The Gaming Den

How did that even happen? I don't recall wargamers, the predecessors of D&D, ever having that style in their games. Is it the basic idea for a pulp serial fantasy hero, but so watered down as to lose all of the pretext and setting material that actually explained the behavior, juxtaposed with the number juggling of Diablo?

It's an outgrowth of 2e. In 2e, if you're adventuring you're in a dungeon. The buildings are made of stone, and so you're supposed to carry off and sell any non-stone fixtures. Your job is that of 'exterminator', clearing out the dungeon for whatever reason. Therefore you're 'justified' in all of your looting.

Dungeons are puzzles, dungeon monsters are often puzzles, and 'you're not supposed to kill this guy' is a difficult puzzle encounter. They're not supposed to be realistic or really even 'roleplay' so much as a board game.

Take that outside and try to add realism to it and you get 3e.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1188693090[/unixtime]]3rd edition was pretty much designed with the backdrop of the adventures starting with The Sunless Citadel and proceeding through with The Forge of Fury, The Speaker in Dreams, The Standing Stone, Heart of Nightfang Spire, Deep Horizon, and Lord of the Iron Fortress.

The idea is that the characters would basically wander around like hobos and then big Evil dudes would start some shit for no damn reason and then the PCs would hulk out and take the homes of the evil-doers apart board and nail and Greyhawk everything of value. That you wouldn't genocide a village of goblins for no reason - you'd do it because they were slightly inconveniencing a village of humans you happened to be staying in.

In short, the morality is pretty much what you see in the books of the late Renaisance. Jews, or orcs, or whatever will start some shit for no reason and as the "heroes" it is your responsibility to steal all their swag and possibly kill all their grown men.

-Username17

So the whole design of 3ed was around eight 32 page adventures?!
Of course, you are exaggerating, but knowing you, there might be a hint of "No, I'm really serious" buried somewhere in there.

Actually, I'm dead serious start to finish. Those 8 adventures are short snippets of plot and monster-killing, but they are also written by the core design crew of 3rd edition. Those adventures are the game that th designers were playing while 3rd edition was being written. Which means that adventure path had more influence on 3rd edition than Mort d'Arthur.

Idiosynchroses of the game which do not have a deletrious effect on that campaign were unlikely to be fixed or even examined. Most of the rest of the playtesting was some railroaded Living Greyhawk style adventures for low level characters, and battle playthroughs by the "Iconic" characters against monsters from the Manual.

The first 1-20 campaign path was also the only 1-20 campaign path for much of development - so of course it's going to be "the campaign" that defines how much of 3rd edition works - at least in the minds of the developers.

-Username17

Eh, I just don't care anymore. I'll just make my own own RPG system, or find something that is fun for me.
Also, Frank, what is your opinion of True20 as a game system? High, Medium, Low, or Other?

My friends and I got tired on dungeoning after AD&D, and stuck to 'hobo' adventures. What got the characters involved, usually, was not the aspect of "we are humanoid; humanoid town is under attack; defend town" but rather that the party's lives are at stake in a bad economy and the danger of warfare with monsters just seems to come out of the walls some days...
Very few villains in the traditional sense, nearly no 'bosses', very many monsters and fiends. We never stuck to the assumed "4 encounters per day" either, it really varied, making it hard on spellcasters since rest sometimes meant being eaten. So, warrior-types usually prevailed, at least until the mid-to-late levels, and even then life was still dangerous due to the infamy (yes, infamy) accumulated as powerful people...

I just noticed, on the pdf file of this there was a base class Summoner, but there isn't here. Was it removed for a reason or was it an accident?

It's in Tome of Fiends.

Solitary intelligent monsters often get into the same boat as the Kuo-Toans. Since the Roper really has no society (and possibly the most obscure language in Core D&D), it's very difficult for it to understand the possible ramifications of offending pan-humanoid society.

This has been bugging me.

A while back I mined the Monster Manual for obscure tongues, and came up with Aboleth, Worg (used by both barghests and worgs), Beholder, Blink Dog, Formian, Githyanki (which is described as a secret language), Githzerai (which is not described as secret and can be used to communicate with githyanki… go fig), Grimlock, Kuo-Toan, Sahuagin, Slaad, Sphinx, Treant, Yuan-ti.

My Monster Manual says ropers speak Terran and Undercommon. Am I missing a reference?

The Roper speaks its own language in the Monster Manual v3. The 3.5 Monster Manual neglects to mention this language. This makes it about the most obscure language in D&D proper.

-Username17

I know that things such as souls, raw chaos, hope, concentration, and similar materials cannot be obtained with wish, even though they come in units smaller than 15,000gp.

One thing I wonder is whether books would fit under this limitation of wish. I ask because my party is going to one of the major libraries in the Planescape setting, and the entry fee is a book they don't have in their library. I'm assuming that they won't accept a blank book that someone in the party bought and scribbled random material into.

virgileso wrote:I'm assuming that they won't accept a blank book that someone in the party bought and scribbled random material into.

The library is run by the Governors, right? That's exactly the kind of thing that would get you in (and then spark a massive debate in the faction over closing the 'loophole').

the fee is a book that they don't have in their library....

Buy a book, find the author, get them to sign it.

Bang, and it won't spark a debate, since the Library doesn't have that book.

Makes one wonder how often that's been tried though, seeing as it is a planar hub, and you need to pay the fee with each time you enter. You'd think that they'll likely have every book in duplicate, one with a signature and one without.

EDIT: Also, I notice that the Soul Merchant PrC gains the ability to purchase larger souls in exchange for a sum of smaller souls when in Finality. Is there some kind of restriction with trading up souls I'm not aware of?

What if someone were to pay for planar currency with an item like, the color of your hair? How much planar currency is that worth?

Judging__Eagle wrote:the fee is a book that they don't have in their library....

Buy a book, find the author, get them to sign it.

Signed by author... dead, undead, or alive.
That would make an excellent quest; go to Hell, get this book signed by Faust, and bring it back here.
Oh, and there would be a time limit.

I'm look at the jester's cruel comment--should that be a morale penalty, or is it supposed to be able to give a foe a -12 to attack rolls, saving throws, and all other checks for one round if it's successful the third time?

virgileso wrote:Makes one wonder how often that's been tried though, seeing as it is a planar hub, and you need to pay the fee with each time you enter. You'd think that they'll likely have every book in duplicate, one with a signature and one without.

EDIT: Also, I notice that the Soul Merchant PrC gains the ability to purchase larger souls in exchange for a sum of smaller souls when in Finality. Is there some kind of restriction with trading up souls I'm not aware of?

What if someone were to pay for planar currency with an item like, the color of your hair? How much planar currency is that worth?

You need someone who wants the colour of your hair to make that count.

That would be an awesome for story purposes.

"What happened to your eyes?"

"Got two Lantern Archons to replace them."

"Why"

"An Archon made me an offer that I couldn't refuse."

"So... you can still see?"

"Yep"


You don't want to know why the human warrior has skin that looks translucent smoky black, or why the skin babbles. Okay, maybe you do now.

I like the idea of the planes being a place where you can trade anything.

I'm probably showing my age, but it reminds me of an Animorphs book (which came out shortlybefore I stopped reading them)--a stellar trading center was perfectly willing to do business with a bunch of humans, even though they didn't know what humans were. One character sold eight or nine inches of her hair to a genetics research place, and that got them pocket money to be able to purchase stuff.

You could even sell memories there. Their warrior-guild was all hot on buying the memories of violent races, I presume to study tactics or something.

Planescape, especially Sigil, strikes me as being based on similar economic priniciples--in a multiverse made of several infinite universes, someone has a use for what you're trying to sell.

which one was that? because I read them for a while too, but I don't remember that story line.

Er. I think it was #26.

The Ellimist teleported them to this trading world so they could go up against the Howlers, as part of that game between the Ellimist and the Crayak.

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Attack_%28Animorphs%29

Maxus wrote:I like the idea of the planes being a place where you can trade anything.

I'm probably showing my age, but it reminds me of an Animorphs book (which came out shortlybefore I stopped reading them)--a stellar trading center was perfectly willing to do business with a bunch of humans, even though they didn't know what humans were. One character sold eight or nine inches of her hair to a genetics research place, and that got them pocket money to be able to purchase stuff.

You could even sell memories there. Their warrior-guild was all hot on buying the memories of violent races, I presume to study tactics or something.

Planescape, especially Sigil, strikes me as being based on similar economic priniciples--in a multiverse made of several infinite universes, someone has a use for what you're trying to sell.

Hair doens't really cut it.

Blood or bone marrow samples would though.

But then, I'm all for hurting characters in the name of realism. Too much of not grimdark in my past writing has me include that sort of stuff in my later stuff.

Anyway; sell a soul in a gem; trade in your eyes; sell the colour of your hair; trade your skin to a Nightwalker for an Allip-substitute skin graft and some magic items; trade out 'real' male genitals for a Maug 'shoving-arm' graft; give up your 'human horn' in exchange for an Aboleth mucus projector; Sell your fingers to necromancers that want extra ammo for their Lham's Finger Darts spell (they stitch the fingers to their body, making them count as one of 'their' fingers; completely ghoulish and villainously effective).

Heck, you could even choose to buy things from other mortals or outsiders. Buy Devil eyes to graft into your cheekbones (See in Darkness?). Ask a Trumpet Archon to loan the part their trumpet-sword in exchange for being able to keep the Bard's boyfriend/girlfriend 'company' or as.... escrow for the duration of a mission; the Bard uses the trumpet-sword and the Archon ... 'uses' the Bard's significant other. Hire a Hamatula's time and ask what it would take to make them into Demon Armour. Buy an Angel's molted feathers to make the wings for your flying ship.

I had this one, but it's more mundange: Commision the making of a golem out of, then make it an Incarnate Golem?

Judging__Eagle wrote:trade out 'real' male genitals for a Maug 'shoving-arm' graft;

The same location?

I thought the usual replacement for genitals was a doberman, rusty white van, deep sea diving watch, camouflage combat jacket and subscription to "Guns & Ammo".

Yeah.

Same location.

I got that from a quote on the WoTC boards. Apparently some char needed to replace what he had 'lost'.

The graft was the replacement.

I don't know what the reference you're making is from though.

A doctor, played by Hugh Laurie (no, not House, it was in "A bit of Fry and Laurie"), explained to a man (who had lost his genitals in an accident), that those are common replacements for having genitals. The point was to imply that the kind of guy who wears that type of jacket, drives around in a rusty white van, has a deep sea diving watch and owns a Doberman is, well, completely dickless.

"But I need them to, well, expel urine."
"That's the beauty of it! When people see you with these things, the piss will be taken all the time!"

Hey_I_Can_Chan wrote: Githzerai (which is not described as secret and can be used to communicate with githyanki… go fig)

Not entirely unheard of, there are languages in real life that are mutually intelligible to people who speak a different, similiar language. Supposedly, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are all mutually intelligible if you speak at least one of the three language. At least, that's what I've been told. And as an English speaker, I can puzzle out Scots if it's written down and get the general meaning.