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Beal

Villager
A monk can become unlawful and retain abilities without progressing. You're right about wild shape, but it was really more about the progression of the built and it's versitility. And again... speed, ac, saves, spells, etc... if the damage roll is all that matters, then that's what you build.
Youve missed the point. It's easy to incorporate a monk into a good character, and easy to put a cleric to his death.
I'm not sure what youre fighting for, but if it's to be champion of this thread, I concede. It's all yours.
 

Beal

Villager
Ok, so with 100' of silk rope, and a +15 for your DC 30 check, you have a 30% chance to throw the grapple 100' up on a secret check, that you don't know the result of until you try to climb said rope to find out if it's secure. All for a 1320 foot climb. Unless the pit has ample ledges, how are you going to throw a new rope once you're 100 ft. up? Since the grapple you're using is sort of attached to the rock wall?

Small Air Elemental only requires Summon Monster III, not exactly out of reach for a level 5 Cleric.
Guaranteed, after a fight with a giant, the cleric cannot cast the elimental, who could not act until you hit the bottom, if you passed your concentration, which you wont... you have no skills
 


James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Supporter
A monk can become unlawful and retain abilities without progressing. You're right about wild shape, but it was really more about the progression of the built and it's versitility. And again... speed, ac, saves, spells, etc... if the damage roll is all that matters, then that's what you build.
Youve missed the point. It's easy to incorporate a monk into a good character, and easy to put a cleric to his death.
I'm not sure what youre fighting for, but if it's to be champion of this thread, I concede. It's all yours.
I think that's a fairly contrived scenario for a level 1 Monk to suddenly abandon his Lawful ways and become a Barbarian, but you're right, it is legal.

And I think you're missing the point. Yes, it's easy to contrive a scenario that lets one character shine and another not shine. But the fact is, you had to go out of your way to do so, and you're blatantly ignoring the fact that in normal circumstances, the Cleric has a lot more answers to problems than the Rogue.

Who isn't even alive in this scenario, having taken 20d6 damage at level 5 from your quarter mile fall.
 

glass

(he, him)
If you guys don't use rope, that's fine. It's a staple of adventuring until we all have featherfall, levitation or flight.
We use rope all the time, especially at low levels. What I have never done is fallen into a quarter-mile-deep pit without a save, so it took me a while to twig how rope was supposed to save you in this instance. Now that I see what you were getting at, but I remain unconvinced.

Also, featherfall is available from first level.

Ok, so with 100' of silk rope, and a +15 for your DC 30 check, you have a 30% chance to throw the grapple 100' up on a secret check, that you don't know the result of until you try to climb said rope to find out if it's secure. All for a 1320 foot climb. Unless the pit has ample ledges, how are you going to throw a new rope once you're 100 ft. up? Since the grapple you're using is sort of attached to the rock wall?
No, you have to throw the grapple (which you mysteriously have in hand for some random reason) on the first round if it is going to do anything useful. Arresting yourself after you have already maxed out falling damage is not going to help - it does not matter if you are a smear on the side of the sinkhole or the bottom. Although TBF the secret nature of the check is pretty irrelevant, since success or failure will be immediately obvious.

And I think you're missing the point. Yes, it's easy to contrive a scenario that lets one character shine and another not shine.
Not that easy, apparently....

_
glass.
 
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Beal

Villager
I think that's a fairly contrived scenario for a level 1 Monk to suddenly abandon his Lawful ways and become a Barbarian, but you're right, it is legal.

And I think you're missing the point. Yes, it's easy to contrive a scenario that lets one character shine and another not shine. But the fact is, you had to go out of your way to do so, and you're blatantly ignoring the fact that in normal circumstances, the Cleric has a lot more answers to problems than the Rogue.

Who isn't even alive in this scenario, having taken 20d6 damage at level 5 from your quarter mile fall.

We use rope all the time, especially at low levels. What I have never done is fallen into a quarter-mile-deep pit without a save, so it took me a while to twig how rope was supposed to save you in this instance. Now that I see what you were getting at, but I remain unconvinved. Also, featherfall is available from first level.


No, you have to throw the grapple (which you mysteriously have in hand for some random reason) on the first round if it is going to do anything useful. Arresting yourself after you have already maxed out falling damage is not going to help - it does not matter if you are a smear on the side of the sinkhole or the bottom. Although TBF the secret nature of the check is pretty irrelevant, since success or failure will be immediately obvious.


Not that easy, apparently....

_
glass.
Thank you. The ground shakes. The rogue drops his weapon and looses the rope off his shoulder, throwing it to the edge of the crumbling hole. 30% it finds a hold, 70% nothing. The cleric takes a concentration check to cast an elemental, who unfortunately will not act until next round. The bard, who ranked last in the tier, featherfalls to safety, though he cannot sing himself out of the hole. He can however, ration his dead allies and eventually tell the tale, as bards do.
 

Beal

Villager
Anyways, the entire point of this was to contribute to reasons to think of classes differently.
If you always pick wizard over scorcerer, I would target the spellbook. If you always pick cleric over druid, I would give challenges that are not combat. If you always pick barbarian over a monk, then I would use spells to aggrivate the weak AC and saves....
Two sides to every coin, and it's the survivors that tell the tale.
 

Beal

Villager
The example of the pitfall under a giant is an on-the-fly example of a situation where the cleric, who was the most survivable, becomes the most certain to die. It is not a specific example, and we are not playing dnd. So no, it is not a planned encounter, and the redundant and asinine focus on the details of a situational example is just deflecting from the truth of the subject; No character is equipped for everything.

Clerics are badass. Play em all the time. Strongly recommended for first time casters. But if the room fills with water, or the ground falls out underneath it, that Cleric is a goner, because it has the weakest list of skills.

Cleric falls off a boat, and dies. Cleric is lost in the woods, and dies. Cleric will set off traps, miss secret rooms and passageways, fail to track the escaped villain, fail to open the final chest, fail to survive the fall into the sinkhole.
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
You guys are investing too much into too many skills as rogues.

Rogues didn't need much rope use at all. Nearly none. Tying a knot was the only thing you really needed to be able to do. You're already investing a bunch into climb, so you don't need to throw a grappling hook in the vast majority of instances. You just climbed up and tied off the rope. If you were in a huge hurry, you got the Wizard to cast Fly or Dimension Door or something.

Same with Jump. Jumping is one of the few skills the Fighters and Barbarians had that was class and useful. They pretty much all took it and they had the strength to go with it. If you hit a ravine or whatever that the Rogue couldn't just climb down one side of and up the other, you let the big lug make the jump while holding the rope. I almost never put even a single point into that skill as a Rogue.

Many of the other skills didn't need to have points put into them at every level. You could just be satisfied with being really good at them instead of infallible. Once you did that, you took the extra points you saved there, along with those you guys are putting into rope use and jump, and became good at 3-4 other skills that were actually useful, like having both bluff AND diplomacy, and maybe some other knowledge skills since you could take a feat to make those into class skills.

Rogue, Fighter, Cleric and Wizard were my top 4 favorite classes in 3.5.
 

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