought to be standard-issue. Of course, this is one of the reasons Humans are so loverly-broken. It's also one of the reasons I ended up okaying Flaws in my game.

[noparlpf]

There really ought to be more ways of getting Feats, I agree with that. Stuff like the Otyugh Hole ought to be standard-issue. Of course, this is one of the reasons Humans are so loverly-broken. It's also one of the reasons I ended up okaying Flaws in my game.

New dysfunction: Feat acquisition and progression as a whole?