OSSR: EverQuest Player's Handbook

[Archmage]

Yes, really.

EverQuest: The Questing: Player's Handbook Introduction

You may or may not recall this thing that happened in 1999 called EverQuest. The graphical evolution of text-based DikuMUD and quasi-successor to Ultima Online, EverQuest has seriously won an Emmy and has enjoyed attention due to numerous controversies about video game addiction and ownership of virtual property. I played it for a while, by which I mean I did not really understand how MMORPGs worked (it was 1999) and I spent way more time trying to "wheel and deal" loot for gold than I did leveling, which naturally I now realize is probably a waste of time because higher level people get more valuable shit and consequently have more money than you are going to get spending hours hocking orc belts at the lift to the tree city.

Being obviously inspired by games such as Dungeons and Dragons, it makes a twisted sort of sense that eventually somebody would decide to take things the other direction and make a tabletop RPG. Right? Right.

So, taking advantage of the OGL, in 2003 I shit you not White Wolf published the EverQuest d20 RPG. Quick research on the primary authors: Jennifer Clarke Wilkes heads up the list, at the time freelancing for White Wolf and having an Ars Magica writing credit on her CV, followed by an editing gig for Magic: The Gathering at WotC. We also get Steve Kenson, who worked on Mutants and Masterminds d20 and True20 (ugh). Kenson apparently still works for Green Ronin and does Pathfinder material. Angel Leigh McCoy worked on a lot of oWoD stuff, but also has a credit on Magic of Faerun. There are other people involved (nine authors in total!), but I feel like that kind of gives you an idea. Draw your own conclusions now how good EverQuest d20 actually is based on this data if you choose.

The book actually opens with a map of Norrath, EQ's setting, before we get to the credits and table of contents.

Chapter 0: The Actual Introduction of the Book

Because EQ d20 RPG is intended to be its own game, they have the obligatory "what is a roleplaying game?" lead-in. Which includes somewhat humorous jabs at the fact that they have stolen legally borrowed the rules for "the exact same rules system as the most popular fantasy role-playing pen and paper game system out there," though they wink and nod and tell you they can't actually say the name of that game in print. You know what game. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Consequently, they want you to know that if you play that other game EQ d20 RPG is 100% compatible with it rules-wise, opening up some entertaining notions about being able to port characters across systems with relative ease, use monsters from the various d20 monster manuals, et cetera. I guess that's neat, even if it...is not entirely true, as will become clearer once we get into the actual mechanics.

They tell you what the different die sizes are and how to organize a game and whatnot before...

We Are Still Not Actually in Chapter 1

Chapter 1 is "Abilities" and is all about d20 system ability scores. But before we get to THAT, we get a setting dump. I guess this is mandatory for people who either didn't actually play EQ or who played EQ but gave zero fucks about the game's lore. If you are going to be able to roleplay in the setting they logically have to describe it, so, sure, whatever.

The setting is naturally generic fantasy drek and I do not care at all. Played the game. Still don't care. Tropes covered:

Generic fantasy Creation Story that conclude with "AND NOW IS THE AGE OF ADVENTURE"

City full of arrogant magical high elves
Tree city full of tolerant wood elves
Dark city in the underdark full of drow
Human city that is a major trade hub
SECOND human city that is a major trade hub with sprawling sewer system full of people who worship the god of disease (no really)
Barbarian city in the fantasy frozen north full of snowy mountains
Grimy primitive cities full of ogres and trolls
Inexplicably-placed fantasy desert with predictable central oasis
Inexplicable fantasy mountains overflowing with lava
Swamp full of lizard people
Desolate continent full of ancient ruins and even more xenophobic lizard people
Whole continent of frozen wastes
Sketchy poorly-lit forest full of fey
Steampunk city full of gnomes
Mine city full of dwarves

And then there are a couple things that are actually kind of clever in my opinion. EQ d20 RPG came out in 2003, but it doesn't include material from the '03 EQ expansion Legacy of Ykesha (which made frogloks playable). The most recent expansion, therefore, was Planes of Power but that doesn't fit into a primary setting infodump. What we do get is material from Shadows of Luclin, which details a civilization on Norrath's invisible second moon full of friendly cat people. Um, yeah. That's kind of cool and original, I guess?

Page 14 has a great picture of the little island in the middle of the desert oasis where evil scythe-wielding spectres that liked to murder lowbies camping nearby lurked and...murdered lowbies. It's evocative if you've actually played the game and have memories of getting murdered, or at least I think so. Even more than all the maps and infodumping, that piece of art screams to me "YOU'RE PLAYING EVERQUEST NOW, BITCHES!"

Finally: Book One: Creating a Character: Chapters 1 to 5

Yes, we actually talk about mechanics now.

Chapter 1: Abilities: The Scoring

Guess what? EQ d20 RPG characters have the exact same ability scores as D&D characters! They work exactly the same as they do in D&D! And you generate them with point buy! This is not new material, but is mandatory because EQ d20 RPG is a complete game. So okay.

Then we have a really weird section for an alternate character creation method in which you are supposed to be allowed to convert your EQ MMORPG character's stats to your tabletop character. They helpfully note that you are suppoesd to convert your character's base stats, i.e., no gear, no buffs, and then give you a bunch of EQ score ranges and what d20 ability scores and score values they correspond to. I have no idea whether or not taking your EQ stats is better than what you'd get from point buy. You are even supposed to be able to convert your EQ character's level if that's the kind of game your group wants to play, which involves dividing your EQ character's level by two. Yes, EQ d20 RPG goes to level 30 for some reason, probably at least in part to make that conversion easier. You don't get bonus skill points or feats when you do this conversion; you just get whatever your class and level would give you. So having capped Brewing skill in EQ does not automatically give you max ranks in Craft (Booze) when you convert your character.

They also helpfully tell you what skills in EQ's engine are roughly equivalent to what skills in the d20 system version. Notably all the casting skills like Evocation and Conjuration have been folded into Channeling, which was also a skill in EQ, and its primary function was to reduce spell interruption rate. The EQ d20 RPG skill is seriously Concentration renamed to fit EQ's terminology. This is all aesthetic, but it's interesting to see them pointing out that things like dual wield are not skills in EQ d20 RPG, because this is d20 and damnit you will spend FEATS on things like that. SKILLS are not allowed to do useful things! (Except that some of them do. Kinda. More on that in a moment.)

There is no perfect method for converting EverQuest Online equipment to EverQuest Role-Playing Game Equipment.

So you're supposed to pick magic items off the list in the book and have your GM approve it. If you are doing this goofy EQ Online to EQ Tabletop conversion in the first place I think you are already kind of fucked in the head, so whatever.

Chapter 2: Races: The Diversifying

Because this is EQ d20 RPG, and because EQ Online has arbitrary restrictions about which races can be which classes, there are arbitrary restrictions on which races can be which classes. You want to be a troll wizard? Fuck you, you aren't allowed. Not "that's a bad idea because your stats will suck," you just can't.

Ability score modifiers are HUGE. If you aren't a human, you're looking at getting +4 to one or two stats in exchange for -2 to a few stats. Ogres get +6 STR and +4 CON. Trolls get +4 STR and +6 CON. This is in exchange for penalties to all mental stats, of course. EQ RPG brings a whole new meaning to the idea of dump stats; your race practically forces them on you. With point buy starting at 8 your average ogre has an INT of 4. Really.

Did I mention that on top of the mandatory "this race can only be these classes" each race ALSO has one or more "favored classes" that interact in the expected way with the multiclassing rules? Yeah, you can't multiclass in EQ Online, but this is EQ d20 RPG, and d20 is all about open multiclassing, so go nuts.

Continuing in the trend of "things that the EQ MMORPG did that convert poorly to tabletop" the devs thought it made sense for people to take XP penalties based on race. You want to play a troll? Suck it, you get 20% less XP. But you do get to be large, and you get a natural slam attack, a situational save bonus versus stun effects (which is actually decent), and fire resist 3 (ooooh). Better or worse than LA? I'm not sure. At least you get to play the character you want from first level. Note that trolls eat the same penalty and their "regeneration" is seriously in hit points per hour and not even fast healing or anything. Being large is good, but you are almost forced to be a fighter (excuse me, warrior) if you play an ogre or troll...so I dunno.

Most of the racial traits are predicably total bullshit. The devs seem to have decided that anyone who gets a bonus feat (the ogre slam is actually a feat you can take if you happen to be large) needs to eat some XP penalty. Erudites are the master caster race with +6 INT and normal experience gain balanced by -4 to Spot checks in low-light conditions (OH NO). Rather than give +X to skills, being a specific race hands out free skill points that are automatically spent on whatever that race is stereotypically good at. I guess this would be a decent way to keep people on the RNG if they hadn't already decided that some people should have INT 4 while some other people have INT 24. Each race also gets X skill points in various languages (yes, language skills have ranks, another dumb mechanic borrowed from the MMORPG). The "dumb" races actually start with their language skills lower than capped for first level. Furthermore, the rules helpfully state that being a particular race means that some NPCs will react to you differently than if you were some other race, so dark elves can look forward to being kill-on-sight in good cities. Yep.

Chapter 3: Classes: The Archetyping

Unsurprisingly, EQ d20 RPG characters gain XP and advance using a table that looks a lot like D&D 3.x--with some weird differences that exist solely to mirror EQ the MMORPG.

You get "training points" (5 per level, including 1st level) and you use them to buy stuff. This is in addition to skill points per level, just to make things more fiddly, but you don't get feats unless you spend your training points on them. For the record, it costs 7 TP to buy a feat and you're only allowed to have one feat for every two character levels. You actually bank them from level to level and can spend them whenever you want, so if you save up 25 points and spontaneously want to get four feats you totally can, as long as you don't exceed the maximum number of feats you're allowed to have for your level. Alternately, you can spend 12 TP to get +1 to an ability score, permanently. You can also spend TP on random crap like energy resistances (with a max value for any one resistance equal to your level; spending 1/7th of a feat on fire resist 1 seems like a really bad deal to me) or you can buy MORE skill points, with a discounted rate for class skills. Seriously: It's 3 TP for to buy one rank in a class skill or 5 TP for a cross-class skill. So...I guess you buy feats.

Feats are not actually all that awesome.

You can multiclass. I mentioned that. The GM is explicitly encouraged to make people who want to multiclass go through bullshit training montages:

For example, if Michelle wants Eweniel to pick up a level of wizard as a 5th-level character, she must find a wizard to train her when she reaches 4th level and declare that she begins such training at that time. Eweniel then spends an entire level studying arcane texts and practicing incantations, and at 5th level she takes one level of wizard.

I'm not sure if you stop adventuring to do this or if it's supposed to happen off-screen. The rules then mention that the GM can waive these training requirements or impose even harsher ones if they really feel like it. Rule zero, folks.

Classes are helpfully broken up into "spellcasters," "fighter classes," and "hybrid classes," presumably because these are the categories that will make sense to people who play EQ the MMORPG.

Each class has its own little blurbs about what members of that class are supposedly like (just like in D&D). Reading the class writeups reminds me that the game has alignments. Like that other game they aren't allowed to name. Except that "Law" and "Chaos" are called "Orderly" and "Discordant" and are equally nonsensical. At least there are no alignment restrictions for classes--except for clerics, who have to be sort of close to their chosen god's alignment.

Weapon proficiencies are kind of wonky to match EQ MMORPG terminology. Weapons are divided up broadly by type such as "one-handed blunt" or "two-handed slashing," but then get further divided up into simple and martial. So you might be proficient with "1h-slashing simple and martial weapons" but not "1h-blunt simple and martial weapons" and consequently you can wield a longsword but a club is just incomprehensible. What is this, I don't even. Armor proficiencies are...just like D&D.

Spellcasters

Are you a spellcaster? Congrats. You get...spells. Which use D&D "spell levels" that are not the same level as your character level because legacy bullshit, but EQ d20 RPG spell levels go up to 11 15 because the game itself goes to character level 30 and your maximum spell level is your character level divided by two, rounded up. At least nobody gets shafted with delayed spell progression. (Oh, wait, hybrid classes exist.) There are arcane and divine casters, and as usual the only difference is that divine casters ignore spell failure due to armor.

We'll get into whether or not spellcasters win the game when we get to the spell list.

All spellcasters operate on a combined preparation/mana system. You can prep up to eight spells (why eight? Because that's how many you can mem in EQ the MMORPG, duh) at once, but you can cast any spell you have prepared as long as you have mana. This...could be a decent system? Maybe? Forgetting a spell to open a slot is a free action, but memorizing a new spell to fill it takes one full-round action per spell level, so you aren't going to do it in combat...right? Except that that time is reduced by one full-round for every rank in the Meditation skill you have (and you are going to cap the Meditation skill), so, really, you can totally swap in any spell you need right now as a full-round action. It takes a Meditation check, but you're going to make that because it's (10 + Spell Level). Also, your mana pool is double your ability modifier points per level and you can sit down and regen mana equal to (Mod + Meditation ranks) per hour.

Also, some spells have cooldown times. Because fuck you, MMORPG-to-tabletop conversion, that's why.

You get more spells by buying them or finding them as loot and then scribing them into your spellbook. Okay. Every so often (like every four or five levels) spellcasters get to pick features that are kind of like the rogue's special abilities--arbitrary class-specific shit, some of which is kind of cool.

Bard, Cleric, Shaman and Druid get average BAB; the others get poor BAB. Save progressions are a bit odd--you have the standard D&D poor and good save progressions, but they stuck an "average" save progression in there as well.

Bard: You get bardic knowledge! And tons of skill points. And bard spells. And you can wear plate mail and it doesn't impede your magic song-spells at all.
Cleric: Heal please! Your list of class-specific bonus powers includes the option to pick up turn undead (which works like D&D, right down to uses being based on charisma).
Druid: Probably less broken than D&D druid. One of your optional class features lets you cast teleportation spells as a free action once per round. That's...interesting.
Enchanter: Make people love you by boosting their mana regen rate, just like in the MMORPG, only with more manual bookkeeping. You can also make people love you more forcefully by throwing out dominate effects and making permanent illusions.
Magician: Summoner. Call forth elementals, turn elementals if you pick the class option for it.
Necromancer: Play with the dead. Fear effects, too. You can get rebuking if you want it, or a pointless version of lay on hands that heals undead and can't be used to damage living creatures. You know what's cool? A fear aura that you activate as an attack action that lasts a number of rounds equal to your level, goes out to 20 feet, and that causes frightened for 1d6 rounds on a failed save (not shaken, full-on fleeing-in-terror frightened). It's once per day, but you get spells, too, so...
Shaman: Heal! Please! You can summon totemic spirits, too.
Wizard: I would say they should be called evokers, except they get all the teleport spells. That's probably awesome.

Fighters

Do you beat stuff up without casting spells? You're a fighter. You have good BAB.

Do you like bonus feats? You get some of those. Oh, hey, you get class features like "Double Attack" and "Dual Wield," those are at least sort of cool, right? Wrong. You don't actually get them for free. When you see "Double Attack" on your class chart what that actually means is that you are now allowed to pay training points to buy the Double Attack feat. Fuck you for being a fighter.

Fighters do sort of get some real class features aside from bonus feats and junk...except not until high level. Rogues get sneak attack, and Monks get random bullshit, but Warriors get jack until level 20+ (seriously). This is because Sony-Verant realized that auto-attacking was really boring and that having warriors literally not having any other stuff they could do was...also boring. At least monks could click a special attack macro every so often. So what S-V did in EQ MMORPG was introduce limited use abilities that lasted very short periods of time with stupidly long cooldowns called Disciplines. The good news is that in EQ d20 RPG Disciplines are basically stances that last for an hour. The bad news is that you can't switch stances at will--there's a 6 to 12 hour cooldown before you can use any disciplines after the first one wears off. And most of them...aren't really that good.

This is an awful kick in the junk when you think about the fact that spellcasters can sit down and regain mana by the hour, and if you have an enchanter in the party they can cast mana regen spells that net positive amounts of mana over time. You get Clarity at Enchanter 16. It costs 13 mana and lasts for 160 minutes. The target then regens 1 mana per 2 minutes--for a total of 80 mana, plus the mana they would gain from two hours of meditation (which is probably like 25 mana/hour).

I think this is worse than Epic Level Handbook shit. That's impressive.

Monk: Hey, they gave the monk full BAB! They're proficient with their own unarmed strikes!
Warrior: You get bonus feats. Joy. You do get real class features, but only at really high levels (like starting at level 20). It's too bad they do bullshit like "+20 to attack rolls when charging for two rounds...12-hour cooldown." That's a big enough bonus to matter, but you can't do it often enough to matter. And it's still a giant attack bonus. The wizard can teleport across the continent. The druid can do it as a free action. Enough said.
Rogue: Do you like sneak attack backstab? Cool, but you can only do it with piercing weapons. You get evasion, too. And trapfinding. You know what? You're a D&D rogue. You can even take a bonus feat in place of a class-specific special ability.

Hybrids

You get spells, but are boned because you are not a real spellcaster, so you don't get any actual spells until 4th level and then you have a staggered progression. No hybrids get Meditation as a class skill, so they regenerate mana more slowly unless they buy it cross-class (which is...probably largely irrelevant).

Despite being "hybrids" all these classes get full BAB. And they get some spells. And they get fighter-style bullshit Disciplines at high levels. Are you feeling like pure fighters are getting a raw deal? Yeah, me too. But then, this is D&D EQ d20 RPG, and pure fighters get a raw deal in EQ MMORPG, too. I'm honestly surprised they didn't arbitrarily slap paladins and shadow knights with a 40% XP penalty or something in an attempt to balance the classes using the same heavy-handed bullshit as the computer game.

Beast Lord: Divine hybrid. Calls upon the spirits of the animals for tiny buff effects a limited number of times per day.
Paladin: Divine hybrid. You get lay on hands. And a special mount, but its powers don't scale to your level at all. They actually go out of their way to say that the GM can decide a mount is inappropriate for the game and veto it, but if they do, you get a free magic weapon instead. That's actually kind of cool except for the fact that they then go on to suggest that you should be forced to do a quest to get your class feature.
Ranger: Divine hybrid. Rangers can learn to speak to animals, get more attacks per round with bows, move without penalty through difficult natural terrain, et cetera. Oddly, they don't get tracking. They get weapon specialization, but only for bows.
Shadow Knight: Arcane hybrid, but they ignore spell failure. You get inverse lay on hands that deals damage (it does not heal undead). They get the same mount feature as the paladin, but there's no suggestion that it be possible to trade it for a magic sword.

Chapter 4: Skills: The Mastering

At least nobody gets 2+INT skills; the minimum is 3+INT. Not much better.

Unlike D&D RAW, EQ d20 RPG does state that natural 20 is an auto-succeed and natural 1 is an auto-failure, unless the GM rules that success is impossible, in which case nat 20 doesn't do jack.

Skills are basically D&D standard, with some carryovers from EQ the MMORPG--like Alcohol Tolerance (wow, that's useful). Play Brass/Percussion/String/Wind Instrument are all different skills and Brass is based on CON whereas the others are based on DEX. Fuck you, bard, you get 8+INT skill points because we've determined half of them are going to being a one-man band. Read Lips is its own skill. Safe Fall, which you'd think might be a Monk class feature or something, is a skill (the Monk just gets a bonus to it). Channeling replaces Concentration. There's actually a diplomacy skill specifically for undead (Undead Empathy).

There's also a Taunt skill, which is kind of...interesting. You can force people to attack you with it. Sort of. Taunting is a move action and it's opposed by Sense Motive. The target gets a bonus or penalty depending on circumstantial modifiers. What kind of modifiers? How about +10 to resist if they happen to be attacking someone else who isn't you already and another +10 if attacking you is deemed to be "tactically unwise"; if the target doesn't understand your language that's +5 to resist, and there's another +5 if the target has "animal intelligence," so presumably the average wolf who is chewing on your ally gets +20 to the check, as does a bandit you're trying to goad into charging you instead of stabbing the guy in cloth. On a d20. So...Taunt basically doesn't work. Nice job with the math, guys. Congrats for reminding us that White Wolf was involved in the creation of this game.

More to come next post, where we'll pick up with Feats.

[Leress]

I haven't read the review yet, but I've played this game...fuck this game.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I am disappoint about how they handle shadow knights. I had an ogre shadow knight up to the mid-40s. Bonegas Spinerender was awesome. No mention of a shadowknight's sidekick (their skeletons weren't great for tanking at all, but they added a pretty decent free DPS if you told them to not taunt for you and you made sure they only attacked what you did).

[shadzar]

wait EQ the TTRPG? was there a rulebook for each server? was it PVP on or off? were the dark elves pole dancing in the inn?

was it licensed by Sony and legal to do this?

[Archmage]

was it licensed by Sony and legal to do this?

Yes. Bunch of White Wolf writers + Sony license + OGL = EQ RPG, OH YEAH!

Chapter 5: Feats: The Disappointing:

Did you think feats would be awesome? Yeah, no such luck. You get standard core D&D weaksauce. A lot of the core feats (Blind-Fight, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, etc.) are reproduced essentially word-for-word. You get the same metamagic feats, but they cost more mana because spell slots aren't a thing. So you can metamagic anything you want no matter what your maximum castable spell level is if you have the mana, and we have established that mana regen is...pretty fast. Casters win again.

There is seriously nothing interesting here whatsoever.

Chapter 6: Description: The Elaborating:

I forgot about alignments because they don't get described until this chapter. You get the same 3x3 alignment axis as D&D except "Orderly" and "Discordant" replace "Law" and "Chaos," as mentioned before. The alignment descriptions are no more helpful than D&D's.

EQ's setting has your standard loadout of fantasy gods. Nature goddess, war god, sea god, god of healers, god of paladin lawbringing, god of fire, dragon-worshipped-as-god, god of rogues, god of fear, god of disease...yeah, boring.

Then we get actual mechanics for dark elves being kill-on-sight in Kelethin. Each character is supposed to have an arbitrary reputation rating with various factions, which ranges from -10 (ready to attack you on sight) to +6 (trusted allies). Your GM is supposed to tell you when you have encountered a new faction of NPCs, inform you what your faction standing is with them, and alert you to changes in that standing ("you gained +1 faction with the Crushbone Orcs"). This faction number is then modified based on the alignment most typical to your race compared to the NPC's alignment. Iksar are explicitly hated by all non-Iksar and consequently everyone you meet will want to murder you, which makes for...interesting roleplaying and party cohesion, I guess.

The GM is then reminded that faction is not a substitute for roleplay and that individual people in a faction can have their own opinions about you that are not shared by their faction.

Chapter 7: Equipment: The Outfitting:

The GM is reminded by a nice sidebar that starting PCs in a tabletop game literally naked and unarmed aside from a newbie dagger or whatever is cruel and unnecessary. Just in case it wasn't obvious that the MMORPG experience does not translate well to the pen-and-paper universe.

You know what was cool in AD&D? WEAPON SPEEDS. So much like weapons in EQ the MMORPG have varying delay values, making some of them swing more quickly than others, you don't get iterative attacks on a fixed schedule in EQ d20 RPG. You get iterative attacks based on your BAB and then modified by the speed of the weapon you're using.

There are spiked chains, which I don't remember being a thing in EQ MMORPG. Cloth armor is a thing with an actual bonus to AC, not just AC +0 clothes; there's also raw silk armor, which is supposed to be a marginal upgrade worn by monks and casters. And in case you missed them, you can buy acid flasks and all the other SRD D&D equipment. The list is reproduced more or less exactly. Saves time to copy it all, I suppose.

That actually concludes Book One, which means we can move on to...

Book Two: Songs and Spells

I already explained the preparation and mana system. There is a fun sidebar here about how if you are a multiclass character you are technically supposed to maintain a separate mana pool usable only for spells of that specific class, but that's cumbersome and might be stupid, so the GM can waive it and collapse your mana into a single pool for the sake of sanity. Spells otherwise work just like D&D, except for the silly recast thing--yes, some spells have cooldown timers and you have to wait a certain period of time before you can cast them again. They define "rain" as a new type of area-of-effect, essentially a cylinder that persists for multiple rounds, dealing damage each round. Sure, why not.

There's a "new" condition called mesmerized, in which those affected stand around doing nothing until they are attacked and take at least one hit point worth of damage, which breaks it immediately.

Haste is needlessly complicated because...MMORPG carryover mechanics. Haste is tiered, in levels from 1 to 9. Tier 1 haste gives you +1 AC and reduces weapon delay by 1, so now you get to recalculate your full attack routine. Tier 2 haste gives you an extra attack every third round, because that's awesome and fun to track. Tier 7 and 8 give you "alternating 1 extra or 2 extra attack actions every round" and they have to put an asterisk next to this description and explain how that actually works in clarification text. Awesome. Slow is the inverse of haste and is just as perplexingly detailed.

Summons--excuse me, pets--are special. You can only have one at any given time. If you go unconscious, all your pets are unsummoned immediately.

Rather than refer to "spell levels" I'm just going to refer to character level, because spell levels are a silly legacy mechanic.

So what can EQ d20 RPG spellcasters do? The answer is...what can EQ MMORPG characters do?

There are 128 pages of spells. There are 100 pages of spells in the D&D PHB. I am not reviewing all the spells individually unless someone demands it for entertainment value because holy shit there are so many spells. Luckily, spells break down into a few rough categories. Even within the game rules they refer to "spell lines," which are seriously sets of spells that essentially do the same thing. There's a series of fire-based nukes, for example; there's no automatic scaling of effects to caster level, so there're. essentially ten spells that are all "deal fire damage, only this time deal more of it."

Direct Damage: As mentioned, damage is fixed and does not scale with caster level (range does, though). You start out with 1d6 to 1d10 damage spells at 1st level; an 18th level caster's spells do...well, one wizard spell (the nuking masters) deals (7d10+2)x2 damage to a single target. That's an average of 81...it's more than 1d6/level D&D nukes, but it's still unimpressive, because HP scales with CON and HD just like D&D adversaries.
Crowd Control: We've got this. Enchanters get mesmerizing stuff, and there are all kinds of roots and snares that prevent people from running away or around while you divide an conquer. Fear effects are a thing if you're a necromancer.
Heals: Don't keep up with hit dice at every level, but at least they keep parity with nukes. A 10th-level wizard can blast you for (5d10)x2, but a 10th-level cleric's healing spell is worth (8d10)x2. There are heal-over-time spells, too. I'm not really sure how warrior-types are supposed to keep up with that kind of healing; their damage output is not any better than D&D fighters, and they don't have access to cheese like multiplying damage on a charge. A rogue's sneak attack is only +1d6 per 3 levels, the Taunt skill doesn't actually work, mana regen is honestly pretty fast...I'm still not sure what fighter classes are supposed to be bringing to a party here.
Utility Summons: Conjure stuff. Magicians are the masters of this. From first level a magician can feed and water your whole team indefinitely if you care about scarcity of such resources in your games. An example 18th level ability, though? Summon a +1 quarterstaff. Yeeeeah. At 30th level, your 15th level spells...none conjure anything, but there's a spell you get at 28th level that conjures a mask your pet can wear to get haste. Or you can conjure a pouch containing 60 magic shurikens. Fabricate and even minor creation totally wreck EQ's casters in terms of utility here.
Utility Buffs: As a 13th level beast lord you can give people darkvision. Feel the power. There's no fly spell, but there is a levitate spell that lets you gain altitude at a spectacular 5 feet per round. Invisibility is good, but as expected it ends when you attack and improved invisiblity isn't available until 23rd level.
Divination: You basically don't get these unless they would've been useful and easy to program in an MMORPG. Scry? No. Clairvoyance/clairaudience? Not really. Eye of Zomm creates a prying eyes-like sensor of sorts that lasts for...all of five rounds. Wizards get telescopic vision, but you could just get...a telescope, I think. Other than that, I guess you can find out what direction is north and locate the corpses of specific people. Awesome, right?
Buffs: Mostly weaksauce. As as 12th-level cleric you can hand out +2 to AC and +28 hit points. Oh yeah. There are a lot of fire shield-like effects where people take damage for hurting you.
Pet Spells: Bread-and-butter for mage, necro, and beast lord. Shadow knights get pitiful skeleton pets that are okay in the online game because they just kind of add to your overall DPS, but this is a D&D clone and summoning something five levels lower than you are is just not impressive.
Teleportation: Here's where the odd priorities of an MMORPG compared to at tabletop game become most apparent. At 3rd level any pure spellcaster can cast gate--not the D&D version, the "warp to home point" version, which is set using another spell...that you don't get until you're 7th level. So what it actually does is warp you to your residence, whatever that is. (If you are a homeless murder hobo with no bind point, I shit you not, it warps you to the place of your birth.) I'm not really sure what this is for, unless you establish that all the PCs live at the same address; and even if you do, it means the spellcasters can go home whenever they want to and everyone else is stranded. Keep gate memorized all the time and no one can imprison you; if you ever get lost, just warp home and call it a day. This might not actually be game-breaking, but it's weird. Would you like to teleport your party to the moon? An 11th-level wizard can just kind of do that, but then D&D characters could port hundreds of miles two levels ago, depending on how you want to scale the 20-level progression against the 30-level EQ progression. Also, note that each teleport is a specific spell that goes to a specific place; I actually kind of like that, in that you can't just arbitrarily decide to warp into the unmapped wilderness, bypassing all obstacles, and you can't scry-and-die anyone (but you can't really scry anyway, so whatever). Except that having thirty teleport spells I think it would make more sense to have one teleport spell that only let you go places you'd attuned to personally or something. But this is EQ d20 RPG, and each teleport destination requires its own spell in EQ the MMORPG, so that's how it works here.

EQ d20 RPG casters are still more awesome than their fighter counterparts even if their abilities overall aren't that impressive, but there are still some incredible ultimate power gems--they're frequently weaker than what an equivalent D&D spellcaster would do, but by the standards of EQ d20 they rock face. However, they don't get open-ended abilities that affect their environment like D&D characters do, because those abilities don't exist in EQ the MMORPG. No silent image or other flexible illusions, just "disguise self as race X." No wall of anything. No fly, just limited levitation. No creation spells that make anything other than portable objects and equipment. No divination that tells you anything useful about your enemies or the plot. No becoming ethereal. Polymorph is extremely limited (druids can turn into totally normal wolves...at 13th level, oh boy). You can get water breathing, which is something.

Hybrids get shitty spells, but at least they get spells. Mostly they're underpowered nukes and weak buffs, but that's still better than pure fighters. And there are a few awesome abilities, relatively speaking--Paladins can raise the dead, no material component cost or anything! You lose some XP, but hey, you're alive, right?

Enchanters are really, really awesome. A 7th-level enchanter can wipe someone's memory of "slights and abuses committed by the caster within the past 1 hour per caster level." That's not as versatile as a charm spell, but, wait, you get those too. EQ d20's equivalent to charm person is explicit about the fact that you can command affected targets to fight for you. They get a new save if you tell them to do anything "obviously suicidal" like "stand around and let my friends murder you"--but orders to attack another creature that currently threatens the caster, even a creature vastly more powerful than the charmed target, never counts as a suicidal order. There's a cap based on the target's CR, which is surprisingly sane, instead of something stupid like HD. You can also communicate telepathically with anyone you charm whether you share a common language or not, which is pretty cool. Enchanters also get the power to disguise themselves as other races, which is really sweet when you take into account the faction rules that say that NPCs are always really racist. You also get levitate (which is something), the mana regen buffs (awesome), haste (it's good even if the rules are cumbersome and stupid), the aforementioned crowd control, save-or-lose effects like stun and confusion, a bodyguard pet that attacks anyone who threatens you (but it can't be controlled directly), reverse gravity, fear, and no-save debuffs that lower people's saving throws and spell resistance. Yeah. I'm not sure why you'd play any other spellcaster unless you have a really strong desire to be able to teleport to a bunch of waypoints or want healing spells (and if you want both of those, you play a druid).

Bards are also kind of great. EQ Bards had this thing where song effects lasted just long enough after you stopped singing that you could start singing another song, cancel that, then start singing another song, cancel that, and then go back to the first song. With fast fingers, you could keep multiple buffs running simultaneously even though you were really only supposed to be able to sing one song at a time. The d20 version decided this was awesome and should have its own mechanics. You can actually make a perform check with a DC based on the number of songs you want to "twist" together. And most bard songs are essentially at-will, costing no mana. Plus, they're free actions to start and free actions to maintain, as long as they don't require an instrument. You get buffs (mostly weaksauce, but at least you aren't a fighter), healing, invisiblity, action-free AoE sonic damage centered on you (and it doesn't affect allies), crowd control, underwater breathing, charm effects, and see invisible. You even get songs that make other casters better by reducing mana costs. And you can do all this in plate mail, backed by average BAB.

Wizards get nukes and teleports. Mages get pets, nukes, some utility and can conjure items you probably don't care about (as a 15th level character you can create non-magical chainmail, how exciting).

There are some quirky buffs and magic item effects called "procs," terminology taken from MMORPGs, that are basically "stuff that happens sometimes at random when you score a hit." The chance of a proc is based on your DEX, of all things. So sometimes your hammer of undead smiting smites undead extra hard. Wheeee.

Book Three: Playing the Game

The remainder of the book is d20 system rules for combat, movement, carrying, and so forth. There is no need to reproduce or review them in detail because they are (say it with me now) the exact same rules as D&D.

There is actually a sidebar in the combat chapter about called shots, which allow you to target people's held objects (in an undefined manner that is different from making a disarm check) and otherwise do cinematic stunts like pinning people to walls with thrown knives. It's a full-round action to attempt any such stunt and they only work if you score a confirmed critical when you actually make the attack. At least you still hit the target normally if you don't crit.

And that's basically the book.

I guess if you wanted to play an MMORPG with pencil and paper, you could do worse. It's playable, even taking into account cumbersome mechanics like the stupid "nine levels of haste and slow." But overall, it's a D&D clone with a lot of the interesting stuff D&D characters can do stripped out in favor of bland nukes and buff spells (unless you are a bard or enchanter, in which case you rock face), designed to be played in a setting I give zero fucks about. Characters are not intended to have much in the way of world-altering plot power unless you count rapid travel, which I don't think is actually integrated into the setting at all (the effect of teleportation on trade, for example, is not explored).

Is it really "100% compatible" with D&D? I guess you could play EQ d20 RPG classes in a regular D&D game if you wanted to suck really badly compared to regular spellcasters. Even the Rogue is weaker than the D&D rogue (and doesn't get a UMD equivalent). You also have to decide whether to use the weapon delay rules and whether to use quirky tiered haste effects, but otherwise, yeah. EQ d20 RPG characters should expect to get totally wrecked against D&D monsters, though. Nobody can fly, for example, nobody has freedom of movement, and there are very few ways to escape things like solid fog. Plus, magic circle and similar effects totally hose mages and necromancers, depending on how you want to interpret their interaction with EQ pets.

[Username17]

The degree to which enchanters were better than you and fighters couldn't have nice things was immensely obvious on even a casual read through. The thing where you had to be like 18th level to get a cantrip that made some flashing lights for celebrations really brought home the MMO feel. But not in a good way.

-Username17

[Ikeren]

But then, this is D&D EQ d20 RPG, and pure fighters get a raw deal in EQ MMORPG, too.

I played a cleric Kunark-LDoN (and now play on a private server that's attempting to Emulate Live and is at early Gates of Discord now) and did a fair bit of high end raiding (saw Time and LDoN raids). In this era, it was basically impossible to use anything other than a pure fighter as your main tank due to Defensive Disciplines (40% mitigation) which the Paladin and Shadowknight just couldn't get near matching. As a result, every raid had to have 3-4 warriors, and the gearing of your best warrior often determined what level of raid content you'd be capable of.

That being said, you're right that playing them is awful.

They define "rain" as a new type of area-of-effect, essentially a cylinder that persists for multiple rounds, dealing damage each round. Sure, why not.

EQ thing. Wizards, Mages, Shamans and Druids.

Heals: Don't keep up with hit dice at every level, but at least they keep parity with nukes. A 10th-level wizard can blast you for (5d10)x2, but a 10th-level cleric's healing spell is worth (8d10)x2. There are heal-over-time spells, too. I'm not really sure how warrior-types are supposed to keep up with that kind of healing; their damage output is not any better than D&D fighters, and they don't have access to cheese like multiplying damage on a charge. A rogue's sneak attack is only +1d6 per 3 levels, the Taunt skill doesn't actually work, mana regen is honestly pretty fast...I'm still not sure what fighter classes are supposed to be bringing to a party here.

It sounds like they actually tried to replicated CH chain + DPS classes while the tank sits there. In a table top RPG.

With fast fingers, you could keep multiple buffs running simultaneously even though you were really only supposed to be able to sing one song at a time.

I think back in the day they said the ability for bards to twist was deliberate. (A good bard can perfectly twist 4, and later in the EQ progression, they implemented the /melody 1 2 3 4 command, which would autotwist your first 4 spells memoried).

The chance of a proc is based on your DEX, of all things.

EQ

That being said, thanks for the hilarious review.

[Aryxbez]

I thank you for the review as well, this is a product that's actually in my Hobby shop, and it's been there for years. So, I've been kinda dying to see a review of this product, even if I thought it was cool (in darker times of my ignorance I'm afraid).

I kinda liked the super critting Warrior Discipline, so you can crit on a 6-20 or whatever. Albeit I'd agree, Should probably been online at half the level its advertised, and without the abysmal cooldown (especially as ye pointed out with spellcaster mana regen).

Everquest was the first MMO I ever had interest in playing...but instead I played the likely better "Champion of Norrath" hack & slash games on the PS2. Because of that, I kinda grew to like the setting, and like Leress, I too tried a game of it.

Albeit nothing really constructive I can give about that game, one of those "good times had with a bad system" before dropping it, since I had that habit with RPG's with built in settings. The unrelated highlights I can give, is a 1000lb Iksar (Lizardman) that bellyflopped a sleeping Goblin for massive falling damage (since in racial entry, they can actually get that heavy, but narratively, because the character was FAT) and....a Barbarian-race Warrior intimidating a group of goblins all BA like, bloody, and at 1HP.

Secondly, I've always kinda drawn comparison of Everquest to Elder Scrolls, both fantasy settings, and share a similar cat people/lizardmen race.

Archmage, for reviews for entertainment value, could you check out the Monster Manual for the Everquest Tabletop RPG? Especially this one Fish monster...and it's ridiculous Bluff DC...you'll know the one if you've seen it...As well that, I wonder if the higher end Gods, and Dragons, are actually "faceable" and/or compatible with 3rd edition to use in an encounter (and/or Tome as well).

really brought home the MMO feel. But not in a good way.

If I may inquire, among "MMO-expy RPGs", would you play this game over 4th edition D&D??

[Archmage]

I saw a copy of the Plane of Hate adventure book at my local used bookstore once. I should see if it or any of its friends are still there.

I actually thought the comparison to 4e was inevitable, given the whole "MMO" thing, but honestly 4e is probably more entertaining as a combat engine. Maybe.

[codeGlaze]

I second 4e trumps this particular product. If only for the fact that more than 3 classes are worth playing.

[Archmage]

So I got my hands on a monster manual, Monsters of Norrath, so that I could put some of EQ d20 RPG's character classes in context. I've already mentioned that throwing monsters out of D&D's manuals at them might be a bit too much for most of them to handle. There's plenty of ranged damage available with the various mage classes nuking, and if you have an actual Ranger in the party they are hypothetically semi-competent bow-fighters, but nobody can fly (or at least ascend more rapidly than 5 or 10 feet a round) and nobody can deal with a lot of the high-level effects in D&D that just kind of shut down people who don't have freedom of movement or teleport.

Monstrous Overview:

Monsters in EQ d20 RPG unsurprisingly have stat blocks that look more or less identical to D&D's. They even have all the same monster hit die types, and they use a lot of the same special abilities (ability drain, regeneration, spell-like abilities, frightful presence, and so forth). In fact, they have basically all the same special abilities. There's a "fast recovery" ability that grants healing at a rate measured in HP/hour instead of HP/round, which is completely pointless in combat, but at least it's a nod to the idea that a wounded enemy might escape and consequently have time to heal away from the PCs--which is more than 4e can say.

They open the book by saying that the EQ monster manual is more than just a list of things to kill--monsters define the world and are part of the setting and that's supposed to be cool and stuff.

There's a table of poisons, which have names intended to be flavorful for EverQuest's universe but are otherwise identical to D&D poisons in function. Amusingly, arsenic is listed--and it deals 1 CON initial followed by 1d8 CON secondary. Which means that the average 10 CON commoner literally cannot be killed by ingesting a single dose of arsenic. That may or may not be intentional.

Before we get any monsters, we get an interesting aside about how EverQuest is full of level 40 kobolds and nobody can adequately explain why the high level kobolds have not conquered the world (the answer is arguably that EQ's guardsmen are on the whole like level 50 badasses, but that creates its own weird logic). Monsters of Norrath is therefore going to contain things like level 30 kobolds (which on the pen-and-paper game's scale is equivalent to the level cap of 60 in EQ the MMORPG), because EQ the MMORPG does. You are invited to just write this out of the game if you think it makes things unrealistic or strange, but the authors assert that they have included them in the interest of making sure there are threats to challenge adventurers of all levels.

This does not really bode particularly well. If EQ d20 RPG is going to have me fight 1st-level orcs at 1st level and then throws 30th-level orcs at me at 30th level I am going to be disappointed. Unsurprised, but disappointed nonethless.

Also, rather than advancing monsters by giving them character classes, EQ d20 RPG monsters are always advanced by hit dice, even if they're humanoids, and are then given bonuses in accordance with their level. So there are "rogue mobs" that don't have actual rogue levels, they just get some kind of inherent backstab damage that has been scaled to their hit dice. This is allegedly for ease of use. Yeah, I have a feeling we're going to get a hundred pages of orcs of varying levels, with names and abilities that are almost totally arbitrary instead of mirroring the rules for PCs. Joy. The authors also note that some of the monsters in EQ d20 RPG have abilities that their MMORPG counterparts do not. This is because MMORPG monsters are not allowed to do interesting things due to coding limitations and therefore the authors thought they should give some of them new powers in the interest of diversity and fun.

But enough generalities. How do EQ monsters stack up to EQ characters, and how do they measure up to D&D's monstrous adversaries?

Individual Monsters:

The first monster in the book is gargoyle-looking thing called an abhorrent, one of the god of hate's servants, and he is CR 20. While the beginning of the alphabet is logical from a book organization standpoint that is a really weird place for me to start reviewing the stupid things. But hey, we all know what CR 20 monsters in D&D look like--we have the balor for comparison.

Unlike a balor, the abhorrent has no spell-like abilities. It does fly, and it has all the abilities of a 21st-level Rogue (which is only +7d6 sneak attack because EQ's progression is different). That's not that impressive. What it does have, however, is a hate aura that makes you want to beat the shit out of your nearest ally if you fail a save. That's kind of nasty. You do become immune for 24 hours once you've successfully saved and you get a new save each round. The balor has more attacks, hits harder, has at-will save-or-lose spell-likes, true seeing, teleport for hit and run...yeah, the balor is way nastier. They have similar immunities to energy damage and whatnot, which actually probably hurts EQ d20 RPG characters more than their counterparts because they're reliant on high-damage nukes to blow things away instead of save-or-lose spells.

How about some lower level dudes? Well...we have 7 different froglok mobs with CRs from 1/2 to 20. No, really. The really low level ones are boring humanoids with basic weapons. The CR 20 one is...a CR 20 warrior mob. It's dual-wielding magic short swords and gets seven attacks on a FA routine, but mostly I'm just not impressed.

There is a gelatinous cube expy that is CR 14 for some reason. Levitate is available as early as 7th level, so I'm not sure who this thing is supposed to threaten. I realize there are a lot of D&D monsters with the same problem, but come on. When weaksauce hovering 30 feet in the air is enough to render an enemy completely impotent that's totally sad. It doesn't even paralyze people like a CR 3 cube would! It'll wreck your equipment, though, so that might balance out if the PCs are stupid enough to try to kill it with swords.

I think this game has about as many big beaters that don't do anything except rock you in melee as D&D does, but it's entirely possible that they're sort of scary here because flight and solid fog and whatnot really don't exist. Levitate still does, though, and you can totally hang outside the range of the CR 21 brontotherium to render it completely harmless. In fact, the druid not only casts levitate, he has the ranged nukes to bring the thing down while he hangs out in total safety. Argh, so many boring fighter monsters that I don't care about at all.

The EQ d20 cockatrice can actually turn you to stone with its gaze, which is pretty scary compared to some of the other stuff I'm seeing. It's CR 8.

Contrary to the intro, there are not actually any level 30 kobolds.

Having to flip back to the EQ d20 PHB to look up spell descriptions because I don't know them off the top of my head like D&D spells is annoying, but the pledge familiar--basically a dark elf who has decided to serve a vampire--is a monster I can actually see throwing into a D&D game and feeling good about it. It's CR 5, has a respectable +4d6 sneak attack, and can cast a short range nuke that deals 6d6 magic damage (Will save for half) and stuns for one round on a failed save.

EQ's "lava elemental" is CR 9, just like a greater fire elemental. The D&D version is huge whereas the EQ version is only large. It also has worse attacks and AC, doesn't get the DR/-, has +1 to initiative instead of the D&D version's +12, and is half as mobile from a land speed perspective.

The reaper-like specters from the image I mentioned earlier? Yeah, they're in here as CR 16 critters. Incorporeal! They don't do that much damage with their melee strike, but it is a touch attack and they also inflict both exhaustion and one negative level per hit. Their best trick is probably smacking you with DoT spells and fleeing, but 10d10 damage over ten rounds is...not that impressive when you are a 16th level character. They do have a fear aura, though, and exhausted plus the movement debuff from clinging darkness means you are probably forced to chase them at quarter speed while they kite you to death, and they have quicken spell. They take double damage from fire, though, so a wizard or druid probably just lights their shit up.

Seriously, there are so many boring monsters in here. Contrary to the suggestion that they gave monsters some unique powers to spice things up, most of them are fighters with no real tricks. The caster monsters are stuck with the crappy EQ d20 RPG spell list that doesn't let them do anything except deal direct damage and maybe some crowd control in the form of fear effects. There's a CR 18 golem whose big trick is that he ruins your weapons when you strike him because he's actually made of ooze, and once every 1d6 rounds he can whirlwind attack everyone he can reach. I'm just not impressed at all.

There's a stat block included for the priest of discord. I suspect they threw him in here as some massive EQ player in-joke. For those who didn't play the game, priests of discord loitered around all the major towns and allowed you to flag your character for PVP by talking to them. This change was permanent, so most of the people on PVE servers didn't do it, and it wasn't necessary to do it on PVP servers because PVP was the default. But like most NPCs in EQ the MMORPG, the PoD had stupidly inflated levels and would murder you terribly if you picked a fight with him, intentionally or otherwise (pressing a for auto-attack when you were trying to type a message and standing too close to the PoD was a silly way to get yourself killed). I remember people encouraging newbies to attack the PoD for varying reasons and people getting brutally murdered for going along with it. The monster manual's flavor text section says that they are totally unwilling to carry on conversations with passersby about anything other than violence, but they never actually initiate fights with anyone. However, anyone who starts a fight with a PoD will get their asses beaten down.

Anyway, the PoD is CR 27. He is supposed to beat on you with his quarterstaff and cast a quickened spell every round to supplement his melee, but he doesn't actually have quicken spell as a feat; he just kind of does it anyway, although the stat block doesn't acknowledge this as an exception, it just says he does. And his spell list includes reckoning, which does (2d10+4)x10 points of magic damage to a single target, as well as immobilize, which roots the target to the spot on a failed save. You get another save each time you take damage, but I have no idea why this guy is swinging his staff at all when he is busting out 300 points of raw damage a round with nukes before saving throws are taken into account. Also, he can glare at you every 1d4 rounds as a free action and make you beat up your friends if you fail a Will save (you explicitly use your most damaging abilities, no less). Did I mention DR 30/+5 (and 16/- should you get through that), fast healing, SR 35, fire and magic resist 50, cold resist 90, and a base land speed of 60 feet?

Sadly, the PoD is explicitly immune to anything mind-affecting, so enchanters can't drag him around to wreck people for the lulz. He might actually be a fun adversary for a group of D&D adventurers. Dude has basically no utility magic except gate, though, so his entire bag of tricks revolves around root and nuke and making the party's wizard set the party's tank on fire. Which is actually pretty funny.

Let's Kill Some Gods

D&D's gods are functionally unkillable, particularly in their own domains. Anything that gets wish at will is just silly, and mostly I think giving them stats at all is potentially a mistake. EQ the MMORPG, however, has totally killable gods running around in the planar zones, and it would be a real shame if you couldn't actually go to the plane of hate and stab the resident deity in the face.

So you should be able to kill them, right?

Cazic-Thule, EQ's warrior god of fear, clocks in at CR 43. Dude has 3600+ HP (110 HD!) and a triple-digit attack bonus. (Yes, he has power attack.) When he smacks you in the face you are affected by a flee-in-terror fear effect as cast by an 80th level necromancer, but this is basically epic D&D and so we don't care what your melee attacks do. That's cool, if you are within 25 miles of C-T and he wants you to die, you just do, because he makes a ranged touch attack with a triple-digit bonus that reduces you to -10 hit points, no SR, no save. Line-of-sight? Line-of-effect? What're those? When someone asks if you're a god, you say yes. And then you kill people by thinking about it. Did I mention that those slain by C-T's ranged harm touch can only be returned to life by a deity's direct intervention or a resurrection spell cast by someone of 30th level? You're probably 30th level if you're fighting him in the first place. Of course, he also has pathetic abilities like "make two attacks against everyone in melee range once every 2d4 rounds as a full-attack action." He has a bunch of other stuff that is seriously for flavor (all the powers of a 30th level shadow knight! He can use warrior Disciplines once every 24 rounds instead of every 24 hours, which is...supposed to be impressive, I guess) because allow me to reiterate that if you are within 25 miles of him and he wants you to die there you just do (as a god, he doesn't fail to hit on a natural 1).

Raid on the domain of Cazic-Thule is cancelled due to everybody dying as soon as they set foot on the plane. Next.

Lady Vox is half of the the reason "dragon kill points" are called dragon kill points (the other half being...another dragon named Lord Nagathen). Can we kill her? Vox is CR 33, so hopefully a full party of 30s can take her.

Vox "only" has a thousand hit points and is honestly just a big D&D dragon with levels in EQ Cleric instead of sorcerer spellcasting. Unfortunately, this means she can cast complete healing, which does what it says on the tin. This costs 61 mana and she has...over a thousand. EQ spells have recast timers that will make this sane, right? Nope, this spell's recast is instant, so she can do it whenever she wants. Okay. So hit point damage is probably out as a viable way to kill her. Did I mention that she has quicken spell? Even with the mana cost increase that's a dozen full-heals as a free action once per round. She doesn't need to cast other spells, she's got a breath weapon backed by a dragon's full attack routine and power attack. Also, she's got a crazy aura that makes her flat-out immune to magic unless you are within 20 feet of her. So you basically have to be in melee range to cast spells. Supposedly the fact that she has SR 30 is relevant; they go out of their way to mention that you still have to contend with it even once you're inside the fuck-you aura. But if you're anywhere near level 30 this amounts to your spells failing like 5% of the time (you took spell penetration because what else are you going to do with your feats? This is EQ d20 RPG and you already good all the good metamagic). She's also immune to stunning (she just loses one action, not her whole turn), has a bunch of cleric buffs that give her even more durability, and so on. EQ d20 RPG doesn't really have save-or-dies, just HP damage and some save-or-loses, so I'm not sure how you win this.

I have discovered that a 30th level wizard does in fact get a true save-or-die disintegrate spell. That might work if you're lucky and she rolls nat 1 on her save. You can't exactly bring a raid party of a dozen wizards to kill her like you would in the MMORPG, but she has no fire resistance and there's a top-tier fire nuke that deals (3d10+2)x10 damage. She's probably going to save so...no, that's still only about 90 damage per wizard per round. You really do need to bring a dozen wizards. And they all need to close to the edge of melee range (her reach is 15 feet).

We've gone from boring beaters to gods that are unkillable because they don't like your face (but still don't have any actually interesting plot-generating abilities, just more superfluous murder powers) and then to dragons you probably can't kill because you can't DPS hard enough. There's also a CR 35 necromancer dragon, another CR 35 necromancer dragon who is slightly different, and finally a CR 38 necromancer dragon (it was a good enough idea to reuse, right?). The priest of discord was an amusing in-joke, but I can actually imagine him being killable, unlike these guys.

Bonus Material:

Holy crap, I just randomly stumbled across the most hilarious monster in the book. There's a "CR 1/8th" fish that lives in a pool sacred to a particular god. If you try to kill one, you have to make a Bluff check opposed by the fish's Sense Motive (which is +10). If you fail, the patron god of this fish seriously grants it 400 bonus HP and a magical bite attack with a +30 attack bonus that deals (2d10)x10. To this I say: WTF? (This is clearly the monster Aryxbez was referring to, now that the initial confusion has worn off.)

The stats for pets are in the monster manual and not the PHB, so now I can see exactly how much shadow knight pets blow. You don't get spells until 5th level, at which point you can summon...a skeleton with 13 HP and a +3 attack bonus. Yeeeeeeeah.

There is no "monsters by CR" appendix/table, which makes me really sad.

And contrary to the assertion at the beginning of the book, monsters have basically no non-combat or story-related abilities and are mostly just beatsticks. Some of them have telepathy. That's about it. At least they have flavor text that's sort of evocative from time to time. But then, they don't have useful world-affecting powers because PCs don't have useful world-affecting powers. I don't care enough to crunch the numbers at every level to see if they're fair challenges; they look fair, eyeballing it, except for the ridiculous raid bosses.

Tune in next time when I review the "Plane of Hate" adventure module. Just glancing over it I think it's seriously a railroady adventure in a city where everyone wants to kill you (because it's the Plane of Hate, obviously) and your entire goal is to grind your way to the endboss. (Spoiler: Said endboss is a god and he will murder you.)

[Ted the Flayer]

There's an NPC in the Halfling town that if attacked aggros the Priest of Discord. I remember a notorious troll on one of the PVP servers charming said NPC and ordering it to attack every PC and NPC in town. When said PC or NPC fought back, the Priest of Discord would attack them.

[Aryxbez]

Holy crap, I just randomly stumbled across the most hilarious monster in the book. There's a "CR 1/8th" fish that lives in a pool sacred to a particular god. If you try to kill one, you have to make a Bluff check opposed by the fish's Sense Motive (which is +10). If you fail, the patron god of this fish seriously grants it 400 bonus HP and a magical bite attack with a +30 attack bonus that deals (2d10)x10. To this I say: WTF? (This is clearly the monster Aryxbez was referring to, now that the initial confusion has worn off.)

Yes...Yessss, Good...

But yeah, I feared ye would've somehow skipped over this thing, and that I'd have to review it myself. Though, my bad, in thinking the DC was something arbitrary like DC 42 or whatever. However, I guess I figured it "could" be hard, given the overly varied RNG, where one might match the sense motive, and another could could have a -3 to the check. Though it becomes a CR 20, isn't that attack bonus a little small for 20th level PC's, or would the AC bonuses be that small in this game?

I guess in my ignorant past, I focused more on those "boring/pathetic fighter monsters", so I thought a sum of them were cool. Like how they had a CR 8 Minotaur, that could beat people with his fists, or the avatar of Cazic-Thule/Fear. I'm surprised I've forgotten about the ability to auto-kill someone within 25 miles, but damn! I think that's a fairly divine ability.

So, while Everquest PC's are screwed, what about Tome characters, do you think they could take on Lady Vox, or Cazic-Thule? (imagine could gain immunity to Death effects to bypass the 25 mi bad touch)

I look forward to the review about the adventure, do ye think the GM's guide is worthy of discussion at all, or too generic you think?

[Ikeren]

There's an NPC in the Halfling town that if attacked aggros the Priest of Discord. I remember a notorious troll on one of the PVP servers charming said NPC and ordering it to attack every PC and NPC in town. When said PC or NPC fought back, the Priest of Discord would attack them.

The adventures of Fansy the Bard. I remember laughing until I cried reading some of that stuff...almost 10 years ago now.

[Archmage]

I don't care enough about TO to put a lot of effort into it, but there are charge builds in D&D that could one-shot Vox. That's probably the best way to kill her, because magic is out if you're outside 20 feet. She's canonically fought in her caverns, which have a low ceiling, so you don't actually have to worry about her flying around a lot (though obviously you would want to be able to fly or dragoon jump or something anyway).

C-T doesn't auto-fail saving throws on a natural 1 because he's a god, and his save spread is +105/+86/+87. He's immune to ability damage and drain, negative levels, and anything mind-affecting. He has regeneration and only takes lethal damage from "divine spells cast by good casters" and "weapons blessed by deities of good and light." He can't fly, but he has enough medium-range attack spells that he can still hurt you if you're within 350 feet. If you can put through a minimum of 26 points of damage a round (probably trivial) from outside his spell range, he can't reach you, so you can accumulate damage and eventually bring him down. He'll probably just leave, though, since he can teleport anywhere he wants that isn't specifically warded by another deity to prevent his entry. I'm sure he's killable by TO cheese, too, but I'm not sure how "real characters" that your GM would actually let you bring to the table would pull it off.

[fectin]

Real characters would bluff him into taking his own life.

[Aryxbez]

So, I went to my local Hobby shop, and in addition to the three core products for Everquest (PHB,Monsters of Norrath, and it's DMG), there was also the "Solusek's Eye", and the Realms of Norrath: Forrest of Feydark. Though I only kinda skimmed them, not sure how well I could, or even want to try some dry review of them. Soluusek's Eye, as I recall, was a 10-30th level adventure book about Gnome mining company, Fire Giants somewhere, and them drilling deep into the planet. As I looked through, seems lot of it is indeed the equivalent of leveled up Orc statblocks, so they're definitely supporting their notion in the PHB. I think the only different stuff I can recall, is maybe some Dragons as endgame bosses. Oh, and it also apparently had appeal as a product, for it had preview material for Everquest II MMO?

While Feydark Forrest, I didn't really find anything interesting, seemed to just be an idea document, with an adventure included. It's about Crushbone orcs, and their "Crushbone Emperor" (Naming conventions isn't their strongsuit I guess) wanting to commit Elven Genocide to all of Feydark. So while I find that pretty cool, I'll have to look at it again, to see if ye can actually team up with the orcs (I know I did in Champions of Norrath:Return to Arms PS2 game, good times...).

[Ikeren]

Turns out my old idea of turning EQ dungeons into D&D dungeons turned out to be just as boring and terrible as I thought it would be!

[Bihlbo]

(Sorry to necro the thread, but I just found this review)

Thanks for doing this review, Archmage! When I saw this on the shelf it made me want to stab someone. A horribly misguided attempt to cash in on the new, popular thing, and it was bound to make both D&D and EQ look worse as a result. So I got me a copy. I actually really liked parts of it, even though I agree with most of your review.

Magic
128 pages of spells… it’s 50% fluff so maybe color printing is cheap. They could have actually developed a game instead of copying the spells directly from the MMO. They could have had spells scale in level to cut out at least a quarter of the spells. They could have paid some attention to how the effects of the spells would be used in a game and fixed some of the stupid stuff or gotten rid of more spells. But instead it’s exactly the same as the spells list from the MMO during the months they were making the book (of course, that means ten years later the spells in the MMO are all different).

Without vancian crap, mana costs and effects could have scaled, enabling just one spell to handle the effect forever. Memorize it as a level 8 spell and it does this much damage and costs this much, or you can re-memorize it as a level 9 spell to do more with more cost. That kind of thing. But then spellcasters might go a couple of levels without having new spells available at all. Which is totally fine, except people are going to compare it to 3rd edition D&D on which this system was based, so that looks really stingy. Or they’ll compare it to EQ and if they play that too they’re on the hunt for “Tishani” or “Convoke Shadow”, which will mean more disappointment when they find out the spells were cut for being pointless.

But I like that magic in EQrpg doesn’t do nearly as much as magic in D&D. There’s no wish economy, you can’t cast a spell to make a gold carriage that you can sell to a gullible sap, you can’t scry-and-slay, you can’t summon demons to handle all your problems, you can’t even get out of a fight by putting everyone to sleep. It’s less DragonballZ than D&D is. All that stuff D&D threw in to make the spell levels interesting and complicated and really borked just aren’t there. Magic does almost nothing outside of facilitating the killing of monsters (which has its downside), so it really only needs a few spell effects. That looks boring if you condense it down to 20-40 spells for each class, because most of those are going to come before level 10 and that leaves a lot of empty space on the old “Spells Available This Level” chart.

In actual play this tends to work out. Yes, without vancian magic you can just spam your best nuke until your batteries are dry then force the rest of the party to hole up and wait for you to recharge. But that’s as boring and unwise as in the MMO. Instead spellcasters are the “I’m terrible until I can do something” class that has to be played with patience and tactics, while the fighters and hybrids are the “I can always do something useful” classes. So you can limit yourself to a 4-fight workday and the spellcasters shine, or you can think about the mechanics a little less and just go on adventuring, forcing the spellcasters to pace themselves or else go through fights as a liability.

But this assumes that for the most part, you’re murderhoboing Norrath, which is fun if you’re new and pretty limiting once you realize the capabilities of an rpg. That basic assumption is one of the major weaknesses of 4e, which seems to be more a re-envisioning of EQrpg than of D&D 3.5.

Classes
I gotta point out that the great stuff you found in the enchanter comes at the cost of those being the only things they are good at doing. Their spells that damage enemies are on par with bard songs (free and weak) rather than any other caster (worth the cost), their spells are expensive, and they don’t fare well when isolated from their allies. Really, of the casters they are the most situational, and that has to be considered in a game where you have little to no control over the situation. I’m sure you’re probably comparing the things they can do with what you could do with a D&D wizard, since there aren’t many ways to play a wizard that are as effective as an enchanter-like wizard. If you compare the EQrpg wizard in this system to an evocation-focused wizard in D&D, I think you’ll find it’s less crippling for players who like to burninate. The only casting class that kind of sucks is the magician. Their elemental pet is kinda good, like a warrior cohort with magic gear would be, but their spells range from stupid to boring. The necromancer’s pet is just about as good, but their spells are fun and effective.

The EQrpg warrior, while still a bad class, does have one class ability besides just the vapid blank space of “bonus feats”. Their berserking ability is like a barbarian’s rage that triggers when they are <25% health, and though it has no use limit (+) it’s also not a trigger the warrior can control (-). While I would recommend not using the class as-written, the berserking ability is not terrible in a game where healing in combat is a viable strategy. Also, the fighter classes aren’t as terrible as they seem when you consider they don’t have to compete with CoDzilla or even a class as powerful as a sorcerer.

I’m surprised you spent so little time on the monk. It’s notable that this is a non-mystical monk meant to get better at fighting things by fighting things, instead of somehow becoming less human than when he started by fighting things, which is a point in its favor. And they get the fun times of being able to do a buttload of attacks every round without the least bit of shenanigans, which is both exciting and utterly horrible when you consider the fact that you have no reason not to have a pair of clubs with proc effects that require a DC 22 or so Dex check for each attack, on a class that’s not only based on Dex but is assumed to have magic Dex-boosting gear and loads of spells on him that boost his Dex for a 90+% chance of that proc going off every attack…. I hope the rest of the group brought a board game, because the monk gets to do a full attack this round! See you in 20 minutes.

The beastlord, a monk-shaman hybrid, is built around the idea that they get a pet doggie, and since you didn’t mention that I’ll fill in the gap with some of my thoughts on it. While in the MMO their puppy is just as simple to use as magician elementals or necromancer skeletons, in EQrpg it uses the rules for creatures without quite reproducing the animal companion rules entirely, and that’s much more complicated. The beastlord basically says, “Your talking, thinking character is going to be the sidekick to a huge monstrous dire beast of your choice.” When you do get magic, it’s with the understanding that for the most part you’re using it to make your puppy good, because your own character is identical to a 3rd edition NPC class. There are good and bad points in this class, but it really messes with standard assumptions about what you’re supposed to be doing in the game.

Monsters of Norrath
Contrary to what they print in the monster manual, there are level 30 kobolds. The monsters for this game are made with the assumption that you are going to level them to adjust for the PCs’ level before you throw them at your players (which is a lot of hard work and probably why buying 5 monster collections is more popular). That’s why there aren’t 30 orc entries, but instead just enough to get an idea of how to make different orcs have differing abilities, how they compare at some levels, and some different tribes. It makes just as much sense for there to be a level 30 orc as a level 30 human as a level 30 dragon. I had no problem with this, and am completely baffled as to why anyone would be okay with orcs or ettins only being found within a certain, confined level range. It doesn’t make a lick of sense why in the human cities you have everything from CR ½ to CR 20, but in goblintown it’s all within a range of about +-5CR.

But the same people who balk at something that simple are probably also the ones trying to use the EQrpg’s monster manual in a 3.5 D&D game, and you’d have to really misunderstand the book you’re holding if you think that would be a good idea. Anyone who knows the difference between a d20 product and an OGL product is going to realize that “Fully compatable” on the outside cover is marketing to get your granny to buy it. Obviously there are a lot of differences for which you’d need to compensate, so looking for the same old familiar stuff here is a bit like looking for D&D in a SWSE book.

That being said, you’re right that nearly all of the monsters in there are beatsticks without much interesting going on. It’s part of the flaw in adapting a game in which all of the baddies are either beatsticks or beatsticks with magic, but also a logical outcome from trying to make a system that doesn’t include magical effects for every imaginable thing, and where a beatstick is your plumb line for balance. This would lead me to want to run the game as though monsters and violent beasts aren’t the things PCs fight nearly as often as intelligent humanoids.

Overall
I think with some revisions this could be played, and would be a good game (if for no other reason than the casting mechanics are superior to vancian magic). There are elements here of a game in which the massive power imbalance between casters and non-casters is addressed by making magic users less powerful – the opposite of Pathfinder and Tomes for instance – and I very much prefer this approach. The setting is the kind of generic, simple setting one DM comes up with to run an AD&D game (because that is precisely how Norrath was made), so it is both lacking to players and not much help to a DM. The tie to EQ means that commercially this will never be anything but a nostalgic novelty for people who played the game during the first 4 years and think it might be fun to take a romp in something familiar, if they happen onto it in the bargain bin.

[Aryxbez]

Where did you find this review by the way, and who is the Author? I'm not sure if you sent this to us in snark, or something that's actually supposed to compliment the review itself. Seems like the person held contradictory ideals of Norrath being something truly "special" to play in a certain way, but then also a generic AD&D campaign? Such as howI can't say I support his notion of how apparently wants spellcaster players to be bored most of the time, or something like that? Makes me wonder what this author thinks that mages should be doing most of the time "pacing themselves"?

I didn't understand the monk example at all, implied saying enemies would have to make dex saves, but it sounds like saying Monks have to make dex checks just to do their attacks in the first place??

It doesn’t make a lick of sense why in the human cities you have everything from CR ½ to CR 20, but in goblintown it’s all within a range of about +-5CR.

Given the idea of power ranges, the idea is that higher and higher level enemies should be fewer and fewer. If there's some villa with level 20th Orcs, it downplays the achievements of the characters to power, and it brings down the scope of the game as well. Though there may be a CR 20 threat in that humanoid city, it's unlikely there's going to be a large scale of them, not without the city being truly defining, to have such walking gods on the earth (assuming standard 1-20 lvs ela 3.5).

As for strict ranges, most non-humanoid monsters have signature abilities that were generally built for that level. Trying to stretch it beyond its range, can possibly make the ability less useful over time. An ettin's ability to TWF-good, is something that gets circumvented by mid levels when such penalties no longer an issue (if they ever were). So funnily enough, they're a CR 6, so low level PC's would find them an actual threat, till the start of mid levels, where it's "TWF good" is no longer special. Even if say, they got leveled up to become Flask-chucking Rogues, then they're basically just a generic bomb thrower, only a semblance of their original concept contributing to the flurry of attacks, SA-dice. So monsters basically just lose their identity, while your basic orcs/goblins/gnolls, don't have much going for them ability wise in the first place, even if conceptually they will appear different.

[ishy]

Where did you find this review by the way, and who is the Author? I'm not sure if you sent this to us in snark, or something that's actually supposed to compliment the review itself. Seems like the person held contradictory ideals of Norrath being something truly "special" to play in a certain way, but then also a generic AD&D campaign?

The review was this review by Archmage, the first post in the thread.
The extra comments appear to be the own poster's (Bihlbo) feelings on this subject.

[Bihlbo]

Ishy nailed it, I wrote it last night. Mind you, I cut out a lot of it because it was just too long, and I'm not surprised that hurt its clarity.
Edit: I just realized the confusion was probably caused by me writing "I just found this review." By that I meant I just found Archmage's review, meaning this here thread you're reading now.

Seems like the person held contradictory ideals of Norrath being something truly "special" to play in a certain way, but then also a generic AD&D campaign?

That's exactly right, I have conflicting opinions about the setting. On the one hand there are certainly things to like, but it's generic. You'd have to hate the Fantasy genre to hate Norrath, but it's not hard to find a setting that does a better job achieving the same end. It really is reminiscent of the settings I've seen people whip up with colored pencils and graph paper. The Norrath available to players who first started, before any expansions, was utterly predictable in most ways. Practically fantasy boilerplate; a charming cliche. Later expansions gave the world a lot more interesting features with unique and creative places like Kunark, Luclin, etc.

I can't say I support his notion of how apparently wants spellcaster players to be bored most of the time, or something like that? Makes me wonder what this author thinks that mages should be doing most of the time "pacing themselves"?

Good point. I don't know that I'm right in thinking it's a good thing to weaken magic users, but it does seem playable with the possibility of fun.

Since you wondered, I think "pacing themselves" can mean actually holding back in combat and doing very little until such time as their spells would have maximum impact. It's about resource management. I suppose you could play a dungeon crawl where the world revolves around your rest schedule, playing only a handful of fights a day in which the casters go nova each time. But without spell slots to deal with, you could instead pace your mana use such that you use your best spell once a fight and rely on lower spells the rest of the time... through a dozen fights in a day. In D&D you can't prepare that really good spell that many times, so you don't really pace yourself, you just use all the stuff you have until you're a liability to the group or have to rely on items. It helps that the classes without any abilities that let them handle themselves in a physical fight are also the ones with pets they can summon, meaning if you're a necromancer you probably shouldn't close to melee range, but you don't have to be bored either since your skeleton is stabbing for you.

I didn't understand the monk example at all, implied saying enemies would have to make dex saves, but it sounds like saying Monks have to make dex checks just to do their attacks in the first place??

That was in reference to the "procs" that magic items can have. Archmage mentioned it in this paragraph: "There are some quirky buffs and magic item effects called "procs," terminology taken from MMORPGs, that are basically "stuff that happens sometimes at random when you score a hit." The chance of a proc is based on your DEX, of all things. So sometimes your hammer of undead smiting smites undead extra hard. Wheeee." In case that's not clear, if you have a club with a proc effect that casts a damage spell on the target, you roll a Dex check with every successful hit, the DC of which is usually 18-26, and if you succeed the spell goes off. Monks get lots of attacks, have a good chance to hit, and have high Dex. Both in EQrpg and in the MMO, a monk with dual proc weapons can just about match spellcasters for damage. Though, I imagine that if you're playing one and you have 11 attacks in a round, keeping track of all those numbers with the extra rolls for the proc can get the better of some people.

Given the idea of power ranges, the idea is that higher and higher level enemies should be fewer and fewer. If there's some villa with level 20th Orcs, it downplays the achievements of the characters to power, and it brings down the scope of the game as well. Though there may be a CR 20 threat in that humanoid city, it's unlikely there's going to be a large scale of them, not without the city being truly defining, to have such walking gods on the earth (assuming standard 1-20 lvs ela 3.5).

As for strict ranges, most non-humanoid monsters have signature abilities that were generally built for that level. Trying to stretch it beyond its range, can possibly make the ability less useful over time. An ettin's ability to TWF-good, is something that gets circumvented by mid levels when such penalties no longer an issue (if they ever were). So funnily enough, they're a CR 6, so low level PC's would find them an actual threat, till the start of mid levels, where it's "TWF good" is no longer special. Even if say, they got leveled up to become Flask-chucking Rogues, then they're basically just a generic bomb thrower, only a semblance of their original concept contributing to the flurry of attacks, SA-dice. So monsters basically just lose their identity, while your basic orcs/goblins/gnolls, don't have much going for them ability wise in the first place, even if conceptually they will appear different.

Hey, that's one way to go. I see your point, and maybe it's a matter of preference. I prefer that if there is a civilization of orcs somewhere with the technology to plan for war, have language, and forge weapons, there is also the possibility that there are orcs somewhere else with better tactics and technology or resources who have survived longer and pose a greater threat to the world. In other words, orcs, ettins, giants, dragons, walrus men, and elves are people in the world, not just representatives of their entries in the book. Their identity can come from their culture, motivations for whatever they did to become your enemy, their looks and attitude, and other fiddly things that a monster manual has little reason to detail. In the same way you could run level 1 characters against some wannabe pirates who are just getting a start in the hopes that they will one day be rivals of the really powerful pirates out yonder. Those pirates out yonder know what they are doing and have some levels, so wait until you're level 12 if you know what's good for you. I don't see a reason to say those pirates can't be goblins, gnomes, ghouls, or gnolls.

If you're playing D&D in a tournament, it's better to do it your way. Slap the "orc" label on the baddie so the players know what they're in for and you don't have to go into any more detail than that, because you only have 20 minutes to get to the end boss anyway. I think RPGs have the potential to run more immersive, story-driven games, and in those games treating enemies as a monolithic, static creature type that will only ever do what the MM says they do is going to make the setting seem like an artificial, 2-dimentional afterthought, which will ruin your credibility as a world-builder and take players out of the game mentally.

[tussock]

I think RPGs have the potential to run more immersive, story-driven games, and in those games treating enemies as a monolithic, static creature type that will only ever do what the MM says they do is going to make the setting seem like an artificial, 2-dimentional afterthought, which will ruin your credibility as a world-builder and take players out of the game mentally.

I'm going to unpack this.

Immersion and story-driven are orthogonal, you can have one without the other.

Even if you have both, you can use simple monsters that don't really scale. That's not "2-dimensional" (whatever the fuck that means), it's just a thing where advancing characters become better than the monsters they used to fight, which is a legitimate story people can and do tell about personal growth.

But again, that's your preference for one story type over another, which is independent of immersion either way. Max level 30 or level 5 Orcs are both stories.

And your last bit there is that games which aren't immersive (for you) aren't immersive (for you). So we go back to how it's certainly a matter of preference and you liking the things you like for no further reason.


Thank you, this was a public service message on behalf of people against tautologies. We don't like tautologies because we value sound reasoning, on the grounds that it is epistemologically useful.

[Aryxbez]

While I like to think Tussock packed it up fairly decently on the vapidness of simply screaming "just my preference" to be unhelpful for discussion. All the same I shall respond below.

Edit: I just realized the confusion was probably caused by me writing "I just found this review." By that I meant I just found Archmage's review, meaning this here thread you're reading now.

Yeah, certainly my bad there, as well with the "procs" thing, should've probably searched better, I appreciate the clarifications all the same however.

That's exactly right, I have conflicting opinions about the setting.

If you haven't already, may I suggest you get your thoughts in order, regards to not only this discussion, but other threads in the future?

Good point. I don't know that I'm right in thinking it's a good thing to weaken magic users, but it does seem playable with the possibility of fun.

Since you wondered, I think "pacing themselves" can mean actually holding back in combat and doing very little until such time as their spells would have maximum impact. It's about resource management.

Which doesn't give me the more explicit details in relevance to this RPG that I was hoping to receive, however it still sounds like a terrible thing to do to your players. How is that playability to encourage, the classic idea of a caster basically shooting crossbow bolts until he actually gets to contribute, or even worse, think it could even be...fun? saying something like that sounds something along the lines of a DM with a poor sense of perspective to the entertainment of his players, and like to hear how'd that be "Fun" without you spamming the whole "it's just my preference" (as sure, doesn't mean it's a good mindset to have/encourage, nor to put as a good feature for this game).

I suppose you could play a dungeon crawl where the world revolves around your rest schedule...

Given way I've heard this, has implied people who both dislike spellcasters, and possibly don't understand them that well. Regardless of that being true or not, in 3rd edition, you have 4 encounters a day, spellcasters having enough for those encounters than being out, is simply being consistent with the system of the game itself (which Spellcasters are the most consistent class within CR system, and doubles in power every level-ish etc). Though true enough that at higher levels, they can just spam Scrolls/Wands and other swag to make room for their spell slots and other shenanigans.

However, in regards to this RPG, it does kinda help that apparently spellcasters will get all their MP back in like an hour anyway, so the "wait" is not even that bad anyhow.

Though, I imagine that if you're playing one and you have 11 attacks in a round, keeping track of all those numbers with the extra rolls for the proc can get the better of some people.

I'm not actually sure if you're being sarcastic here or not, but if ye can't see why that's a bad thing that truly does bog things down...Here I thought [Tome] had some extra steps that kinda slowed things down, at least when it does, it's for more game defining status-effects. So slowing things down for everyone else, on top of a clouded perspective, is only made worse what you say below.

If you're playing D&D in a tournament, it's better to do it your way. Slap the "orc" label on the baddie so the players know what they're in for and you don't have to go into any more detail than that, because you only have 20 minutes to get to the end boss anyway.

Your pretentiousness is showing, made worse by seemingly confusing things, because I'm not sure what I said a post earlier is encouraging level 30 Orcs? When I was talking the opposite with an Ettin example becoming outdated, and being defined less for the monster abilities that set it apart, but then Rogue Class features, and bomberman tendencies (or whatever template/class he'd be upgraded with). Just because Orcs/walrusf-ok have a society, doesn't mean they have super Wizards and gods walking around, similar vein not all cultures technology levels will be the same. Sometimes ye do just have societies of 1-5th level Kobolds, how they develop, and it's an exception when there's some super-kobold flying around, not the norm.

I call it pretentious as after this, ye then go on a rant on how your games are apparently super special immersivenessnessnessness, while mine are the equivalent of the RPGA? Which came out of nowhere addressing nothing far as I'm aware, and being rather disrespectful at the same time. For the record though, I despise RPGA or "official RPG" like junk, kinda goes in hand with MMO's as well but yeah.