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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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Tldr: Praetorians got nerfed on all fronts, making them almost unviable in the long term, and picking names is a shitshow around here every single time.

Imma go and have some sleep.
Try not to saltsplode while I'm away, ya'll :/
 
Deliste said:
Humans still make the best army killers, we are the versatile and through Magic we are Gods.

Planar empires field lots of mid-level fodder, they have elites but they are almost always very important people outside of their battle capabilities and they are very often far more narrow in their capabilities and they needed those millennium long lifespans to get there with their ECL burden (and lazy perspectives :p)

They have the better grunts, we have the better Heroes.
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Quantity is a quality all on it's own.

See Praetorian vs Adult Red. Alone, none of them has a chance, but with 20 people and caster support? That works.

And the Efreeti can do the same to us. Or Baator.

How many Bone Devils does it take to bring down Viserys? Can he take 10? An even 100? What if a Pit Fiend leads them?

Which is incidentally why the Warlord build is so much better for the Praetorians, as it helps them to leverage regular human aid much better.
 
Deliste said:
Yet Dragons are top dog on every plane for a reason, so these armies really shouldn't be able to take down one in it's prime with a handful of regulars for that to remain true should they?

Maybe it doesn't make sense to anyone else but I'd actually be more comfortable with this if they weren't so normal, make them freakish at least a little.

Also it'd be nice to get an answer to how many of these things are intended because at the moment it's unclear at least to me if it's 50 or 50,000 or 50,000,000.
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  1. Dragons are indeed top dog in many places, but not because they go Dragon Smash! on their enemies. it's because they are vastly intelligent enormously patient and long lived inherently magical beings that also come in a physical package vastly more resilient than most mages. A handful of Fire Giant guards can kill a Red Dragon with some luck, but the dragon would have to either be surprised or fight very stupid.
  2. I don't think Viserys would have any reason to make them freakish IC and the Valyrians with their focus on physical beauty will have left him the tools to ensure they are not
  3. I think we settled on 1 in 100 with the caveat that you also have to be on the upper end of the spectrum level wise
 
egoo said:
*temptation intensifies*

But yes, I did. I disagree with your notion of us having 'stronger' heroes, but I find myself incapable of properly expressing that.
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Then if I may respond to the glimpse I did catch, us not having them yet isn't much of an argument for anything.

They have had thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years to develop their forces, it is insanity to expect us to match that right now, what we can do is play to our strengths and thats
DragonParadox said:
the full implications of a dragon with a mortal's sensibilities and impatience with the status quo.
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We need to defend what we have, play smart and work our way to the top, just like we did from the gutters of Braavos.
 
Azel said:
It was the same when I tried to push for some fucking order in the titles and areas so that we can actually have discreet administration units. So now we are stuck with an Imperial Administration that has no concept of territory and it's too late to fix that, as our recent conquests already run on the old system of "whatever I feel like".
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Maybe it's because i gave up reading the whole thread and just read the threadmarks but i don't quite understand this. How can the bureocrafy that administres our lands not have a concept of territory and yet work without problems? Could you please elaborate?
 
Our empire is barely 2-3 years old, it is pretty ridiculous already that we are even a minor threat to thousands of year old Extraplanar Empires.

Though, I don't mind the Praetorians much now, we needed the aid of Valyrian bullshit to make them. So they make sense.
 
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DkArthas said:
Our empire is barely 2-3 years old, it is pretty ridiculous already that we as even a minor threat to thousands of year old Extraplanar Empires.
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America > Britain, it's whack

More seriously, I'm pretty sure that we aren't actually a threat to them at all. We're just making it a little more annoying to invade us, that's all. Force projection, dealing with high-level enemies and/or high-OP magical gear are still big problems for our army on the interplanar stage. Three level 20 wizards with decent gear could steamroll our entire Imperium (us included if they were clever about it).
 
DragonParadox said:
  1. Dragons are indeed top dog in many places, but not because they go Dragon Smash! on their enemies. it's because they are vastly intelligent enormously patient and long lived inherently magical beings that also come in a physical package vastly more resilient than most mages. A handful of Fire Giant guards can kill a Red Dragon with some luck, but the dragon would have to either be surprised or fight very stupid.
  2. I don't think Viserys would have any reason to make them freakish IC and the Valyrians with their focus on physical beauty will have left him the tools to ensure they are not
  3. I think we settled on 1 in 100 with the caveat that you also have to be on the upper end of the spectrum level wise
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1. I wasn't arguing for Dragon Smash but dimensional anchor and wingbind aren't that hard to come by either, now I'm going to wonder about DnD consistency. Make it stahp :o

2.They harvest literal devils to defeat the gods and they end up as the most egregious sex-fiends of all things. It's always the sex with these people.
Can they not be significantly bigger or something? It just feels so wrong for no-namers to be capable of that and going back to the tavern we pulled them out of with barely a shrug from the regulars, freak maybe was too loaded a term but they shouldn't blend in.

3. That's potential, how many are we going to make, and on what timescale I guess though I didn't ask that at first.
 
Azel said:
Quantity is a quality all on it's own.

See Praetorian vs Adult Red. Alone, none of them has a chance, but with 20 people and caster support? That works.

And the Efreeti can do the same to us. Or Baator.

How many Bone Devils does it take to bring down Viserys? Can he take 10? An even 100? What if a Pit Fiend leads them?

Which is incidentally why the Warlord build is so much better for the Praetorians, as it helps them to leverage regular human aid much better.
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The Sultan can't take the same squad of Devils, there are checks and balances for these things, usually other Empires and Universal Laws.
 
Deliste said:
1. I wasn't arguing for Dragon Smash but dimensional anchor and wingbind aren't that hard to come by either, now I'm going to wonder about DnD consistency. Make it stahp :o

2.They harvest literal devils to defeat the gods and they end up as the most egregious sex-fiends of all things. It's always the sex with these people.
Can they not be significantly bigger or something? It just feels so wrong for no-namers to be capable of that and going back to the tavern we pulled them out of with barely a shrug from the regulars, freak maybe was too loaded a term but they shouldn't blend in.

3. That's potential, how many are we going to make, and on what timescale I guess though I didn't ask that at first.
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  1. Wingbind still has to make it though their SR and saves and you need to get the drop of the dragon to cast both spells at the beginning of the fight
  2. Well they will be the size of the Mountain for one, not entirely off the human bell-curve but certainly notable
  3. That's up to you guys
Anyway vote closed.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Feb 14, 2019 at 4:47 AM, finished with 356 posts and 11 votes.
  • [X] Duesal
    [X] Plan Let's Talk First
    -[X] Teleport over in human form without applying further combat buffs that go above regular Persistomancy.
    -[X] Once appearing there:
    --[X] "This is a slightly surprising turn of events. There is a very fine audience chamber you could have come to, if you wanted to speak with me. It would have been less... rustical..." // Try for something between honest exasperation and minor annoyance. This is highly irregular after all.
    --[X] "My name is Viserys Targaryen and I shall not bore you with my titles, for I assume that crowns and kingdoms mean little to you. By what name may I call you in turn?" // Setting the mood to talk shop. If she was interested in pleasantries and mooching up, she wouldn't have ambushed us in the middle of the desert.
    --[X] "I assume this meeting is about the one title you would care about. It seems like the one and only thing most Red Priests want to talk with me about these days." // Let's get straight to the damn messiah point...
    --[X] If it turns out that she doesn't want to talk about Azor Ahai related things: "Well, I must say that this is pleasant deviation from recent patterns."
    --[X] If the previous is true and then she announces murderous intentions towards Viserys: "And we are back to far too familiar territory. The chance of pace was nice while it lasted."
    [X] Plan Let's Talk First
    -[X] Nine Lives and our usual persistomancy should still be active, our permanent Channel Vigor needs to be set to Spirit bonuses, and we should go with the full set of social buffs. Divine Insight and Grand Destiny, too.
    -[X] Teleport over in human form.
    -[X] Once appearing there:
    --[X] "This is a slightly surprising turn of events. There is a very fine audience chamber you could have come to, if you wanted to speak with me. It would have been less... rustic..." // Try for something between honest exasperation and minor annoyance. This is highly irregular after all.
    --[X] "My name is Viserys Targaryen and I shall not bore you with my titles, for I assume that crowns and kingdoms mean little to you. By what name may I call you in turn?" // Setting the mood to talk shop. If she was interested in pleasantries and mooching up, she wouldn't have ambushed us in the middle of the desert.
    --[X] "I assume this meeting is about the one title you would care about. It seems like the one and only thing most Red Priests want to talk with me about these days." // Let's get straight to the damn messiah point...
    --[X] If it turns out that she doesn't want to talk about Azor Ahai related things: "Well, I must say that this is pleasant deviation from recent patterns."
    --[X] If the previous is true and then she announces murderous intentions towards Viserys: "And we are back to far too familiar territory. The chance of pace was nice while it lasted."
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Shador said:
Maybe it's because i gave up reading the whole thread and just read the threadmarks but i don't quite understand this. How can the bureocrafy that administres our lands not have a concept of territory and yet work without problems? Could you please elaborate?
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Handwavium helps.

The thing is, people keep talking about "making Hermetia the Governor of Lys", but we have no definition of "Governor" or "the area named Lys".

And every time I tried to change this, a few people bitched loudly about names, that everyone should remain a generic Lord and borders would just happen on their own.
 
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We should also launch another expedition into Valyria someday, if only for that super Valyrian armoury thing. That might have survived the doom pretty intact.
 
Azel said:
Handwavium helps.

The thing is, people keep talking about "making Hermetia the Governor of Lys", but we have no definition of "Governor" or "the area named Lys".

And every time I tried to change this, a few people bitched loudly about names, that everyone should remain a generic Lord and borders would just gappen on their own.
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I think it's a bit of a stretch to say we have no definition of "the area named Lys" you just want far more granularity than the majority of the thread.
 
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Azel said:
Handwavium helps.

The thing is, people keep talking about "making Hermetia the Governor of Lys", but we have no definition of "Governor" or "the area named Lys".

And every time I tried to change this, a few people bitched loudly about names, that everyone should remain a generic Lord and borders would just happen on their own.
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I think we will need a vote on this... it's starting to impact the narrative too since I would like that scene with Hermetia and for that she needs defined responsibilities.
 
I thought the Thread agreed with the plan to make the three daughters separate governorships, while the entire disputed land are united under another governorship in order to reduce the chances of a rebellion?

Edit : Ninja'd
 
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DkArthas said:
I thought the Thread agreed with the plan to make the three daughters separate governorships, while the entire disputed land are united under another separate governorship in order to reduce the chances of a rebellion?
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Yeah. It kinda did. But that needs us to define what this "Governor" thing actually means and drawing a line on the map to set his area of responsibility.
 
Azel said:
Does the southern coast of the Disputed Lands count to Lys or not?

Because the plan used to be to make a Governor of the Formerly Disputed Lands, with Uthero earmarked for this.

And I would have pushed for this, if the thread would just let me have the vernacular and definitions to actually express this issue.
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No, they're disputed. We undisputed them so they are ours to do with as we will.

Look I get your point that there are ambiguous borders in places, I don't see how you don't get that some people don't particularly care for a difference of a few leagues on a map they are not cross referencing as they vote and read. If it can be generally agreed on what is being discussed that is good enough.

Everyone has their areas of focus, you've frustrated people by handwaving certain aspects you didn't feel were all that important to specify that they obviously did. Same yeah?
 
Deliste said:
1. I wasn't arguing for Dragon Smash but dimensional anchor and wingbind aren't that hard to come by either, now I'm going to wonder about DnD consistency. Make it stahp :o

2.They harvest literal devils to defeat the gods and they end up as the most egregious sex-fiends of all things. It's always the sex with these people.
Can they not be significantly bigger or something? It just feels so wrong for no-namers to be capable of that and going back to the tavern we pulled them out of with barely a shrug from the regulars, freak maybe was too loaded a term but they shouldn't blend in.

3. That's potential, how many are we going to make, and on what timescale I guess though I didn't ask that at first.
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1. Amusingly, Wingbind has basically zero range. It also allows saves (Dragons have amazing saves) and is negated by SR.

Dragons are also clever. People who think of them as fairytale monsters who wait to be fought fairy in a dungeon are totally off-base: a D&D Dragon is a master plotter, a terrifying combatant, a flying brick AND a mighty sorcerer. They're also filthy rich and tend to have great social stats too (so allies, minions).

2. I expect them to be big, but not total freaks of nature. There are real humans with those stats, you know
 
Deliste said:
No, they're disputed. We undisputed them so they are ours to do with as we will.

Look I get your point that there are ambiguous borders in places, I don't see how you don't get that some people don't particularly care for a difference of a few leagues on a map they are not cross referencing as they vote and read. If it can be generally agreed on what is being discussed that is good enough.

Everyone has their areas of focus, you've frustrated people by handwaving certain aspects you didn't feel were all that important to specify that they obviously did. Same yeah?
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Frankly, since I do most of the bookkeeping here these days, I feel perfectly justified in handwaving away people wanting to track 50 people and 200 IM every month.

My issue is that there is ambiguity on pretty high-level stuff that a good bunch of people care about and which would actually help to make votes clearer. I for one would gladly make a map for such a Disputed Lands vote, so that everyone can just see it right beneath the vote and we can have a sensible vote and discussion about it.

Because you are here stating the assumption that we seized territory from Lys and Myr, which was never officially done. That is an issue. Not 200 IM a month to pay some NPC
 
Azel said:
Handwavium helps.

The thing is, people keep talking about "making Hermetia the Governor of Lys", but we have no definition of "Governor" or "the area named Lys".

And every time I tried to change this, a few people bitched loudly about names, that everyone should remain a generic Lord and borders would just happen on their own.
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It worked like that, on a mix of traditions and the occasional ruling over particular landmarks being on one side of a particular border for along time IRL, as far as I know.
 
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