Particularly if they're a Divine Bard, the variant class in the SRD. Basically identical to bards except they need a minimal amount of wisdom, and they can add any of:
0—create water, cure minor wounds; 1st—detect evil/good/law, protection from evil/good/law; 2nd—consecrate, desecrate, gentle repose; 3rd—magic circle against evil/good/law, prayer; 4th—remove disease, speak with dead, sending; 5th—divination, restoration; 6th—commune, hallow, unhallow, raise dead.
Bonus spells *and* save DCs are still based on Charisma, unlike Favored Souls for example. And since their magic is somehow divine, they're exempt from specifically-arcane spell component requirements. Though that does suck for scrying... Clerics have to use a "font" of holy water, which is unspecified but presumably heavy, whereas arcane spellcasters get to use a portable mirror.
Also, this DND 3.5e rant is probably more appropriate here than in the WTF thread... Basically some generous houseruling leading to crazy power creep, also some whining:
DM has come to the decision that one of the two top damage dealers must die. He's debating between either his full-caster DMPC, who has ended several fights before they even began because he metagames against himself, or the fighter who focuses on being a one-hitter-quitter.
It's probably the fighter. Amongst the DM's various nerfs, he has also set a cap on how many attacks the fighter can get in a round, despite what feats, class abilities, or spells are on him, because he thinks the fighter is too OP. Have I mention that the DMPC is the only full-combat caster? The next best caster is a cleric who only has healing and protection spells. He doesn't like the cleric much either, because they can heal. After that, the next best casters are the paladin and the DMPC bard, who do not have a stellar selection.
The worst part? The DM has stated several times that he's going to steal the fighter's build to use later.
Yeesh that's cringeworthy. In our party the barbarian is a bit overpowered, but only because...
He's technically ECL 18 while we're 14, because the DM decided monster races should only cost the LA. Racial HD are "free", the barbearian still got 4 extra dice of hit points and the the bonus feats though. So basically he spent 2 levels for THREE BAB, +10str, +4Con, and 4 d8 HD. He did get a significant charisma and intelligence penalty, but that doesn't stop him from being the party face - because the *player* is very persuasive (mostly by filibustering until things go his way). The only talky-skill he put any points into was 10 into sense motive... Kinda makes me sore to think about, since my characters have been high-charisma with lots of points in diplomacy and bluff.
His strength is 45 while raging and drugged, and his build is based on having a 20-ft reach and making trip-attacks of opportunity on everything. He also has a sword with a total enchantment level of +11, though 5 points of that are useless "vorpal" (the vast majority of our enemies are undead, and thus immune to beheading).
It feels good to whine about a little, but I wouldn't say it's an actual problem. I mean, I spent most of the last year playing a druid then a cleric, using Book of Exalted Deeds, so I'm hardly in a position to complain. My favored soul (my longest character run) was basically a sorcerer who can heal. Even now that I'm playing a dexterity-based fighter (/dervish/swordsage), I have lots of cool abilities and my scimitars threaten criticals on 14-20. Not only that, but the DM convinced me to add this really questionable thing... "Lightning Mace", which gives me an absolutely free bonus attack every time I threaten a crit. It's questionable because I use scimitars, but he says the warblade level 1 ability lets me swap out the weapon type... I went along with it basically to be competitive with the barbearian.
I do wish we could finally level up, though. We don't use experience, and the DM hasn't given us a level since new years. That's about 15 sessions, and we're still level 14.
Not that that matters to me specifically anymore. My fresh elf dervish character met Lolth (our main quest-giver) yesterday, and now she's a drow. Which means that I have to forgo the next 2 levels *anyway*. It's great fun from a RP perspective, but I didn't get 4 free monster levels out of the deal like soooome characters. *sigh* the things my cleric could have done with 45 wisdom...
Hell, my cleric managed to charm a random human rogue, and we convinced him to join us. Later I recruited him with Leadership as a cohort, and this - human - had a dexterity of 27. Whereas my current elf character spent her 18 on dex for a total of 20. WHINE WHINE WHINE COMPLAIN. It's really fine, my character is essentially a drow ninja who can easily do 100-300 damage in a round with good luck. While tumbling and sword-dancing her way around enemies like an eldar Harlequin (or dark eldar now, I guess).
It's kinda crazy that our wizard is probably the least combat effective party member. And that's considering that he can turn into a 12-headed hydra and has combat reflexes (he doesn't have full casting progression, though. Some transmutation prestige class). I'm not sure whether he can turn into a beholder anymore... I hope so, antimagic-cone vision came in super useful tactically.
I guess in the end we're technically level 14, but we're faced with appropriately deadly challenges. The barbearian practically solo'd an adamantine golem, for example (CR 20, so appropriate 4 level 20 characters, or us 3 level 14 ones). Last session we faced 12 tangle terrors at once, with at least 8 more approaching, and we're... well, we're actually in a bind, but we have a good shot at victory. Hooray for really funky optimization I guess!
Edit: Oh right, another way things were in my favor I guess is that, as a cleric, I used some questionable metamagic (reach-spell), and straight-up miscalculated the spell level, to chain-cast Heal spells using a metamagic rod. Technically that trick is the only reason we survived our first encounter with tangle terrors, since most of the party was literally insane from wisdom damage (being webbed... does that, for some reason). Technically we should have TPK'd there, though I didn't realize until later.
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Topic: Tabletop Roleplaying Games (Read 19558 times)