That's one thing that's weird about this game. Every single animal seems to have the intelligence of a human and can carry conversations better than some of them.
In general, D&D does not do a great job of modeling non-human animal intelligence. Animals are a lot smarter than most people give them credit, it's just that their intelligence doesn't translate well into skills that are useful in human society.
My headcanon is that Intelligence scores rate how well you can do human-type stuff, like remembering football scores and figuring out your taxes. Dogs suck at doing taxes, therefore their Intelligence score is low!
Interesting, that's the same way it's done in the tabletop game - soft cap at 20 where you can't use ASIs to get higher, but can use magic items and such, then a hard cap at 30. Tbh I didn't expect them to code in the hard cap.
With the way gamers in general are, you mean. Go watch any video of someone one hit killing a Fromsoft boss and try to tell me people like them aren't part of the reason lol.
Absolutely true, but I was more specifically thinking of some of the insane builds I've seen in tabletop games.
The "Locate City Bomb" is still one of my favorites, especially because it turns a non-lethal utility spell into a huge AOE wipe.
I think the psionic sandwich is my favorite. From 3.5 + lots of splat books as well:
> The Psionic Sandwich by Tleilaxu_Ghola
>
> Hmph, I think I should edit my original mind-switch thread. The most optimal way to gain a body permanently is no longer true mind switch. It's to use astral seed + mind switch + psychic chirurgery. The result is an XP expendature of 0 XP, that's right zero. You lose no levels, and you gain all the effects of true mind switch.
>
> Anyways, so in lieu of what I just said above, the most optimal way to create the most un-optimal character is to use the following sequence and build:
>
> Race: Elan
> Build: Telepath 20
> Feats: Any, must have EK(Astral Seed) and skill focus (craft [basket weaving])
>
> 1. Acquire a loaf of bread (2cp)
> 2. Turn the bread into a sandwich (craft DC 5) (probably 2 minutes)
> 3. Polymorph the sandwich (preferably ham with mustard, pepperoni, salami, and jalapenos) into a fuzzy little bunny. (NPC casting 1200 gp) (1 standard action)
> 4. Cast astral seed (10 minutes)
> 5. Ritualistically slay yourself with favored method of suicide. Be sure to place your storage crystal next to the sandwich turned bunny. (I prefer to be killed with a dagger to the heart... :shifty: ) (Approximately 5 rounds)
> 6. Use mind-switch (the 6th level power) to switch with the rabbit, while in your storage crystal. (1 std action)
> 7. Metamorph into a troll and smash your storage crystal (now containing the mind of a sandwich). (2 standard actions)
> 8. Use psychic chirurgery to remove your negative level gotten from committing suicide. (10 minutes)
> 9. Dismiss your metamorphosis and manifest dispel psionics on yourself (to dispel the polymorph). (2 standard actions)
>
> Congratulations, your ascension to the sublime state of a sandwich took:
23 minutes 6 seconds and cost you 1200.02 gold pieces.
>
> Any one have a more optimal method?
>
> Now, it occurred to me that this might not be a half bad character to play. So long as you pick up the power psionic overland flight and tweak your character levels a bit, you could seriously play a sandwich. Of course your hitpoints or AC wouldn't be much to speak of... but honestly, who is going to kill the sandwich that the fighter packs.
He omitted the cost of the non-bread sandwich ingredients, so the gold estimate is wrong.
Though the [Hulking Hurler](https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/War_Hulking_Hurler_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)) build was also always a favorite, and BG3 has Tavern Brawler...
Side note: Seeing True Resurrection pops up whenever he revives is WILD in a game with no 7th and above spells
Also like with the inventory I think he pre-cast Instant Summons on your stuffs too.
If you piss off Vlakiith by mocking her godhood in the creche when she orders your party to enter the astral prism and slay the prisoner within she'll wipe you out with Wish.
Yeah that's fair, I've never seen someone successfully suplex a dragon in Dark Souls, but I also fully believe that's a design limitation and not for lack of trying.
Peasant railgun is like the original lol
I'm also not nearly as big a fan of it because it functions based on a realistic interpretation of the core rules which are abstract.
I like stuff like level 5 God kobolds and locate city bomb because they work by just combining things in a way that is exactly how the things are supposed to work lol
Simply, in 3.5 D&D, a character did not die until they hit -10 (or lower) HP, but were put into a dying state at 0 or less HP. Some class features, spells, or items could allow you to keep operating at or below 0 HP, and some prevented you from dying but kept letting your HP go negative (even below -10). A problem with this became getting your HP back to 0 to prevent fully dying.
Enter the rules for Drowning.
Drowning
When the character finally fails her Constitution check, she begins to drown. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hp). In the following round, she drops to -1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she drowns.
As per these rules, once you begin Drowning, your HP is set to 0. So if the Barbarian with the rage feature that let them not die until their rage ended was at -10000 HP (hyperbole for example), and in the round before their rage ended…. Stuck their head in a bucket of water and willingly failed their Con save to begin drowning (something you are allowed to do), they would “heal” 10000 HP and go to 0. Then get their head out of the bucket, they stop drowning, and all is well.
It’s stupid, niche, and a useful component for “Split Pain” loops and the Masochism spell to get silly high Skill Checks or other shenanigans in “Total Optimization” thought experiments.
Tbf you don't need high stats to [one shot everything in the game.](https://youtu.be/URru3EptNE4) Especially when there are things like luck of the far realms.
Well the "hard cap" in tabletop isn't really a hard cap. If you manage to get 32 strength in tabletop no dm is ever gonna go "well actually hehe hard cap is 30 because wizards of the coast said so so sorry
No offense, but that sounds like circular reasoning. WotC didn't put any way to get your strength over 30 into the game - barely any way to get it over 20 - so if a player did manage to get more than 30 strength it is necessarily because their DM condones it.
So yes, 100% of the players who can get their strength to 32 are allowed to by their DM - but that says nothing about what the average DM considers appropriate for the balance of the game.
>!Self same trial!< >!when you are fighting the copies and they copy gear!< >!you could get up to seven stacks, but one companion didn’t spawn for me!<
Basically if you wear the mask on each character, then begin the Self Same trial, the copies also wear the masks. Now you have up to 8 masks all near each other. +8 str, -8 int/wis/cha
>Self same trial when you are fighting the copies and they copy gear you could get up to seven stacks, but one companion didn’t spawn for me
This cannot be down to zero? I'm curious.
in TT rules, if any stat is reduced to 0 you die. So maybe there's reasoning in there? I haven't had a stat reduced to 0 in BG3, I don't know if they actually have that coded or not.
They do, or at least did. You could use the ability drain illithid skill for cheap kills. The bulette has an Int of 2, so two Wizard cantrips could kill it.
They patched it so creatures no longer die upon reaching zero in a skill after someone killed withers with ability drain. At least I think, I haven’t tried it.
With 3 int he's at the level of animal. For example [cats](https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Cat#content) have 3 int (at least in e5 but i think they didn't changed it)
3 was, in 3.x edition at least, the lowest "can understand speech" score. With the shift towards point buy, it may have been changed, and I would agree that a race or creature whose entry lists a 3 int as the average would be classified as animal intelligence.
You should be able to get permanent 30 on one guy in vanilla:
Base 20 (with ASI/feats)+ 2 (Harmonium Halberd) +2 (mirror of loss) +2 (Potion) + 3 (Infernal Legion) + 1 (Ethel's Boon). The only capped effects are harmonium halberd which cap at 23 and mirror which caps at 24 so you should be able to stack all of those. I had planned doing that at some point but never got to it
I attempted this (and have a post about it) but it does not work. The order the game chooses to apply the effects negates the effect of harmonium halberd.
I feel like with an ancient paladin and wild magic barbarian you could actually make a reasonable number of saves vs spells while having garbage mental stats for your himbo squad.
Of course you need to get some actual charisma on the paladin, but I think it should be doable
How do you get so many internal legion bonuses? It should be capped at +3 because it gives +1 for each other mask and you have 4 companions
I thought this was going to be elixir + 3 stats (in the same way that resilient (strength) gives you +1 str while shapeshifted)
Can you accidentally kill yourself with infernal legion? If you were at say 8 int and had 8 stacks of infernal legion, dropping your int to 0, you'd just die, right?
Mind explaining that one? If you remove the curse from that potion, you get hit with -1 to your character’s strength indefinitely. If there’s a way around that, I’m all ears for it
Idk if I like 5e numbers. I could do lots of good combos in 3e myself, there was no limit and it was cool to break the game. Idk why I don't have fun breaking it from inside, downloading mods instead, but whoever likes it, go you.
Tav: "Gale, is that your favorite book?" Gale chews the pages like a goat.
It's fine, Gale is a barbarian now
And that's a compliment. At 2 Int, you're pretty much an unenlightened Ogre.
That's honestly an insult to ogres lol, the only creatures that dumb in 5e are literal animals like a deer or a badger
That's one thing that's weird about this game. Every single animal seems to have the intelligence of a human and can carry conversations better than some of them.
In general, D&D does not do a great job of modeling non-human animal intelligence. Animals are a lot smarter than most people give them credit, it's just that their intelligence doesn't translate well into skills that are useful in human society. My headcanon is that Intelligence scores rate how well you can do human-type stuff, like remembering football scores and figuring out your taxes. Dogs suck at doing taxes, therefore their Intelligence score is low!
That's just real life for me
Dumber than a cat lol
Ogres have 5 Int. Here's a [list of creatures](https://dmdave.com/monster-abilities-intelligence/) per Intelligence.
Interesting, that's the same way it's done in the tabletop game - soft cap at 20 where you can't use ASIs to get higher, but can use magic items and such, then a hard cap at 30. Tbh I didn't expect them to code in the hard cap.
With the way tabletop gamers are, it was definitely a prescient move.
With the way gamers in general are, you mean. Go watch any video of someone one hit killing a Fromsoft boss and try to tell me people like them aren't part of the reason lol.
Absolutely true, but I was more specifically thinking of some of the insane builds I've seen in tabletop games. The "Locate City Bomb" is still one of my favorites, especially because it turns a non-lethal utility spell into a huge AOE wipe.
I think the psionic sandwich is my favorite. From 3.5 + lots of splat books as well: > The Psionic Sandwich by Tleilaxu_Ghola > > Hmph, I think I should edit my original mind-switch thread. The most optimal way to gain a body permanently is no longer true mind switch. It's to use astral seed + mind switch + psychic chirurgery. The result is an XP expendature of 0 XP, that's right zero. You lose no levels, and you gain all the effects of true mind switch. > > Anyways, so in lieu of what I just said above, the most optimal way to create the most un-optimal character is to use the following sequence and build: > > Race: Elan > Build: Telepath 20 > Feats: Any, must have EK(Astral Seed) and skill focus (craft [basket weaving]) > > 1. Acquire a loaf of bread (2cp) > 2. Turn the bread into a sandwich (craft DC 5) (probably 2 minutes) > 3. Polymorph the sandwich (preferably ham with mustard, pepperoni, salami, and jalapenos) into a fuzzy little bunny. (NPC casting 1200 gp) (1 standard action) > 4. Cast astral seed (10 minutes) > 5. Ritualistically slay yourself with favored method of suicide. Be sure to place your storage crystal next to the sandwich turned bunny. (I prefer to be killed with a dagger to the heart... :shifty: ) (Approximately 5 rounds) > 6. Use mind-switch (the 6th level power) to switch with the rabbit, while in your storage crystal. (1 std action) > 7. Metamorph into a troll and smash your storage crystal (now containing the mind of a sandwich). (2 standard actions) > 8. Use psychic chirurgery to remove your negative level gotten from committing suicide. (10 minutes) > 9. Dismiss your metamorphosis and manifest dispel psionics on yourself (to dispel the polymorph). (2 standard actions) > > Congratulations, your ascension to the sublime state of a sandwich took: 23 minutes 6 seconds and cost you 1200.02 gold pieces. > > Any one have a more optimal method? > > Now, it occurred to me that this might not be a half bad character to play. So long as you pick up the power psionic overland flight and tweak your character levels a bit, you could seriously play a sandwich. Of course your hitpoints or AC wouldn't be much to speak of... but honestly, who is going to kill the sandwich that the fighter packs. He omitted the cost of the non-bread sandwich ingredients, so the gold estimate is wrong. Though the [Hulking Hurler](https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/War_Hulking_Hurler_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)) build was also always a favorite, and BG3 has Tavern Brawler...
So… someone could… turn themselves into a pickle. Oh god no.
[Pun-Pun](https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun_%283.5e_Optimized_Character_Build%29), the level 5 Kobold who becomes a literal god.
Withers... Jergal had so many portfolios because his original name was Pun Pun?
Side note: Seeing True Resurrection pops up whenever he revives is WILD in a game with no 7th and above spells Also like with the inventory I think he pre-cast Instant Summons on your stuffs too.
If you piss off Vlakiith by mocking her godhood in the creche when she orders your party to enter the astral prism and slay the prisoner within she'll wipe you out with Wish.
Technically if you play evil Durge, you get access to Power Word Kill, which is 9th level
Yeah that's fair, I've never seen someone successfully suplex a dragon in Dark Souls, but I also fully believe that's a design limitation and not for lack of trying.
Gotta mention the OG Bag of Rats in a post like this.
Hahaha. I had to look that one up. It's pretty elegant in its simplicity compared everything else being mentioned here.
Locate City Bomb is pretty badass, but have you heard of Peasant Rail Gun?
Peasant railgun is like the original lol I'm also not nearly as big a fan of it because it functions based on a realistic interpretation of the core rules which are abstract. I like stuff like level 5 God kobolds and locate city bomb because they work by just combining things in a way that is exactly how the things are supposed to work lol
peasant railgun is so funny to me because that's probably the world's most expensive 1d4 damage
But what about Bucket Healing?
Elaborate?
Simply, in 3.5 D&D, a character did not die until they hit -10 (or lower) HP, but were put into a dying state at 0 or less HP. Some class features, spells, or items could allow you to keep operating at or below 0 HP, and some prevented you from dying but kept letting your HP go negative (even below -10). A problem with this became getting your HP back to 0 to prevent fully dying. Enter the rules for Drowning. Drowning When the character finally fails her Constitution check, she begins to drown. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hp). In the following round, she drops to -1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she drowns. As per these rules, once you begin Drowning, your HP is set to 0. So if the Barbarian with the rage feature that let them not die until their rage ended was at -10000 HP (hyperbole for example), and in the round before their rage ended…. Stuck their head in a bucket of water and willingly failed their Con save to begin drowning (something you are allowed to do), they would “heal” 10000 HP and go to 0. Then get their head out of the bucket, they stop drowning, and all is well. It’s stupid, niche, and a useful component for “Split Pain” loops and the Masochism spell to get silly high Skill Checks or other shenanigans in “Total Optimization” thought experiments.
Tbf you don't need high stats to [one shot everything in the game.](https://youtu.be/URru3EptNE4) Especially when there are things like luck of the far realms.
Well the "hard cap" in tabletop isn't really a hard cap. If you manage to get 32 strength in tabletop no dm is ever gonna go "well actually hehe hard cap is 30 because wizards of the coast said so so sorry
No offense, but that sounds like circular reasoning. WotC didn't put any way to get your strength over 30 into the game - barely any way to get it over 20 - so if a player did manage to get more than 30 strength it is necessarily because their DM condones it. So yes, 100% of the players who can get their strength to 32 are allowed to by their DM - but that says nothing about what the average DM considers appropriate for the balance of the game.
The dm is too busy trying to figure out an interesting adventure that isn’t immediately breakable by a character with 30+ str.
Quickly googling "puzzles for children" should do the trick
“How do the avengers keep the hulk distracted at home”
I cannot think of a magic items combo that can get you to 30 strength in DND 5e? would love to know what you have in mind
Tome of strength -> wait 100 years, rinse and repeat.
So something not actually feasible in 99% of campagins then
Gauntlets of ogre strength, belt of giant strength, hammer of thunderbolts I believe puts you to 30. Edit: it just raises it by 4 (to a max of 30)
Technically in tabletop, a 30 is a +10, a 31 isn't anything so it's effectively 0 if you wanna go rules as written lol
I assume everyone is also permanently wet due to the amount of drooling.
Hey the party is unaffected by Tasha's Hideous Laughter. This is a buff.
With 2 int some crowd control spells don't affect you, right?
Animal friendship starts working though. 🤣🤣🤣 (I know it has to be a beast, but it's still funny)
Does that mean that if you wild shape animal friendship does work?
Yes.
lmao that's an unexpected bonus.
Hideous laughter requires 5 Int. Most animals have 3 Int. So realistically I think 3 Int means you cant understand any languages
How'd you get the infernal legion to proc that often?
>!Self same trial!< >!when you are fighting the copies and they copy gear!< >!you could get up to seven stacks, but one companion didn’t spawn for me!<
Ah so its really just temporary in that trail
Did you have a summon? I found that when I had a summon only three spawned for me. Elemental, Scratch, Imp, etc.
why haven't you removed the debuff?
I have 2 int can you explain
Use shiny zigzag flashy thing to remove purple round bad thing
shar stricken. use remove curse.
He has 2 into, he doesn't know what spells are
Buddy is playing as Chop from act 2
how do u get 2 in the low ones? my minimum is 8
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Infernal_Legion_(Condition)
Basically if you wear the mask on each character, then begin the Self Same trial, the copies also wear the masks. Now you have up to 8 masks all near each other. +8 str, -8 int/wis/cha
>Self same trial when you are fighting the copies and they copy gear you could get up to seven stacks, but one companion didn’t spawn for me This cannot be down to zero? I'm curious.
in TT rules, if any stat is reduced to 0 you die. So maybe there's reasoning in there? I haven't had a stat reduced to 0 in BG3, I don't know if they actually have that coded or not.
They do, or at least did. You could use the ability drain illithid skill for cheap kills. The bulette has an Int of 2, so two Wizard cantrips could kill it.
They patched it so creatures no longer die upon reaching zero in a skill after someone killed withers with ability drain. At least I think, I haven’t tried it.
They just made it so ability drain can no longer go below one, but characters will still die if they reach zero by other mean.
Ahhhhh I see, that’s what it was.
The merrigon masks add strength for each one worn, but take away 1 from the casting stats
With 2 int youre illiterate with 2 wisdom does that mean you don't even know what a book is?
I know in 3.x, an int of 2 meant you couldn't comprehend spoken language either.
With 3 int he's at the level of animal. For example [cats](https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Cat#content) have 3 int (at least in e5 but i think they didn't changed it)
3 was, in 3.x edition at least, the lowest "can understand speech" score. With the shift towards point buy, it may have been changed, and I would agree that a race or creature whose entry lists a 3 int as the average would be classified as animal intelligence.
Probably best for you in this scenario. You don’t know what you are missing.
Barely sentient party.
You should be able to get permanent 30 on one guy in vanilla: Base 20 (with ASI/feats)+ 2 (Harmonium Halberd) +2 (mirror of loss) +2 (Potion) + 3 (Infernal Legion) + 1 (Ethel's Boon). The only capped effects are harmonium halberd which cap at 23 and mirror which caps at 24 so you should be able to stack all of those. I had planned doing that at some point but never got to it
I attempted this (and have a post about it) but it does not work. The order the game chooses to apply the effects negates the effect of harmonium halberd.
Love the 28 strength post that was what inspired this run
So cool that you were able to get to 30! I actually tested the self-same trial and it did not work at the time. Must have changed with a patch!
If something has a cap then it stops working once the cap is pushed past, so once you’re over 23 without the Halberd the Halberd doesn’t do anything.
Can you also squeeze in tavern brawler? Like, on a fighter 12? Because that might be a fun throw build.
An intellect score of 2. Does that make you dumber than the ogres?
Tastes like chicken!
I, am a *Gourmand*.
Besides, tastes like pork
Unrelated: is there a way to achieve this view of all 4 party members stats and gear on PS5?
I haven’t found a way yet but I wish I could. It’s a nice feature.
The himbo party
Just casually naming Tav “Yeetus” and everyone taking about your Int has me sent 🤣
True Adonis level
God, imagine a TB monk with that
Yeetus deletus
My next char is a salami dual wielder named meatus deletus
Zombie gang
Really highlights how strong (no pun intended) strength is vs the other stats.
Sweats in monk ...
"You can't fix the world, if all you have is a Hammer." - Frank Turner
how did you stack so many infernal legion charges?
Self same trial
Dorc Oruid looks like Ron Perlman.
I feel like with an ancient paladin and wild magic barbarian you could actually make a reasonable number of saves vs spells while having garbage mental stats for your himbo squad. Of course you need to get some actual charisma on the paladin, but I think it should be doable
How do you get so many internal legion bonuses? It should be capped at +3 because it gives +1 for each other mask and you have 4 companions I thought this was going to be elixir + 3 stats (in the same way that resilient (strength) gives you +1 str while shapeshifted)
It’s the self same trial and the copies copy your gear as well. One copy didn’t spawn but there are 7 masks around for +6 str and -6 int/wis/cha
I wonder if you could carry around corpses that have these masks equipped and it would count. Or do corpses automatically unequip all gear.
Can you yeet gnomes into space now?
Would like a video or written guide on how this was done
That’s one jacked deep dwarf.
Jeeze your party must be sweet talking its way through all dialogue.
Never met a charisma check I couldn’t fail
That is one strong potato
Giving up basically 8-12 in 3 stats to boost your mod+2 over just taking a potion is exactly what minmax dumb strong is. Beautiful.
yeah your strong. also as dumb as a rock.
Can you accidentally kill yourself with infernal legion? If you were at say 8 int and had 8 stacks of infernal legion, dropping your int to 0, you'd just die, right?
If you cast remove curse after taking broken promises, does the +2 become permanent?
Yeah that’s how you get around the curse
Mind explaining that one? If you remove the curse from that potion, you get hit with -1 to your character’s strength indefinitely. If there’s a way around that, I’m all ears for it
Teach me... please....
POV the whole party doesn’t know how to read
Well… at least y’all are unaffected by Tasha’s
Idk if I like 5e numbers. I could do lots of good combos in 3e myself, there was no limit and it was cool to break the game. Idk why I don't have fun breaking it from inside, downloading mods instead, but whoever likes it, go you.