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megane
Jun 20, 2008



Apparently the average dungeon now has a background lethality of almost 150 mRa. Won't someone think of the wizards?

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Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 4 hours!
gently caress, that's a lot of MRAs in one basement.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
It makes it easier to wall them up.

Gun Jam
Apr 11, 2015

PurpleXVI posted:

I hate to slander two authors I don't really know that well, but considering the intense goblin racism in the 2E DL core book, I feel like Weiss and Hickman didn't really intend to consider the goblins to have human rights.

I mean, they're not human. Why should they?
Humanoid rights, however...
Okay, two thing aside -one why humanoid? Feel like an elf or a dwarf would throttle you for this.
Second, so dragons have no rights? Fey, magical beasts?

megane posted:

Apparently the average dungeon now has a background lethality of almost 150 mRa. Won't someone think of the wizards?

...That be 0.15 Ra, or 2.25 HP damage.
Nod good, but not terrible.

Moldless Bread
Jul 10, 2019
@ Cooked Auto:

Woops, thanks for the heads up.

On another note, I need an image in my next update. Could someone take a look at this post and tell me why the picture isn't showing up?

Edit.: Thanks. Yeah, that makes sense...

Moldless Bread fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Dec 13, 2019

Gun Jam
Apr 11, 2015

Moldless Bread posted:

@ Cooked Auto:

Woops, thanks for the heads up.

On another note, I need an image in my next update. Could someone take a look at this post and tell me why the picture isn't showing up?


Cause you didn't link to an image. Should be https://imgur.com/H4TdK00.jpg (shown above)

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Moldless Bread posted:

@ Cooked Auto:

Woops, thanks for the heads up.

On another note, I need an image in my next update. Could someone take a look at this post and tell me why the picture isn't showing up?


You need to get the url for the actual image file, not just the imgur page it’s on.

PantsOptional
Dec 27, 2012

All I wanna do is make you bounce

Gun Jam posted:

I mean, they're not human. Why should they?
Humanoid rights, however...
Okay, two thing aside -one why humanoid? Feel like an elf or a dwarf would throttle you for this.
Second, so dragons have no rights? Fey, magical beasts?


...That be 0.15 Ra, or 2.25 HP damage.
Nod good, but not terrible.

I’m told it’s the equivalent of a chest divination.

Everyone
Sep 6, 2019

by sebmojo

Gun Jam posted:

I mean, they're not human. Why should they?
Humanoid rights, however...
Okay, two thing aside -one why humanoid? Feel like an elf or a dwarf would throttle you for this.
Second, so dragons have no rights? Fey, magical beasts?.

Magical beasts, probably not unless they hold some specific position within the D-Armies. As for evil dragons, I tend to think that they're a bit like Darth Vader in the Empire. He doesn't really have a military rank, but the Emperor backs him up so even Admirals do what he says or they get the Neck-crush demotion. Figure the Dragons will obey the most ancient powerful one of their number - who serves as the Highlord's mount/partner. The Dragon will serve the army Highlord as Takhasis commands - as long as the Dragon deems the Highlord worthy of respect. That's probably why Ariakus took over the Red Dragonarmy. At that point Ariakus was the only one who could command the respect of the Red dragons after the Toede debacle.

Seatox
Mar 13, 2012

Everyone posted:

Magical beasts, probably not unless they hold some specific position within the D-Armies. As for evil dragons, I tend to think that they're a bit like Darth Vader in the Empire. He doesn't really have a military rank, but the Emperor backs him up so even Admirals do what he says or they get the Neck-crush demotion. Figure the Dragons will obey the most ancient powerful one of their number - who serves as the Highlord's mount/partner. The Dragon will serve the army Highlord as Takhasis commands - as long as the Dragon deems the Highlord worthy of respect. That's probably why Ariakus took over the Red Dragonarmy. At that point Ariakus was the only one who could command the respect of the Red dragons after the Toede debacle.

At least Red Dragons, as the designated Chaotic Evil ones. Blue Dragons probably insist on a complicated hierarchy, want their orders signed in triplicate, and will immediately but subtly undermine any Highlord who fails to submit his TPS reports with the correct coversheet, as is the Lawful Evil way.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Seatox posted:

At least Red Dragons, as the designated Chaotic Evil ones. Blue Dragons probably insist on a complicated hierarchy, want their orders signed in triplicate, and will immediately but subtly undermine any Highlord who fails to submit his TPS reports with the correct coversheet, as is the Lawful Evil way.

Blue Dragon's are not really that kind of Lawful Evil.

Libertad!
Oct 30, 2013

You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!

MonsterEnvy posted:

Blue Dragon's are not really that kind of Lawful Evil.

Say what you will about blue dragons, it was they who almost single-handedly broke Solamnia and held onto Nerakan territory when the Red Dragonarmy was falling into chaos.

Without the Blue Dragonarmy, there would be no New Neraka.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

MonsterEnvy posted:

Blue Dragon's are not really that kind of Lawful Evil.

They're generally described as the only ones with any real concept of loyalty or cooperation among the evil dragons, outside of being bullied or commanded to work together.

Though it's worth noting that 1E dragons are a bit different from 2E dragons in that they're treated a bit more like greedy animals. Even the fundamentally "good" metallic dragons are described as motivated heavily by greed and hoarding instincts, and the monstrous manual has firm rules for how you can break them like beasts of burden and sell them at the market. 1E Dragonlance does make them a bit more intelligent and complex than the basic 1E versions, but not much. Their being treated as something genuinely special didn't really start until 2E.

Everyone
Sep 6, 2019

by sebmojo

PurpleXVI posted:

They're generally described as the only ones with any real concept of loyalty or cooperation among the evil dragons, outside of being bullied or commanded to work together.

Though it's worth noting that 1E dragons are a bit different from 2E dragons in that they're treated a bit more like greedy animals. Even the fundamentally "good" metallic dragons are described as motivated heavily by greed and hoarding instincts, and the monstrous manual has firm rules for how you can break them like beasts of burden and sell them at the market. 1E Dragonlance does make them a bit more intelligent and complex than the basic 1E versions, but not much. Their being treated as something genuinely special didn't really start until 2E.

It's still interesting to me how you can really see the seeds/genesis of the 2nd edition in Dragonlance. As far as blue dragons go as I recall it, some of the cooler bits in the tie-in novels came with Skie (Blue Dragon Highlord's mount) as a viewpoint character.

In terms of the novels, the original trilogy was pretty good (even if it didn't stick the landing). The follow-up Twins trilogy was decent (and actually did stick the landing). Then the novels went totally up their own asses with all sorts of prequels, lost chronicles, etc to the point where I was expecting The Super-Duper-Ooper-Pooper-Most-Difficult-to-Find Lost Chronicles III Volume II: The Toilet Training of Tanis, in which Tanis must defeat the Dark Queen by making a really big boom-boom.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

MonsterEnvy posted:

Blue Dragon's are not really that kind of Lawful Evil.

I kinda liked the Draconomicon splat's take on them: blue dragons are among the most likely dragons to live among humanoids in a humanoid form and have half-draconic offspring because they really love the idea of ruling huge empires and being king poo poo of a hereditary nobility where one's nobility is defined by how much draconic blood one has.

Obligatum VII
May 5, 2014

Haunting you until no 8 arrives.
I also like how the Draconomicon characterized blue dragons. They're also unusual in that they maintain family units, whereas even most good dragons a very solitary. Blue dragons, on the other hand, can present a united front. You gently caress with one blue dragon and you've probably just pissed off a dozen other blue dragons.

They also understand the value of things like "trade" and "stable societies", so they're basically the only chromatic that can actually peacefully co-exist with... well, basically anything. Also I think their artistic design is rad.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

There was a nice take on blues where if somebody really, really wanted an objective ruling on a situation then they'd take the legal matter to a blue dragon who totally get off on that sort of thing.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you
Oh yes and I agree with all of that. Just saying they are not the lawful evil that cares much formality, contracts, and legal stuff.

PurpleXVI posted:

They're generally described as the only ones with any real concept of loyalty or cooperation among the evil dragons, outside of being bullied or commanded to work together.

Though it's worth noting that 1E dragons are a bit different from 2E dragons in that they're treated a bit more like greedy animals. Even the fundamentally "good" metallic dragons are described as motivated heavily by greed and hoarding instincts, and the monstrous manual has firm rules for how you can break them like beasts of burden and sell them at the market. 1E Dragonlance does make them a bit more intelligent and complex than the basic 1E versions, but not much. Their being treated as something genuinely special didn't really start until 2E.

I recall the FR Greybox was the thing that initially tried to elevate them, with a lot of it's changes becoming the standard going forward.

Though I think the Metallic's still being greedy is still a thing about them. (They are just more willing to part with possessions if it's for a good cause, and feel some guilt about their greed.)

MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Dec 14, 2019

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Dragonlance



Dragons of Light

DL7! We're approaching the end! So, having spent some time getting frostbite and getting a bear buddy(nothing ever indicates that the bear at any point leaves the party, so I'm going to presume he's with them from here on out, because the bear is the coolest party member), the party has iced(get it) another Dragon Highlord, this time Feal-Thas of the White Dragonarmy who got very unceremoniously annihilated, along with his mount Sleet, letting the party recover an Orb of Dragon Control that's actually a very nasty joke played on them, since it's actually an Orb of Summoning Random Numbers of Uncontrolled Dragons. DL6 had an extremely high chance of death for everyone involved, simply because of the massive amounts of breath weapon spam and random traps. Maybe DL7 will be different.

Additionally, we've also still got the split party thing going on that DL6 had. As mentioned, most of the canon party actually won't return till DL10 just because gently caress us.

This module starts with a refresher on elves, because it's all about elves. We've got five kinds: Qualinesti, Silvanesti, Kagonesti, Dimernesti and Dargonesti, as well as, grudgingly, Half-Elves and Dark Elves.

Dimernesti and Dargonesti are largely irrelevant, being sea elves, shallow and deep-water respectively. Qualinesti elves are the elves that aren't total racist assholes, but instead just practice racism as a hobby. Silvanesti are the grandpa-racist elves who consider the Kagonesti, who happen to be brown-skinned forest elves, to be, uh, basically sub-elven and only useful as chattel slaves and occasional target practice. Neither Qualinesti or Silvanesti have any respect whatsoever for the Kagonesti. The description of "Dark Elves" as a throwback makes them sound like the elf version of neanderthals, but they otherwise go undescribed and in the novels its primarily used as a description for "elves who are even bigger assholes than the rest," like Feal-Thas.

Also, in this module we have a silver dragon called Dargent. D'argent. Yes, really, the pun names are this loving stupid. Anyway, this dragon is polymorph capable, or will sometimes just steal people's souls and puppet their bodies around to manipulate stuff... and it's randomly determined who Dargent is in the story. I mean, it's very clearly meant to be a Kagonesti elf named Silvart(yes, really.), and is as well in the books, I believe. But it can also be her dog, Theros Ironfeld, Fizban(oh God no, not this guy again) or even one of the PC's. But really ignore that and just toss the role to Silvart, she's already annoyingly present in the story.

Chapter 6: Awash on Ergoth



Ergoth? How did we get to Ergoth?



Well, at the end of DL6, the party chopped a trapped ship free of the ice of Ice Mountain Bay, got it vaguely seaworthy and set off to Sancrist(north and west of Ergoth), but on account of none of them having any seafaring skills whatsoever, they hosed up and ended on Ergoth instead. They're coming into the bay marked in the upper left, their salvaged ship finally starting to give up the ghost as the module starts... with a loving white dragon. A white dragon that blasts them with breath weapons right away. Once again, only Aaron, Gilthanas and Tasslehoff can fight it off, but Gilthanas eats poo poo under the first blast of a breath weapon even if he passes his save. Then there's the second factor, which is that they're sailing into a bay full of nasty reefs...

Whoever's the helmsman must make ten Dex checks, one each round, and for each failed check, everyone on board must make a Dex check or eat 1d8 damage. This is completely unavoidable, and the worst case is that the party eats 10d8 damage, which is anywhere from 0.6 to 5.3 Ra, not counting the breath weapons. The dragon is suggested to be Sleet from the last adventure, but if they killed Sleet, there's still an unstatted white dragon which I think we can assume to be as strong as Sleet. Her first breath weapon adds 56 damage, so that's another 3.7 Ra, so we're somewhere between 3.7 Ra(all helmsman checks or resulting dex checks passed) and 9 Ra(all helmsman checks hosed and all resulting Dex checks flubbed), just on the first goddamn encounter, on the first goddamn page, of the game. And that's not even accounting for the potential damage from further breath weapons, keep in mind the damage done is equal to the dragon's total HP, so if it avoids taking any damage until it's fired all three blasts... 16.5 Ra at very worst.

The Dragon also doesn't just leave on round 10, which is where the party finally runs aground and flounders to shore in the shallows, but will keep attacking until at 50% HP, dead or it has used all three breath weapons.

But let's assume the party manages to drive off the dragon without anyone dying. They manage to get to shore, shaking off the water and hauling along the Orb of Dragon "Control" as well as all their gear. The south of Ergoth is a heavily wooded realm with wide, sandy beaches. It honestly looks pretty nice for the first five minutes.

And then the loving elves show up.

quote:

Note to the party that these are elves, and it would be an evil act to attack, especially if there are elves in the party

An elven hunting party, with a stag rider, and stag riders are loving cool, I can't lie on that, but they show up with their slaves. These are Silvanesti elves, see, with Kagonesti "servants" along. It turns out that the Silvanesti homelands are thoroughly hosed by an as-yet untold disaster, so they just skipped out to sea, landed on Ergoth, the Kagonesti homeland, and took over, enslaved the locals and started turning their camps into fortresses reminiscent of home. So the game is outright telling us here, that it is evil to kill or attack slave-taking colonist scum.

Please eat my poo poo, Dragonlance, thank you.

Already considering the Kagonesti lands "theirs," the Silvanesti promptly try to arrest the party and haul them up along the beach, at which point a bunch of Qualinesti collapse a pit under the Silvanesti, hit them with sleeping poison darts, and laugh, offering to take the party off to their camp on the west side of the bay. See, the Qualinesti homelands are currently burning merrily under the torch of the Red Dragonarmy, so they holed up on Ergoth as well. One of the Kagonesti slaves, Silvart, takes this chance to heal any wounded PC's, showing that the Kagonesti are much nicer than their supposed relatives.

At this point the party can either go with the Qualinesti, or wander off into the woods on their own, where they'll likely bump into more Silvanesti. If they enter either elf grouping's claimed lands on Ergoth, they're promptly arrested and imprisoned, though the Qualinesti treat it as them being "guests of honour," while the Silvanesti are way more up-front about it being about putting the PC's in jail for not being elfy enough. The Qualinesti also shame Laurana for wanting to gently caress a half-elf(Tanis), and fete Gilthanas as the protagonist and the rest of the PC's as his loser sidekicks.

Remember! Attacking the racist dicks who shame women for the crime of miscenegation is evil!

Theros, the smith from DL2, is also in the Qualinesti encampment. He's been forging weapons for the elves with a fancy new magic silver arm that he got by stumbling around some ruins and accidentally jamming his stump against it. I'm still not sure why the party were allowed to let Theros die back in DL2 since from here on out, he's very vital to the story.

If the party explore the area before committing to either camp(or getting busted by either elf group's forest cops), they can reach the Kagonesti burial grounds. They toss their dead in boats and let them sail downriver to the sea. There's an island at the mouth of the river, and those judged unworthy by the elven god, Branchala, will supposedly have their boats beach on the island, while the virtuous dead sail out to sea. The burial island is crawling with undead, including some banshees who have some petty loot. The Qualinesti and Silvanesti moved in and killed most of the undead, and were baffled when the Kagonesti considered it an act of blasphemy. Part of the island that's not full of undead also serves as the only "neutral" ground in south Ergoth between the two elf factions.

Chapter 7: The Wilds of Ergoth



Anyway, once the party has either committed to getting arrested or hiding in the woods, chapter 7 starts. If the party is imprisoned in either camp, Silvart and Theros will bust them out, if they're in the woods, Silvart and Theros will flim-flam the elf patrols looking for them and then join the party. Theros' motivation is that he's had enough of racist dickhead elves and wants to find a Solamnic Knight encampment farther north on the island, while Silvart's motivation is that she knows the PC's are carrying an evil magic item with the potential to gently caress up her homeland and she wants the PC's to head north with it and gently caress off.

Presumably, the party gives the elves the slip, though there's every chance elven pursuers will come up as random encounters. A few days north of the main concentrations of elves, the party comes across another group of adventurers, these of a more classic murderhobo persuasion, lead by a mercenary called Vanderjack(who is another potential silver dragon identity) and possibly including Fizban(if the GM for some unholy reason decides that Dargent is disguised as the old rear end in a top hat). As a reasonably clever thing, all members of the adventuring party bar Vanderjack(and Fizban, if he's there), are actually Sivak draconians polymorphed into the appearances of party members they've killed. Vanderjack is, you see, hunting for the legendary TREASURE OF HUMA(an ancient hero of the Solamnic Knights), and the draconians want that treasure and then to stab Vanderjack. Being smart enough to know they can't handle three times their own number in a fight, they try to slip away in the night if the party joins up with Vanderjack(or rather, he joins the party).

The point of this section of the game is for the party to get to a region known as Foghaven Vale, about halfway up the island of Ergoth. As they go along, some weird creature stalks the night, howling, and Theros is convinced that it's the guardian of the silver arm he claimed, come hunting for it. He calls it the Grey Wraith.

Outside of the pointlessly murderous start of DL7... it's kind of my favourite module so far? It has a very interesting situation to start with, albeit one that the players aren't allowed to interfere with and which the party is shuffled away from as quickly as possible because they're not allowed to kill elves. But it's the most interesting setup so far.

The party is now moving into the deeper Kagonesti lands, and any elves met here are Kagonesti, which can be recognized by the fact that they're actually pretty decent chaps compared to the other elves. Mostly they just want the party to gently caress off if they're not accompanied by Theros or Silvart(and thus strangers), but otherwise allow them passage with no hassle.

quote:

There were 100 clan-villages of Kagonesti scattered throughout the Ergoth forests before the coming of the refugees, each with its own. distinct customs and facial make-up. There are now some 50 clans left, most of them in this area. The remainder have fled to the west and north, or been enslaved by the Silvanesti, or indentured by the Qualinesti. Kagonesti villages are temporary structures of animal hide and light wood, using the boughs of living trees to aid in construction and camouflage.

Again, these elves that it would be "evil" to attack have enslaved or displaced over half of the local population. And what the gently caress is the difference between "enslaving" and "indenturing" the locals? Slavery is loving slavery.

Being cool dudes, again, the Kagonesti will also trade the party rad as hell stag mounts for steel as long as the party treats their stag herds right. Hell yeah, now we've got a bear buddy AND we're stag cavalry. loving aces. Generally, as long as the party stays on the move, and this is easy with the stag mounts, the party can also explore the area in the south of the island a decent bit. There aren't a lot of interesting encounters, but there are some sprites that'll drug them and send them downriver to the Silvanesti, for instance, if they disrespect the woods. They can also meet an old hermit who gives them a sabertooth kitten as a gift as well as a bunch of maple candy to bribe birdmen guides with, this guy is the loving best. The kitten may also be Dargent if the GM wants to throw the party a real wildcard.

If Fizban is with the party at this point, they're likely also clued into him being a polymorphed creature or otherwise not the real Fizban by the way in which he hasn't caused any mass murder with "wacky" shenanigans yet.

There are multiple passes through the mountains, though the one the party wants is a three-way pass to the west, Foghaven Vale, none of the others will lead them to the Solamnic Knights, though they can get in fights with ogre bandits or get poisoned by old men who are actually polymorphed Ogre Mages that offer them food laced with save-or-die poison. Considering that so far every NPC the party's met on Ergoth who wasn't a Silvanesti or Qualinesti has been reasonably trustworthy or even outright nice, this is kind of a dick move. It's also a real good way to TPK the party.

One side of the mountains is also ogre lands, the passes are guarded by ogres, but if the players cross the mountains... none of the ogres on the other side consider that maybe they just killed or snuck by the guards, assuming they must be there for a reason. The potential shenanigans suggested are also, gasp, not a bunch of pointless rear end in a top hat dickery.

quote:

• The characters are accosted by an ogre asking for a human judgment in a disagreement between tribes. The side the characters decide against takes personal (and violent) insult.

• An ogre tribal leader offers to buy one of the elves, dwarves, or kender from the party. They offer supplies, venison, or ogrish bone pieces.

• An ogre guard unit stops the party. Having more on the ball than the others, they ask for proof of statements, and are suspicious of elves, kender, and dwarves.

If the party gets seriously involved in a fight with an ogre tribe or unit, the other ogres gather around to place side bets, but do not enter the fray. If the characters defeat the ogres, the others let them go, but pass on word to Daltigoth of the superior fighters headed that way.

Daltigoth is, sadly, poorly detailed, but a clever GM could use it well. It's a ruined human city where the White Dragonarmy is, under the command of some giants, rallying an ogre army(with mixed success, they've got the ogres rallied and wound up for a fight but mostly they fight each other), considering that the giants running the thing are a family, a father giant and his three sons, and all three sons are actively scheming and hoping for their dad's death so they can take over. This could be used for some interesting drama and setting them against each other to sabotage the Dragonarmies' efforts on Southern Ergoth.

There are also some interesting details about the area, like how the local ogre farmers are using "Baluchitherium" as beasts of burden rather than, say, horses or oxen or whatever. Looking around apparently they're huge ol' prehistoric things that look a bit like a proto-anteater was crossed with a rhino. They're loving huge and, uh, their 14HD and 2x 5d4 attacks probably make them some of the most mercilessly dangerous enemies on South Ergoth. Don't gently caress with ogre farmers is, I guess, the moral of the story.

In any case, eventually the party is hemmed in by uncrossable islands, the sea and hard-to-cross wastelands, but surprisingly no infinite-by-fiat enemy attacks, and their only path is Foghaven Vale...

Kree! Why is there ever more than one kind of elf? Only Drow are ever statistically different!

Search me, Skeleton Warrior. I think a better question is "why are there elves at all, they always suck."

DL7: The Second Half, Coming Soon To A Thread Near You!

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

The only evil in attacking those elves would be in smiting evil. The dragonlance modules really are terrible, almost as terrible as the authors.

PurpleXVI posted:

An ogre tribal leader offers to buy one of the elves, dwarves, or kender from the party. They offer supplies, venison, or ogrish bone pieces.
Why wouldn't any party accept this deal? :v:

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Poil posted:

Why wouldn't any party accept this deal? :v:

If attacking slaver elves is evil, inflicting kender on ogres HAS to be ultra evil by this setting's logic.

Libertad!
Oct 30, 2013

You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!


Dragons of Ice: 3rd Edition Changes

Blog post link.

1. The artwork is different in a lot of places. Often more detailed, notably the maps. Although a lot of the older artwork's not present. Some examples:

AD&D:







3rd Edition:







The last pic is of Feal-Thas proper, who in both versions has a pack of pet winter wolves (who are scattered throughout the complex and do not fight alongside him; wasted potential).

2. Laurana is a proper PC rather than an NPC, while Derek Crownguard is demoted from controllable PC to NPC. There's also a sidebar on how to role-play him. For those who haven't read the novels (including myself) he was a constant stick in the mud who butted heads with the party, and was obsessed with the Dragon Orbs and victory at any cost that he died in a foolhardy and tragic manner during the Battle of the High Clerist's Tower. This can be averted in both the AD&D and 3rd Edition versions. Derek in 3rd Edition has levels in Noble and Legendary Tactician* as well as Fighter, meaning that he can give the party some bardic-like buffs. His feat selection is optimized around mounted combat, which is not unusual for a Solamnic Knight but can be a hindrance in Dragons of Ice given the relative lack of horses.

*martial prestige class focused around buffing alllies.

3. There's one more Solamnic Knight PC: Brian Donner, a faithless Paladin and Knight of the Sword who is a chivalrous and brave man. He is pretty much a Fighter without bonus feats, but if he becomes faithful to the true gods he will gain holy powers. Both he and Aran Tallbow were killed off quite early in the novels, so they didn't get much characterization in the main story.

4. There's a lot more random and set-piece encounters in Tarsis, both before and during the siege. They range from things like Dragonarmy patrols, drunk city guards, angry mobs, and a fortune-teller who can give a PC a minor spendable one-time +2 bonus to a roll. There's a set-piece encounter for what happens if the PCs try to get violent at the governor's palace (Dragonarmy soldiers and Gildentongue, an aurak draconian ambassador who is a sort of recurring villain in the adventure path). The book provides a template for a Mob, which was originally in the Dungeon Master's Guide but is basically meant to simulate large groups of human-sized opponents handled as one creature. Sadly we only see it used for unruly peasants and not Dragonarmy troops, which would be the more logical choice.

5. The caretaker of the hidden library in Tarsis will not let the PCs leave with the magical Glasses of Arcanist without a fair trade of some other magical or unique item.

6. One of the nearby towns, Zeeriak, has a new NPC for the PCs to meet. Galeswept is a nomadic human Barbarian who brokured a trading pact with the White Dragonarmy of furs and other goods in exchange for protection. There's not much more than that but she can give the PCs information about the region presuming they don't tip their hands that they may upset the political balance.

7. PCs can meet griffons as a friendly random encounter outside of Tarsis. Through them they can learn that their companions who fled with Alhana Starbreeze are safe, and can be used for long-distance aerial travel (to a point, the Plains of Dust are the griffon's home and they don't wish to go too far).

8. The PCs can help aid the Ice Folk during the invasion of their village. It is run as a series of 3 encounters whose relative level of success determines the losses suffered by the Ice Folk: holding the south wall, repelling the thanoi from setting the ice boats on fire, and holding off the enemies so that civilians can retreat. Each of them don't need to "kill all the bad guys" to win, where if a set amount of rounds pass the conditions are such that Dragonarmy's attempts fail. Feal-Thas and Sleet attacks the village in a brief strafing one in both versions, but only the AD&D advises that they don't enter direct combat with the PCs. Meaning that theoretically the PCs can kill off the Dragon Highlord and his mount before visiting Icewall Castle.

9. When climbing up the Icewall there is no "you fall the entire way" result. Failed checks mean that a PC falls and slides before hitting a lower level and suffering damage. PCs who are strong enough can perform a Reflex save to safely catch a faller. The PC with the highest check rolls Climb and the others roll to Aid Another (add +2 to the primary roller) to see how far they progress. And yes, spells such as levitate and fly can bypass this entirely.

10. Looting the frozen Dragonlance-wielding Solamnic knight or animating his body into an undead will be met with angry rejection by Derek Crownguard and any Solamnic NPCs in the party. There's no mention of what happens in either version if a PC tries to cast Speak with Dead on the dragon or the knight.

11. Feal-Thas has a minotaur second in command by the name of Ronox de-Jaska. He's a Fighter/Legendary Tactician who focuses on greataxe and charge attacks with his horns.

12. Feal-Thas' spell selection is greater in 3rd Edition and more geared towards overt damage-dealing spells than Save or Sucks like Polymorph. Any damaging spell he can opt to deal cold damage, he is capable of summoning monsters, and he has levels in a prestige class called Winternon and one of its more unique features is to grant a once-per-day +10 bonus to a d20 roll related to seeing an opponent's wyrd (Knowledge, Sense Motive, or rolling for initiative in combat).

13. Sleet is still a very dangerous dragon (very high AC, powerful melee attacks) but his breath weapons deals a more survivable 8d6 damage. The default Heroes of the Lance stat blocks in back have HP ranging from 40 to 80, with most ranging in the 50s range.

14. As for lack of ranged damage-dealing, Elistan's a lot more powerful in 3rd Edition on account of well...CoDzilla. He has a greater selection of spells he can swap out every day depending on how generous the DM is with sourcebooks.

His default stat block has Searing Light, a good ranged spell. He can also cast Flame Strike which can be useful against Sleet. For the more martial PCs, both adventures have a room full of magical icicles which can act as magical javelins or shortspears, although there's not a lot and they don't do much damage (3rd Edition Sleet has 276 HP).

15. Sleet's Lair has treasure in it beyond the Dragon Orb: Bracers of Armor and a Ring of Counterspells are the two magical treasure, and thousands of steel pieces worth of various fancy art and trade goods.

16. The remorhaz, although rather unintelligent (sentient but cannot speak any language), is capable of being turned against the Dragonarmy in Icewall Castle on the fact that it is being kept prisoner and fed the corpses of prisoners. As to how the PCs can do this, the adventure leaves it to the gaming group's imagination. In AD&D the remorhaz had animal intelligence, so this is a nice touch on edition changes.

17. To account for the Solamnic DMPCs, new Archetypes for replacement PCs are added: the Shepherd (Elistan), the Golden General (meant to be an Archetype a character becomes rather than starts out as, Laurana), the Bon Vivant (Aran Tallbow the archer-knight), the Gallant (Brian Donner the not-Paladin knight), and the Maiden (Laurana).

Libertad! fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Dec 15, 2019

Seatox
Mar 13, 2012
"Please, pay no attention to the obvious silver dragon. We trained him in spycraft wrong as a joke."

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Seatox posted:

"Please, pay no attention to the obvious silver dragon. We trained him in spycraft wrong as a joke."

So far the game is 2/2 on dragons transforming into humanoid form being annoying. Dargent isn't as bad as Evenstar, since she actually tries to help the party rather than hinder them, but considering that she could just have figured out the party weren't dickheads in five minutes, popped into dragon form and given them a lift to Foghaven Vale or whereever they were going in five minutes rather than being coy and mysterious about it, I'm still putting it in the "dickhead dragon"-bin.

Seatox
Mar 13, 2012

PurpleXVI posted:

So far the game is 2/2 on dragons transforming into humanoid form being annoying. Dargent isn't as bad as Evenstar, since she actually tries to help the party rather than hinder them, but considering that she could just have figured out the party weren't dickheads in five minutes, popped into dragon form and given them a lift to Foghaven Vale or whereever they were going in five minutes rather than being coy and mysterious about it, I'm still putting it in the "dickhead dragon"-bin.

To be just a tiny bit fair to the metallics, they don't know that Takhisis has done her thing with their eggs to make the draconians at this point, so you can at least excuse Dargent for wanting to lay low lest it endanger the hostage-eggs (that don't exist anymore, because the products of said eggs are currently lurking around the Racist Elf Forest posing as adventurers). Evenstar has pretty much zero excuse, though.

Libertad!
Oct 30, 2013

You can have the last word, but I'll have the last laugh!

PurpleXVI posted:

Dragonlance



Dragons of Light

An elven hunting party, with a stag rider, and stag riders are loving cool, I can't lie on that, but they show up with their slaves. These are Silvanesti elves, see, with Kagonesti "servants" along. It turns out that the Silvanesti homelands are thoroughly hosed by an as-yet untold disaster, so they just skipped out to sea, landed on Ergoth, the Kagonesti homeland, and took over, enslaved the locals and started turning their camps into fortresses reminiscent of home. So the game is outright telling us here, that it is evil to kill or attack slave-taking colonist scum.

Please eat my poo poo, Dragonlance, thank you.

I'll wait until you finish up the second half before rolling out my list of 3rd Edition changes, but you'll be pleased to know it's no longer evil to attack said elves, either in self-defense or to liberate enslaved Kagonesti.

:anarchists: The D20 translators are WOKE. :anarchists:

Gun Jam
Apr 11, 2015
Re - that Dragonlance elf-thing:
Y'know the fantasy cliche that elves are better than you, are always right, can't argue with 'em, and so on?
This would be like a vicious parody of that, but it's serious.

Glagha
Oct 13, 2008

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAaaAAAaaAAaAA
AAAAAAAaAAAAAaaAAA
AAAA
AaAAaaA
AAaaAAAAaaaAAAAAAA
AaaAaaAAAaaaaaAA

While people are doing dragonchat, one of the things I enjoyed out of the 4e draconomicon was making metallic dragon morality a little more complicated, instead of just having the good dragons and the evil ones. I mean chromatic dragons are still just evil assholes, and metallic dragons are at the very least nicer, but they're still dragons and have all the greed and arrogance of dragons so while a gold dragon probably won't burn down your village for having the temerity to exist like a red one might, a particularly dickish one still might eat you for having the unmitigated gall to speak out of turn in its presence.

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

Dragons are all apex predators with PHDs and should act like it.

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
I guess the final step would someone IC with authorial backing declare Good to not be good and to be a good person many times you need to destroy the Good Guys along with the Bad Guys.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

You'd think it wouldn't be that difficult to write 'good guys', but given how often D&D slips on that banana peel I suppose it is.

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
It helps when you realize that in DnD Good and Evil are basically radiation that hijacks the behavior of sapient beings and not actual moral choices.

Prism
Dec 22, 2007

yospos

Green Intern posted:

Dragons are all apex predators with PHDs and should act like it.

They don't even all have PhDs yet.

The general intelligence of an adult white dragon in 1E is Average (Low), so in the 7-9 range. For black dragons, it's 'average' (8-10), for greens, it's 'average to very' (8-12), and for blues, it's 'very' (11-12). Metallics average a little higher; copper and brass are 'high', so 13-14.

Only red, bronze, silver, and especially gold dragons are really smart, but they're still no smarter than a human can be. Gold dragons are geniuses (17-18) and the other three are 'exceptional', so about 15-16.

(By comparison, in later editions, gold dragon wyrmlings have 14 and go up from there all the way up to 32 at great wyrm. Even white dragons get up to the 18-20 INT range and they're frequently described as stupid - and, by dragon standards, they are. Though it's easier to have stats over 18 in 3E, dragons are still a lot smarter in comparison to everybody else.)

Prism fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Dec 15, 2019

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Prism posted:

They don't even all have PhDs yet.

The general intelligence of an adult white dragon in 1E is Average (Low), so in the 7-9 range. For black dragons, it's 'average' (8-10), for greens, it's 'average to very' (8-12), and for blues, it's 'very' (11-12). Metallics average a little higher; copper and brass are 'high', so 13-14.

Only red, bronze, silver, and especially gold dragons are really smart, but they're still no smarter than a human can be. Gold dragons are geniuses (17-18) and the other three are 'exceptional', so about 15-16.

(By comparison, in later editions, gold dragon wyrmlings have 14 and go up from there all the way up to 32 at great wyrm. Even white dragons get up to the 18-20 INT range and they're frequently described as stupid - and, by dragon standards, they are. Though it's easier to have stats over 18 in 3E, dragons are still a lot smarter in comparison to everybody else.)

I know in 5e a Ancient White Dragon only has average intelligence (10.) The other chromatic Wyrmlings vary from average to high (14). So they are all born more intelligent than an Adult White.

The fact that they are born with such intelligence is part of the reason they are so arrogant.

MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Dec 15, 2019

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
Is this actual intelligence or more "I'm stupid, faster!"

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



More like apex redditor.

Seatox
Mar 13, 2012

Ronwayne posted:

Is this actual intelligence or more "I'm stupid, faster!"

It's D&D Int, which has a troubled history when it comes time to define "Well, what does it really mean outside of dice bonuses?" - for pretty much the same reasons that IQ is a discredited measure of smartness, etc.

In 3rd edition, high Int gives bonus skill points, which means that a dragon can spare enough to pick up some Knowledge (Revolutionary Marxist Ideology) or Profession (Bad Poster) on top of the usual gamut of combat related skills that they get as species skills (from having monster hitdice). Most 3rd ed dragons have pretty good Wisdom and Charisma scores too - so they're kinda sorta not supposed to be total idiots.

But that's mental stat scores in pretty much every D&D derived game, ever... examine it closely and you start to see some problematic stuff.

Carados
Jan 28, 2009

We're a couple, when our bodies double.
Problematic just for existing, especially when it comes to humanoid races and modifiers.

Seatox
Mar 13, 2012

Carados posted:

Problematic just for existing, especially when it comes to humanoid races and modifiers.

The half-orc 'race' - not only do they get the -2 int -2 charisma, they also have all the other awful poo poo going on with the whole "half-breed child of probably rape" thing. Oh, and the whole 'race' as opposed to 'species' thing. You use the r-word to describe your character's what-I-am-born-as stat spread, then thirty seconds later you're up to your neck in shoddy nazi bullshit and, well, racism.

I wish I could just excise all the D&D crap wedged into my brain from a misspent youth.

Seatox fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Dec 15, 2019

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Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
I still think the worse type is shadowrun, where well meaning white nerds try to challenge racism and end up making something that is somehow more racist than the source material.

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