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How dare parents having their kids held hostage not make the rational decision to sacrifice them to save the world is definitely a take you could have I suppose.
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Dec 31, 2019 16:41
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Modern AGE Post 6: The Bad Post So. Modern AGE has a perfunctory magic/psionics system in the core book in case your game is going to be an urban fantasy game. The main difference between Magic and Psi is just which stat you use; Arcana use Int, Psi use WP. WP still gets used to determine Power Points, the save difficulty of your magic, and the effective damage of magic, so that seems like a pretty nice win for psionics over wizards even though effectively it's all magic. But then, Int is a much more useful stat outside of edge cases so I suppose that goes in favor of proper robes and intoning things in psuedolatin. You get spells by buying ranks in the Arcana or Psi talents for a certain style of spell. For instance, Fire Arcana is its own 3 rank talent. They can also be acquired as a Specialization if the GM is A: Kind of a dick because most of them aren't worth that and B: Wants to limit magic use but still have magic. Level 1: Get two basic spells. Level 2: Get a more powerful spell, plus a free Focus with that style of Arcana or Psi. Level 3: Get a big spell, plus -1 SP cost to one magic Stunt (and the Magic Stunts are very, very dull and limited compared to normal action stuff) of your choice with that style. Magic use also costs Power Points, which are generated with 10+WP+d6 at level 1, +d6+WP per level until 10, at which point they go up 1+WP, exactly like HP under Cinematic rules. There's lots of rules for limiting power points, switching magic to working off a fatigue system, etc, and it's weird because magic isn't really that big a deal. It feels like the rules think magic is more than it is with all these rules about limiting it. Now magic can be crazy powerful, but that's more a function of wildly uneven spell design. Which is weird; the guy who designed the specific Modern AGE version was a developer on Mage. You'd think that would give some experience working with magic systems. But then again, the magic system in AGE is a minor add-on that won't even see use in many campaigns, so I doubt it got nearly as much attention. 'Secondary' magic systems are the sorts that are really goddamn hard to design and balance. When magic is an 'extra' thing placed over a normal system rather than being the entire focus of the system, it's much harder to keep it from being either too weak or too powerful. Like, let's take a look at some Arcana. Healing and Fire do about what you'd expect; you can trade PP for HP, get up downed allies, etc with Healing. Fire can do some reasonable AoE damage or enhance your ability to do melee by surrounding you with flames; a master of Fire magic is about equivalent to someone who can carry a brace of grenades everywhere they go without seeming to actually carry grenades, and that's a pretty useful trick in its own way. Now let's look over at Protection; is that a 'completely immune to all bullets' spell? It certainly is. For 2 Talent Slots, a character with Protection Arcana gets a 'completely immune to bullets and projectiles of any caliber, size, explosiveness, etc' spell. Any ranged attack that isn't a spell or energy weapon of some kind is just deflected at a cost of 1 PP (remember, you have a fair number of those) per attack. That kind of thing. Psy is even better, getting lots of ways to do damage that pierces all DR, but more importantly: Most of the spell styles that do that will also have utility spells, unlike our poor friend the Fire Arcana. Why would you want Fire Arcana when Psychic Projection gets you a cheap way to do lots of penetrating damage (at level 1!), the ability to give people hallucinations (which is a 3rd level magic effect for Illusion) also at level 1, suggestion-based mind control at level 2, and a penetrating AoE at level 3? These spell lists really aren't balanced against each other, and as per usual, anything that can gently caress with people in ways beyond doing damage (or anything that can negate mundane weaponry) is something you want. It's disappointingly badly designed. But what if you want to play a game with viral superbeings (hello, Resident Evil) or cybernetics or other extraordinary powers? Those come from the add-on book, Modern AGE Companion, and man. Enhancements are very loosely written, but everything in the Companion is. You could gain an Enhancement as a Talent Slot, or in place of a Focus or Stat Point when leveling, or as a Specialization, or as something you replace a Background Talent or Skill or whatever with; it's entirely up to your GM. Heck, they even say if the GM allows, you can just make a Resources Check (buying stuff) that's very difficult and might involve other favors to gain one. Which is fine; I get that they're trying to say 'adjust how you will', but at a certain point you're waving your hands and saying 'do whatevs, Night', and I was already pretty aware I could do that. Which is basically all of the Companion book. The general effects for Enhancements are: Make up a new Stunt the character has access to, the character gains an inbuilt tool of some kind, -1 to the SP cost of a favored stunt, +1 Defense or Toughness, multiply the speed or effect of an ability (like an inbuilt computer halving the time for research checks, or superhuman jumpy legs letting your X-COM guy make huge leaps beyond human norm), become immune to a sort of hazard, gain a Spell from the magic system if those weren't normally allowed, or gain an innate attack that does the damage you choose (Stun, Impact, Ballistic, or Penetrating), d6+Stat Of Your Choice damage, uses the Stat/Focus of your Choice, and gets +d6 per additional Enhancement you put into it up to 4d6. They then suggest a couple example Enhancements, basically none of which follow the guidelines they just gave directly. They include things like 'You can always make Lightning Attack followups on any attack', which as written (since it costs no SP) would technically let you attack infinitely as long as you hit (I know this is not the intent, but if something permits something crazy RAW in a manual about teaching you how to design things it should be pointed out). Simply put, the Enhancement rules are not very effective at providing you solid guidance on designing new powers and abilities. This is the case for most of the Companion. Meanwhile, most of the Companion is focused around giving you loose guidelines for designing your own stuff. This is a problem for the book. Look, I don't need to pay someone to tell me 'make some stuff up'. I do that on my own. Let's look at a good example of 'how to design your own stuff' as contrast: Back in Albedo Platinum Catalyst, when Sanguine published 'make your own species' rules, it came with the exact system math they used to design every species in the core book in order to ensure anything you create balances against what already exists. The problem here is that AGE is trying to account for multiple 'power levels' of campaigns, and I also don't think Modern AGE was designed with the level of mechanical rigor to begin with that would let them give you firm guidance on power design. For an example of that, let's look at another issue the Companion introduced. The Companion introduces the idea that you can specialize in something beyond Master level, going to Grandmaster, then to Apex level of Talents and Specializations. All new Talents and Specs in Companion come with these additional levels of mastery. They also come up with Grandmaster and Apex levels for a couple core-book Talents. But only a couple. Instead, there's a short sidebar saying 'use your judgement' and listing a few generic effects you could use to make your own Grandmaster and Apex levels for existing Talents. There are several reasons I'm not happy about this, and the little sidebar telling me to do all the backporting work myself is honestly the least of them. The real issue I have with them is this: One of the nice things in Modern AGE (and one of the things that makes it work for a generic Modern game, for me) is how attainable competence is. You are not wasting time if you take something you weren't great at and try to improve at it. There's generally a soft cap on how good you can reasonably get at things. Once you start introducing levels of specialization in very specific things (like Knife Fighter) you start to run into the D&D Feat issue where someone has spent so many character resources on a single thing that they're really discouraged from trying other things or branching out. It also makes the level of 'actually good at thing' significantly higher, and introduces a design incentive to give less at each Talent or Specialization level since you have to write them spreading out over 5 levels instead of 3. Also, 5 levels is a really significant investment! That's a quarter of your PC's career. It's just unnecessary and kind of self-defeating, and the icing on the cake is that you're expected to do all the legwork to backport this idea yourself anyway. The entire Companion book is like this. It's just not defined enough to be useful as a pile of new and cool things to buy, nor is it detailed and rigorous enough in its guidelines to serve as a design teaching document. It's mostly just a mess of new subsystems and half-finished character options you're expected to finish yourself. I like Modern AGE, and I'd recommend the system and the core book, but I cannot recommend the Companion. I've rarely been that disappointed in a major system add-on. Next Time: GMing and setting advice
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Dec 31, 2019 16:57
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JcDent posted:The thing is, they're equating the lives of their children to the lives of countless others (even if Takhisis isn't Thanosing it up). Like, literally the world is at stake. Eh, this is believable to me. People are really really bad at the trolley problem. It's important to remember that Takhisis wants to rule the world, not destroy it. Thousands of people will die in the fighting, but after that it's "just" millions trapped in a dystopian dictatorship. People are also bad at judging how many people lifted out of dystopia are worth someone's life. Add on to that that dragons may well value one dragon above one human (or even a hundred humans), and their thought process probably goes "hundred of dragon deaths or thousands of humanoid deaths. Let's take the later". After all, this is Dragonlance Good. Dragonlance Good is rear end in a top hat (and, as the Kingpriest showed, Good is fine with dystopian dictatorships) The Vision thing is kinda an appropriate analogy. Not on the "half the universe" scale, but think of how many Wakandas died in that battle to try and save Vision. Morally speaking, a life is a life and Vision shouldn't be worth more than a single Wakandan. But, in the fascist-leaning weird world of Superheroes (or dragons/fantasy supermen), how much is The Vision worth compared to some random nobodies? That's the same thought process that leads to the Dragons not helping humanity. Kaza42 fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 19:02
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The metallic dragons are trapped by their bullshit oath of non-interference... because Paladine is an inept loser god who couldn't run a hostage negotiation properly. And oh, right, how much divine awareness do 1st edition gods have, because under 3rd edition god rules, he should *know* from his funky domain powers that a whole bunch of unhatched dragon eggs went poof, unless Takhisis uses her own powers to block that god-power, at which point he should be Very loving Suspicious that evil is afoot and maybe lay off poor D'argent, the only sane dragon.
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Dec 31, 2019 20:32
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D&D has always struggled with the Good Gods because the Gods in D&D tend to be DMPCs and actively involved in the plot and metaplot, on a personal level. At which point it is increasingly hard to square their good intentions with them being around and constantly doing things, but also having a plot in the first place. Like all ethics and issues with writing ethics aside, that's one of the root issues. Paladine is involved in the story in a very personal way that then places very personal responsibility on the God and makes the whole 'non-interference' stuff look really suspect. And none of them are on a scale where you could really start talking about non-interference as something necessary to maintain free will or avoid disordering the universe or something; they're just really powerful individuals. Their smallness and their power both conspire to make it look worse for the Good Gods, especially when the Evil Gods are usually the direct villains of a lot of these stories and exist to be overcome or sent packing or otherwise defeated. E: Take all that dumb poo poo with Fizban: That's a scenario where the God is right there, incarnate, and not only does the God not act to do anything about immediate harm and evil, but the God's silly disguise can potentially blow a bunch of people up with one of the random events. That's the kind of stuff that makes 'non-interference' sound dumb as hell, because Paladine's already there! Right there! Night10194 fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 20:42
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Night10194 posted:D&D has always struggled with the Good Gods because the Gods in D&D tend to be DMPCs and actively involved in the plot and metaplot, on a personal level. At which point it is increasingly hard to square their good intentions with them being around and constantly doing things, but also having a plot in the first place. It's infuriating, isn't it? Like, there's a baseline of "Dragon vs Dragon aerial combat, jousting dragon-riding knights, chivalry, heroes, EPIC poo poo" that makes Dragonlance superficially cool, right up until you pay attention to anything else in the setting.
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Dec 31, 2019 21:01
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At least the Metallics did decided to do something once they found out the eggs were being hosed with.
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Dec 31, 2019 21:06
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It's also a function of stuff like this being written (often) from a Christian or Christian-adjacent position, which tends to be incompatible with the generic fantasy pantheons you get in stuff like Dragonlance. Part of the reason I praise the polytheistic writing in Hams is because it doesn't do that (outside of some of the Sigmar stuff which is intentionally sort of aberrant) and just treats the Gods as a part of the world everyone lives with. Similarly, something like Ironclaw has a distant God and potentially 'normal' explanations for everything that happens (even the Church acknowledges White Magic isn't divine intervention, even if they teach its principles were divinely revealed) and so it's actually compatible with a more 'faith' based church because S'Allumer might not be real and divine revelations might be tricks of magic or someone making it up or someone imagining it. But in D&D, you can't really have faith (or turn your back on the Gods) because they're right there, watching you, meddling at all times. You don't just accept them as part of the world, they actively and constantly reveal they are, and also that they aren't doing much for it, usually.
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Dec 31, 2019 21:11
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Night10194 posted:It's also a function of stuff like this being written (often) from a Christian or Christian-adjacent position, which tends to be incompatible with the generic fantasy pantheons you get in stuff like Dragonlance. Part of what makes Planescape one of the better D&D settings is that it directly addresses that with the Athar - the faction who acknowledges that the D&D Gods are Bullshit DMPCs Who Don't Deserve Respect.
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Dec 31, 2019 21:16
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Night10194 posted:D&D has always struggled with the Good Gods because the Gods in D&D tend to be DMPCs and actively involved in the plot and metaplot, on a personal level. At which point it is increasingly hard to square their good intentions with them being around and constantly doing things, but also having a plot in the first place. This is part of why I like the video game Actraiser. The point was that you were an angel/god helping civilization thrive by going around and fighting the big monsters mere mortals could not hope to defeat on their own while engaging in Sims-style domain development. While it may not be a friendly setting for "mortal PCs" it answers the common "what have the gods done for us" dilemma in D&D settings where they're active. If I had to guess Fizban is meant to borrow the trope of gods in mortal disguise, although said concept is often a secret test of character for mortals when the god takes on a meek or otherwise unhelpful form. The troublesome mage suffering dementia fits this to a T, but there's no real negative consequences in the Chronicles for letting him drown at sea in Dragons of Deceit. Seatox posted:It's infuriating, isn't it? Like, there's a baseline of "Dragon vs Dragon aerial combat, jousting dragon-riding knights, chivalry, heroes, EPIC poo poo" that makes Dragonlance superficially cool, right up until you pay attention to anything else in the setting. It does get a bit weird when the whole "metallic dragon army riding to battle" is meant to be a big reveal and turning point, and from a narrative standpoint for novels it makes the scene feel all the more epic when it happens. But it's not really friendly for many new players who may not necessarily want to wait 9 levels to take that Dragoon/Dragonrider class until it's OK for good dragons to openly fly out and about. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Dec 31, 2019 |
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Dec 31, 2019 22:38
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Libertad! posted:This is part of why I like the video game Actraiser. The point was that you were an angel/god helping civilization thrive by going around and fighting the big monsters mere mortals could not hope to defeat on their own while engaging in Sims-style domain development. While it may not be a friendly setting for "mortal PCs" it answers the common "what have the gods done for us" dilemma in D&D settings where they're active. Arx Fatalis, too. It's why you can level up, someone cast Planar Ally. poo poo, we need an Arx sequel. There's even a hook built into the end.
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Dec 31, 2019 23:30
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A bit late to the party, but LessWrong is full of some genuinely evil people, and are particularly prone to sexually and emotionally abusing the women in their lives, in and least one case to the point of suicide. Then they send their followers after anyone who publicly calls them out for their bad behavior. So, can’t say that I’m particularly see them praised in elfgames books, tbh. Speaking of hyper-rationality, characters, even nonhuman character such as dragons, have emotional inner lives and making choices beyond the most logical and rational one because of their emotional investment is a thing that people do, and calling it a plot hole when these characters don’t behave like emotionless robots is really distressing and ubiquitous.
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Jan 1, 2020 04:04
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wiegieman posted:Arx Fatalis, too. It's why you can level up, someone cast Planar Ally. I believe the save and load buttons are also explicit abilities the player character has, too.
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Jan 1, 2020 05:07
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Meinberg posted:A bit late to the party, but LessWrong is full of some genuinely evil people, and are particularly prone to sexually and emotionally abusing the women in their lives, in and least one case to the point of suicide. Then they send their followers after anyone who publicly calls them out for their bad behavior. So, can’t say that I’m particularly see them praised in elfgames books, tbh.
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Jan 1, 2020 05:16
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Hard dragons making hard decisions.
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Jan 1, 2020 05:50
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 Happy New Year everyone! I figured that the first FATAL & Friends for this year should cover an appropriately iconic Dungeons & Dragons setting: Dragonlance during the War of the Lance! As of 2020 the Dragonlance setting has had 4 official rulesets: 1st Edition AD&D, 2nd Edition AD&D, the unique SAGA System, and 3rd Edition D&D. For the first half of its lifespan the world’s primarily taken place during the War of the Lance, the notable conflict of the first adventures and novels and their immediate after years. The SAGA System was controversial, partly due to being a very wonky rule set and partly due to the fact that it took place during Dragons of Summer Flame. Said time period was Dragonlance’s Spellplague equivalent in regards to being a fandom base breaker. In 2003, novels were still being written for the current era by Margaret Weis and other authors, so when Dragonlance got a 3rd Edition sourcebook it took place at this time. One of the largest demands by fans after its release was to provide aid on setting games during the War of the Lance, aka the 4th Age/Age of Despair. Being eager to please, Sovereign Press made a War of the Lance sourcebook one of their first major releases. This sourcebook was also notable for being one of the few D20 Dragonlance books where Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman got together to help write it. Although both authors individually (Weis in particular) worked on various 3rd Edition books such as Towers of High Sorcery, the Legends of the Twins was the only other product of which they both had credits. And who better than to write a setting sourcebook than the ones who created the setting over twenty years ago? I should first note that this sourcebook is not a D20 conversion of the 14 original Dragonlance adventures; those were made into their own trilogy of sourcebooks. Rather, War of the Lance is a holistic overview of the continent of Ansalon during the time when the Dragonarmies are conquering much of it in the Dark Queen’s name. It’s technically set right before the first adventure opens up (Qualinesti has yet to be invaded, the Discs of Mishakal haven’t been retrieved from Xak Tsaroth, etc) but there is information on how the war develops and changes places over the years. Chapter One: Characters 350 years ago, there was a mighty Empire by the name of Istar, and under the dominion of the Kingpriests sought to remove all evil from the face of Krynn. But it was this very zeal that led them to commit many atrocities. When the last Kingpriest sought to challenge and command the gods themselves, the pantheon answered him with a fiery mountain which plunged the capital and much of eastern Ansalon beneath the waves. The world would never be the same again. None of the Races of the Age of Despair were not left untouched. The loss of divine magic made plagues grow out of control. The sinking of land and alterations in climate led to many famines and forced migrations. Old treaties and friendships were abandoned, while elves and dwarves became isolationist and cut themselves off from the world. The minotaurs forged a new empire, their enslavement in Istar now a memory. People grew bitter at the gods, or in turn forget them as the centuries waned on and found solace in newer, false religions. Humans, due to their short lifespans, were one of the quickest to forget the gods, and in time the divinities became much like fairy tales for children. Empires and nations were replaced with city-states, and even Solamnia broke up into semi-autonomous provinces. Even its renowned Knights found themselves in disrepute when commoners blamed them for either being unable to protect them or from too many of this once-noble order forgetting the spirit of the Oath and Measure. Cities quickly became havens of filth and disease, as the lack of divine magic and the withering of crops destroyed many more settlements; even those far from Istar’s reach. Beyond the walled towns and sedentary farms, nomadic humans suffered from the disruption of their own food supplies. Migration routes and herds changed, and tribes passed into distant memory as they died off or were conquered and assimilated by stronger neighbors. There were some among the nomads who believed that this was all a test by the gods to measure their devotion, while others found new religions with ancestor worship growing increasingly common. Elves still have grand civilizations in their forests, but they are a shadow of their former selves. Even this otherwise aloof and xenophobic people were horrified at the brutality the gods had wrought, but blamed the humans of Istar (and later all humans by extension) into provoking the Cataclysm. They still believed in the gods, but no longer worshiped them, angered at their abandonment. The Qualinesti kingdom closed down its borders when human and goblin warlords invaded their cities in the belief that they harbored magic and riches long since lost. The Silvanesti elves, who neighboring Istar, lost much of their own forests beneath the waves. They were similarly isolationist but viewed the abandonment of the gods as a “wise choice” for them to do likewise in regards to a world they felt was not worth saving. Both kingdoms noticed the rise of the Dragonarmies via magical surveillance, and the Silvanesti signed a nonaggression pact with these forces. Both kingdoms sought to prepare for a diaspora, and the invasion of Silvanesti by the Dragon Empire and its subsequent destruction was all the incentive Qualinesti’s inhabitants needed to start sailing west. The Kagonesti elves long lived on Southern Ergoth but had scattered bands all across Ansalon. They met their brethren in exile upon their shores, and extended them permission to settle. A permission that would be exploited by the refugees, who used the opportunity to put the Kagonesti into indentured servitude. The Sea Elf tribes of the Dimernesti lost countless numbers from the Cataclysm, while explorers from the remote Dargonesti kingdoms inhabited the sunken ruins of Istar’s capital. Both clans remained isolated from each other and the surface world, something the Dark Queen took advantage of by sending sea dragons to menace their lands.  An Age of Despair was nothing new to the Ogre Races, whose lives were always of violence and hardship. The fall of their main adversary of Istar allowed them to invade lands now unable to defend themselves, and their societies existed mostly as independent bands. It was ironic then, that they would be the first victims of Takhisis’ chromatic dragons who sought to unite the ogre tribes under her new Empire. This of course meant killing off many of their leaders and rival tribes to impress the sheer might wielded by the newly-fledged Dragonarmies. The Irda, those ogres who were spared from the good gods’ curse of ugliness for turning their backs on Takhisis eons ago, lived much as they did before: on isolated islands far from Ansalon’s coasts. But the Cataclysm caused a large schism in their society: some viewed it as a sign that their isolationism was wrong by letting evil go challenged in the world while others kept to the old ways. The former ventured into Ansalon disguised as wizards to battle warlords, murderers, and worse, but they suffered greatly for anti-wizard prejudice earned them hostility even from those they sought to protect. The minotaurs, once enslaved by Istar, found themselves a free people in their new island homes. They viewed the Cataclysm as divine justice, of their god Sargas (known by other races as Sargonnas) freeing them from toil and servitude. They are now an empire unto themselves, claiming many islands beyond the known coasts of Ansalon, although their leadership was rife with infighting and treachery. The current Emperor Chot Es-Kalin entered into an alliance with the Dragonarmies; although neither side trusted the other, they both saw much to gain. Chot assigned rival houses to fight in the Dragonarmies in exchange for loot brought home, which motivated minotaurs for greed and vengeance upon old enemies while moving said rivals away from his empire. Half-elves and half-ogres are outcasts, looked down upon by both sides of their ancestry. They are usually the result of sexual assault; among the elven nations half-elves are either pitied or mocked (among the Qualinesti) or cast out into the wilderness as mongrels (among the Silvanesti). Among human communities they fair little better, and in the Dragon Empire they are hunted down and executed like their elven parents. Half-ogres face similar prejudice, humans looking upon them as no different than monsters and ogres looking down upon them for being comparatively small and weak. Both half-elves and half-ogres are more likely than not to end up among groups which are more tolerant of the forsaken: mercenary companies, criminal guilds, cults, and wizarding Orders. The Dwarves once had an interconnected civilization, but the Cataclysm tore their realms apart. The flooding of surface lands and destruction of old trade routes prevented the kingdoms of Kayolin, Thoradin, and Thorbadin from contacting each other. Food shortages in Thorbadin forced the dwarves to close their mountain gates, even from those of their brethren living outside. Those stranded would become the Neidar clan, aka hill dwarves, and a bloody civil war between them and the mountain dwarves over this. Meanwhile, the nation of Thoradin was overtaken by a horrible mold plague, with much of its pre-Cataclysm territory crushed and flooded. Many of the survivors were turned evil by the plague and formed the new nation of Zhakar. The mountain dwarf kingdom of Thorbadin rests in an uneasy peace; new trading partners are hard to come by, and worshipers of the now-gone true gods clash with new cults unsatisfied with the old ways. Food is strictly rationed which caused more than a few riots. The hill dwarves were forced to fend for themselves, having to train much more of their populace in fighting due to the many bandits and monsters roaming the surface world. The more liberal mountain dwarves of Kayolin allowed the Neidar to settle in their kingdom, which was difficult initially but over time won the respect of neighboring Solamnia with who they established trade networks with to alleviate the food and space shortages. The dark dwarves, aka the evil dwarf clans, are under the thumb of tyrannical governments. In Thorbadin the Theiwar and Daegar have more power than ever upon the Council of Thanes: both seek to overthrow the ruling Hylar clan and claim the mountains for themselves. The Theiwar are united and have a veritable amount of wizards in their ranks, but the Daegar cities are lawless and full of gangs of the poor and private militias serving the rich who are the closest equivalent to justice.Trade embargoes imposed by the mountain dwarves have resulted in food shortages, forcing the Theiwar and Daegar to rely upon fungus crops with little success. The Zhakar, being truly alone, see more and more of their people go insane and are thus exiled, and their forges begun supplying weapons and armor to the neighboring Dragonarmies as a means of enriching their kingdom. The gully dwarves live much as they did in prior Ages, but the large amount of abandoned territories and ruins spawned post-Cataclysm give them more places to live. Their lives are ones of survival, and no other races of Krynn enjoy their presence; in Thorbadin they are viewed more as vermin than fellow dwarves, while those living in the Dragon Empire or other places of evil end up as slaves. The dwarves of Kayolin, however, are a relative exception: the gully dwarves are tolerated as a laborer class of street sweepers and vermin hunters and are treated with courtesy and respect when others do have to interact with them. Nice to see that Kayolin’s overall open-mindedness has paid off in spades. Gnomes of Ansalon have always been a strange bunch. They moved on from the Cataclysm relatively unscathed; while many gnomes died it was accepted as the inevitability of life. Their island home is relatively isolated from Ansalon’s mainland, and they long used technology of dubious quality to make up for the loss of magic. In fact, many gnomes sought to journey out into the world to catalogue events and make sense of this new Age: their city-state of Mount Nevermind did much to transport food and medicine to their suffering human neighbors, earning them a strong friendship with their neighbors in Sancrist and Solamnia. Kender never fail to have an upbeat outlook on life, but even so many couldn’t help but be saddened by the disappearance of the gods. The kender cities of Hylo and Kendermore in the continent’s west and east suffered from the Cataclysm, with Kendermore’s flooding forcing many to flee and be displaced as nomadic tribes. During the Empire of Istar they were declared an inherently evil race, which caused a rather unlikely alliance between goblin and kender in defending their communities from soldiers and bounty hunters. In modern times this legacy still lasts in Northern Ergoth, where humans, kender, and goblins have their own neighboring regions but live peacefully with each other. Centaurs are much like elves in that they are isolationists and keep to themselves in forests, but they also live on the open plains. Although mostly good-aligned, the Kingpriest also declared them inherently evil and to be put to the sword, which made them distrustful of outsiders well into the Fourth Age. The increasing violence wrought from desperation by their neighbors made the normally-benevolent centaurs more aggressive and warlike as a result. Most of them settled in isolated regions of Ansalon in order to find long-term peace, although a few nomadic tribes became regular trading partners of equally-mobile humans in the Plains of Dust and the deserts of Khur.  Draconians are the youngest race in Krynn, artificial creations of the Dragonarmies made from the corruption of good dragon eggs. Born and raised to be soldiers, draconians are brainwashed into a life of war and forced to fight each other for scraps of food by their human pseudo-parents during childhood. Although they are physically stronger and in some cases more magically talented than their human counterparts, Dragonarmy officers maintain reproductive control over their population by only hatching male dragon eggs and keeping secret the origins of their species. Each subrace of draconian is based on their true dragon parentage, and have different inherent abilities which often determines their roles and duty in the Dragonarmies. The Baaz (brass) form the largest number of draconians and are regarded as expendable infantry; they have a rivalry with the kapaks artificially generated by officers who pit them against each other during training, which is another measure the military uses to prevent possible draconian uprisings. Kapaks (copper) are the second-most populous subrace and are often scouts and assassins due to their knack at remaining quiet and inherently-poisonous saliva glands. The women’s saliva can heal, but this is not known yet. Bozaks (bronze) have natural arcane spellcasting capabilities as a result of their draconic ancestry, but are taught that their powers come from Takhisis and often act as leaders and magical support to baaz and kapak units; this upbringing makes them quite zealous and arrogant. Sivaks (silver) are the largest subrace of draconians with the ability to take the shape of those they murder, making them both expert spies and elite soldiers and bodyguards. They are the least likely draconians to defect, as they are more able to blend in among and thus get along with the human soldiers while also preferring action and battle to the relative sedentary life of administration in the upper ranks. Finally, the auraks (gold) can also take alternate physical forms but have powerful innate arcane magic. As a result, they are never in the front lines and used as part of special teams or as diplomats and spies. They’re the subrace which has cottoned on to the fact that their spells are not the result of Takhisis’ divine providence, and ironically have the highest rates of defection. There are five more subraces of noble draconians, who are created from chromatic dragon eggs. But they won’t be created until the final months of the War of the Lance in desperation. Although the ‘metallic’ draconians do not inherently gravitate to evil, noble draconians are invariably good-aligned due to the gods imposing a sense of ‘cosmic balance.’ Said draconians end up defecting or get executed when it becomes clear that working for the Dragonarmies violates their principles. Classes in the Age of Despair  Dragonlance has been a setting closely wedded to Dungeons & Dragons as a ruleset, and the Fifth Age/Age of Mortals were congruent to the switching of systems to 2nd Edition AD&D and SAGA. With the Cataclysm and return of the true gods being a big thing in the original adventures, certain D20 classes have to be revised or excised to remain authentic to pre-5th Age eras. Overall the Age of Despair is at a point when magic on Ansalon is both the least common and trusted among the populace. The departure of the gods more or less made all divine casters disappear, with heathen priests and charlatans filling the void with either arcane magic* masquerading as miracles or using sleight of hand and other means of psychological trickery. Takhisis was the first to violate her pantheons’ retreat, and evil clerics among the Dragonarmies would openly cast spells during their new empire’s founding. It would not be until after Goldmoon’s** epiphany and discovery of the Discs of Mishakal that clerics of good and neutral deities would start appearing in Krynn once again. While people could still take levels in Cleric, Druid, etc the supernatural aspects of their class would remain untapped until they turn to worship of the true gods and gain their Medallions of Faith. It was common for people with noncasting Cleric or Druid levels to represent a heathen (false) priest who coasted on by with knowledge, charisma, and/or mundane alchemy and herbalism. *the Wizards of High Sorcery hated such people, as they were most often renegades and when discovered inflamed anti-wizard sentiment. The Orders had their own division of “miracle-busters” dedicated to exposing such frauds during the Age of Despair. **or the Prophet PC stand-in if playing your own heroes during the 3rd Edition Chronicles. Speaking of which, wizards are the only form of arcane casters among non-draconian mortals, with sorcery and spontaneous casting solely the gift of dragons, fey, and the like. And even with wizards the Tower of Wayreth is their only true last bastion. Most are either lone travelers or teachers and apprentices not always welcome in many communities. Sorcerers, mystics, and spontaneous casters wouldn’t come into existence until long after the War of the Lance when the Graygem is broken and lets Chaos into the world. The noncasting classes more or less exist without alteration, although monks are usually isolated philosophers in monasteries. As to who or what powers their supernatural abilities, the book doesn’t say. Speaking of which… The Master is a new skill-centric core class meant to represent exceptional craftsmen, sages, and bards of the non-magical variety. They are explicitly meant to be to the Expert NPC class what the Warrior is to Fighters in 3rd Edition parlance. And as you can imagine it’s a pretty weak class: it has the same proficiencies/hit dice/skill points as the Rogue but lacks said class’ offensive and utility features and more exotic weapon choices like the rapier. Its major class feature is its Primary Focus, where you choose either Craftsman/Performer/Professional/Sage which corresponds with one of the four multi-skill specialties. Said Focus determines which skills are class skills and also what types of Knacks you can choose. A Knack is a special ability you can take every couple of levels which corresponds to your Focus. Each Focus has a Knack where they treat a primary Craft/Perform/etc skill as granting half its ranks as “shadow ranks” to all other skills in said group (10 ranks in Knowledge-Arcana can give you 5 ranks in all other Knowledge) plus a Knack to make more money when using weekly/daily checks of your Focus’ skills. The Craftsmen can build Items of Renown, which are “half-magical” items which are just really expertly made: weapons grant bonuses on attack (but not damage), armor reduces armor check penalties (but no AC bonus), but perhaps the best feature is raising the bonus on skill checks for appropriate tools (usually +2 with masterwork) to as high as +10! Performer knacks are less powerful versions of bardic music, and are basically inspirational buffs and debuffs to various rolls. Professional, oddly, has two sweet-talker Knacks: one where you gain bonuses on skill checks involving deception and falsehoods, and another where throw a person off-balance with bluster as a minor debuff (-1 on attack/skills/saves per time the Knack’s taken), but most of them are rather meager non-combat downtime things like “get Leadership followers but only for your profession.” Sage Knacks have options like being able to learn new languages upon first encounter, gaining the equivalent of bardic knowledge, substituting Knowledge for Charisma-based skills when among scholarly types, and two “exploit enemy weakness” knacks where one lets you add your Intelligence bonus on attack rolls and the other grants +2 on attack rolls when making a successful Knowledge check to recognize a creature or character. The only other things the Master has going for it are +2/+2 to two skills as potential bonus feats, gaining access to Knacks from a second Focus at 7th level, and can gain Skill Mastery as per a Rogue at 10th level. For Prestige Classes we have both new ones and revisions to existing classes. Due to the loss of divine magic the 3 Knights of Solamnia PrCs from the corebook get revised: the Knight of the Sword no longer requires or uses spellcasting, and the same applies for Knights of the Rose (but Swords can still detect and smite evil!). They also have the option of trading in levels of one PrC when they get promoted to a higher order. It wouldn’t be until Knightly Orders of Ansalon that the Prestige Classes were made self-contained with easier prerequisites, aka no needing Crown levels before Sword, Sword before Rose. Before then pretty much all of your class and feat options were pre-determined if you wanted to eventually be a Knight of the Rose. Chorister is a cleric who honors their god through holy (or unholy) music and dances. While they can represent any deity, some gods have philosophers more suited to it than others. It’s a half-casting progression which grants access to spells from the bard list as one gains levels in the class. The other major feature are “church choir” equivalents of bardic music which includes things like the ability to apply metamagic feats to divine spells after several rounds of chanting or listeners using the chorister’s Perform result in place of a saving throw vs divine magic. Overall it’s got some pretty cool features, although its “+1 caster level every other level” may be a turn-off to some primary casters. Dragon Highlord represents the leaders of the five respective Dragonarmies (and also Emperor Ariakas), those pledged to Takhisis in service of conquering the world! They are a short 3-level class and center around battlefield morale. They extend the duration of demoralization penalties on Intimidate checks, grant bonuses on attack/damage/Will saves equal to their level to non-good humanoid, giant, and dragon type creatures serving under them, and apply their Charisma bonus on all saving throws and Improved Resist Dragonfear* feat for free. *+8 bonus on Will saves vs a dragon’s Frightful Presence. The morale bonuses to enemy minions is pretty good, and as most statted Dragon Highlords in the 3rd Edition Chronicles have all 3 levels and rarely fight by themselves this will definitely see use. You have to be evil alignment and high-ranking in the Dragonarmies, so this isn’t a Prestige Class most PCs will have. A Gnomish Tinker is the pinnacle of gnomish drive and ingenuity, a master craftsman who can assemble non-magical gadgets out of the most disparate parts. They are a pretty easy class to enter, with the main barrier an appropriately gnomish role-playing one: quote:Approval of the Chief Review Sub-Committee of Engineers, Consultants, and Inventors by a six-tenths vote and a signed waiver lodged with the Registrar of Contributing Administrative Functionaries and Governors. They carry a unique toolbelt which holds tool points they use to fuel their class features. The Kitbash class feature can either take apart an item or trap to convert to tool points, or coax greater performance by giving an object an enhancement bonus on relevant attack/saves/skill/DCs up to half their class level by spending tool points. They can also create MacGuffins, devices which can replace a 0 to 2nd level wizard spell, but only a limited number of times per day and such devices are considered non-magical. The rest of their class features are hohum, like skill-centric bonus feats, increased bonuses on aid another actions, and bonuses on Charisma skills when interacting with gnomes among other minor things. The Tinker isn’t going to replace the party wizard anytime soon, but the bonuses for kitbashing can be a useful long-term buff (lasts for 1 hour per Intelligence bonus). They don’t really have much offensive or utility features beyond this, which limits their attractiveness for PCs. A Handler is the kender cultural equivalent of a thief. You see, kender detest deliberate robbery, but holding onto an item due to curiosity and amassing such trinkets over time is regarded as socially acceptable because this is not done out of greed or the intentional desire to deprive someone of something. They are international celebrities in kender communities, for they have many interesting stories to tell from their travels. The Handler is heavily rogue-focused in both class features and prerequisites, but more defensive and “straight thief” in utility. They gain bonuses on Sleight of Hand checks and new maneuvers such as being able to steal objects in combat without penalty, Kender Tales which function as bardic knowledge, adding their Charisma on saving throws which represents incredible luck, and more straightforward rogue class features such as Defensive Roll and Improved Evasion. This may sound like an appealing class for “disarming” opponents of valuable items in the middle of battle, but the Handler has absolutely no offensive features or even a sneak attack progression, which heavily hurts it for a Rogue Prestige Class. Minotaur Marauder is our final entry for this section, representing wild card sailors among their race who owe allegiance only to themselves and their crew. They are hunted by their brethren loyal to the empire as well as other sailors who are often the target of their depredations. They are a 5-level class, where they gain a pithy sneak attack equivalent (dirty strike) which caps out at 2d4 damage and is limited to one use per target per day; +2 to +4 bonus on confirming critical hits; a poor man’s Intimidate called Bull’s Wrath which imposes a -1 on attacks and saves on a successful DC 25 Intimidate check (demoralization from Intimidate is -2 and can stack as Bull’s Wrath is an untyped bonus); and Opportunist, which lets them make one attack of opportunity against a target who is hit in melee by someone else. This is an underpowered class, and its features across five levels don’t stack up to other features which you can better get through straight Rogue and such. It’s actually meant to key off of the Mariner class which I reviewed in Legends of the Twins, a similarly-weak core class. New Feats The overwhelming majority of feats have been reprinted from the Dragonlance Campaign Setting. A few are new but have been covered in my Legends of the Twins review. I’ll cover a few of the more interesting ones both unique to this sourcebook and which featured in others: Alternate Form can be taken by a true dragon of at least adult age category. It lets them assume a single specific alternate form of humanoid or animal type of indefinite duration but can shapeshift in such a manner only once per day. Astrological Forecasting is a rather situational one, where you can read someone’s horoscope once per week and give them a spendable +1 to +3 bonus on a single check any time during the next 7 days. The concept is cool, but the piddly bonus and infrequent rate blunt its use. Create Draconian is a spell that lets you spawn baby draconians from dragon eggs. The following chapter has more rules on this, but overall you need one other spellcaster of another discipline (arcane if you’re divine and vice versa), and if the ritual is interrupted you and the other caster take Constitution damage. Heroic Surge was a reprint from the base setting, but grants you a per-day use of one bonus move or standard action per round to be performed at any time during your regular actions. Said feat was very popular among gaming groups for letting martials make full attacks while moving more than 5 feet. Improvise Masterwork Item lets you temporarily treat a non-masterwork item as such with 10 minutes of work. It can be recognized as temporary by others via the appropriate Craft or Appraise skill, so don’t think of trying to use it to make easy money. Improved Taunt improves the kender taunt racial ability. The base taunt is a Bluff check vs the target’s Sense Motive, and if the target fails they take a -1 on all attacks and Armor Class. This feat increases the penalties to -2. Spellcasting Prodigy treats a spellcaster’s primary casting stat as 2 points higher for the purpose of determining bonus spells per day. It can only be taken at 1st level. Thoughts So Far: The looming legacy of the Cataclysm is a unifying factor among Ansalonian civilization, and the first chapter gives a detailed view on what kind of setting you’re getting with the War of the Lance. Things are bad all over, and most of the civilizations are on poor terms or too busy dealing with their own things which makes them ripe pickings for the invading Dragonarmies. There’s a lot of problems, providing for a good setting in which to adventure. However, the class options aren’t exactly appealing for PCs. The Master class is underpowered, with only the Chorister being an attractive choice. Dragon Highlord is good, but not really suitable unless you’re doing a very offbeat Dragonlance campaign. The few feats which I can say are truly new to this book, Alternate Form and Create Draconians, are more for NPCs to take than PCs. Join us next time as we learn of the power of the moons and gods in Chapter Two: Magic of Krynn! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Jan 1, 2020 |
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Jan 1, 2020 08:04
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huh. I thought 3E silver dragons could do an indefinite length Polymorph Self as a spell-like power already, making the Alternate Form feat superfluous for them - or are they using a different statblock for Dragonlance silvers?
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Jan 1, 2020 11:49
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Seatox posted:huh. I thought 3E silver dragons could do an indefinite length Polymorph Self as a spell-like power already, making the Alternate Form feat superfluous for them - or are they using a different statblock for Dragonlance silvers? You are correct on this. A mistake on my part; this feat is more to give all of the other dragon clans the ability to disguise themselves, and given D'argent's role in the Chronicles this feat made me first think of her.
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Jan 1, 2020 22:10
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I remember hearing about the Noble Draconians. An attempt to create more Draconian's out of their ally Chromatic Eggs after the Dragonarmies lost access to the Metallic eggs they had. I guess their logic was "Well a bunch of Draconians will be more useful then a Dragon Wyrmling right now." Wonder if this pissed off some of their Chromatic Allies.
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Jan 1, 2020 22:34
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MonsterEnvy posted:At least the Metallics did decided to do something once they found out the eggs were being hosed with. I was half expecting there to be some bullshit diplomacy checks because even after the reveal the Metallics initial response would be "That's awful...but an oath's an oath! Wouldn't want to be called deal-breakers, now do we?  "
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Jan 2, 2020 00:47
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SirPhoebos posted:I was half expecting there to be some bullshit diplomacy checks because even after the reveal the Metallics initial response would be "That's awful...but an oath's an oath! Wouldn't want to be called deal-breakers, now do we? Well the other party already broke the deal, and Metallics are not Warhammer Dwarfs.
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Jan 2, 2020 01:11
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MonsterEnvy posted:Well the other party already broke the deal, and Metallics are not Warhammer Dwarfs. Had they been Hams Dorfs, they would have made a huge Grudge out of having their kiddos kidnapped and held hostage.
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Jan 2, 2020 07:56
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  Chapter Two: Magic of Krynn It can safely be said that the 4th Age is when magic was at its rarest. Divine Magic of all kinds entered into the realms of myth, and even elderly travelers lived their entire lives never witnessing the art of wizardry. The vaunted gift of magical healing was perhaps the greatest loss. There have been attempts to make up for this, notably with religious movements attempting to contact new gods in hopes of making up for the loss of the true gods during the Cataclysm. But in fact, the loss of divine magic occured before this dire time, when so much of Istar’s government grew so corrupt that clerics were de-spelled and the few valiant examples of their patron deities’ ideologies were raptured away before the inevitable happened. quote:The gods, realizing they were going to have to take drastic action, withdrew their clerics from the world. Still, the last Kingpriest, having decided that he was equal to the gods in power, paid no attention. He commanded the gods, as a master commands a servant. What kind of victim-blaming BS is this? These aren’t toys or summer vacations being demanded; we’re talking about the desperate and the dying pleading for life-saving treatment. It gets even worse where in the following paragraphs there’s mention that there are cultures like the dwarves who never wavered in their belief, honoring the gods more as a memory than as a continuing presence due to their absence. The elves and many sedentary humans were bitter, sure, but in the previous chapter we had nomadic humans viewing the Cataclysm as a test but never received blessings in 350 years. We get brief descriptions on various false faiths. Most of Ansalon is irreligious, either being a variety of atheist (“the gods are a myth”) or antitheist (“the gods are not worthy of respect”). Ironically it was this latter attitude which groups like the Seekers exploited; said group figured that there were gods, but that they should dedicate time and research to finding new ones which are worthy of respect. They clashed with other cults but soon became the predominant religion in Abanasinia, which features prominently in the beginning adventures of the Dragonlance Chronicles. Although they promoted ideals of charity and community, all too many of them fell to greed and hypocrisy. Many false faiths, even those with idealistic beginnings, became exploited in such a way. After the War of the Lance most such faiths were abandoned in favor of the true gods, whose spells and divine manifestations to questioning prayers were all the evidence needed. An exception to the lack of divine magic existed among the gods of evil; when Takhisis relocated the Temple of Istar into the mountains of Neraka, she began to empower a trusted secret few, and some other evil gods followed suit. They would not openly reveal their powers to the world until 200 years later during the foundation of the Dragon Empire. And it would be nearly 20 years after that until the Heroes of the Lance would retrieve the Disks of Mishakal from Xak Tsaroth which cause the good gods to grant Goldmoon healing powers and soon others who followed her example. Most of Takhisis’ divine brethren stuck to the shadows by forming their own localized cults, but among the Dragonarmies worship of the Dark Queen was taking hold and pilgrims ventured to Neraka for training in the unholy arts. We get write-ups on how the gods gradually re-enter the peoples’ lives during and after the War of the Lance. The gods and their priesthoods become organized into alignment-based branches known as the Holy Orders of the Stars: the Holy Order of Good, the Holy Order of Neutrality, and the Holy Order of Evil. Each order represents a threadbare association of clerics who (in theory) are subservient to the highest-level cleric of the Order’s chief deity: Paladine has a Chosen Prophet, Gilean has a Starmaster, and Takhisis has a Nightlord. This is a throwback to AD&D rules, where Dragonlance clerics followed a “there can be only one” Druid-style of leveling up where you had to prove your worth to take the place of the current leader above you. Lawful deities such as Paladine, Mishakal, and Gilean quickly erected formal hierarchies, while the more free-spirited and chaotic deities appoint clerics on a case by case basis. With a few exceptions deities mostly appeal to cultures and subgroups relevant to their interests: Chemosh the god of death appeals to those on the verge or fearful of passing away, while Sargonnas becomes the state religion in the minotaur islands. The Knights of Solamnia pledge allegiance to three gods Habbakuk (nurturing god of the sea), Paladine (not-Bahamut), and Kiri-Jolith (a male Athena-like “justified war” god).  Arcane Magic has a criminally short entry in comparison. Unlike the rest of the pantheon, the three moon gods never left Krynn and still bequeath their power to the Orders of High Sorcery through lunar phases. The wizards realize that the gods, their gods specifically, never left. But they’re no more likely to be respectful of the rest of the pantheon; it was revealed in Towers of High Sorcery that the Gods of Good minus Solinari approved of Istar’s anti-wizard purges. In fact, the only real notable entry is details on the creation of draconians. Which seems odd as such rules will not come into play in a typical Dragonlance campaign and works best as a bad guy plot device. But it wouldn’t be a 3rd Edition sourcebook if it didn’t have highly specific and/or unnecessary rules! Basically the ritual requires at least three casters,* two of who must be of differing casting traditions (arcane/divine) and all of them must possess the Create Draconian feat. A ritual is performed for 8 hours around a single unborn dragon egg, and at the end of the ritual the fetus is transformed into several baby draconians who then hatch out of the shell. The numbers differ greatly depending on the subrace of the draconian (and parent dragon egg), with more powerful subraces producing less draconians. However, if one or more ritualists has a Caster Level above the minimum 10th required for the feat, they generate points for a Creation Pool. Said points can be spent to enhance one or more born draconians, such as granting them ability score boosts, bonus hit dice, and even bonus feats relevant to their racial abilities (Ability Focus, Improved Natural Attack, etc). *which contradicts Chapter One’s minimum of two. New Spells  Although magic in general was at its rarest during the Age of Despair, the era was not without its own magical innovations. The War of the Lance, particularly among the Dragonarmies, saw some new offensive innovations in regards to spells for combat purposes. The text also outlines that the “sorcerer/wizard” designation for new spells is such for making use of them in other Dragonlance eras. There’s 16 new spells, but I’m only covering the most interesting ones for the sake of brevity. Barrier of Deflection is like Mage Armor, but clerics can also cast it and it deals 1d6 force damage to those who strike or touch the recipient in melee. Elemental Blade is like the Druid’s Flame Blade, but it can be learned by more classes (clerics, sorcerers, and wizards as well) and can manifest as any of the five energy types. Each energy type has its own corresponding debuff which forces a save on a target every time they’re attacked with the blade. A few are obvious, like sonic deafening an enemy, but cold and electricity have some pretty good status effects (stagger and prone conditions respectively). It’s personal in range, meaning it’s not something you can give to a party member as a buff unless you have a class/feat/magic item/etc to bypass this limitation. Flamewave is like burning sphere, save that it creates a moving wall of fire which deals damage to those it passes while setting alight flammable objects. Healing Hand is a 1 round/level buff which lets your mere touch heal 1 point of damage as a standard action, or healing up to six targets at once as a full-round action. The description mentions that it’s used during mass combat where a little healing goes a longer way than the typical Cure X Wounds spells. But such a meager bonus will not help in direct combat given how much damage even low-level monsters can deal. Radiant Dart is like magic missile, but you must roll to hit a target with each missile and dazzles enemies for 1 round per point of damage taken. Share Sight allows a recipient of the spell and the caster to see through each other’s eyes by closing their eyes and concentrating. This lasts for 1 hour per level, and they see things through their natural/magical sight: for example, a human seeing through a dwarf’s eyes will view details discovered from darkvision. Shroud From Sight is an enchantment which causes onlookers to not notice your presence on a failed Will save as long as you concentrate. Smarter and 6+ Hit Die creatures can save every round, but others can only save once for the spell’s duration. Stone Tentacles is similar to Evard’s Black Tentacles, but is lower-level (3rd) and can be learned by divine casters (clerics & druids). It manifests as 2-6 Large tentacles depending on Caster Level, spaced within 15 feet of each other rather than Evard’s 20 foot burst. The tentacles possess a lower attack and grapple modifier, where the use the caster’s base attack bonus instead of caster level for determining said modifiers. It can cover a wider area than Evard’s at higher levels and is more malleable for battlemap spaces, but the tentacles can be attacked and destroyed which makes them more vulnerable. Traitor’s Death is an evil spell that wicked priests and arcane spellcasters use to prevent their underlings from turning upon them. It is akin to geas/quest where a promise the target makes is imbued with necromantic energy. If they break the promise they fall to -1 hit points and start bleeding out on a failed Fortitude saving throw; only magical healing can save them from imminent death. Magical Items  We have even more magic items than spells, with 15 specific items, 9 artifacts, and 4 special enhancements to apply to magical armor. A few of them are reprints from the Dragonlance Campaign Setting, but incorporate newer errata. We first begin with a discussion on magical items during the 4th Age: barring the Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth and the dark temples in Neraka, new ones aren’t really being created. Where they are found, they’re typically ancient family heirlooms, locked away in some pre-Cataclysm ruins, or possessed by powerful individuals with the drive to keep them out of reach of thieves and warlords. quote:Magical items should not be thrown into a campaign without some thought given to their presence and impact. Each magical item should impart something to the sense of wonder and adventure. Rabbitslayer is “simply” a +4 dagger with a rather useful quality of reappearing when it is lost or stolen. However, giving it a name and a backstory gives it a sense of history, placing it within the context of the world and making it more important than “merely” a magical weapon capable of inflicting 1d4+4 points of damage. Amusingly this publishing company would violate this advice multiple times during the Dragonlance Chronicles 3rd Edition conversion and the Key of Destiny Adventure Path. In the middle-to-higher levels it’s not uncommon to see nameless ‘elite mooks’ wielding +1 weapons and armor. Additionally, each of the Heroes of the Lance start out with a mixture of named specific items (Sturm’s notable Brightblade) and some +1 weapons or armor with no unique names or backstory to them (Tasslehoff’s forgettable +1 hoopak). This was the case in the original AD&D modules so I cannot be too hard on them for this. But to this book’s credit, even most of the non-artifact magic items are specific named creations with some historical precedent in the world of Ansalon. The Brightblade is a unique bastard sword of dwarven make, notably the family heirloom of Sturm Brightblade. It will only break when its wielder does: it is a +2 sword which deals 2d6 bonus damage vs chaotic-aligned creatures, but if used for evil purposes the blade will shatter and curse its wielder with a -4 penalty on most d20 rolls. Diviner of Life is owned by the druid Waylorn Wyvernsbane, who is one of the later DMPCs of the Dragonlance Chronicles. Appearing as a cylinder of pure crystal, the light within changes colors depending on the physical health of the recipient it touches. It can be used to determine how many HP the target lost, if they’re suffering from disease or poison, or if they’re undead or an artificial creation like a golem. Flute of Wind Dancing can be played via a Perform check to cast various wind-related spells, with more powerful magic requiring longer continuous rounds of playing. Glass of Arcanist allow the reader to read any written word, and grants a +10 bonus on Use Magic Device checks with scrolls, tomes, and other magical items which involve reading to activate. Icons of Truth are book-shaped objects. If a person lays a hand upon while uttering a false statement, the icon glows red and they take damage. It can also be used to dispel magical illusions. The government of Istar made many of these icons to use in their courts. Nightbringer was forged by Black Robe wizards and somehow came into the hands of Verminaard, the Red Dragon Highlord. It is a +2 unholy mace which can blind an opponent on a failed Will save if the wielder utters the word “midnight” (free action) when attacking. The blindness lasts for 2d6 minutes if not magically healed, which makes it a powerful debuff. Singing Statues are fashioned in the likeness of Mishakal, goddess of compassion and healing; they were prominent in many of her temples before the Cataclysm. A statue is activated when touched by water, at which point it begins singing. The sound prevents undead from approaching within 30 feet, and also can unlock locks, portals, valves, etc. A person can also call upon the goddess’ power to activate an area-of-effect cure light wounds spell, and they do not need to be a spellcaster in order to do so. Dragon Bane Weapons are not a new magic item type per se, but rather covers new features to an existing type in Dragonlance. Dragon Bane weapons are never damaged or affected by a draconian’s death throes (won’t get stuck in a petrified baaz’s body, won’t melt in a kapak’s acid, etc). Such weapons are very rare on account that even during the days of Istar true dragons were rare to the point of myth. Such weapons were forged during the Third Dragon War, when Huma Dragonbane fought Takhisis who commanded the chromatic clans in taking over Krynn. Wyrmsbane and Wyrmslayer are a pair of dragon bane longswords forged by Silvanesti elves. Wyrmsbane has the ability to cast Locate Object 3/day, while Sting-I mean Wyrmslayer- emits a loud buzzing when in the presence of dragons or draconians and grants a +3 on saves vs all spells and abilities made by dragons. Wyrmslayer was bequeathed to the Qualinesti in ages past. The Blue Crystal Staff is our first artifact. It came into the hands of the prophet Goldmoon during the beginning of the Dragonlance Chronicles, where she found it in a ruined Istaran city which then became occupied by the Red Dragonarmy. The Blue Crystal Staff was meant to grant Goldmoon healing powers during the first adventure despite not being a Cleric: it is a staff with 20 charges which can be used to cast all kinds of healing magic. Cure Minor Wounds, which heals 1 hit point, expends no charges meaning that it can easily heal the party back to full after each fight. It can also teleport the wielder somewhere convenient and automatically deflect a dragon’s breath weapon, 1/day each. The Crown of Power is an icon of evil, where prophecies state that whoever wears it will rule all of Krynn in the name of Takhisis. Its current owner is Emperor Ariakas, and it is said that the final Kingpriest once wore it. The crown slowly turns any wielder lawful evil over time from failed Will saves,* but grants some powerful defensive and self-enhancement spells to cast (bull’s strength, globe of invulnerability, shield, etc) as well as +5 bonuses to Armor Class and saving throws *which interestingly lends credence to the fan (and Ravenloft setting) theory that the Kingpriest and Istar were in fact Lawful Evil. The Disks of Mishakal are the most prominent example of Dragonlance’s subtle Mormon inspirations (the other being Goldmoon’s white skin and blonde hair among Lakota-expy nomads). They detail the teachings of the eponymous goddess and were highly sacred even during the Age of Might. Said disks never came into Istar’s possession due to becoming lost when coming into possession of the dwarves. A reader who chooses to embrace the teachings of the Gods of Light gains enough experience points to level up, but said level be in Cleric, and they gain a permanent +1 to their Wisdom score. Hammer of Kharas is the most prized possession of the dwarves. It is an intelligent magic item with a host of spell-like abilities and can boomerang back into it’s wielder’s hand Thor-style, but its most famed feature is being one of the two items necessary to forge Dragonlances (the Silver Arm of Ergoth being the other). Mounted Dragonlances are larger versions of the base kind (which are detailed in Dragonlance Campaign Setting) and wielders suffer -4 on attack and damage unless riding on saddleback. Lesser Mounted Dragonlances grant a +2 bonus on Armor Class and saving throws against the attacks, breath weapons, and spells and spell-like abilities of evil dragons. For Greater Mounted Dragonlances the bonuses are +5, but it deals permanent Constitution drain equal to the wielder’s level + their dragon mount’s age category if applicable when hitting an evil dragon. The Silver Arm of Ergoth was created during the Third Dragon War as a joint project between humans, elves, dwarves, and metallic dragons. It looks like a molded silver cast of a human arm, but when attached to the stump of someone who lost an arm it magically attaches itself and functions as a highly effective prosthetic. It can only bond to people of good alignment and grants +4 Strength, the ability to heal 1 HP every hour, and Craft Magic Arms and Armor as a bonus feat if the wearer has 5 ranks in Craft (blacksmithing). Most importantly, it grants them the ability to forge dragonlances! Armor Special Qualities are all alignment-based. Dishonorable/Honorable armor grants +2 Armor Class vs the attacks of lawful/chaotic creatures, while Profane/Sacred does the same but attacks from good and evil creatures. Thoughts So Far: The new magic items are cool, effective for their stated purpose, and thematically tie into the campaign setting. It’s no coincidence that many of them were converted from the original Dragonlance adventures, but can otherwise make for some very nice treasures at the end of a quest. The discussion on divine magic and religion is a bit of a mixed bag, in that the text focuses far more heavily on the divine side of things. I am unsure what to think of three formalized holy orders, and there’s a bit too much page count spent on the Seekers and false religions which are highly specialized to one country (Abanasinia) in the entire continent. Join us next time as we take a tour of the post-Cataclysm continent in Chapter Three: Ansalon in the Age of Despair!
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Jan 2, 2020 10:02
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Takhisis is kind of lacking compared to Tiamat. Her heads are all just generic dragon heads while Tiamat's heads properly match each type of Chromatic dragon. 
MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Jan 2, 2020 |
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Jan 2, 2020 11:31
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The colours having clearly distinguishable shapes feels like a 3.x creation to me. But my memory could be failing me.
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Jan 2, 2020 11:48
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They had the beginnings of their iconic shapes (Big horn on the end of the blue dragon's nose, goofy crest on the white, curvy horns on the black) in at least the 2nd ed Monstrous Manual, but 3rd edition's where they became distinctly codified, visually.
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Jan 2, 2020 12:32
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I've often noticed that The Gods in any fantasy epic will always stand in for the author's preferred morality without question, in both directions.. I suppose with D&D's alignment system being such a loving mess, it was inevitable neckbeards would find some way to slip in the mighty authorial fist of justice. It also brings to mind the old adage about how whenever there's a collapse of civilisation in speculative fiction, the reasons for the collapse will always be a dead giveaway for the author's politics.
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Jan 2, 2020 13:06
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Tylana posted:The colours having clearly distinguishable shapes feels like a 3.x creation to me. But my memory could be failing me. Each dragon type was visually distinct as far back as the 2nd ed AD&D MM, at least. 3.x caricatured these shapes to some extent, but they're still clearly descended from 2e.
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Jan 2, 2020 13:37
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Loxbourne posted:I've often noticed that The Gods in any fantasy epic will always stand in for the author's preferred morality without question, in both directions.. I suppose with D&D's alignment system being such a loving mess, it was inevitable neckbeards would find some way to slip in the mighty authorial fist of justice. Your average fantasy author, and particularly your average D&D writer, has absolutely no idea how polytheism works. Or, indeed, any religion that isn't the one they grew up in.
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Jan 2, 2020 13:53
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Mors Rattus posted:Your average fantasy author, and particularly your average D&D writer, has absolutely no idea how polytheism works. Or the one they actually grew up in.
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Jan 2, 2020 13:59
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Libertad! posted:Basically the ritual requires at least three casters,* two of who must be of differing casting traditions (arcane/divine) and all of them must possess the Create Draconian feat. 3.X.jpg "How do I do <wondrous thing>?" "Well, you have to have <wondrous things> Feat, and then"
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Jan 2, 2020 15:14
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JcDent posted:3.X.jpg The old "dogfucker" joke from the 3.5e era pretty much said it all.
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Jan 2, 2020 16:01
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FrozenGoldfishGod posted:The old "dogfucker" joke from the 3.5e era pretty much said it all. RIP The General, died as he lived: not having a feat to gently caress the dog
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Jan 2, 2020 16:29
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FrozenGoldfishGod posted:The old "dogfucker" joke from the 3.5e era pretty much said it all. Link for a poor beggar? The one 4chan story I found is from 4e.
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Jan 2, 2020 17:26
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https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3098558&pagenumber=22&perpage=40#post360980876The General posted:I'm not sure what this thread is, or where it's coming from, but I'm sure my thoughts belong here.
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Jan 2, 2020 18:00
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I will never cease to be amazed at the 'well if you die, just make a character who is terrible next to the leveled up party members' stuff.
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Jan 2, 2020 18:17
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Night10194 posted:I will never cease to be amazed at the 'well if you die, just make a character who is terrible next to the leveled up party members' stuff. When I first started playing, I was a kid who joined my dad's group of old college buddies as they taught me D&D. You could introduce a new character at any time, level 1, and even control more than one character at a time. We'd have the low level guys hang out behind the main characters and get XP from loot until they were ready to join the fight. Now, as I was a literal child and this was my first experience with games I didn't realize how dumb this was at first. It took until a fight we had against a green dragon, where the dragon did a breath weapon that instantly killed all our low level guys in the back, for me to think "wait, that doesn't seem right". While my dad and his group kept up the "start at level 1" thing, by the time I started running games I quickly settled on "everyone has the same xp at all times" system
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Jan 2, 2020 18:24
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At the same time 'player skill' in those kinds of adversarial contexts usually means a mixture of 'know what your GM's tricks are', 'bully/persuade the GM', and 'Do everything possible to avoid actually using the rules whenever possible because the second dice and rules come up you may be dead'. This is one of many, many reasons adversarial GMing is dumb as hell.
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Jan 2, 2020 18:32
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Night10194 posted:I will never cease to be amazed at the 'well if you die, just make a character who is terrible next to the leveled up party members' stuff. Everyone died all the time so you were never more than level 3 at any point anyway.
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Jan 2, 2020 18:41
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Funny thing is, he's 100% right about prestige classes and prerequisites and needing to plan out your PC's entire career at character creation. (Well, if you want to play a martial character that doesn't suck. If you're a full spellcaster it doesn't really matter.)
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Jan 2, 2020 18:54
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