I'm DMing a 3.5e game with some new people...

I'm DMing a 3.5e game with some new people. My group's bard says that he can summon a maximum of 96 fiendish spiders per day as a max level summoner. Is he correct? Isn't there something in the game to stop that stupid bullshit from happening? I'm looking at the SRD and I haven't found a summoning limit and I feel like a retard.

Other urls found in this thread:

d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/vermin/spider/giant-spider/summoned-creature-giant-spider
dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules
5esrd.com/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Well, you could have someone stand next to his character that slaps him for 6 seconds straight as he casts it.

Also, im pretty sure the second time you summon that many fiendish spiders, Lolth will send someone to fix whatever loophole he is using.

> Isn't there something in the game to stop that stupid bullshit from happening?

1. Have you tried playing something besides 3.5/Pathfinder?

2.You are the GM, grow some balls, Rule 0 in full effects, GM's word is law.

3. Have you tried playing something besides 3.5/Pathfinder? No, seriously. 5e is lightyears better than 3.5.

4.Have you tried playing something besides 3.5/Pathfinder? No seriously, there are a million other systems out there that are better than DnD.

Have you tried not being a semen belching faggot?

Does he have 96 spell slots? Summon Monster only summons a single creature. Where did you get this summoner class?

have you tried giving an actual response instead of just being an oxygen hijacker?

According to the SRD as long as you're casting a higher level summon monster it can create more than one of the monster. ie he can summon a shitload of bitch enemies or a few good ones.

This, play 5e or a different game entirely. The only people that still play 3.5 are min-maxer muchkins who come to the game with a "gamer" attitude and nostalgia drones who spent so long learning all the bullshit in 3.5 that they're scared to learn another system because they've been traumatized by the content bloat and poor design choices. There is no reason ANYONE who's not one of the above two should be playing 3.5 in 2016 or onwards.

I don't see the problem. If the max level summoner bard wants to spend his time summoning spiders 1d4+1 at a time until he accumulates 96, LET HIM. This is not stupid bullshit. This is a weak-ass trick that will get its ass handed to it by a max level anything else.

If he thinks he can get 96 in one round, he is wrong and someone has been misreading how the summon monster spells work (or introduced a bullshit homebrew summon).

ive never played DnD, what is the difference between the two versions?

>One of my players can pull some stupid bullshit that breaks the game in half. Am I missing something?
Welcome to 3.5, bitch.

so the spell takes a full turn to cast and if he's spending all of his time summoning a trillion retarded enemies then he's going to get his ass handed to him? That kinda makes sense. But if an enemy doesn't have an AoE attack, wouldn't it get fucked because it can't hit all of them?

Ok

Your a stupid faggot for not knowing a PC can use a higher level spell slot for summoning multiple creatures

Your a god damn stupid faggot for not knowing that summoning a shitload of spiders at high level is a nigh useless stupid pet trick

Your a god damn stupid autistic faggot for freaking out over that and pounding your pig hooves onto a keyboard and making your piggy screeching noises when raging over something largely inconsequential

Your probably gonna shit yourself when the PCs do something actually effective

I want a bit more explanation as to what's going on.
How is the bard summoning these spiders? Summon Monster spells?
What do you mean by "max level"? If the bard is level 20, 96 fiendish spiders are a joke.
There are a couple of summoning limits in terms of things like spell slots and casting time. If the bard is spending many rounds and many spell slots summoning spiders, that's one limit. If he tries to do it beforehand, he runs into a different limit that most summon spells have a limited duration. (Also, people will notice him walking around with 96 fiendish spiders.)

nigga chill that wasn't me

Between 3.5 and 5th edition? 5th edition is balanced is balanced ALOT better, most of the min-maxy exploits and 'casters=gods" bullshit have been removed, and generally it's alot easier play without needing to know half a decade's worth of content bloat and "tricks" in the system needed to make a good character. If you actually like to role-play instead of roll-play, 5e is an infinitely better game for it.

*you probably ARE gonna shit yourself

>I think summon monster spells break the game in half
Your problem is not 3.5, your problem is that you're fucking retarded.

He says that he can do a shitload of summon monster spells and he'll have all the spiders he wants. he's going to use all his slots for the summon monster spells.

please elaborate. It seems broken to me.

Honestly I just skimmed the OP after I saw "3.5" and "summon."
Because let's be honest; How long is it until the player casting summoning spells learns how to pop out monsters that are strictly better than the fighter? Or worse, how long until he learns about save-or-die?

Well, assuming that he has a 16 cha to be able to cast 6th level spells, a level 20 bard without factoring above 16 cha or feats, would have the following spell slots.

Lvl- Spell Slot
0-4
1-5
2-5
3-5
4-4
4-5
4-6

So, he could cast
5 summon monster 1
5 summon monster 2
5 summon monster 3
4 summon monster 4
4 summon monster 5
4 summon monster 6

i was correcting your grammar you cumstain of a human

So do you honestly think that 3.5 is broken and that I should be playing 5e instead? I heard that 4e was shitty so I overlooked 5e too and now that seems like a mistake.

The issue here is that summon monster has a duration of 1 round/level - meaning that by the time he finishes summoning the spiders, they'll already be starting to disappear.

Also, the fact that the spiders will be incapable of doing anything but flailing ineffectually against anything or anyone who actually matters is an issue.

5e is like when you played Pokemon for the first time and picked whatever pokemon you liked, and understanding the basics of the system like which types were good against what, were enough to play the game competently and have fun. There were a few tricks in the system, a few things taht were obviously more powerful than others, but generally you did what you wanted and had fun.

3.5 is like playing Pokemon on a competitive level, using only the same top 10 pokemon over and over, and having to build everything juuuust right or else you'll get you ass handed to you by better players before you even know what's happening. It's not fun unless you have a top tier team, and even then it's more of an exercise in frustration and theorycraft than actually enjoying the fantasy of what pokemon is supposed to be and the breadth of potential the setting offers for players to lose themselves in.

This would be terrifying if fiendish spoders were threatening

d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/vermin/spider/giant-spider/summoned-creature-giant-spider

they kind of aren't

Oh shit that's exactly it. I didn't know there was a time limit on these creatures. If they lasted like 30 turns that would be retarded, but if it lasts 1 turn per level that makes it kinda balanced.

So 3.5e is boring and with a rigid "meta"? and because of that people build to be bullshit instead of playing the game for fun?

So, from here, we can just start breaking them down to summon spiders.

You get 5 spiders for the 1st level spells.
You get 5d3 spiders from 2nd level.
Additional 5d4+5 spiders from level 3.
From 4, 4d4+4.
5, 4d4+4.
With 6 being 4d4+4.

So, you can summon 5d3+13d4+27 or a max of 94.

He is a fucking cheater trying to get two extra spiders, goddammit.

The enemy could just focus on the bard and then take down the spiders one at a time afterwards if the enemy doesn't have AOE attacks. Also, you don't need full "AOE" proper - enemies who are dual-wielding, or have high BAB and iterative attacks, or fighters with the Cleave feat can probably take out multiple spiders in one round, at least for the small retarded spiders. Meanwhile the spiders aren't going to be all that effective.

Look at the Summon Monster spell:
>Duration: 1 round/level (D)

By the time he finishes casting the last summon monster spell, the earlier ones will have evaporated. Summoned monsters disappear when the spell duration ends.

I don't know how many spell slots a "summoner" (a wizard specialized in conjuration?) has, but a level 20 wizard with 18 INT has four spell slots for spell levels 1-4, then only 4 for each spell level after . The first spell level only summons 5, then the second one summons ~15 (1d3), then it's ~5 (1d4+1) for every level after, for a max of 154 spiders, if I'm understanding this correctly and all rolls are optimal.

That being said, the spell has a duration of a single round and it takes a single round to cast, so I don't see the problem.

I've never played D&D before. I'm just looking at the SRD and poking at this puzzle.

4e is a tactical combat game - if you liked shit like Final Fantasy Tactics you'd have a great time with it. The issues with it are bad math in the early monster manuals (monsters had too much HP and not enough damage, leading to long boring combats), a focus on tactical combat rather than letting the PCs negate encounters with clever tricks, and the fact that all characters work on mechanically similar systems (that is, they all have powers they can use at will, 1/encounter or 1/day and gain them at the same rate, rather than the wizard gaining spells, the fighter getting passive bonuses and feats, and the druid turning into a bear while also gaining spells). I personally like it, but it's not really what most people think of when they imagine D&D.

3.5 isn't, strictly speaking, bad - I play and enjoy it sometimes. But it requires a good degree of system knowledge and cooperation on the parts of both the players and the DM - otherwise, you can easily wind up with some players dominating while others just sit there feeling small in the pants, the DM dropping a theoretically-appropriate monster that can murderize the party with no chance to survive, and other power level issues.

thank you for doing the math I'll send this text his way
So the bard just sitting in the back and summoning spiders is actually fully retarded and ineffective. That's really good to know.

3.PF is an older system spread across 2 main publishing companies and 3 "era" (3.0, 3.5, Paizo) that has hundreds of official resources and thousands of 3rd party sources.

It was a trailblazer at its time but it got caught with a foot in the past and one in the future because the original design team were super fractured and that made it into the game.

Probably the biggest problem with 3.PF is that it's got so much to work with that you can make a character anywhere from a completely useless joke character to unstoppable God-Kings, which is itself subordinated to the fact that different characters have different levels in different circumstances.

5e is an attempt by the original company to correct the "one foot in each camp" style of 3.PF by drawing off the whole history of the game and attempting to compensate for the the weaknesses and exploit the strengths by keeping the best-loved or most necessary mechanics.

The result is a much more streamlined and controlled experience that requires juggling fewer numbers, doing less math, and offers much less opportunities for as dramatic power gaps. You can *still* end up with a bit of one but it requires a player to be sucking on purpose.

The downside is that the system is a lot more "controlled," with a general idea that you'll have either the 2 basic documents or the 3 core books and possibly one setting book. There are fewer "hard" options that coded directly into the rules and the DM is expected to fill in more of the blanks themselves.

5e tends to be much more popular which isn't surprising given that it's a literal update of the older system, The older edition is still played but it tends to be either because people don't want to go through the stress of switching or they don't want to give up the system that they spent time learning to exploit. Most people who try 5e like it once they do, though, mostly because "fun" is no longer dependent on knowing exactly how to exploit the system to begin with.

>bard
Oh, I'm dumb. Disregard me.

>do you honestly think that 3.5 is broken
Honestly? Fucking hell yes. I'm not saying that you can't have fun with it (I had plenty of fun with it for a year or two myself), but quite frankly it's completely pants-on-head retardedly broken. Have one of your players play a Druid, and another play a Fighter. I give it three sessions before the Druid fills the role of the Fighter better than the Fighter ever could. The entire system is built around options that are OBJECTIVELY better than other options.

Play 5e instead.

It's more that if you throw a new roleplayer in with a bunch of veteran roll players, the new player will end up being mechanically incompetent and useless while the good players steamroll all the content in the game except that content which the GM himself specifically built to hard-counter them.

None of that should be the point of sitting down to tell a fun story in imagination land.

>Lolth will send someone to fix whatever loophole he is using.

More like Lolth will send someone to give him one of those Chronocharms that let you summon monsters as a standard action, except this one only works when summoning fiendish spiders. LOLTH APPROVES OF THIS.

Of course that was not me the guy who insulted debased and and broke you to the point where your only recourse was to add a redundant word to my sentence

Whats it like huh? Give me the details of how angry it made you to be insulted like that and not to have any sort of reasonable comeback. Did you cry? Come on details bro I havent even whipped my dick out yet

Is there a place online where I can look over the 5e rules like we have for 3.5e?
I mean honestly any situation where you can summon 154 spiders is pretty dumb.

Check the resource link in the first post. And welcome out of the dark ages.

I was working with bard from 3.5, which does not have 7-9th level spells.

For something far worse, we could go with summoner from pathfinder whose summons last for minutes and they are full caster with 1 more spell per day than a 3.5 bard.

So, assuming they had they same summon list, which I do not know because I do not play it, they could summon 129 that would last much longer than a 1 round summon.

can i cast a perception check to see if you even have a dick

>Veeky Forums-spiders

You can get the basic rules free of charge from the company at dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules and you can use 5esrd.com/ for quick lookups.

There's also a *lot* of piracy of the books going on, possibly earlier on in the thread, but I wouldn't know anything about that.

>>Can I ROLL a perception check to see if you even have a dick

We are even now

Thanks a ton dude. If 5e is really as much better as you guys say it is, you all just helped me out a shitload.

>cast a perception check
This thread's original purpose is fulfilled, so let's get to insulting each other instead, until OP is entirely forgotten and we shitfight our way to 300.

Why the hell are you still playing 3.5e instead of 4e (if you like crunch and balance) or 5e (if you want a closer experience to 3e, but slightly better balanced)?

Who the fuck is dumb enough to still be playing 3e unless they're playing a FULL GONZO game (which can be great fun and I myself enjoy a good tier 3 romp).

Oh, suck a dick and die.

We are discussing summoning spiders, keep your edition wars to the back of the bus where they belong.

I honestly didn't know there was such a huge difference between the editions. I had played 3.5e a few years back and enjoyed it, but apparently 5e is so much better.

im jerking off to your replies

Best example I ever noted was a Glaberzu I used in a game. Its a monster capable of at will Teleport Chaos Hammer AND Reverse Gravity. Your average martial gets shit on if the DM plays it halfway intelligently and most of your optimized martials are still useless

inb4
>its not
>it is
>X is better
>gurpsadurps
>whaaaaa
>TRIGGERED
>47 rage comic tier info slides
>not god damned spider summoning

3.5 is nice and potentially batshit crazy with an immense variety of things to try and do. Its the reason people are still playing it. Sure its busted but it can still be fun

5E doesnt have very much content and not just because its new.Hasbro is keeping the amount of material really low after EE was considered a less than spectacular investment.Its a great system but we have had one spaltbook and a few adventures in two years

It never ceases to amaze me how angry fa/tg/uys can get over other people's choice of game to play in their own free time.

It is

Eat shit. 3.5 is garbage and you should feel bad. 3.5 is not a system that you introduce players to the hobby with, and you're a bad person if you think we should just sit back and tell OP that everything will be fine because spiders being broken is the last thing he has to worry about.

I'm still the OP. Do you guys know if there's an item that he can get that might let his summons stay forever? Or maybe one that lets him summon spiders as a passive action that wouldn't take up his turn? He's the kind of tard that'll badger me about ways around this and I want to make sure he doesn't have a case agaisnt me just saying "fuck you no spiders".

To be honest, I prefer the lack of expansion material. It helps cut down on system-bloat and all the broken third-party content that made Pathfinder (and to a lesser extent 3.5) such a mess of power-creep and contradictions.

Honestly, how much of the expansion shit did people actually use anyway? Like just homebrew you settings and adventures and it's fine, a good GM can keep things fresh and interesting without needing a new set of toys every month. The basics are all you need unless you completely lack creativity.

>So that he doesn't have a case against me
Bitch YOU ARE THE DM. Tell him to fuck off with his shit because YOU are the one who makes the rulings and if he doesn't like it then he can DM for himself. Never let a player badger you into allowing something that you don't want in your game, ESPECIALLY if you think that thing might be broken.

Oh fuck off.

It is every thread, every fucking thread.

You even bled over into the shadowrun and wh40k fucking threads you jizz sponge.

WE KNOW YOU DO NOT LIKE THING. Now fuck off.

Fucking christ, I havnt played a game in years and I broke out books to look at how many spider you could summon as a damn gag. But know, you have to fucking preach at every opportunity. You are the fuck that does not get invited to events because you sit back and make snide comments about how an even could be better or you would rather be doing whatever the fuck else. Get a fucking hint, the people who play 3.5 will never go away and all you are doing is being a cunt.

>3.5 drones actually get THIS booty bothered when people suggest other games might be better.

You NEVER see this kind of butthurt in the 5e thread... or the threads for any other system, except Pathfinder General.

this is the op, and this thread convinced me to use 5e so eat shit senpai

I understand what you mean, and that's my fallback plan, but I'd like to try and have a valid in-game reason so he doesn't act all pouty about it. He's kind of a bitch.

Maybe if you did not eternally shit post in threads not even dedicated to 3.5 you would have a leg to stand on.

Sure, it's suggesting other systems that's pissing him off.

This thread was dedicated to 3.5 though...

He's not the OP he's just really retarded I'm the OP

I'm sorry that there are objectively better systems for introducing new players to the hobby than your pet system. Don't take it so personally.

I just want my spelljammer book and at the rate things are going we might get it about two weeks after the Earth is swallowed by the Sun

You read the damn posts, you know what he means.

Ignore them, threads dead anyway. Can't save something once those fucks have shown up.

Well, the reasons mentioned so far are pretty solid. Nothing comes to mind that circumvents the duration of summons or speeds them up to a point where he'd have 96 summons for any useful length of time.

But then I don't know every splat published for 3.5 by heart. You're better off not automatically allowing everything ever published for 3.5 anyway.

>OP talks about a problem that arises from playing 3.5
>Suggest a system that's not 3.5 and doesn;t have these problems
>3.5 Drones: ZOMG STOP HATING ON OUR SYSTEM! NO YOU'RE STUPID! NANANANANA CAN'T HEAR YOU EAT SHIT AND DIE, ECT.

You guys are worse than tumblr, seriously.

>You're better off not automatically allowing everything ever published for 3.5 anyway.
He's better off playing a system where he won't have to babysit his players so that nobody accidentally brings a rocket launcher to the knife fight.

More accurately:
>OP asks about working around an issue in 3.5
>LOLOL NO WORKAROUND DROP THE SYSTEM 3.5 SUCKS AND YOU SUCK HUUUURRRR
>Fuck off, this is for an ongoing game.
>LOL UMAD BUTTHURT 3.5 SHEEPLE WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME ACKNOWLEDGE ME APPRECIATE ME LOVE ME REEEEE

We're all better off dropping childish games of make-believe altogether and doing something productive, but that's not the point, is it?

Veeky Forums - clincal depression

>If my pet system is bad, then the whole hobby is bad!
This is the kind of person that likes 3.5. Sums up the system better than anything else ever could.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but better RPGs are still just games of make-believe.

Just to let you and your friend know, op made another thread and is still going to run 3.5.

Keep the dream alive and many thanks.

I never see this level of YOUR SYSTEM A SHIT hate in the 5e thread, either.

>Guys, how do I fix my Hyundai?
>LOL BUY A FORD FAGGOT
>BUY A REAL AMERICAN
>LOLOLOL DON'T DRIVE A SHIT CAR
>HOW DARE YOU CALL US OBNOXIOUS
>WE'RE NOT OBNOXIOUS IT'S YOUR FAULT FOR HAVING A DISGUSTING FAGGOT TASTE IN CARS

Except the reason there's no workaround here is that there's nothing which *needs* to be worked around in the first place. 5fags are screeching "broken!!!" the moment a DM is confused and a player suggests something that sounds funny without stopping to check if it is, actually, y'know, broken.

Do you want "3.5 is not broken"? Because this kind of crying wolf is how you get "3.5 is not broken".

It's more like if someone asks how to fix their car from 1980 and you suggest they upgrade to a 2000s version. Considering 3.5 and 5 are still DnD.

It doesn't make the spam any less obnoxious.

>Honestly, how much of the expansion shit did people actually use anyway?
A lot of it. Fuck 3.5 and PF core, it's by far the worst part of both systems.

"Have you tried not playing DnD" is such a meme at this point I've seen it threads that wern't even about DnD, period. Believe me, DnD hate and edition hate are a pretty common occurrence.

Shit got old fast.

Now 3.5 players have started to worm their way back, no clue why but it has the shitposters going fucking nuts.

Institute a 3 minute time limit on every player's turn. If he can roll attacks and damage for 96 creatures and resolve all the math within 3 minutes, then by all means let him do it.

Eh. It's a toss up between 3.pf and 5e. I really enjoy the bloat of 3.pf and miss actual options and unexpected builds in 5e.

On the other hand the streamlining/bounded accuracy of 5e is sexually arousing. The lack of 5ft step, AoO and skill system are meh. Proficiency and Advantage are nice though.

I know they won't do it anytime soon, but a good amount of splatbooks is really all I'm missing in 5e.

The lack of BAB and multiple attacks on every class is pretty arousing too.

That though. But then again if you play fighter you pretty much end up with just as many attacks as in PF. A bad choice in my opinion. Especially if you pair that with advantage and action surge. Soooo many rolls.

5ft step/AoO is still kind of in there. A player or enemy who has not yet expended their reaction may do so to make a single melee attack on an opponent who has just left their melee range without using the disengage action. Likewise, you can use the disengage action to avoid triggering *any* opportunity attacks that turn, which coupled with everybody being allowed to split up their movement makes for a pretty fair replacement.

The old-school actions provoking opportunity attacks has been replaced with object usage no longer triggering AoO and all ranged attacks including spells just occurring at disadvantage.

It doesn't sound like it's a simplification but the net result is one less chart to consult, fewer mid-turn extra rolls, and a much simpler movement mechanic so I'm all for it

Yeah I know how it works but it's just "different" and it feels like it has less tactical potential.

Comparing disengage to 5ft step is comparing apples with oranges. The actual uses are worlds apart. Playing around 5ft steps in 3.pf was pretty fun.

Also the difference between only provoking AoO's on leaving melee range rather than a threatened square is massive aswell, especially when factoring in Polearms.

5ft steps were only fun because there was a feat chain that let you follow after people who attempted it. Another part of 3.pf's awful "system mastery" bullshit where certain feats completely broke parts of the game's systems, but the only people who would know about it are people who spent months thinking about how to exploit it.

There's a "Have you tried not playing Pathfinder" picture that gained traction before summer hit.

3.5 is not tactical at all.

I dunno, minis became a strong part of the game with 3.5. It's just wizards being broken as fuck made it a wee bit pointless.

4e made it so casters couldn't just trivialise a fight and made tactical combat the default option, and people got buttdevastated

Bruh, getting to throw so many dice as a fighter is fun because you're actually useful now. I played 3.5 for 15 years and since switching to 5e, I'd fallen in love with fighters. I really love to, the proficiency system makes fighters actually able to stay useful with their skills.