Initiate of Amaunator (Min/Maxing)

There is a fun little feat called Initiate of Amaunator where you have to become a cleric of this sun god, then "You can spontaneously cast any spell on your spell list that has the fire descriptor."

Nothing states this only applies to divine spells, so it also applies to other classes as well.

Friend, you just read about my new fav one level dip.

Best coupled with the Cloister Cleric, I find that you can dump Fire and Knowledge for the Devotion feats, then keep the Time domain for the Improved Initiative feat. Then follow up with a Wizard or other arcane spellcaster. Suddenly you can ditch any spell for a fire spell of the same level.

Now take the time to buy Energy Substitution (fire). Suddenly, every spell with an energy description can be turned into a fire spell and cast spontaneously. True, spontaneous spells with metamagic are a full-round to cast, but the sheer number of options now available to you are staggering.

Is it OP? Well, it does cost you three feats, and a level dip. Your wizard will never be completely as awesome as a flat out wizard. Plus your damage is now basically fire, the most commonly defended against energy type. You are a very solid caster, but your focus may prove your undoing.

Still, who doesn't love the chance to just watch the world burn?

DM ADVICE: Being a jerk

Some people call me a jerk. Which is true, to some extent. However, that's my job as a DM, and your job as well.

A DM's primary job is to entertain the players.

Let us explore this statement.

1. Your job is not to make the players HAPPY. Your job is to ENTERTAIN. Is a horror movie entertaining? Can be. Is a love story entertaining? Sure. Is an action movie entertaining? It's supposed to be. But these movies have ups and downs. They fill you with dread then remove the dread. A TV series can be entertaining, yet be depressing. I present the TV series Taxi as the prime example. It was a comedy, but not a single episode had a happy ending. They all ending in a way that made you feel "mixed" Sure there was triumph sometimes, but often there was something that made you go, "Errr..." It was entertainment none the less.

2. I use the term PLAYERS, in the plural sense. That means sometimes you make individual players unhappy so that the over all group is happy. This is part of saying "No" to a player. The player might dislike you saying "No", but if you let all the players get away with anything they want, your campaign will become muddled and fall apart. Like a movie that tries to do too many things at once. One player might want to play a fluffy bunny PC, while everyone else wants to play grim-dark sci-fi. It's your job to be the heavy. That's part of being the DM.

3. It's a JOB. Your duty. You have to do this. You aren't playing the game, you are running the game. This is something that often is forgotten. Stop pretending you are playing WITH the players and remember you are running FOR the players. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it's not as fun. Being a DM isn't the same kind of fun as a player's fun. A DM has to enjoy the JOB and just accept that he's not a player.

4. You are the DM. You are the guy in charge of a universe. Let the players be in charge of each other. Don't seek to control them, control everything else. The players will find their own way in the world, you need only present the world to them. Present entertaining things. Don't feel the need to go overboard. Not everything needs to be a fight for the fate of the universe. Saving a lost kitten can be just as fun. Scale does not equal fun. Options and choices are fun. Give the players options and choices. Limit your players' choices based on your campaign setting, not based on a desire to control.

Cubic Combat Theory

I feel the need to clarify cubic combat theory.

It isn't an actual combat system. It's a trick. Like building a memory palace, you establish mental images in your head and reduce everything to cubes. It has nothing to do with the actual game mechanics of D&D 3.5.

One DM might choose to picture all dwarves as medium creatures, but because they are dwarves, they are only 1 cube high. This would be fine and would lead to some DM judgement calls that would be different then if you had then two cubes tall. The cubes exists to give you a frame of reference and make it easier to see how they interact, by eliminating that which is not needed.

For example, I once read a story to my wife who was sick in bed. It was by J.R.R. Tolkien. I spent a half hour reading this tongue twisting account of someone who was walking down to a river. It took three pages. The book went on and on about the history of this ford and the battles and the weapons used there and twelve generations of the people who fought there.

Me? I finally realized I spent a half hour describing someone taking a stroll down to a river.

None of those details were important or relevant to the story, in my opinion. Maybe they were because I said, "Good night" and vowed never to read J.R.R. Tolkien out loud again.

In the game, you might WANT to know every stat that a given cube has, but in practice, you don't have time. It's boring to describe the history of a given object back twelve generations if it's just a damn table and the players want to know how much cover does it give them when they flip it over and hide behind it.

Cubic Combat Theory is about only assigning the bare minimum needed for a given cube to function AS FAR AS CALCULATIONS ARE CONCERNED. When you convert back to "reality" you can go into detail of the twelve generations of highlanders that used to own that table, but in combat, none of that matters. My cubes are not the same as your cubes. In fact, the cubes aren't the same from player to player. Initiative roll 8 and initiative roll 7 may have radically different properties on the same cubes because the player who goes on 8 is a pouncing barbarian and the player on 7 is an evocation specialist wizard.

Don't get bogged down in the details of the cubes, just give the cubes whatever you need at the moment, then move on.

ADVANCED D&D THEORY: Combat Space

Now, D&D in the end is a simulation. We can describe things as they appear in the real world, one person is 5' 3" and another person is 8' 2", but in the end we cannot hope to describe every single nuanced detail when things devolve into combat. So we have normal, every day, running around in a normal appearing "reality", and then we have combat space.

Combat space is a term I use to describe combat in D&D. The term does not exist in any book in the game, but it exists none the less. It exists in every role-playing game to some extent, but is no more self-evident then in D&D 3.5. Now it has long been "proven" that pi equals 4 in D&D, but that is not entirely correct. The fact is that pi CHANGES to 4 when we enter combat space, then returns to 3.14-blah-blah-blah when combat ends. This is a factor of entering a simplified version of "reality" where combat outcomes can be better represented by random number generation and calculation. If we were to actually work things out, we'd need a supercomputer and several weeks, just to calculate the long term change in ambient temperature every time a frickin' fireball went off.

The problem is, this does have unfortunate side effects on reality when you simplify the fundamental laws of physics. Strange things occur, like the classic conundrum of pi becoming 4. Everyone and everything becomes a five foot, by five foot, by five foot cube. As a matter of fact, since adding the third dimension becomes such a hassle, most people simply choose to ignore it entirely in combat space. Now, as a DM, your job is to work in combat space, yet some how convert it back to a "reality" model that the players can understand. So let's understand combat space.

When we go from "reality" to combat space, the world is reduced to 5 foot cubes. These cubes have properties. One cube might have empty space with the property of "terrain". Another cube has "Slope - 2 movement to enter". Perhaps the cube over here has "Medium sized creature - Lower half" whereas the cube above it has "Medium sized creature - upper half". When the medium sized creature cubes try to enter the cube with the slope, and the cubes fail a tumble check, the two Medium Sized cubes collapse into one cube with a new property "Medium Sized Creature - prone" and we must determine if the "Medium Sized Creature - prone" remains in the cube with the slope property or in the cube before it, cube "Empty terrain".

Now, as a DM, looking at the world like this is NOT FUN. There is nothing dramatic or exciting about a series of cubes moving in, on, through, or around each other. Cubes like to bump into each other, attempting to reduce the hit point property of another cube to -10, or sometimes shout, "Screw this noise" and try to sneak into the back room so it can try and put the moves on the cube "Wench - charisma 15". But that IS what D&D combat is.

So, as a DM, your first step is to take reality and turn it into a bunch of cubes WITHOUT THE PLAYERS KNOWING. This is why walls have no width. When you are inside a building and outside a building, there is a five foot cube on both sides that you can move along, even if the wall in between is 2 feet thick. It's just that both cubes share a side with a property that is "Wooden Wall - Hardness: 2, HP: 20". And usually we don't care about that unless someone tries to power attack the wall to burrow through or some such nonsense. The funny thing is, even though we put down grids and put figures on the grid, the players almost never see the cubes. In fact, putting out figurines often helps the players to AVOID seeing the cubes. The power of imagination is a wonderful thing. YOU need to work hard to make sure the players never see the cubes.

You need to see those cubes, however. This is the hard part of combat space. In your head, you must convert things into cubes, perform your calculations, then turn them BACK from cubes into "reality", explain what the players experience, then ask for the next action, where everything turns BACK into cubes, you run your calculations, then the process starts all over again.

The internet may be a series of tubes, but DMing is a series of cubes.

You see, combat space isn't a static place you "enter" until combat is over. Combat space is something you jump into and out of repeatedly. Most DMs understand "combat space" even if they don't have a formal term for it. But few DMs have the skill to rapid fire switch back and forth between "reality" and "combat space" that is needed to properly entertain the players. Speed kills in D&D combat, but taking too long in D&D combat kills the fun. You can stay in combat space for just the NPCs, but every time a player takes an action, you need to come out of combat space and enter "reality". Skimping on this will ruin your player's enjoyment. It might be easier for you to skimp on converting back and forth, but it kills the illusion. Still, sometimes you might need to stay in combat space for a while, because the cubic interaction can get rather intense, and skimping on the calculations can lead to mistakes and mistakes can kill the illusion just as fast. We will address techniques for this in another lesson.

This is why I cannot stress enough to DMs who want to reach the next level of being a DM of D&D 3.0/3.5 to adopt the "Cubic Combat Space" Model. For you, the game is nothing more then a bunch of cubes, but the simplification that comes with viewing the game as a series of cubes makes the process move so much faster as you avoid getting bogged down in details. In fact, I would go so far as to say the game was DESIGNED as a series of cubes, the original creators just never formally came out and said it. Likely for the very same reason I'm telling you never to describe the game to your players in this format. Once you accept the Cubic Combat Model, it's hard to ever see the game the old way again.

For example, take the issue of 'Higher ground". Higher ground is a +1 bonus to hit that is granted to players who have the higher ground. What's higher ground? "Ask the DM" is what the books say, basically. Now YOU are the DM. You have to figure out what's higher ground. If you are a player, you start getting bogged down in minute details like, "Is it one inch? Is it one foot? How about four feet?" Which are all important questions, because jumping into the air is by the foot, and a player wants to JUMP into the air high enough to attack someone in mid jump to gain the +1 "higher ground" advantage.

Well screw me with a chainsaw.

If you are trying to figure this out by looking for an official ruling, you're going to be hosed. If this happens in the middle of a game, you are going to waste hours to find nothing. If you just give benefit of the doubt to the player to speed things up, well, this time it might be okay, but let me assure you, letting a player have their way because you feel rushed is a poor long term strategy for campaign maintenance. So how do we solve this problem? With Cubes!

Reading over the rules, we know that a mounted character has high ground and someone on a table has high ground. What do these two things have in common? Well, when a medium creature mounts a large creature, they combine (like VOLTRON) and become one unit. Well, how high is it? Well, the large creature is two 5 foot cubes high. the medium creature is 2 cubes high. So... 4 cubes? No. The top cube of the mount has the bottom cube of the medium creature sitting on it. These two cubes "mingle" in a fashion, so the over all unit is 3 cubes high.

Now the medium creature jumps on top of a table. The table is 1 cube high. the medium creature is 2 cubes high. The two objects do NOT combine, being one is terrain and one is a unit. So we can assume that the top of the medium creature is now effectively 3 cubes high. We have a pattern. 3 cubes high over 2 cubes high provides a combat advantage of +1.

Wait a sec? What about halfings and small verses medium creatures? Being smaller is often a combat ADVANTAGE!

Ah, but this is the other part of Cubic Combat Theory. You see, the properties of size have nothing to do with ACTUAL size. Small is a property. Being one cube high is not. So while to a player this might seem absolutely INSANE, to a DM, it makes perfect sense. The halfling on the floor has his +1 to hit medium creatures, and the human on the table has his +1 to hit the halfling on the floor. From cubic combat theory, they never interact, because one is a matter of placement of cubes, and the other is a matter of cubic properties.

This is why DMs have DM screens and don't let players see dice rolls.

As a player, if you knew about these conflicting bonuses, you might complain. From a "reality" stand point, they are in conflict. "How can short be an advantage, but being up high be an advantage, too?" They might ask. The very act of explaining it will ruin the illusion you are trying to build. Player enjoyment DEPENDS on the illusion, so you have to keep the calculations from them, so they don't go, "What the...?"  On the other hand, most players don't WANT to see the calculations. They want to leap through the air and swashbuckle like Errol Flynn on a table fighting a horde of evil Halfling assassins.

So remember it's a tool. You convert things to cubes, calculate, then convert back as quickly as possible. Describe the situation in flowing descriptive words to buy yourself some time so you can work out the next cubic interaction with as little down time as possible, and move onto the next. When you get the hang of it, it'll move quite smoothly.

How high DO You need to jump?
Assuming round up, round down, anything 2.5 feet high is a full cube in height and anything less then that is a terrain modification, the player would need to jump 3 feet into the air to gain a "higher ground" advantage, or make a DC 12 jump check as a move action. However, since he is jumping up 3 feet, then ending his move, and attacking, he is falling 3 feet as a free action at the end of his turn. Which means he then needs to make a DC 5 jump check or fall prone. Normally not an issue, but on rough terrain or a grease spell, it could become problematic.

Wait a sec... hop up is as "high as my waist" and a DC 10 check.

Hop up has an object you are landing on. Jumping 3 feet into the air does not, thus the 2 points difference in DC.

Advanced Game Mastering Tips: Fake It ‘Til You Make It.

 

So at some point you are going to have to create something on the fly. A lot of amateur DMs get flustered when the players suddenly turn left, leap off a cliff, murder the king, or do any one of a million things that you weren’t expecting any sane person to do. Well let me tell you about the GM’s Little Friend.

You see, every role playing game in existence boils down to percentages. The chance of success, the chance of failure. If you can determine the chance of success of failure, you don’t need any rules, or stats, or anything. All you have to do is roll the dice, then determine the outcome. When in doubt, go with the averages. Now there are three ways to roll the dice, and I will explain them. There is the 1d20, the 1d100, and the 3d34-2. That last one is a little complicated.

A d20 is really a percentile dice in 5% increments. It lends itself well to High fantasy games because anyone has a 5% chance to hit. It’s quite possible to get very lucky with a d20, hence why it’s a good choice for games like D&D.

The 1d100, or percentile, is a bit more realistic. You only succeed automatically 1% of the time. That’s still rather high in some situations, but it makes it much less likely that someone can stumble through an encounter by sheer luck alone.

The 1d34 is a strange die that looks somewhat like a top. You roll three of them, add them together, then subtract 2. You’re better off programming an automatic roller on your computer. This produces a number between 1 and 100, but it’s on a bell curve. The statistical averages keep the numbers somewhere in the 30 to 70 range. The chance of getting a 100 is .0025%, or 1 out of 39304 rolls. This sort of random number generator is great for people who want to simulate the real world. Life is usually on a bell curve. Linear random number generation tends to lead to some strange outcomes, but a bell curve is… normal.

With this in mind, you need to think about which one is more like your play style. High fantasy, low fantasy, or realistic. Once you pick, then you can easily learn to deal with strange situations on the fly.

If something would automatically fail, it fails.

If something would automatically succeed, it succeeds

If there is a slight chance of failure, on a 1 it fails.

If there is a slight chance of success, only the highest result on the die is success (20 or 100)

If it isn’t one of those four, you only have to figure out what percentage chance of success is, then roll the dice. If you are using a d20, pick a number between 2 and 19. Otherwise, 2 to 99. Once you pick the number, WRITE IT DOWN. I cannot stress this enough. Write it down and what it’s for. Reuse it if it comes up again.

For example, if you are creating a monster on the fly and you are trying to figure out if he can hit the PCs, work out the chance of success, write it down, then roll, and live with it. Only roll your randomizer once. That’s the hard part. Living with the roll. All too often you roll the die and wince a little and say, “Errg… it’s a 99, I know I said only a 100 succeeds, but…” If you find yourself on the fence, consider a degree of failure, or an “almost” success. Or a victory with a price.

A DM has to create the illusion that he's impartial and fair, that he's playing by the rules, but the thing is, the players have no way to figure that out. We have hundreds of rulebooks, and we look at them. We make faces and contemplative noises. Why wouldn’t you just figure out the rules and use them? What does all this have to do with running?

Time Management

You need to know the nature of the game. It's TRUE nature. You need to strip away everything that is holding you back. You need to see past the rules to the intent, creating shifting conditions of success, failure, and result. In the end, if the players believe in you, all you need is one d20 and a whole lot a chutzpah. If you find yourself bogged down in reading rulebooks and trying to determine every possible outcome, the game lags, and player enjoyment drops. Sometimes you just need to do calculations in your head, go with your gut, take a guess, and figure that the player has a 15% chance of leaping off a roof onto a moving train.

After the game, go back and try and figure out what really should have happened and plan to use it next time. Because sometimes you just need to fake ‘til you make it.

Standarized Combat Opening (DM Advice)

So combat is about to begin. For you, combat's been a bitch and you want to speed things up without just completely taking it over. May I suggest getting a little chart of the following with just the bonuses for each player:

Initiative
Spot Checks
Listen Checks
Knowledge Checks (Each One Individually)

Now have each player roll ONE 1d20. That's it. No need to add anything to it, just give me a 1d20, because combat is starting. Then using the same roll, go down the list for each person.

Initiative is order.
Spot Checks give you a good idea what they see.
Listen checks give you a good idea what they hear.
The knowledge check gives you a good idea how you should describe the critters they are facing. The guy with the high Arcane roll will know more about the magical beast then the guy without.

Now, it is rather brutal leaving it up to one die roll, but on the other hand, it makes it go faster and it makes the start of combat just that much more lucky. The guy who rolled the  20 knows all, and the guy who rolled a 1 just can't put two and two together. By simplifying the combat this way, you make things run smoother for you and the players, and don't have to spend ten minutes just figuring out every minute detail.

NOOB TRAP: Avoiding Information (Player Advice)

I know I said scouting is bad, but there is the other side of that, which is NOT gathering information. I’m not just talking the rogue wandering the city, but asking questions, pointing out you have knowledge skills and want to roll them so you know what you are fighting, asking the other players what they can do and how they do it and what you can do to help them and what they can do to help you. It means not working out combat maneuvers ahead of time. It means no planning, no rumors, and just barreling head long at the problem. It means not asking what’s going on.

You have to ask questions in character and out of character if you are going to learn.

About Gold (DM Advice)

I tried to rationalize the cost of gold and magic items once. Here's what I came up with:

About X years ago a wizard was making a magic item and said, "ya know, I wonder why it always takes up EXACTLY the same amount of THIS material, and yet the same amount of THIS material.

I wonder what a single unit of magic is.

So after some research he came up with what turned out to be, The Gold Piece. The single unit of magic. Turns out you can directly melt down gold for magic and same with most "valuable" materials. Then he did a bit more work, hired some people to "adventure" and measured them over the years and took samples and used spells and eventually discovered the XP as well.

Well, gosh darn it if the guy didn't want to publish his life's work.

Suddenly wizards, clerics, everyone really, was figuring out EXACTLY how much it took to make a given potion, or a +2 sword. In fact, some other wizards worked off of HIS calculations and discovered what a +1 actually WAS. Well, after a few short years this info trickled down to the merchants who learned how much they were being ripped off.

I paid HOW MUCH for a plus +1 dagger and it only cost WHAT???

Well, being a free market people started taking business elsewhere. Low level apprentices started under cutting higher level wizards. Suddenly there was a rebound. For a short few years there, you could actually buy some magic items for less then the cost to create them.

Well, that didn't last long. I might be a holy crusader and you might be an evil necromancer, but we each got bills to pay. And so an informal "agreement" was made. It was never written down, it was never made into a treaty or anything so formal. There was no single date. It just sort of... slid into the current state of affairs.

Magic items are made for X GP and X/25 xp and sold for 2X. Originally it was a compromise that just was "common" sense. Then it became tradition. And now it's just how things are done. Oh, from time to time you get someone who gouges the prices or someone who floods the market, but that doesn't happen often. Why?

Because GOLD ITSELF IS MAGIC.

And it's a magical world. Since the value of gold is not based on rarity, but on the actual usefulness of the material itself.

If you flood the market with a million gold pieces in the real world, inflation goes crazy. If you flood the market in the fantasy world, a great deal of the gold becomes stock piled in wizards's towers/cleric's churches/dragon's hoards. What isn't stockpiled is used to make or trade for materials to make magic and actually leaves the supply FOREVER.

Now, there's only so much gold, and gold's heavy and gold isn't that effective for making magic. Wizards usually use something else when actually making items. A healing potion made from gold is kinda hard to carry around on an adventure. Still, gold is useful as a means of trade and works just fine when its used as lubrication in the gears of commerce.

So why is there Magic Mart? Why are the prices fixed and inflation never gets out of control? Because unlike the real world where money isn't backed by anything, the money in the fantasy setting is. You can't eat money. You can't wear it. You can't live in it. Our money in the real world is a form of faith, even gold, silver, and other "hedge" forms of investment. You can't eat those.

But in D&D, you CAN make a house out of a gem. You CAN make food out of gold. You CAN wear silver. And it always takes the same amount of gold/silver/gemstone dust/whatever.

And since everyone knows what a unit of magic is, and what an experience point is, and what a +1 is and what a level is, they know the "value" of a magic item, and thus, the price, is usually the same wherever you go.

So the next time your player starts complaining that the economy doesn't make sense, have him read this then tell him, "it's called game balance." and move on.

NOOB TRAPS: Splitting The Party (Player Advice)

Splitting Up The Party/Scouting/Being the Lone Assassin/Being the “Protagonist”

A problem noobs run into is what I call TV Blinders. You see a character on TV and want to play him, which is okay, except most TV characters don’t work on a team. Most protagonists wind up doing things alone while the rest of the cast is in a supporting role, or off camera entirely. So when you split up the party, run off as the scout, set yourself up as a lone assassin to kill the bad guy, or in general do anything that leaves everyone else sitting around for hours waiting for a chance to do something, you suck.

Not only do you suck, but everyone else will hate you, even if you do succeed in assassinating the Big Bad. Especially if you succeed and hog all the XP. That’s not to say that scouting sucks, but as a noob, avoid any concept, any tactic, or any power combo that involves going into another room and making the DM run back and forth to run the game.

That said, I’ve run sessions for only one player, but that’s was separate from my normal weekly game session. But that is up to your DM and his gaming style and how much time he has free to devote to the game.

NOOB TRAP: Everything has to be awesome (Player Advice)

Borderlands illustrates this absolutely perfectly for me. For those who are not familiar with it, it includes a weapon drop system that is randomized based on the power and type of creature that you kill, as well as the area in which you kill it. This leads to a phenomenon that most people who play the game are familiar with. You end up collecting terrible weapons that you wouldn't use even at 10 levels lower dropping from enemies at a frequent rate, weapons that you used to use at an uncommon rate, and then a new weapon to use every couple levels, or what seems like 15 bajillion hours later. People hated this (at least, people I knew), because, well, you just killed a boss, and he dropped some crap weapon that you can't use, they wanted something interesting dropping every time. While that makes sense from a player's standpoint, it's a horrible idea from a developer's standpoint. Those crap weapons need to exist to make the good weapons actually be good. If you constantly got better weapons (or even good weapons) you would end up with vastly overpowered weapons halfway through the game, and it would just not be fun. Not only that, but the choice would be hard, and people don't like that. And finally, it would make all of the guns seem the same (at least guns of a certain type). Does that last one sound familiar?

The reason so many guns were worthless was a mathematical certainty. If you have a good gun, then you have three options on any weapon drop: a better gun, the same gun, or a weaker gun. If there's a finite limit to power (which there is), then you will eventually run out of better guns, and every gun will be as good or worse. It's just a matter of how fast that happens. The slower you go, the more bad guns you'll experience on the way to the best, the faster you go the more time you'll spend with the best (making encounters too easy if you get better guns faster than you need them). And there's always room for complaint here because of it, since the balance is a subjective thing.

That same principle applies to D&D, though for a slightly different reason. In D&D, you have so many options that the likelihood of it not being a good option increases with each new system you add. Heck, each new tiny little ability (skill use, feat, etc.). It's a matter of complexity, it's so complex that it's absolutely impossible for any one person to look at every reaction and say "yup, that's going to affect this in this precise way". You can whine and such about how the core game is poorly balanced, but knowing what they knew then, it was balanced. Knowing what they know now, it's not. That's why ToB came out. And the classes like Beguiler, Warmage, Dread Necromancer, Binder, Incarnum, etc. The later you go into a system's development, the more reasonable the abilities become (note the balance and design on early supplements and core vs later supplements). And it's still really hard, because there's still combinations that they don't think of checking for.

So not every character has to be awesome. It’s okay to be okay. Sure, the game has a I-WIN mentality, but if you fit in with the group, then it’s okay to be average. And if you want to be the best, be the best, but don’t force everyone else to be the best right along with you. Every player is different and if you want to get people to improve, focus on talking about it in a friendly way, “Hey, ya know, if we work out your buffs ahead of time, we can really improve our chances of survival.” That’s a good way to put it. Ordering the Wizard to set aside certain slots for buffs, that you “need” because the combo is perfect with your X, will only make people want to strangle you.

Friends Don't Let Friends Play Apostle of Peace (DM Advice)

Okay, so there is this feat called VoP, or vow of poverty. If you've been around for a while, it's one of the ultimate "hamstring yourself" feats out there. The feat is horrible from a min-max point of view, but what's worse, it usually winds up harming the party indirectly, as you simply cannot carry your weight. It's written to appear seductive to the untrained eye. Some people just like to take it for the challenge.

Then there is the PrC Apostle of Peace.

This takes VoP and puts it on steroids. It actively causes issues with the rest of the party. Unless it's a group where everyone is going to agree to suck it up, it's a bad idea. In fact, there have been reported cases of people murdering the AoP just to get rid of them and move on. How bad does a class have to be screwing over your party just by being in it that you have to kill them ICly just to get rid of them? Me? I would have fired them.

"Uhh... Yes. Well. You see... We've been looking over the budget and we've had to make some cut backs. We simply cannot afford you in the party any more. Since you have that vow of nonviolence we know you won't do anything about it, so we're firing you, keeping your stuff, and we're going to go murder a whole bunch of people and take their stuff as well. Not much you can do about it, since you suck, and all. So... well. As far as exit interviews go, this has gone nicely. Please don't use us as a reference."

So do your game a favor and just ban this class right off the bat and avoid the hard feelings that are bound to come with allowing a player to play this Trojan Horse of a PrC. Friends don't let friends play Apostle of Peace.

NOOB TRAP: Self-nerfing (Player Advice)

The ugly truth of D&D is that 94% of everything sucks, 5% of everything is so awesome as to give the DM seizures, and that leaves 1% that is actually fairly balanced. I’m serious. See, as the game evolved, the developers got better at game balance. So the fairly balanced classes and feats and spells came late in the edition’s life cycle. That often means that if you want to get rid of the unbalanced crap, you’d be better off banning core. That’s right, the game works better if you get rid of most of the main rule books.

Well, that’s the DM’s job. He’s the one to figure out what’s balanced and what isn’t and what he can handle, and what’s out of control. It isn’t your job to limit yourself. It also isn’t a war. You are not trying to make the DM cry. You are not trying to stealth the ultimate combo past him. Talk to him. Lay out your plans. Ask for the combo of powers you want and let the DM decide if you are Son-Of-Pun-Pun, or if you’ll fit in the campaign.

Now, if your DM shuts down EVERYTHING you do, there are two possibilities. You are a twink and a powergamer or your DM is a dick. The solution is third party arbitration. Bring in the other players and point out the two options. Ask which one it is. Remember, the one constant thing is all your failed relationships is you.

MURDER YOUR PLAYERS AS HARD AS YOU CAN (DM advice)

Now, some people don't understand what I mean when I say this. Basically it can be summed up like this. You are the DM. You have a duty to try to murder your players to the best of your ability. You shouldn't create one sided encounters the players cannot win. You shouldn't tell them that "Rocks Fall. Everyone Dies." What you should do is play the NPCs to the best of their ability. If the NPCs are dumb as a box of rocks, they can make tactical mistakes and the players can run rings around them. But if he's got an Int of 34, he'd better have some sweet contingency plans ready.

It's murder them as hard as you CAN. As in, ability, given the limitations imposed on you by the scenario you have created and the limits of the rules. More then anyone, you need to come down on yourself as hard as possible to keep yourself in line. If a PC can't get away with something, you sure as heck shouldn't either. By working hard to murder them, but making sure to keep yourself in check by sticking with the framework of the rules, you know that the players are succeeding, or failing, on their own.

It's a poorly kept secret that most DMs are actively rooting for the players to win. We want them to have an epic journey and have fun overcoming horrible odds to save the day. But if you just let them win, the victory means nothing. So you owe it to the players, and to yourself, to murder them as hard as you can.

NOOB TRAPS: Not making a character to fit the campaign. (Player Advice)

I run a campaign which by anyone else’s standards is stingy and slow advancement. Players are normally below WBL, but a few times they exceeded it slightly. I track inherent bonuses against WBL. No magic mart. If you have a charisma of 6, chances of you finding some place to sell your magic items is next to nil. Hell, my players still bitch about the epic shit-fest they had to go through to acquire a stinking handy haversack. Advancement is slow as well. However, I run every Thursday for upwards of 8 to 12 hours. 50 weeks a year, going on year 8.

One of my players started playing with another group on Fridays. He went on and on about how awesome it was to start out at 10th and that advancement was one level a session and he had everything planned out for the next 10 levels. Then he discovered it didn’t matter what treasure the monsters had, because you could only have EXACTLY what your WBL allowed you to have. Also, you could have any magic item in the book just by going to town and buying it, so the other players had the most powerful magic items they could get for the money. He planned poorly, apparently.

Then after three sessions the DM got bored with running and wanted someone else to run. When he finally got back around to wanting to run again, he wanted to start a new campaign with new PCs.

My player went into that game with the idea that he was going to be able to play for another 10 levels. He built his PC around that idea. He was used to playing with me, where you can plan out the next 20 levels and know that I’m going to be here, every single week. The players in the other game were used to only having a few sessions then discarding the PC, so they planned short term.

Is one way better then another? No. I have a preference, but one is not better then the other. What’s important is to understand what to expect long term. Are we starting at 1st? How easy is it to get new magic items? How strict is the Wealth By Level enforced? Are we playing until we defeat the X? Is this an open ended campaign? What level should I expect to reach?

If it’s going to be a short run, plan your PC accordingly. Planning on being the Uber-Mage at level 15 means nothing if you never make it past level 8. Making the ultimate level 5 character means nothing if he has no room to grow and the campaign is going to last years.

In other words, the first trap is planning too much, or not enough, for the campaign you are playing in

Welcome to the Game

Hello, I finally broke down and stepped into the twenty first century. I figured if I was going to embrace this little project of mine, I should take it to the