Weapon Styles, Basket Weaving, and Concept Obsolesence

[shadzar]

Bob the fighter: OMG this sword is cursed!
Moose the mage: well lets just transfer the curse to this rock and walk away.

How the fuck is this different than with normal D&D items? If the curse doesn't bind the sword to you, you could already just throw the sword on the ground and walk away. If it does bind it, then great, you now have a rock bound to you - which is actually worse, if it forces you to wield it.

usually a simple curse does jsut that, the item cannot be gotten rid of, or cannot be gotten rid of except to someone willing to take it from you.

so transferring ANY magic shoudl work in any case.

how do you justify that you can transfer the good magic, and NOT transfer the bad magic?

also, nobody touches the newly cursed rock.

how many cursed items dont attune themselves tot he one that picks them up, or just confers the curse directly to them?

if you could transfer magic then a curse transferred from a item to a person could easily be transferred back which again makes it really no threat at all and no point.

transferring magic item properties is just stupid.

it is SO stupid an idea, it is why only Wish could even attempt it prior to Tome of Magic coming out in 1991.

so for 20 years...it wasnt needed by people...how did it become such a requirement just 9 years later? because MMOs and jCRPGs.

again i point you to the Materia and MAR examples.

[hyzmarca]

So instead of the paladin whining that the orc chieftain uses an axe instead of a double-bladed katana, he whines because the orc chieftain weapon has an orc ancestor spirit that grants Vicious instead of a lantern archon that grants Holy. That's not any better.

It's perfectly alright, actually. If the Axe Paladin gets an unholy blood drinking axe that's fine, because it's an effect and effects don't break the character's aesthetic. Even if he wields a totally evil axe, he's still an Axe Paladin.

So instead of the paladin whining that the orc chieftain uses an axe instead of a double-bladed katana, he whines because the orc chieftain weapon has an orc ancestor spirit that grants Vicious instead of a lantern archon that grants Holy. That's not any better.

I have posted three times in on this page alone that I am not talking about changing what type of magic an item has. What the hell is wrong with all of you?

The problem with that position is that the type of magic the item has is just as important as it's shape in terms of aesthetics, perhaps more so.

Thor is the God of Thunder. He wields a magic thunder hammer. If he wielded an axe (which he totally could) it would probably be a Thunder Axe. Thunder is a huge part of his aesthetic, and is actually more important than hammer.

If Zeus had to choose between a lightning scythe and a fire sword, he'd pick lightning, because he's Zeus and lightning is his thing.


The guy with a fire sword is aesthetically different from the guy with an ice sword, and most fire guys wouldn't be caught dead with an ice weapon.

There are going to be people who don't give a shit what the weapon looks like as long as it's entropic. There'll be people who want to whole hellfire aesthetic with unholy and fire properties.

Paladins probably want holy effects, but there are plenty of room to add flourishes.

Azbell the Hellfreezer wants Holy and Ice effects on his equipment. If you drop a flaming holy axe +12 for him you're screwing up his aestetic.

Mai Lai the genocidal Ghoul Paladin is going to want both holy and negative energy effects on her weapons for obvious reasons. What's the chances of the DM dropping a Holy + Negative Energy anything? The two don't usually go together. This is a shame, since undead cannibal paladin is a great character concept, but that's beside the point.

[shadzar]

So instead of the paladin whining that the orc chieftain uses an axe instead of a double-bladed katana, he whines because the orc chieftain weapon has an orc ancestor spirit that grants Vicious instead of a lantern archon that grants Holy. That's not any better.

It's perfectly alright, actually. If the Axe Paladin gets an unholy blood drinking axe that's fine, because it's an effect and effects don't break the character's aesthetic. Even if he wields a totally evil axe, he's still an Axe Paladin.

doesnt break the weapon aesthetic for an axe paladin, but does for a GOOD paladin if having to use an EVIL weapon.

ignoring actual alignments, the axe use becomes a CoI for the paladin and now alters his aesthetic.

this is about the ONLY place "aesthetics" belong in character creation. D&D isnt a dress-up doll. you dont get crotchless chainmail bikinis...you get what makes sense.

you get to choose the ambitions and ideals of the character, not its looks. it is a tool to interface with the world, not a barbie doll. you dont get to say your dwarf is 10 feet tall and very skinny and she has no beard EVAR, if the game says dwarves are short fat, and even the females grow beards.

you give up being a fashionista when you sat down to play D&D instead of Mallworld.

the evil axe is nothing wrong with, just another choice for the character to make, but some will bitch about it because they prefer bitching to playing.

[Ice9]

The problem with that position is that the type of magic the item has is just as important as it's shape in terms of aesthetics, perhaps more so.

Fine, but that's a separate issue. There's a number of ways you can deal with it, and they don't have to be the same ways you deal with the physical weapon type.

[ModelCitizen]

I have posted three times in on this page alone that I am not talking about changing what type of magic an item has. What the hell is wrong with all of you?

Frank, Lago, ModelCitizen - Learn to fucking read.

Ok fine then. Forget Vicious and Holy, the paladin doesn't want the orc spirit because it isn't a lantern archon, period.

Weapons are fluff. Spirits are fluff. You have the option of picking up someone else's fluff and attaching it to your character. The same people who have a problem with that will have a problem with it whether it's weapons or spirits or what the fuck ever.

And if the bound spirits are so fluffless that no one cares what kind of spirit goes in their weapon, then they're just a half-assed excuse and you still can't have a magic item with a persistent story or place in the world.

[Username17]

According to Fuchs, regardless of what the opposition is or what they are depicted as using during the actual battle, that "through trade, reforging or selling and buying" the players should end up in exactly the same place equipment wise. That our team of wizards will end up with the same assortment of headbands of intellect, cloaks of resistance, and metamagic rods whether today's opposition was Drow mages, Goblin berserkers, or griffins.

Ok, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt on this one and assume you are being purposefully disingenuous, by intentionally conflating "changing the physical weapon type" with "changing what the magic properties are", even though it has been stated about a dozen fucking times that's not what anyone is talking about. Because the alternative is that you're a dumbass who can't read.

Take your Heisenberg's Argument and shove it up your ass. For fuck's sake, I was specifically talking about Fuch's Argument, who said specifically that treasure should be convertible to absolutely anything that was literally exactly what the players wanted. His example was to convert the items into trade goods and then buy exactly what was desired from clearing houses in Planescape. So fucking shut the fuck up about how no one is suggesting purging items of their special properties and replacing them with shit they wrote on their character build 2 months ago, because that is in fact exactly what Fuchs is suggesting.

In general, I want every single person who makes the argument "No one is saying X, we're all saying Y" to cut their dicks off and put them in their mouths. Because you assholes are not making the same arguments. Like, at all. Ice9, no one except Fuchs thinks your stupid fucking reforging idea is even a little bit OK, OK? So when you jump in and tear people a new asshole because they are responding to any of the other arguments made by people who aren't you, it makes you even more of a disruptive asshole.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

Frank always totes player decisions - unless their decisons are "fuck this shit, we're selling that axe in the city of brass and buy a sword, cleric, get planar shift and fire resistance ready, I hope that tavern we were at last time still has the fire beer special".

Yes, I advocate selling vendor trash and buying what you want. Selling surplus magic items on the planar bazar is what logically happens once you have plane travelling adventurers, infinite planes and a central hub like Sigil or the City of Brass.

You would have to jump through a lot of hoops and railroad like crazy to prevent players from simply acting logical and selling and trading magic imtes they do not want to acquire magic items they do want, once they are out of the dirtfarmer levels. And all you would do by this is to fucking tell your players "your decisons do not matter, my way or the highway, now shut up and be glad I randomly roll for treasure, you're too fucking stupid to appreciate treasure otherwise, and you'll only be disappointed if you don't get what you want otherwise - even though now you don't get what you want anyway, nya nya nya!".

[shadzar]

cleric, get planar shift and fire resistance ready

is this really what 3rd was about? a clusterfuck Planescape as the base setting?

no wonder newer/MMO generation players are spoiled brats.

"oops! sorry, your god has decided that you will serve him better on this plane and does not grant you the spell you requested."

no plane shifting for you!

and NO a DM doesnt owe you travel to the other planes unless specifically IN a Planescape campaign. the reason they might not be playing Planescape is because the DM doesnt like that shit nor want to be a part of it.

[Fuchs]

Another argument is that at least once we are talking about mid to high level adventures, magic items should not be sacrosanct, but just another thing that the player characters can affect and change according to their wishes, like the rest of the world.

It makes no damn sense at all that player characters could be preparing to defeat death itself or reshape a plane, but still can't turn a magical axe into a magical sword - not even by trading it.

[shadzar]

at those higher levels, in order to do such things the PCs should MAKE THEIR OWN FUCKING GEAR FOR THE SPECIALIZED TASKS THEY WISH TO ACCOMPLISH!

[PhoneLobster]

Oh hey look. A nugget of pure gold like Shadzar wisdom...

is this really what 3rd was about? a clusterfuck Planescape as the base setting?

... 3E was eeeevil (compared to his much loved 2E) because it used planescape as it's base setting!

Only it didn't. 3E had some bits of cosmology in common with planescape, which is unsurprising since Planescape itself was based on dribs and drabs of cosmology from regular D&D.

Planescape however wasn't the 3E base setting. Indeed it wasn't a published official setting AT ALL for 3.0, 3.5, or to my knowledge even for Pathfinder.

Planescape, which I personally certainly agree, is a hideous clusterfuck loved only by drooling imbeciles, to this day remains a published setting for one and only one edition of D&D.

And that edition is 2E, Shadzar's personal favorite...

[Fuchs]

The City of Brass can easily replace Sigil as a trade hub if Planescape is not to your taste.

[rasmuswagner]

For a thread about an axis-of-preference topic, this thread generates an amazing number of donkey-raping strawmen. I have nothing to contribute but my applause; I am entertained.

[shadzar]

The City of Brass can easily replace Sigil as a trade hub if Planescape is not to your taste.

im talking about plane-hopping to begin with. outside of planescape this wasnt the norm for D&D. it wasnt until EQ that such a thing was commonplace because the various planes wrent really seen as places you would want to go.

remember it wasnt because elvel limits that people retired characters, but the story got odl and tiring and a new one was wanted, not a new place for the characters to travel. (see Forgotten Realms)

some people DID gravitate to planescape or spelljammer, but how many modules were written for plane-hopping as opposed to being on a single planet(oid)?

outside of planescape, not many, that is WHY they made planescape for the niche within a niche that wanted to plane-hop.

most DMs made A world and people playd on it. it kind of conforms to the whole concept of people going out to do better than their families and sending some home. the PCs had stake in the world itself. if you are just going around plane-hopping, then the value of "hero" is totally lost to some fantasy jetsetter.

again this is a problem form taking (A)D&D from a medieval fantasy adventure game, into generic RPG.

this is why SO much discussion went on about the problems of traveling to other planes.. a cleric no longer has contact with their deity and thus loses ALL powers. they have to, if they can, find a new deity. their old one is too concerned with things on their own planet to bother with someone who left it and the dimension.

ALL planar related things were left mostly to supplements and settings and OUT of default because it didnt belong.

Plane Shift meant the DM had to create a whole other universe and planet.. doubling the work. it was most used as a clerics attack. to banish creatures from the Prime Material Plane. or in other cases to summon a creature from another plane.

often the BBEG was screwing with the planes, NOT the PCs.

it wasnt commonplace for a reason. that reason being SoD among others.

again the MMO influence should not have happened. D&D doesnt have a Bazaar in the Nexus.

[Damocles]

again the MMO influence should not have happened. D&D doesnt have a Bazaar in the Nexus.

you arrogant fuck, DnD has whatever the damn dm writes into it. It isnt your concrete fucking setting, or anyone's.

[shadzar]

again the MMO influence should not have happened. D&D doesnt have a Bazaar in the Nexus.

you arrogant fuck, DnD has whatever the damn dm writes into it. It isnt your concrete fucking setting, or anyone's.

you arrogant fuck 9th level wizards and clerics allow for planar travel, ergo WBL cannot include it as a default since it isnt available for HALF THE FUCKING GAME.

the point being assuming something you HAVE done as the default doesnt make it so.

warforged and other eBerron crap placed into 4th was to secure WotC ownership over the material and remove Kieth Baker from being able to use it.

likewise bits of ALL campaign settings were pushed into the default so that their authors couldn't claim ownership in ANY way.

it doesnt mean including some of this shit became the default. even Fuchs admitted plane shift was regarding high-level play.

therein lies the problem...at those levels the ability to create your own rather than trying to transfer properties is more valuable. ergo, at those levels you CAN plane shift you no longer need to just to have magic item YOU want.

it becomes a red herring in the discussion at that point.

Creating a magic weapon has a special prerequisite: The creator’s caster level must be at least three times the enhancement bonus of the weapon. If an item has both an enhancement bonus and a special ability the higher of the two caster level requirements must be met.

seems even a 3rd level wizard in 3.x can create magic weapons of +1, so lower level problems shouldnt even exist, make your own shit when the time comes and dont worry about what drops.

so ALL problems are solved in 3.x with making your own shit. no excuse for waiting for ANYTHING to drop, IF you want it bad enough.

[andreww]

and NO a DM doesnt owe you travel to the other planes unless specifically IN a Planescape campaign. the reason they might not be playing Planescape is because the DM doesnt like that shit nor want to be a part of it.

OK I normally lurk here for occasional amusing flamewars but I had to register just to reply to this nonsense. Yes Shadzar is clearly a trap but I really dont care.

I have to wonder if you have ever actually read any of the 1e or 2e materials. Leaving aside the fact that Planescape was a 2E setting 1E is filled with planar travel material. The 1E DMG has all sorts of details about the inner and outer planes and we also got an entire Manual of the Planes which contained extensive details of how to travel there, survive and interact with other planar beings.

We also got a whole bunch of higher level modules where planar travel was a huge part of the adventure. The entire premise of Queen of the Demonweb Pits, one of the best known old school modules, was that you travelled to the Abyss to battle directly against Lloth.

Now individual GM's might not like players going to the planes but it was very clearly a viable method of play when players reached higher levels as we got a load of rules for how to do it and modules set on those planes.

[andreww]

im talking about plane-hopping to begin with. outside of planescape this wasnt the norm for D&D. it wasnt until EQ that such a thing was commonplace because the various planes wrent really seen as places you would want to go.

Queen of the Demonweb Pits was published in 1979.

Everquest 1 released in 1999.

So only a 20 year difference, thats almost like at the same time.

[andreww]

And a few other planes hopping style adventures off the top of my head:

1983 - Land Beyond the Magic Mirror
1985 - Where Chaos Reigns
1986 - Twilight Calling
1987 - Egg of the Phoenix
1987 - Five Coins for a Kingdom
1987 - Talons of Night
1988 - The Throne of Bloodstone
1988 - Tales of the Outer Planes

[shadzar]

1. modules are accessories, NOT the game.
2. if you have lurked you should know about me and 1st edition. if not, you can now search natively since you ARE registered.
3. Monte Cook is attributed to designing large swatches of 3rd if not the majority, and his influence from earlier design during 2nd are also present in 3rd, being his large involvement with Planescape.
4. due to #2 (when you search for that) i played Mentzer BD&D which didnt include "planes" all that much.
5. modules are NOT the game... just someone else's idea of an adventure. you could play the game with 3 books and only those 3 as some have done for over 20 years. dont screw up the idea that 4th edition gives that "everything is core"...because it aint...

what you add to the game beyond the core, is a part of the system, but NOT the default game. this is something people need ot really learn.

Planes ARE in 1st edition, but looka t the facts in decades of discussions, that MANY people retired characters at a point in time when they reached those levels planar travel would occur.

that should tell you something about how OFTEN planar travel occurred.

weapon proficiencies were a viable method of play, but not default a even 1st edition made it entirely optional.

what is it frank said?

you are done making the game, not when you have added everything you can, but when you have taken away all that you dont need.

take all that optional stuff out, and you will find the default game. using ANY options takes you into houserules territory EVEN IF those options were provided officially in a published product.

The Known Planes of Existence, as described in the PHB, offer nearly endless possibilities for AD&D play, although some of these new realms will no longer be fantasy as found in sword & sorcery or myth but verge on that of science fiction, horror, or jsut about anything else desired.

so unless you want to leave fantasy sword & sorcery or myth... no need to even look at them, and MANY didnt.

it also mentions switching back and forth between "swords & sorcery", "sixguns & sorcery" (boot hill), and "mutants and magic" (gamma world)...it doesnt mean people bought those 3 games to run with AD&D as the norm, nor did it mean they WANTED to buy or play those games.

a suggestion like those games or the planes, is JUST THAT, a suggestion.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Back in the halcyon days of 2e, 1e and prior, D&D had no default setting. Lots of settings existed, but none of them were the default. Even in 3e, the extent of the setting information was a sawed-down version of the Greyhawk pantheon. That's because one of the traditions of D&D was that you were encouraged to make your own setting, and to make it whatever your little heart desired. You could include anything you want, no matter the genre you went for (Though various flavors of fantasy were obviously easier to deal with).

That is because while D&D is a rule system, it's not a setting in-and-of-itself. No one can stand forth and declare that a concept is "not D&D" because D&D, especially pre-3e, has no default setting/

[andreww]

1. modules are accessories, NOT the game.

Your anecdote is no more viable than my anecdote. we certainly engaged in a lot of planar hopping adventures back in 1E. Reitiring characters was uncommon and planar travel was fairly frequent. The DMG supported that as an option and Manual of the Planes expanded on it. Hell, MM1 and MM2 were full of high level threats out on the Planes just waiting to be used as major adversaries for higher level groups.

The Known Planes of Existence, as described in the PHB, offer nearly endless possibilities for AD&D play, although some of these new realms will no longer be fantasy as found in sword & sorcery or myth but verge on that of science fiction, horror, or jsut about anything else desired.

so unless you want to leave fantasy sword & sorcery or myth... no need to even look at them, and MANY didnt.

I like how you bolded the although but ignored the some. Planar travel and planar adventures can very easily be found firmly in the sword and sorvery genre especially when that genre stretches from world bound Conan to planet travelling John Carter of Mars to regularly planar travelling Elric and other Eternal Champion stories.

[shadzar]

And a few other planes hopping style adventures off the top of my head:

1983 - Land Beyond the Magic Mirror
1985 - Where Chaos Reigns
1986 - Twilight Calling
1987 - Egg of the Phoenix
1987 - Five Coins for a Kingdom
1987 - Talons of Night
1988 - The Throne of Bloodstone
1988 - Tales of the Outer Planes

Q1 isnt plane-hopping, but you are taken there. not traveling to and from there on a regular basis.

EX2 was a joke based on Alice in Wonderland as the 1e DMG mentions Gary added a level to his game that was an "Alice in Wonderland" level. spit shine it and publish and instant module with little extra work and hope the Blumes dont screw it up...oops they did.

half of the others i havent heard of...but again.. modules are NOT the game, and SHOULD NOT even be used as examples of THE GAME.

playing EX2 isnt playing AD&D, but playing EX2 with AD&D. remember you could have run it in Boot Hill, or Gamma World....

and Throne of Bloodstone was FR, so in NO way can count as any such way as default to AD&D.

like i said, settings are NOT the default of the AD&D game, and do NOT define the game, just their own setting.

i guess you think EVERY game of 3.x people must have dragonmarks since they are in eBerron? so they MUST be default way people play 3.x, right? wrong.

GDQ was GDQ, no more, no less.

you can NEVER hold up a supplement and claim it for the edition as support for that edition. a supplement only stands or falls on its OWN merit or lack thereof.

people that wanted plane-hopping often put away AD&D and picked up Gamma World, or Palladium or Traveller, or another game more suited to it, rather than keep going with AD&D for such non-"sword & sorcery" style play.

[Ice9]

So wait, Frank, you're against being able to sell or trade items either? What exactly do you propose those Wizards do with their pile of axes then, build a fucking bonfire out of them?

Trading things is not some bizarre corner case, it's something people actually do. In fact, I seem to remember someone writing about a "wish economy" where people used planar currency to buy things. Or has that been redacted from the history books now?

And maybe I would stop treating your complains against Fuch's stuff as a response to my posts if you stopped referring to everything you don't like interchangeably.

[shadzar]

Back in the halcyon days of 2e, 1e and prior, D&D had no default setting. Lots of settings existed, but none of them were the default. Even in 3e, the extent of the setting information was a sawed-down version of the Greyhawk pantheon. That's because one of the traditions of D&D was that you were encouraged to make your own setting, and to make it whatever your little heart desired. You could include anything you want, no matter the genre you went for (Though various flavors of fantasy were obviously easier to deal with).

That is because while D&D is a rule system, it's not a setting in-and-of-itself. No one can stand forth and declare that a concept is "not D&D" because D&D, especially pre-3e, has no default setting/

the sentiment of your post IS correct, you are encouraged to make what you want, but the fact is there WAS a default. specifically Greyhawk.

That is the world Gary created and ran, and that is where Bigby, Tasha, etc named spells within the games come from. Greyhawk has been the default setting until the PoL crap of 4th edition in an attempt to remove the Greyhawk connection and finally remove Gary from the game.

Greyhawk wa supposed to model Earth (Oerth) so that nothing too different would change it so that you couldnt do your own thing. Mystara was more the default world (Known World) for D&D. its only other real setting was Hollow World.

Greyhawk wa default, but kept so bland even within its own setting, that you wouldnt noticed it was there, and it seems you didnt notice it all that much, so job succeeded.