Talk:Mahina's Character Sheet

I am pretty sure you don't have a +2 quarterstaff, do you? absalom 12:12, 19 June 2011 (EDT)

Druids are not the uber-hierarchical folks they are in other campaign settings, so there is no unified "druidic" language. They are, however, the only class able to learn the language of small mammals (sylvan), so I took the liberty of making the substitution. This is how Trav is able to Rat-a-chat-chat. -gm

Yeah, just something I hadn't cleaned-up yet, but cool about Sylvan alternative. Hero Lab made it by default and I didn't tweak it yet. I need to get domain stuff listed and her companion on here, too. -Mattie

Is the armor Hide or Studded Leather? absalom 13:45, 12 May 2011 (EDT)

Hide armor is what she wants. -Mattie

Also: Dazed flaw, I assume, is what is making up for her having a domain as a druid? -gm

Yeah, this is for the Madness Domain bonus-- she will role-play the madness, too, but I wanted a tangible in-game drawback for something so outside the norm. Flaws are tough to balance... I'm also tempted to tweak noncombatant to be a little more tangible for the casters, too... Like tiny minus to init [battle hesistant] or something added to it. I dunno, seems like an obvious caster flaw, not sure which mage wouldn't take it. -Mattie

I think you mean "her role playing will drive everyone else mad." And, a mage who plans on making touch attacks would not take it, for example, nor would one planning on using Tenser's Transformation, Polymorph, shape change, or any other CasterTank spells. I like to compare flaws to the feats they are flip-siding. In this case, noncombatant is reversing the polarity of Weapon Focus and, by any measurement, the flaw is far more punishing than the feat it is imitating. (-2 penalty with all melee attacks as compared with +1 bonus with one specific weapon). Really, I just look at flaws as sort of anti-feats and balance them accordingly. Whatever the penalty that goes with the feat should be about twice as punishing as the equivalent feat is rewarding. I don't see any problem with flaws being any more of an "obvious" choice than feats, especially since there's 1/10th as many of the former than the latter. absalom 14:59, 12 May 2011 (EDT)

As to the Madness domain, I think it's pretty self-balancing - especially since you made her take a feat for it. Even standing alone, 90% of the time it is a *huge* albatross tied to the divine class' *best* attribute, and thus crippling her strongest saves and virtually entire skill suite, with penalties that get worse - not better - as she progresses. All for a one time auto-success and one extra spell per level on the spell lists. One of the reasons I rely so heavily on Paizo/WotC sources, FWiW, and rarely far less often second guess them, is because I trust them and I can pretty much not lose sleep over balancing them. I can't say the same for things like NetBook of Feats, Compleat Adventurer, Swords and Sorcery, etc. which tend to have feats and abilities that are WAY less thought out and so WAY more prone to abuse. At the end of the day, I think that the overuse of the concept of "broken" in magic to simply meaning "quite good" bleeds through to our metagame. Is there any flaw that is so marginal that I completely throws the game off? Probably not. But, that being said, like you I've VERY leery of allowing characters to have more than one flaw because then it's easy to go from "flavorful and slightly helpful" to "abusive and game disrupting." -gm

She gets the Madness domain in its entirety, not just the ability. The ability I feel is almost self-balanced, but really really makes for spells that scale well forever-- no one else is throwing around 9 Entangles/day that have DC ~26 at 11th level. Yet I'm also granting access to Madness domain spells on her known spell list, so that benefit is kinda outside the norm for druids, but something she is tapping into as part of her own Alice-shares-Wonderland embrace of craziness. The flaw is there to balance out the spell access side of the equation. If it proves in-game to be too crazy (ha) detrimental, then I'll tone it down. I still have a month or so to debate on this, though, so thoughts are welcome. (I didn't make her take a default feat for Madness domain, it's the "bonus feat" in exchange for the flaw.) -Mattie

Heh, it's a good little domain but probably on the other end of "self balancing." Clerics get 2+ as their skill ranks, so the penalty on skill checks is basically making it impossible for them to do something they only do rarely anyway. For the trade off she gets to be unstoppable in what she does all day everyday. All told, the cleric comes out way ahead. I figured she got the spells that come with it on the spell list - does it just add to the list of spells she can memorize (like Evangelist) or does it add +1 slot that can ONLY be filled with it (Like cleric... except when Helen plays and cheats ;) ) In terms of both flavor and power, I'd never even allow it in my campaign outside of an NPC, so I would think that, at the very least, a flaw is an appropriate swap. But, that's from a taste and flavor point of view rather than from a crunchy mechanics balance point of view.

And the former balance consideration doesn't even consider the fact that it's the gain of a class-specific ability by another class. If I was to, say, let Al pick up Rage, then I'd have to think pretty hard on how to balance that from a lot of different angles. -gm

Yeah, ever since you suggested the tantalizing Madness domain idea for her, I've had fun trying to balance it. :) The good news is that she won't abuse it (on purpose ;) ) and she's quite comfortable with the combat flaw which would give me, personally, a lot of pause. I was just going to add the spells to the druid's list as options she can pick, so in theory she could memorize them multiple times if she wants. The madness domain itself eventually gives a good number of extra bonus spells, though. I didn't consider how bad this would be for normal Druid things like Spot, Listen, Survival, though. Those are major Druid strengths and the Madness domain pretty much kills them... Maybe I should just do a "Madness Lite" feat that helps but doesn't throw the entire class dynamic so far off. It would also make my life so much easier in Hero Lab and d20pro... -Mattie

Well, it's self abusing in that it gives Elder Dragon level spell DCs, but I agree, the penalty to will save is a dick-punch of the highest Magnitude (Pop! Pop!) and the penalties to spot and listen are kind of tough, too, and there's really no point in having her with the track skill with a survival in the toilet. It wouldn't really kick in until higher levels, and the penalties would be offset by the wis bonus for a bit, so not exactly in the toilet, but very humdrum. Also to consider that it gives the druid access to Targetable Instant Kill, which is generally something generally denied to the druid class, along with that amazing DC. (notice they get all the cure spells, but not raise dead or slay living) Albeit, not until 11th level, still something to consider since at that point her Phantasmal Killers really will be in the DC 26 range. (10 + Spell Level 6, +5 for 20 Wisdom, +5 for Madness Bonus) Book's will save at that level will be +11, and his fort save will be +5. A PK would have a 70% chance of overcoming the will save and only a 20 could save him on the subsequent fort roll. Level 12 raises it to an 80% chance. That being said, never piss off a cleric with this domain because between PK and Slay Living, they can really ruin your life. -gm

There's nothing stopping you from generating a specific mechanic for her. Check out Arcana Unearthed option rules about introducing a sanity mechanic. -gm