Realm Spell Saving Throws

[Michael Romes]

...
Access to mithral and darkwood, you mean? I'm not sure how that makes the economy fundamentally different. Darkwood is obviously explained by being a rare type of tree; mithral might simply be some sort of elven alloy that they alone know how to make, or possibly it is a mineral that tends to be found in forested areas.

Or, alternatively, they plant more trees than they destroy by their mining, and they take good care of the metal they do mine, recycling it as needed, to minimise their future requirements. There are "green" methods of mining (at least relatively speaking) now; no reason to suppose that the Sidhelein haven't got some sort of equivalents of these.

Not, I hasten to add, that I'm not intrigued by the idea that they use magically created materials. I'm simply playing Devil's Advocate here in the sense that I don't see the evidence for this in the rules.
...
Retconning mithral involves a very minimal change; for the majority of purposes, it is merely a "fluff" detail (the only mechanical effects are that mithral weapons are presumably now immune to rust attacks, heat metal, and similar spells). It needn't change the cost, the availability, or the special properties.

Saying that elves magically create the metal they use means that you have just implied that there are a number of 9th level or higher wizards (or 10th level or higher sorcerers) who perform this service on at least a semi-regular basis. Therefore, any PC elven wizard who reaches 9th level and takes Wall of Iron and Fabricate as spells has essentially carte-blanche to abuse this till the cows come home, making themselves arbitrarily rich, unless you start trying to introduce supply and demand (another process fraught with peril, when one thinks through the implications of such things as item creation costs).

Darkwood and Mithral are not the only materials that come to mind - if we look beyond the core material in the Arms&Equipment guide there are several "fitting" materials for sidhelien using a similar text to explain our problem with sidhelien mining and smelting enterprises: "...Many use unusual raw materials, because armorsmiths tend to work with whatever they have at hand. Elves and druids locked deep in primeval forests, for example, find refined metal a rare commodity. Surrounded by plants and magic, however some elven smiths craft wonders out of their everyday environment." Mentioned there are: Bark armour, Bondleaf Wrap, Moon-Ivy, Cord, Leather Scale, Bronzewood, Elven Darkleaf or Elven Leafweave.

[gazza666]

Darkwood and Mithral are not the only materials that come to mind - if we look beyond the core material in the Arms&Equipment guide there are several "fitting" materials for sidhelien using a similar text to explain our problem with sidhelien mining and smelting enterprises: "...Many use unusual raw materials, because armorsmiths tend to work with whatever they have at hand. Elves and druids locked deep in primeval forests, for example, find refined metal a rare commodity. Surrounded by plants and magic, however some elven smiths craft wonders out of their everyday environment." Mentioned there are: Bark armour, Bondleaf Wrap, Moon-Ivy, Cord, Leather Scale, Bronzewood, Elven Darkleaf or Elven Leafweave.

Oh, absolutely - if we want to say that elves don't actually use metal much, because they have vegetable or animal products that are the equivalent, I'm totally fine with that.

I'm not really even against the idea that they magically create the metals they use - I'm merely questioning whether such an assumption fits with what the core rules describe.

Actually, now that I come to think of it, you could even say that one of the reasons elves are "only" at Renaissance level technology is because of their lack of metal. There are numerous examples of this in the real world, where lack of access to appropriate materials held back the technological advances of otherwise highly intelligent cultures (at least according to Guns, Germs, and Steel - I'm not enough of a historian/anthropologist to know whether Jared Diamond's theories are considered plausible/mainstream/fruity).

After all, elves have been around for a lot longer than humans, yet the Anuireans are more advanced in some ways (according to the equipment list); this can be explained if you assume that elves don't have a lot of metal available (and perhaps don't farm as much - if they have to hunt and gather their food, that will hold them back as well) either because it's not in the areas they live, or they are philosophically opposed to doing what is necessary to make use of it.

[gazza666]

I specifically avoided item creation feats to keep with the low magic item nature of the setting in which case making magic items isn't as handy.

Yes, I wondered about that.

The BRCS is kind of wishy washy on this. It says that magic items are rare, that most magical items will be of at least 4000gp value, and similar... but on the other hand, it doesn't say whether or not this applies to consumable magic items (if it does, do wizards get something in exchange for the Scribe Scroll feat they'd normally have?) and there are variants where you can use Regency to count as the XP cost for creation, which (to the mad power gamers like me) would actually tend to encourage item creation.

I do appreciate the problem. In 2nd edition, magic items were a "nice to have"; you tended to get some as you advanced in level, but there were never really any hard rules for making them and there were no firm assumptions on how many/how powerful the magic items a character of level X would have. In 3rd edition, though, item creation has been "released to the masses", and gear value is now an assumed part of the power level of a character (to the extent that making magical items rarer significantly powers up spellcasters, who suffer much less from such restrictions than their non-spellcasting fighter and rogue allies).

I'm sure many of you play with few or no magical items just fine, but I wonder how difficult it is to balance encounters; the core rules aren't going to be a lot of help to you, as the MM challenge ratings all pretty much assume that a fighter of level X will have an AC of about Y and probably a to hit bonus of Z, and so forth.

The "offical" stance is that psionics are not part of the setting. The 2nd rule book had pretty much the same ruleing - although they "allowed" the DM add psionics in they strongly cautioned against it.

Yeah, fair enough - I figured that was probably the case. Besides, there's always Dark Sun if you want a setting that really embraces psionics.

Adding psionics to the blood ability system just makes for a power gamers dream world - IMO.

I find psionics to be a little on the underpowered side, actually. I do know some people that have basically ditched the sorcerer and use the psion as the equivalent - essentially using a psion as a sorcerer in all but name - because they prefer the point system to the spells-per-day system. But it's a lot harder to twink out psionics in 3rd edition than 2nd.

Incarnum is an interesting way of handling magic

Yeah, I thought so as well - just recently got the book, and I'm still mulling about how to introduce it into a new home brew game I'm building.

that could work in a BR setting - although I would swap it for the standard magic system instead and just use its mechanics.

Would it be high magic, or low magic? In other words - would you suggest it replaces magicians, or sorcerers/wizards? I'm inclined to think the former; I've not played with it at all, but my general gut feeling while reading it was that incarnists and totemists were probably less powerful than wizards and sorcerers, at least at high levels. (Note that I think in many ways that's a good thing - a decent magic system that doesn't leave the spellcasters so utterly on top at high levels is something D&D could really use).

Again, adding it in is a power gamers dream since it would add on to blood abilities.

I'm not disputing this (or your previous mention of it in regard to psionics), but I'm curious as to why you think psions/incarnists would get so much from blood abilities that presumably sorcerers and wizards don't already get. I'm not seeing any particular synergies here that the core classes can't use, but then again I may well be missing it.

Most non-standard "classes" could easily be fitted into a BR setting, including warlocks and hex blades.

As "low magicians", do you think? Our DM has asked us to create some organisations and NPCs for the campaign, and the idea of an order of hexblades or warlocks intrigues me - but I'm not sure I have the "authority" to create an organisation of scions.

[The Jew]

Max source level is 7 in HUMAN untouched forests. In elven lands it is 9, though the source levels seem to be randomly chosen in 2ed material. This allows for level 5 guilds which are very hard to contest (as the owner has a +9 from his source) and untouchable by occupation of the land. If a Highway runs through, as exists for 2 of Tuarhievels provinces then you can get 2 trade routes each generating 2.5 GB's from each source.

Sielwode has tremendous resources due to this arrangement.


Also an idea on how to replace Mithral and/or steel is to have elves make armour out of spider webs. Magic could be used to put it together and remove the stickiness, but the magic itself need not create it. Then the amount of items created could be limited by amount that can be harvested without disrupting the eco-system.

to gazza:
D&D is meant to be enjoyed and played however you wish, but most of your ideas are based solely upon powergaming without the slightest attempt at actually playing a Cerilian Elf. The rules should not be tailored to to prevent powergamers, that is up to the DM to decide. If he doesn't want elves to have temples, he can just add +10 to the DC to account for Elves inability to accept this new concept. If he doesn't mind it, then go ahead and do it if that is your cup of tea.

As for the idea that mining could be accomplished by mining an area and then growing more trees then were ignored, that completely ignores the eco-system, which is understood by humans today. To a Cerilian elf that would be equal to a Mass Murderer in America saying, well sure I killed 9 people, but I had 15 kids to make up for it. So what's the problem.

You remove trees and dig up the soil, and then no more trees grow back, the soil erodes, sliding into the nearby river and killing the aquatic life due to all the dirt. And given the level 9 sources, their forests should be truly pristine on all levels.

[The Jew]

Scionists are overpowered, not because they themselves are stronger than a sorcerer, but because 3ed isn't tailored to handle the class. It's outside of the box, and so the checks and balances which exist with magic, don't occur with scionics. For instance the spells are balanced to allow for those that can be used to attack, can also be countered by defensive magic, but very little of scionics can be countered by normal magic, and so the scionists have an unfair edge.

I personally like the 3ed scionics rules, I just don't think they fit well in a campaign that is not carefully tailored to absorb them. Definitely not something that could be haphazardly thrown in.

[irdeggman]

The BRCS is kind of wishy washy on this. It says that magic items are rare, that most magical items will be of at least 4000gp value, and similar... but on the other hand, it doesn't say whether or not this applies to consumable magic items (if it does, do wizards get something in exchange for the Scribe Scroll feat they'd normally have?) and there are variants where you can use Regency to count as the XP cost for creation, which (to the mad power gamers like me) would actually tend to encourage item creation.

Hmmm not really.

From Ch 8:

Variant – Low Magic Campaign

Most areas of Cerilia are low magic, that is the availability and occurrence of magical items is rarer than the norm. Thus, spellcasters and magic treasure are about twice as rare as normal and the sale of magical items is a rarity. Most common people see magic very rarely and spellcasters are revered or feared (particularly arcane spell casters). In the elven nations, the heart of the Khinasi city-states, few areas of Brechtür, the Imperial city of Anuire, and perhaps a few other locations in Cerilia, the availably of magical items approaches that of the typical campaign.
To reflect the relative rarity of magical items and magical paraphernalia in Cerilia, increase the market value by 100% (i.e., double the listed value). For example, a +1 sword in Cerilia, would have a market value of 4,000 gp, while one out of Dungeon Master's Guide would have a market value of 2,000 gp for the enhancement bonus. This increase in market value should affect all facets of creation, including an increased expenditure of experience points. This increase in market value is only applicable to the magical portion of the item. For example a +1 longsword would have a market value of 2,315 gp out of Dungeon Master's Guide while in Cerilia it would have a market value of 4,315 gp. Another example is the dagger of venom (8,302 gp out of the Dungeon Master's Guide) would have a market value of 16,604 gp in Cerilia.
As an additional variant, the market value of potions and scrolls could be allowed to remain the same as they are in the core books, to reflect their limited use.

Noting that recent polls have determined that this variant should actually be the standard and that the variant would be to have a "normal" magic item world. Increasing the market value increase the xp cost to create magic items and thus decreases the desire for wizards to create magic items since it costs them more xp to do.

I find psionics to be a little on the underpowered side, actually. I do know some people that have basically ditched the sorcerer and use the psion as the equivalent - essentially using a psion as a sorcerer in all but name - because they prefer the point system to the spells-per-day system. But it's a lot harder to twink out psionics in 3rd edition than 2nd.


I'm not disputing this (or your previous mention of it in regard to psionics), but I'm curious as to why you think psions/incarnists would get so much from blood abilities that presumably sorcerers and wizards don't already get. I'm not seeing any particular synergies here that the core classes can't use, but then again I may well be missing it.

Are you using the expanded psionics handbook or the 3.0 version?

Most people tend to have the view that psions are more powerful than wizards or sorcerers.

This has to do with the fact that psions have no ASF chance and can augment their powers as well as add energy types to them.

Then there are the psionic feats. Some are pretty overpowering in and of themselves.

Overchannel (talented) - makes you take no damage to increase manifestor level)

Some powers are pretty flat out way powerful:

Scism (able to split your mind to do more than one thing at a time)
Psychic Reformation - for an xp cost you can pretty much redo anything about your character.

[gazza666]

Max source level is 7 in HUMAN untouched forests.

Chapter 7 of the BRCS says that forests have 7, and only "untouched ancient forests" have level 9. Are elven forests supposed to all be the latter? The map that comes with the boxed set shows (eg) Erebannien populations as mostly 1/7, implying that elves generally only have a maximum of 7 in forests.

I'm not denying that there are better sources than that available, but the rules imply that those are pretty rare. Swamps offer a level 4 virtual guild for elves, which can of course get 2 trade routes (a total of 6 2/3 GB income per turn), which is better than a level 8 temple (though not by a lot); it is difficult to have a domain made up entirely of forest and swamp sources, however.

It is certainly true that sources are difficult to contest. In order to successfully make use of trade routes, though, it is often necessary to create sources of level 4 or better in non-elven lands (because a lot of elven territory will tend to be forests, and the terrain or race has to be different at each end of a trade route). And source regents in non-elven territory don't even have to be contested; the simple act of Rule Province can annhilate source holdings.

Sielwode has tremendous resources due to this arrangement.

Not tremendous. Maxxing out guilds and trade routes between guilds yields more cash than anything else (by design, it looks like; guild regents are supposed to be the rich ones). NPC elves can do whatever they like regarding not building guilds - but in the interim, we have bad guys invading the realm that we need an army to dispose of, and they seem unusually unwilling to muster without GB.

D&D is meant to be enjoyed and played however you wish, but most of your ideas are based solely upon powergaming without the slightest attempt at actually playing a Cerilian Elf.

I would say that there is an element of truth in this, but only up to a point. There are elements of the setting that do not interest us (such as alignment restrictions - we don't use alignment anyway) and others that we ignore due to what we perceive as faulty mechanics (such as spell school restrictions). Those are house rules we have adopted because it suits our style of play better - and certainly our style of play caters to powergaming (for example, scions in this campaign are all gestalt characters ala Unearthed Arcana).

On the other hand we do not ignore everything. Our DM has chosen to set the game about a century in the future, largely because he prefers to use his own NPC regents rather than those that come with the boxed set and supplements (though the Gorgon and the Spider are still around). But we're sticking largely to monsters that are listed as being around in Cerilia; we're more or less using the War Card system as described (although we're a little bit concerned with the Scout training that elves have to have, and we're going to be altering that a bit); we're interacting with humans and other races in more or less setting-appropriate fashion (we're perhaps a little more accepting than we should be, but then again one of the PCs is a half elf).

In essence, we've taken what we like about the setting (and are using it), and have discarded what we don't particularly care for. I doubt we're alone in that; certainly some people might choose to keep things we've discarded and others would discard things we're keeping, but that's OK - nobody's going to be breaking down anyone's doors and forcing them to play the "right" way.

The rules should not be tailored to to prevent powergamers, that is up to the DM to decide. If he doesn't want elves to have temples, he can just add +10 to the DC to account for Elves inability to accept this new concept. If he doesn't mind it, then go ahead and do it if that is your cup of tea.

I was joking. I have no intention of having my elf create a temple; in fact, my character has been the one urging the guild and realm regent to knock down the human temple that has cropped up in one of our recently conquered provinces (to no avail so far; they seem to be more concerned with stopping the goblins to the north from their constant invasions - human loving wusses!

As for the idea that mining could be accomplished by mining an area and then growing more trees then were ignored, that completely ignores the eco-system, which is understood by humans today.

Err, no, that's absolutely what it isn't doing. Not planting more trees is ignoring the ecosystem. You can argue that it's not completely compensating for the damage, if you like, but you can't argue that it's worse than planting no trees at all.

To a Cerilian elf that would be equal to a Mass Murderer in America saying, well sure I killed 9 people, but I had 15 kids to make up for it. So what's the problem.

Even if I accept your assertion that every single tree's life is that important to an elf - and I'm not sure that I do; I think they're more concerned with the forest as a whole than it's individual constituents (it would be difficult for them to exist at all without ever killing trees - surely they step on blades of grass now and then, if nothing else) - that is still not an appropriate analogy.

A better one would be, "Sure I killed 9 people, but if I hadn't done they would have died anyway, and so would these 13 others." Many people who seem very familiar with the setting have suggested that during the wars with humanity the elves were using things like Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, regretting the damage that they caused to the forest but terming it "acceptable losses" because they perceived the consequences of not taking such steps to be worse.

Since to some extent the elves are still at war with everyone - they seek a return to the time before humanity came and despoiled their continent, do they not? - I would say that they are still going to keep their eye on the big picture, and if killing a few trees will let them get at valuable minerals that will help them kill humans that are killing even more trees, they'll shed a tear but still swing the axe.

Of course that would not be the first resort; if there are friendly treants that can get the trees to just move out of the way, they'll obviously use that means instead.

You remove trees and dig up the soil, and then no more trees grow back, the soil erodes, sliding into the nearby river and killing the aquatic life due to all the dirt. And given the level 9 sources, their forests should be truly pristine on all levels.

Different methods of mining have different ecological impacts. It is possible to preserve and then restore the soil.

Of course, if elves had access to druidic magic they'd be a lot more adept at this sort of thing; rangers don't really get anything powerful enough to help. I suppose the odd 17th-20th level wizard or sorcerer might be prepared to blow 5000XP and use a Wish to duplicate appropriate druid spells.

Anyway, I'm not saying that elves definitely do mine. I'm just saying that the core rules don't really reflect the fairly radical economic differences that would result if they magically create everything - in effect, the default assumption, based on what we're seeing in the core rules, is that elves get their metal pretty much the same way everyone else does - by digging it out of the ground. Either they mine, they magical create metals, or they don't use very much metal (because the other option - they trade for it - is hard to justify, given elven diplomatic relations). I find the first option to be what the rules seem to imply, the second option an intriguing but fairly radical change, and the third option to be a happy medium that gives elves a unique flavour without any economy-shattering consequences.

Your mileage may vary.

[gazza666]

Scionists are overpowered, not because they themselves are stronger than a sorcerer, but because 3ed isn't tailored to handle the class. It's outside of the box, and so the checks and balances which exist with magic, don't occur with scionics. For instance the spells are balanced to allow for those that can be used to attack, can also be countered by defensive magic, but very little of scionics can be countered by normal magic, and so the scionists have an unfair edge.

The default rule is that magic and psionics are transparent; ie any defense against one is a defense against the other (spell resistance, dispel magic, antimagic, etc).

This is actually one of the most common complaints about psionics - that it isn't really "different" enough to be interesting.

[gazza666]

Noting that recent polls have determined that this variant should actually be the standard and that the variant would be to have a "normal" magic item world. Increasing the market value increase the xp cost to create magic items and thus decreases the desire for wizards to create magic items since it costs them more xp to do.

Ah, well, I wasn't aware that the variant was being considered for the standard rule. I still feel this disadvantages fighters and rogues more than wizards and clerics; spellcasters have relatively few items that boost their spellcasting abilities (the most common are Headband of Intellect/Periapt of Wisdom/Cloak of Charisma, although you can throw in Pearls of Power and Rings of Wizardry) and such items tend to be relatively cheap (+6 stat enhancer for 36000gp). Wizards and sorcerers, especially, can be constructed such that their AC is not overly important (by using Flying, Invisibility, and similar). Fighters and rogues are usually melee focussed, and melee focussed characters generally have a lot of magical gear to keep up (rings of protection, amulets of natural armour, magic armour and shields, magic weapons). Also, the CRs of mid-high level monsters pretty much that you have some decent saving throw bonuses.

Which is not by any means to suggest that low magic is not a good idea; merely to point out that D&D 3rd edition isn't really designed for it. DMs would have to be extra careful to make sure they didn't accidentally throw something too powerful at the PCs; the core rulebooks are of no help at all for such variants.

Are you using the expanded psionics handbook or the 3.0 version?

To be honest haven't played with psionics since 3.0, although we did use some of Bruce Cordell's changes while we doing so. It is entirely possible that my view is somewhat outdated.

This has to do with the fact that psions have no ASF chance and can augment their powers as well as add energy types to them.

Then there are the psionic feats. Some are pretty overpowering in and of themselves.

Fair enough, sounds like I need to take a closer look (I do actually own ExpPsi, but I confess I haven't actually read it - I'm a bit of a pack rat).

Scism (able to split your mind to do more than one thing at a time)
Psychic Reformation - for an xp cost you can pretty much redo anything about your character.

If you use all of Monte Cooke's spells and magic items from the Books of Eldritch Might, you'll find similar (and just as overpowering) things for wizards. Duplicate is the arcane equivalent of Schism (in some ways superior, actually). And then there's Arcanaform - don't lose spells as you cast them, you just take damage; at the time, we had houseruled Wish to be similar to Miracle, in that if you used it to duplicate a spell you don't incur the 5000XP cost, so the Arcanaform wizard would just occasionally use Wish to duplicate Heal and keep going... It could be argued that our Wish houserule was inadvisable, but it took a spell like Arcanaform to really abuse it. There are also magic armour enhancements that make it possible to eliminate ASF and the max Dex bonus. I often wonder whether or not Bruce and Monte are engaged in some sort of one-upmanship.

Seriously, I love a lot of Monte and Bruce's stuff - just not all of it. (What? A power gamer saying that he doesn't like something powerful? Sure - power gamers don't like cheating - we're not munchkins; we want powerful characters, but we want it to be fair).

[dalor]

I mentioned in my post that wizards get bonus feats.
Yep, sure did.


Anthony Edwards

--- irdeggman <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:

> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> SOMETHING WIZARDS DON`T HAVE: Power over Undead.
>
>
> Anthony Edwards
>
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> Something clerics don`t have - bonus metamagic
> feats. These allow wizard spells to actually be
> more powerful. Empowered, maximized, widened, etc.
> all contribute to making a spell really, really
> powerful.

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