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

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TalonofAnathrax said:
@Snowfire
I am aware that you are wilfully weakening D&D mind/soul magic for story reasons, to make the crossover's themes work. Therefore I won't argue about that.
HOWEVER
This chapter utterly failed to show Viserys going all-out before failing. Therefore, I read it as "he didn't really care about her, gave it an offhand shot, killed her when she was inconvenient"
  • Where were the uses of Mythic Power?
  • What about Alter Fortune during diplomacy? Alter Fortune is noticeable to allies but not to enemies, I believe. Or was Viserys afraid that she could somehow manage it?
  • What about his Belt of Battle? Arcane Spellsurge and Greater Arcane Fusion? Time Stop? Celerity? All of these effects are mainstays of a Viserys powerful enough to cast Miracle, especially when faced with someone of her power. Having him fail to use them when he already used them a lot in battle makes this whole mess read less like a desperate struggle and more like a casual spar that ends in murder.
So overall, I am unhaooy with this chapter not because of its outcome, bit because I feel it failed to convey its own main theme. Having Viserys fail to social-fu someone? Why not! It makes her seem as psychologically alien as a Deep One! Having Viserys fail to capture her alive? Why not! Time Magic is bullshit!
But please have him actually try. They should both be using temporal acceleration, and Viserys should be casting super fast. This fight should have at least another 12 spells from Viserys, and Kathy could simply dispel them all at once and/or use her own version of Time Stop!
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Snowfire was pretty tired when he wrote this. So I wanted to wait for him to get some sleep before mentioning... All that.

Cracking out the whole buff suite and spell list is really goldfishes thing anyway

That being said there are a few issues with going in full magic guns blazing.

1. How fucking noticeable him lighting up like a magical nuke would be (Dresden mages are sensitive)
2. Social magic is probably a secret he wants to keep. Since it skirts ethical lines we were careful to nudge out of the way in our on world.
3. He opened up with anti magic field, which was somewhat of a tactical blunder, if an understandable one.
4. The council was incredibly unlikely to let her live, especially after she tried to kill them with magic. (The outsiders were no help with that either).
5. Anti magic field didn't stop her from casting, so he probably wasn't willing to risk anything else, especially since she needed only one spell to win.

That being said, I agree. Somewhat.

I'm not interested in reading through a whole list of social buffs and effects, especially since until SF said otherwise I assumed Viserys HAD used all of them.

I think just using alter fortune here, and failing anyway would help sell the corruptive and irreversible nature of dark magic better.

Everything else is just getting to complicated.
 
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zxzx24 said:
Snowfire was pretty tired when h wrote this, also our whole buff suite is more... Goldfishes thing?

On top of being somewhat noticeable. also possibly illegal and creepy.

That being said, I agree. Somewhat.

I'm not interested in reading through a whole list of social buffs and effects, especially since until SF said otherwise I assumed Viserys HAD used all of them.

I think just using alter fortune here, and failing anyway would help sell the corruptive and irreversible nature of dark magic better.

Everything else is just getting to complicated.
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I didn't mean just buffs - although a cool hint in the background that we're using Mythic Power would have been great (remember that cold wind back in Myr?).

No, I'm talking about the fact that Viserys can cast 4 spells per round at this level.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
I didn't mean just buffs - although a cool hint in the background that we're using Mythic Power would have been great (remember that cold wind back in Myr?).

No, I'm talking about the fact that Viserys can cast 4 spells per round at this level.
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He might be able to in an anti magic field?

I don't think so?

Also alter fortune is just cool narratively.

Also him using temporal magic like celerity or alter fortune would just make things extra tragic.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
@Snowfire
I am aware that you are wilfully weakening D&D mind/soul magic for story reasons, to make the crossover's themes work. Therefore I won't argue about that. It's necessary to make the crossover's (pretty cool) themes work, after all !

HOWEVER

This chapter utterly failed to show Viserys going all-out before failing. Therefore, I read it as "he didn't really care about her, gave it an offhand shot, killed her when she proved inconvenient".
  • Where were the uses of Mythic Power, especially for Diplomacy ?
  • What about Alter Fortune during diplomacy? Alter Fortune is noticeable to allies but not to enemies, I believe. Or was Viserys afraid that she could somehow manage it?
  • What about his Belt of Battle? Arcane Spellsurge and Greater Arcane Fusion? Time Stop? Celerity? All of these effects are mainstays of a Viserys powerful enough to cast Miracle, especially when faced with someone of her power. Having him fail to use them when he already used them a lot in battle makes this whole mess read less like a desperate struggle and more like a casual spar that ends in murder. He should have cast a lot more spells, sometimes loving too quickly for Viserys to see.
So overall, I am disappointed with this chapter not because of its outcome, but because I feel it failed to convey its own main theme. Having Viserys fail to social-fu someone? Why not! It makes her seem as psychologically alien as a Deep One! Having Viserys fail to capture her alive? Why not! Time Magic is bullshit!
But please have him actually try. They should both be using temporal acceleration, and Viserys should be casting super fast. This fight should have at least another 12 spells from Viserys, and Kathy could simply dispel them all at once, force their durations to expire instantly and/or use her own version of Time Stop!

Example: Viserys casts black tentacles, then a Swift or quickened Invisibility to get away with activating his Belt of Battle to cast Arcane Spellsurge and Time Stop without being seen breaking the Law. Then? Wham! Wall spells, buffs, whatever! At this level Viserys has incredible action economy: thanks to Arcane Spellsurge and the Arcane Spellsurge spells (which he should know or have on items at level 20 - I'll be pushing for that at least!) he can cast 4 spells per round, and Time Stop gives him 1d4+1 rounds in which to cast battlefield control spells or buffs.
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I have to say I felt pretty much the same reading this, as soon as he cast Black Tentacles I was disappointed because it's one of the least useful things he could have cast, why not Amber Sarcophagus?

Also I find it odd that Viserys was caught out by her using magic within an AMF, if she had already gathered the magic and you've altered the rules for that to work then fine, but he's been dealing with quite a few warlocks recently. He had no prior experience with this?

In that case I find it hard to believe his test run would be now, at the first sign of his magic working differently he would have nutted out just how different regardless of him "not having a researchers mentality".
 
zxzx24 said:
*Shrug*

Personally I always saw it as a more specific version of divination.

Since, you know. You still have to convince whatever's on the other end of it your deserve your powers back.
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Even then you get the guarantee that they are listening, turning what should be serious soul searching and self reflection into bargaining for your power back.

'I had to torch the goblin camp with everyone inside in order to draw out the necromancer, honest.'
 
@Goldfish
I don't know much of gear, but besides the standard-set she definitly needs something with Lesser Restoration to deal with bloodwish-damage.

For the PoSK I would mostly recommend low-level buffs to make her use of Lesser Dragonshape more efficient (since she has discovered rather recently by her backstory and hasn't really used it much her spells are not build to support it).
So Protection from Arrows, Blur, Call the Void or similar.
 
Artemis1992 said:
@Goldfish
I don't know much of gear, but besides the standard-set she definitly needs something with Lesser Restoration to deal with bloodwish-damage.

For the PoSK I would mostly recommend low-level buffs to make her use of Lesser Dragonshape more efficient (since she has discovered rather recently by her backstory and hasn't really used it much her spells are not build to support it).
So Protection from Arrows, Blur, Call the Void or similar.
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Wasn't Blood Wish rare/near unheard of even amongst the Old Blood?
 
Snowfire said:
This was…fucking hard to write. I hate hurting my characters, and Kathy really grew on me as things went on and the thread started to get invested in her. I've done my best to make Viserys fight for her here, and you can see that Harry was willing to try. But there's more to it than just what I'd shown. Some of this, most of what's left actually, will be covered in the next chapter. That will probably take a little longer, as I do have a PW vote to close and I owe it to my questers to get back to it at this point.

To be blunt, with what I'd put onto a page about Kathy, I'm unsure that the thread itself could have successfully turned her away from her own destruction due to how broken she was. Two years of time spent…twisting herself around points of time until she found what she deemed perfect – or as close as she could get – does things to you. Harry himself touches on this in this section. And the PTSD hardly helps. I'm aware that this result may…not play so well with the thread. I've tried my best to make it make sense, to show how and why it ended the way it did. It's a little like with Sandor, really. There was only so much that could be done.
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Personally I find this resolution good for the narrative, not pleasant to read but a story can't be all triumphs if it is to keep one engaged and the way the failure happened here makes sense. That said I do think Viserys might try to miracle resurrect her in order to try to get to her again.
 
Someone asked earlier if there was a spell that would allow safe Mage Duels, I'm sorry I can't recall who that was, I mentioned there was a spell I could not remember the name of that kinda did that but wasn't really worth it due to the gaps in functionality.

Phasic Challenge is that spell.

@DragonParadox would you allow an improved version of this spell to be worked into the Circle of Battle, participants would have to volunteer themselves to the effects but it would be cool if people really could go All Out.
 
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Artemis1992 said:
No, just pay 500XP.
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Though shalt not submit thy god to market forces :V

DragonParadox said:
Even then you get the guarantee that they are listening, turning what should be serious soul searching and self reflection into bargaining for your power back.

'I had to torch the goblin camp with everyone inside in order to draw out the necromancer, honest.'
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It's... Hm...

Sometimes that soul searching can, and should be prompted.

My paladin, despite more than a few potentially dodgey and foolish actions was only subject to divine censure twice.

He was a devotee of pelor, and he pissed him off and/or disappointed him enough that he took away his paladin mount and gave him a living celestial filly instead.

TLDR "prove you can actually take care of another living being."

Which... Was an terrifying experience for Koth.

I/he never really thought of a "magic space horse in a can" as something that he would necessarily need to take care of. Care about. Or that was even really alive any more than say a magic missile was. (Despite them being demonstrable alive, aware, and intelligent.)

Having an immortal, (relatively) powerful outsider replaced with a (relatively) mortal and basically defenseless child was...

Frightening, really. Taking the immortal nature of summoned creatures for granted is something I did routinely.

I was so overtaken by concern over the fragility of said filly's life I almost quit the field there to take them back to town. (We had a druid NPC take care of them while we stormed the necromancer's tower).

Afterward...

I had Koth just take the filly and leave. He stoped adventuring for several real life months and was (mostly) just a ranch hand while the filly was being raised. (taking a young child into the front lines of combat was pretty much unthinkable to him).

It was a glorified version of the egg test, but it still managed to make me think.

Still.

This doesn't really matter in this quest. Were a sorcerer, and more than that the thread culture is vehemently discussing morality and God's.
 
Deliste said:
Wasn't Blood Wish rare/near unheard of even amongst the Old Blood?
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She's much deeper into "being a dragon" and dreaming as one than most Valyrian nobility.

Even though she ultimatly failed the jump to the true transformation there are some benefits.
Mostly the Bloodwish, Lesser Dragonshape and the (theoretical) ability to take a few levels in Dragonblooded.
 
zxzx24 said:
Though shalt not submit thy god to market forces :V



It's... Hm...

Sometimes that soul searching can, and should be prompted.

My paladin, despite more than a few potentially dodgey and foolish actions was only subject to divine censure twice.

He was a devotee of pelor, and he pissed him off and/or disappointed him enough that he took away his paladin mount and gave him a living celestial filly instead.

TLDR "prove you can actually take care of another living being."

Which... Was an terrifying experience for Koth.

I/he never really thought of a "magic space horse in a can" as something that he would necessarily need to take care of. Care about. Or that was even really alive any more than say a magic missile was. (Despite them being demonstrable alive, aware, and intelligent.)

Having an immortal, (relatively) powerful outsider replaced with a (relatively) mortal and basically defenseless child was...

Frightening, really. Taking the immortal nature of summoned creatures for granted is something I did routinely.

I was so overtaken by concern over the fragility of said filly's life I almost quit the field there to take them back to town. (We had a druid NPC take care of them while we stormed the necromancer's tower).

Afterward...

I had Koth just take the filly and leave. He stoped adventuring for several real life months and was (mostly) just a ranch hand while the filly was being raised. (taking a young child into the front lines of combat was pretty much unthinkable to him).

It was a glorified version of the egg test, but it still managed to make me think.

Still.

This doesn't really matter in this quest. Were a sorcerer, and more than that the thread culture is vehemently discussing morality and God's.
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That is a nice story and a clever move on the part of your GM, but the thing is it goes well past the mechanical intent behind atonement, which is from a strict reading of the text a way to codify bypassing tangled moral complications with a nice easy bit of XP cost and maybe a bit of role-playing with the GM.

Don't get me wrong there is a place for that. Sometimes you just want to play the campaign as a tactics game, sometimes you really want to get to the next encounter before the session ends and that is fine, but the spell Atonement as written and as intended is almost as bad for any sort of deep considerations of morality as Detect Evil.
 
Artemis1992 said:
Seems to me like letting her rewind would be the best option. Viserys gets another chance at that nat. 20 to convince her.
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Because clearly she'd let them through the door. Like, seriously man. The moment she can fire off her chronomancy is the moment Viserys and Harry lose. There isn't middle ground.

TalonofAnathrax said:
I am aware that you are wilfully weakening D&D mind/soul magic for story reasons, to make the crossover's themes work. Therefore I won't argue about that. It's necessary to make the crossover's (pretty cool) themes work, after all !
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I'm not, actually. But sure, let's go with that.

TalonofAnathrax said:
Example: Viserys casts black tentacles, then a Swift or quickened Invisibility to get away with activating his Belt of Battle to cast Arcane Spellsurge and Time Stop without being seen breaking the Law. Then? Wham! Wall spells, buffs, animated objects, whatever! At this level Viserys has incredible action economy: thanks to Arcane Spellsurge and the Arcane Fusion spells (which he should know or have on items at level 20 - I'll be pushing for that at least!) he can cast 4 spells per round, and Time Stop gives him 1d4+1 rounds in which to cast battlefield control spells or buffs.
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Ok, Talon? I respect you, I do. But to put it bluntly, it feels like you're telling me to expend a thousand words more at least on getting to just exactly the same place. Viserys in this is also level 18, not 20, and came into the DF world having burned pretty much all of his consumables. Yes, that leaves him with other gear, but assuming that he has the benefit of a perfect gear set is more than simply questionable.

And you're also missing something rather major - like almost everyone else, apparantly - whilst doing this.

Viserys made a promise not to break the Laws whilst going through this. Viserys, you might remember, is Lawful Neutral. He keeps his word. So, for example, this point?

Deliste said:
I have to say I felt pretty much the same reading this, as soon as he cast Black Tentacles I was disappointed because it's one of the least useful things he could have cast, why not Amber Sarcophagus?
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Changing the form of another. Not gonna happen.

Deliste said:
Also I find it odd that Viserys was caught out by her using magic within an AMF, if she had already gathered the magic and you've altered the rules for that to work then fine, but he's been dealing with quite a few warlocks recently. He had no prior experience with this?
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He's not needed AMF before now at all. He went for it as a 'Stop' button for her chronomancy, and to prevent a death curse being levelled. The way in which AMF functions on DF practitioners is that it creates skintight Circles around them whilst they're inside it. They can still use magic on themselves, at that point, but they can't project or draw on energy at all.

Viserys didn't know this because it's literally never come up before and his research has been focused on very different avenues. First off on getting home, then on the nature of the Winter Mantles.

Moving on.

Why would Viserys expend the level of social action that you're suggesting on someone that from his perspective didn't need it? He went into this expecting "Warlock". Previously those have either required only a moderate amount of his social capacity, or none at all because the solution is death.

He threw a bunch at her right at the end, and it hit hard, but at that point she was already spiraling and with how her psyche is built up around things, the circumstantial modifiers would have been utterly vicious. Like, similar skills checks to inducing Melisandre's crisis of faith needed. That's how central being able to stay was to her world.

Now, this?

zxzx24 said:
I think just using alter fortune here, and failing anyway would help sell the corruptive and irreversible nature of dark magic better.
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That's a fair point, but recall that this is from Harry's PoV, not Viserys'. The roundup section of this is a Viserys PoV. In that, you will get a better look at what Viserys was running behind the curtain, his thought process, and how this event affected him.

Given the feedback given here, I will be sure to be a bit more specific in the references I make to the magic used.

zxzx24 said:
It's late @Snowfire ! Go to bed already!

Not tat I shouldn't also be in bed...
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@Artemis1992 has it right. It's 8 am now, I've had a good resf. Of course, waking up and having to write all this from my phone screen... :V
 
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DragonParadox said:
That is a nice story and a clever move on the part of your GM, but the thing is it goes well past the mechanical intent behind atonement, which is from a strict reading of the text a way to codify bypassing tangled moral complications with a nice easy bit of XP cost and maybe a bit of role-playing with the GM.

Don't get me wrong there is a place for that. Sometimes you just want to play the campaign as a tactics game, sometimes you really want to get to the next encounter before the session ends and that is fine, but the spell Atonement as written and as intended is almost as bad for any sort of deep considerations of morality as Detect Evil.
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Ah detect evil. The other thing I got lambasted for misusing.

Realizing just how much harm that one little spell, and how much harm it definitely has caused is kind of a right of passage for my paladins.

"Good magic can still fuck up and ruin innocent people's lives just as badly as evil magic."

Not all angels are friends, nor are all devil's necessarily enemies. Even if they detect as such.

Show mercy and compassion to even the evil because it is far, far to easy to be wrong in our condemnation, and in doing so spurn others further down the path of injustice.

I'm sure Yrael and the Archons have had some pretty bleak experiences with detect lies and detect evil while here at least.

Edit:

[X] Duesal
 
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Goldfish said:
???

250 IM to deliver 10d6 damage explosions, likely with an effective blast radius of at least 40ft after taking the fragmentation casing into effect, to any target within LoS without fail seems super economical to me.

Given the price of modern cruise missiles, it actually seems even more reasonable. We can produce 50 of these for the price of one fighter. Arming each fighter with four of them gives the pilot serious firepower.
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That sounds more like a weapon for a bomber than a fighter. Load a large bomber with 30 of those and we can destroy entire buildings. Use flights or even air wings of bombers and we have a solution to the hordes of Wights in the North.
 
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