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2024-01-29, 04:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
The whole metamagic on an SLA thing comes under the jurisdiction of "In all other ways, a spell-like ability functions just like a spell" from the SRD. A few monsters even use Augment Summoning on summon SLAs and School Focus to increase SLAs' CL. Maybe strict RAW reading would disagree, but the RAI seems clear to me, clear enough that I wouldn't call it a dysfunction.
Resurrecting the Negative LA thread, comments and discussion are very welcome!
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2024-01-29, 05:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
If you could make anything and everything welcome to the Zinc Saucier XLV: Figaro
My competition's medals.
Spoiler: For purposes of clarity1109 is September, 11 - my birthday.
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2024-01-29, 01:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Acrually, WotC themselves used "cast as a spell-like ability" phrase:
Originally Posted by Tome and Blood
Also, Chimeric Champion of Garl Glittergold PrC:
Originally Posted by Dragon #329
In addition:
Weapon Focus (ray),
Weapon Focus (energy missile),
Weapon Focus (eldritch blast),
and Weapon Focus (Grapple)...
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2024-01-29, 04:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
The hexblade dead levels class feature does it too, for something a bit later in 3.5's lifecycle.
Forced Omens (Ex): At 6th level, a foreboding sense of doom travels with the hexblade, as candle lights flicker, fresh food turns green, or the air becomes stale. A hexblade adds prestidigitation to their list of spells known. If a hexblade already knows this spell, the character may choose a different 1st level spell. As a bonus spell, prestidigitation cannot be traded for another 1st level spell.
At 8th level, a hexblade may cast prestidigitation as if augmented by the Silent Spell feat without using up a higher-level spell slot. At 11th level, a hexblade may cast prestidigitation as a spell-like ability, lacking both somatic and verbal components, but is still limited to their spell slots per day. At 14th level, a hexblade may cast prestidigitation a number of additional times per day equal to 3 + their Charisma modifier. At 18th level, a hexblade can cast prestidigitation at will. The prestidigitation spell disappears from their list of spells known at this level.Creator of the LA-assignment thread.
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2024-01-31, 07:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Not to belabor the point but, if warlock invocations counted as casting spells, warlocks would become a much better class overnight due to qualifying for 5x as many prestige classes.
(What I'm trying to say is, let me know if they do, I would like to take some of those classes)Tome of the Holy Grail: Draw power from legendary heroes.|The Dashing Dualist: Two weapons. One happy ending.|The Shifter: Be all that you can be.|The Professional: Mundanes, competent.|The Wuxia Fighter: Mundanes, Wacky.|The Generalist: Do literally everything.
Skill Trick Compendium|Cantrips for Days|Complete Control Revamped: Customize everything.|Bek's Book of Blissful Bewitchment: Who wants to spend their life in a musty cave?
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2024-04-06, 08:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Shadows from the Last War, the Undead Eyes spell.
This spell allows the user to form a telepathic link with a mindless undead creature that the caster has first cast control undead upon. The telepathic link provides two benefits. First, the caster can issue telepathic commands to the target (with the normal restrictions for control undead). Second the caster can form a sense-link to the target as a free action. This link allows the caster to see and hear through the senses of the undead creature.
Also, Undead Eyes lasts for days/level while Control Undead is over in minutes, but that's more of an ambiguity than a true dysfunction.Creator of the LA-assignment thread.
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2024-04-06, 12:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Well, it is plausible that someone who can cast a powerful spell might develop weaker spells to situationally supplement it, though that still doesn't explain Undead Eyes being available to clerics.
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2024-04-06, 01:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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2024-04-07, 07:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
My guess is that it was supposed to work on any undead that the caster already had control of, also including ones they'd commanded via Rebuke Undead and those they controlled by virtue of having created them. That'd give it a use case for clerics, and would also make the long duration relevant.
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
—As You Like It, III:ii:328
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2024-04-07, 07:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Last edited by InvisibleBison; 2024-04-07 at 07:52 AM.
I made a webcomic, featuring absurdity, terrible art, and alleged morals.
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2024-04-07, 05:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Spoiler
DM: At the end of the meal, the innkeeper is bringing you the cheese plate. Roll for initiative.
PC: Excuse me, what?
DM: I said, roll for initiative. They like their cheese really ripe in these parts. They have the ooze type.
"Excuse me, but... is it a GOOD or a BAD thing when the DM can't help bursting into laughter every time he hears the phrase 'level-appropriate encounter'? No, just curious..."
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2024-04-23, 02:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
From the PHB II readthrough thread:
Luminous Assassin says:
After its initial attack, a Luminous Assassin attacks its target every round, taking its turn after your turn is completed.Last edited by Inevitability; 2024-04-23 at 02:45 AM.
Creator of the LA-assignment thread.
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2024-04-30, 04:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Tarrasque:
Originally Posted by SRD
Sphere of Annihilation:
Originally Posted by SRD
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2024-05-01, 07:01 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
"Cannot kill the Tarrasque" is more specific than "can kill anything" so this is pretty clear case of "specific beats general", so it is pretty clear the sphere cannot kill the tarrasque. Is that a problem?
EDIT: Oh, I think I get it. If it doesn't kill it, there is no obvious way to determine what it does instead. "Nothing" does not seem like an particularly satisfying answer.Last edited by glass; 2024-05-01 at 07:04 AM.
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2024-05-01, 07:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Most creatures die when they are 'sucked into the void, gone, and utterly destroyed'. The tarrasque simply doesn't. The void is full of destroyed tarrasques who are somehow, in some metaphysical way, still alive.
It's no different from how a disintegrate spell that reduces a creature to 0 but not -10 HP doesn't kill it, but does reduce it to a mere trace of dust - which kills most creatures very shortly thereafter for lack of air/food/water/etc.Creator of the LA-assignment thread.
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2024-05-01, 11:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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2024-05-02, 04:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
One more dysfunction (I don't sure if it was mentioned earlier): [vile] feats Deformity (Gaunt) and Deformity (Obese) - nothing in the prerequisites prevent skeletal creature (Undead or Construct) from taking one of those
The problem there is: the "... can be slain only by ..." line is blatantly false (for example, Regeneration can't save from lack of air - and Tarrasque's Regeneration is no different there), and enforcing regardless would make it even more silly than it already is
In the case of Sphere of Annihilation - I think it just destroys so completely there is nothing to regenerate from
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2024-05-02, 05:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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2024-05-02, 06:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Tarrasque's regeneration is different there, because it specifically says that it can only be killed by a Wish. It also says how it interacts with effects that would ordinarily instantly slay a creature.
A Sphere of Annihilation instantly annihilates 868 HP worth of the Tarrasque's mass, but it can still recover from that.Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
—As You Like It, III:ii:328
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2024-05-05, 02:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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2024-05-10, 12:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
If you don't noticed, it's the "Dysfunctional Rules" thread - it's chock-full of false rules (blatantly or otherwise)
I mean - if you can explain how (or when) to make Leadership checks by RAW...
No, it doesn't says so.
It says:
The tarrasque regenerates even if it fails a saving throw against a disintegrate spell or a death effect. If the tarrasque fails its save against a spell or effect that would kill it instantly (such as those mentioned above), the spell or effect instead deals nonlethal damage equal to the creature’s full normal hit points +10 (or 868 hp).
There are numerous ways to kill the tarrasque without resorting to Wish/Miracle
For example, form-changing spells:
Arboreal Transformation (Complete Mage) and Touch of Juiblex (Book of Vile Darkness) are both turn their victims into plants ("a normal tree" and Green Slime respectively). After the transformation is finished - what's prevent us from burning it down (and, thus, killing the tarrasque without using Wish spell?)
Heck, even "simple" Baleful Polymorph may do it there (possible successful saves aside): once 24 hours is over - it's a little critter without any unusual abilities. After that, you can just stomp on it. (Or, you know, set it in a cage for it to die of old age in a few years - anyway, it would be dead)
Or, you know, Mind Switch - if Grim Psion successfully manifest it on the tarrasque, they would be in the tarrasque's body while keeping their respective class features, and the very 1st level of the class gives Undeath: no Con - no Regeneration, and no Regeneration - dead tarrasque
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2024-05-10, 02:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
It's full of dysfuctional rules. It's full of of rules that are badly written or just bad. Occasionally, it's full of rules that are fine but have been misinterpreted.
But it can't be full of rules that are false. A rule cannot be wrong about what it is saying - if it says something, by definition it says that thing!
To the best of my knowledge, there no need or method to make leadership checks - that is what makes the subject of that post dysfunctional. But it doesn't make it "false" - if such checks were introduced, the item would add +5 to them just like it says.
This is confusing, because a few posts ago you quoted its saying so, thus:
(Plus your SRD quote in a previous post).
Either is says it, in which case it is not false because it makes it true by saying it, because that's how rule work! Or it doesn't say it, in which case it isn't false because it isn't there at all. Unlike Schrodinger's cat, it cannot be both. Yes, I know Shrodinger didn't believe the cat was both alive and dead - he was trying to ridicule Quantum Mechanics not explain it.
(For the record, its the former.)
Rules can have exceptions, implicit or explicit. But if having exceptions made a rule false, the vast majority of the rules in the game would be false.
Quite possibly, but each of them is an explicit or implicit exception to the stated rule. And suffocation is not one of them - nothing makes suffocation an explicit or implicit exception to the tarrasque's clearly stated rule, so it cannot kill it.
These OTOH (assuming they all work) are fine examples of implicit exceptions. The tarrasque's invulnerability is provided by its Regeneration - remove the one, and you remove the other. A rule not applying is not the same as a rule being false.Last edited by glass; 2024-05-10 at 02:12 PM.
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2024-05-10, 03:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
O RLY?
Prerequisite for Black Flame Zealot PrC:
Originally Posted by Complete Divine
While, technically, there is a way to actually get EWP with Kukri in 3.5 (some special materials) - would you really say it's the only RAW-legal way to qualify for Black Flame Zealot?
If such checks were introduced - then rule wouldn't be false
You see, it says:
Originally Posted by SRD
Any single exception - no matter how far-fetched - makes it automatically false
(Heck, taken literally, even such methods as Reality Revision or even Alter Reality shouldn't work too - because they aren't "a wish or miracle spell")
As I already said above, there is a strong statement in the tarrasque's RAW - thus, it gives no place for implicit exceptions (explicit exceptions are, usually, more or less self-explaining)
For suffocation, let's see:
Originally Posted by SRDOriginally Posted by SRD
Now, Tarrasque is a Magical Beast
Originally Posted by SRD
No, I don't seeing it
Thus, unless we're splitting hairs there ("dead ≠ slain", or even "suffocated ≠ dead") - I can's see how it's not an exception (be it explicit or implicit)
While true, it was just the simplest example of how to do it
Another way is to make the Regeneration to "just not work" - but it may fall under the same umbrella as the previous group
Next group of methods is "no-save-just-die": RAW says about cases when tarrasque failed its save - not when there was no save possible to begin with (Sphere of Annihilation is a good example)
Now, there are ways which absolutely certainly would avoid the Regeneration - because it's not how Regeneration work
- Ability Drain - if "Allip trick" works, then what will happen if we drain tarrasque's Constitution? (As extreme example of this method - force it to draw the "Death" card from the Deck of Many Things)
- Ability Burn - just like the above (Mind Switch + Body Fuel)
- Ability Penalty - "Con 0" one more time
- negative levels - would it still be alive with 0 HD?
- hit points drain - nothing in the rules says how to restore hit points drain, so I dare to guess even tarrasque's regeneration isn't one of those methods
- thirst - mentioned in the same line as suffocation; Plane Shift it into a plane without any water (and desert-like environment - for Sandstorm rules to kick in)
- make it Undead while skipping the "being dead" part (then - destroy, if you want so)
- Molydeus Venom - ignores poison immunity, does Con damage, at Con 0 victims turn into Mane (CR 1 demon)
- Transcend Mortality via Spellguard of Silverymoon ("You gain these benefits by using up all your remaining life force.")
- Exalted Fury via Magic Jar (Sacrifice: You die. You can be raised or resurrected normally.)
- make the tarrasque your Companion - create Companion of Flame and Hatred (Polyhedron #147) - it would die 5 days later
- make the tarrasque your Familiar - become a Diabolist - Imp would kill and devour the tarrasque (I, personally, don't know how they would do it - but RAW says they would)
Last edited by ShurikVch; 2024-05-10 at 07:48 PM.
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2024-05-11, 07:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Lots of examples, ShurikVc. By necessity they fall into one of two categories:
- They do create an exception to the tarrasque's invulnerability, and therefore can kill the tarrasque, because specific beats general. The tarrasque's general rule does not become "false" (or dysfunctional) because it has exceptions - virtually every rule does.
- They do not create an exception, and therefore cannot kill the tarrsaque. It's invulnerability holds, and is therefore obviously not "false" (or dysfunctional).
That's it. Those are the only possibilities, it is one or the other. If A is false, NOT A must be true and vice versa. There is no way for A and NOT A to be both true or both false - that's basic logic.
I am not going to go through your myriad examples and figure out which category they fall into, because I cannot be bothered and because it really doesn't matter.
There is perhaps a legitimate criticism that, because the tarrasque's Regeneration explicitly has so much greater scope than the normal Regeneration they should have called it something different. But I don't think that that rises to the level of a dysfunction.Last edited by glass; 2024-05-12 at 11:29 AM.
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2024-05-12, 07:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
I guess that, technically, there's a hole in the rules in that it doesn't say what would happen to the Tarrasque if something would kill it instantly without a save. We know that it doesn't kill it instantly, because it's not Wish or Miracle and those are the only things that can kill it. But the rule about it taking 868 nonlethal damage only explicitly applies to failing a save. So a DM could rule that a Sphere of Annihilation or drowning just does nothing at all to the Tarrasque, I suppose. But it's probably more reasonable to assume that those things have the same effect as insta-kills that do offer saves.
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
—As You Like It, III:ii:328
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2024-05-12, 11:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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2024-05-12, 08:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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2024-05-14, 06:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Especially considering the fact Skeleton(/Bone Creature/etc) don't specifying weight change - thus, Skeleton(/etc) weighs as much as living creature
What's about Trap the Soul?
Tarrasque would - what, "regrow" its soul?! Then what would happen when the gem is crushed? Tarrasque got one more soul?
(Yes, technically, Trap the Soul allows a save. But, even on a successful save, it still inflicts 4 negative levels - 12 shots later would get us 0 HD Tarasque...)
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2024-05-15, 03:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Dysfunctional Rules X: I Cast Comprehend Rules
Trap the Soul doesn't kill, so it doesn't interact with the Tarrasque's regeneration, and so (if it fails its save) it affects it normally. It's inside the gem, but still alive.
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
—As You Like It, III:ii:328
Chronos's Unalliterative Skillmonkey Guide
Current Homebrew: 5th edition psionics
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2024-05-15, 04:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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