|
Last Drow we had in my group was a CN brutal SOB with a war axe and the strength to back it up....we dont tend to get a lot actually good drow in our campaigns.
and DM_aka_Dudemeister, that was hysterical. That is all I can ever picture when someone says Valley Elves. Well that and when someone running Greyhawl mentions the Gnarly Wood....all i can picture is surfer druid..."the Gnarly Druids from the Gnarly Wood cathing some gnarly waves, bro."
-Weylin
Point of contention, you'll find the surfer druids of Gnarly Wood say: "Catchin' some gnarly waves, brah." They then proceed to fist bump, and then air mandolin.
I'm quite certain that's at least partially incorrect. It the very least it was the wood elves that were around first, having appeared in the 1e MM. It may well be the case that wild elves came about that way though.
Doh! I meant to add to my post, "or switch the wild and wood elves," but I've been so busy I forgot to actually do it. :p
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
|
Last Drow we had in my group was a CN brutal SOB with a war axe and the strength to back it up....we dont tend to get a lot actually good drow in our campaigns.
and DM_aka_Dudemeister, that was hysterical. That is all I can ever picture when someone says Valley Elves. Well that and when someone running Greyhawl mentions the Gnarly Wood....all i can picture is surfer druid..."the Gnarly Druids from the Gnarly Wood cathing some gnarly waves, bro."
-Weylin
I always got dirty looks from our Greyhawk-phile when he'd mention the rangers of the gnarly wood. "Go go Gnarly Rangers."
I always got dirty looks from our Greyhawk-phile when he'd mention the rangers of the gnarly wood. "Go go Gnarly Rangers."Last Drow we had in my group was a CN brutal SOB with a war axe and the strength to back it up....we dont tend to get a lot actually good drow in our campaigns.
and DM_aka_Dudemeister, that was hysterical. That is all I can ever picture when someone says Valley Elves. Well that and when someone running Greyhawl mentions the Gnarly Wood....all i can picture is surfer druid..."the Gnarly Druids from the Gnarly Wood cathing some gnarly waves, bro."
-Weylin
That is SOOOO wrong, on so many levels.
I'm quite certain that's at least partially incorrect. It the very least it was the wood elves that were around first, having appeared in the 1e MM. It may well be the case that wild elves came about that way though.Doh! I meant to add to my post, "or switch the wild and wood elves," but I've been so busy I forgot to actually do it. :p
OK, I'm at home- sick and bored- so I dusted off some old stuff.
Wood / sylvan elves and wild / grugach elves both appeared in 1e Unearthed Arcana, which was released in '85. The first Forgotten Realms boxed set was unleashed in '87. Before that Ed Greenwood was really the only contributor to FR lore (via Dragon).
I'm not sure what to make of any of that. Take it for what it's worth.
|
|
The are times it is so hard to be a good player and not snicker like a 9 year old at the game table.That is SOOOO wrong, on so many levels.I always got dirty looks from our Greyhawk-phile when he'd mention the rangers of the gnarly wood. "Go go Gnarly Rangers."Last Drow we had in my group was a CN brutal SOB with a war axe and the strength to back it up....we dont tend to get a lot actually good drow in our campaigns.
and DM_aka_Dudemeister, that was hysterical. That is all I can ever picture when someone says Valley Elves. Well that and when someone running Greyhawl mentions the Gnarly Wood....all i can picture is surfer druid..."the Gnarly Druids from the Gnarly Wood cathing some gnarly waves, bro."
-Weylin
I always thought the pink Gnarly ranger was Hawt
Subraces sucked. They should be diffrentiated by selectable traits not stats. Too muc Elf love in Fantasy RPGs as it is...
As to building real racial variants I guess it becomes an opening for a third party to bring out a guide to stated versions. The Environmental Racial Variants OGC rules found in Unearthed Arcana would be a good starting point an balloon out in into general concepts. Mind you for a DM setting building tool, not a Player min/max grab-bag.Why? Why is it magically ok for a GM to have varied setting building tools but not for players to have equally varied character building tools?
In my mind the two are one in the same. Let the player choose the race with the best statistics for his concept, the GM will do the same for various npc's and organizations of them.
Because if the GM is bulding a jungle world and wants jungle adapted sub-races to replace the normal race choices how is it approprate for a player to declare the use of a desert variant for thier character. Or take it another way, why should a player be allowed to freely use a desert adapted human, who is resistant to heat dangers, in Dark Sun where heat danger is part of the setting? This is what I talk about when I say tool kit.
However player use and GM use are not two different sides of the same coin. The GMs coin is bigger as it covers setting creaton, adventure writing, monster/npc creation and running. True the monsters use basically the rules as PCs and there are even good suggestions in how to allow PC Monster races but that does not mean that everything open to the GM is open to the players. Afterall a GM can 'play' a zombie, but under all but the most extream of custom settings a player has no use for a zombie as a race. On top of that there are many things in a monster book that are not player resources, many creatues the Players will only like have to fight but never use for their PCs
Now if I want to (and some times do) run a totally free-for-all game I use a modified version of the BESM d20 classless rules and let my Players just point buy their characters the way they want them. I would not generally do so for someting like a Pathfinder AP, which requires more structure. Different setups, different tools to run them, different choices for PC creation.
I'm not sure what to make of any of that. Take it for what it's worth.
Well, maybe I'm remembering wrong. I have been a bit busy these past couple of weeks. :/
As for the valley elves, they existed in Greyhawk before the term "valley girl" became common in the USA. As for the Gnarly Rangers, I remember laughing at that even as a kid... Gygax clearly hadn't spent much time in southern California when he was writing Greyhawk....
|
I prefer skills, feats and traits to be differntiate subraces as cultures. not radical shifts in racial write-ups. It also covers if someone from one culture is raised most of their life among another.
Back in Alpha/Beta, I suggested this very thing, to add a single sentence to the beginning of the racial write ups saying that bolded traits are physical traits that any member of the race will have while italicized traits are cultural traits that could vary.
The Dwarfs racial traits write up would then look something like;
Dwarf
Medium
Slow & Steady
Darkvision
Hardy
Stability
Defensive Training
Greed
Hatred
Stonecunning
Weapon Familiarity
Subraces sucked. They should be diffrentiated by selectable traits not stats. Too muc Elf love in Fantasy RPGs as it is...
Here in lies much of the problem with the idea behind sub-races/racial varients I have seen everywhere.
It's too many elves dwarves ecta.The problem is you have like 6 different eleves 3 different halflings 2 different dwarves and 2 different gnomes and one extra half elf varient.
Thats the problem.
I think that it shouldn't be that way say you have source book now keep in mind I don't know the pathfinder world of Golarion, but lets say that you come from Cheliax.
Now keep in mind that I don't know a whole lot about pathfinder so I know that there is devil worship and some other things but lets say I get a book for this.
I would have 1. The standered races varied for the region, I couldn't imagine the dwarves of Cheliax being too chilled (if there are any) about devils wile hating on goblins and giants and stoof.
They are lawful good by nature, they would be WTF?! devils, nuh uhh! Not in my neighborhood I don't think so...
But not only would I would have that I would have humans of here have X and if there some sort of ethnic diversity I would have how this has effected each of them.
Being devils I am guess that they are all super nazi's so there would most proberly be on ruling ethnic group, who are aloud the rich parents trait poltical connections ecta.
And the other would have underworld connections and freedom fighter connections ecta.
Rather than having just elves of Cheliax.
|
I'm quite certain that's at least partially incorrect. It the very least it was the wood elves that were around first, having appeared in the 1e MM. It may well be the case that wild elves came about that way though.Doh! I meant to add to my post, "or switch the wild and wood elves," but I've been so busy I forgot to actually do it. :pOK, I'm at home- sick and bored- so I dusted off some old stuff.
Wood / sylvan elves and wild / grugach elves both appeared in 1e Unearthed Arcana, which was released in '85. The first Forgotten Realms boxed set was unleashed in '87. Before that Ed Greenwood was really the only contributor to FR lore (via Dragon).
I'm not sure what to make of any of that. Take it for what it's worth.
Yes, as playable races, but wood elves were in the 1e MM (1977), and grugach (wild elves) in the MMII (1983).
I'm not sure what to make of any of that. Take it for what it's worth.Well, maybe I'm remembering wrong. I have been a bit busy these past couple of weeks. :/
As for the valley elves, they existed in Greyhawk before the term "valley girl" became common in the USA. As for the Gnarly Rangers, I remember laughing at that even as a kid... Gygax clearly hadn't spent much time in southern California when he was writing Greyhawk....
Like...Oh My GAAAWD!!!! Those Gnarly Rangers are just sooo totally awesome.
I'm with Lazaro... don't miss subraces a bit.Yeah, put all those subraces in a fluff book of their own.
Agreed. I want my core books to be the meat of the game. I could care less about have sub-races stated out. Generally speaking I encourage players to roleplay their differences in culture, not rollplay by shifting stats. Besides if I have a player thats adamant about it he can buy the fluff race book or, or convert it over from the many 3.x books. Lastly, we could always house rule it.
Selkie?Aquatic Elf (they really need another name)
-WeylinDoesnt really fit the imagery that name conjures...shapeshifting seal-people.
dark elves get Drow
winged elves get Avariel
aquatic elves get Aquatic ElfI think best would be something more original than drawing on other mythic beings...that might turn up later as their own race.
-Weylin
Aquaviel Ah-Qua-Vee-Ill. Conotates water and is similar to Avariel (Aviary used as a root for that one, which means flying). So, Flying Elves and Aquatic Elves. :)
Creative Director
|
Never had a drow pc and it slipped my mind. Drow do however have one of the coolist gods in FR, shes the non evil on e:)Not any more. Elisstrae essentially sacrificed herself to give the drow who had turned away from evil to get themselves redeemed as "Brown Elves " the drow once were as the closing gambit of the cosmic game played with Lolth.
Eilistraee's actually my favorite FR deity.
Suffice to say, this is the #1 reason I'm dissatisfied with 4E's treatment of the Forgotten Realms.
Never had a drow pc and it slipped my mind. Drow do however have one of the coolist gods in FR, shes the non evil on e:)Not any more. Elisstrae essentially sacrificed herself to give the drow who had turned away from evil to get themselves redeemed as "Brown Elves " the drow once were as the closing gambit of the cosmic game played with Lolth.
You speak of something that never happend. I do not know of the odd and silly events you speak of.
|
|
Never had a drow pc and it slipped my mind. Drow do however have one of the coolist gods in FR, shes the non evil on e:)Not any more. Elisstrae essentially sacrificed herself to give the drow who had turned away from evil to get themselves redeemed as "Brown Elves " the drow once were as the closing gambit of the cosmic game played with Lolth.Eilistraee's actually my favorite FR deity.
Suffice to say, this is the #1 reason I'm dissatisfied with 4E's treatment of the Forgotten Realms.
Wait, not realizing that Toril was Jeff Grubb's homebrew, and that Abeir-Toril aren't separate entities, and that they already had a perfectly serviceable lizard race (saurials) and that two lawful good gods probably wouldn't duel over a chick and that...
Eilistraee's death was bogus. But, it's only #3 for me :)
|
|
I quit the Realms after the Time of Troubles killed off Leira...I'm a big fan of Japanese anime, so I'm actually totally down with the heroic sacrifice bit.
Heroic sacrifice would be one thing, but Torm was the only diety to make a heroic sacrifice (and he came back immediately!). Myrkul, Bane, Bhaal, Lleira and Waukeen (and possibly Mask? I don't even remember...) just kind of died, some of them *off-screen.* Even queen honcho Mystra didn't get to make a heroic sacrifice, she died attempting to storm the gates of heaven, convinced that she was pretty much that much of a bad@$$, only to be handed a macktastic pimp-slapping to the curb.
As was typical for the 'good is way more powerful than evil' Realms, they killed off three evil and three neutral gods, and the only good god whose status was affected by the Time of Troubles (Torm) got *more powerful.* (Additionally, one of the evil gods, Myrkul, was replaced with a neutral god, and one of the neutral gods, Mystra, was replaced with a good god.)
The Forgotten Realms diety garden needed a lot of pruning anyway.
That's true. Every book about this race or that seemed to come out with new dwarven, elven, etc. gods that were not even remotely as interesting as the ones Roger Moore came up with back in the day.
And while I love all things Egyptian (gee, with this avatar, ya think?), I don't think that the Mulhorandi (or Untheri) pantheons really played well with the rest of the setting.
Of course, they didn't kill any of the gods I wanted dead. Sehanine and Thard Harr and Sharindlar and Xvim and whatever still ran around, willy-nilly, despite being exponentially lame.
|
|
Actually the "Midnight" Mystra eventually drifted to true neutral once she got her humanity weeded out. Not that she lasted that long, in the end, Cyric killed her in an alliance with Shar who made an ill-fated attempt at capturing Mystra's Weave for her own use, triggering the change to 4th edition. She failed in this goal however, and both the Weave and the Shadow Weave were destroyed in the process. Shar however has prevented any successor to the Goddess of Magic from taking her place.and one of the neutral gods, Mystra, was replaced with a good god.)
Or so we're lead to believe. I think Symbul and Elminster are in seclusion because Elminster is the God of Magic and he's just not doing his job (hence the craziness of magic in the Realm.)
That's my theory and I'm sticking to it until Wizard proves me wrong and retcons the Realms back to pre-spellplague.
Now that Mystra's gone, that ban on time travel doesn't exist anymore you know.
--
Personally though, if 3 setting products a year are WOTC's plans for their 4e campaign settings, I think they should just release 3 "Forgotten Realms: Age of the Chosen" products that are set before the spellplague for those that want to play pre-spellplague with 4e shoe horned into the setting. I never understood why "power sources" can't just be tapping into the Weave.
There's no reason for world devastation when rules change, you just say this is how mechanics work with fluff (the Weave) now and always has. What about spell levels you ask? Well "Mystra doesn't allow spell beyond level 9 to exist in the Realms" was a stupid explanation for game mechanic limits anyway.