Prism posted:

You sure can! I didn't say they can't be evil, only that they don't have to be, which is A Thing for 99% of undead in 3.5E, when Eberron was written.

Edit: maybe I should F&F the new 5E Eberron stuff... would people be interested in that? I know Eberron has been started before, but I think it was abandoned and it would have been the 3E stuff anyway.

SirPhoebos posted:

I've heard about the Forgotten Realms Starbase, but did anything interesting ever happen there?

Selachian posted:

There's actually one option in the final scene the writers never thought of, and I know it because it's the one my players chose when we ran these adventures.

Namely, when Verminaard is demanding that you hand over the Hammer, say "You want it? Go chase it!" and throw it in the convenient bottomless pit.

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.

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.

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.)

Joe Slowboat posted:

They exist because they fill a pulp stereotype, and that pulp source is wildly orientalist.

Joe Slowboat posted:

even more 'advanced' than Europe, but which had crumbled due to a lack of vigor and ethical drive.

Libertad! posted:

The Dragonlance novels were based off of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's own gaming sessions which they were writing up for TSR's Dragonlance project.* Several of the players in those sessions helped write a lot of the DL series PurpleXVI's reviewing today; in fact, the name Jeff Grubb shows up almost as much as the big two, and he's contributed to countless Dragonlance sourcebooks and modules since.

So they were 'playtested' in the same vein that the DM's own adventures, warts and all, were eventually converted into a published adventure serial.

*During the late 70s to early 80s TSR had a desire to do something different than the anti-hero Conanesque "treasure hunters" module which D&D had in spades, and instead try something closer to Tolkienesque high fantasy.

PurpleXVI posted:

what are the consequences if the March gets stopped?

Tylana posted:

I assume promotion here is basically a transformation with the similar increase in abilities?

JcDent posted:

*remembers Age of Sigmar maps*

Yeah, no.

Midjack posted:

Why are the Dragonlance metallic dragons so paralyzed by the threat of something happening to their eggs? Having your kids held hostage definitely is terrible, but is there something else like “no more eggs ever”?

EimiYoshikawa posted:

No, just these ones.

So, you know, just the emotional trauma of your kids being held hostage. Just because you can make more doesn't render that a bad threat (for normal people), and it's hard not to sympathize with them for backing off, even if the stakes are 'the whole world'.

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? "

Libertad! posted:

PurpleXVI posted:

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.

Terrible Opinions posted:

I don't get why D&D proposes societies that people only worship one god out of a pantheon. Why wouldn't it be more like real world polytheism where you worship the whole pantheon based on occasion, and mystery cult priests dedicated to one god or people who have a single god as a special patron are specialties rather than the norm?

Seatox posted:

A well of many worlds? That's either useless, because of Dragonlance's rather small and sad cosmology, or a potential way to escape Krynn to a better campaign setting.

Kaza42 posted:

It's actually Raistlin who dispels the protections around Ariakas but the rest of this seems pretty accurate

Cythereal posted:

Now if only 40k could catch up to treating women equally.

Cythereal posted:

The Sisters of Battle are an embarrassment, in my book. Amazon factions tend to be, for me, unless there's actual women driving their development and portrayal.

Cythereal posted:

Also, the fact of the matter is that for most of 40k's history, the Sisters have been a punchline. When they're not being completely psychotic to just plain stupid (which even otherwise good about women book series like Ciaphas Cain have indulged in),

40k writers seem to relish Sisters getting brutalized and massacred, even by Imperial forces - see also that whole thing where the Grey Knights massacred a convent of Sisters to use their blood as anti-daemon wards.

Cythereal posted:

Having an in-setting reason why the women-dominated army is psychotic and stupid doesn't help. Because oh isn't it a shame that we've established that it's fluffy and in-character for all those women to act dumb am i rite fellas.

Tibalt posted:

The Troll has a +9 Weapon and a +8 Bite compared to Silverbeard +8 Weapon, so in theory the Troll can hit with two attacks per turn and deal significantly more damage. In practice, the Troll isn't going to have the Advantage available to use his Bite, and the extra WS that Silverbeard has means he's doing more damage on average because he's hitting on rolls where the Troll would miss.