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>3e Resource Index Version 2024-04-17
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/92491374/#92530275
Previous thread: >>95691989
Thread Question: What's the one session you still think back on years later?

>>95816384 (OP)
>TQ
That time the party devolved into PvP, when the vow of poverty monk argued against a decision made by the sorcerer (who was going through a personal arc and was considering worshipping nerull in a more active way) regarding a captured prisoner. The sorcerer decided to initiate by casting something at the monk, who shrugged it off easily and started a grapple against him. At that point the party druid stepped in by shaping into a gargantuan gorilla to try and take control of the grapple, so as to keep both of them in timeout, but VoP proved to be as busted as its reputation said it was since he managed to avoid the druid's attempt, turn it into a one-handed grapple in his favour AGAINST A GARGANTUAN GORILLA WHILST MAINTAINING A GRAPPLE WITH THE SORCERER, THEN THREW THE DRUID AWAY
After that the sorcerer tried to teleport away, passed the check but was still grappled so the monk allowed to be TP'd with him, and the DM managed a side scene between the two of them, the passed out prisoner that was the reason the argument started, and (small) divine intervention between the characters' deities

Long story short the monk got left there and the player made a new char, and the sorcerer came back with a sick-ass scythe
>>95816230
Helm of Telepathy is 27k gold, and since it's a wondrous item a dragon can equip it

>>95816384 (OP)
>What's the one session you still think back on years later?
I'm always a little envious of people who've been playing for long enough to have such memories.
For now, when my character got resurrected, some dark force manifesting as tendrils tried to take a hold of his soul, and his supposedly dead deity saved his soul and allowed hi to resurrect properly.
He's had a mark on his body ever since that he's yet to figure out what it means.

>>95816593
I didn't know you could just choose to tag along with a teleporting creature regardless of who the caster was targeting to teleport. I thought you had to be intentionally included as a target when the spell was cast.

>>95816374
Oh yeah, that was a thing wasn't it?

>>95816593
>Helm of Telepathy
I suppose that would work.
Are there more innate/inherent options that don't rely on equipment or temporary effects?
Ideally it would be literal telepathy, but from the little research I did, that seems quite hard to acquire.

>>95816384 (OP)
>Robert J Schwaib
What does Shadow of the Demon Lord/Weird Wizard look like from the perspective of a 3.5e player?
I understand a character gets several classes as it levels up, but what about the rest? Does it have anything like skills, feats, spell slots?
Basically, how is it similar and how is it different?
The people I play 5e with from time to time expressed their dissatisfaction with the lack of classes in 5e, but I know that 3.5e is a little too much for most of them as of now. Maybe having something between 5e and 3.5e when it comes to sheer number of character options would be a good step.

>>95816593
>VoP proved to be as busted as its reputation said it was
People have done the math and the benefits of VoP are below Wealth by Level. Actually a lot of this sounds suspect...

>At that point the party druid stepped in by shaping into a gargantuan gorilla to try and take control of the grapple,
There is no Gargantuan gorilla in the game. Heck the only Huge gorilla in the game is an Outsider with 21 HD, meaning a druid can't turn into one. Even if your DM decided to buff druids(?!) by houseruling that they can turn into advanced animals, no gorilla grows beyond Large size through advancement.

>He managed to avoid the druid's attempt, turn it into a one-handed grapple in his favour AGAINST A GARGANTUAN GORILLA WHILST MAINTAINING A GRAPPLE WITH THE SORCERER
Performing a one-handed grapple is only possible if you have the Improved Grab ability, which typically requires a monster race (or a lizardfolk/skarn/etc. with Scaled Horror levels), inflicts a -20 penalty on grapple checks... and only works on creatures smaller than you.
In fact grappling in general doesn't work on creatures more than one size larger than you, meaning the monk could not have grappled the druid unless they'd actually wildshaped into a CR 2 ape or CR 3 dire ape. Even assuming the druid was only lv8 (when Large forms come online), those are both shit at grappling compared to even a bear or something.

>THEN THREW THE DRUID AWAY
This implies that the monk had the Fling Enemy feat, which requires being either a goliath or a giant. And also requires the opponent's weight to be under your maximum load. Given that a Large ape weighs 300 to 400 lbs, the druid would weigh 64x that (19,200 to 25,600 lbs).
Having a maximum load of 19,200 lbs, even taking the goliath's doubled carrying capacity into account, would require a Strength score of 43+. Even assuming the goliath is ECL 20, the highest Str they could have is 34 (rolled 18, +4 racial, +4 milestones, +8 VoP).

>>95816384 (OP)
>TQ
(Part 1 of 2)
The first session on our live table, in the very first "real" campaign I played (real as in the DM had miniatures, terrain tiles, and a PC running music). I’d done some mini-stories online with friends before, but all were minimum-effort. This was pre-COVID, around 2018.
Session 1 was me (Fighter Guy Mercenary, bite me) and 2 other players: a 5e refugee playing his homebrew dragonborn barbarian, and the DM's friend who had zero D&D experience — he played a Chaotic Stupid “magic drug” junkie monk (yes, somehow a monk, and the DM was okay with it).
We were wandering a city the day before a Blood Moon festival that happens every 25 years or so. I was in town as a caravan guard during a pit stop. I met the other two at a tavern (yeah), and was convinced to follow them around for "reasons" (aka the DM said so).
The Barbarian visited the Mage Academy (his thing was wanting to become a magic barbarian or something), then they followed me while I started digging into Blood Moon festival lore (the monk did fuck-all). Nothing too special — just “every 25 years the moon turns red, tied to some big-name Goddess, yadda yadda.” We mostly just hung out with locals and gathered plot hooks.
Three hours into the session, it’s the night before the festival. No real “adventuring” yet — just city life and MMO-style chores. I end up deciding my character will stay in the city to be part of the Barbarian’s Three Stooges act (shrug).
Festival time. Everyone’s in masks, dancing. We’re escorting a noble girl as bodyguards. Barbarian tells me to kindly fuck off so he can flirt with the NPC. I comply like the “introvert in the corner” meme. In my defense, I was expecting some excuse plot for a 3.5e low-level crawl — now we’re four hours in (five with the break).
DM tells me I see a woman on top of a tall building. She looks like she’s about to jump. Nobody else sees her.
I rush over. She’s basically a ghost.

>>95819729
(Part 2 of 2)
DM says I recognize her as the “Daughter of Death” from that one obscure prophecy — the one saying the world ends with the coming of a red moon.
She jumps.
Everything goes fucking dark — like Silent Hill 1 Otherworld is loading in. Moon and stars vanish. Only torchlight works.
We panic. People are disappearing in the dark.
DM flat-out tells the monk (who has been doing fuck-all, I repeat): “Something snatches you in the dark and you are no more.”
Barbarian and I run to the holy church we visited earlier. He dies trying to bring the noble girl with him.
I make it. Only the head priest, a few acolytes, and some terrified civilians are left.
We barricade doors, windows — the whole place.
Then… daybreak.
We weren’t expecting daybreak.
We head out. The city is silent. Empty.
My character leans against a wall and collapses with a thousand-yard stare.
That was Session 1. The other two players didn’t bother making new characters and just left the campaign.
Session 2, another guy joins — also a DM friend. He’s a novice wizard who came to the city to study at the Mage Academy. Finds it in ruins. Finds an exhausted fighter with a thousand-yard stare in the rubble.
The actual premise: it’s the end of days. Entire cities (and later, whole regions) are devoured by the darkness SH1-style every night.

>>95819263
>People have done the math and the benefits of VoP are below Wealth by Level.
Having done the numbers myself, getting the same raw +numbers is in fact "usually" more expensive than WBL would be. The issue is that [Exalted] feats do not remotely make up for losing utility items.

>Performing a one-handed grapple is only possible if you have the Improved Grab ability
Or the Scorpion's Grasp feat from Sandstorm, which has slight functional differences from Improved Grab to assist in use alongside weapons. Correct on the size issue, though.

>This implies that the monk had the Fling Enemy feat
Or Setting Sun Maneuvers that technically use Trip attempts, also constrained by size.

>>95809939

Wait Sarlona has an average level of 15 for important figures?

>>95819263
>Actually a lot of this sounds suspect...
Or that the DM is not an A.I Model made to perfectly simulate the 3.5e System to a tee.
>There is no Gargantuan gorilla in the game.
Unless the DM allows it.
>Performing a one-handed grapple is only possible if you have the Improved Grab ability.
Unless the DM went with rule of cool, which happens if you play in an actual session and not a 1:1 theorycrafting simulation.
>This implies that the monk had the Fling Enemy feat.
Or that the DM allowed it.

>>95819747
This is only true for Monks and only because their methods of getting armor and enhancement bonuses are overcharged to hell and back. Going after the bonuses directly on everyone else comes out to about 34k at level 10, leaving you with 15k to spend on other things.

>>95816752
You do.

>>95816593
Why the fuck would you try to grapple someone with perma Freedom of Movement only removed in AMFs because the feat itself is (Su)? Fucking hell, you need an epic feat to even turn into something gargantuan, what was the sorcerer even doing, while lacking FoM himself. Everything about this story is retarded.

>>95819906
No, it comes from a bunch of the "frills" being hideously expensive and poor choices of scaling it. Getting +4 AC with no maximum Dexterity bonus and 0% Arcane Spell Failure is a remarkably expensive floor. And there's similar surcharges on Druids trying to keep such bonuses in Wild Shape.

>>95819874
The problem isn't powering up players through houserules. The problem is using houserules as evidence that Vow of Poverty is broken.

>>95819263
>>95820040
I like how you people assume that anyone that plays 3.5e at this point has:
>Encyclopedic Knowledge of all the intricacies of the system.
>Consults 3 different forum posts before he makes his character.
>Is expected to play his class like a videogamer doing speedruns.
>This somehow automatically extends to the DM.
>The DM automatically knows, like a 6th sense, when something is not RAW or as per the SRD.
>Everyone prepares for a campaign as if they are organizing a high-tier WOW raid.
>Doesn't play D&D with friends just to 'have fun' instead of participating in competitive theorycrafting death matches with a DM.
>Homebrew does not exist, never existed, and nobody ever uses Homebrew at their table ever, for no reason, period.

>>95820155
You don't need encyclopedic knowledge of 3.5 to know what you can and can't turn into, how an important spell you've known how to cast for god knows how long works, how another important spell you've known how to cast for god knows how long works, how borderline impossible throwing something 3 size categories above you is, and that your party member has perma-Freedom of Movement, and what you shouldn't cast against an enemy with high saves and Evasion, mediocre SR, good touch AC, and Freedom of Movement.

>>95820155
I'm not assuming that.
You said that the monk could throw around Gargantuan creatures because they had VoP, and I'm telling you no it was because of your DM. I'm not going to claim something like that without proof.
I never said the DM was *wrong* to use houserules, in fact if a player came to me with a VoP grappler monk I'd probably give them similar buffs myself.

>>95820014
I can think of two ways to hijack a teleport, one is a Hellbreaker class feature and the other is the Spell Stowaway epic feat. But the feat only works on one specific spell, and picking Time Stop is cooler.

>>95820040
They only get permanent FoM at high levels, I'm guessing it was lower than that and the "Gargantuan gorilla" was a dire ape

It's been a hot minute since I played or looked at 3rd edition, but I was thinking about playing around with it again. Anyone have suggestions for modules they really like that I could check out?

A while back I found some guy's personal website where he had copies of all of the Living Greyhawk and organized play adventures from D&D 3rd and 3.5th edition. I had begun to sort through them and was going to download them, but never got around to it.
So, the other day I went back and tried to enter the website again.. And got a 404 page. I think all of these books are now lost to time, from what I've seen. I can only find a few other ones here and there, but this page had what I believe to be all of them. :\

>>95825418
I have access to a couple of torrents that have a lot.
Let me see how big the collection is. Maybe I can upload it for you.

>>95825442
I would appreciate it! Even if you just found a link that had most of them, I would appreciate it. I'm almost afraid that some of them are now lost media. (Which is a shame, because I actually had all of those and ran many of them back in the 00s.)

>>95825518
There you go
>https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f-dOe2IHwjboXkuSUxg14Qv2MK-1IzwV
Needs 7zip to unzip.

>>95825615
Thank you most graciously anon. May you find your balls be always drained, and your stomach be ever full.

>>95825418
Did you try entering the sit address into web.archive? They probably still maintain it.

>>95819848
Dragons of Eberron describes a random city in the middle of nowhere where even the beggars are epic-level, and each district has a minimum level for entry that's enforced by guards. It's not mentioned in any other supplement as far as I know, and most players seem to just pretend it doesn't exist.

In fact I'm pretty sure even the worldbuilding section in the DMG called out stuff like this as dumb, and that 4e/5e retconned the city to be smaller and less ridiculous.

>>95819848
I think one of the strongest statted beings in Eberron is in Sarlona.
Ahdryatmin is a Spirit of the Land advanced to 60 HD (meaning it has a CR of 33), which lives in a dangerous valley in Adar and mostly serves as an oracle that people seek out.

If Spring Attack let you full attack on a move would it be worth taking the tree? Not pounce but straight up full attack after moving. Also it's regular function. Would that be good or bad for the game? Pretend muh casters don't even exist, and it's a purely a game of martials.

>>95829274
Make a Full Attack a Standard action.
That's how the table I play with does and it works pretty well.

>>95826601
Was that all the stuff you were looking for?
These torrents might interest you too
>https://pastebin.com/LpaCC217
I have them added to my torrent client with everything set to not download. So when I need something, I search in there first and set what I need to the normal download priority so that it begins downloading just those files instead of the whole thing.

>>95828844
>on a mission to deal with the local bandits
>the bandit leader almost matches Strahd on his statblock

>>95830426
This is honestly what a tippyverse world(one that fully operates by the rules as written) should look like. The more danger a population are in on the daily, the higher their level should be. Bandits would have to content with groups 1-8 HD wildlife and internal assassination attempts, meaning a level 12-15 bandit leader would be realistic.
Granted, the logical conclusion of any such world is that every humanoid city should be ruled/protected by an adult+ Dragon. Humans make all the treasures used in Hoards and Dragons are some of the only things strong enough to protect a large settlement.

>>95816384 (OP)
What a beautiful drow

>>95832093
>This is honestly what a tippyverse world(one that fully operates by the rules as written)
No, the Tippyverse is a world that operates on whiteroom optimization principles. It has a couple key concepts on a spotty RAW basis and broadly ignores startup capitalization demands of all the magic item abuse.

>>95832881
There's a difference between emperor tippy's original tippyverse and "tippyverse style" settings that have evolved since. I'm pretty sure anon was talking about the latter. The original tippyverse isn't even properly optimized anymore, several build innovations have come out of the TO community that would make a classic tippyverse world untenable the same way an army of classic medieval knights would get ass-fucked by a modern military. Closely packed cities don't do well against locate-city necromancers.

I swear this threads dies more every week. Why is it so hard to recruit people? This is literally the better ancestor of 5e!

>>95834341
>Why is it so hard to recruit people?
As in you are DMing a game and can't find players?

>>95834341
>I swear these threads die more every week.
That's because the general is about the same ~3 people artificially keeping it alive, and answering tourist questions that can be answered with a simple google attempt.
>Why is it hard to recruit people?
On what criteria? There are multiple sites out there for 3.5e.
Regardless, from what I've seen posted here, I'd rather watch glue dry than play with people from this general.

>>95834519
>There are multiple sites out there for 3.5e.
I only know of here and Gitp. Are there any places where I can speak with proper grognards knowledgeable of 3rd party material?

>>95828844
Oh was it on Argonessen itself? Okay yeah I can see Isolated Endgame Land making "sense" like that. Then of course you've got DDO where the same place can have epic and normal versions.

>>95834669
You want to recruit people or speak with grognards? Or you want to recruit grognards?
You do understand the answer is different for each case, yeah?
Regardless, apart from Giant, there is also Enworld and a simple google shows at least 5 discord servers marked as "3.5e" with Demilich's Phylactery being full of theorycrafting grognards, complete with the autism and the wargaming attitude.

Do you guys play your skeletons as smarter than your zombies, or the other way around?

>>95840092
I wouldn't say skeletons are smarter, but less prone to act on instinct. A zombie fights in much the same way as a frog hunts - move mouth towards target, using any body part and anything in the environment to brute-force a path. A skeleton isn't going to be winning any chess matches but they can patrol, use armor/weapons, and fight in formation.

What spells would a cleric of sharess use? How would he fight? I'm thinking of a low charisma cleric who joined to get laid and is now an adventurer, what would be his domains?

>>95847502
There's a PrC for Sharess, go look for overlapping spells and domains that get you some of those on your list.

Three Five Archive guy, would you consider make a video explaining and commenting on the main changes between 3.5e and PF1e?

>>95840092
>Skeletons are the animated bones of the dead, mindless automatons
> Zombies are corpses reanimated through dark and sinister magic. Because of their utter lack of intelligence
Neither has an intelligence score, so they are the same in that regard.

As part of my world building to help justify why they are 'evil', when lacking instructions to the contrary they will try to pursue and kill anything that they see.

I wonder if I have been calculating my effective Cleric level for Turn Undead wrong this whole time.
My character has two turning pools, Destroy Undead from 4 Cleric levels, and Turn Undead from a PRC, with another PRC that also advances the turn undead progression.
What's the correct way to calculate this? Just add all levels and apply that turning level to both pools?
I've been calculating them separately and adding the levels in the second PRC that to both of them.
Which ends up as
> Destroy Undead : 4 levels Cleric + 3 levels of PRC 2
> Turn Undead : 6 levels of PRC 1 + 3 levels of PRC 2
and I just realized that I don't actually know if that's how it should be calculated, I kind of just assumed.

>>95840092
Skeletons are high in intelligence, very low in Wisdom.

Zombies have neither intelligence nor wisdom.

>>95816230
An item of Telepathic Bond, Lesser, if the Helm of Telepathy is not an option for whatever reason.

>>95867497
Iirc, for purposes of Turn Undead, all sources implicitly stack with each other, unless it is a Turn (other creature that is not Undead without also turning Undead).

>>95872913
Meaning that I'd just add all class levels that count for Turn Undead and apply to both pools.
Yeah, that makes sense, and I did consider that at some point, but went with the "worse" interpretation by in order to not overshoot in the other direction.

>Each magic item set began with one original set. That original set was created or discovered in some legendary fashion, but now others can copy the items in the set so long as they have a piece of a set to work from.
This text on Magic Item Compendium page 226 makes me wonder about merging with Weapons of Legacy rules in some fashion to handle this procedurally. Probably as part of my breakdown to A-equivalents intended to clear inefficiencies as another option in addition to a more procedural Personal and Ritual Cost.

>>95881856
I wouldn't see why not, although WoLs are considered artifacts, iirc.
Dumb them down a bit, or just take PFs scaling item idea?

>>95881856
Tangential to your question, and the WoL system is cool, and the effects can be pretty unique, but to me, the best implementation of "magic weapon that evolves with you" is the DMG (2?) ritual that lets you upgrade a weapon like you have the crafting feats and materials and you just have to pay the money and XP, I think.
That way you can simply customize your weapon to taste, no need to replace it, take it to a Wizard or Artificer, etc.
Simply sit down in front of a campfire and whisper sweet nothings to your lovely lovely hammer.

>>95883592
While convenient, I think being able to make it whatever you want also limits both potential (WoL weapons often have abilities you simply can not buy) and saps from the wonder of a weapon gaining capabilities you didn't realize it could wield.

>>95883601
The issue with serendipity is it's still a game, and if a DM is sculpting a WoL they should do so fully in line with a player's wishes. You wouldn't expect someone to commit to a prestige class if they didn't know what they got each level, would you?

>>95888697
You are still free to drop the item; it is not nearly as permanent investment as class levels.
On the item itself, there is a line between giving the player what they want in a broad fashion, and letting the player guide the process.
Do you trust your DM to not screw you over?

>>95883601
That's fair enough. It's two different ideas although, at least in fiction, I see no reason why the effects couldn't be a surprise for the character either.

>>95889174
>it is not nearly as permanent investment as class levels.
Anon, WoL permanently remove stats from you. If you bind a WoL and find out it's terrible for your build, you've already lost hp, skill points, spell slots, etc.

>>95889527
If you don't strip out the cost, nobody will take a weapon of legacy. If you do remove it, then it's a cool mechanic, but it's too stupid to deal with by RAW.

>>95889527
See page 9:
>Renouncing a Legacy
>Perhaps the cost of wielding your legacy item is too high, or you have discovered a different item and no longer wish to wield the original one. If you wish, you can renounce your connection with a legacy item. This requires performing a 24-hour ritual that expends materials costing 1,000 gp. On concluding the ritual, you lose all bonus legacy feats (Least Legacy, Lesser Legacy, Greater Legacy) you had previously gained for that item. For you the item now has only its nonlegacy properties, and you lose all legacy abilities you previously had access to. You recover any personal costs you previously paid (such as lost hit points or penalties), but not any gp costs paid for legacy rituals. If you regain lost skill points, you must allocate them immediately. Treat this as if you were purchasing skill ranks for the last class in which you advanced a level.

>>95889527
>>95889890
>Penalized you for using it
>Cost WBL to throw it away
WTF were the devs thinking when they wrote this shit? These more like an advanced form of Cursed item.

>>95890189
WBL is a very loose suggestion at best and frankly isn't used in 99% of games

>>95890189
To be fair, temporary losses are supposed to be compensated for.

>>95890189
Don't forget that if a monster manages to down your ass(even before defeating the rest of the party), it pokevolves into a Monster of Legacy on the spot. Unlike WoL, Monsters of Legacy get all legacy powers with zero costs, automatically skip needing legacy rituals if they defeat more legacy weapon wielder, and since Legacy abilities are based on HD, Legacy Monsters can unlock Epic level legacy powers just from having High HD.
Cursed items are honestly more useful. You can get a lot of use out of a cursed sword that always returns to your hand.

>>95889801
>>95890189
The weirdness around
>the ritual doesn't give you legacy powers, it gives you a free feat and then the *feat* gives you legacy powers, also it's a special feat that you can't gain in any other way
makes me suspect that it was originally just a normal feat chain then got revised clumsily.