Can you Rudisplork at D&D 2: Sithsnape and the Orcus of Secret House Rules

[jedipotter]

Wow, Necroticplague, thanks for the list!

[Kish]

[...]After all, did you have a piece of Orcus? [...] No,

That's what you think. Pieces of Orcus are like Kryptonite: Everybody has them, especially the people you'd least expect to.

Check your pockets, if you doubt me.

[jedipotter]

I still point out that the Wizard who casts Summon Monster I using a Celestial Eagle feather who ends up summoning anything other the a Celestial Eagle is cheating. After all, did you have a piece of Orcus? Did you have a piece of Celestial Badger? No, you had a Celestial Eagle feather, which is required to summon a Celestial Eagle.

The idea is Summoning sometimes ''misses the target''. The hook grabs the wrong creature (the hook is from 2E, so I know most don't know about it).

back to assuming that you're trying to translate whatever you say through several languages. What is your main language? Please don't say English, I'm literally begging you not to say English.
*begs*

Americian!

[Mystic Muse]

Yes. The players are not objective. Say the rule was ''every player gets 100,000 gold'', gee, how many players would ''vote yes''.

Same way ''Who votes yes that everyone gets the awesome cool Tome of Battle stuff?'' Gee, all the players would vote yes as they just can't wait to screw up the game.. (Player-''oh, the orc missesd me, that adds +2 to my AC'' DM-''What? That makes no sense!'' Player-"I know the Tome of Battle is wicked awesome!''



Wow, check out this group for example...they are very bad. Maybe problem players are everywhere...

Actually, I know several people both in person and online I play with that don't care for Tome of Battle. they don't mind if other people use it, but they don't want to use it themselves.

[OracleofWuffing]

That's what you think. Pieces of Orcus are like Kryptonite: Everybody has them, especially the people you'd least expect to.

Check your pockets, if you doubt me.

Pieces of Orcus are also surprisingly easy to maintain, too, so you never need to restock or clean them. You just need to never want to summon Orcus at any time, or else they'll turn into pieces of pink penguins, instead. Those pink penguins cannot take damage, cannot speak, and anything can pass through and see through them, because they're worthless for whatever purpose you wanted to summon Orcus. But don't worry, the moment you wanna summon a pink penguin instead, those pieces will deteriorate back into pieces of Orcus again!

[Dimers]

Americian!

Your primary language is that of americium? That's fitting, considering it breaks down over time, sends out destructive/disfiguring energy until it does finally decay, is easily reshaped by slight pressure, and is thankfully scarce.

[Snowbluff]

Your primary language is that of americium? That's fitting, considering it breaks down over time, sends out destructive/disfiguring energy until it does finally decay, is easily reshaped by slight pressure, and is thankfully scarce.

Is it used in fire detectors, too?

Also, you have done me a disservice. I enjoy the company of cat girls.

[Kish]

The idea is Summoning sometimes ''misses the target''. The hook grabs the wrong creature (the hook is from 2E, so I know most don't know about it).

That would have to be some epically bad aim, to try to hook a Celestial [anything] and wind up at Orcus' level of the Abyss. Like, significantly worse than, "Your arrow misses and hits your sister, who is four continents away with several mountains between you, one of which is the largest mountain on this planet."

(Don't tell me, you once said exactly that to a cheating optimizer of an archer-specialization ranger.)

[ddude987]

dun dun du duunnn dun dun du duuunn

Poor catgirls were lost today, sucked into the great black hole of forum discussions on physics.

[FidgetySquirrel]

This is one of my best liked houserules. It does several things:

1.First it does stop the optimizers that just pick a god for domian spells, abilities or such. In my game, you can't just pick a doman you like and then just do whatever you want. You can't be a cleric of the goddess of peace and be a mad dog killer, and you can't follow the god of war and not fight.

2.Second, it provides a great role play aid for players without disrupting the game at all. You cast a spell and get a good twinkle from your god, you know your on the right path. Cast a spell and get a bad puff, you know your on the wrong path. And it never disrupts the game.

3.Third, it forms the basis of tons and tons and tons of role-play as the player has to ''figure out'' what the god likes, dislikes, wants and does not want. But it's not ''The DM says your god likes it when you help out people'', and then the player just ''ok, my character helps people''. That is boring.

1. You don't need houserules for that. Ex-clerics exist for a reason, ya know.

A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct required by his god loses all spells and class features, except for armor and shield proficiencies and proficiency with simple weapons. He cannot thereafter gain levels as a cleric of that god until he atones (see the atonement spell description).

2.It may not disrupt the game, but I wouldn't call it a role-playing aid. You're just arbitrarily conditioning your players to behave the way you want them to. You're saying that all clerics of a particular deity will do x in a given situation. That is cookie-cutter character creation, not role-play.

3.That's not role-play. It's a fracking guessing game! I don't want to play roulette with my 1 highest level non-domain spell until I know exactly what my deity wants in all situations. You're just making the phylactery of faithfulness a mandatory class tax. I'm willing to assume, though, that it somehow wouldn't work the way I expect it to.

This doesn't even stop optimizers who want to play clerics. They'll just pick a deity who has the domains they want, play to that deity's desires, and optimize their magic to the best of their ability within the confines of your other rules. It just makes players who lack skill struggle that much more. They have to navigate your houserules while trying to make a cleric who can help the party.

I'm starting to think you secretly want optimizers in your games, and are trying to chase off inexperienced players who just can't cope with the high difficulty combined with your harsh rules. Other than absurd levels of paranoia, it's the only thing that makes sense.

[OracleofWuffing]

That would have to be some epically bad aim, to try to hook a Celestial [anything] and wind up at Orcus' level of the Abyss. Like, significantly worse than, "Your arrow misses and hits your sister, who is four continents away with several mountains between you, one of which is the largest mountain on this planet."

(Don't tell me, you once said exactly that to a cheating optimizer of an archer-specialization ranger.)

Y'know, it comes to mind that the Paladin's Special Mount is a Conjuration (Calling) effect, so I have now pictured a Paladin summoning a warhorse, only to have you-know-who appear. And, since he doesn't have knowledge of his own religion or who he summoned, he looks at him and says, "Alright, you'll have to do. I gotta get to town to stop a wedding, so I hope you like giving piggyback rides."

Four hours later, the Paladin's player comes home and posts a "Should the Paladin Fall?" topic.

[Flickerdart]

Your primary language is that of americium? That's fitting, considering it breaks down over time, sends out destructive/disfiguring energy until it does finally decay, is easily reshaped by slight pressure, and is thankfully scarce.

Jedipotter, here's a helpful link for after you've read that.

[Nilehus]

Y'know, it comes to mind that the Paladin's Special Mount is a Conjuration (Calling) effect, so I have now pictured a Paladin summoning a warhorse, only to have you-know-who appear. And, since he doesn't have knowledge of his own religion or who he summoned, he looks at him and says, "Alright, you'll have to do. I gotta get to town to stop a wedding, so I hope you like giving piggyback rides."

Four hours later, the Paladin's player comes home and posts a "Should the Paladin Fall?" topic.

I love everything about this post. You win.

[Thurbane]

Yes. The players are not objective. Say the rule was ''every player gets 100,000 gold'', gee, how many players would ''vote yes''.

It might surprise you, but I'd probably vote "no" as a player, if it was going to go way outside WBL, or wasn't an appropriate reward for a quest just completed.

Not every player is just begging for a Monty Haul campaign where they can crush a huge red wyrm at 4th level by using obscenely overpriced magic items.

Same way ''Who votes yes that everyone gets the awesome cool Tome of Battle stuff?'' Gee, all the players would vote yes as they just can't wait to screw up the game.. (Player-''oh, the orc missesd me, that adds +2 to my AC'' DM-''What? That makes no sense!'' Player-"I know the Tome of Battle is wicked awesome!''

Wait...you yourself have said you're not familiar with the system, and allegedly "burned the book" after one skim through. You're mocking it's mechanics without actually understanding them or even being familiar with them.

It's a common knee-jerk reaction to ToB - one that I myself had a first too. A player is about to run a Warblade in my next campaign, and as a DM I'm excited to see how it plays.

Wow, check out this group for example...they are very bad. Maybe problem players are everywhere...

No one is denying problem players do exist, or that most of us have encountered them at some point. What we are disputing is the assumption that pretty much everyone has the potential to be a disruptive, bad player; or that a bunch of draconian and nonsensical houserules are required as some kind of screening device for so-called "problem" players.

This is one of my best liked houserules. It does several things:

1.First it does stop the optimizers that just pick a god for domian spells, abilities or such. In my game, you can't just pick a doman you like and then just do whatever you want. You can't be a cleric of the goddess of peace and be a mad dog killer, and you can't follow the god of war and not fight.

2.Second, it provides a great role play aid for players without disrupting the game at all. You cast a spell and get a good twinkle from your god, you know your on the right path. Cast a spell and get a bad puff, you know your on the wrong path. And it never disrupts the game.

3.Third, it forms the basis of tons and tons and tons of role-play as the player has to ''figure out'' what the god likes, dislikes, wants and does not want. But it's not ''The DM says your god likes it when you help out people'', and then the player just ''ok, my character helps people''. That is boring.

You can do all of that without taking control of a PC away from the player. The game actually has rules in play to punish Clerics who willfully and deliberately go against their god's edicts and beliefs. There's even a magic item that lets you check if an action is kosher or not.

But heavy handed divine punishment or swapping of spells for something as trivial (and quite frankly, stupid) as casting a loud spell after people are asleep in a town is just poor DMing IMHO.

I fix the Core problems with my house rules.

You hit a bunch of things with the nerf stick and add random chances to things. You think that is a fix - a lot of us disagree.

Well, most players are clueless....what is really your point here. Sure the character has lots of training, but the player does not. They know little more then the gods name.

Again, assuming the worst about about players. I've recently played a Favored Soul of Bahamaut - I went out of my way to read as much canon on the god as I could, so I could effectively play someone devoted to his cause.

There is plenty of common sense here, your LG god of honor and duty does not want you killing innocent people just so you can have fun. That should be obvious, but it is not always to everyone.

Common sense like a GOOD elven god ordering his clerics to murder helpless drow prisoners in cold blood? (If I'm remembering the example from the first thread correctly).

I'm sorry, the gods in your games seem to have shifting goalposts, much as you yourself do when discussing your houserules - adding extra spells etc in as people bring them up.

Then you get the dreaded problem players who do the spin ''Oh my god is ok with it as he wants me to have more loot to stop the demon''. Sigh.

No one is denying a jerk player is a jerk player. Most of us would probably handle this with a simple "Um, no, you're being silly, your god obviously does not think that".

The idea is Summoning sometimes ''misses the target''. The hook grabs the wrong creature (the hook is from 2E, so I know most don't know about it).

You make an awful lot of assumptions about other gamers in general, you know that right?

I've been playing since Basic/1E, and I know several others in this thread would have too. I have a collection of D&D (and other RPG games) paraphernalia that would rival a small store.

Some question for you, jedipotter:

• How old are your players on average? Sounds like some of your issues might be caused by younger gamers with short attention spans, or that don't take the game seriously?
• Do you mainly play in person, or PBP? How long do your sessions run for, and how often do you have them?
• What is the average level of play in your games? Low, mid or high?

[FidgetySquirrel]

Since Thurbane and I both brought it up, I'd like to satisfy my curiosity. Do you allow players to use a phylactery of faithfulness to avoid the divine nerf-bat? Or does it have a 50% chance of Orcus?

[Gavinfoxx]

How old are you, Jedipotter?

Also, could you reply to my mentioning previously that Tome of Battle consists of a toolset that can enable more realism for combat techniques than anything in 3.5e that came before or since? How do you react to that statement?

[Vhaidara]

Wait...you yourself have said you're not familiar with the system, and allegedly "burned the book" after one skim through. You're mocking it's mechanics without actually understanding them or even being familiar with them.

Not allegedly, admittedly. He has posted that he burned the book. This is my only complaint against your post.

[Thurbane]

Not allegedly, admittedly. He has posted that he burned the book. This is my only complaint against your post.

I suppose I was so incredulous that someone would actually burn a book, I didn't really believe it.

I myself didn't like ToB on my first read through. I actually traded in my first copy on Dungeonscape. But after a while, I decided to give it another go, and bought another copy. Now I'm I'm happy I did.

ToB isn't to everyone's taste, but to call it "not D&D", or go so far as to destroy the book, strikes me as very childish.

[Vhaidara]

Especially since DnD books (at least, the 3.5 ones) are nice hard covers. The only time I burned books was with some friends when we got through 6th grade, and those were old workbooks and notebooks we were never going to use again and that had been filled.

[137beth]

Y'know, it comes to mind that the Paladin's Special Mount is a Conjuration (Calling) effect, so I have now pictured a Paladin summoning a warhorse, only to have you-know-who appear. And, since he doesn't have knowledge of his own religion or who he summoned, he looks at him and says, "Alright, you'll have to do. I gotta get to town to stop a wedding, so I hope you like giving piggyback rides."

Four hours later, the Paladin's player comes home and posts a "Should the Paladin Fall?" topic.

Obviously the paladin should fall. Calling a creature with the Evil subtype is an Evil act, and Orcus has the Evil subtype.
Fortunately when the Paladin falls, his/her fall is cushioned by landing on Orcus.

[eggynack]

It might surprise you, but I'd probably vote "no" as a player, if it was going to go way outside WBL, or wasn't an appropriate reward for a quest just completed.

It actually isn't the worst rule, as it disproportionately benefits low tier characters that are less capable of achieving things without items. I'd probably prefer it just taking the form of a general WBL inflation though. To be clear here, this is also what I would say if asked about the potential new rule from the perspective of a player, rather than the implied, "Gimme the money. More money means more good."

[kellbyb]

Common sense like a GOOD elven god ordering his clerics to murder helpless drow prisoners in cold blood? (If I'm remembering the example from the first thread correctly).

Um, Shevarash is actually Chaotic Neutral.

[Kish]

Um, Shevarash is actually Chaotic Neutral.

You know what else Shevarash is?

Never mentioned in the first thread.

(The deity Thurbane is talking about is Corellon. jedipotter said Corellon would object to one of his clerics torturing a captive, which was valid, that Corellon would object to one of his clerics casting a healing spell on a drow, which was not valid, and that his version of Corellon would deal with it by twisting one of the cleric's spells to kill the captive instead--which, as someone pointed out, would send the message that Corellon objected to the healing, not the "...so I can torture him without killing him" motivation behind it.)

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Hmmm, looks like the thread's posting rate has slowed down. My prediction is probably going to be wrong.

[kellbyb]

You know what else Shevarash is?

Never mentioned in the first thread.

(The deity Thurbane is talking about is Corellon. jedipotter said Corellon would object to one of his clerics torturing a captive, which was valid, that Corellon would object to one of his clerics casting a healing spell on a drow, which was not valid, and that his version of Corellon would deal with it by twisting one of the cleric's spells to kill the captive instead--which, as someone pointed out, would send the message that Corellon objected to the healing, not the "...so I can torture him without killing him" motivation behind it.)

Got it. I seem to have missed that part of the discussion.

[Threadnaught]

Um, Shevarash is actually Chaotic Neutral.

He's referring to Corellon Larethian.
Who doesn't actually hate Drow, so much as he hates Lolth and all who serve her.
Normally he'd support Salvator''s Ma'ry Suedon.
The version jedipotter has, would be happy to see this enemy of Lolth die because he's a genocidal racist.
Were I a complete sociopath, I'd roll up a LG Cleric of the God of Elves and spend as much time torturing and murdering Drow of all ages, genders and moral outlooks as possible. It's what the Good aligned god would want from his Good aligned Cleric. According to the stuff posted by jedipotter at least.

[kellbyb]

He's referring to Corellon Larethian.
Who doesn't actually hate Drow, so much as he hates Lolth and all who serve her.

See, that's why I didn't recognize him. Jedipotter's making him out to be someone else.

Were I a complete sociopath, I'd roll up a LG Cleric of the God of Elves and spend as much time torturing and murdering Drow of all ages, genders and moral outlooks as possible. It's what the Good aligned god would want from his Good aligned Cleric. According to the stuff posted by jedipotter at least.

Actually, you have to be NG, CG, or CN to be the cleric of a CG god like Corellon.

[Nilehus]

He's referring to Corellon Larethian.
Who doesn't actually hate Drow, so much as he hates Lolth and all who serve her.
Normally he'd support Salvator''s Ma'ry Suedon.
The version jedipotter has, would be happy to see this enemy of Lolth die because he's a genocidal racist.
Were I a complete sociopath, I'd roll up a LG Cleric of the God of Elves and spend as much time torturing and murdering Drow of all ages, genders and moral outlooks as possible. It's what the Good aligned god would want from his Good aligned Cleric. According to the stuff posted by jedipotter at least.

Keep in mind, this is the same guy who says that Orcus would waste his time talking to a level 1 party instead of, you know, killing them in a round and getting some new undead minions.

So nothing out of the norm here.

[Threadnaught]

Actually, you have to be NG, CG, or CN to be the cleric of a CG god like Corellon.

Okay, I'd be the lovable rogue of a Cleric, like a pious Robin Hood. Except in this case Robin Hood is a fan of torure, rape and murder, as long as victims have dark skin and pointy ears.

Isn't there another thread asking whether genocide of a species fully capable of reasoning and making it's own choices, can be good?


On another note, I'd like to know whether or not jedipotter considers any effort I made in school to increase my chance of passing each exam, by memorizing what was taught. To be cheating.

So yeah, jedi. By learning stuff at school, did I cheat at the exams?

[MirddinEmris]

Okay, I'd be the lovable rogue of a Cleric, like a pious Robin Hood. Except in this case Robin Hood is a fan of torure, rape and murder, as long as victims have dark skin and pointy ears.

Isn't there another thread asking whether genocide of a species fully capable of reasoning and making it's own choices, can be good?

Hmm... I think that when all of his houserules are applied to game we will get some FATAL variant. Or just FATAL.