[Dthclaw]

*Breathes deep*

Ah, the beautiful stench of grave soil...

For more fun breaking Half-Dragons, a half-dragon with 6+ HD qualifies for a wonderful little feat from Races of the Dragon called Metabolic Breath. Benefit? You can use your breath weapon every 1d4 rounds and you qualify for metabreath feats. Have fun.

[theoneofthechuck]

Not sure if this thread gets looked at a lot or even if this is the proper place for this question. In 'Races of the Dragon' there is the feat Dragon Wings quoted here:

DRAGON WINGS
Your draconic ancestry manifests as a pair of wings that
aid your jumps and allow you to glide.
Prerequisites: Dragonblood subtype, 1st level only...

only the first few lines of it but it says enough for my Q. Going with the same book with what they say of Draconic and Half-Dragon characters and they're little break down of how to start off as a Draconic/Half-Dragon character, I couldn't see if it bestows the Dragonblood subtype upon you at first level or not, I could very well have read past it multiple times, I've been known to do that frequently, or I could just be having high hopes and imagining that it could be a possibility. Anyone elses info and opinions on that would be much appreciated

[Dthclaw]

Creatures of the Dragon type AUTOMATICALLY qualify for any prerequisite of dragonblood subtype. Page 4, Dragon Magic.

[Greg Swifthands]

Why does everyone want to break things... it does not compute to me.

[Rintaran]

It's not that everyone wants to, it's that chances are there's one person in your gaming group who will if you don't find out how they'll break it first, and rectify the situation.

[Axel]

As a friend of mine is fond of saying: "GURPS is for playing, D20 is for breaking."
The rules are often created with poor planning and little to no thought given to how they actually interact. Combined with the overwhelming amount of extra material Wizards keeps producing, the effect is that games can easily degenerate into a breakage competition, unless the DM keeps a firm hand on the rules he allows. In short: too many rules, not enough forethought.

[RedSlayer]

Axel, on Jan 11 2007, 02:29 PM, said:

As a friend of mine is fond of saying: "GURPS is for playing, D20 is for breaking."
The rules are often created with poor planning and little to no thought given to how they actually interact. Combined with the overwhelming amount of extra material Wizards keeps producing, the effect is that games can easily degenerate into a breakage competition, unless the DM keeps a firm hand on the rules he allows. In short: too many rules, not enough forethought.

I dunno there Axel. 3.5 was a huge step forward in the ease of character design/development from AD&D 2E (even with skills and powers). Ease of use can generally lend to ease of ab-use. Where wizards lacks forethought is when they fail to consider supplements in relation to other supplements. (as they have explicitly stated so, but they are getting better with that now). Though this does not excuse them for things like Divine Metamagic and persistant spell in the same [WOMBAT] book.

I have rarely (actually, never) found d20 to fall into a beakage fest, even with total open season on rules. Maybe I've just played with mature people, I dunno, but I've never run into someone who bent the rules severely enough to be called a munchkin. Sure, there are people who like to optimize their characters abilities, but they are often quite good roleplayers as well.


Regardless, I would hardly qualify a half dragon qualifying for those feats broken. Someone has to burn a few feats to gain decent flight, when a wizard is doing it at level 5. So what if its not permanent? Flight generally only comes into play for short durations (read: combat, scouting, and retrieval) as most PC's won't have it, so the winged character is obliged to be grounded anyways. That, and even after the character does get wings, hes got to spend 2 or 3 feats to even be adept at flying. (read: fly-by-attack, wingover, hover).

Half-dragons are actually a nice LA 3 race (if you give all of them wings). I don't see how anyone could define them as broken. Casters would never take that hard a hit into Casting, and melee'rs (who recieve the best benift) are going to be behind in the HP total for quite a while.

In conclusion, Greg, any of this is hardly broken. Nobody generally "breaks" anything on purpose, and if they do, its generally for kicks rather than playing. If people do break the game they are playing, then the game is just that, broken, and ceases until the person makes a new character.

[theoneofthechuck]

I'm pretty sure that everyone would class me as fairly new, and Rintarran can attest to that , so I'm slightly confuzled why people are talking about breaking things?

[Greg Swifthands]

From what I gather... Breaking can be defined as two things... depending on who you talk to...

1) Breaking isn't actually breaking it is "Getting the best out of your character, by going around the rules, in a completely legal way."

2)Breaking means to look for the loop holes so you can basically make a god character, and possibly to get on your DMs nerves..

The group I played with recently, is always going for the "Best built" characters... which basically means breaking the character..,. They do little to no Roleplaying, and try to level as rapidly as possible... not that there is anything wrong with the style of play... it just isn't my style personally.

Though I guess If I did more break research, I'm sure I could find a legal way to counter act it...

[Dthclaw]

Well, it's not really break research as it is break-correcting.

DM's basically have one of three options:

1-Break like the players. Create equally broken non-player characters for encounters and show no mercy at any turn.
2-Ignore the breakage and allow it to continue, meanwhile abidding by the rules and allowing players to powerhouse.
3-Put a lot of effort into correcting imbalances in the d20 system by implementing homebrew rules and content (ultimately this seems the most rewarding effort, as it causes a lot of campaign building and thought and distinguishes the campaign from others).

And...

4-Don't play d20... which kinda defeats the purpose of the discussion, but is always the tacit fourth option.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

A fourth option taht gaisn more and more support every time WotC publishes something...

Yeah, the point of this thread, if I may point out, was not to break half dragons or to find ways to use existing materials to build an overpowered, and thus pointless, character, but rather to create somethign new and unique. That is really what these boards are for, but they have drifted from teh purpose largely over the past year. We are hear predominently to provide a forum for discussion about campaign settings, worldbuilding, player creation, etc. where people can draw on the opinions and critiques of others.

When I first joined, I started a thread with a 3-page post about a campiang world I was working on. What truly impressed me was the way the community here came together to offer help and suggestions to further the creation process rather than trying to pick apart every little break in it. I don't think I got any responces that amounted to, "you can't do that because...," or, "If you do that, then who would play that class?" After becoming an active member some 1,800 posts ago, I tried to contribute to everyone else as much as they did to me, and we had a thriving community that created such marvels as a golem starship, a level 76 bionic wizard, and countless oddities for Teltesh. Discussions were not so often about what can't or shouldn't be done or how the game doesn't work. They were about making a game that works the way the posters were trying to get it to.

The reason I am ranting like this is because I see these forums slacking off more and more in terms of participation and new membership, and after looking at hte bulk of recent posts, it has become apparent that the forums have ceased to provide a place to discuss the creation of new things and devolved into a place to talk about broken things. Personally, i miss the old days when we were artists on a wolrd-scale.

That being said, I will admit to having gotten dragged into this new devolution of the site, but having now realized my folly, I will try to dig myself out. For starters, I will write up my ideas on my latest and greatest project and post them. My goal is to try to spark some sort of creative conversation. I encourage anyone else who either has a question or is just generally working on something to do likewise.

[Dthclaw]

Hear hear. And I think I'll follow in his footsteps.

[Axel]

Dthclaw, on Jan 14 2007, 11:25 PM, said:

Well, it's not really break research as it is break-correcting.

DM's basically have one of three options:

1-Break like the players. Create equally broken non-player characters for encounters and show no mercy at any turn.
2-Ignore the breakage and allow it to continue, meanwhile abidding by the rules and allowing players to powerhouse.
3-Put a lot of effort into correcting imbalances in the d20 system by implementing homebrew rules and content (ultimately this seems the most rewarding effort, as it causes a lot of campaign building and thought and distinguishes the campaign from others).
4-Don't play d20... which kinda defeats the purpose of the discussion, but is always the tacit fourth option.

My same break-master friend tried number one. Since he expected them to break like him, he threw opponents at them that would challenge him. After a while they ended the game.
Four is always a good option, and actually comes to mind whenever I see people complaining about the "realism" of d20. Don't play a game that depends on level-based advancement if you want a game that's realistic.