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AndrewTall
07-03-2009, 07:53 PM
I can understand this, but in my oppinion this argument has the flaw that you can't paralelize so much how we lived in our medieval times to a world where there are dragons, magic and all those types of bizarre stuff going on. There are enough fundamental changes in the basics of the world that both "modern tropes" could be common even if they weren't in our normal history.

But I can understand your reasoning and why you like it more, it's just that I don't see it more true than the other point of view because sadly we don't have anything to compare with.

Actually we can compare - we have dozens of cultures to look at in RL, and can readily extrapolize from seeing how they interacted - the difference between non-magic peasant and wizard is far, far less than between the same peasant and the technologically able colonists - and the interaction of that one has many examples.

Eberron pushes magic = common to the limits and shows how different you have to make the world to touch on the sort of cultural differences we've seen in RL.

So take differences that BR is faced with:

Many races? People hear of elves far away in the forests, 'they worship demons and crop their children's ears and pretend to live forever', dwarves 'short men cursed by the gods to live in caves that stole the secrets of the gods and denied them to us, the gods children' - but none of those are likely to live near any of the 'civilised realms' - Halflings - children are everywhere and halflings are surely less fantastic than people with strange coloured skin. Of all the non-human races only goblins are likely to be seen regularly (i.e. more than 1 or 2 examples, or more than a few times in a lifetime) even in frontier lands, not that medieval and earlier RL humans necessarily saw other tribes as 'human' in any event making the goblins just easier targets for rabble rousers and indistinguishable in effect from any number of 'barbarian' races in RL.

Monsters? Unknown near civilisation probably but certainly not dissimilar to the myths of our world (unsurprisingly given their source). The RL peasant strange = danger stereotype is likely to be similar in BR, or even exaggerated since the strange really often is dangerous in BR.

What about religion? In RL we have rich powerful religions - based entirely on fakery, fast talking con-artist, and narrative coincidences. BR has all that, and some true miracle workers - I can't see it being any less powerful or the people being less fervent.

Magic? Mainly tricks and illusions, with true magic so rare that only the upper nobility know anyone who can use it (outside Khinasi certainly). It's effect is minimised by rarity and social issues for all its raw power.

Travel - barring magic travel is no easier in BR than any other medieval culture - so the vast majority of people won't travel.

Frankly the only real difference that is both powerful and common enough to impact most people's lives in BR is priestly healing and the spell plant growth, everything else is limited in area or to certain castes. If you limit the number of true priests to 1-3 per realm like the number of mages is limited then as far as the peasantry is concerned almost nothing changes.


Well, I say that, but there are some subtle if powerful differences.

Gods - no, a truly scary number of people hear little voices in their heads and do as they are told up to and including murder. For most people in BR that's all their gods are as well. So actually gods really existing doesn't change anything, except that in BR people know that the gods can be killed which is always comforting.

Awnshegh - A person's soul corrupting / purifying their body into truly becoming a monster / angel / etc would be mostly legend, but it puts the germ of truth into a vast array of moral tales with several interesting follow on effects on morality and puishments - making ugliness and beauty 'proven' to reflect inner spirituality would just be a starter, although spoiling my rambling this was often suspected - and punished - in RL. I often found that this social aspect was the least utilised part of horros in earthdawn...

Scions - actually these aren't any different from the peasant's view. The nobility has been a breed apart for a long time and often claimed divine favour. But bloodlines would have an impact amongst the nobility, both in reducing social mobility at the top, and in making realm rulership far more efficient than anything in RL barring modern-style governments.

The real differences then are the most familiar to players - character classes.

PC classes I - the impact of classes on gender politics is often overlooked, but if a female cleric, wizard, etc can whomp the crap out of legions on the battle field the old RL chestnut of 'girlies stay at home and do as daddy tells you' is going to evaporate in short order, realm a trains women to knit, realm B trains them to be magicians or priests - which realm probably wins? In RL we have alternated between equality (rare), female rule (early) and male rule (late) but the main dominating factors for men have been brute strength and the danger of pregnancy - classes make the former have sufficient exceptions to make real domination hard, while priestly healing removes the latter completely (1 priest with a lousy L1 cure light wounds and a couple of cantrips can cover a small town and surrounding farms easily).

PC classes II - in RL the number of medieval people who really could whomp a legion is very short, or more accurately, nil - barring some seriou poison and ninja mojo. Frankly most warriors couldn't hope to beat half a dozen reasonably competent guards no matter how legendary they were. A mid to high level PC can total that guard patrol without slowing down - and while a noble might be able to afford better equipment, the scum have the numbers and scorn for death needed for adventuring types, so social mobility through personal power is going to be much more common - closer to the renaissance than most medieval societies.

Otherwise I can't think of much on the fly - if you want different go for it, think of what you want and reverse engineer the legends to get it, but most of the 'huge changes' that people expect don't stand up to scrutiny - the briefest read of medieval legends makes clear that, even if it wasn't found in their home town, miracles were plentiful, magic common, monsters prowled nearby, and so on - although I'm tickled by the idea of cargo cults forming around a settlement that becomes home to a powerful adventuring band...

kgauck
07-04-2009, 12:51 AM
I can understand this, but in my oppinion this argument has the flaw that you can't paralelize so much how we lived in our medieval times to a world where there are dragons, magic and all those types of bizarre stuff going on.

I disagree. The medieval world thought that kings died because of the will of an all powerful divine being, that states rose and fell according to his will, or plan, or punishment. They thought that enemies hexed them and cursed their flocks. They understood the world in supernatural terms, and got the society they got.

We see the world in scientific terms. Someone acts strange, we seek a doctor, who will look for a natural cause according to medical practice. In BR, I drop the modern entirely. People don't get sick because of germs, they get sick because of evil spirits. Washing your hands doesn't keep you healthy, wearing a charm does. If science discovered it after Galileo, or Newton, it doesn't exist in the game. Its magical. Fire is produced by phlogisten, not combustion.

We don't get our fantasy ideas from the sui generis creations of creative people working in game companies. We get them from the ancient and medieval world. Why not simply assume that they were right about things?


This has nothing to do with powergaming Kenneth, we were talking about mechanics and they are pretty clear that halflings aren't going to produce the best mechanically possible fighter.

Power-gaming, according the the DMG (and I think they are in line with the general understanding) describes an attitude that it is desirable to squeeze the best performance out of a build. In this case, you are trying to tell me that a -1 to attacks and defense, with a corresponding +1 to AC and Reflex saves is sub-par. I tell you that even if Halflings got a -1 to Str and got a +1 someplace like Charisma or Wisdom, it would still not be sub-par, because a 5% adjustment is a very small adjustment. Even over a long period of time and many actions. -5% is not sub-par. Now the halfling gets defensive and ranged bonuses that make up a lot of that 5%. But sub-par is well below a 5% penalty. Only a power-gamer would put such a premium on that 5%. Someone else would shrug and might make further decisions, like putting ranks in Profession (Farming).

I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting a character who is as good as he can be at fighting, or that optimizing is bad, or that being motivated by being the best, or getting stronger, or thinking that using the mechanics to best advantage are bad things. But these traits do have a name, and it is power-gaming. Its a descriptive term of a style of play.


Second, I can't discuss about your rules and games because I don't know them, I can only talk about the core books, because they are the middle ground.

I play Birthright, not a vanilla D&D game. But, to extend what I just wrote, a concern with the rules as rules instead of a concern with how to use the rules to achieve some setting, story, or character purpose constitutes a power-gaming approach.

Understanding these perspectives and their implications for play are important to discussing them. Its useful to be explicit about the fact that we don't all sit down for the same reasons and derive pleasure from the same activities.

The question about moving to 4e on a Birthright forum implies that 4e in a BR context is a legitimate aspect of any transition. So those of us more concerned with setting, for instance, or character and story, might be more interested in 4e in BR than a vanilla BR.


Agreed it's a small difference, but we never said they are inviable characters, we said they were supbar (not the best possible) characters.

That's not was par means. Par means expected, normal, average. The word you are looking for is "suboptimal." I still doubt that a halfling is suboptimal, because a bonus to AC can be more useful than a bonus to hit, but its a far less objectionable statement.


and as small guys they can't use a composite longbow (subpar archers).

When the M-16 was adopted, its inferior range was cited as evidence that the US Army was selecting an inferior weapon. The army replied with evidence from previous conflicts and data on encounter distances in Germany (which Cold War planning understood as the principle front) that showed that most encounters took place within the effective range of the M-16.

So the range difference between long and short bow is only an issue if its a common problem, rather than a theoretical problem.

As a setting note, I limit use of the composite longbow to elves and Rjurik anyway. Halflings couldn't use it even if they were medium sized.

So Halflings get a -1 hp damage for using a d6 bow instead of a d8 bow, but they get a +1 to hit because of their dexterity bonus. And a +1 AC against enemy archers, because of Dex. This is starting to look like they are advantaged against everyone except maybe the Elves and Rjurik.


I don't see it as a flaw: every race produces warriors, but they don't have to be of the same quality. As I have shown, the margin of difference is so small as not to be noticeable (random variability will be a larger factor) and so a Halfling unit is as potent as a human unit. And their large felt hats are very stylish.


Having to optimize for a DM style it's a kind of powergaming.
False. Everyone optimizes all the time. Power gaming is optimizing for its own sake, or to power up. Optimizing to match the setting (the Brecht are ruthless hagglers, I should take plenty of Appraise to avoid losing my shirt) is Storyteller, optimizing for character reasons, (my character practices the esteemed craft of Talinean woodcarving and so I'll put a lot of ranks there) is Actor.

If someone optimizes in for debates, diplomacy, court intrigue, and so on because they want to power up or because given a set of rules, they want to have the optimal character, then yes, its power-gaming. If they want a character who fits the setting as I run it they are actors or storytellers.

Obviously people can have more than one motivation, but most gamers are not dwelling in the happy middle, but are more or less clear examples of one or two kinds of play. At some point motivations come into conflict (hey, if I put these ranks into Craft (Woodworking) I'm not putting them into Sense Motive) and we start to see where a player's priorities are.

Vicente
07-04-2009, 03:31 PM
I disagree. The medieval world thought that kings died because of the will of an all powerful divine being, that states rose and fell according to his will, or plan, or punishment. They thought that enemies hexed them and cursed their flocks. They understood the world in supernatural terms, and got the society they got.

We see the world in scientific terms. Someone acts strange, we seek a doctor, who will look for a natural cause according to medical practice. In BR, I drop the modern entirely. People don't get sick because of germs, they get sick because of evil spirits. Washing your hands doesn't keep you healthy, wearing a charm does. If science discovered it after Galileo, or Newton, it doesn't exist in the game. Its magical. Fire is produced by phlogisten, not combustion.

We don't get our fantasy ideas from the sui generis creations of creative people working in game companies. We get them from the ancient and medieval world. Why not simply assume that they were right about things?


I answer Andrew here too, as both of you seem to think the same. I don't agree with both of you because I think that there's a world of difference between something "may be" real and something "is" real for sure.

For example, divine magic: in my oppinion clerics aren't such a strange thing as Andrew claims to be because they were the reason why humans won their war against elves. That means that divine magic is pretty common in human lands. And that changes a whole lot of how the world works: the gods are real, magic is real, elves that live 1000 years are real (like we could make any type of analogy about how an elf would think...).

It's not the same to be a king in real life than to be a king in BR and know that there are some kind of weird things that like to hunt your blood. It could be terrifying for some minor power in Europe to have an audience with Castilla when it was in its most powerful period, but it can't just compare to the terror someone would have if he was having the same audience with the Gorgon. The king of Castilla is a human after all, but the Gorgon is a fricking thing that can petrify you at will. Petrify, a pretty uncommon cause of dead in our real world.

So yes, a lot of things may work similar, but magic, gods, monsters, different races, adventurers,... are real for sure and change a lot how people think and behave overall, enough to make things that would be weird in the Earth pretty normal in Birthright.

The rest, I think it's already pretty off-topic and far less interesting than this.

kgauck
07-04-2009, 05:35 PM
That means that divine magic is pretty common in human lands. And that changes a whole lot of how the world works: the gods are real, magic is real, elves that live 1000 years are real

Priests change bread and water in the body and blood of Christ, and participation in this ritual was a means to obtaining eternal life in a paradise in the divine presence.

Relics of the saints could heal people, strengthen them, buff them in game terms, protect them with huge save bonuses.

God punished people by turning them into salt, making them immolate, creating sufficient water to inundate the planet, parting the Red Sea, sending saints to advise contemporary humans. People were commonly liberated from prisons, miraculously healed, visions of saints and especially the Virgin Mary were quite common (still are).

Joan of Arc was advised by two saints and protected with incredible buffs, allowing a peasant girl to lead an army to victory over the team that won at Agincourt and had been advancing unchecked every since. Eventually the source of her supernatural power was questioned. Not that she had supernatural power, just its source.

Battles won were the work of God, and people gave the Church huge gifts as a result. People wouldn't give such huge gifts for things that weren't real. If forces loyal to Haelyn win a victory, no one doubts that Haelyn's priests cast the decisive battle magic. Why did Henry V promise to build new churches and give more charity to the poor on the night before Agincourt? People took real, concrete actions because of beliefs in supernatural powers. That's what happens in games. People take real, concrete acts because of a belief in supernatural powers.

Sailors encountered sea monsters, adventurers (and there were plenty) encountered strange monsters, other strange races of non-humans, saw artifacts of giants, and land forms altered by giants.


The king of Castilla is a human after all, but the Gorgon is a fricking thing that can petrify you at will. Petrify, a pretty uncommon cause of dead in our real world.

People were afraid of meeting Satan, and knew with a certainty that encounters with him occurred. Satan's powers are not limited by a stat block. Petrification is among them I'm sure. And equally weird stuff is attested.


So yes, a lot of things may work similar, but magic, gods, monsters, different races, adventurers,... are real for sure and change a lot how people think and behave overall, enough to make things that would be weird in the Earth pretty normal in Birthright.


Explain how your certainty that supernatural forces didn't actually impinge on the ancient or medieval world effect those times and places. Medieval daily life is a parade of the weird which is constant evidence of supernatural forces. I don't know what you think is normal. Perhaps you have modern ideas about the cause of lighting that medieval people (and people in Birthright) don't have. In Cerilia, lightning is a sign from the Stormlord. In the early 16th century, a young clerk considering a law career got caught in a lighting storm and thought God was angry with him and he switched from law to theology and became a priest and monk. This fellow, Martin Luther, had quite an impact on the world because of his supernatural explanation for lightning. But I'm sure you think that's perfectly normal.

AndrewTall
07-04-2009, 05:42 PM
I answer Andrew here too, as both of you seem to think the same. I don't agree with both of you because I think that there's a world of difference between something "may be" real and something "is" real for sure.

Not really, the point is 'do people think it is real' - consider the vast wealth of the papacy - all based on superstition and myth, the wars between rival religions that are almost indistinguishable to an outsider (muslim/jew/christian - to me its arguments over the shape of hats, but to some people these are completely different faiths, one of which is real and the others which are lies) to those who believe, it is all real.

It was proved that the world was flat, that the earth went around the sun not the converse - and despite having proof to back their argument it still took centuries for the majority of people to accept it. Evidence rarely changes minds, it just cements opinion. If my neighbour claims that in the city is a woman who can summon fire and lightning without the favour of the gods, then my local priest is going to demand he stops 'lying' - probably forcibly. Since travel is hard how many other people are going to support the neighbour's 'wild tale'?


For example, divine magic: in my oppinion clerics aren't such a strange thing as Andrew claims to be because they were the reason why humans won their war against elves.

So the histories written by the priests say... odd how the goblin priests were less decisive ;) I make spell-casting clerics rare deliberately to suit my campaign and gaming style, but even with a spell-casting priest in most towns and larger villages the key impact will be from L0/1 healing spells on infant/maternal survival and from the plant growth spell, the rest would just be gilding the lily in terms of impact.

Either way I struggle to see the church being less important if priestly magic, gods, etc were real - and it would struggle to be more important, because religion dominated RL in many ways. Frankly I'd recommend that everyone makes spell-casting clerics rare, because a church with more power than RL equivalents pretty much wipes out very other possible regent type and thereby ruins the game.


That means that divine magic is pretty common in human lands. And that changes a whole lot of how the world works: the gods are real, magic is real, elves that live 1000 years are real (like we could make any type of analogy about how an elf would think...).

Priests would in my view vehemently oppose the 'magic is real' approach as it makes them less special and reduces the gods to parlor magicians. Clerical miracles would probably be hoarded to keep them valuable (and expensive) and avoid them becoming familiar - the priests want the gods to be mysterious afterall - that is why people obey the gods and listen to the priests instead of treating them like traders 'bob, I'm going to dig out those rosebushes, I'll pay for a cure light wounds in advance to deal with the bramble scratches'. So I'd expect spell casting priests to refer to their spells as 'miracles' and wizardly spells as 'illusions and deception', and to push the magic = evil devilry or magic = fakery line strongly.

Suggesting that elves are immortal is going to go down in a church inquisition like a ton of bricks - humans are the favoured of the gods (of course), elves are the allies of the Shadow who prove their demon nature by refusing to worship the true gods, thus their beauty is artifice and illusion, they lie about their immortality, their magic, their everything - no priest is going to admit that elves are favoured over humans, particularly favoured with something as inherently 'godly' as immortality.

How elves think will have almost zero impact on humanity - the little that humans see of elves (raiding gheallie sidhe mainly) has very easy analogues with RL. Within the elven communities analogs will of course be rarer - but extrapolation is not difficult - see my wiki page on elves.


It's not the same to be a king in real life than to be a king in BR and know that there are some kind of weird things that like to hunt your blood. It could be terrifying for some minor power in Europe to have an audience with Castilla when it was in its most powerful period, but it can't just compare to the terror someone would have if he was having the same audience with the Gorgon. The king of Castilla is a human after all, but the Gorgon is a fricking thing that can petrify you at will. Petrify, a pretty uncommon cause of dead in our real world.

Dead is dead, RL kings could, and did, perform terrible atrocities routinely (look up Cesare Borgia and consider how relaxed you would be in going to see him to talk your way out of paying your dues), similarly they had plenty of enemies who wanted them dead so that is very little difference to BR where their enemies simply have one more reason to want them dead (bloodline). Even if you add a unique terror to their dealings, how does it change their society? More protections? How does it change the way that non-scions (the bulk of the population) live?


So yes, a lot of things may work similar, but magic, gods, monsters, different races, adventurers,... are real for sure and change a lot how people think and behave overall, enough to make things that would be weird in the Earth pretty normal in Birthright.

What changes in society are you expecting? How common do you think that non-humans, monsters, magic, etc is? Do you actually want to change things a lot? I want to change things that are embarassing, but keep much of the medieval way simply because it makes for a richer gaming environment - and less arguments as a less fantastic society is inherently more familiar.


The rest, I think it's already pretty off-topic and far less interesting than this.

Hmm, we should maybe split the thread, it is branching...

Vicente
07-04-2009, 06:20 PM
Priests change bread and water in the body and blood of Christ, and participation in this ritual was a means to obtaining eternal life in a paradise in the divine presence.

Relics of the saints could heal people, strengthen them, buff them in game terms, protect them with huge save bonuses.


Miracles in history are few, pretty appart from each other and without many eye-witnesses. Divine magic in Birthright is totally different from Earth miracles. The effects are real, easily seen and everywhere.

People took miracles for incredible things and no one would take divine magic at the same level, because it's common and real. I can go to the closest church and ask for a Cure Light Wounds (name the prayer as you like the most) and I know it's going to heal me. In Earth you could try the same and you would never be certain of the result. Divine magic works 100% (and with pretty inmediate results), prayers in Earth could work or not, that's a big difference.



God punished people by turning them into salt, making them immolate, creating sufficient water to inundate the planet, parting the Red Sea, sending saints to advise contemporary humans. People were commonly liberated from prisons, miraculously healed, visions of saints and especially the Virgin Mary were quite common (still are).


Yes, there were stories and books about those things, again different from watching them first person pretty often.



Joan of Arc was advised by two saints and protected with incredible buffs, allowing a peasant girl to lead an army to victory over the team that won at Agincourt and had been advancing unchecked every since. Eventually the source of her supernatural power was questioned. Not that she had supernatural power, just its source.


There's quite a difference in Joan of Arc and the whole array of powerful characters that live in Birthright (and that can do things far more impressive than Joan of Arc). Compare what Joan of Arc did with what Rhuobe can do in a battlefield, it doesn't come even close: Rhuobe could just fight against the whole Agincourt army alone and butcher it single handlely, producing in the process pretty fireworks and a whole other array of special effects.



Sailors encountered sea monsters, adventurers (and there were plenty) encountered strange monsters, other strange races of non-humans, saw artifacts of giants, and land forms altered by giants.


Sailors had a friend of a friend who knew someone who had a brother that had seen a sea monster.



People were afraid of meeting Satan, and knew with a certainty that encounters with him occurred. Satan's powers are not limited by a stat block. Petrification is among them I'm sure. And equally weird stuff is attested.


No one in the middle age times (or nowadays) had a clue how or where to meet Satan in Earth. The Gorgon has a big nice realm with his name in all the maps. If you don't think that makes a difference when you are living in a realm bordering his...

Vicente
07-04-2009, 06:34 PM
Not really, the point is 'do people think it is real' - consider the vast wealth of the papacy - all based on superstition and myth, the wars between rival religions that are almost indistinguishable to an outsider (muslim/jew/christian - to me its arguments over the shape of hats, but to some people these are completely different faiths, one of which is real and the others which are lies) to those who believe, it is all real.


I don't think it's common in Birthright to think that Haelyn is real and Curiacen is not, for example :) People may even preach different gods depending on what they are doing or what favors they are searching.



It was proved that the world was flat, that the earth went around the sun not the converse - and despite having proof to back their argument it still took centuries for the majority of people to accept it. Evidence rarely changes minds, it just cements opinion. If my neighbour claims that in the city is a woman who can summon fire and lightning without the favour of the gods, then my local priest is going to demand he stops 'lying' - probably forcibly. Since travel is hard how many other people are going to support the neighbour's 'wild tale'?


People have been watching those things in Birthright for centuries. It's something that permeates the world since its first days. Also, your priest seems to think like a priest from a place where there's only one god and one single religion. Birthright is a polyteistic place, that's pretty different from our Middle Ages.



So the histories written by the priests say... odd how the goblin priests were less decisive ;) I make spell-casting clerics rare deliberately to suit my campaign and gaming style, but even with a spell-casting priest in most towns and larger villages the key impact will be from L0/1 healing spells on infant/maternal survival and from the plant growth spell, the rest would just be gilding the lily in terms of impact.


The impact is that magic is common, it's accepted. I don't think it's the same to believe something because of supersticion and believe something because you can see it all the mornings when you wake up.



Either way I struggle to see the church being less important if priestly magic, gods, etc were real - and it would struggle to be more important, because religion dominated RL in many ways. Frankly I'd recommend that everyone makes spell-casting clerics rare, because a church with more power than RL equivalents pretty much wipes out very other possible regent type and thereby ruins the game.


The church has also lot of extra work to do that earth churches don't have. For example, if you aren't a "good" priest (follow your ethos), then you may become unable to cast spells. That puts into the priest a total different preasure than earth priests.



Priests would in my view vehemently oppose the 'magic is real' approach as it makes them less special and reduces the gods to parlor magicians. Clerical miracles would probably be hoarded to keep them valuable (and expensive) and avoid them becoming familiar - the priests want the gods to be mysterious afterall - that is why people obey the gods and listen to the priests instead of treating them like traders 'bob, I'm going to dig out those rosebushes, I'll pay for a cure light wounds in advance to deal with the bramble scratches'. So I'd expect spell casting priests to refer to their spells as 'miracles' and wizardly spells as 'illusions and deception', and to push the magic = evil devilry or magic = fakery line strongly.


Ruornil has a problem with this explanation...



Suggesting that elves are immortal is going to go down in a church inquisition like a ton of bricks - humans are the favoured of the gods (of course), elves are the allies of the Shadow who prove their demon nature by refusing to worship the true gods, thus their beauty is artifice and illusion, they lie about their immortality, their magic, their everything - no priest is going to admit that elves are favoured over humans, particularly favoured with something as inherently 'godly' as immortality.


I'm a king, I do diplomacy with an elven or dwarf kingdom, I know for sure they are pretty long lived. There's no way I'm not going to believe that.



Dead is dead, RL kings could, and did, perform terrible atrocities routinely (look up Cesare Borgia and consider how relaxed you would be in going to see him to talk your way out of paying your dues), similarly they had plenty of enemies who wanted them dead so that is very little difference to BR where their enemies simply have one more reason to want them dead (bloodline). Even if you add a unique terror to their dealings, how does it change their society? More protections? How does it change the way that non-scions (the bulk of the population) live?


People could freak out because someone had a different skin color, so imagine watching the Gorgon live. Borgia doesnt' come close either. It provokes in the person a whole set of differences to see a cruel human and to see a cruel non-human. You know you can protect from Borgia, as he has the same types of resources as you, but you know also you can't protect against the Gorgon, no matter what you try to do.



What changes in society are you expecting? How common do you think that non-humans, monsters, magic, etc is? Do you actually want to change things a lot? I want to change things that are embarassing, but keep much of the medieval way simply because it makes for a richer gaming environment - and less arguments as a less fantastic society is inherently more familiar.


Adventurers and their place in society, this started because of them.

Thelandrin
07-04-2009, 09:07 PM
Voila! A new thread for this discussion. Do please continue :)

kgauck
07-04-2009, 11:01 PM
Vicente, I think you are playing a much higher level of fantasy that I am. I also think you are significantly underestimating how miraculous daily (yes daily) life was in the middle ages. Every performance of a mass is a miracle. Healing miracles were a commonplace. Saints are all required to have performed miracles, and there are a boatload of saints. The high level of faith of the middle ages was the consequence of the regular and visible supernatural power of the Church.

Boosting magic beyond the medieval requires a lot of high level casters walking around. I don't think BR demographics supports that. First and second level spells might be commonly witnessed, but 3rd level spells, are well beyond what common people witness. Regents are somewhere between 5th and 12th levels typically, and that means most of their hierarchy is below that. So I don't know what you think most people are seeing on a common basis.

As a player who knows the rules, you know what effect the spells have. An in-character description of spells would be more like what regular people experience when they claim to encounter the supernatural. Often no more than a feeling. If you look at the 2nd level clerical spell list, most of these could easily leave you in doubt as to whether something happened. A player knows Aid grants them a +1, but people can't tell they've received a 5% improvement in ability. Most people are unable to recognize the effects of alcohol impairment until they become severe. Given the freedom of fear and the temporary hit points along with the +1 to hit, Aid is going to make someone feel ready for a fight. That's about it.

Look at it from a regular person's perspective, not someone who knows all of the regents in Cerilia by name, and knows how the rules work, and I think the results look very much like an ancient or medieval religious experience.

AndrewTall
07-05-2009, 08:17 AM
...things in Birthright for centuries. It's something that permeates the world since its first days. Also, your priest seems to think like a priest from a place where there's only one god and one single religion. Birthright is a polyteistic place, that's pretty different from our Middle Ages.

Polytheism has a big impact - but consider roman times which are fairly recent and where you have polytheism mixing with temples of the one god. That means that the BR churches will have some differences to late medieval times, but not as many as some people think - for example, how many chapels in RL are there dedicated to Mary? How many prayers to Jesus / archangels / saints? These are different gods in all but name which gives a very easy way to see how churches of Haelyn (king of the gods) will relate to Avani (his vizier), Cuiraecen (his champion), etc, etc...

Also priest v priest competition is very different to priest v mage - in one you have two people each saying that their god is best. In the second case the wizard is laughing and saying that gods are unnecessary and power comes to any who take it - priests will struggle against each other, but immediately band together to smash mages as a mage is living proof that the priests miracles are mere magic and thus unworthy of worship, they thus undermine the faith, while a rival cleric just twists doctrine...


The impact is that magic is common, it's accepted. I don't think it's the same to believe something because of supersticion and believe something because you can see it all the mornings when you wake up.

I'd point out that to most of the world there is a huge difference between the prayers of a priest, wizardly magic, and magic of monsters. Priestly magic is almost certainly seen as socially good, that in turn pushes the rest to be seen as neutral or evil. And if something is socially seen poorly, it will be seen less often - consider the descriptions of magicians and wizards in Rjruik and vosgaard, a single true wizard in a realm is seen as a catastrophe...

As for common, even if you allow 1 priest per hundred people, and then say half are L1, a quarter are L2, an eighth are L3, etc, etc you have very little magic in the community, as noted even at those fairly common levels you get a major change through curative spells, but not enough to prevent us from extrapolating changes to society which was your initial contention - we have seen the impact that medical care had on society...

So I'm struggling to see magic as common, your peasant goes to the town temple with a farming injury, their father pleads that they are worthy, have paid their tithe, etc, etc, the priests accept the petition and call upon sacred Nesirie for a miracle - and it will all be bound with ritual and pomp and be anything but common - as stated, churches want mystery, they want pageantry, they do not want to be trader joe's who are treated as nothing more than craftsmen, their aim is to gather worship and faith, and that needs to be seen as divine in the RL sense.

As a result the most common spellcasters will be restricting their casting - once or twice in a peasants lifetime they might be healed, perhaps more often for women, that sort of visible magic won't be a daily/weekly event. Accordingly while it will be known that the gods grant power to their servants - just like in RL - 'magic' is otherwise no different from the peasant's perspective in BR or RL.

I question though the assumption you seem to be making that common 'real' magic would make people less likely to believe in 'fake' magic. I wonder if it could have the exact opposite effect and make people more likely to believe that their are fairies in the lonely hill, that the wind blowing through the branches carries witches? What societal changes do you expect magic/classes/etc would have? What changes do you want?


The church has also lot of extra work to do that earth churches don't have. For example, if you aren't a "good" priest (follow your ethos), then you may become unable to cast spells. That puts into the priest a total different preasure than earth priests.

If you have 1-3% of priests casting spells, and maybe 1/2% to 1% magicians in the ranks as well, you still get 96%+ of the clergy unable to cast spells, so the vast majority of the church has exactly the same issues as RL churches. The chrch has boosts from its 'living saints' / miracle workers, but that is no different to having a firebrand preacher who can exorcise demons, lay on hands, induce rapture, etc - all of which the RL churches have had for a long time.


Ruornil has a problem with this explanation...

Ruornil also has almost no churches... And I think that while his people may accept wizards more easily than other faiths, necromancers and anyone dabbling in the shadow world is going to be attacked unrelentingly, the Swordmage is not Medoere's friend! I'd expect that the church of Ruornil has more in-house wizards than other faiths, but that they see 'rogue' mages in a barely more positive light than any other faith...


I'm a king, I do diplomacy with an elven or dwarf kingdom, I know for sure they are pretty long lived. There's no way I'm not going to believe that.

I'm a king, four generations ago my great great grandfather sent a missive that was ignored, now I finally get a response from the elves, they obviously name their children after their fathers... Humans who live 3-4 decades, 5-6 if noble and lucky, and who have little in the way of reliable histories are not going to assume that the elf spoken to in legend is the same elf they are speaking with, much less accept a clear stripling saying that they are centuries old. It is, afterall, very hard to prove that you are immortal.

You might get a handful of cases where diplomacy is common where the aged retainer wonderingly says that 'the prince hasn't aged in all my years', but that is countered by many social factors, not least of which is face recognition for different races - all elves/dwarves look the same to someone who has seen only Anuirean faces their whole life...

My point is, that people don't want to believe that elves are immortal - they may not accept that they are non-human at all. They may well take the view that goblins/dwarves are cursed with ugliness, elves cursed with frailty, etc, but that they are all still human - why you can even breed with them if desperate enough...


People could freak out because someone had a different skin color, so imagine watching the Gorgon live. Borgia doesnt' come close either. It provokes in the person a whole set of differences to see a cruel human and to see a cruel non-human. You know you can protect from Borgia, as he has the same types of resources as you, but you know also you can't protect against the Gorgon, no matter what you try to do.

How many times to people meet el-stony in your game? I'd expect in most his rivings every few generations are about it - you don't bump into him in the market. And as far as 99.9% of the population is concerned they can no more protect against a regent than they can a god - a peasant has their mates, a stout staff, maybe a scythe, hammer, knife, etc - they can't hold their own against any noble, and frankly most nobles would be well aware that they can't challenge any of the realm rulers as well. I'd note that the awe/terror felt by people when going to meet the pope, president, popstar, etc, etc can be very real indeed.


Adventurers and their place in society, this started because of them.

Hmm, I thought it started because you were concerned that we were assuming commonalities with the medieval world which were unsustainable given game mechanic changes.

The major changes that I see are going to come from clerical healing, plant growth, and character levels. The first two have ready RL analogues that we can use in extrapolation, the latter is harder, but should not be overstated - ultra high level characters are very rare, over L9-12 is almost unheard of in human lands, so you will get social mobility and legendary heroes in most realms, but not army-killing engines of destruction. That's deliberate setting design of course, the domain system breaks down if no-one bothers hiring armies to make war...

Vicente
07-05-2009, 11:18 AM
Vicente, I think you are playing a much higher level of fantasy that I am. I also think you are significantly underestimating how miraculous daily (yes daily) life was in the middle ages. Every performance of a mass is a miracle. Healing miracles were a commonplace. Saints are all required to have performed miracles, and there are a boatload of saints. The high level of faith of the middle ages was the consequence of the regular and visible supernatural power of the Church.


I don't think so, I think the problem is you are trying to fit Cerilian rules into Earth rules. In Earth gravity works in some way, no matter if you understand it or not. In Cerilia, the rules of magic say that spellcasters (even L1) can do miracles 24/7 with 100% success rate. That's a rule in Cerilia (and in all DnD), and it will have some effects in how things work for sure (and more: no Saint on Earth comes close to that).

I think it's going to make a difference having an illness and knowing that money (or faith) can solve it 100% sure and having an illness and not having a clue if it's going to be solved or not. That changes the way you confront your life everyday. Maybe peasants aren't going to see this pretty often, but kings and other rulers?



Boosting magic beyond the medieval requires a lot of high level casters walking around. I don't think BR demographics supports that. First and second level spells might be commonly witnessed, but 3rd level spells, are well beyond what common people witness. Regents are somewhere between 5th and 12th levels typically, and that means most of their hierarchy is below that. So I don't know what you think most people are seeing on a common basis.

As a player who knows the rules, you know what effect the spells have. An in-character description of spells would be more like what regular people experience when they claim to encounter the supernatural. Often no more than a feeling. If you look at the 2nd level clerical spell list, most of these could easily leave you in doubt as to whether something happened. A player knows Aid grants them a +1, but people can't tell they've received a 5% improvement in ability. Most people are unable to recognize the effects of alcohol impairment until they become severe. Given the freedom of fear and the temporary hit points along with the +1 to hit, Aid is going to make someone feel ready for a fight. That's about it.


There are low level spells that have pretty clear results (healing is the big one here as Andrew says). It's not boosting magic, it's that given the rules that work in Cerilia magic is very efficient, in a total different level than "magic" on Earth.

kgauck
07-05-2009, 03:44 PM
The impact is that magic is common, it's accepted. I don't think it's the same to believe something because of supersticion and believe something because you can see it all the mornings when you wake up.
This is the core issue here, and I simply don't think that belief based one one kind of evidence beats belief based on evidence. What is important here is not the objective reality that we players accept. Its the degree to which belief was manifest and how it influenced behaviors. Medieval people were so convinced that their supernatural understanding of things was true that it doesn't matter if 1) it was or not, and 2) if you simply gave them additional evidence. When belief is deeply committed (as evidenced in numerous ways, from indulgences, pilgrimages, reliquaries, gifts) you can't get to more deeply committed by proving that something someone thought was real, actually is real.

In some cases, as Andrew has pointed out, routinization of the miraculous makes it less able top be something of commitment because it becomes something you take for granted as a mechanical part of the world. People worshiped storms because they didn't know what they were. Once you understand meterology, storms go from supernatural to natural and cease to be something worthy of veneration. Its just a powerful thing.

So if someone is maxed out on belief, more evidence won't make them more convinced and it might reduce their level of belief.

Also, your assumption about the reliability of magic is not something I would take for granted, both for the reasons I mentioned, because its totally out of character knowledge, and distinguishing between OOC and in-character is an essential part of role playing, but also because the mechanics themselves don't necessarily work that way.

If disease is a supernatural phenomenon caused by spirits, you don't cast cure disease and get a 100% cure. The disease spirit would have its own spell resistance, saving throws, counter attacks, in short it has defenses. When I cast a spell against another spell, there are nice mechanics for who wins or what happens based on my caster level, the spell level I selected, my intelligence bonus, and whatever other bonuses I can bring to bear all against the other spellcaster's caster level, spell level, INT, and other bonuses.

Combating disease works the same way. The Disease can have a base DC like a poison (the best way to go if curing the disease is incidental to the story) or the Disease can function as a rival spellcaster who has a few spells mostly which are symptoms and defenses for the disease. This makes combating illness more like a conflict between magic-users of various sorts. Which I prefer if the disease is more central to the story, such a PC illness or because the party traveled to a place to cure an ally.

DC's can be high. Disease kills people and the results are a normal mortality expectation from a medieval baseline. With spells. Without spells, deaths would be much more common. In the teachings of Hippocrates, the father of medicine from ancient Greece, there were three treatments for medical problems: spells, potions, and surgery. IMC, he was right.


Vicente, I think you are playing a much higher level of fantasy that I am.


I don't think so

On what basis do you make the claim that my fantasy level is as high as yours?


I think the problem is you are trying to fit Cerilian rules into Earth rules.

You are on to something, but missing something at the same time. I'll re-phrase the issue. I am attempting to play a low fantasy game, as I think Birthright is written, with a few spectacular exceptions (a very few high level spellcasters). I think my Birthright is authentic to the source material. When I look at the game world as presented, I see that its based to a large degree on certain real world analogs. The Shadow World is very much a Celtic construct, and the whole world has a lot of Celtic stuff here and there. Celtic names, descriptions, and situations are all over the place. 2e had a source book for Celts. Rifts and GURPS have a source book for Celts as well as books on Celtic derived fantasy stuff like King Arthur. While we're at it, I think Birthright is heavily Arthurian too.

So as I try and understand Cerilia, I don't go to the vanilla D&D first. I go to the foundational material that Baker et al went to. Then I use D&D to mechanize it (instead of GURPS or Rifts or Rolemaster).

I don't want real work Earth conditions to have a controlling impact on Birthright. Just the other day in another thread I warned not to go too far in making one specific Earth culture the basis of any Cerilian one.

There is no country with Anuire's situation or history. The best you can do is draw analogies to elements of Anuire.

Rather, if and when Cerilia can benefit from going back to the source material of the real world Celts, Vikings, Romans, Venetians, Normans, Greeks, &c, &c, the I will do that because the source material is richer than the derivative material.

Second, and here's where your formula was entirely mistaken, I reject the idea that just because its true on Earth or is part of an Earth culture associated with a BR culture, that it must be true in Cerilia too. The correspondence is about looking at the Rjurik, for example, and fleshing them out using Celts, Vikings, and Anglo-Saxons. Not by looing at the Vikings, for example, and deciding the Rjurik must have a trait because the Vikings did.

Birthright was a step away from the high fantasy of the standard AD&D game. Hence certain limitations on magic, both in terms of the levels of official characters, and in terms of rules limiting who could be an arcanist. In other ways it remained a genuine fantasy setting with some circumstances where great magics were still possible. Using literary (Arthur, Lord of the Rings) and historical (like you need examples) sources is a way to flesh out the setting. Its not a way to turn Birthright into something else.


In Earth gravity works in some way, no matter if you understand it or not. In Cerilia, the rules of magic say that spellcasters (even L1) can do miracles 24/7 with 100% success rate. That's a rule in Cerilia (and in all DnD), and it will have some effects in how things work for sure (and more: no Saint on Earth comes close to that).

So I hope its clear that I reject this, because Cerilian magic isn't 100%, isn't so reliable that spells are simply advanced technology in fantasy clothing. One of the elements I think fantasy should never lose (and in this regard I would offer an alternative understanding of high fantasy) is that fantasy is full of wonder. The magic is mysterious. Knowing the game rules is an obstacle to that, because OOC knowledge tends to creep into IC. But mechanical, clockwork reliability to magic undermines it too.


I think it's going to make a difference having an illness and knowing that money (or faith) can solve it 100% sure and having an illness and not having a clue if it's going to be solved or not.

You are right. Money = healing is modern medicine. Or tomorrow's medicine. Its not magical, its not fantastic, its not wonderful. There are rules in the brown books for doing things differently, and mechanics that can be applied in similar, but new ways to make magic into something magical, fantastic, and wonderful again. Basically by using the magic vs magic rules and other rules for encountering the supernatural, like in Heroes of Horror.


There are low level spells that have pretty clear results (healing is the big one here as Andrew says). It's not boosting magic, it's that given the rules that work in Cerilia magic is very efficient, in a total different level than "magic" on Earth.

Many people are still pretty convinced by magic on earth. But even more, efficient magic isn't magic, its technology.

Hat tip to Ryan Caveney.

Birthright-L
07-05-2009, 06:18 PM
Part of the difference being discussed here is a debate between what I like to refer to as anecdotal history and objective history--and how they apply to gaming.

Anecdotal history is the history told by the people themselves. It's full of the frailties of people and their perspectives. It includes everything from racism to idealism, religious ecstasy to the underpinnings of science and technology. It's includes the rationalizations of people too mired in their subjective truth (as most of us are) to get a glimpse of the reality of their circumstances anything more than obliquely. It includes political, social and personal self-interest. It includes their beliefs and understanding of reality. It includes everything from the foibles of kings to the lies of their mistresses.

Objective history is the attempt by historians to apply some sort of rational analysis to the past. It includes, but isn't limited to, all hard and soft sciences. It includes modern thinking and methods. It sifts through all the information available to come up with some sort of amalgamation of past events to develop a meaningful history. Of course, that's a loaded concept because historians exist within the framework of their own anecdotal process, and have their own contextual bias. But there`s really nothing to be done about the Heisenberg`s uncertainty other than to recognize its existence and look to include the variation into the history developed.

So, what we have here to some extent is a debate between what we recognize as the anecdotal history and an objective view of history. Most people in the Middle Ages believed in magic, considered miracles to be relatively commonplace and behaved as if these things were true. We live in a much more objective time how objective is up for debate, of course) and we view that anecdotal history with more than a little suspicion - sometimes even disdain. However, it`s important when viewing the RL Middle Ages and trying to model that period, or use it as the basis of a thematic recreation (gaming) that things like magic, divine rights of kings, the presence of mystical creatures, etc. were largely accepted. A peasant of the 1100`s would probably not behave demonstrably differently towards his local priest than would one in BR, because even if the BR priest can actually perform miracles - and the BR peasant has actually witnessed them - the RL peasant believes that his priest can do the same, and he might very well have witnessed things that he can only explain as miracles.

For example, one fairly common method of determining if a person was lying in the Middle Ages was to have a priest sanctify a lump of bread and then give it to the proposed liar. If he was able to swallow it without choking, then he was telling the truth; if he choked on the bread, then he was lying. From a modern perspective this makes about as much sense as drowning witches, but the interesting thing is that it seems to have worked fairly well. As an objective history, the reasons that it worked are that the people believed it would, so it had a kind of placebo affect on the situation. A liar's faith and awe at the process would affect him psychologically (he'd be nervous and have a dry mouth) which would cause him to fail. An honest person would be relaxed, confident in the truth of his cause (giving him a nice, moist mouth) and he`d be able to swallow the bread more easily. Keep in mind also that priests were often the most educated and intelligent people of the time. A priest is more likely to have had some sort of knowledge of the participants, he might be able to "read" them personally to determine who was lying or telling the truth. As the person in charge of the bread he could control its size, dryness and administration. So the priest himself might play a very active role as a judge in the process.

The point, however, is that from a gaming POV the process that I have objectively described above has very little difference from the social mechanics of spellcasting. A priest performs a ritual in a (probably) unknown language; he evokes a spirit or spirits, he uses mystical tools and then empowers a mundane reagent into a magical object that can perform a specific function. That`s spellcasting in gaming terms, even if we objectively know it was not.

In that context, we have to remember that BR is based on an anecdotal history, not an objective one. The premise of campaign worlds are an anecdotal history expressed as an objective one. There really are miracles, not just the belief in them. There really are monsters, not just the fear of them. There really are gods, not just the worship of them, etc. In gaming we take an extended view of the anecdotal history and press it right through the objective truth to create an alternate reality.

When looking at the differences between BR and the RL Middle Ages then, one must consider the affects of anecdotal history expressed as objective reality, and in doing so remember not only the differences created by such an idea, but also that we, as objectivists, are going to try to apply our own historical context to the process, because that`s simply what people do. It`s hard to ignore our own context, even when we are purposefully setting it aside. It`s even harder in BR because many of the races and situations of the setting are more closely linked to our real world history compared to, say, a setting like Eberron. We know the end result and see the process being transformed through our application of objective history, and it's tempting (irresistible in many ways) not to continue that process into a reading of the setting materials.

There`s another conflict between anecdotal and objective history in the context of gaming: we know that miracles didn't actually happen in the Middle Ages. (At least, most of us don't give a lot of credence to that.) The elephant in the room is that in a game world a suitably powerful wizard could actually get an elephant in the room without too much difficulty. The medieval liar described above might be able to overcome his urge to gag simply because he`s just that good a liar, or the honest person might be called a liar simply because he had a salty breakfast that morning. There's a big difference between the belief that evil beings steal babies and the reality of BR elves actually kidnapping children.

Furthermore, the simple truth is that most of us don't really want to play in a gaming environment that is all that faithful to the anecdotal history in many objective ways. Do we really want to spend a lot of gaming hours dealing with the misogyny of the Middle Ages? Do any of us really want to deal with the brutalities of family dynamics as expressed in the anecdotal history? Does anybody care to deal with the dentistry of the period? Personally, I'll save that for a textbook and play in a setting where everyone has all their teeth in defiance of the reality of the situation. I want a gaming world where the PCs' hair is relatively free of lice, their mothers unbeaten by their fathers as a matter of course, and the nobles don't necessarily marry their daughters off to very old men for political reasons - unless it`s as an adventure hook.

Gary

The Swordgaunt
07-05-2009, 08:48 PM
I get the impression that the core of this discussion is 'to what degree should art imitate life.' The arguments presented are all good, IMO, and I see one issue as the dividing one here: playing styles.

In my portifolio I have a bachellor in history. My interest in that topic stems from my interest in roleplaying. When I GM I tend to use mechanisms from our world to explain why and how. Why? Beacause it gives me a framework. If I need to narrate an encounter in the outskirts of a major trade-port, I have plenty of source-materiel in my head, or in my bookshelf. I believe that both Andrew and Ken use similar sources, and although I am sure that though our styles may match, our worlds are different.

From what I read, Vicente's style differs in a few ways. Most importantly, there is the Adventurer-argument. Take the example of the seafarers. My question here is, what happens when the Monster of the Deep attacks a ship? The answer is that unless there happens to be a hero or three aboard, the odds are good that the ship will be lost with all hands. Now apply playing-style to this scenario. How common are heroes? How common is magic? If things were black or white the captain would either have hired a party of adventurers, or the tale of the Slaying of the Monster of the Deep would enter the collective mythos of the culture. Most of us, I would assume, are somewhere in between.

Now let's look at another item of contention, religion. The other day I watched a documentary about a bunch of people in the States who bring their Polaroid cameras into the desert of Arizona to take pictures of the sun. They firmly believe that in these pictures they can see the Holy Virgin, Jesus, and other biblical figures. In the past, this kind of conviction were common. People, ordinary people, could embark on an epic journey to a place of miracle to be healed. Why, some true pilgrims still exist. Just look at Santiago de Compostela. The same essential question applies here. How common are heroes? Does every hamlet have a healer, or are they few and far between?

On the relationship between temples, we can look to the different faiths of our world for inspiration. Islam recognizes Jesus as a prophet, but the favour is not returned. Blood has been shed between Eastern- and Western Christianity, not to mention between Protestants and papists. Hell, we've even had several popes at once, and no love lost between them. Just because there is no doubt about the existence of other gods and faiths, they do not have to agree. Quite the oposite.

When it comes to elves and beasties, the exact same question has to be asked. And the answer comes down to playing-styles. Simple as that. How much of life do we want in our art? My guiding principle is 'suspension of disbelief', and I am fully aware that this varies from player to player. As an add-on to this, I've added 'if everyone is special, no one is'. This is why Birthright is my favoued fantasy setting. It is low-fantasy, so both my principles are met. This allows me freedom to tell the story, as I see it.

One last thing on using RL-references in fantasy storytelling. There is, as far as I know, not a single game or work of fiction in the genre that doesn't use those. Swords are one example, Tolkien's massive use of historical, linguistical, cultural and anecdotal references is another. It all comes down to preferences and style.

Vicente
07-05-2009, 10:56 PM
Polytheism has a big impact - but consider roman times which are fairly recent and where you have polytheism mixing with temples of the one god. That means that the BR churches will have some differences to late medieval times, but not as many as some people think - for example, how many chapels in RL are there dedicated to Mary? How many prayers to Jesus / archangels / saints? These are different gods in all but name which gives a very easy way to see how churches of Haelyn (king of the gods) will relate to Avani (his vizier), Cuiraecen (his champion), etc, etc...


Churches are the house of God, and then they can be dedicated to some Saint, Virgin or whatever, but they are for God in the end. Temples of Nesirie aren't for Haelyn at all. Saints, angels,... are powerful beings but no one would compare them to God.



Also priest v priest competition is very different to priest v mage - in one you have two people each saying that their god is best. In the second case the wizard is laughing and saying that gods are unnecessary and power comes to any who take it - priests will struggle against each other, but immediately band together to smash mages as a mage is living proof that the priests miracles are mere magic and thus unworthy of worship, they thus undermine the faith, while a rival cleric just twists doctrine...


I don't think this makes sense in Birthright: true mages can cast spells because they have the blood of the old gods, they can't hardly say gods are unnecesary. Elves may recieve this treatment (among many other reasons), but I don't see that arrogant human mage archetype you are saying pretty common in Cerilia (maybe some are like that, but mages aren't so idiot in general).



So I'm struggling to see magic as common, your peasant goes to the town temple with a farming injury, their father pleads that they are worthy, have paid their tithe, etc, etc, the priests accept the petition and call upon sacred Nesirie for a miracle - and it will all be bound with ritual and pomp and be anything but common - as stated, churches want mystery, they want pageantry, they do not want to be trader joe's who are treated as nothing more than craftsmen, their aim is to gather worship and faith, and that needs to be seen as divine in the RL sense.

As a result the most common spellcasters will be restricting their casting - once or twice in a peasants lifetime they might be healed, perhaps more often for women, that sort of visible magic won't be a daily/weekly event. Accordingly while it will be known that the gods grant power to their servants - just like in RL - 'magic' is otherwise no different from the peasant's perspective in BR or RL.


This point of the argument is the one I find more strange: why priests would behave as you say? They want people following them, they want people praying their gods, and casting as much as possible is the best way to get that by a far margin. Casting every sun eclipse is going to make the guy who casts all the mornings popular very quickly.

Also remember that Birthright has two things without an equivalent in real life: the first one is alignment. Priests can't do whatever they want: priests able to cast spells from a good god can't have a happy face in front of you and be a terrible evil person on the inside, that doesn't work in Cerilia.

The second one is that the current gods used to be humans (that they are the second wave of gods is pretty strange by itself). I suppose in my games that's common knowledge in Birthright, but I get the feeling no one knows that in your world...



If you have 1-3% of priests casting spells, and maybe 1/2% to 1% magicians in the ranks as well, you still get 96%+ of the clergy unable to cast spells, so the vast majority of the church has exactly the same issues as RL churches. The chrch has boosts from its 'living saints' / miracle workers, but that is no different to having a firebrand preacher who can exorcise demons, lay on hands, induce rapture, etc - all of which the RL churches have had for a long time.


That's something real life churches did, but that's something strange for a Birthright church to do: if you were the leader of a church, why would you risk your reputation sending someone to do a work that you know he can't do for sure? Why not sending the one who can do it? This would be like a regent sending a lieutenant to handle a problem that you know in advance he can't manage: a mess.



I'm a king, four generations ago my great great grandfather sent a missive that was ignored, now I finally get a response from the elves, they obviously name their children after their fathers... Humans who live 3-4 decades, 5-6 if noble and lucky, and who have little in the way of reliable histories are not going to assume that the elf spoken to in legend is the same elf they are speaking with, much less accept a clear stripling saying that they are centuries old. It is, afterall, very hard to prove that you are immortal.

You might get a handful of cases where diplomacy is common where the aged retainer wonderingly says that 'the prince hasn't aged in all my years', but that is countered by many social factors, not least of which is face recognition for different races - all elves/dwarves look the same to someone who has seen only Anuirean faces their whole life...


There's an elf with a realm in all the maps who by the way, fought in Deismaar. Again, that's common knowledge in my games. Given that, there's quite a strong evidence that elves are long lived. People who border elven or dwarf realms and have to interact with them (even if it's not much) may have extra clues to believe that, specially regents (that I see as pretty well informed in general).

And that's not entering in other stranger reasons like having elven prisioners who don't age or something along those lines.



My point is, that people don't want to believe that elves are immortal - they may not accept that they are non-human at all. They may well take the view that goblins/dwarves are cursed with ugliness, elves cursed with frailty, etc, but that they are all still human - why you can even breed with them if desperate enough...


Again, I see that as trying to fit an Earth explanation into Birthright. There was people on earth that would be called dwarf because their size (and that size could be explained as you like the most: genetics, curses, whatever), but there was not a whole kingdom of dwarves in the Earth.

Goblins, orogs, dwarves, elves,... why you are going to think they are cursed humans when they are so "common"? I don't think that makes sense either. And what dwarves think about orogs? Do they think humans are tall dwarves? And elves are tall skiny humans that are really dwarves?)



How many times to people meet el-stony in your game? I'd expect in most his rivings every few generations are about it - you don't bump into him in the market. And as far as 99.9% of the population is concerned they can no more protect against a regent than they can a god - a peasant has their mates, a stout staff, maybe a scythe, hammer, knife, etc - they can't hold their own against any noble, and frankly most nobles would be well aware that they can't challenge any of the realm rulers as well. I'd note that the awe/terror felt by people when going to meet the pope, president, popstar, etc, etc can be very real indeed.


No one has met him ever (honestly, I think he has no place in the setting, a really powerful, highly intelligent guy who doesn't get what he wants even if nothing can stop him).

I agree that you can feel terror or awe meeting a really important person, but meeting Satan or God would be in a total different level than meeting any human in the Earth. The same happens with the Gorgon, but the Gorgon is closer than God and Satan, he has a realm, troops, he killed the last emperor, he is the brother of a god, he fought in the battle that defined the world,...

In the end, if you are a peasant, you know swords and arrows kill nobles as well as they kill you, but the Gorgon is a whole different matter.



Hmm, I thought it started because you were concerned that we were assuming commonalities with the medieval world which were unsustainable given game mechanic changes.

The major changes that I see are going to come from clerical healing, plant growth, and character levels. The first two have ready RL analogues that we can use in extrapolation, the latter is harder, but should not be overstated - ultra high level characters are very rare, over L9-12 is almost unheard of in human lands, so you will get social mobility and legendary heroes in most realms, but not army-killing engines of destruction. That's deliberate setting design of course, the domain system breaks down if no-one bothers hiring armies to make war...


This started (I think) about how adventurer parties would be formed and how adventures would find them. I proposed two things that Kenneth said that wouldn't be common or make much sense in our middle ages and I said that Cerilia and the Earth have enough differences to allow those things to be acommodated in the game without breaking the feeling. I agree that drawing paralellisms to our middle ages makes playing easier, but I can't agree saying something it's highly improbable because it just was in the Earth.

Thelandrin
07-05-2009, 11:53 PM
I think it's entirely possible to be "the serpent underneath", if you'll forgive the Shakespearian quote. There is an LE priest of Haelyn after all, so the strict 3E alignment requirements (obviously) weren't taken into account.

Vicente
07-06-2009, 12:07 AM
This is the core issue here, and I simply don't think that belief based one one kind of evidence beats belief based on evidence. What is important here is not the objective reality that we players accept. Its the degree to which belief was manifest and how it influenced behaviors. Medieval people were so convinced that their supernatural understanding of things was true that it doesn't matter if 1) it was or not, and 2) if you simply gave them additional evidence. When belief is deeply committed (as evidenced in numerous ways, from indulgences, pilgrimages, reliquaries, gifts) you can't get to more deeply committed by proving that something someone thought was real, actually is real.


I do think it beats it. We have a peasant, and he has a wife and a son. They are the most importants things in his life. But first his wife gets ill. In Birthright he lives close to a cleric able to cast a prayer (CLW) that saves her. In Earth middle ages the same happens and she may or not live. Let's say she dies. And then the same happens with my son.

I fail to see that the peasant would behave and think the same in Birthright and in Earth. Also, take into account that the gods in Birthright are a whole different thing than God, specially in alignment (I don't think personally God as stated is LG/NG/CG).



People worshiped storms because they didn't know what they were. Once you understand meterology, storms go from supernatural to natural and cease to be something worthy of veneration. Its just a powerful thing.


Yes, but gods are never going to be explained. And even if they are, the nice thing is that in Birthright they are 100% real, so there's a really solid reason to believe in them.



So if someone is maxed out on belief, more evidence won't make them more convinced and it might reduce their level of belief.


I don't think people in middle ages was maxed out on belief at all. But it was pretty dangerous to say you weren't and it didn't hurt at all to say you were. And I fail to see how you are going to have a problem believing in something that exists for sure (you wouldn't even use "belief" then).

You know gods exists, you know heaven exists, you can see their work in the Earth commonly, you know that when you die you are going to go for the whole eternity to a good place or to a bad place. It's pretty easy to believe with all those facts (and a far more natural process).



On what basis do you make the claim that my fantasy level is as high as yours?


I do say it in the basis that I think you are putting my fantasy level much higher than it is.



Birthright was a step away from the high fantasy of the standard AD&D game. Hence certain limitations on magic, both in terms of the levels of official characters, and in terms of rules limiting who could be an arcanist. In other ways it remained a genuine fantasy setting with some circumstances where great magics were still possible. Using literary (Arthur, Lord of the Rings) and historical (like you need examples) sources is a way to flesh out the setting. Its not a way to turn Birthright into something else.


Yes, magic, non-humans,... are not as common as in Forgotten Realms, but they are a lot more common than they were in the Earth. I don't see how I'm turning Birthright into something else by saying that magic works as it's supposed to do and that given that magic exists people will behave different in some situations than in the Earth.

I personally think that the half-step that Birthright takes to try to move away from high fantasy makes it totally broken in the beliavility department, but that's for another thread (Gorgon or Rhuobe not conquering/killing anything in 10000 miles around them doesn't make any sense). Birthright would be much better served if those high-level anomalies didn't exist, because they exist only to challenge characters and not because they make any sense inside the setting as presented.



So I hope its clear that I reject this, because Cerilian magic isn't 100%, isn't so reliable that spells are simply advanced technology in fantasy clothing. One of the elements I think fantasy should never lose (and in this regard I would offer an alternative understanding of high fantasy) is that fantasy is full of wonder. The magic is mysterious. Knowing the game rules is an obstacle to that, because OOC knowledge tends to creep into IC. But mechanical, clockwork reliability to magic undermines it too.


Gravity is 100% reliable: everytime I throw a stone up, it comes down. Magic has the same type of reliabiliy because the laws of magic in Cerilia are stated the way they are. And even with 100% reliability it continues to be full of wonder, I don't think those two things are exclusive.



Many people are still pretty convinced by magic on earth. But even more, efficient magic isn't magic, its technology.


The problem is that magic as defined in Dungeons and Dragons is efficient. You may don't like it, but it is efficient in DnD so it is in Birthright. Birthright only made it less common. But a CLW works the same in Faerun or Cerilia or Absalom.

Vicente
07-06-2009, 12:34 PM
I think it's entirely possible to be "the serpent underneath", if you'll forgive the Shakespearian quote. There is an LE priest of Haelyn after all, so the strict 3E alignment requirements (obviously) weren't taken into account.

Good catch: reading the Book of Priestcraft I see that priests are limited by alignment but not limited to their god alignment only. So the "alignment restriction" continues existing (although not as strong as I stated it).

AndrewTall
07-08-2009, 07:43 PM
Hmm, the trouble here, is that the more I follow the discussion, the more I think that Br will be more like RL for the most part.

* Priests really can cure people = people more likely to believe

* Wizards really can cast spells - and ones equal in power to the priests, they gain their power from demons (Azrai/elves) = priests really don't like wizards and consider them at best as rivals.

* Nobles really have divine power = peasants really revere them as 'betters'

* People who have milky skin & white hair, black skin & curly hair, brown skinned / yellow skinned, etc, etc are different, follow strange customs, worship foreign gods and are thus evil and dangerous = people who have green skin / scales / short / tall etc are different, follow strange customs, etc, etc

Basically you get flavour changes, a few social differences, but otherwise just more of the same.

Frankly rather than 'peasants are different, open minded, tolerant, socially mobile' I get 'peasants stick to their own, shun strangers, live out their parent's lives' etc.


The Gorgon, Rhoubhe, etc can be issues - but only get more so as fantasy increases. My Rhoubhe could cut a bloody swathe from court to court yes, but he'd better not attack an army or risk a fe lucky hits, being court in a net, etc, etc - and even if successful returning home to a burnt desert sown with salt with only the scaffolds from which his followers hung as trees...

The Gorgon has his own court, knightly orders (the last true Andu), problems with the shadow World, struggles against the gods themselves, etc, etc - he has no interest in fighting for the throne of Anuire, he wants Belinik licking his boots and Haelyn kneeling before him apologising for his folly in not supporting him to become first emperor...


As for my gods, everyone knows that Haelyn, etc ascended - they were a) in charge, b) where the glowing crater is now and c) vanished without a trace when the mushroom cloud appeared (so did many thousands of others, but they were mostly peasants so don't count) ergo clearly they ascended to heaven. What I don't do is have actual gods in play - the closest things are the Gorgon, the Serpent, and the Spider. The Raven, Magian and White Witch have realised that they need tens of thousands of mortal worshipers but are way behind... Partly that's because I want scheming conniving priests, and partly because I used to feel weird roleplaying a god.

Vicente
07-08-2009, 09:29 PM
Hmm, the trouble here, is that the more I follow the discussion, the more I think that Br will be more like RL for the most part.

* Priests really can cure people = people more likely to believe


Believing or not is not an option in Birthright, that's the point. I continue thinking that changes at least a little how people behave and more important, how the Church behaves, because in the Earth for example it can have people not believing in its high ranks, something just impossible in Birthright.



* Wizards really can cast spells - and ones equal in power to the priests, they gain their power from demons (Azrai/elves) = priests really don't like wizards and consider them at best as rivals.

* Nobles really have divine power = peasants really revere them as 'betters'

* People who have milky skin & white hair, black skin & curly hair, brown skinned / yellow skinned, etc, etc are different, follow strange customs, worship foreign gods and are thus evil and dangerous = people who have green skin / scales / short / tall etc are different, follow strange customs, etc, etc

Basically you get flavour changes, a few social differences, but otherwise just more of the same.

Frankly rather than 'peasants are different, open minded, tolerant, socially mobile' I get 'peasants stick to their own, shun strangers, live out their parent's lives' etc.


Again, it's going to be different enough to admit differences here and there without breaking the overall feeling. I think I never said it was going to be a total alien world.



The Gorgon, Rhoubhe, etc can be issues - but only get more so as fantasy increases. My Rhoubhe could cut a bloody swathe from court to court yes, but he'd better not attack an army or risk a fe lucky hits, being court in a net, etc, etc - and even if successful returning home to a burnt desert sown with salt with only the scaffolds from which his followers hung as trees...


This is pretty off topic but I'm really interested in these questions.

In the time an army marches from Avanil or Boeruine to his domain, Rhuobe can kill most of the nobility in both kingdoms (rendering them unable to take actions), kill the army chain of command (rendering it unable to do bad things to his domain), and drink some mojitos. He just doesn't do it because... no idea. Rhuobe has the intelligence, the experience, the personal power, and the motivation to wreak havoc around his kingdom.

Btw, I'm curious, but how do you think an army is going to have a chance of hitting Rhuobe? Technically that's impossible as he is inmune to normal weapons and missile weapons. The only thing would be something like overpowering him and capturing him, but he has to behave like a total idiot to allow that to happen (and even that could be arguable to work).

This has nothing to do with the fantasy level, it's just that the Rhuobe that comes in the Boxed Set is overpowered.



The Gorgon has his own court, knightly orders (the last true Andu), problems with the shadow World, struggles against the gods themselves, etc, etc - he has no interest in fighting for the throne of Anuire, he wants Belinik licking his boots and Haelyn kneeling before him apologising for his folly in not supporting him to become first emperor...


The Gorgon is even worse than Rhuobe, he has Int 19, and appart from personal power, experience and motivation, he has resources at his disposal. He could conquer all Anuire (easy) to make people worship him (harder) if he really wants godhood and see other gods crying (simple idea, I'm sure he can come up with much more convoluted and complicated plans to achieve his goals).

irdeggman
07-09-2009, 10:38 AM
It seems to me that at the crux of most issues here are actually the same as comparing "history" to "fiction".

D&D is fiction - at its core and every single part of it. Some of it may be "similar" to history (or fact) but it is very much different.

Some people want to make their game "more realistic" - this is not a BR only issue, many DMs/players prefer games of that kind.

BR by its realm and war rules lent itself to be more accepted by those seeking more realistic type of play. The realm and war rules were for the most part things that could work with wargamers. Wargamers have a tendency to focus on mathmatics and "realism". Not all but a wargamer who doesn't also play D&D (or other role-playing games) is a different animal and looks at things from a different perspective.

A lot of people seem to get focused so tightly on RW comparisons that the miss the role-play/fantasy part of BR. BR is not a real world it is a fictional place.

Birthright-L
07-09-2009, 05:45 PM
At 03:38 AM 7/9/2009, irdeggman wrote:

>A lot of people seem to get focused so tightly on RW comparisons that the miss the role-play/fantasy part of BR. BR is not a real world it is a fictional place.


Hear, hear. I like a certain level of realism in gaming, but only to that extent that the realism is based on those aspects of the game that are consistent with the real world, and that the realism doesn`t subvert the concept of gaming itself. That is, when people come up with things like the way falling damage might work compared to actual physics then I`m fine with that. It`s good to know how long it takes for someone to reach terminal velocity. However, once they take that "realism" and put it into something like hit points, we start running into trouble because the game aspect of the hobby starts to rear its head. You can`t realistically portray impact damage in hit points because hit points don`t represent only physical force. In that context, it`s reasonable for falling damage to go beyond something like terminal velocity because hit points represent the will, expectation and placebo effect of damage as well as the effects on muscle, bone and sinew. It makes gaming sense for something like falling damage to go above and beyond (or below and under) the physics of a fall based on the simple fact that the game isn`t just about force and trauma. It`s interpretive. The same 12 hit points of damage from a sword swipe might represent a serious injury to one low level fighter, because it represents half his hit point total, but the same amount of damage might be nothing more than a scratch or just a psychological effect on a higher level one.

Similarly, the "realism" that many people espouse is often much more interpretive than most folks want to admit. For example, what one person takes from the meaning of an action by Elizabeth Tudor might be very different from how another person sees the exact same event. Was Walsingham a spymaster/regent with guilds in his own right, or a Lieutenant of Elizabeth at some imperial level of some sort of domain system? Did he represent something else altogether? The concept of realism in politics is a very slippery one to begin with, so we must be particularly careful with it in BR.

When it comes to military concepts we should be also reticent to claim realism as a rationalization for the game effects because we have several problems of the type described above. One of the sources of the current debate--whether medieval castles could be taken by siege or overwhelmed and how that is portrayed in the game--is problematic on several levels. First, we need to note that the castles described in the BR materials may or may not be very analogous to medieval castles in several ways. A castle (3) doesn`t sound like Krak des Chevaliers to me. Personally, I`m not even certain that the most extensive castles described in the BR domain rules adequately describe the kind of construction process that medieval stronghold architecture really is about. Those castles that we might consider impervious to siege/assault by conventional means represent years, sometimes decades of construction, tens of thousands of man hours, and vast amounts of wealth. 6-8GB/level and a few months of building doesn`t really cut it IMO.

Similarly, the strength of castles in the medieval period is in many ways not even about warfare at all--it`s about suppressing the local population. It`s a political statement. Edward I (Longshanks) probably didn`t really expect to fight war in the sense that most people think about the concept when he began his building campaigns in Wales. It was to suppress rebellion with the threat of perpetual predation from nearby garrisons, and to frighten them into subservience with the scale of his power. The castles themselves are more like Agitate, Decrees or Monuments in BR terms in this sense. Nobody in their right minds would assault them before the age of gunpowder.

In that context, why would be assume that BR siege and assault resembles that of the real world? BR is a "low-magic" world, but just a little magic is very useful against a mundane fortification--even an extensive one like the most impregnable real world castles. If medieval besiegers could turn invisible, warp wood, turn stone to mud, levitate, teleport, scry, etc. then the history of medieval military architecture would be very different.

So, we must be cautious about making absolute rulings on these kinds of ideas on several levels, and always bear in mind that the system is meant to be dynamic, not simply a recreation of existing, metaphorical events.

Gary

AndrewTall
07-09-2009, 07:27 PM
Believing or not is not an option in Birthright, that's the point. I continue thinking that changes at least a little how people behave and more important, how the Church behaves, because in the Earth for example it can have people not believing in its high ranks, something just impossible in Birthright.

Why? Sorry, missing this bit entirely - why can't someone who doesn't 'believe' reach high political power? Or someone who believes, but whose personal interpretation is widely different to the norm? Most priests don't cast spells so don't lose anything by non-belief, other priests could be granted spells by an alternate power even if unaware of the true source (i.e. Torias Greene). Are your gods very close to your world so that they would a) know and b) act to stop such a person reaching high power? If so, why? If the person serves their church well, who cares if they can cast magic? If your gods are more distant leaving the running of the church to, well, the church, then I don't see any problem at all, frankly I can only see an improvement from a role-play perspective in scheming priests.


Again, it's going to be different enough to admit differences here and there without breaking the overall feeling. I think I never said it was going to be a total alien world.

Ok, I misunderstood then.



This is pretty off topic but I'm really interested in these questions.

In the time an army marches from Avanil or Boeruine to his domain, Rhuobe can kill most of the nobility in both kingdoms (rendering them unable to take actions), kill the army chain of command (rendering it unable to do bad things to his domain), and drink some mojitos. He just doesn't do it because... no idea. Rhuobe has the intelligence, the experience, the personal power, and the motivation to wreak havoc around his kingdom.

Really, he must be able to run very fast... Remove rapid transit magic, or routing it through the shadow world (where awnshegh are going to be very much unwelcome) and everyone is stuck with foot, horse, or possibly flight. Note also that even if Rhuobhe did kill several hundred of the humans, in an eyeblink - certainly less than a single century - the humans would be as numerous again. Whereas his beloved sidhe would be utterly gone due to his failure to protect them and decision to provoke thousands to attack... Frankly killing a human is pointless, mildly entertaining perhaps, but it doesn't do anything to further his goals - would you try to kill all the ants in a world? Would it do any good if you did?

Rhuobhe is caught on a dilemma, he can't afford to lose anyone, he can't grow without support and has none of any note, frankly he lost 15 centuries ago, he's just refusing to die in the hope that the universe can be persuaded to change its mind.


Btw, I'm curious, but how do you think an army is going to have a chance of hitting Rhuobe? Technically that's impossible as he is inmune to normal weapons and missile weapons. The only thing would be something like overpowering him and capturing him, but he has to behave like a total idiot to allow that to happen (and even that could be arguable to work).

I should note from the outset I approach 'dragons' (basically any thing with high magic and high brute force ability) from the approach of 'how do I cut this freak down to size' - because I don't want them saying 'I turn up, I win'. I want a game where civilisation is possible, and it just doesn't work if what are effectively gods walk the land with a major dislike of humanity.

I am heavily into grapples against any mage who thinks they can fly above it all and rain down fiery doom, use swarm combat rules, momentum in the dead (no, if Rhoubhe kills the knights charger as it bears down on him, it doesn't disintegrate with the only impact a few gp chinging on to his gp total, the body plows into him and he risks being crushed and pinned), and abstract fatigue if someone insists on fighting non-stop for hours on end.

People can rope bulls, tire out elephants, etc, etc - nothing mortal and physical can attack an army that is even remotely competently run and hope to slaughter them all. Hope, even expect, to kill dozens, even hundreds, yes - but sooner or later the dragon will be immobilised and then slaughtered regardless of its defenses.

Both the Gorgon and Rhoubhe are gestalt's of course, the uber-no of both high magic and high sorcery, but if you approach the problem from the angle of 'what works to stop him since something does' as opposed to the munchkin 'how can I argue that he can't be stopped' it isn't hard to get something that makes sense.


This has nothing to do with the fantasy level, it's just that the Rhuobe that comes in the Boxed Set is overpowered.

Agreed, but then, like the dragons and Gorgon, he's a McGuffin not an enemy. If you want to use him as an enemy you need to make him more believable - what the heck was he fighting to gain those last few levels? Heck, the last dozen?

[QUOTE=Vicente;50695]The Gorgon is even worse than Rhuobe, he has Int 19, and appart from personal power, experience and motivation, he has resources at his disposal. He could conquer all Anuire (easy) to make people worship him (harder) if he really wants godhood and see other gods crying (simple idea, I'm sure he can come up with much more convoluted and complicated plans to achieve his goals).

Indeed, he pushes the gestalt even further, personally I lost interest in creating the 'unbeatable' monster/character a long time ago, the closest I've come in a long time was Great Aunt Katrina in PS Danigau - and she was built purely to see how ridiculous the BRCS Gorgon was.

Personally I'd cut his int, remove all spellcasting, and leave him the paragon fighter, probably resistant to magic, but ultimately L20-30 not L40+ as in some conversions. Better yet I'd remove him entirely, he serves little purpose that can't be served by something less godlike.

Vicente
07-09-2009, 08:43 PM
Why? Sorry, missing this bit entirely - why can't someone who doesn't 'believe' reach high political power?


Honestly, I just took for granted that churches are going to be lead by spellcasting priests. I find impossible in Birthright (or DnD) that a non-priest leads a church (unless something really strange is happening).



Or someone who believes, but whose personal interpretation is widely different to the norm? Most priests don't cast spells so don't lose anything by non-belief, other priests could be granted spells by an alternate power even if unaware of the true source (i.e. Torias Greene). Are your gods very close to your world so that they would a) know and b) act to stop such a person reaching high power?

If so, why? If the person serves their church well, who cares if they can cast magic? If your gods are more distant leaving the running of the church to, well, the church, then I don't see any problem at all, frankly I can only see an improvement from a role-play perspective in scheming priests.


No, my gods aren't close to the world at all. But, why would a church be lead by someone who doesn't have the favor of it god at all? I don't think it's going to be easy for that person to maintain its leadership position against priests with ambitions. That person has a lot of other jobs that fit him much better: support role (advisor, lieutenant), power in the shadows,...

But this is a total personal interpretation of how power places are taken, nothing really to back this. For me it seems logical that power places are taken by powerful (personally) individuals that are related to the power source. It would be similar to a fighter leading a cabal of wizards, it's totally out of place :S



Really, he must be able to run very fast... Remove rapid transit magic, or routing it through the shadow world (where awnshegh are going to be very much unwelcome) and everyone is stuck with foot, horse, or possibly flight. Note also that even if Rhuobhe did kill several hundred of the humans, in an eyeblink - certainly less than a single century - the humans would be as numerous again. Whereas his beloved sidhe would be utterly gone due to his failure to protect them and decision to provoke thousands to attack... Frankly killing a human is pointless, mildly entertaining perhaps, but it doesn't do anything to further his goals - would you try to kill all the ants in a world? Would it do any good if you did?

Rhuobhe is caught on a dilemma, he can't afford to lose anyone, he can't grow without support and has none of any note, frankly he lost 15 centuries ago, he's just refusing to die in the hope that the universe can be persuaded to change its mind.


I don't think after the display of destruction that Rhuobe can do any sane person would be willing to attack him or his kingdom without guarantees of success. And given he has access to Realm Magic he can just ward his province and keep everyone outside if needed.

But, what are Rhuobe goals in your opinion?



I should note from the outset I approach 'dragons' (basically any thing with high magic and high brute force ability) from the approach of 'how do I cut this freak down to size' - because I don't want them saying 'I turn up, I win'. I want a game where civilisation is possible, and it just doesn't work if what are effectively gods walk the land with a major dislike of humanity.

I am heavily into grapples against any mage who thinks they can fly above it all and rain down fiery doom, use swarm combat rules, momentum in the dead (no, if Rhoubhe kills the knights charger as it bears down on him, it doesn't disintegrate with the only impact a few gp chinging on to his gp total, the body plows into him and he risks being crushed and pinned), and abstract fatigue if someone insists on fighting non-stop for hours on end.

People can rope bulls, tire out elephants, etc, etc - nothing mortal and physical can attack an army that is even remotely competently run and hope to slaughter them all. Hope, even expect, to kill dozens, even hundreds, yes - but sooner or later the dragon will be immobilised and then slaughtered regardless of its defenses.

Both the Gorgon and Rhoubhe are gestalt's of course, the uber-no of both high magic and high sorcery, but if you approach the problem from the angle of 'what works to stop him since something does' as opposed to the munchkin 'how can I argue that he can't be stopped' it isn't hard to get something that makes sense.


I think you are severely understimating Rhuobe or magic in general. For example: fly, improved invisibility, and then he has a ton of rounds to butcher the army command: cloud kill, death spell, summon fire elemental (are you going to grapple that? ;)), and all the rest of evocations and summonings that could just render the army unable to work. Of course it's going to be hard for him to kill a whole army in one day, but he can render the army unable to act very easily. And the worse thing for the army: he can come the next day and repeat, and the next, and the next. Watching your leaders and companions die from an invisible attacker (or visible but flying or whatever so you are unable to harm him), day after day is pretty hard on morale and paranoia: imagine the stories those soldiers are going to spread when they return home.

And there are some extra points we aren't taking into account: magic items (because surely Rhuobe has a ton of those at his disposal), contingencies (so even if he is reduced he will get away),...

That's the sad thing of Rhuobe (or dragons or any other thing with such a high power): the answer to your question 'what works to stop him' is 'nothing' (at least when talking about low level armies). And I'm pretty sure Rhuobe could do fairly complicated plots to achieve his goals without having to resort to brute force.



Indeed, he pushes the gestalt even further, personally I lost interest in creating the 'unbeatable' monster/character a long time ago, the closest I've come in a long time was Great Aunt Katrina in PS Danigau - and she was built purely to see how ridiculous the BRCS Gorgon was.

Personally I'd cut his int, remove all spellcasting, and leave him the paragon fighter, probably resistant to magic, but ultimately L20-30 not L40+ as in some conversions. Better yet I'd remove him entirely, he serves little purpose that can't be served by something less godlike.


Totally agreed.

Birthright-L
07-09-2009, 09:31 PM
At 01:43 PM 7/9/2009, Vicente wrote:

>I don`t think after the display of destruction that Rhuobe can do
>any sane person would be willing to attack him or his kingdom
>without guarantees of success.

Fortunately, that still leaves players and the DM with the option of
attacking without such guarantees.... Seriously, though, part of the
background of the setting is Michael Roele attacking the Gorgon and
losing. Granted, we don`t know what he might have been thinking, but
triumphing against the odds is part of the heroic paradigm, but any
number of non-pragmatic characters might launch a raid into Rhoubhe`s
territory. It might be doomed but so are land wars in Asia.... That
doesn`t seem to stop a lot of folks from trying.

>And given he has access to Realm Magic he can just ward his province
>and keep everyone outside if needed.

Personally, I think Rhobhe`s realm is likely warded year round, as
would be several other elven kingdoms.

Gary

SirRobin
07-09-2009, 10:53 PM
Yeah, warding their provinces is likely commonplace for the fey folk.

Didn't Michael invade Gorgon's turf due to getting the mutant baby? I thought one of the novels went through that. Think that's considered canon isn't it?

Vicente
07-10-2009, 02:10 PM
At 01:43 PM 7/9/2009, Vicente wrote:

>I don`t think after the display of destruction that Rhuobe can do
>any sane person would be willing to attack him or his kingdom
>without guarantees of success.

Fortunately, that still leaves players and the DM with the option of
attacking without such guarantees.... Seriously, though, part of the
background of the setting is Michael Roele attacking the Gorgon and
losing. Granted, we don`t know what he might have been thinking, but
triumphing against the odds is part of the heroic paradigm, but any
number of non-pragmatic characters might launch a raid into Rhoubhe`s
territory. It might be doomed but so are land wars in Asia.... That
doesn`t seem to stop a lot of folks from trying.


Of course, players are part of the non-sane population, Rhuobe is a challenge designed just for them. But the point is that those people may launch a raid against Rhuobe no matter what Rhuobe does, so why just sit down there doing "nothing"? (I suppose he is doing something, but it just doesn't seem very productive)

Vicente
07-10-2009, 02:11 PM
Yeah, warding their provinces is likely commonplace for the fey folk.

Didn't Michael invade Gorgon's turf due to getting the mutant baby? I thought one of the novels went through that. Think that's considered canon isn't it?

I haven't read the novels, what's this about? O_o

Birthright-L
07-10-2009, 05:00 PM
At 07:10 AM 7/10/2009, Vicente wrote:

>But the point is that those people may launch a raid against Rhuobe
>no matter what Rhuobe does, so why just sit down there doing
>"nothing"? (I suppose he is doing something, but it just doesn`t
>seem very productive)

Despite being one of the more fearful awnshegh in the setting, I
suspect the idea for Rhuobhe is that he is in a sort of slow, painful
decline just like other elven domains. Rhoubhe represents one
extreme of Sidhe philosophy, but that extreme is no more effective
than (most) of the others. In fact, given the size of his realm and
his own comparative power relative to other elven lands, his methods
might be viewed as the most likely to result in elven
extinction. Granted, there are other factors involved
there. Rhoubhe`s lands are nestled amongst more dangerous human
realms, and his seat isn`t based on millennia-old realms like those
of other elven lands, but Rhoubhe is really more of an outpost than a
domain, and it`s leader more of an insurgent than a ruler.

Gary

Vicente
07-10-2009, 07:47 PM
At 07:10 AM 7/10/2009, Vicente wrote:
Despite being one of the more fearful awnshegh in the setting, I
suspect the idea for Rhuobhe is that he is in a sort of slow, painful
decline just like other elven domains. Rhoubhe represents one
extreme of Sidhe philosophy, but that extreme is no more effective
than (most) of the others. In fact, given the size of his realm and
his own comparative power relative to other elven lands, his methods
might be viewed as the most likely to result in elven
extinction. Granted, there are other factors involved
there. Rhoubhe`s lands are nestled amongst more dangerous human
realms, and his seat isn`t based on millennia-old realms like those
of other elven lands, but Rhoubhe is really more of an outpost than a
domain, and it`s leader more of an insurgent than a ruler.


I decided to re-read Rhuobhe stat card and the Rhuobhe domain description in RoE and it seems to confirm that he should be doing far more damage to humans.

For example, RoE says:

"He goes out of his way to kill any human he can: man, woman, or child, but specially regents. He sees himself as protector of the forests and guardian of a lost elven way of life and takes an active part in destroying the Anuireans around him."

(I don't want to quote more, I hope that's not a problem)

Both sources are pretty clear stating that Rhuobhe is an active NPC (specially to anything related to the Aelvinnwode), and that he is not just sitting there waiting for a group of adventurers to farm him for XP.

AndrewTall
07-10-2009, 08:17 PM
Priests.
Why assume that only spell casting clerics have the god's favour? Its one obvious sign, but so is fervour, evangelical zeal, matchless oratory, etc, etc - the very top echelon might be spell-casters as 'ultimate proof of faith' but there are always 'living saints' to supply the miracles that the peerless bureaucrat needs to run the church and awe the unwashed. Even if you have as many as 0.1% of the population able to cast priestly spells (I'd have a tenth of that at most) then you have the vast majority of the church without spells - but with other valuable skills. I very much doubt that all those talented people are without ambition, meaning that the hierarchy will have many non-spellcaster's in it. Otherwise sooner or later you have a night of long knives and all those spellcasters stop 'blocking the true path of the church'.

Rhuobhe
Rhuobhe's goals, imo, revolve around an elven rebirth, in <every possible way> - elven cultuyre must flourish, elven people must become numerous, fey allies must gambol freely in growing forests, the evanescence must be restored and the Lost and dark taint scoured from the spirit world, etc, etc - he needs it all - and with no compromise (half elves, etc). That immediately puts him into a conservative mode, raids and so on to vent frustration, but no high risk assaults - if he loses half a dozen people in a century he won't be able to replace them...

Ye spell-tank
Invisibility and flying are the 2 automatic 'I am invincible' ideas that people have for mages, the first is countered with a number of minor (L2) magics - or dogs, the latter with nets and limited duration. Higher level versions make it sillier, but only by so much. Intangibility is the real issue but it is generally self countering, great for ambush assassination, not otherwise. In any setting where spell-tanks exist, counters will be made - and for all the hype low level spells in bulk generally do horrible things to even high level casters when used properly.

That said as you note it's going to be a bloodfest - but a prepared army will rarely take more than 10-20 casualties from any spell (fireball, cloudkill, etc are all designed for packed formations, and mainly total over-kill). The army would need to be prepared in every sense, but every spell loosed is one less to worry about, and it takes him days to reload (an hour to memorise a single L6 spell - so after day 1 he's down to the low level spells and not many of those - assuming he makes it through the day and somehow gets 8 hours of shut eye) so as long as they press they can grind him down.

Since I like even major awnies to be at most L30, I'd probably cut Rhoubhe down to, say, awnie 4, wizard 20, ranger 4 if I wanted a wizard build, and awnie 8, ranger 20. otherwise. Either way as a non-gestalt he becomes far less overpowered, no sane wizard takes to battle alone even if you don't use wound and vitality points...

Ward
This spell winds up over-powered when there are a high level casters around, no doubt about it - how did Lluabriaight lose provinces to the White Witch (L14 priest) and Ghuralli (no spells at all)? Those wards were cast by a L18 wizardess with oodles of RP... That said, it doesn't stop small bands or fire, or for that matter legions of unwashed fanatics led by a priest with the right divining spells. I second the comment about continual warding of elven realms - read the cwmb bhein/innishiere descriptions.

irdeggman
07-13-2009, 09:26 PM
I haven't read the novels, what's this about? O_o


I don't recall a mutant baby.

But the Iron Throne told the story of how Michael Roele died in a one-on-one fight with the Gorgon (his "uncle"). Michael sent his bloodline directly into the land instead of allowing the Gorgon to "steal it".

Michael went after him because of the death of his wife and child due to the influence of the Gorgon "actually it was Michael's sister behind it all, but she was trying to use the Gorgon to further her ambitions".

Vicente
07-13-2009, 11:15 PM
Priests.
Why assume that only spell casting clerics have the god's favour? Its one obvious sign, but so is fervour, evangelical zeal, matchless oratory, etc, etc


Why assume that people without spell casting abilities have the god favour when there are people with the spell casting abilities that clearly show they have it? There may be non-spellcasters that follow the god, loyal to it, but in the eyes of the masses, those aren't the truly favored of the god.



I very much doubt that all those talented people are without ambition, meaning that the hierarchy will have many non-spellcaster's in it. Otherwise sooner or later you have a night of long knives and all those spellcasters stop 'blocking the true path of the church'.


I have a big problem envisioning a night of long knives in most Anuirean churches (as they are good in general). Either way, as fast as they got the power they will probably lose it because people won't follow them.



Rhuobhe
Rhuobhe's goals, imo, revolve around an elven rebirth, in <every possible way> - elven cultuyre must flourish, elven people must become numerous, fey allies must gambol freely in growing forests, the evanescence must be restored and the Lost and dark taint scoured from the spirit world, etc, etc - he needs it all - and with no compromise (half elves, etc). That immediately puts him into a conservative mode, raids and so on to vent frustration, but no high risk assaults - if he loses half a dozen people in a century he won't be able to replace them...


We can debate about Rhuobhe's goals, but after reading the BR CS (RoE and the statsheet), it's pretty clear that he is not in a conservative mode at all... The sentence I quoted before is pretty clear, but those 2 pages are full of text saying more or less the same.

What is curious is his total failure: per his description he is active hunting regents and trying to destroy humans but he has managed to be surrounded by the 2 most powerful human kingdoms in Anuire.



Ye spell-tank
Invisibility and flying are the 2 automatic 'I am invincible' ideas that people have for mages, the first is countered with a number of minor (L2) magics - or dogs, the latter with nets and limited duration. Higher level versions make it sillier, but only by so much.


Again, I think you are just downplaying magic a lot (your call). In 2e a Flight spell casted by Rhuobhe lasts 15 + 1d6 turns. Rhuobhe's attack spells go from 10 meters (Cloud Kill) to 150 or more meters (Death Spell, Fire Ball,...). So please, tell me how are you going to put a net on someone who is raining dead flying 100 meters above you... And if he is invisible, good luck pinpointing him (or/and if he is attacking by night, something really probable).



Intangibility is the real issue but it is generally self countering, great for ambush assassination, not otherwise.


Rhuobhe is inmune to non-magical weapons, you can envision that in many ways, one is intangibility for example. Also, imagine he casts Summon Air Elemental: an intangible and inmune and very angry monster that is going to be 15 turns hitting an army unable to strike back. That is more than a minor annoyance.



In any setting where spell-tanks exist, counters will be made - and for all the hype low level spells in bulk generally do horrible things to even high level casters when used properly.


Low level spells from low level spellcasters have a pretty hard time against Rhuobhe for several reasons:

- he is going to be probably out of your range (he is fighting an army, and armies take a lot of space so Rhuobhe has a lot of space to move). In 2e he can be hit with a Dispel Magic if he is not cautious, in 3e is even better for him as nearly all spells ranges are based on the spellcaster level, so he has always the upperhand.
- he has 25% spell resistance and very good saving throws.

I think you are trying to counter magic with "cheap tricks" but it doesn't work unless the spellcaster is a total idiot.



That said as you note it's going to be a bloodfest - but a prepared army will rarely take more than 10-20 casualties from any spell (fireball, cloudkill, etc are all designed for packed formations, and mainly total over-kill).


He doesn't need to kill many more people per cast to wipe all the officers from the army pretty fast. And not counting the extra effects most spells create (for example the fire created by the fireball or left behind by a fire elemental, that's going to be a mess for sure).



The army would need to be prepared in every sense, but every spell loosed is one less to worry about, and it takes him days to reload (an hour to memorise a single L6 spell - so after day 1 he's down to the low level spells and not many of those - assuming he makes it through the day and somehow gets 8 hours of shut eye) so as long as they press they can grind him down.


Days? It takes him around 16 hours to recover all his spells. And he can get those rest hours pretty easily.



Since I like even major awnies to be at most L30, I'd probably cut Rhoubhe down to, say, awnie 4, wizard 20, ranger 4 if I wanted a wizard build, and awnie 8, ranger 20. otherwise. Either way as a non-gestalt he becomes far less overpowered, no sane wizard takes to battle alone even if you don't use wound and vitality points...


If you take down his wizard levels then he is far less powerful. By the rules he will probably continue to be able to take an army alone, but if we put common sense it "may" be capable of taking an army or not, it depends a lot if things like grappling and just massing around him can succeed.

Vicente
07-13-2009, 11:16 PM
I don't recall a mutant baby.

But the Iron Throne told the story of how Michael Roele died in a one-on-one fight with the Gorgon (his "uncle"). Michael sent his bloodline directly into the land instead of allowing the Gorgon to "steal it".

Michael went after him because of the death of his wife and child due to the influence of the Gorgon "actually it was Michael's sister behind it all, but she was trying to use the Gorgon to further her ambitions".

Thanks for the explanation, I'll try to grab a copy of them somewhere.

irdeggman
07-14-2009, 10:46 AM
Again, I think you are just downplaying magic a lot (your call). In 2e a Flight spell casted by Rhuobhe lasts 15 + 1d6 turns. Rhuobhe's attack spells go from 10 meters (Cloud Kill) to 150 or more meters (Death Spell, Fire Ball,...). So please, tell me how are you going to put a net on someone who is raining dead flying 100 meters above you... And if he is invisible, good luck pinpointing him (or/and if he is attacking by night, something really probable).



Rhuobhe is inmune to non-magical weapons, you can envision that in many ways, one is intangibility for example. Also, imagine he casts Summon Air Elemental: an intangible and inmune and very angry monster that is going to be 15 turns hitting an army unable to strike back. That is more than a minor annoyance.


He doesn't need to kill many more people per cast to wipe all the officers from the army pretty fast. And not counting the extra effects most spells create (for example the fire created by the fireball or left behind by a fire elemental, that's going to be a mess for sure).





Some of the 2nd ed material bothers me a lot (for consistency).

These are some of them.

Rhoube thinks of himself as the "ultimate" elf and epitomizes all things elven.

Elves will avoid fire spells with a passion and any other spells that may damage the forests.

Elves also shun necromancy spells and favor enchantments.

So IMO despite what the 2nd ed books list - he won't use fireball and using necromancy spells (even domain level ones) is something he is very likely not to do.

Summoning spells are also something he will likely avoid - especially anything associated with "fire".

Book of Magecraft: Elves shun necromancy, and evocation/invocation and summoning spells are unlikely.

IMO he will engage in the typical elven fighting tactics of strike and move "e.g., guerrila style tactics" making great use of their movement and stealth abilities.

AndrewTall
07-14-2009, 08:44 PM
Why assume that people without spell casting abilities have the god favour when there are people with the spell casting abilities that clearly show they have it? There may be non-spellcasters that follow the god, loyal to it, but in the eyes of the masses, those aren't the truly favored of the god.

And the great orator, general, etc also clearly have the god's favour - it's swings and roundabouts in terms of power and divine blessing. The great orator and master of rhetoric are probably more popular with the masses then the handful of spellcaster's since they affect far more people, albeit with lower 1:1 impact whereas the spell-caster's are probably out trogging dungeons or churning the miracles rather than reaping the political power. Someone who has both (any PC of course :D ) will rise to command no doubt, but equally no tongue-tied dimwit however magically gifted is going to keep a position at the top.


I have a big problem envisioning a night of long knives in most Anuirean churches (as they are good in general). Either way, as fast as they got the power they will probably lose it because people won't follow them.

Why not? The people follow the faith, the general awe and magic - not just the few flashy effects. Similarly nothing says that the low level spellcasters couldn't be kept around if the corrupt bunch at the top were eliminated. Good? Many churches are as neutral as they are good, and if you look at the 'good' organisations around today you will see plenty of ambition - good doesn't mean stupid or selfless. The church's are vastly wealthy and have great power - that implies plenty of ambition and greed. plus, frankly, spell casting does not equal administrative ability, and in a contest between two faiths the winner will be the one with the best rhetoric, organisation, etc rather than the one with the cheap tricks.


We can debate about Rhuobhe's goals, but after reading the BR CS (RoE and the statsheet), it's pretty clear that he is not in a conservative mode at all... The sentence I quoted before is pretty clear, but those 2 pages are full of text saying more or less the same.


Again, I think you are just downplaying magic a lot (your call).

I don't really want to get side-trekked into an argument over how you constrain high level magic here - the real threat in a war scenario should always be the fighter - that's their prime purpose, so I'm always going to be interpreting the rules to fix problems caused by failures in the magic system that suggest that wizards are better in a fight - some prefer uber-mages so do the opposite, to each their own.

Since Rhuobhe has survived centuries, but not been able to expand beyond a tiny realm, he clearly can't simply romp and stomp, how you choose to stop him is up to you. Personally I figure that anyone who tries something and fails for 15 centuries will either change tactics or goals - otherwise they are either very dim or mad.


Days? It takes him around 16 hours to recover all his spells. And he can get those rest hours pretty easily.

Eights hours rest + 2 days study (8 hours a day) - for someone on the run from an army that effectively never sleeps is easy? All DnD games (barring 4e I guess) use the Vancian approach to magic, so the key to a fight against a wizard is 'endure' the initial onslaught (easier said than done of course) and then relentlessly pursue the counter attack - making sure they can see Rhuobhe and track him would be key priorities for his enemies - as they would be for anyone who might have to hunt wizards. A realm spell to give people keen senses / detect invisibility shouldn't be too high level and would do the trick if you prefer a magical solution.

Birthright-L
07-14-2009, 11:15 PM
At 03:46 AM 7/14/2009, irdeggman wrote:

>Rhoube thinks of himself as the "ultimate" elf and epitomizes all
>things elven.

I`ve always thought this was an expression of Rhoubhe`s (nearly)
psychotic hypocrisy and the blinders of his transformation. He
_considers_ himself the ultimate elf, but in many ways his
transformation is making him more human than elven; or, at least,
he`s transformed away from his original elven form and his political
and social behavior is just as warped.

Most awnsheighlien have some sort of easily recognizable totemic form
that they are shifting into. However, Rhoubhe`s totem is more
difficult to identify. He seems to be shifting into some sort of
murderous version of Little Orphan Annie/Demonic Robin Hood. He
believes "the sun will come out... tomorrow" on the elven people, but
in the meantime his band of scary men (elves) will steal from the
mortals and give to themselves. He has many super-elven aspects, but
several things (not the least of which: his alignment) have
definitely shifted away from the typical elven ideal.

What he probably wouldn`t do is anything that might jeapardize his
own realm/power. After all, one of the fundamental aspects of a
character shifting from elf to human would have to be his ability to
recognize his own self-interest and base decisions on that. As such,
Rhoubhe is the regent who might do something that is against the
norms of elven society and rationalize it later as some sort of
"true" elven action, because whatever is good for him is good for all
elven kind... and as soon as all elves recognize that fact they`ll
all be better off.

Gary

Vicente
07-15-2009, 12:26 PM
Elves will avoid fire spells with a passion and any other spells that may damage the forests.

Elves also shun necromancy spells and favor enchantments.

So IMO despite what the 2nd ed books list - he won't use fireball and using necromancy spells (even domain level ones) is something he is very likely not to do.

Summoning spells are also something he will likely avoid - especially anything associated with "fire".

Book of Magecraft: Elves shun necromancy, and evocation/invocation and summoning spells are unlikely.

IMO he will engage in the typical elven fighting tactics of strike and move "e.g., guerrila style tactics" making great use of their movement and stealth abilities.


Nice points indeed, and they make sense. It's not as easy, but he can do more or less the same with illusions and some enchantments, even if he is not 100% loaded of summoning/invocation spells.



And the great orator, general, etc also clearly have the god's favour - it's swings and roundabouts in terms of power and divine blessing. The great orator and master of rhetoric are probably more popular with the masses then the handful of spellcaster's since they affect far more people, albeit with lower 1:1 impact whereas the spell-caster's are probably out trogging dungeons or churning the miracles rather than reaping the political power. Someone who has both (any PC of course ) will rise to command no doubt, but equally no tongue-tied dimwit however magically gifted is going to keep a position at the top.


The great orator who gets silenced in the middle of his most important speech fails a lot to show any type of divine blessing. Also, been a spellcaster doesn't mean you are automatically a bad orator, given that a spellcaster has character levels he can be a good orator himself. Again, magically gifted people have more or less the same tricks as not-magically gifted people plus some others of their own.



Why not? The people follow the faith, the general awe and magic - not just the few flashy effects. Similarly nothing says that the low level spellcasters couldn't be kept around if the corrupt bunch at the top were eliminated. Good? Many churches are as neutral as they are good, and if you look at the 'good' organisations around today you will see plenty of ambition - good doesn't mean stupid or selfless. The church's are vastly wealthy and have great power - that implies plenty of ambition and greed.


Good organisations of today don't have alignment, because there's no mystic force in the earth that makes you worse suddenly if you decide to act different as you should. Aligment imposes a great restriction on how you behave in BR. And I agree, LG is not Lawful Idiot, but is not either someone who can just go taking other LG people out of his path using "dirty" methods.



plus, frankly, spell casting does not equal administrative ability, and in a contest between two faiths the winner will be the one with the best rhetoric, organisation, etc rather than the one with the cheap tricks.


To be the leader you have to be also the one with the best team behind you. Presidents don't have the best rethoric, but they have the best people writting speeches for them. Similar with organisation or other things, that's what lieutenants are for.



Since Rhuobhe has survived centuries, but not been able to expand beyond a tiny realm, he clearly can't simply romp and stomp, how you choose to stop him is up to you. Personally I figure that anyone who tries something and fails for 15 centuries will either change tactics or goals - otherwise they are either very dim or mad.


I find this interesting. You just accept this fact, but for me the point was that this fact doesn't make any sense at all, there's no good reason to explain how Rhuobhe can have failed so spectaculary for 15 centuries.



Eights hours rest + 2 days study (8 hours a day) - for someone on the run from an army that effectively never sleeps is easy? All DnD games (barring 4e I guess) use the Vancian approach to magic, so the key to a fight against a wizard is 'endure' the initial onslaught (easier said than done of course) and then relentlessly pursue the counter attack - making sure they can see Rhuobhe and track him would be key priorities for his enemies - as they would be for anyone who might have to hunt wizards. A realm spell to give people keen senses / detect invisibility shouldn't be too high level and would do the trick if you prefer a magical solution.


He can study more than 8 hours for sure (I don't remember anywhere saying you can't study 16 hours). Also, how are you going to pursue someone who can teleport 10000 miles in one moment? Or who can rest in interdimensional safe spots? Or who can make him totally untrackable by sight, sound or smell? That's why resting for Rhuobhe is very easy.

And last: I find surprising how well your army can perform after Rhuobhe killed their command on his first strike, I would find more common people fleeing, units disbanding, and so on...

irdeggman
07-15-2009, 03:42 PM
He can study more than 8 hours for sure (I don't remember anywhere saying you can't study 16 hours). Also, how are you going to pursue someone who can teleport 10000 miles in one moment? Or who can rest in interdimensional safe spots? Or who can make him totally untrackable by sight, sound or smell? That's why resting for Rhuobhe is very easy.


Be careful when comparing "normal" D&D worlds to BR with respect to access to spells.

These types of spells (teleportation and interdimensional spaces) are very, very risky and suppposed to be that way for the setting.

The BRCS (I know it was an update with some rationalization inserted - but the concepts are still pretty accurate) - has these using the Shadow World.

Go to Shadow Spawn and the connection between elves and the faerie (see the Sie history) it becomes pretty obvious that elves and the Shadow World do not readily mix. "R" is still an "elf" even if mutated.

Vicente
07-15-2009, 10:17 PM
Be careful when comparing "normal" D&D worlds to BR with respect to access to spells.

These types of spells (teleportation and interdimensional spaces) are very, very risky and suppposed to be that way for the setting.

The BRCS (I know it was an update with some rationalization inserted - but the concepts are still pretty accurate) - has these using the Shadow World.

Go to Shadow Spawn and the connection between elves and the faerie (see the Sie history) it becomes pretty obvious that elves and the Shadow World do not readily mix. "R" is still an "elf" even if mutated.

Nice catch again :) But, where is more info about this? The only thing I can find is one small paragraph in the BRCS and it says "many dimensional magics", not "all". Just curious to see if there's more information somewhere about this subject.

But even if that doesn't work, he continues having the illusions path.

irdeggman
07-15-2009, 11:14 PM
Nice catch again :) But, where is more info about this? The only thing I can find is one small paragraph in the BRCS and it says "many dimensional magics", not "all". Just curious to see if there's more information somewhere about this subject.

But even if that doesn't work, he continues having the illusions path.


2nd ed Birthright Rulebook pg 88

"Time flows differently in the Shadow Land. Many dimensional magic such as dimension door and shadow walk use this property by creating short-lived passages through the Shadow World. Wizards must be extremely careful of using these spells; more than one mage has vanished while using such a spell and never returned from the Shadow World."

Vicente
07-16-2009, 11:55 AM
2nd ed Birthright Rulebook pg 88

"Time flows differently in the Shadow Land. Many dimensional magic such as dimension door and shadow walk use this property by creating short-lived passages through the Shadow World. Wizards must be extremely careful of using these spells; more than one mage has vanished while using such a spell and never returned from the Shadow World."

Yes, that's the paragraph I had found, but that opens the door for the DM to decide which dimensional magics are affected by this and which ones aren't. For example, Teleport states specifically that it's impossible to change plane with it, so it could be perfectly safe from the Shadow World, while Shadow Walk suffers clearly this effect as the spell states the user moves to the border of the Shadow Plane to move faster...

irdeggman
07-16-2009, 12:34 PM
Yes, that's the paragraph I had found, but that opens the door for the DM to decide which dimensional magics are affected by this and which ones aren't. For example, Teleport states specifically that it's impossible to change plane with it, so it could be perfectly safe from the Shadow World, while Shadow Walk suffers clearly this effect as the spell states the user moves to the border of the Shadow Plane to move faster...


Unfortuneately the 2nd ed BR material left an awful lot up to the DM. It was probably the most DM fiat dependent setting ever published by TSR.

IIRC the general consensus from the BR community at large was to make the variant limited magical transportation (from Chap 8 of the BRCS) to be the default instead of variant rule. I could be wrong and instead be thinking of the limited magic item rules.

But from Chap 8


All spells that involve dimensional or instantaneous travel utilize the Shadow World. This does not include blood abilities nor realm magic.

irdeggman
07-16-2009, 12:37 PM
Yes, that's the paragraph I had found, but that opens the door for the DM to decide which dimensional magics are affected by this and which ones aren't. For example, Teleport states specifically that it's impossible to change plane with it, so it could be perfectly safe from the Shadow World, while Shadow Walk suffers clearly this effect as the spell states the user moves to the border of the Shadow Plane to move faster...

Well technically the Shadow World is not a different plane but more of a parallel coexisting universe that is actually the shadow equivalent of the "Real World" Cerillia. From Blood Spawn they are actually 2 halves of the whole and they were split early on.

Note that if it is truely considered a separate plane then halflings become "outsiders" per the 3.5 rules. This makes things really, really complicated (just look at the properties of an outsider to see what I'm talking about).

Green Knight
07-16-2009, 08:19 PM
Not everyone from other planes need be Outsiders; they could still be humanoids.

And even if they were outsiders they could be Native Outsiders (like Asimaar/Tieflings).

AndrewTall
07-16-2009, 09:56 PM
I find this interesting. You just accept this fact, but for me the point was that this fact doesn't make any sense at all, there's no good reason to explain how Rhuobhe can have failed so spectaculary for 15 centuries.

I'd note that the fact that Rhuobhe, et al, have survived since Deismaar is canon - very strong canon. My approach is not to say 'the mechanics make it hard for the storyline to make sense, change the storyline' it is 'the mechanics are a flawed representation of the storyline, fix them'.


The great orator who gets silenced in the middle of his most important speech fails a lot to show any type of divine blessing.

As does the spellcaster whose prayer is disrupted - or saved against. And while a good orator will turn the heckle into a counter attack and improve the impact of their argument, the spellcaster can do little to overcome the saving throw but repeat their action, at best suffering only a minor loss of face. Since the orator is likely preaching to the faithful (who want them to be successful) and the priest casting against monsters, etc I'd expect the consequences of failure to be harsher for the spellcaster.


Also, been a spellcaster doesn't mean you are automatically a bad orator, given that a spellcaster has character levels he can be a good orator himself. Again, magically gifted people have more or less the same tricks as not-magically gifted people plus some others of their own.

The caster has, by definition, focused on spellcasting - a L10 expert smashes a L10 priest for skill ability - smashes. the spellcaster has 1 great ability, but, most of it is irrelevant outside combat and thus 99% invisible to the majority of the flock. I just can't see that magic held personally is going to be absolutely dominating as a power - apart from anything else it is too easy for a non-spellcaster to borrow the parts of it that are visible - not to mention the facts pointed out long ago that the placebo effect and general faith mean that the great orator will also have magic power as far as the laity are concerned.


To be the leader you have to be also the one with the best team behind you. Presidents don't have the best rethoric, but they have the best people writting speeches for them. Similar with organisation or other things, that's what lieutenants are for.

This encourages non-spell casters even more - the front man - president if you will - is almost inevitably the good presenter, the good speaker, the kindly face, the great listener, etc. The spellcaster is the equivalent of the 'guru', the 'ideas man', etc - they have a great skill, but one which needs to be suitably presented for maximum impact, and a gift that can readily be borrowed by the presenter to bolster their power.


Good organisations of today don't have alignment, because there's no mystic force in the earth that makes you worse suddenly if you decide to act different as you should. Aligment imposes a great restriction on how you behave in BR. And I agree, LG is not Lawful Idiot, but is not either someone who can just go taking other LG people out of his path using "dirty" methods.

Alignment merely means that if someone acts in a certain way they are tagged with the relevant alignment. The vast majority of people are never going to encounter a spell/ability/etc which acts on alignment, so it has zero impact, they don't judge people by 'alignment', they judge them by deeds and words i.e. perceived alignment - and in organisations the external and internal behaviours can be very different - particularly for faiths (LG outward display, CE politicking in the boardroom). Paladins and spellcasting priests may worry about alignment, but the non-spellcaster would benefit here by retaining their gifts regardless of their direction thus 'proving' that they are right.


He can study more than 8 hours for sure (I don't remember anywhere saying you can't study 16 hours). Also, how are you going to pursue someone who can teleport 10000 miles in one moment? Or who can rest in interdimensional safe spots? Or who can make him totally untrackable by sight, sound or smell? That's why resting for Rhuobhe is very easy.

As noted by irdeggman the setting specifically moved to stop this mechanic problem. Several areas allude to any spacial or time-distorting affects as drawing on the shadow world (which is totally different to the normal DnD shadow world just to be confusing). I'm not aware of any rule saying you can study for more than 8 hours - that was the max for any sustained activity (research, item creation, etc all worked on an 8 hour day) from recollection. Without teleportation and similar spells however the time is irrelevant though, a mage tracked by hundreds or thousands of people, dogs, etc baying for their blood won't get the 8 hours rest, much less the study time needed afterwards.


Nice catch again :) But, where is more info about this? The only thing I can find is one small paragraph in the BRCS and it says "many dimensional magics", not "all". Just curious to see if there's more information somewhere about this subject.

But even if that doesn't work, he continues having the illusions path.

Illusions may disorientate, but they do very little to kill, as soon as you move away from blood and thunder the mage=uber issue reduces significantly (although you need to fix a few school choices...) While avoiding any counter-attack would optimise the hit and run advantage of the vancian system spellcaster, I note that although many illusions will block sight and sound, very very few have any affect at blocking a bloodhound.

Also, while true magic is rare, illusion is not - counters would not be unheard of and would be part of the normal planning for anyone expecting to face a mage.


And last: I find surprising how well your army can perform after Rhuobhe killed their command on his first strike, I would find more common people fleeing, units disbanding, and so on...

After he what, blasts a few random men in an army prepared for an attack of precisely that form? That indicates pitiful planning at best! You are assuming 5,000 untrained soldiers led by a dozen commanders all carefully standing close together in bright uniforms, a very unlikely scenario for an army that has planned to face a mage.

The mage's whole strategy is zip in, blast like a god, run away - vast strength but no endurance. A 10th level mage has just 16 spells, a 15th level mage 26, even a 20th level mage gets just 36. Sorcerers, specialists, and those with the inevitable high scores do a little better, but even so you are not talking about much endurance, particularly after half a dozen protective spells, movement spells, concealment spells, etc are used by the mage to stop them being killed during the initial attack leaving them with even fewer spells to attack with.

Any army randomly attacked will likely scatter if attacked with fire and lightning - of course. An army specifically raised and trained to go after a mage will have many sergeants carefully taught the limitations of magic and how to combat them to reduce their effect (spread out, dive for cover, continual attack with missile weapons, plentiful dogs/etc to counter illusions, use of nets, ropes, acids, fire, bonds, etc to overcome protective spells). The prepared army will have a decentralized force and decoys to prevent the decapitation methods suggested, and will know above all else to press, press, press - as to do otherwise merely lets the wizard re-arm. Add in a few dozen moderate level characters to rally and stiffen the defense, a few supportive realm spells, and even someone like Rhuobhe should be wary about provoking an all out war.

Vicente
07-17-2009, 12:23 AM
I'd note that the fact that Rhuobhe, et al, have survived since Deismaar is canon - very strong canon. My approach is not to say 'the mechanics make it hard for the storyline to make sense, change the storyline' it is 'the mechanics are a flawed representation of the storyline, fix them'.


I don't want to change the storyline, but I wanted to see if there was a better solution than "change the mechanics".



The caster has, by definition, focused on spellcasting - a L10 expert smashes a L10 priest for skill ability - smashes. the spellcaster has 1 great ability, but, most of it is irrelevant outside combat and thus 99% invisible to the majority of the flock.


Saying that spellcasting is mostly irrelevant outside combat sounds a lot like 4e criticism :p Spellcasting is nice inside and outside combat, that's why spellcasters were so "powerful". Also, spellcasting gives the caster access to more resources (create its own magic items, use scrolls,...).

And the spellcaster has the same maximum skill rank or proficiency than the expert. It may have less skills, but it can have them at the same level (and clerics get quite a lot of proficiencies in 2e btw).



This encourages non-spell casters even more - the front man - president if you will - is almost inevitably the good presenter, the good speaker, the kindly face, the great listener, etc. The spellcaster is the equivalent of the 'guru', the 'ideas man', etc - they have a great skill, but one which needs to be suitably presented for maximum impact, and a gift that can readily be borrowed by the presenter to bolster their power.


I see it just the other way round, the priest is more suited to be the front face while your expert is the ideas man in the shadows: both of them can read discurses very well, but only one of them can cast real magic in front of the masses. Your expert may also do pretty well the accounting and other things, that's why he is more suited for support.

A little unrelated, but the expert is also easier to kill using violent methods.



Alignment merely means that if someone acts in a certain way they are tagged with the relevant alignment. The vast majority of people are never going to encounter a spell/ability/etc which acts on alignment, so it has zero impact, they don't judge people by 'alignment', they judge them by deeds and words i.e. perceived alignment - and in organisations the external and internal behaviours can be very different - particularly for faiths (LG outward display, CE politicking in the boardroom). Paladins and spellcasting priests may worry about alignment, but the non-spellcaster would benefit here by retaining their gifts regardless of their direction thus 'proving' that they are right.


The problem with alignment is not how the masses perceive them: first, it's very easy to know someone real alignment; second, people that gain levels (and experts do) have to be very careful about their alignment or may risk losing exp, levels, getting penalties,...



As noted by irdeggman the setting specifically moved to stop this mechanic problem. Several areas allude to any spacial or time-distorting affects as drawing on the shadow world (which is totally different to the normal DnD shadow world just to be confusing).


Sorry, it didn't, it's up to the DM as stated in the rulebook. But again, this is not a problem at all, illusions do the trick perfectly.



I'm not aware of any rule saying you can study for more than 8 hours - that was the max for any sustained activity (research, item creation, etc all worked on an 8 hour day) from recollection.


I can't find any rules that says you can't study more than 8 hours either. But do you have a quote for the other things? (book and page will do). But even if he can't, with 8 hours is probably enough to get the most important spells back to hit the army.



Without teleportation and similar spells however the time is irrelevant though, a mage tracked by hundreds or thousands of people, dogs, etc baying for their blood won't get the 8 hours rest, much less the study time needed afterwards.


You should read the level 6 spell called Permanent Illusion: permanent duration, fools every sense, you don't get a saving throw to disbelieve it unless you want to disbelieve it (and you need a reason for that). Rhuobhe can create a 51m cube, he could hide a mansion there if he wanted :p And the nice thing is that is not even expensive to cast at all :) So, your army is not going to find him.



Illusions may disorientate, but they do very little to kill, as soon as you move away from blood and thunder the mage=uber issue reduces significantly (although you need to fix a few school choices...) While avoiding any counter-attack would optimise the hit and run advantage of the vancian system spellcaster, I note that although many illusions will block sight and sound, very very few have any affect at blocking a bloodhound.


You are wrong again with illusions, there damage is real if you believe them. Check for example Shadow Monsters (level 4, not sure of the name as I have a spanish player's handbook). Or Shadow Magic at level 5. Even if they don't believe in the illusion the damage they do is enough to kill soldiers.

Although given their names it could be argued that they aren't elves preferred spells (but they are illusions...). Also, in the book of magecraft it just says they dislike summonning/evocation, I'm pretty sure Rhuobhe could convince himself that is a minor evil for a greater god (get rid of humans).



After he what, blasts a few random men in an army prepared for an attack of precisely that form? That indicates pitiful planning at best! You are assuming 5,000 untrained soldiers led by a dozen commanders all carefully standing close together in bright uniforms, a very unlikely scenario for an army that has planned to face a mage.


An air elemental summoned by Rhuobhe will attack your trained army 150 rounds. First, it's going to kill more than a few men, and second, it's going to be a pain in the ass for the army to have something hitting them for two hours and a half without them able to retaliate (that has to be tiring for sure). And when it goes away, another one may come, etc.

Heck, Rhuobhe could just spend his time flying (he can fly for 3 hours more or less) and firing arrows down (he can create them for free) and just kill the humans as if they were practice targets.



Any army randomly attacked will likely scatter if attacked with fire and lightning - of course. An army specifically raised and trained to go after a mage will have many sergeants carefully taught the limitations of magic and how to combat them to reduce their effect (spread out, dive for cover, continual attack with missile weapons, plentiful dogs/etc to counter illusions, use of nets, ropes, acids, fire, bonds, etc to overcome protective spells). The prepared army will have a decentralized force and decoys to prevent the decapitation methods suggested, and will know above all else to press, press, press - as to do otherwise merely lets the wizard re-arm. Add in a few dozen moderate level characters to rally and stiffen the defense, a few supportive realm spells, and even someone like Rhuobhe should be wary about provoking an all out war.


Your army has nothing to do against him: missile/melee weapons? He is inmune. Dogs? Illusions can fool their senses too. Nets, ropes, acids? Invisibility/flying/night. Press? They can't find him, so they can't press. If they are dispersed they are going to do one thing at least: it's going to take him more time to kill them, that's all.

And we haven't got too silly with spells, just straightforward and easy things like evocations and summonings (for example an obvious one: he could create an army of Rhuobhe's casting Simulacre). I'm pretty sure someone who knows spells better than me could do really over the top things with Rhuobhe.

irdeggman
07-17-2009, 01:39 AM
Not everyone from other planes need be Outsiders; they could still be humanoids.

And even if they were outsiders they could be Native Outsiders (like Asimaar/Tieflings).


Still get a bunch of benefits because of it though. I have a player running an Aasimar in my Age of Worms game and he gets a bunch of benefits because of his "type".

If the Shadow World was a plane then halflings would have to be native to that plane and thus outsiders. IMO it is hard to justify them as native outsiders because it hasn't been all that long since they "migrated".

irdeggman
07-17-2009, 01:57 AM
And the spellcaster has the same maximum skill rank or proficiency than the expert. It may have less skills, but it can have them at the same level (and clerics get quite a lot of proficiencies in 2e btw).

Depends on whether or not the skill is a class skill or not.



I can't find any rules that says you can't study more than 8 hours either. But do you have a quote for the other things? (book and page will do). But even if he can't, with 8 hours is probably enough to get the most important spells back to hit the army.

2nd ed or 3.5?

In 3.5 all spells can be regained within 1 hour (I believe).



You are wrong again with illusions, there damage is real if you believe them. Check for example Shadow Monsters (level 4, not sure of the name as I have a spanish player's handbook). Or Shadow Magic at level 5. Even if they don't believe in the illusion the damage they do is enough to kill soldiers.


2nd ed or 3.5?

In 3.5 illusion spells specifically do not do damage.

Only the shadow spells do and that is because they are "special" and you do not have the choice to "believe" them or not.


Although given their names it could be argued that they aren't elves preferred spells (but they are illusions...). Also, in the book of magecraft it just says they dislike summonning/evocation, I'm pretty sure Rhuobhe could convince himself that is a minor evil for a greater god (get rid of humans).


BoM pg 6

"Elves seldom cast spells of the conjuration/summoning school because such magic conflicts with their belief in the free will of all beings. They tend to shun magic of the invocation/evocation school, becasue it is an overt forcing of mebhaighl into the environment."

He also has to "learn" those spells from somewhere. It is highly unlikely that most elves have them in their spellbooks and humans are pretty much out of the question. He would never learn anything from those "insects", IMO.



Heck, Rhuobhe could just spend his time flying (he can fly for 3 hours more or less) and firing arrows down (he can create them for free) and just kill the humans as if they were practice targets.

2nd ed or 3.5?

Remember range increments when talking about shooting arrows. Just because you have gravity on your side and are shooting downward doesn't mean that you can exceed the maximum increment of a ranged attack (10 x increment in 3.5).



Your army has nothing to do against him: missile/melee weapons? He is inmune. Dogs? Illusions can fool their senses too. Nets, ropes, acids? Invisibility/flying/night. Press? They can't find him, so they can't press. If they are dispersed they are going to do one thing at least: it's going to take him more time to kill them, that's all.

Depends on the spell - most do not include the other senses.

The most common sense reason for Rhuobhe not spreading his domain is that he would cause all of the other realms (perhaps even getting a human-elf alliance started which is exactly what he does not want to happen) to rally against him and some of the other Anwies would most likely join in to stop him.

Vicente
07-17-2009, 10:00 AM
2nd ed or 3.5?

In 3.5 all spells can be regained within 1 hour (I believe).
[QUOTE=irdeggman;50803]

Everything I talk about is 2e. But if he can regain all spells in 1 hour in 3.5 well, that's just sick :p

[QUOTE=irdeggman;50803]
"Elves seldom cast spells of the conjuration/summoning school because such magic conflicts with their belief in the free will of all beings. They tend to shun magic of the invocation/evocation school, becasue it is an overt forcing of mebhaighl into the environment."

He also has to "learn" those spells from somewhere. It is highly unlikely that most elves have them in their spellbooks and humans are pretty much out of the question. He would never learn anything from those "insects", IMO.


If you read Rhuobhe BR stat sheet, he already has several evocations (magic missile, lightning bolt, ice storm), conjurations (conjure elemental, prismatic spray), necromancies (chill touch, animate dead),... So he is not very elven like in that front. Also, he has Contact other plane and Dismissal, both spells related to creatures from other planes and the stat sheet says:

"It is said that he regulary consorts with creatures from the nether planes, binding them to his bidding and learning arcane secrets from them".

So there you have where he has got all those spells (and even if elves don't like those magics, probably they have researched them).



Remember range increments when talking about shooting arrows. Just because you have gravity on your side and are shooting downward doesn't mean that you can exceed the maximum increment of a ranged attack (10 x increment in 3.5).


He only needs around 120 meters range. In 3e he can do that easily, in 2e it seems he can't (the maximum range of a bow is, ¿21 meters? Big difference with the 300 meters of 3e. Maybe the spanish translation is wrong here, no clue).



The most common sense reason for Rhuobhe not spreading his domain is that he would cause all of the other realms (perhaps even getting a human-elf alliance started which is exactly what he does not want to happen) to rally against him and some of the other Anwies would most likely join in to stop him.


I agree that's a bad idea, he can only be in so many places at the same time. But I continue thinking he could be causing far more trouble than he is.

irdeggman
07-17-2009, 10:37 AM
If you read Rhuobhe BR stat sheet, he already has several evocations (magic missile, lightning bolt, ice storm), conjurations (conjure elemental, prismatic spray), necromancies (chill touch, animate dead),... So he is not very elven like in that front. Also, he has Contact other plane and Dismissal, both spells related to creatures from other planes and the stat sheet says:

"It is said that he regulary consorts with creatures from the nether planes, binding them to his bidding and learning arcane secrets from them".

So there you have where he has got all those spells (and even if elves don't like those magics, probably they have researched them).

Or (a better explanation in my opinion) is that there was an inconsistency (yet another one) in the original material and the things on his stat sheet needs "adjusting" to match follow on material (like BoM, Blood Spawn,etc.)

IMO elven use of invocation/evocations are "limited" and basically anything that would cause damage to the forests would be considered sacrilige (pretty much anything with a "fire" descriptor) - magic missile, IMO, is fine to know due to it being a low level spell and very unlikely at causing any collateral damage to the forest.



I agree that's a bad idea, he can only be in so many places at the same time. But I continue thinking he could be causing far more trouble than he is.


"Causing" trouble is different than having his influence spreading. IMO he probably is constantly causing trouble via standard elven tactics (i.e., guerralla warfare style) but this does not result in any net increase of his influence. He was a great elven general after all and led the Gheallie Sidhe.

I also think that his chief rival and check is the Gorgon and not the other realms around.

Vicente
07-17-2009, 06:38 PM
Or (a better explanation in my opinion) is that there was an inconsistency (yet another one) in the original material and the things on his stat sheet needs "adjusting" to match follow on material (like BoM, Blood Spawn,etc.)


Is that more reasonable than suppose that he doesn't follow/represent the elven way anymore? I think Gary already suggested this and it's also stated in his sheet to explain his NE alignment.



IMO elven use of invocation/evocations are "limited" and basically anything that would cause damage to the forests would be considered sacrilige (pretty much anything with a "fire" descriptor) - magic missile, IMO, is fine to know due to it being a low level spell and very unlikely at causing any collateral damage to the forest.


Agreed.



"Causing" trouble is different than having his influence spreading. IMO he probably is constantly causing trouble via standard elven tactics (i.e., guerralla warfare style) but this does not result in any net increase of his influence. He was a great elven general after all and led the Gheallie Sidhe.


I'll remake the question then: why is he causing so little trouble? Why is he using "guerrilla warfare" that is getting him so few results as to be surrounded by the most powerful kingdoms in Anuire? I can somehow accept Avanil as it was the heart of the Empire, but Boeruine?



I also think that his chief rival and check is the Gorgon and not the other realms around.

I agree that the Gorgon is probably his main rival in Anuire, but given the distance that separates them, how can they influence each other? With dimensional magics that check is more or less easy to enforce, but if teleporting is such pain, they have nearly no way to affect each other.

Birthright-L
07-17-2009, 07:45 PM
At 11:38 AM 7/17/2009, Vicente wrote:

Or (a better explanation in my opinion) is that there was an inconsistency (yet another one) in the original material and the things on his stat sheet needs "adjusting" to match follow on material (like BoM, Blood Spawn,etc.)

Is that more reasonable than suppose that he doesn`t follow/represent the elven way anymore? I think Gary already suggested this and it`s also stated in his sheet to explain his NE alignment.

The best solution might be somewhere in the middle on this one. That is, Rhoubhe *is* supposed to be less elven than the norm, but a few of his spellcasting abilities are even a little weird for BR. For example, I`ve always been uncomfortable with the "typical" BR spellcaster using spells that contact other planes, or summoning/dismissing monsters from them. Or, more precisely, that such activities should focus on the Shadow World rather than reach to the Outer/Inner Planes of the standard D&D cosmology. In certain cases, it specifically seems like the authors were attempting to bypass the SW, but in others it seems like that would be inappropriate.

It does specifically say that he reaches out to "nether" realms, but as Irdeggman points out a lot of that kind of material was revised. Some alterations might very well be in order, and if they can be done in such a way as to keep the original flavour while meshing with the new materials then that`d be the best option.

"Causing" trouble is different than having his influence spreading. IMO he probably is constantly causing trouble via standard elven tactics (i.e., guerralla warfare style) but this does not result in any net increase of his influence. He was a great elven general after all and led the Gheallie Sidhe.

I`ll remake the question then: why is he causing so little trouble? Why is he using "guerrilla warfare" that is getting him so few results as to be surrounded by the most powerful kingdoms in Anuire? I can somehow accept Avanil as it was the heart of the Empire, but Boeruine?

I`ve always been under the impression (based on no actual support in the published materials) that Rhuobhe has been "pushed back" to his last province, not that he has adopted such a tactic by preference. Rooting him out of that stronghold, however, isn`t as easy as getting out of a set of provinces because his personal
presence and influence in a battle is so influential he can swing the tide all by himself. However, if he must defend more than one province at a time the limited resources he has, and the simple fact that he can`t be in both places at the same time, means he must lose that second battle. No one has the power to remove him from his seat of power unless they were to combine to do so, and the politics of Anuire (particularly that section of the region) are such that not a lot of coordination happens. They might attack at the same time, but they wouldn`t attack together, and share the glory....

Gary

Mirviriam
08-05-2009, 07:38 AM
Sailors encountered sea monsters, adventurers (and there were plenty) encountered strange monsters, other strange races of non-humans, saw artifacts of giants, and land forms altered by giants.



True stuff - on the maps of ancient times they literally put something to the order of "here be dragons" at the edges of their maps representing sitings of weird stuff by vessels that essentially couldn't leave site of the coast for long periods of time (minus the vikings, but technically they were post-ancient times in sea-faring, as they represented one of the movements).