Artemis_Milborow's page

Personally, in my experience as a DM, if you fall from 1200 ft. up and hit the ground, I don't roll 20d6 damage. You just die. Period.

Quoting wikipedia: "It is estimated that a person free falling in the "box" position reaches a terminal velocity of around 120 mph (200 km/h) after a fall of just 1,000 ft..."

So anything higher than that is no worse than falling 1000ft. As people have survived falling from 20k feet (albiet by falling into deep snow) I would argue that, our PCs being _heroes_, they at least deserve a save versus death.

Character death has always been a sore spot, discussions arise which always ponder the same questions; why do you lose a level upon death?, does it make sense that a newly raised character loses the feats and skills he had gained only a few sessions ago?, and the like.

Call it traumatic amnesia. :)

But is starting at a level higher than 1st robbing my players of something? I personally dislike DMing 1st-level characters, because I tend to kill them or bore them, but I can imagine some players who absolutely love playing weaklings.

What do you think? :)

In the game I'm currently GMing I started the players off at 1st level, but used a homebrew armor as DR system which, to my mind, added a couple of levels to their effectiveness in a situation where they had better armor than their opponents for a good while. My own personal theory is that combat should always have a threat of grave bodily harm and death, but be used sparingly. Thus, every combat encounter becomes a character building exercise. Obviously, this sort of peril is easier to feel at low-levels. Even the guy in the alley with a knife is a deadly threat to a 1st level character.

That's why I halved all character hitpoints in my homebrew. :) This totally unbalances mages, among many other things, so I make no claims to its usefulness for anyone else, but it's worked pretty well to make combat rare and, when it happens, to keep that feeling of peril. :)

Alignments, IMO, are too simple to adequately define the complex human psyche.

And you are backed up by Actual Psychology. :) My current feeling on alignments is that they really shouldn't be used to describe personality, but rather just two aspects of personality that are key to D&D cosmology. i.e., gods and magic care about whether you're good or evil and how well you obey your lord, not how well you make friends.

If you _really_ want to describe a PC's personality, use scales that are actually based on statistics. For example, using the five factor model of personality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_five_personality_traits) the thief character the campaign I'm running would be a neurotic, neutrally-introverted, disagreeable, careless, and open-to-experience individual.

Or, as I put it, neutral/insane. :)

Another possible suggestion: play homebrew settings. A lot more work, but infinitely cheaper :)

More rewarding as GM, IMHO, as well. :)

A 20th level wizard can mop the floor with an entire army of 4th level characters. Obviously, the nastier things are more dependent on how prepared the wizard is (buffing spells, etc) and how clever your GM is, but there are a couple of dumb simple things he could do. For example, turning into a 40HD dragon, balor, or other 20 CR nasty for more than 3 hours. Or he could just finger of death you; or power word kill you; or turn you to stone. Are you in a position to make a DC 23 (absolute minimum) save against death?

Grovel. :)

Intimidate. The characters most likely to want to use it have lousy Charisma. The characters with Charisma who would want to use it are usually better off using Diplomacy and avoiding the negative backlash. To make Intimidate viable, you have to tie it to Strength. That sucks, because it really should be Charisma, but that's how it is.

Tell that to the cleric in the campaign I run. With max levels of intimidate plus the synergy bonus from bluff he has something like a +12 at 5th level. That's awfully helpful when dealing with people.

Swim and Use Rope. These should both get more play than they do. They aren't quite useless, but rarely does anyone think they're worth spending any skill points to improve.

At least until they find themselves having to tie up a prisoner or swim in a raging sea. I had a player acquire manacles to solve the first issue, though.

you're going to have to let me sit in on and watch one of those online sessions some time or show me how it works so I can do it in a pinch with my campaign...as necessary.

It's really pretty simple; we use a program called OpenRPG. http://openrpg.com/ It allows chat, dice rolling, mini-map, etc. The 1.6 version has a couple of ugly bugs which are fixed in the CVS version. I extracted the relevant portions of the code for my not-technical group. Also added a bit of code to implement our rules on rolling d20s in most situations (a 1 equals a -10 while a 20 equals a 30).

That said, we're moving to voice chat because typing is slow, slow, slow by comparison.

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:

What I wouldn't stoop to is a killer dungeon or such-like. When we were at school (albeit 25 years ago) a DM of my acquaintance had a room containing a vacuum. Open door, get sucked in, die, no save. Well, we were only 12. Personally, I hate "save or die" (or just die) situations - they lack drama. Going down hacking at the horde - now that is a good death.

Wouldn't the room flood with air when you opened the door, making it not deadly at all?

For that matter, would it be possible to open the door? :)

Personally, I hate "save or die" (or just die) situations - they lack drama. Going down hacking at the horde - now that is a good death.

It can be really frustrating, and things like beholders are particularly bad about that. But it did lead to one of the more amusing sequences on the online campaign I play in. Whole party is 14-15th level, I'm playing a wizard, and the party is trying to reach the top of the tower where the evil epic level mage is casting this enormous spell to sacrifice the population of an entire city to help release the embodiment of chaos in the universe.

So we use invisibility and climb in a window, only to find two beholders, some insigificant guards, and no invisibility (the beholders noticed the window open and then...anti-magic field). We're doing pretty well against them when one of them manages to get off a full-attack with its eyes:
(1) GM: The southern beholder unleashes a volley into gaul.
(1) GM: 1d20+9 -> 6,9 = (15)
(1) GM: 1d20+9 -> 6,9 = (15)
(1) GM: 1d20+9 -> 11,9 = (20)
(1) GM: 1d20+9 -> 11,9 = (20)
(1) GM: 1d20+9 -> 4,9 = (13)
(1) GM: What's Gaul's touch AC?
(5) Daidoji Shian: 12
(1) GM: I need 5 will saves.
(6) Gaul: *sick bastard*
(6) Gaul: 1d20+6 -> 7,6 = (13)
(6) Gaul: 1d20+6 -> 11,6 = (17)
(6) Gaul: 1d20+6 -> 10,6 = (16)
(6) Gaul: 1d20+6 -> 10,6 = (16)
(6) Gaul: 1d20+6 -> 2,6 = (8)
(1) GM: Gaul glows green as he fails his first save, and is reduced to a pile of ash.
(4) Toratsume: (isn't disintigrate a fort save?)
(1) GM: All beholder saves are will saves.
(1) GM: Wow, my bad
(1) GM: Yes, they are fort. :)
** (1) GM wonders what I was reading. **
(1) GM: Please reroll the first, third, and fourth saves.
(6) Gaul: 1d20+16 -> 1,16 = (17)
(6) Gaul: 1d20+16 -> 1,16 = (17)
(6) Gaul: 1d20+16 -> 20,16 = (36)
(5) Daidoji Shian: (You have got to be kidding me.)
(1) GM: ...
(1) GM: *clears throat*
(6) Gaul: Pile of ash, I know

Well, after the session it was determined that some type of immunity Gaul had (I don't remember what it was, exactly) should've saved him from being disintegrated, so some time further into the castle, we come across an imprisoned cleric who can cast reincarnate and since magic in the vicinity was functioning bizarrely as a result of the sacrifice spell being cast, the spell's duration was cut down from 10 minutes to something much shorter. And so Gaul was back into the mix as we assaulted Jakata, the evil epic mage, at the top of his tower. After I took down his defensive spell with a couple of artillery type spells (fireball, cone of cold) Gaul steps up to try to take him down, but they both had the same init...

(2) GM: Gaul and Jakata go at the same time.
(2) GM: Jakata: "You don't have any idea how much energy has to go into restarting that ritual."
(3) Gaul: I'm going to close and show him how to dance with death
(2) GM: Jakata casts a quick spell.
(2) GM: Naked d4, high roll goes first.
(2) GM: 1d4 -> 4 = (4)
(3) Gaul: 1d4 -> 4 = (4)
(2) GM: Ohh, roll again.
(2) GM: 1d4 -> 4 = (4)
(3) Gaul: You've hacked these dice...
(3) Gaul: 1d4 -> 3 = (3)
(2) GM: Jakata completes his spell and unleashes a fell word of power.
(2) GM: Gaul, do you have 101 or more hp?
(3) Gaul: *grumbles*
(2) GM: Jakata reaches out with power-word kill and snuffs out Gaul's life force. Gaul crumples to the ground.

On the subject of player unpredictability, a wise friend once passed down the three rules of GMing to me.

1) The more you plan the more you have to redo when characters do something else.

2) Players always do something else.

3) If player do something else and you've planned for it, there's something seriously wrong with your players.

Generally, I find two types of planning helpful.

First, what would the world be doing if there weren't players? When? Flesh out a few major actors in the setting and get to know them in your own head so that you'll have some idea of where the plot should go when the PCs choose 'blueberry' over A and B.

Second, NPCs, situations, encounters, etc. in general form are invaluable. As has been mentioned, the drunk guy, the madame, etc. Or, highwaymen seeking plunder, etc. These are particularly useful when you can fit them into the overall plot somehow, while still retaining the 'plug-and-play' aspect.

Also, Edward Reed: Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. :-)

I'm personally rather fond of the Darklands interpretation of Dragons. I can't really do it justice without directly quoting it, so...

"The dragon is not a natural or living creature. Instead, the dragon is an embodiment of evil, waiting for the final battle of Armageddon (as predicted in Revelations). Then it will fight with the forces of the Antichrist. Dragons do not eat normally; the more they eat, the hungrier they become, until they eat the entire world. A dragon cannot be satisfied. The more treasure it has, the more it desires until it has the entire treasure of the world and goes mad with the desire for more. The very existence of a living dragon, with its unnatural hungers, causes all types of sickness in the land, spreading pestilence and evil."

Interesting idea - Make the "gun" fire vs. Touch AC. If you do this, then you'll want to incorporate the variant "Armor as DR" rule to properly register the value of having armor to begin with.

Yeah, I like that idea, too. I implemented "armor as DR" as a house rule for the campaign I run. Also halved hit-dice and boosted the damage die of most weapons. However, I'm unsure yet whether I'd recommend it. Combat without armor is really brutally short now. :) But it also results in some strange effects like a pack of dogs being unable to hurt a man in chainmail. With a -3 to grapple, they could't even tackle him! :)

>The author describes the action of the imprisoned air elemental
>as generating wind to fill the sail of the sloop and not
>directing wind from behind the boat to do so.
>Granted, my knowledge of physics is rudimentary at best, but
>would this generate two equally opposite forces that would just
>cause the boat to stay stationary. Thoughts please.

If the air elemental were itself propelling air towards the sail then yes, the air elemental would be propelled in the opposite direction and, by extension, the ship to which it is attached. This would be roughly equivalent to pointing a rocket engine at the sail and expecting to sail based on exhaust filling the sail.

That said, 'generating wind to fill the sails' could just mean magically creating a localized region of low-pressure in front of the ship. :)