Wait Wait Wait

[Dalboz of Gurth]

Originally Posted by Overlard

Jeez, a battle of wits. Thank god you're proficient at fighting unarmed, hun.


If the dispel works, then the wizard will start to fall. And cast feather fall.

While you're casting feather fall - wing buffet. Because you have 0 control over where you are falling, the 75mph gale force gusts of wind caused by the wings will slam your character against a wall.

Feather Fall only reduces falling incurred by gravity, it does not reduce movement

Feather fall works only upon free-falling objects. It does not affect a sword blow or a charging or flying creature.

Therefore this mage will incur full falling damage or even crushing damage when it hits the wall: SPLAT!

Well a quickened dimension door would get them within touch range with enough time for a maximised shivering touch before the dragon can react. Hell, the wizard still has time for a move action to scratch his arse if needed, baby.

Anti magic shell or any 1 of the 100-1,000 magical gems encrusted on the dragon's scales will take care of this strategy without breaking a sweat.

And I haven't even begun to discuss the lesser and greater artifacts dragons like to collect.

And they lose to wizards with shivering touch. It's the ciiiiiiiiiiiircle of life...

only if the dragon encounter was written by a DM with 0 knowledge of how dragon encounters should work, or the objects they carry, such as those described in CoW or the Dragonomicon.

[Lord Iames Osari]

Originally Posted by Overlard

Well a quickened dimension door would get them within touch range with enough time for a maximised shivering touch before the dragon can react. Hell, the wizard still has time for a move action to scratch his arse if needed, baby.

Actually, dimension door states that you cannot take any more actions afterward. So that actually doesn't work. But it would work with teleport.

[UserClone]

Originally Posted by Goumindong

hah, i did one better.

More balanced. Maybe. Better? Open to subjective interpretation.

Originally Posted by Goumindong

No prepared full casters and i still get to veto your spell choices.

We have a monk, swashbuckler, duskblade[the spellcaster], and Fighter. They are going to stay in a city most of the time, so its easy to buy resources, but still, its going to be awesome.

Um, a duskblade is NOT a spellcaster. They are a great gish, but I wouldn't call them a spellcaster anymore than I would call a Paladin a divine spellcaster. But that's just me.

[UserClone]

only if the dragon encounter was written by a DM with 0 knowledge of how dragon encounters should work, or the objects they carry, such as those described in CoW or the Dragonomicon.

CoW? I'm not familiar with that abbreviation. And it's the DraConomicon, another book which I'm sure you skimmed very thouroughly before making yet another statement which is abusive to the other people trying to have polite discussion.

[Dervag]

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

It's the exact same problem people were whining and moaning about when Psionics were introduced.

Then 1 simple thing happened with psionics: they were introduced to thought eaters. A random monster encounter that exploited the weaknesses of the class.

Unless those random monsters make up a large fraction of all enemies, so that you fight more thought eaters than anything else, it won't affect the class balance. Even then, it's an arbitrary kludge of a solution, as is scattering antimagic fields all over the world to weaken arcane casters. It's much better to design the classes so that they have power and effectiveness comparable to that of other classes than to create specialized, tailored menaces whose sole justification for existence is to keep the wizards in line.

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

Maybe if you actually read some of the M$TG Novels you'd understand what I mean. There's a lot that was added to AD&D wizards in 3e that makes them look more like those god awful WoTC creations.

I've read a number of those novels, though by no means a majority. I always thought that the wizard characters in those novels bore strikingly little resemblance to the 'wizards' found in the card game; they usually focus on characters with real limits and the dynamics of the novels' plots don't resemble the dynamics of game play.

I guarantee you, so many of these problems I keep reading about didn't exist in 2nd edition.

No, but a bunch of other problems did.

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

A player who has already abused the rules has attempted to destroy the fun.

In each game there is a certain amount of danger. Players who experience absolutely no danger or set backs to over come, are players who need to experience them.

When you make the players "cry and beg for mercy," you've gone beyond the level of "danger and setbacks" that are compatible with fun unless you're involved in some sort of bizarre, perverse S&M variant on the tabletop RPG.

If your idea of fun is to give the players whatever they want, then I suggest you take out a board game called: CANDY LAND and use that for your gaming sessions.

Obviously, you have never known the frustration of being stranded in the Molasses Swamp.

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

Dude, go back and read my posts. I didn't say shut down someone's character every time they game. I said instill the fear that they can be shut down if they keep abusing their character and their power.

You only ever need to shut down a munchkin player once or twice at a critical moment for them to rethink how they play the game.

What is with this munchkin fixation? Munchkins aren't the problem here; wizards being intrinsically more powerful than, say, fighters or rogues in combat encounters is the problem.

Originally Posted by EndgamerAzari

Alas, my dear Fax, what is described above (the post you quoted) is what a lot of people consider fun.

Only because they do it to other people and do not have it done to themselves.

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

With the attitude you've given me, Fax, I'll send your comments to my committee for review to determine how I should address you, dude.

I now dub you "slick," slick.

Originally Posted by Slick

If you want to keep arguing that wizards are so over powered that there's nothing a DM can do to learn how to adjust the encounters, then maybe you and everyone else who agrees with that sentiment needs to stop allowing wizards or needs to stop playing 3rd edition

If the only way to adjust encounters to make wizards balanced is to impose arbitrary conditions that either completely remove their sole effective ability (spellcasting) or to break the rules in favor of their enemies so that those enemies are better at killing wizards than any combination of published statistics and published methods of strengthening them would indicate, the problem is with the quality of the system, not the quality of the DM.

Originally Posted by Slick

Fax, I'm going to say this once and once only:

1. Dragons can sense anyone who enters their lair, unless they're little ones. I doubt we're talking about a little one.

2. Dragons have a stride measured by the size of their BIG FREAKING LEGS.

3. Crushing Damage is not an attack roll. You seem to think it is.

4. Any DM who doesn't have the capacity of thought to portray Dragons in a manner that allows them to WALK or STAND or RUN or STEP ASIDE while some worthless magically imbued peon of a hors’dourves walk up to them without taking any actions needs to be immediately stripped of their DMG and thrown out onto the street by the local Dungeon Masters guild.

I did not once ever suggest to break the rules.

Yes, you did. Dragons don't deal trample damage moving around. In fact, the rules of Third edition specifically, explicitly state that creatures the size of big dragons and creatures the size of humans can move around in the same space simultaneously without either stepping on the other, the premise being that the human is running around between the dragon's legs, just as a mouse might move between the legs of a human.

Therefore, your suggestion that characters entering melee combat with a dragon automatically take trampling damage breaks both the specific rules implied by the D&D definition of "dragon," and the general rules related to how large and small creature move around each other. So yes, Slick, you are breaking rules.

Originally Posted by Slick

Any DM who doesn't design a Dragon who has protective wards or watchdog spells on his/her lair needs to have their badge taken from them and tossed to the side.

Wards and watchdog spells will hurt the other characters just as much as they hurt the wizard, if not more so.

Originally Posted by Slick

I have and I've met players who thought they could outwit me and ate for breakfast using standard rules.

However, your unfamiliarity with the reasons why dragons are vulnerable to the effects of Shivering Touch suggests that the people playing with you haven't really tried very hard to be dangerous and effective. Note that this is not a question of munchkinnery- any intelligent character (such as a typical wizard) would seek to employ the most effective tactics available against a given foe. Against a dragon, touch attack spells are very effective, and since dragons are not famous for their agility, a spell that robs them of what agility they possess would also be very effective. Veteran players will tend to do things like that simply because it strains the suspension of disbelief for characters to employ deliberately bad tactics.

Nonveteran players will not know to do these things, which suggests that your experiences have been against nonveteran players. Therefore, your ability to suppress their sallies at being more effective than level would indicate doesn't prove much, just as the fact that you have a superb batting average against a Little League team would not be remarkable. Nor would it prove that it is automatically easy for any batter to have, say, a .500 batting average in all games and that all the Major League batters with their .300 averages must be incompetent.

IF YOU CAN GET WITHIN RANGE TO USE TOUCH.

Which you can.

Originally Posted by Kyace

Very few dragons can actually defeat a kingdom's army of warriors due the simple fact that enough will roll 20 on the attack rolls. An adult black dragon has roughly 200 HP. Thus, it only requires 4,000 ranged attack rolls for 200 ensured hits of 1 damage.

It's not quite that easy; we've had this argument before on this board. I was there.

[horseboy]

Originally Posted by Overlard

Jeez, a battle of wits. Thank god you're proficient at fighting unarmed, hun.


If the dispel works, then the wizard will start to fall. And cast feather fall.

I thought that if flight spells are canceled then they act like they expired and float down.

[UserClone]

Originally Posted by Slick

If your idea of fun is to give the players whatever they want, then I suggest you take out a board game called: CANDY LAND and use that for your gaming sessions.

Originally Posted by Dervag

Obviously, you have never known the frustration of being stranded in the Molasses Swamp.

I would like to sig this if I may. It gave me much joy.

[Ozymandias]

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

While you're casting feather fall - wing buffet. Because you have 0 control over where you are falling, the 75mph gale force gusts of wind caused by the wings will slam your character against a wall.

Feather Fall is an immediate action casting time - the Dragon used his/her turn casting Dispel Magic from an artifact or whatever, the wizard cast feather fall - now it's the wizard's turn - he/she has no swift action but retains his/her move and standard actions, so he/she can still do stuff before the Dragon gets a chance to buffet. I'm fairly sure.

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

Anti magic shell or any 1 of the 100-1,000 magical gems encrusted on the dragon's scales will take care of this strategy without breaking a sweat.

And I haven't even begun to discuss the lesser and greater artifacts dragons like to collect.

From where is Anti Magic Shell? I can't comment on the validity of that.

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

only if the dragon encounter was written by a DM with 0 knowledge of how dragon encounters should work, or the objects they carry, such as those described in CoW or the Dragonomicon.

Oh, of course. A DM who doesn't own those books clearly is just terrible.

[UserClone]

Originally Posted by horseboy

I thought that if flight spells are canceled then they act like they expired and float down.

I was actually going to post that; IIRC, doesn't fly give you a feather-fall-esque effect if it's dispelled?

[tyckspoon]

Originally Posted by horseboy

I thought that if flight spells are canceled then they act like they expired and float down.

Originally Posted by SRD

Should the spell duration expire while the subject is still aloft, the magic fails slowly. The subject floats downward 60 feet per round for 1d6 rounds. If it reaches the ground in that amount of time, it lands safely. If not, it falls the rest of the distance, taking 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet of fall. Since dispelling a spell effectively ends it, the subject also descends in this way if the fly spell is dispelled, but not if it is negated by an antimagic field.

Yup. No need to cast Feather Fall. Which is an Immediate action spell, so it can be cast as soon as the Wizard starts falling and does nothing to prevent him from casting another spell on his own turn anyway, if he had in fact needed to cast it. Which assumes that he isn't willing to go ahead and absorb the falling damage; maybe he wants to save his immediate/swift action for a quickened spell instead. Falling damage isn't especially lethal.

Edit: Ninjas lul.

[Goumindong]

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

While you're casting feather fall - wing buffet. Because you have 0 control over where you are falling, the 75mph gale force gusts of wind caused by the wings will slam your character against a wall.

Your dragon gets an aweful lot of actions per round. I mean, he dispells magic, and then he wing buffets. And he does this all while flying.

Anti magic shell or any 1 of the 100-1,000 magical gems encrusted on the dragon's scales will take care of this strategy without breaking a sweat.

and he does all of these in a round with his magical >1 standard action?

And I haven't even begun to discuss the lesser and greater artifacts dragons like to collect.

Artifacts are plot devices, they are not ever to be used as treasure for random reasons If your dragons have artifacts, i cannot imagine all the lesser and greater artifacts your Players have. Holy lord they must be swamped in them!

only if the dragon encounter was written by a DM with 0 knowledge of how dragon encounters should work, or the objects they carry, such as those described in CoW or the Dragonomicon.

We have established that you have 0 applicable knowledge about how dragon encounters work, should work or any encounter works or should work.

Please describe what CoW and Dragonomicon say about dragons that the core does not that makes them able to avoid a wizard.

[Kyace]

Originally Posted by tyckspoon

Assuming you've managed to gather an army composed primarily of people with 5+ HD. And they've all got magic weapons. A dragon of Young Adult or older has Frightful Presence and DR 5/magic. It can easily scatter an entire army just by flying over it. If you want to try magic, well, congratulations- that's also the age category where they get spell resistance. They're a lot easier to fight if they're any younger than that, but you probably don't need to try and depend on natural 20s to take down a younger one.

Re Frightful Presence: Nonmagical ranged weapons appropriate to lvl 1 warriors, like longbows.
Re DR X/Magic: All successful attacks deal 1 HP of damage. My mistake, DR is the exception to this rule. Since this an army, we can scale up to fix this. The army needs to deal 199 HPs of damage to the adult black dragon to defeat it. Assume an army of at least 5400 lvl 1 warriors with longbows. Assuming they can all attack in a round, 270 of them will roll Nat 20's. 33.75 of them will roll each result of a 1d8 for damage (IE, 33.75 roll 8, 33.75 roll 7...) so the average damage for all 270, after the DR /5 is 202.5 HP of damage in one round. Now, the dragon can scare some of them away sure, scale the army up until you can ensure that 5400 won't be scared away and you've won in one round.

[Dalboz of Gurth]

{Scrubbed}

[SweetRein]

Back up to the first page:

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

My point is this:

Wizards build these DPS OMFG IMGONNABEAT YOU DOWN characters because they've neven been shown the frailty of their class.

For a wizard munchkin to be taught a lesson, all he or she needs to experience, is one bloody, embarrassing, and frightening moment of mortal weakness.

From then on, you'll find your munchkin problem has been solved. Or he/she has learned how to play their class without OMFGIMGONNAKILLYOU attitude.

vs...

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

Munchkins that playtested the 3e and 3.5 rules are a cause of the problem for the wizard class. Munchkins at WoTC who keep refusing to fix the problems they generated are the problem for the wizard class.

Just due to how Wizards are handled in 3e makes almost any 3e wizard a MUNCHKIN!!!!

So... almost any wizard needs to have antimagic fields sprinkled around the game automatically, and thus you are now arguing against what your big statements on the first post was?


- Edit -
And for declaring you understand the rules.
You confused 3 ft for a touch with 5 ft.
That's clear in the rules.
Not to mention the other sprinkled examples through this entire debacle of a topic.

[Goumindong]

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

Crushing Damage is one really heavy object SQUISHING the life out of an infinitely smaller and weaker object.

Please show me the page dealing with this.

As far as i can see there are only 2 references to crushing damage in the SRD.

1. Constrict attacks: Successfull Grapple attack required

2. Swallow Whole: Successfull Attack on a bite attack to swallow whole will produce crushing damage each round the smaller creature is in the other gullet/stomach.

Should i show you how easy it is to cast a touch spell while in a creatures stomach?

[Artemician]

Originally Posted by SweetRein

Back up to the first page:
vs...
So... almost any wizard needs to have antimagic fields sprinkled around the game automatically, and thus you are now arguing against what your big statements on the first post was?

There is no contradiction. In his first post, he said that there were ways to stop people from munchkinning. In his second, he was lamentating the blatant lack of imbalance in RAW D&D, which causes him to have to use munchkin-stopping methods more often, as, in his opinion, a large fraction of wizards are munchkins.

I may not agree with him personally, but I can certainly see where he is coming from.

Also, @Dalboz of Gurth:

A dragon's CR rating reflects the dumb, lumbering stupid thing that you hate so much. And they're considered way overpowered for their CR. If you put in lairs, intelligent tactics, artifacts etc etc then you will have to increase their CR rating, as the dragon will now be more powerful than its dumb counterpart.

Also, I've checked the SRD, and I don't really think that a Dragon can really cause Crushing Damage short of Contrict/Swallow Whole. I believe you may be mistaken on that front.

[Lord Iames Osari]

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

{Scrubbed}

Translation: I don't know how to argue against this, so I'm just going to tell you to shut up in attempt to make it look like the counterargument is so blatantly obvious that I don't even need to explain it in a suitably condescending tone.

[NEO|Phyte]

Originally Posted by Dalboz of Gurth

You need to re-read the rules on crushing damage. Crushing damage is 100% WEIGHT oriented.

NOT COMBAT

NO TRAMPLE is involved.

NO HIT ROLLS are involved.

It's WEIGHT.

Anything more than the applicable weight sustainable by the character that falls ON TOP OF THE CHARACTER causes CRUSHING DAMAGE. PERIOD end of story.

I know the Crushing Damage rules haven't changed (much) since 2nd edition because those are one of the few rules I actually read up on to see if they changed.

A single leg of a dragon stepping on a character qualifies as CRUSHING DAMAGE.

Interestingly, I just searched the SRD for these magical crushing rules, and the closest thing the search came up with on a search for the word "crush" was the following:

Constrict

A creature with this special attack can crush an opponent, dealing bludgeoning damage, after making a successful grapple check. The amount of damage is given in the creature’s entry. If the creature also has the improved grab ability it deals constriction damage in addition to damage dealt by the weapon used to grab.

Funnily enough, its used in combat, and a roll is required.

Still, maybe the search fails at finding it, can you reference a book and page number for your crushing rules?

[EndgamerAzari]

Originally Posted by Lord Iames Osari

Translation: I don't know how to argue against this, so I'm just going to tell you to shut up in attempt to make it look like the counterargument is so blatantly obvious that I don't even need to explain it in a suitably condescending tone.

Oh my God... brilliant summation, m'lord. May I sig that?

[Lord Iames Osari]

Go ahead.

[Ozymandias]

See, guys, you only need 200 people to kill a dragon - they all jump on him and he dies from crushing damage.

[Dalboz of Gurth]

Originally Posted by Goumindong

Please show me the page dealing with this.

lol find it yourself.

Crushing damage is usually detailed in the environmental rules (i.e. a ceiling falling down on a character).

As far as i can see there are only 2 references to crushing damage in the SRD.

look harder, I know it's there.

1. Constrict attacks: Successfull Grapple attack required

2. Swallow Whole: Successfull Attack on a bite attack to swallow whole will produce crushing damage each round the smaller creature is in the other gullet/stomach.

Should i show you how easy it is to cast a touch spell while in a creatures stomach?

Hey, if they can deal with the stomach acid, then that's perfectly dandy.

As a Dungeon Master, I would whole heartedly allow and encourage one of my players to use a touch spell from inside the corrosive acid filled belly of a dragon.

by the way, that's another way to handle a player who likes to disembowl dragons.

Stomach Acid.

[Kyace]

Originally Posted by Goumindong

Please show me the page dealing with this.

As far as i can see there are only 2 references to crushing damage in the SRD.

1. Constrict attacks: Successfull Grapple attack required

2. Swallow Whole: Successfull Attack on a bite attack to swallow whole will produce crushing damage each round the smaller creature is in the other gullet/stomach.

Should i show you how easy it is to cast a touch spell while in a creatures stomach?

Its in the dragon's entry.

Originally Posted by Dragon, True :: d20srd.org

Crush (Ex)

This special attack allows a flying or jumping dragon of at least Huge size to land on opponents as a standard action, using its whole body to crush them. Crush attacks are effective only against opponents three or more size categories smaller than the dragon (though it can attempt normal overrun or grapple attacks against larger opponents).

A crush attack affects as many creatures as can fit under the dragon’s body. Creatures in the affected area must succeed on a Reflex save (DC equal to that of the dragon’s breath weapon) or be pinned, automatically taking bludgeoning damage during the next round unless the dragon moves off them. If the dragon chooses to maintain the pin, treat it as a normal grapple attack. Pinned opponents take damage from the crush each round if they don’t escape.

A crush attack deals the indicated damage plus 1½ times the dragon’s Strength bonus (round down).

[Dalboz of Gurth]

Originally Posted by Ozymandias

See, guys, you only need 200 people to kill a dragon - they all jump on him and he dies from crushing damage.

Actually that is true. And I would allow this.

wuahahhahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahah

[Dalboz of Gurth]

Originally Posted by Kyace

Its in the dragon's entry.

THAT'S one place where I saw it! Thanks Kyace!

[Fax Celestis]

Originally Posted by Kyace

Its in the dragon's entry.

That may well be the case, but it is also an attack action and not automatic.

[Kyace]

No problem but it still doesn't deal damage based on weight, but on strength and size. To maintain the crush, they must continue the grapple, which negates their dex bonus to outside attacks, as normal for grappling.

[Helios Sunshard]

Is the acid into a dragon stomach avoidable by this?

[Fax Celestis]

Originally Posted by Helios Sunshard

Is the acid into a dragon stomach avoidable by this?

As it is damage specifically given an energy type, yes.

[Goumindong]

Originally Posted by Helios Sunshard

Is the acid into a dragon stomach avoidable by this?

Yes, i have to write more because of a filter.