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Lord Fyre wrote:


Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:
*Time-travelling clone cyborgs from the distant future are erasing important events in the history of magic and magic creatures throughout the timestream to ensure their own creation and dominance.
The adventure writer watched the Terminator movies too many times.

Where Chaos Reigns was released in 1985, so he might've seen the first Terminator movie, but none of the others - unless he was a time-travelling module writer. ;)


Lord Fyre wrote:

Maybe this isn't such a great idea. :(

AD&D (especially early AD&D) had some very different ideas about encounter balancing.

Yes. Not all encounters are supposed to be winnable; sometimes you need to run away, or use guile. And parties are typically larger than in PF, and thus could handle tougher encounters.


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DaveMage wrote:
And the amount of critters in the 1E Monster Manual that have save or die poison attacks is quite high.

Almost all monster poison in 1E is save or die - but a cleric or druid with a 2nd level slow poison spell can bring back a character that has been "killed" by poison if applied within a time limit. The restored victim then has a few hours to get the poison neutralized.

Truly, permanently dying to poison after 3rd level is the result of very bad luck or bad play.


From the description in the spoiler text, your DM sounds bad. That's probably part of the problem. But the character creation crunch in 5E is never going to match Pathfinder. If the lack of crunch is a big problem 5E may not be for you.

My complaint about 5E is that it's too easy, but that might be my DM as much as the system.


Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

"Giantcraft"

Totally forgot about that one. The 'language' they claim is Giant is bloody awful. Just took a bunch of Germanic, mostly nordic, nouns, left out any verbs and conjugations, misspelled a bunch and called it a day.

I am also not a fan of that product, for many reasons.


gnoams wrote:


Ad&d didn't have a lot of special abilities, many monsters were much simpler, just attack and damage.

Well, that might be a little oversimplified. :)

in AD&D 1E all monsters have a set of statistics, including Intelligence (but not usually any other abilities), alignment, size, etc.

gnoams wrote:


3e added a lot of stuff to monsters. In this particular case, the giant weasels gained con damage attacks. So the first person walked in the cave, 3 giant weasels latched onto him, he took 3d6 con, and died instantly. I went woops, that was a lot nastier then intended. So even though it was a cr appropriate encounter, the particular abilities of the monster made it much deadlier when stacked together. Hence why I say read the monsters, don't just go solely off the cr.

Yeah, the blood drain attack of giant weasels is modeled as continuous damage in AD&D, not Constitution damage, so I can see why that would've been a shock. OTOH, AD&D characters tend to have fewer HP, so just doing continuous damage is more deadly vs. them than it would be vs. Pathfinder characters.


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DeathQuaker wrote:
That's funny because I think monsters with levels were possible

Yes. And vampires with levels were actually on the encounter tables in the 1E Dungeon Master Guide.


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Orville Redenbacher wrote:
Is that exactly the meaning behind More than Words???

I have no insider knowledge, but it sure seems like it to me.


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Physics. I'm a physicist now.


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I've never done what you're interested in, but I've gone in the opposite direction - converting 3E or Pathfinder monsters / adventures to AD&D 1E. Monsters aren't hard to do, but adventures contain assumptions (e.g. about the rate of level advancement or how formidable a single tribal humanoid is) that fail in AD&D.


No and no.


Barnabas Eckleworth III wrote:
Anguish wrote:
FlashRebel wrote:

I had a GM who reasoned exactly like this, and psionics became the most OP characters in his setting due to being as dangerous as wizards but with none of the usual weaknesses of magic users: dispelling had no effect on their powers, spell resistance didn't work, detect magic detected nothing, and even a place covered with dimensional locks and a giant antimagic field didn't prevent them from teleporting all over the place and wrecking havoc.

If a monk's ki powers must be treated as spells and even be renamed as such, I don't know why psychic abilities that behave like spells in many ways shouldn't.

Yeah, that way lies madness. There's a sidebar in the Dreamscarred psionics books along the lines of "variant: psionics is different... this is horrible, please don't do it, but if you absolutely have to, here's how to run a completely broken and unenjoyable game."

Yea. In AD&D 2nd edition, that's how psionics worked as default. I remember even one of the official Forgotten Realms novels with Drizzt. There was one of the drow houses that used psionics and not magic, and they were chumping all the magic users.

In 3.5 (and PF1 3rd party Dreamscarred), they wised up and made that the ill-advised alternate rule.

It seems to me that there is a lot of territory between "psionics is not magic" and "nothing can prevent psionic things from working" but I'm coming from an AD&D 1E perspective.


For me, it begins with comic books. Then children's books. I read a lot of the books mentioned in this thread (Wrinkle in Time, At least 2 of the Mushroom Planet books, the Forgotten Door). A couple others stick with me, though I've forgotten the titles. One concerned a boy who lived in a sea floor base, a kind of mole monster that lived beneath the sea bed, and a spy named "Mr Lilibulero" or something like that. The other involved the discovery and resucitation of an intelligent reptile man, in suspended animation since the days of the dinosaurs. The action then moved to other survivors of this reptilian race living far underground in conditions of tremendous heat and pressure.
After that I read all the science fiction in my local library, and the old classics (Verne, Wells), then the later classics (Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke). Fantasy wasn't really a thing for me until age 12 or so. I read the Conan books, Lewis' Space Trilogy, LotR, and more and more...


"Dr." Cupi wrote:

I completely agree with Ascalaphus. XP, to me, is an archaic way to play rpgs. It is a holdover system from back when the GM was an adversary and the game had just branched off from being a tactical mini system. In those old systems you would get XP from killing random people and not get XP for avoiding a fight with ingenuity.

Actually, in (A)D&D most XP came from treasure, not killing things. So ingeniously avoiding a fight and getting the treasure was rewarded.


If the GM fudges once in a while, will it go unnoticed? Probably. But I've seen GMs fudge and they weren't very hard to suss out. They were obvious, really.

Of course there's a selection effect here; the unsubtle fudgers were obvious, maybe others fudged and I never spotted it. But those who fudged did it so "The Story" would come out a certain way.


AD&D 1E
D&D 5E
Traveler.


Lady Ladile wrote:
Hey, I'm from the South and I've never liked the taste or texture of grits. Bleh!

And I'm from Yankee country and I'd never heard of poutine before today.


It's not cheating if the GM changes the adventure (prior to the actual game) to suit the group of player characters. It's just being a good GM.

Fudging die rolls is cheating IMO, but some will disagree.


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Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:
blahpers wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
blahpers wrote:
Question: Why do it matter to you how things go?
Because as a GM it is my job to make sure the people at the table are having a good time, and over like 20+ years of doing this I have learned to read the room. So if I'm picking up something like "nobody really feels like another fight here" then there's not going to be one no matter what I wrote down or what the dice say. If an "exploration scene" or "talking scene" or "puzzling scene" would go over better than a combat scene, then that's what's going to happen.
Do your players know that you've been lying to them and negating their agency based on your perception of what they're thinking but not saying?

Do you seriously think players are going to mad they didn't have to do something they didn't want to do and instead got to do something they wanted to do. That still challenged them and required them to use their characters?

I know I wouldn't be.

But hey having fun, in the game I am playing, for fun, is more important to me than being safe in the knowledge that the game went exactly as was planned by the DM to the detriment of fun. I don't understand your agency objection.

Being faced with a different challenge than was originally planned doesn't hurt my agency. My character still acts as I want my choices, still matter in that new scenario, its just a more fun scenario.

If a DM can't adjust his plans to enhance the fun at the table then I think I'm completely lost in this argument.

DMs aren't meant to make fun anymore, they just meant to lorde over some weird simulated reality that people don't need to enjoy, they simply must trudge through at all costs!

Chromantic Durgon, I agree that fun is the reason to play the game. But if I, as a player, find out that my decisions are meaningless, my fun is ruined. I think that's what blaphers is driving at.


Watery Soup wrote:
Corathonv2 wrote:
I'm just the referee.

You're more than just the referee.

You have the freedom to decide whether the orcs are dumb enough to fall for the very obvious trap your PCs have set; you have the freedom to decide whether the mastermind your PCs were supposed to fight will accept an unexpected offer of truce.

Also, as the GM, you have the freedom to make mistakes. And if you accidentally allow a second AoO in Round 2 which ends up killing a PC in Round 5, it seems weird that you should feel helpless.

The feeling of helplessness is all in your imagination. I could try to influence the things for (or against) the party, I choose not to.

You're right that I can decide if the orcs are stupid or the mastermind accepts a truce. I have no problem making rulings, but I try to rule fairly, without concern for whether it favors the party or not.

If I do make a mistake, I will try to make it good, though.


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If I decide to roll the dice, I will obey the results. Otherwise why roll?

I feel no obligation to keep a PC alive; that's the player's job. Likewise, I have no desire to kill a PC; that's the job of their enemies. I'm just the referee.


Lord Fyre wrote:


-- Having Steve Rodgers stay in the present would have been smarter. It would also make him FAR less selfish (and thus worthy of lifting Mjolnir). The idea that (if in the past) he does NOTHING about the rebirth of HYDRA within SHIELD makes not sense. Fighting Hydra back in the later 40s/50s would have been a valid reason to go back, not for his personal happiness.

Why do you assume that he didn't do that? By going back to Peggy, he created an alternate reality. If he fought Hydra in the fifties there it would have no impact on the "main" reality because of how time travel worked in the movie. Nor did his going back undo anything that he did in the previous movies.

Also, leaving your buds to be with the love of your life (when there's no possibility to have both) doesn't seem so awful to me. It seems like a good ending for the character.


Damon Griffin wrote:


Okay, that explains Ultraman but not The Gentleman from Astro City (the Fred MacMurray clone in the bottom left corner) -- how does he fit in?

Just as the Samaritan is Astro City's version of Superman and Confessor is the AC version of Batman and Winged Victory is AC's Wonder Woman, The Gentleman is AC's version of Captain Marvel. His appearance gives it away, and one of his friends is a talking tiger.

Damon Griffin wrote:


Or Adam Warlock? Can't just be due to the lightning bolt on his chest; I don't see a Flash anywhere. Then again, I see Mage (the Hero Denied) and Madman -- do they transform?

Warlock's costume was a deliberate homage to Captain Marvel according to Wikipedia.

I have no knowledge of the other 2.

Damon Griffin wrote:


Including Gomer Pyle is, I admit, hilarious...but also kind of stretches reasonable parameters. Likewise, the genie Shazzan seems out of bounds...though it's true he is summoned by invoking his name.

And his name is almost "Shazam". I can see it. Clealry the parameters are broad indeed. :)


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Cole Deschain wrote:
Set wrote:
And the scene where she just shoots Yon-Rogg was great

One of the only scenes that both had some emotional impact for me and that wasn't ruined by the trailers giving it away.

I was cringing in dread of her actually accepting his stupid challenge because Hollywood.

Nope.

I enjoyed that bit.

Yeah, that was great. One of two places where the movie subverted expectations, or maybe I should say "cliches". The other concerned the Skrulls.


Slim Jim wrote:

As initially conceived by writer Steven Grant, the Punisher is not chaotic, and he inhabits a universe in which the "legitimate authorities" are, on their very best days, woefully incompetent to deal with evil running amok in the world, and few such authorities are on their best behavior in any event (i.e., resembling your typical fantasy RPG setting). During the 1980s to early '90s comicbook heyday, the character's philosophy was "an eye for an eye", which none other than Gary Gygax describes as Lawful-Good: "...Lawful Neutrality countenances malign laws. Lawful Good does not...."

-- If Frank Castle is depicted as relishing carnage for its own sake under more recent incarnations, they deviate from the original character conception.

But the Punisher wasn't created by Grant, so that's not the initial conception of the character. I'll go by the Netflix version, because its the one that I know.

In the Netflix series Castle risks his neck to save a policeman who was taking him in, so his vendetta doesn't take precedence over everything. When he is

Spoiler:
made to think that he violated his code by killing innocents
he is a broken man. So, not Evil. But he kills bad guys even when they are helpless, not because its the only way but because its his preferred way. So, not Good.
"Lawful" is not equivalent to "follows the law of the land". A paladin somehow transported to Nazi Germany would fight the Nazis, despite the face that both he and they are lawful. I'd tend to go with Lawful Neutral based on all this.


I am enjoying it a lot. I have no familiarity with the comic, so I had no expectations going in.


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Adjoint wrote:


It's only a Christian view to identify one's being with one's souls, and to expect the soul to be immortal.

But that's not true. Its not only Christians (and Muslims) that assume immortality of the soul. Look at the ancient Egyptian religion, for example.

"Your soul just decomposes, becoming scenery" seems like a pretty uncommon viewpoint in the real world's religions. Even in religions like Hinduism, where the individual soul's identity is ultimately lost, the soul becomes one with something eternal.

But, ultimately, people are going to dislike different things.


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I'm one of "those people". The grim fate of all souls, whether good or evil, is a very repulsive feature of the setting.

I agree, with Set that its inherited from D&D (starting with AD&D 2E) but it stinks in D&D also.


Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:
I'm looking forward to this. It's about time the DP get some live action love. I wonder if they'll bring in Flex Mentallo...

Me, too. I loved the DP back in the day.

Also, no "Flex", just "Mento". ;)


MageHunter wrote:
A while ago I had a GM rule that dwarves couldn't use longbows because they were too short.

Why is that unreasonable?


Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:
Mudfoot wrote:
It's just that goblins have ADHD,

Golarion goblins.

Does not apply to all (any?) other settings.

I agree that there are lots of stupid humans out there, it's just the idea that all goblins are notably lacking in the brains department and are notably stupider than your average human that annoys me.

Presumably this is a holdover from previous editions, in some of which goblins are a good deal less intelligent than humans (average intelligence of about 8 in AD&D 1E, frex).


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ShroudedInLight wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

Keep in mind that what awaits most Good creatures isn't very good either, since most souls lose their memories after death.

And everything else about themselves, barring special occasions, only to be eventually formed into an Outsider or decomposed into planar matter. Pathfinder not only has your body undergo decomposition, this is a universe in which SOULS undergo decomposition. Makes for a good "cycle" but feels pretty bad to be on the receiving end.

They lose their memories, and the majority eventually become so bored that they just stop moving/reacting, and merge with the Plane. Which is in its turn eroded and destroyed by the Maelstrom in the fullness of time.

Recycling: its good for trash, and also for souls it seems. :(

Yeah, game designers since AD&D 2E's Planescape seem to be incapable of imagining a good (i.e. non-horrible) afterlife.


Adam Daigle wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
Sahkils strike me as nightmares made manifest.
It makes me happy that my lil fear babies have appeared a few times in this thread. >:)

Tangential question: are sakhils from some culture's mythology?


Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

I guess I'm the only one who likes DoMT, both as a player and as a GM.

One of our long-running campaigns has my original PC give all his descendants a pull when they become adults. The boring kids pull the good cards, the interesting kids pull the 'bad' ones, which lead to tons of good adventures and stories.

Not the only one. :)

I haven't seen the deck as a campaign killer thing in my several experiences with it on both sides of the table. Nor do I recognize the blank haterade card, is that new in PF?

In old-style games the story is an emergent property, not laid out in advance, so "derailing the story" isn't a problem.


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Irontruth wrote:

If I had the infinity gauntlet...

First, there is no such thing as free will. If we knew EVERY variable possible, we could always predict with perfect accuracy what a person would do tomorrow. The problem is that it is very difficult to know even most of the variables, let alone ALL of them.

The concept of free will and choice is an illusion created by the arrow of time (time progresses from the state of no entropy, to complete entropy). In a universe without things like infinity gauntlets (or similar), the present moment is like a curtain from behind which things emerge and we can't see them until that moment. This doesn't mean our choices don't matter, or that we should change how we behave, but in a sense all of existence (all of space and time) has already happened. What you will do tomorrow is already decided based on all the things that have happened before, but you can't see/know what they will be until they happen, because that is how we experience time.

When you start looking into things like evolutionary psychology, some neuroscience, and similar areas of study, the evidence of our lack of free will starts to become even more apparent.

Free will is a useful construct for determining rules and imposing consequences for breaking those rules, but it is nothing more than a useful fiction (for an easy example of a useful fiction, ask a firearms safety instructor why you should always behave AS IF a gun is loaded, even if you've checked it 5 times to make sure it isn't).

Unproven assertion.

Quantum mechanics tells us that nature is, at bottom, probabilistic. So predicting the future with perfect certainty is literally impossible, even given all possible knowledge.
That doesn't mean that humans have free will, but it certainly leaves the possibility open.


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In GotG1, Ronan is surprised that Star Lord, a mere human, can use (or even touch?) an infinity stone without dying. He can, because he's not just a human, but the son of Ego.

I am a mere human, the son of Conrad. If I tried to use the Infinity Gauntlet, I guess I'd just die.


I'm sad to see it go.

This probably means that the next time that we see Daredevil on screen it will be different actors, with the current continuity discarded.


Sorry, double post.


I agree that nobody/thing really rules Leng, but the closest would be the High Priest Not To Be Described, who is implied to be a moonbeast in the novel The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.


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Yeah, Vir was awesome. I didn't think much of him when he first showed up, but when he said that line to Morden it showed me that there was more to the character.

I miss Babylon 5.


I run a 1E AD&D game and I used this module in it with only superficial/cosmetic changes. A good product.


Civil rights are a modern concept. A fantasy setting may or may not have any idea of such. Penalties in a medieval-like society may be harsh.

IMC, many societies treat arcane spell casters with distrust, and there is a character class whose remit includes hunting down evil casters.


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thorin001 wrote:

Ranger: I think we should track the bad guys back to their lair.

Fighter: How would we do that?
Ranger: We follow their footprints.
Fighter: What are these footprints of which you speak?
Ranger: Do you see those holes in the snow shaped like boots?
Fighter: Nope. Hey Cleric, do you see these "footprints"?
Cleric: Hell no, I follow Abadar. Footprints are just Erastil propaganda.
Fighter: How about you Rogue; you can count the hairs on a fly at half a league.
Rogue: I see nothing. I think Ranger got into Alchemist's stash again.

Tracking is a trained only activity of the survival skill. So we are back to AD&D where tracks, even those in 2 foot deep snow, are invisible to those without this skill.

Actually, that's not the way it is in AD&D.

From Unearthed Arcana
"In all cases, the DM must use common sense as to whether or not it will be possible
to follow a creature by tracking. For instance, creatures which leave obvious trails can almost always be tracked - worms, slimes, jellies, and the like are obvious examples of this."

This seems like a "common sense" situation to me. But if you want a rule:

From Wilderness Survival Guide
"A character without proficiency in tracking has a base chance of 0% on any attempt to follow a trail, but may still be able to engage in tracking if the total of all applicable modifiers is a positive number."

The modifiers would be positive in this case.


Klorox wrote:
Actually, , I don't remember ever seeing a housecat statted out before 5ed D&D. Then again, I've not DM'ed for nearly 20 years, so I may have missed something, as I concentrated on player only material.

The 1E stats for housecat were in Monster Manual II. They aren't bad except for the damage, which is 1d2/1 for claws/bit plus a rake for 1d2 if the claws hit. That's crazy-high damage for a cat.

And d12+4 can indeed one-shot an ogre in 1E - if the player rolls high AND the DM rolled low on the 4d8+1 for the ogre's HP. Its not the way to bet, though.


I saw this problem using Safari on my desktop computer (a Mac).
It doesn't happen on my laptop computer (also using Safari and also a Mac).


I didn't enjoy this book or find it scary. It stomped on my suspension of disbelief too many times.


Shadowborn wrote:


Anyone else stream movies and shows rather than pay for cable or satellite?

I do, but I have no choice. I'm living in a country where I don't speak the language, so the only way to see English-language programming is Netflix and Amazon.


Cole Deschain wrote:

I've answered this before!

Rust monsters- A holdover from the "gear is more important than who you are" days of design. I know people who love them, because they cause characters to react with more terror than things which might kill them. To me, that's a bug, not a feature. Sir Goodguy the Brave should be more concerned with saving the villagers trapped in Lord Nastybad's dungeon than in making sure his armor isn't destroyed.

If previous editions were the "gear is more important than who you are" days, why are rust monsters more hateful to people now then they were then?


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Val'bryn2 wrote:
I'm thinking about doing a campaign, I had an idea to start it off with a seeming goblin/orc invasion. The twist is that, while they are technically invading, the reason they left their homeland is because of a greater evil. As an example, the orcs of Belkzen are invading because Kazavon is leading a quiet attack against the orcs to get his kingdom back. Considering that the players would then find out they were essentially slaughtering refugees, I imagine a few would hate that revelation.

Being a victim doesn't make you a bad person - but it doesn't make you a good person, either.

If the "refugees" are killing, torturing, and eating the residents of the land to which they are driven (typical orc behavior) then they are not refugees, they are invaders. The motivation for their invasion doesn't change that. The revelation that the orcs were driven out of their homeland would not cause me to feel bad as a player, it would get me interested in the darker evil that is behind all of this.

If the orcs are behaving differently than normal (for them) that should clue the PCs that something's up. They may want to find out what, and it shouldn't be a surprise when they find out the truth. There are then possibilities of alliance - although allying with chaotic evil or malevolently insane beings is seldom a good idea.


Mudfoot wrote:
james014Aura wrote:
Mudfoot wrote:
I just need to know what happens if I give an ogre a battleaxe and chain mail instead of the club and hide it gets in the Bestiary. In 1e you had to guess.

I don't recall any guessing in PF1E to that effect. Swap damage dice, remove one armor value and apply the other instead.

Sheesh. Children. I was talking about AD&D 1e.

I got that. :)

I would say that "in (AD&D) 1E you have to decide." "Guess" implies that there's some right answer that you might miss, whereas "decide" means that you are free to pick the answer that you want. And if you're concerned about consistency there is an example of a better armored ogre in the Monster Manual entry for "ogre".

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