Modrons

[User3]

Do people want a Modron Drone class for make Drones of CR 1-20? That's entirely doable.

Why not? That way, Tome of Virtue could get celestials (I think a guy even took a shot at it at WotC, in the Tome of Fiends discussion), and ... well, did someone ever try to make the slaadi into something noteworthy? Giant Frog!

[Judging__Eagle]

Well, being able to be a living Gear, using Book of Gears material would be sort of interesting.

[virgil]

I don't know if one should conclude that the Modron March is an effectively randomly-occurring event simply on the basis that the only adventure/story that talked about it was off-schedule.

The time frame of the setting (less than the several century period mentioned) doesn't allow for room to have more than one Modron March occur. This is doubly so when you consider the fact that nobody writes adventures for a setting outside the immediate timeframe set out in a campaign unless it involves timetravel to that era.

From what I'm aware of, all published information about the Modron March agreed that it's ALWAYS been a constant time interval between Marches; and the only time it was off-schedule is the adventure Monte Cook wrote.

[Digestor]

^ From what I've gathered it is a fixed schedule - but like, the rules are so bendable. They're not even rubber, their paper!

[Crissa]

I always liked the description that they appeared as regular shapes to viewers but were not actually shaped like anything. Like the old angel 'it was too awesome to behold' thing.

Or maybe I just liked the aliens in Close Encounters.

-Crissa

[tzor]

Something is really beginning to annoy me. That is the notion that Modrons were supposed to be "giant dice."

On the one hand, when I played AD&D back in 1980 all the vile nameless monsters were "giant dice" each aigned to give each individual monster a number. A group of 6 orcs inveritably got six d6 with a different side facing up. Figures were for CHARACTERS. (Because that's all college students could afford.)

On the other hand it's not dice it's polyhedrons. Regular polyhedrons were practically worshiped by the Greek. The fact that there were five of them and only four generally known "elements" is a complex matter of Greek gonstic sceintific speculation. (Held along with the irrationally of PI as a significant state secret which should never be revealed to the masses.)

Now it is true that the five sacred regular polyhedrons did become the first 5 dice commonly used in AD&D d4,d6,d8,d12 and that annoying d20 which only went from 0-9 twice. But then they realized they could do more and the d10 was invented. (And the d30, d100, etc.) So it is not fair to really compare them to dice but to the regular polyhedrons they were originally created from.

[User3]

There's no reason they can't be both!

It's blindingly obvious that the dice used for early editions of D&D (before they invented the "dedicated" d10) are just a standard issue educational set of Platonic solids with numbers applied. It can therefore be safely presumed that Gygax knew what the die shapes were in the world of mathematics before they became dice. Gygax was still at TSR when the Modrons were first published, and making creatures that are the essence of Law look like the Platonic solids seems like exactly the kind of half-dumb, half-highbrow joke he'd make.

Still, I'd been playing Dungeons and Dragons for literally years before I had any idea that there were such things as "Platonic solids" outside roleplaying games, and I can't imagine that I was alone in that experience. It's entirely possible that they could have been created in the image of the dice, rather than their originals, by some similarly ignorant young player who thought it was a cute joke.

Gygax is officially credited as the "author" on the Monster Manual II, where the things appear for what I think was the first time; but frankly this means less than nothing, as it was relatively common at the time to give him an author credit for hardbacks even if he had had almost nothing to do with the book (c.f. the original Oriental Adventures).

--d.

[tzor]

I'm not sure about the timings, but for me, I started playing AD&D around the time when a Tom Baker Dr. Who episode involving a D12 as a power source finally made it across the pond and onto US PBS stations. (And who could forget the D12's of salt that the aliens from outside the galaxy turned people into in the Old Star Trek Series?)

I could have sworn hearing about platonic solids with the dice because that was the answer for why we had 5 of them and not just D6's which was what most people knew of. It's all about platonic solids man! (This of course was proof that AD&D was a game for smart college people which was why I nearly blew a gasket when I saw that little kids were playing AD&D in the opening scenes of E.T. - THEY WERE NOT WORTHY!)

(Personally I blame everything bad that happened to AD&D on E.T.)

[Username17]

(And who could forget the D12's of salt that the aliens from outside the galaxy turned people into in the Old Star Trek Series?)

The Kelvans turned people into d20s and those things made of alternating triangles and squares whose names I forget.

-Username17

[Catharz]

As far as I know, modrons are built specifically to not advance. They gather information, but they're constitutionally incapable of learning. Any modron which has begun to learn is by definition Rogue.

So a 1-20 class is pretty strange. Depending on how you choose to write up their generation, they could advance with their stupid "energy pool" acting just like the infernal fire pools. IMO that's not a good way to do it.

They're obviously physically put together by modrons built for that purpose. So you could stil have advancement, with the 'best' modrons being 'rebuilt,' but that still seems to go against modron ethos.

I'd just stick with a fixed hierarchy, and possibly a 'rogue' template.

IMO there's a lot that could be done with grafts, rebuilding, and purpose-built drone, but that's probably outside the scope of what you'd be interested in doing.

P.S.
I'm getting the feeling that nobody read my massive post up there. Sorry it was so long.

[User3]

Catharz, it isn't that strange if you think of it more as a framework for modron statting-out; a metagame construct, so to say, instead of having guys with crazy (and almost always level-inappropriate in some way) lists of abilities with every bestiary.

[User3]

1177008664[/unixtime]]I'm not sure about the timings, but for me, I started playing AD&D around the time when a Tom Baker Dr. Who episode involving a D12 as a power source finally made it across the pond and onto US PBS stations.

Ah yes,
[counturl=58]Meglos.[/counturl] I remember seeing that same episode and being slightly bemused.

--d.

[Catharz]

1177012575[/unixtime]]Catharz, it isn't that strange if you think of it more as a framework for modron statting-out; a metagame construct, so to say, instead of having guys with crazy (and almost always level-inappropriate in some way) lists of abilities with every bestiary.

There is no reason that a high level modron should have any of the methods of a low level drone, beyond those of the 'modron' subtype.

[User3]

I'd think even low-level drones could have varying functions (and shapes, of course), and see no problem with some functions being represented across the power spectrum (guardian, for example; depending on what you guard, you could perfectly be a level-appropriate character anywhere from level 1 to 20; OK, 1 is a bit of an hyperbole ...).

[Catharz]

1177015834[/unixtime]]I'd think even low-level drones could have varying functions (and shapes, of course), and see no problem with some functions being represented across the power spectrum (guardian, for example; depending on what you guard, you could perfectly be a level-appropriate character anywhere from level 1 to 20; OK, 1 is a bit of an hyperbole ...).

So, say you're a player starting with a messenger monodrone. Your abilities are flight, being little, and being able to deliver recorded messages. You fight with a fine crossbow, and steal shit from people.

Advance a level, and now you're a tridrone. You have stability thanks to three legs, and multiweapon fighting with your three arms. You're also small or medium-sized, and better armored. You don't fly anymore, because you lack wings or gas propelants.

Advance a level, and you're a duodrone. Either you can fly again, or you specialize in TWFing with bows.

You see my point? There isn't much continuity. They actually are completely separate races which happen to have some stuff in common, just like the demonic tamari.

It could work. I mean, I can imagine a mordron, having gained new experinces, goes dormant for a minute. Then there's a great clanking noise and it starts spinning around and steaming, and then a new polyhedron appears in its place. That's even kinda cool.

The problem is that, in a normal game, you're basically playing a different character each session.

[User3]

"They actually are completely separate races which happen to have some stuff in common, just like the demonic tamari." - I do completely understand that may not be 100% faithful to past edition stats (but I don't think it needs to), but didn't the very tanar'ri you mention gain the true fiend? So, one could apply the same principles here.

"The problem is that, in a normal game, you're basically playing a different character each session." - If that guy consistently manages to be simple yet effective, why not? And, to be honest, the simplicity is not strictly needed (look at the fighter and the wizard - no outsider is more complex than them, to my knowledge). Besides, is leveling-up so fast in the typical game? Finally, isn't exactly that that the meldshapers and the binder attempted?

[Catharz]

1177018274[/unixtime]]"They actually are completely separate races which happen to have some stuff in common, just like the demonic tamari." - I do completely understand that may not be 100% faithful to past edition stats (but I don't think it needs to), but didn't the very tanar'ri you mention gain the true fiend? So, one could apply the same principles here.

So you're suggesting that there should be a 20-level class which is open only to extraplanar constructs, in addition to the normal modron races?

1177018274[/unixtime]]"The problem is that, in a normal game, you're basically playing a different character each session." - If that guy consistently manages to be simple yet effective, why not? And, to be honest, the simplicity is not strictly needed (look at the fighter and the wizard - no outsider is more complex than them, to my knowledge). Besides, is leveling-up so fast in the typical game? Finally, isn't exactly that that the meldshapers and the binder attempted?

If you don't retain your level 1 abilities at level 2, it isn't a class.

[User3]

So you're suggesting that there should be a 20-level class which is open only to extraplanar constructs, in addition to the normal modron races?

The true fiend made me stop having any interest in individual fiend entries, so it could even be "instead of the normal"; also, maybe it's not so hard to boot the inevitables too.

If you don't retain your level 1 abilities at level 2, it isn't a class.

My bad here - I didn't keep in mind this process isn't reversible, unlike meldshaping/binding. But, looking at our previous examples, is there any reason for a, say, messenger drone to stop flying upon gaining a level (maybe it also teleports now), or for a guardian to become lightweight? As long as being higher level implies adding/improving functions, everything's fine; and many functions could be upgradable - say, a flying messenger could turn into a planar messenger, or a slaver (because it knows other races best), a guardian may get stronger, meaner and more perceptive all the way, an artificer (read, nanotechnologist) could create ever more awesome objects out of thin air or its reactor, and so on.

[Catharz]

1177019747[/unixtime]]

So you're suggesting that there should be a 20-level class which is open only to extraplanar constructs, in addition to the normal modron races?

The true fiend made me stop having any interest in individual fiend entries, so it could even be "instead of the normal"; also, maybe it's not so hard to boot the inevitables too.

If you don't retain your level 1 abilities at level 2, it isn't a class.

My bad here - I didn't keep in mind this process isn't reversible, unlike meldshaping/binding. But, looking at our previous examples, is there any reason for a, say, messenger drone to stop flying upon gaining a level (maybe it also teleports now), or for a guardian to become lightweight? As long as being higher level implies adding/improving functions, everything's fine; and many functions could be upgradable - say, a flying messenger could turn into a planar messenger, or a slaver (because it knows other races best), a guardian may get stronger, meaner and more perceptive all the way, an artificer (read, nanotechnologist) could create ever more awesome objects out of thin air or its reactor, and so on.

Apparently we just have a different concept of how those constructs should work.

For inevitables, I can actually understand how a class would work. Rather than inevitables of different portfolios having different power levels, you can have a level 1 Zelekhut or a level 1 Marut, both of which are first level member of the Inevitable class.

The deal with modrons is that they're special made to fufill a purpose, and they're not supposed to get any better. An advanced monodrone is a rogue monodrone, and hunted by his fellows. Having upward mobility totally destroys the dystopic identity-crushing caste aesthetic.

Individual drones look and act slightly different only so that you understand that it really is a dystopia.

While I have no problem with PC modrons advancing themselves, making modron society into The American Dream just doesn't sit well with me.

[User3]

That makes sense (really, Mechanus should not be the land of free enterprise), but one could make a case for a given drone being constructed with a set amount of levels in the class (and the class itself would serve to streamline the process), and expected to advance only by going rogue - that doesn't necessarily boot the class idea; still, probably a better deal would indeed be to make this for the inevitables (who are gears too after all) and see how modrons could fit inside. But finally, fiends aren't supposed to have a whole lot of mobility too (although they do have some).

[Catharz]

1177021804[/unixtime]]That makes sense (really, Mechanus should not be the land of free enterprise), but one could make a case for a given drone being constructed with a set amount of levels in the class (and the class itself would serve to streamline the process), and expected to advance only by going rogue - that doesn't necessarily boot the class idea; still, probably a better deal would indeed be to make this for the inevitables (who are gears too after all) and see how modrons could fit inside.

I can see that.

1177021804[/unixtime]] But finally, fiends aren't supposed to have a whole lot of mobility too (although they do have some).

Fiends represent a sort of 'social darwinism' gone awry. It makes sense to have a high-level succubus, because demons are supposed to learn through 'the school of hard knocks.' Devils are the same but corporate. A demon or devil can even decide to change its station, and if it's worthy it comes out of the fire pit as a new kind of fiend.

[User3]

Fiends gaining levels makes sense, but I use to think changing shapes takes some good centuries. Am I on crack about it?

[tzor]

1177012139[/unixtime]]As far as I know, modrons are built specifically to not advance.

They don't "advance" but they are promoted, which is sort of a regeneration process. But you are right it is moronic to give a modron a level progression in anything. Even promotion is a cruel trick as they loose any accumulated information from their previous level. (Assuming they had any which is highly debatable.)

[Crissa]

But the CR of a drone is arbitrary - modrons don't equate CR to your position in the heirarchy, your CR is just what tools you have at your disposal, not how smart or informed you are.

So you totally can have drones from 1-20 without them actually being Primus, or even more. They're just drones with more or less options or size of powers.

-Crissa