Quote Originally Posted by Dragon Mage View Post
I didn't mean to refute. It's common knowledge who and what Jenova is and her connection to Sephiroth. But then the debate is over the whole biological mother and psychological mother relationships. And that will never end. I was just trying to end a perpetual argument it before it started.
Alright. I misunderstood. People misconstruing the Jenova/Sephy dynamic irks me too.


Nope, Vincent. And any other baddy with a red cape in a movie or game. ( a surprising amount.) It seems that if one has a red cape, they are automatically elevated to a state of ultimate coolness.
I never called Sephiroth genius-he certainly isn't if he's going to destroy the world with him on it. I just called him clever.
I'm not saying that red capes don't make you cool, just that such a statement is rather irrelevant. I also don't recall ever trying to make the claim that Sephy's a genius. I personally don't think many FF villians are geniuses, excepting Yu Yevon, the Garlands, and maybe Zeromus. And sephy wasn't planning on destroying the world, he was planning on wounding it to such a degree that it would shunt all available energy to healing, energy which he planned to absorb and become unto a god.

But it's true.
long hair, especially bishy style hair, is hard to make do what you want with it. Killing you without mussing himself at all, especially given his style, is decently impressive.

Aeris says otherwise. (lol) It's not moving as fast because they had to have a big dramatic ending scene in where all your efforts may have gone to waste. And then of course the drop-off ending. It's all about the suspense! Called director's license.
Dialogue Uber Alles! Aerith can be wrong, or speaking in a different sense, such as "Kill everything on the surface", instead of "make planet explode".
Also, there's director's license, but I prefer suspension of disbelief when analyzing fiction.

refer to first quote and response on this post. That was what I was trying to get through, with less words.
Fair enough.

Exactly. And judging from what you've said, you've yet to meet an experienced player.
No, I've met plenty of good players, who can utilize the mage well. This does not, however, mean that the mage is teh uber. It means they can utilize the mage classes well. Similarly, they can utilize the fighter classes well. At the high end, they tend to cancel each other out. It's Monk and Psion that tend to get broken at high end, once they start getting real esoteric stuff people can't counter that well.

I'm glad we agree.:)
Which has kind of been the point all along.

My wizard has has a str of 17. (very useful) You'd be surprised at how often this does happen.
To you, it might happen a lot. I personally have rolled near all 18's for character creation before, and made a Scoundrel who could kill a much ubered Emperor Palapatine with his bare hands twice in as many turns (don't ask). The thing is

Not if you know what you're doing. This is where that str and dex come in, and the Ambidexterity feat. (Start whallopin' with that staff!:twak:) as well as any magical items. You're given the Scribe Scroll feat for a reason; why not use it for times like these, when you're out of spells? And don't forget Spell Mastery. This will bail you out of many situations.
Scribe takes time, money, and Xp to do. Anyone can use magical items (and thanks to the artificer, the mage has become slightly redundant in their creation). Now, the mage can try for melee, but he will be very very bad at it compared to any other class out there.

Oh, I use spells. But not exclusively spells as my only weapon. My spell storing staff, and, believe it or not, potions. Not 'spell' potions, just acid and nitroglycerin. Lovely stuff. In a serious battle (dragon, hello!) That's when I whip out the higher spells, not neccessarily attack, but more often than not, something that seriously handicapps the monster. That way all the other party members can benefit as well. Once this is done, let the lighning bolts fly.
I hope you take precautions against that nitro. But I can understand the sentiment. Even though I like taking my characters down certain paths, I do prepare backups, like the Unarmed specialist scoundrel whose primary form of assault was a gun that could only be called a pistol by the slimmest of margins (he had also made it even more destructive than it usually was, but nevermind that).

*shrugs* whatever; it all depends on what level you start at. (a good amount don't start at 1, surprisingly enough.) But keep in mind a lot of those were made for players that are twinks. If it didn't have that stuff in it, it wouldn't be 'awesome' enought to bother playing. (in the majority opinion) It doesn't really matter here though. Let's end the Dragonlance bit, shall we? I'm afraid we may be getting a bit off topic.
Fair enough, though I wouldn't call greyhawk made for twinks. It's just kind of the rome for all D&D. Eventually everything winds up there.


Factor in the other player whaling on the same monster, pretty often. Besides, you can only take a 5-foot step in the same round you cast a spell. That doesn't do you much, unless you cas Expiditious Retreat. And you have to cast the spell that will lever you into such an ideal situation. Don't wait for these circumstance to come up: make them happen.
Yeah, if there's only one monster. Most DMs I've found like peppering the party with other monsters at the same time.

Unless 1-you are going to the battle, not ambushed, and 2-if you are ambushed that's what the skills and feats other than magic ones are for, and 3-stay in the middle of the group, chances are better you'll end up in such a position.
Even going into battle, you can start at seriously reduced ranges, such as any interior battle, or when circumstances

Like I said, make your conditions the way you want them. Manipulate the monsters-it's not about how much damage you can do; it's about what you can do without dealing damage or using attack spells. Spider Climb will become a very useful spell in nearly any situation, as well as invisibility, charm monster, hold person/monster, blindness/deafness, etc.

As for the part about sneaking up on a wizard-that's what familiars are for!
Oh right, Familiars. They can also be snuck up on. And if you kill them, bad things happen to that wizard.
Spider Climb is useful, both as a spell and ability, invisibility quickly becomes underpowered as everything gets to detect you somehow other than sight at later levels, charm monster has a built in limit that the monsters you really want to charm generally exceed (to say nothing of the ones that are smegging immune). Hold can be quite useful, and so can blindness/deafness, but none of those have a particularly difficult save, so hope they roll low.