Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Nerre
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Sun Nov 16, 2014 1:49 pm

You are right, I missread something. Missed the part about "1d6 per level of the highest level * spell available". Then I think I got my final spell list.

But I also noticed that only 2nd level or higher can feed the reserve feat fiery burst, so I don't need burning hands, as it is only 1st level, and therefore cannot feed the reserve feat - until you allow it in a house rule.
Depending on that, I either pick Grease or Burning hands for the last 1st level spell slot I think. :)
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Sun Nov 16, 2014 8:26 pm

Hm. I didn't notice previously that the reserve feats won't let you power them with an X lower than their original prerequisite. That's kind of lame and annoying, and I'm very tempted to change it. Perhaps if I put you through a quick pre-game arena battle, see how good you are at exterminating goblins and zombies with just your 1st-level spells, I can decide whether I'm comfortable allowing this. (In case it needs to be said, if you die in this deathmatch, you don't really die in the real game.)
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Mon Nov 17, 2014 1:23 pm

I am fine with it, leaving one fireball uncast is not a high price. 3d6 instead of 7d6 is still not weak. Only thing which might eat up the slots is if I had to fly a lot, but that is why I also picked spider climb, which lasts a long while.
How about I start according to the rules, and if it just won't work, we still could change it (thanks for offering it by the way). :)
On the other hand, I think I prefer Grease to Burning hands, and risk running out of level 3 spell slots. Later I might get more fire spells, then the risk will get less. In case of emergency I can still use level 2 spells and hide myself.

How about this: If no 2nd level spell or higher is available, then I can cast a 1d6 fire attack, like if there would be a level 1 fire spell feeding the reserve feat. Or a 1d3 fire attack, like if there would be a level 0 fire spell (there is only acid and cold in level 0)...
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:48 pm

Alright, just keep in mind that per my ruling, spells do not do anything beneficial they do not explicitly say, while they may have complications which the text fails to specifiy. Thusly, you can't do things like set fire to Grease, sleep in a Rope Trick, or melt an Electricity-immune character's armor with Lightning Bolt in the hopes that he'll take Fire damage from the slag (this is ignoring the fact that your particular character can do Fire damage normally), but I may make spot-rulings like "Pass Without Trace doesn't stop the forest animals from telling the Ranger who speaks Sylvan which way you went" or "Detect Snares and Pits fails to spot the trap, because it's actually a carefully-pruned Assassin vine that's been trained with Handle Animal to pretend it's inanimate, and thus doesn't count as a 'natural' snare."
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
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Nerre
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Tue Nov 18, 2014 1:25 pm

Lets try with grease as the last 1st level and fireball as the last 3rd level with the fire blast reserve. If it doesn't work properly, feel free to change it. :)

Would love to start now with this:
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Tue Nov 18, 2014 4:18 pm

The soonest possible value of "now" is likely this weekend.
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Wed Nov 19, 2014 3:39 am

Thanks, that is perfect, as i already got pen and papee groups both on friday and saturday evening. :)
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:38 am

My apologies, Nerre, but I am not going to be able to provide a game for your sorcerer at this time. If you strongly wish to play D&D, I might be able to run a game for you, but you would need to play a level 1 or 2 character from a non-spellcasting class; that is all I'm going to be able to handle for the forseeable future.
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
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Nerre
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Sun Nov 23, 2014 6:28 am

okay. maybe you can squeeze me into one of the existing games? How about that?
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Sun Nov 23, 2014 9:50 am

Low level, no spells. That's final.
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
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Nerre
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Sun Nov 23, 2014 12:30 pm

so much time spend for creating the char by both of us, in vain. :/

Can you please create me a simple gnoll-fighter? You are much faster than I would be. Preferance on swords and bow, no riding skills. That way you can also make sure the attributes are not too high or low. As feats...maybe some weapon profiencies and basic stuff light improved initiative and better reflexes and such things. :)
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Sun Nov 23, 2014 2:24 pm

You want to be a gnoll? Just so you know, they're absolutely terrible, mechanically speaking. They suffer from 2 racial HD and a level adjustment, and get basically nothing in exchange for this debility. A Catfolk or something would be much better.
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
My long-neglected blog.

Nerre
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Sun Nov 23, 2014 2:33 pm

okay, then a catfolk. :)
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Sun Nov 23, 2014 2:50 pm

Or an Orc. Orcs are probably closer to gnolls, other than in having less fur.
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
My long-neglected blog.

Nerre
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Mon Nov 24, 2014 10:47 am

just something which is good for a fighter and fits to the others...
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Sat Nov 29, 2014 4:49 pm

Alright, this will be a test of my ability to create a high-concept character without access to any of my former resources for the process. We'll see if I can pull it off at all well.

A questionable rules call I'm making here - under normal rules, you cannot take the Knowledge Devotion feat at first level, because its prerequisite is 5 ranks in a skill, which requires you to have 2 HD. In this case, the character is created with 2 HD, so I'm giving her 5 skill ranks in a Knowledge she'd gotten in-class from another feat, and then taking Knowledge Devotion, making another of her Knowledge skills in-class and then spending more skill points. This definitely couldn't be done if she were created with 1 HD using a "monster class", and in general a hardass GM would probably call shenanigans on doing skill and feat selection in this intermixed fashion, since they're separate steps in the character creation process. But as my own GM, I'm invoking my privilege to authorize myself to do it this way, on the basis that a) gnolls are fucking terrible and they need all the help they can get, and b) an interesting character concept shouldn't be prohibited from working just because the rules get in the way. Doing the character legally is still possible, it just would take her to much higher levels before she could get the stuff she's meant to have, and I would rather she had that stuff from the moment she earns her first XP, just because it's essential to her characterization.
(I could have used the Education feat from FRCS/Ghostwalk to get all Knowledge skills, and perhaps I should have, but having settled on this rules-defying but cool setup, I'll stick with it for now.)

Name : "Cloris" (originally more like "Khghlawryx", spoken primarily with the nose)
Race : Yeenagh (Gnoll)
Class : None
ECL : 3
Align : Chaotic Good
Affiliation: None
► Show Spoiler
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You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
My long-neglected blog.

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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Sat Nov 29, 2014 5:22 pm

For comparison, here's Cloris as a "high breed" Yeenagh, or a Flind Gnoll as the RAW calls it. These are MUCH better stats, and I've been strongly tempted to entirely dispose of the normal Gnoll for Whiteleaf in favor of these guys. But ultimately, I think having Gnolls as a thoroughly pathetic NPC-only race is fairly fitting; exceptional individuals should probably default to being "high breed" even if their parents were both "low breed". The only real drawback is that an LA +1 race can quickly dispose of its LA and "catch up" thanks to the "river of XP" effect, while an LA +2 takes much longer removing the LA and may never entirely catch up (plus if you add a template such as Draconic, LA +1 becomes +2, while +2 becomes the basically incurable debility of +3).

Name : "Cloris" (originally more like "Khghlawryx", spoken primarily with the nose)
Race : High Breed Yeenagh (Flind Gnoll)
Class : None
ECL : 4
Align : Chaotic Good
Affiliation: None
► Show Spoiler
► Show Spoiler
► Show Spoiler
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► Show Spoiler
► Show Spoiler
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
My long-neglected blog.

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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Mon Dec 01, 2014 12:25 am

Alright, having created those two nigh-identical characters, I'm going to use them for an experiment (a version of the very one I was working on when I found out I was losing access to my other game site; hopefully I'm not tempting fate by trying it again). It's been said that "XP is a River", and I'm constantly trying to wrap my head around exactly how true that is, trying to prove exactly when a character "catches up" with a lost level due to earning slightly more XP. For today, I'm doing a simple test, similar to the one which made me conclude that LA +1 can be given "free" to a character of level 7 or 8 or so; this test will confirm that observation, as well as letting me check what happens to creatures with higher LAs or with RHD - that last part is where Cloris comes in. The normal Gnoll version of Cloris has LA +1, but her two RHD keep her from being in quite the same place as a character with LA +1 but no HD, such as a Tiefling. For this purpose, I'm renaming the second version, based on Flind Gnoll stats, "Doris"; she has LA +2, similar to a Drow, and again delays two levels because of her RHD, but while LA +1 can be disposed of within 3 levels, LA +2 takes nine to buy off, or six before the "river" starts working at all, so even a 2-level delay really hurts.

For the purpose of this experiment, I will partner Cloris and Doris with three RHD-less characters: Horace the Tiefling, Boris the Drow, and the control character, Norris the human. The "game" starts with all of these characters being built at 6000 XP; this allows Horace to immediately pay 3000 XP and start the game at ECL 3 without his level adjustment, so the "River of XP" would be in effect from day 1 if I pitted the characters against CR 3 or higher challenges. However, since my aim in this experiment is precision, I will be using CR 1 foes exclusively for as long as these are worth any XP at all to the entire party; each of these defeated is worth 300 XP, divided among the characters, so with 5 of them they each get 60 XP. Here's how it plays out:

* When the party has defeated 50 CR 1 creatures, gaining 3000 total XP, Horace levels up to CR 4.
* After 17 more victories, the rest of the party totals 10,020 XP and levels up to ECL 5 (Cloris has two class levels and Doris has one, while Boris has three and Norris has five), while Horace remains at CR 4.
* 50 more kills (117 total), and Horace reaches CR 5, with his compatriots at 13,020 XP and himself 3000 lower as usual.
* The 150th killed creature sets everyone but Horace to an even 15,000 XP, and they become CR 6. (The section on Reducing Level Adjustments in Unearthed Arcana reads as though you have to have more than 15,000 XP to become a level 6 character, but I'll assume this is untrue for the purpose of my experiment.) At this point, Cloris is eligible to perform level buyoff, as she's got three class levels; she pays 5000 XP and becomes (or rather remains) an ECL 5 character, with two RHD and three class levels, while Boris the level 4 Drow, Doris the level 2 Flind, and Norris the level 6 human all rise to ECL 6.
* The 200th victim raises all characters to an even number of experience kilopoints - 18 for the three ECL 6 characters, 13 for Cloris, and 15 for Horace. This means Horace levels up and is now ECL 6 as well, with six character levels just like Norris, who has just a slight head start on the subsequent level.
* The 234th casualty gets Cloris to ECL 6 as well, with 15,040 XP. Horace still has a 2000-XP lead on her and trails the rest of the party by 3000 more.
* The 250th win gives Boris, Norris and Doris a boost into ECL 7. Now is when things really get interesting! Horace remains a 6th-level character, and Cloris has four class levels plus her innate HD, so each continues to get 60 XP per CR 1 creature defeated. However, the others have crossed a threshold; Boris has five class levels plus his drow LA, and Doris has only three, but both of them as well as the level 7 Norris now receive only one-fifth of 263 XP for defeating an EL 1 encounter. (I'm assuming you drop all fractions, even when they're over a half, so each will get 52 XP; it might properly be 53 instead, but hopefully the difference won't be greatly significant.)
* It's a 300th battle which gives Horace enough XP to rise to Character Level (Effective and Otherwise) 7. He will never again know the glory of receiving 60 XP for beating a single orc or something.
* The 334th victory does the same for Cloris. Orcs are officially no longer ever worth 60 XP again, and the party briefly re-becomes a fellowship of equals.
* Kill 385 is a watershed moment for the group; the three leaders are now at 28,020 XP. Boris gains his sixth level, which means it's time for his LA buyoff to begin; he reduces his LA by 1 at the cost of 7,000 XP, and remains an ECL 7 character along with his alphabetical neighbors (we're pretending Horace starts with an A for this experiment's purpose, which is why the odd man out was named Norris, since he clearly doesn't fit the pattern). But Doris's fourth level and Norris's eighth both elevate them to ECL 8, and now an orc is only worth 40 XP to them!
* Casualty 435 - precisely 50 of them since the last eventful occurrence - is where Horace joins the Level 8 Or Its Flindish Equivalent brigade, and drastically reduces his XP-per-Orc payff.
* Upon harvesting her 468th orc, Cloris attains her sixth class level and joins with ECL 8; Boris is now the last character who gains a decent amount of XP from orc extermination. He retains this advantage until after the 520th orc is killed, when he becomes a level 7 character with that pesky +1 LA still lingering on him.
* Having agreed at last that orcs are worth a mere 40 XP each, the party advances in lockstep across the corpses of 65 more of them, and then abruptly finds that the species is now extinct. Doris gains her fifth character level and Norris his ninth; they are now ECL 9 characters, and that means that killing an orc brings them no satisfaction whatsoever! The GM therefore entirely removes the concept of orcs from his heretofore-suspiciously-Tolkienesque universe, and begins having the characters assaulted by Bugbears instead (although, just like the orcs, the bugbears are extremely polite and only ever attack one at a time, never taking advantage of terrain, equipment, or tactics in any fashion which might raise their CR above 2). To these two characters, the Bugbears are worth 45 XP each; the others, however, find them worth a nostalgic 60.
* The bugbear menace proves to be short-lived; only 33 of them needed to be killed before Horace leveled up, then 23 more before Cloris did, and then 34 contributed their 60-XP bounty to Boris alone before he had to give up milking it (becoming level 8 and ECL 9). After those first 90 were cut down, they all started to look alike to each of the five adventurers; after that it was smooth sailing right across the broken bodies of 110 more, and suddenly those that remained opted to take up a lifestyle of peaceful goatherding. This may have had something to do with the attainment of Norris's tenth level, and it suspiciously coincides with the rise of an Ogre threat which remains relevant to the ECL 10 members of the party.
* Now that Doris has six class levels under her belt, she's finally free to begin reducing her level adjustment; paying 9000 XP, she remains ECL 9 (with 20 superfluous XP). The new rash of Ogres marauding the characters' turf are worth 50 XP each to Norris, while to the rest of the level-9 party, they have a combined award of 338 XP, which amounts to 67 (or arguably 68) for each of the four. For the first time, everyone in the party has a different XP total - 45,020 for Norris; a nearly identical but much lower number for Doris; 42,528 for Cloris; a mere 40,990 for Boris, and 43515 for Horace.
* 23 ogres have to die before Horace catches up with Norris; Cloris joins ranks with them after 14 more senseless wastes of ogrish life. Boris waits for the 60th dead ogre to fall in line (becoming level 9 and paying 9000 XP to finally dispose of his LA), and it takes until the 135th before Doris is on board. After that, they continue threshing the creatures like so many stalks of wheat, evenly dividing the 250-XP award among all of their ECL-10 selves, except for Boris who has continued earning 67 for them since well before he ditched his LA. He gives this up only after 60 more pointless and arguably-tragic ogre deaths, and only five more of the creatures need to perish before Norris attains level 11. Naturally, this is when the minotaurs begin to attack instead.
* Each minotaur killed is worth 55 XP to Norris, while the ECL 10 crowd gains a full 20 more from them; the "river of XP" is really flowing now! Horace reaps this reward only 15 times before his original 3000-XP lag is caught up; now he is at 55,031 XP to Norris's 55,845 - just an 812-XP difference, but he won't make any more progress on closing this gap for a loooong damn time. (This experiment is calling my earlier assumption into question - Horace just reached level 11, rather than the 7 or 8 I'd previously cited, and while the gap between him and the never-had-LA character is less than a full level, it is nevertheless somewhat significant-looking. Under normal field conditions, with the characters fighting challenges of their own CR, maybe my thumb-rule is correct; here, though, there are definite cracks showing.)
* Ten more minotaurs die before Cloris catches up, gaining her 9th class level. Doris arrives far later, with a total of 90 minotaur deaths having occurred; this is her rising to ECL 11, which means she has 8 class levels. Just one more to go, and the last point of LA will finally be removed from this entire party! A single battle later, Norris cracks 6000 XP, leaving him still less than halfway to leveling....the minotaurs are in for a long and gruesome season still yet. Boris enjoys his refreshing swim in the river until 130 total victories have occurred against the CR 4 brigade; that means that he gained 2,6000 more XP during this time than Norris did, which is only a drop in the bucket compared to how much he spent to ditch his LA. But nobody ever said being a Drow was easy.
* There were exactly 200 minotaurs abroad in the realm, and when Norris finishes polishing the last one off, he gets to celebrate with his 12th character level (probably the most exciting levelup in any pre-epic non-spellcasting character's career, as it's when you get both a Feat and an Attribute-Up at the same time - if he's a spellcaster then he's got to wait a while before he unlocks higher-grade spells for the last time ever, which obviously is more interesting than any experience a non-mage can ever enjoy). So now, of course, there turns out to be a plague of trolls; these are worth 60 XP each to Norris (boy does that ever make him feel nostalgic!), but the ECL 11 crew gets to take in a whopping 82! (And for the third damn time, there's a .6 left over which makes me think I should have rounded up.)
* As before, it takes little time for Horace to equal his slightly less fiendish relative; just ten trolls had to die. The gap is now just under 600 XP (594 to be exact). Seven more casualties are needed to bring Cloris into the fold (her 18th troll kill leaves her at exactly 66,111 XP), while Doris joins in far later, gaining her ninth class level and paying 11,000 XP to put an end to the whole party's level adjustments, once and for all. That leaves her with 55,035 XP (and for some reason, this is the moment when Google Sheets decides that five-digit numbers need to have a comma at the thousands mark; it makes no such insistence for the other four columns, probably because I never typed a number with more than four digits manually into any of them). As usual, Boris takes a long time catching up (87 total trolls have been 86'ed by this point, whereas only 60 had fallen when Doris first crested the wave of ECL 12 for a brief shining moment); this time, however, he isn't the last member of the party to remain afloat on the River of XP. (He is also, frustratingly, 1 XP short of a round number, with 66,099 XP after killing his first post-levelup troll; since he'll be gaining 60 XP at a time for quite some while, he's going to be stuck with that 9 in the ones column for far longer than is pleasant.)
* The 195th trollicide is Doris's first opportunity to gain an unadjusted level; though her two racial HD will haunt her forever, Cloris doesn't seem to mind all that much, being only 395 XP behind Horace, so Doris figures she'll manage to get along somehow as well. As before, exactly 200 deaths were required to finally end the blight of trollkin upon the land; the party's next scheduled genocide will involve Ettins, and the newly level-13 Norris will get 65 XP for them, while everyone else will at least briefly receive all of 90. (Now all of a sudden all my numbers have commas in them; what the hell, Google? Oh wait, I'm dumb, it's because I copy-pasted. Well, it makes it easier to read, so stet.)
* Ettingeddon proceeds apace, and Horace just falls short of leveling after the 6th one dies (had I rounded up on the 52s and such, he'd definitely have moved ahead sooner here). Cloris needs only to kill four more before she follows suit. Now, Norris has an advantage of just 419 over Horace, who in turn leads Cloris by a mere 295 (again, I think if I'd rounded differently there would be a measurable distinction in this experiment, as Cloris has a 95 for the second time in a row that I've checked, and certainly would have gained more than 5 from my rounding up). It takes until Day 58 of the Ettinpocalypse (they only come out at sunset, you see, and proper dueling ettiquette requires that they appear alone, so never are two seen in a single 24-hour period) before Boris loses his 35-XP-per-victim advantage; Doris retains hers much longer, but eventually 130 ettins have died, and she too reaches ECL 13; seventy more exactly must die while the party receives a uniform 65 XP each, and then they too are gone.
* Yet again, a new monster emerges to take the place of the ones the characters can no longer find, now that they're no fun to kill; let's make it Hill Giants this time. Level 14 Norris gets an unsurprising 70 XP for these, while to the others they're worth 97.6 (god DAMN that .6, I really should have rounded up). Five of these are sufficient to bring Horace into conjunction; he now trails by just 284 XP. Exactly three ettins are killed which are worth 97 to Cloris but only 70 to Horace; after that, the majority of the party pivots from enjoying the River to not.
* The thirty-ninth dead giant gives Boris his 14th level; Doris continues to drink from the River's sweet, bloody waters, trailing by around 5000 XP after Boris and 7000 after the party-leading Norris. She joins the rest with the 87th executed ettin (oh wait, I mean Hill Giant - but that alliteration is too good to correct); Noris is about 6000 ahead of her (I'm sure the truth is somewhere between these two contradicting heuristics), and the party will remain in their 70-XP-per-giant formation for a long time indeed, as Norris is less than halfway to the 105,000 XP needed to attain level 15. As usual, it happens at precisely the 200-kill mark; Doris is still in the quintuple digits at this point.
* Now what do they kill? The pattern to date would suggest either Athaches or Ogre Mages, but I find both options unsatisfying; let's finally bring in some targets that can be killed without any uncomfortable analogies to human death. Blue Slaads will do; they're forces of chaos incarnate and basically the Xenomorphs of D&D, so we can quit stressing our consciences about all the sentient beings we're exterminating (granted, slaadi are still sentient, but not precisely in a humanlike way, and I doubt they themselves especially mind being killed). 75 XP each to Norris and a spectacular triple-digit number to Doris, they begin to die in droves as expected, and only three need to go down before Horace loses his edge, rising to 105,051 with Norris only 194 higher. They're both level 15, and still the gap that was opened at the start of this experiment has not quite closed! Two more Slaads get squished before Cloris levels, then twenty-one more are needed for Boris's sake. If ever I doubted the River's power, those doubts are silenced now - having paid 9000 XP worth of drow tax, Boris is now less than 2000 down compared to the group's human leader.
* The 58th Slaad casualty is the last one which is especially enjoyable to Doris; after that, grinding through them is a chore of equal onerousness to everybody, and no-one is gladder than Norris (who still has 20 XP more than he needs for his level, just as he did when he hit level 5) when the last one goes splat. Frost giants and green slaads are both options for the next 200 opponents which will be cut down with clockwork regularity, but I think I'd rather go with bone devils. Each is worth 80 XP to Norris, and will have a value of 112 (with, of course, a .6 I'm foolishly dropping) to each of the others for a different length of time.
* Horace gets to kill just two devils before leveling; he now trails by exactly 130, and it seems as though it's going to get harder and harder for him to close that almost-insignificant gap. A single additional devil provides Cloris with particular delight, then she too begins to find them mundane to the point of near-irrelevance. (I am really seriously considering changing this table; does a CR 8 provide no challenge at all to a party of double the expected level? I'd think you could do a rapid dropping away, perhaps halving for every level below, rather than an abrupt and complete cut-off.) After that, the slog continues for 14 more fights before beginning to bore Boris, and becomes tedious even to Doris as of the 40th battle, which leaves her at 120,170 to Norris's 123,220 - a 3500 XP difference.
* By now, I'm absolutely certain that the 200-kill count for Norris will never change. Let's use Rakshashas for our CR 10 monsters that are barely a challenge to the level-17 character; he gets 85 XP apiece, and to those who are trailing, the award is a magnificent 120. As easy as 1-2-3, Norris and Horace and Boris all enter the 85-XP bracket on consecutive kills; it takes until the 12th for Boris to start playing along, and Doris rides high on the River's rapids, until 26 tigerish heads have been lopped off of humanlike bodies with inverted hands. That means that 174 of the beasts have to die before the party will become dissimilar again.
* Norris hits level 18. Let's kill nothing but stone golems for a while; those definitely don't have souls, not even ones literally made of pure evil, so definitely no guilt (except for the dumb wizard who spent half his XP crafting them all). He gets 90 XP each, while for Doris they will at least briefly be worth 127. The two runner-ups continue to tag along right after Norris, but Boris only gets a total of 8 boosted awards this time, and Doris only 9 more than that. Equality is beginning to look like the order of the day.
* Norris reaches level 19. Tired of all this clockwork regularity, he commits himself to exterminating exactly ten score of Kolyarut inevitables, and the rest of the crew follows along, gathering 135 XP for a little while before settling into their leader's rut of 95. Inspired by the displays of inhuman precision their foes display, Horace and Cloris level simultaneously after killing the first one, differing only by a trivial 50 XP between them and 1?8 from their leader; only Boris and Doris get multiple 40-XP bonuses, and Boris just gets five of them, compared to Doris's 12 again. Doris now trails Noris by 1,031.
* Norris attains his class's capstone, whatever it is - and so does Horace! Apparently, if you're being as finicky as I am here, it takes exactly until level 20 before LA buyoff has completely paid off, and then only if you had no RHD; Horace is just 18 XP behind (and had the usual lead of 50 over Cloris a moment ago, though after the first demon-kill it falls to just 8 points - she might actually end up ahead of him if they leveled separately one more time), making him a peer to his human counterpart - just in time for my non-epic campaign to end! With 190-thousand-something XP each, these two can presumably become epic characters when they attain 210, but I'm sure I don't want to bother learning epic rules just for the sake of this experiment. So this will have to do it for tonight. For the group's final opponents, which are worth an even hundred XP to Norris and to anyone else who no longer gets and extra 42.6-XP charge out of them, I am tempted by such iconic foes as Beholders, Storm Giants, Iron Golems, Death Slaads, and minimally powerful Liches, but I haven't had a demon on this list yet, so I have to go with Glabrezus. When 200 of these have died, I will finally call this experiment concluded. And I'm tremendously curious whether Doris will have finally caught up.
* Eight demons die before Doris pulls into the phalanx with the other ECL-20 characters; she is left 695 XP behind Norris, and will stay there forever unless this "game" goes epic. The final XP totals as of the 200th demon's death are: Norris 210,020; Horace 210,002; Cloris 209,994; Boris 209,730; and Doris 209,325. Pretty close to even; certainly if starting a game with 21st-level characters, you wouldn't really feel much need to bother leaving three of them non-epic for the first battle or two, just because they enjoy the awesome power of Drow or Gnoll racial bonuses.

Anyone who wishes to inspect the details of this experiment may view the document, which I have delightfully color-coded. I doubtlessly made a few mistakes (besides the rounding thing, I probably also missed one creature-worth of XP on each of the first several characters who bought off LA, before I eventually noticed that the number I was typing in had to be higher than the amount they dropped to, since the sheet failed to include a line specific to when one member loses XP and none of the others gain any - it would have made copy-pasting the formulas more difficult).
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
My long-neglected blog.

Nerre
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Tue Dec 02, 2014 10:13 am

You are crazy! On the other hand, some people even roleplay a candy war and take pictures of it. XD

How long did you work on this? So much input, I am not sure what it should tell me. Even larger LA can be overcome due to lower chars need less XP to advance, and therefore catch up?
:zzz:

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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Tue Dec 02, 2014 7:35 pm

Nerre wrote:How long did you work on this?
This particular iteration only took a few hours, but that was because I'd done a fair bit of the groundwork on an earlier attempt, which also used up pretty much an entire evening.
So much input, I am not sure what it should tell me. Even larger LA can be overcome due to lower chars need less XP to advance, and therefore catch up?
I'm not entirely sure what I proved; I gathered enough data to at least second-guess my earlier conclusion about LA +1 being "free" at mid-levels, so I'll be wanting to test that again. I also at least half-convinced myself that the comparison between the normal Gnoll and the outwardly-better Flind is somewhat fair; I still think the Flind is better for character concepting, but the basic Gnoll has some advantages in terms of actual play.

I still think you should play a new character rather than Cloris...might you have any interest in taking a character who can do a little bit of healing without being a Cleric, while also having at least some amount of combat capability? Contrary to my earlier expectations, I'll be folding you into the level 9 party, which means you'll get six character levels and be well on your way to the seventh. I can do some interesting multiclass stuff with this if you're willing. (Do you have an Alignment preference, by the way?)
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
My long-neglected blog.

Nerre
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Posts: 4876

Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Thu Dec 04, 2014 4:10 am

Hi. Healer with combat skills sounds good. :) can you create a gnoll char with that?
:zzz:

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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Thu Dec 04, 2014 11:16 am

I've come up with a character concept which I think is really cool. I'll need a bunch of time to stat it up fully, but the basic outline is this: three levels in the Incarnate class (from Magic of Incarnum) gets you access to Lifebond Vestments, a Therapeutic Mantle, and Mage's Spectacles. You'll look kind of like a cleric, but the robes and cloak and glasses are all actually projections of solidified life-energy emanating from your very soul, and they give you three interrelated abilities that make you possibly (I haven't done the math) a better healer than a full Cleric. How it works is that the Vestments let you touch another creature to heal them, although you're limited to giving a certain amount of healing in one touch, and can only do this once per hour per creature. At the same time, you take half as much damage as you're curing them of, but that's where the Therapeutic Mantle comes in; it adds to the amount healed by any cure spell cast upon you, and the Mage's Spectacles give you the ability to Use Mystic Device without having to purchase ranks in the skill, so you'll carry a bunch of clerical wands that you'll use to heal yourself, while transferring your lifeforce to others and healing them even more.

Besides the three Incarnate levels, you'll also have at least two levels in a class that gives you a d12 hit die (Knight would work if you're Lawful, otherwise Barbarian is far more appropriate), which combined with a 20 constitution will give you a hit point total in the 80-100 range, and can decant each of those HP as 2 for another person. You'll essentially be a walking Gatorade barrel of healing energy that the rest of the team can tap; you'll also have reasonably decent combat skills and some good armor, so you'll be able to tank for the party and tie opponents up in melee (the Knight has class abilities which specifically limit opponents' ability to just go around you and attack the others; if you go Barbarian instead you'll have to improvise, relying on terrain advantages and such for the same effect). Once you've leveled up enough to become an Incarnate 4, you can replace your physical weapon with an Incarnate Weapon if you so choose, or just get some other soulmeld (most of them give you access to several Skills and bonuses to them, as with the Mages' Spectacles granting Decipher Script, Spellcraft, and Use Magic Device).

Since Incarnum is a very new thing in Whiteleaf (and generally not called Incarnum, or anything else in particular - it's just some mysterious new form of "magic" that nobody really understands), combined with the fact that Gnolls are pretty new to being anything other than a race of marauding murderous monsters, it's entirely possible that you'll be the first Gnoll with Incarnate levels in the entire world. Besides giving you soulmelds, Incarnate also grants you an ability called "Incarnum Radiance", which at high levels you can share with other characters as an aura; a Lawful Incarnate gets a bonus to attack rolls, while if you're Chaos Incarnate, your Speed is boosted (which could make a big difference in your ability to run around the battlefield medicking people). If you go with Chaos, I'll even homebrew you up a special Gnoll Incarnate substitution level, which will try to give you some extra abilities in exchange for those useless Humanoid HD of yours. (I don't mind if you pick Lawful instead, but I can't justify a sublevel in that case, since it'd be more of a divergence from the Gnoll race in general.) You also have the option to be Good or even Evil Incarnate, both of which options would still have you going Barbarian for your extra HP and combat prowess; Good Incarnates get boosted AC, while Evil ones do extra damage.

Since the Gnoll's favored class is Ranger, this is the only class you can "splash"; you might opt to gain a ranger level for a few extra skill points, but I don't know whether it's worth bothering. Since the game is ECL 9, you'll get six class levels, three of them in Incarnate, and be well on your way to gaining a seventh. If you took a Ranger level, your seventh level will need to be of the d12 class; otherwise you'll have three of that already, and your seventh level can be Incarnate 4. I'm not entirely sure what we'll give you for Feats as of yet; the build is likely to be extremely Feat-hungry, and you'll only have three of them prior to level 9, so I'll need to pick carefully.
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
My long-neglected blog.

Nerre
Game Master
Posts: 4876

Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Nerre » Thu Dec 04, 2014 11:43 am

Sounds like fun! :D
:zzz:

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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by willpell » Thu Dec 04, 2014 12:59 pm

Please. Pick. An. Alignment. (It must have exactly one neutral component.)
You either die Chaotic, or you live long enough to see yourself become Lawful.
Glemp wrote:To some extent, you need to be arrogant - without it, you are vulnerable being made someone's tool...for Herbert's sake, have the stubbornness not to submit to what you see instantly, because you can only see some facts at a time.
My long-neglected blog.

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Amara
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Re: Recruitment Thread for Pell's D&D 3.5 Game

Post by Amara » Thu Dec 04, 2014 1:37 pm

Wait, is content from Magic of Incarnum okay, then?
(Since I actually have the physical book sitting in front of me right now...)

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