favorite sayings #1

a favorite saying among black and red dragons:

"troll means never having to say you are hungry"

staff of the serpent and druids

Originally Posted by whitishknight on wotc forums:
I'm making a snake themed druid/poisoner and I came upon something. The Staff of the serpent implement staff enhancement from Adventurer's Vault has a property which adds +1d6 poison damage to "any melee attack made with this staff". A druid in beast form uses implement melee touch attacks. Therefore, all melee attacks in beast form add the +1d6 poison damage, yes?

Originally Posted by Belile on wotc forums:
Melee touch attacks are melee attacks (as opposed to area, close or range attacks). In beast form you can use the properties (and powers) of implements". The +1d6 poison damage to melee attacks is a property of the implement and therefore you do get that bonus to your beast form powers that are melee touch.

If they had wanted the property to apply to only melee weapon attacks (see blurring claws feat), they would have specified that. And there are no "melee implement" attacks.

Originally Posted by Taenia on wotc forums:
After [level 10], a Staff of Ruin will out pace the dps bonus of the staff [of the serpent] and apply it to all your powers. The staff daily is ok, but I like the flexibility of the staff of ruin esp since you can shift in and out and play controller both at range and in melee.

Originally Posted by alien270 on wotc forums:
The Staff of Ruin is widely cited as a great way to boost a Druid's damage. And I would recommend it; it's a very good item. However, I'd like to point out an alternative: Staff of the Serpent + Iron Armbands of Power. The Staff of the Serpent adds +1D6 poison damage to all of your melee attacks (so most of your beast form attacks). Since the average damage of 1D6 is 3.5, the Staff of Ruin outstrips it once you get up to a +4 implement. But the Staff of Ruin's bonus damage is an item bonus, and this is important because so is the bonus to Iron Armbands of Power. Thus, your armbands will not stack with the Staff of Ruin, but they will stack with the Staff of the Serpent! The armbands are a 6th level item, and that extra +2 means that the Staff of Ruin will only outstrip the serpent/armbands combo when you get a +6 Staff of Ruin. It should be noted that the staff of ruin will apply to ALL of your attacks, while the Serpent/Armband combo only applies to melee attacks (which is why the Staff of Ruin is often preferred). However, at levels 16 and 26, you can upgrade your armbands to a +4 and +6 bonus, respectively. So if you use melee attacks the majority of the time, the combo is a better choice. Especially considering that when you're focusing on being a striker, you're in beast form (because you can charge).

detect magic (trained only)

i suggest a change to the following use of the arcana skill:

sense the presence of magic

(i) change this from "1 minute" to the following entry:

No action required—either you notice something or you don’t. Your DM usually uses your passive Arcana check result. If you want to use the skill actively, you need to take a standard action.

i believe that this change provides characters trained in arcana to be more dynamically involved with encountered magic items and magic effects.

remember, a character who has successfully sensed the presence of magic likely will then want to identify it, which is a separate use of the arcana skill.

here is a thread on the wizards forum discussing this topic:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1165694
the discussion fleshes out the particulars

bane vs kord vs bahamut

bane is the god of war
kord is the god of battle
bahamut is the god of protection

active vs. passive skill checks

in any circumstance where a passive skill check is permitted, if the creature making the skill check instead makes an active skill check, then a d20 result of 9 or less must be valued as 10 because an active skill check result cannot be worse than a corresponding passive skill check result. why? because focusing on something cannot be worse than not focusing on that same something.

for example, some encounters provide for a passive perception check when entering the encounter area. if, for whatever reason, an adventurer with a passive perception check result of 15 (10 plus 5 from skill modifiers) instead chooses--and is able--to make an active perception check, then that active perception check result must be 15 or greater.

EDIT

it has been generously pointed out to me on the wizards forums that since the passive skill check automatically occurs, any active skill check result that is lower than the passive skill check result can be ignored. *smacks forehead*

racial floating stat bonus

gotten from en world forums:

Rechan

Yes. It's one thing I'm looking to combat by allowing a race to have one floating ability score.

evilbob

I liked this idea and have tried it. You end up with a slightly higher power curve (since players are slightly more optimized), but players can play the characters they -want- with less of a "penalty.

The way I did it was to allow one +2 bonus to change to whatever you wanted, but the second one had to stay the same. So a half-elf could be +2 Str and +2 Cha, but not +2 Str and +2 Int, for example. Honestly I think it's pretty reasonable.

Alt Boy!

I assume you give humans two floating scores then?

me likes.

races and favored weapons

in a previous post, i wrote:

"dwarves should specialize in hammers and picks, not hammers and axes (dwarves are a race of miners. what do you use to mine? hammers? yes. picks? yes. axes? a big no.)"

in continuation of this theme, here are some other thoughts:

(i) orcs should specialize in axes, a la dwarves and hammers;
(ii) urgrosh should be an orc weapon; and
(iii) goblinoids should favor scimitars and falchions.