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-A man walks into the tavern, stumbling and obviously drunk
*Local Guard* Sir, are you alright? the guard asks attempting to help the man find a seat.
*Drunkard* Heehea, Yesh! Getccher hands off me turff man! I ain't got chur taxes! slurs the drunk.
-A moment later the drunk finds his seat, and shouts for the matron.
-The guard walks away.
*Drunkard* I'll have whatevvurh yer seervin. sputters the man as he dumps out several coins on the table.
*Matron* Stew, and a coffee. Got it! she announces into the back room as she sweeps up the purse into her blouse.
-The man proceeds to begin singing along to the bards tune, some dirty tale about a mid-wife and a stableboy.
Soon after he passes out face down next to his stew from either drunkenness or dehydration. Nobody pays it any real attention.
the Bard playing in the corner continues playing.
-At the end of the set he walks up and finishes the mans coffee (2 sugars) and heads home.
I contend that the Bard should be penalized by shifting him towards chaotic, and my players think he is justified since the drunk didn't pay him and the drink would have been wasted anyway?
Your take?
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I contend that the Bard should be penalized by shifting him towards chaotic, and my players think he is justified since the drunk didn't pay him and the drink would have been wasted anyway?Your take?
I don't understand a shift in alignment to be a penalty. More specifically, a shift toward chaotic for a bard is most certainly not a penalty.
My take is that this matter is IMMATERIAL with respect to the alignment of a given individual based on what's described. If you are counting coup, it is a minor chaotic move. I don't understand the alignment system to work this way.
Every time a character does something lawful, chaotic, good, or evil doesn't call for an alignment shift. You just can't base an alignment shift on a single action. It should either be based on a long standing series of actions or a change in motivations.
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Every time a character does something lawful, chaotic, good, or evil doesn't call for an alignment shift. You just can't base an alignment shift on a single action. It should either be based on a long standing series of actions or a change in motivations.You realize this is satirical, right?
Maybe the response was satirical?
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Don't you guys thing we need more alignments? Don't ya?
He would definitely be CE if he also finished the man's stew! Leave something for bugger to recover from his hangover in the morning. Do inns do takeaway stew?
May be the alignment system could work on grades? Like LG 1, LG 2, LG 3 - BAM - LN 1, LN 2, LN 3 - BAM - LE 1... Totally directional of course...
Aargh! Can't there be an alignment called PC? It varies from action to action?
Roll a random alignment for the bard:
1-LG
2-NG
3-CG
4-LN
5-N
6-CN
7-LE
8-NE
9-CE
10-no alignment, he's transcended such silliness
I think we could use a new dimension on the N axis.
This Silly/Serious dimension.
Oooh, 3-D alignment grid!
These alignment shift discussions have been pretty thick lately haven't they?
I know and definitely appreciate your trying to give us a laugh, but otherwise, do you really think this is going to help?
50% of readers will take the post seriously. 10% will get it. Another 40% are too busy making alignment threads to read yours. (To the literalists on these boards: these statistics are invented.)
The only way to get rid of alignment threads is to not post them at all, satirical or not, and to not reply to the ones that exist. And when that happens, pigs will fly, Gary Gygax will return from the dead, and the D&D identity will be sold to Paizo for $0.50.
:)
Don't you guys thing we need more alignments? Don't ya?
-Drillboss
Back in my 1e days, our DM wanted us to use the following alignments. I will note at this time; I am not making this up. For reference: we also calculated the volume of fireballs in 10' corridors, and calculated falling speeds to determine if you would have time to say the words 'feather fall' before hitting the ground.
Lawful Good
Lawful Good with Neutral (Law/Chaos) tendencies (moving toward NG)
Lawful Good with Neutral (Good/Evil) tendencies (moving toward LN)
Lawful Neutral
Lawful Neutral with Neutral (Law/Chaos) tendencies (moving toward TN)
Lawful Neutral with Good tendencies (moving toward LG)
Lawful Neutral with Evil tendencies (moving toward LE)
Lawful Evil
Lawful Evil with Neutral (Law/Chaos) tendencies (moving toward NE)
Lawful Evil with Neutral (Good/Evil) tendencies (moving toward LN)
Neutral Good
Neutral Good with Neutral (Good/Evil) tendencies (moving toard TN)
Neutral Good with Lawful tendencies (moving toward LG)
Neutral Good with Chaotic tendencies (moving toward CG)
True Neutral
True Neutral with Lawful tendencies (moving toward LN)
True Neutral with Chaotic tendencies (moving toward CN)
True Neutral with Good tendencies (moving toward NG)
True Neutral with Evil tendencies (moving toward NE)
Neutral Evil
Neutral Evil with Neutral (Good/Evil) tendencies (moving toard TN)
Neutral Evil with Lawful tendencies (moving toward LE)
Neutral Evil with Chaotic tendencies (moving toward CE)
Chaotic Good
Chaotic Good with Neutral (Law/Chaos) tendencies (moving toward NG)
Chaotic Good with Neutral (Good/Evil) tendencies (moving toward CN)
Chaotic Neutral
Chaotic Neutral with Neutral (Law/Chaos) tendencies (moving toward TN)
Chaotic Neutral with Good tendencies (moving toward CG)
Chaotic Neutral with Evil tendencies (moving toward CE)
Chaotic Evil
Chaotic Evil with Neutral (Law/Chaos) tendencies (moving toward NE)
Chaotic Evil with Neutral (Good/Evil) tendencies (moving toward CN)
So when you picked your alignment, you'd pick your tendency as well. If you shifted along your tendency, you were fine. (Say... Lawful Good with Neutral (law/chaos) tendencies was your alignment. You could be Lawful Good, LG with N tendencies, NG with L tendencies, or NG, and not take alignment penalties). If you slipped on the axis you didn't have a 'tendency' or, went outside your tendency (the above character going to 'NG with chaotic tendencies'), then you'd take alignment penalties.
Honestly, the system didn't last terribly long... maybe a year or so. It really screwed with the secret alignment languages.
someone got too much free time?
I haven't. Your bard should decide his intentions, it could be chaotic evil, or neutral. He could drink it so that the drunken guy would start starving, or he could just drink it because he was thirsty and their was a drink. Such hippy-behaviour would be neutral.
But seriously, if you got no other problems in your group, congratulations.
Secret alignment languages? Mr. Fishy thought that was a joke.
The bard is wait, is the question about the drunk or the bard?
Secret alignment languages? Mr. Fishy thought that was a joke.
It should have been, but yeah... AD&D had 'Alignment Languages'. And it actually became a rules argument over whether or not a player could speak two of them.
Mr. Fishy has a D&D red book with the oooooooold school rules, alignment languages were in there.
We call them Infernal, Abyssal, Celestial, and Fishy now to comfort the noobs.
Back in my 1e days, our DM wanted us to use the following alignments. I will note at this time; I am not making this up. For reference: we also calculated the volume of fireballs in 10' corridors, and calculated falling speeds to determine if you would have time to say the words 'feather fall' before hitting the ground.
Lol did you calculate how heavy his spellbook was. The more spells he had in it, the less likely the poor wizard would have time to say the magic words.
Lol did you calculate how heavy his spellbook was. The more spells he had in it, the less likely the poor wizard would have time to say the magic words.
Back in my 1e days, our DM wanted us to use the following alignments. I will note at this time; I am not making this up. For reference: we also calculated the volume of fireballs in 10' corridors, and calculated falling speeds to determine if you would have time to say the words 'feather fall' before hitting the ground.
I hate to threadjack the satire thread more... but yes, we calculated the weights of spellbooks. And gold. Cleaning out a dragon's lair would take entire adventures, as we divided the goods up into what was high value and what was ok to wait for... we'd ward and protect the area as much as possible, and spend the weeks of travel time back and forth (fighting random encouters the entire way), spend an adventure laundering the wealth, travel back, clean out the lair of the NEW monsters that had faced the wards and taken over the treasure...
Sure, we could try to teleport to speed things up, but teleportation back then could kill you forever. And we didn't have bags of holding or portable holes, either... probably because the DM had so much fun making us haul crap around.
Your DM was a bad man.
Your DM was a bad man.
Well, you have to remember in 1st edition, gold pieces of treasure that you looted were worth XP. Our DM said it had to make it back to town to count for XP... so the Dragon's Hoard was a giant pile of XP on it's own, and so we'd have to 'defeat' the hoard as well.
And of course, it wasn't a pile of gold, plat, gems, and magic items. Oh no, it was a giant mass of copper and silver and trade goods... and much of it would end up melted together from breath weapons/blaster spells.
One day I should tell the story of how he got the Wilderness Survival Guide, a blizzard hit on the way to the dungeon, and we spent 3 months 'adventuring' living in a cave trying to stay warm enough, with enough food to live. The three months trapped in that cave, waiting for a thaw... took 5 game sessions.
Woo-haw!!! Yippee!!!
Random gold for xp! Hooray!
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Lol did you calculate how heavy his spellbook was. The more spells he had in it, the less likely the poor wizard would have time to say the magic words.
Back in my 1e days, our DM wanted us to use the following alignments. I will note at this time; I am not making this up. For reference: we also calculated the volume of fireballs in 10' corridors, and calculated falling speeds to determine if you would have time to say the words 'feather fall' before hitting the ground.
Increased weight wouldn't really affect the falling speed much (at least, not a book's worth). The only time weight affects terminal velocity is by lowering wind resistance, which would be itself primarily based on the position of the mage as he fell, and the clothes he was wearing at the time (why do you think mages wear billowing robes? Style?).
For reference sake, a normal person's terminal velocity is about 193 kph (120 mph) or 54 m/s at about 5 stories (yes, a skydiver goes a bit faster, but they aren't generally wearing street clothes). If you assume it takes one second to say "Feather Fall", then you can safely say that any fall over 5 stories gives you plenty of time. For less than 5 stories it gets more complicated as the body is still accelerating, or course, but realistically 3 stories is about the minimum without some severe drag.
Err... I mean... uh... NERD!
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Man, sometimes I'm GLAD I missed every edition before 3.5....
I'll tell you brother, shoo.
I don't know though, sometimes I miss the days when I had to track my spell components and rolling to attack was less a gamist abstraction and more of a simulation.
I wouldn't want to run a game though, NO WAY.
Back in my 1e days, our DM wanted us to use the following alignments. I will note at this time; I am not making this up. For reference: we also calculated the volume of fireballs in 10' corridors, and calculated falling speeds to determine if you would have time to say the words 'feather fall' before hitting the ground.Increased weight wouldn't really affect the falling speed much (at least, not a book's worth). The only time weight affects terminal velocity is by lowering wind resistance, which would be itself primarily based on the position of the mage as he fell, and the clothes he was wearing at the time (why do you think mages wear billowing robes? Style?).
For reference sake, a normal person's terminal velocity is about 193 kph (120 mph) or 54 m/s at about 5 stories (yes, a skydiver goes a bit faster, but they aren't generally wearing street clothes). If you assume it takes one second to say "Feather Fall", then you can safely say that any fall over 5 stories gives you plenty of time. For less than 5 stories it gets more complicated as the body is still accelerating, or course, but realistically 3 stories is about the minimum without some severe drag.
Err... I mean... uh... NERD!
Actually, if I recall correctly, the case in question was with a caster being picked up on a flyby by a green dragon, carried high into the air, and then the dragon began a power dive and dropped me just as he leveled out, using my body to 'bomb' the party as he hit us with a breath weapon.
I immediately cast 'Feather Fall' and was asked what the casting time was. Given that it was 1/10th of a segment (a segment being 6 seconds, 1/10th of the one-minute combat round), I thought I was fine.
However, it was pointed out that the dragon had begun diving before letting me go, so my velocity started at the dragon's dive speed, and not zero.. Also the argument came up that I wouldn't know the exact instant the dragon let me go, so I had to make a dexterity check to begin casting the spell, with every point i missed the check by costing me 1/10th of a segment. Given the height of the drop and my initial speed, and a bad roll, I was splattered against the ground halfway through casting. And then I got hit with the breath weapon.
I think we could use a new dimension on the N axis.
This Silly/Serious dimension.
Finally I can play the Lawful Stupid character I always wanted to.
as opposed to the Chaotic Stupid ones I always seem to play
For reference: we also calculated the volume of fireballs in 10' corridors, and calculated falling speeds to determine if you would have time to say the words 'feather fall' before hitting the ground.I'm going to start looking up your posts, because your war stories are gonna be epic.
No, his war stories are going to be math
Edit: Ok, I stand corrected. Marshall Jansen has some harrowing tales to tell, and brother, so far they ain't pretty.
My experience of pre-3.X? Illusions. I hate illusions.
No, his war stories are going to be math
Edit: Ok, I stand corrected. Marshall Jansen has some harrowing tales to tell, and brother, so far they ain't pretty.
Most of the stories would be math, of course. Velocities, weights, volumes, pressures... when you're using math like this on a regular basis, it makes you wonder why people complained about THAC0, as that is just addition.
The good stories, though, are ones where the math was an aside. The green dragon battle? After the bombing run (which caused all my potions to shatter, and then we had to roll up all the potion combinations to see if there were any explosions. I had a lot of potions. There was an explosion.) and the breath weapon, the only people left standing were a druid and the paladin, everyone else was dying in negatives, but not dead yet. As the dragon flew back around for the finishing sweep, the paladin prepared a charge... and the druid remembered she had Psionics... and Psionic Blasted the dragon. And the paladin, who was in front of her.
A series of unlikely rolls had the Paladin insane, and the dragon's mind gone. However, we now had several tons of dragon crash-landing on top of the dying party. The druid avoided the crash, and hauled all our crushed corpses back to town. The location of the still living but mindless dragon's body was good to pay for 6 Raise Dead spells and a Heal for the Paladin. A random encounter cost us all a point of Constitution, but we all made our resurrection survival rolls.
My experience of pre-3.X? Illusions. I hate illusions.Disbelieve EVERYTHING!
That was actually the solution to one of the predicaments.
Never ran it, but I've heard tales.
Mr. Fishy had the Night Below box set. Mr. Fishy felt bad just reading that thing. Never had a big enough group to run it. Some place in the adventure were a meat grinder.
...Meanwhile, the Bard playing in the corner continues playing.
-At the end of the set he walks up and finishes the man's coffee (2 sugars) and heads home.I contend that the Bard should be penalized by shifting him towards chaotic, and my players think he is justified since the drunk didn't pay him and the drink would have been wasted anyway?
Your take?
** spoiler omitted **
Bard: "Drainage! Drainage, drunkard, you boy. Drained dry. I'm so sorry."
"Here, if you have a coffee, and I have a coffee, and I have a straw. There it is, that's a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your coffee... I... drink... your... coffee! {sucking sound}"
"I drink it up!"
You realize this is satirical, right?
I wasn't quite in the right mindset when I had read this. xp (Should've taken that coffee for myself)
I think we could use a new dimension on the N axis.
This Silly/Serious dimension.
While we're at it I think we should add the Greedy/Abstemious dimension. So I can properly describe my characters who is evil for the sake of evil and my Lawful Silly Good Greedy Characters :3. Those who are lawfully good just for the attention.
The more the merrier, right? We need more so we can make it to the 8th dimension.
I think we could use a new dimension on the N axis.
This Silly/Serious dimension.
While we're at it I think we should add the Greedy/Abstemious dimension. So I can properly describe my characters who is evil for the sake of evil and my Lawful Silly Good Greedy Characters :3. Those who are lawfully good just for the attention.
Why not also a Liberal/Conservative axis? Then we would have FIVE WHOLE DIMENSIONS!
More is better right? Ok good, just checkin.
The more the merrier, right? We need more so we can make it to the 8th dimension.
So we are going to graph alignments on Time Cube?
Personally I wish to be rid of "alignments"; the whole thing is a can of worms that I believe should be neatly packaged away. My problem with alignments is that they are too vague. What I would prefer to do with alignment based classes is just remove the whole alignment fluff and just leave the code which is restrictive enough (One needs to be written for the monk though). Paladins would no longer detect evil, they'd detect negative energy (exerted from clerics, undead, and 'evil' outsiders). Smite would work the same way (And it would probably balance a lot of the APs anyway)
Hi.