- 30 Progress for the first stage
- As for what else could have been in the fey lore, well it's a case of you don't know what you don't know IC, those were theoretical hooks that do not exist now
A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
-
- Tags
- a song of ice and fire a sword without a hilt d&d 3.5 dungeons & dragons 100% high octane dragon fuel ave corvidae battle action dragon diplomacy best sister bureaucromancy delicious soul-stuff dragon dreams come true dragon ta'veren greatest uncle hubris is a coward's word in defiance of gods and men mammon's folly mutually assured mage's disjunction qm murderhobo top tier coatl
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
Well, I'm contemplating asking Wild Hunt, Water Courts, and some of the friendlier Westerosi Courts for the same next month as an MA, so it is less of a "stuff we don't know" and more "stuff we know we need to make a Deity and may be available if we're lucky".
...we do know what stuff we need, at least roughly, right?
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
We may have to reinvent the wheel in some ways. The Fey who are closest to this stuff as DP has implied are the Court of Stars, and they are no friends of ours.
Of course if we can get some of that knowledge out of their carcasses like we pulled with Ymeri's blowtorch, or her dumb tree, then there's always that.
Of course if we can get some of that knowledge out of their carcasses like we pulled with Ymeri's blowtorch, or her dumb tree, then there's always that.
- Location
- France
Did you read my post, or are you replying to a generic strawman you're annoyed with?
I quite literally said that pseudo-Renaissance = cannons. I am quite aware of the fact that the Renaissance is when firearms began appearing on european battlefields. I am aware of the fact that steam cannons weren't a thing in IRL Renaissance armies, you know
However, I also said that I appreciate the feel of a generic high fantasy setting. Sure there's good Renaissance fantasy (magic muskets! Pike and shot with sorcerers in the center! Gun lines mowing down old wizards who didn't believe guns could batter through a forcefield!) but so far this hasn't been one and I appreciate that.
I like the fact that melee is paramount in this setting. And while the whole "shoot, then charge" thing was real during the Renaissance, it's when ranged fire started becoming more and more ubiquitous. And I like my melee units! I like them as more than a final morale-crusher, and as more than bodyguards standing between riflemen and the enemy cavalry! And I strongly suspect that we'll push onwards and reach firearms that are vastly superior to melee within a few years of in-game research, thereby making good old melee brawls increasingly obsolete against everything but teleporting foes.
I'm also rather annoyed with Viserys and his best friends singlehandedly pushing the tech tree forwards without ever investigating any dead ends or failing to have a good idea... Us simply never going for gunpowder is IMO absolutely perfect, especially seeing as AFAIK we've never actually seen any of the stuff.
Yes, per the general plan Azel made you guys have an idea of where you want to take this.
- Location
- Germany
A bit of both. That list of "things we have" was reading to me as "things we have that I feel are bad for the generic fantasy setting".Did you read my post, or are you replying to a generic strawman you're annoyed with?
I quite literally said that pseudo-Renaissance = cannons. I am quite aware of the fact that the Renaissance is when firearms began appearing on european battlefields. I am aware of the fact that steam cannons weren't a thing in IRL Renaissance armies, you know
Vote closed.
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- Location
- Germany
On an entirely different note, I take a perverse joy from the fact that the Fey are cheering on our efforts to make a mockery of the very concepts of divinity.
egoo
Totally Not Creating Problems Where None Existed
- Location
- Russia
Asmodeus be taking notes, yo.
On the gun arguement, how expensive are scrolls of fire bolt or ice bolt or what not. Maybe a make a cheap construct gun projector whoes only skill is use magic items. So you put a bunch of scrolls into it and use it as a gun equivalent. Maybe extend the spell to increase range. Would that be feasible and the cost could keep melee relevant.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
No, that wouldn't be very cost effective or useful. Between most 1st level scrolls being really poor for combat, at least at 1st caster level when their range and damage are limited and their effects easy to resist, and the time required to produce them, something like you're suggesting would be too impractical.
Even a 1st level scroll at 1st caster level would cost 2.5 IM, which would very rapidly add up even if production time wasn't a concern. Increasing the caster level or using a higher level spell would be far more expensive.
We can produce Explosive Packs for 8 IM each, and each Explosive Pack can likely be used to provide propellant for 350 or more bullet cartridges.
Oh i know. That was my compromise suggestion to keep melee relevant.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
In a D&D world, melee won't stop being highly relevant for a long, long time. Even using D&D Modern damage values, which are much more generous than those in Pathfinder, personal firearms don't actually do that much damage and even relatively low CR creatures can have the armor and HP to absorb a ridiculous amount of damage, or the anatomy to simply ignore most of it. Most pistols will inflict no more than 2d6 damage and heavier caliber rifles don't go much past 2d8 or 2d10. A .50 caliber sniper rifle does 2d12 damage.
That's generally more damage than a regular bow or crossbow, but not that much more, and there are a lot of reasons that we would prefer to use them for now, at least in the wider scale.
Launchers can do 3d6 damage firing mundane steel bolts at targets within 440 feet without concern for range increments or most wind conditions, and that's much further than the normal engagement range for firearms if you want to have any hope of accurately hitting a target.
Personal firearms are certainly worth developing, however, and I'm sure we'll end up with our people using them in some situations, but the real advantage of the tech tree is for larger stuff, like @Azel suggested; small easily moved artillery pieces.
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Winning vote
Part MMMDCXXX: A City Divided
A City Divided
Twenty Seventh Day of the Second Month 294 AC
Set upon an island in the troubled waters of the south between Tolos and the Lands of Long Summer that trail into the tomb of Valyria, Elyria is a minor power among its neighbors. A backwater port in a region which traded mostly in slaves of which the Elyrians are wary of keeping in any great numbers since what their histories call the Great Slave Revolt. As for the histories of others, the settlement is mostly recalled for being the city closest to Valyria on the hour of the Doom which did not fall under its shadow.
One can see the marks of that history approaching harbor by air; the straight lines and pale marble of the temples and the tight tenements creeping up the hills, which in other realms were where the wealthy would dwell in splendor. Unlike Old Volantis, who had the wealth and the power to build ever grander and more baroque monuments too the legacy of the Freehold, Elyria looks like a city whose basic lines were frozen in time, preserving the architecture of an earlier age not through reverence, but a too light purse.
"Looks a bit crowded, doesn't it?" Dany hisses in draconic. She motions not at the pier draped in flowers and crimson silk in honor of your visit, but at the city behind it.
"They took in refugees after the Doom from places inland that weren't wholly wrecked before it could no longer support the population, but there wasn't much room to build inside the walls, nor coin to build new ones," you reply, recalling the reports you received from your delegation.
That fateful migration and the shift in demographics that followed was what defined the politics of Elyria after the Doom. Transformed overnight from a minor but prosperous city on the eastern fringe of Valyria proper into a backwater barely able to feed itself, and without any great stock in trade Elyria had seen social unrest culminating with a island wide slave revolt partly engineered by priests of the Lord of Light who thought the Doom heralded the End of Days.
While the rebellion was in the end crushed, it was done only by arming the very poorest of freedmen and newcomers, many of whom had probably been slaves themselves years earlier, their collars and their masters both lost in the chaos of the Doom. The fact that the last dully appointed governor of the city died in the final battle of the rebellion is, among the aristocracy, often blamed on the metics for they would be the ones most benefiting from the shift in political winds.
The grey-haired men with oiled beards forked down the middle who greet you with wide smiles are representatives of the Council of Elders, the seat of traditional patrician power in the city, but though the archon of the city, here a title limited to a three year term, is selected from among their rank they do not rule alone.
In the centuries after the Doom the metics were far more than the 'foreigners' the name had once implied, they became the backbone of a new Elyrian trade network and organized in their own Council of Speakers that held sway over many of the city's affairs, including taxation and the appointment of judges. Their representative is a clean shaven man of perhaps five and twenty was also looking upon the arrival of your delegation with favor, expecting an expansion of their power, perhaps even an abolition of the Council of Elders. In talks with your envoys the High Speaker had emphasized that he represented a class of former slaves, even though most metics were ten generations removed from slavery and some of the more wealthy were slave owners themselves, for while slavery we less common in Elyria than almost anywhere else in this corner of the world, personal slaves were still a symbol of status.
Taking advantage of the fractures in the Elyrian political system, your envoys had played one side against the other until each individually was willing to come under imperial rule, whether in hopes of rekindling old glories or building a new future without what they saw as the deadwood of the past.
The question now before you as the ceremony is about to start is who to commit to. The Council of Elders who had reached out to you first and would in all likelihood be staunchly loyal in the name of some dream of Valyria, or the Council of Speakers representing a greater portion of the city's population, but also more likely to be tied into the trade networks of Slaver's Bay and perhaps more open to the machination of evils?
Who do you favor in Elyria under your rule?
[] The old aristocracy
-[] Write in plans
[] The popular and trader faction
-[] Write in
[] Try to reach a balance between the two
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: I need to know this before the ceremony, because who you favor influences who gets the best gifts.
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I am more worried about the thing which make it use touch AC to hit.
- Location
- Germany
Personally, I feel that the adjustments we made to the Pathfinder rules for the Steam Cannons is a good compromise.
The rules would be:
1. Firearm attacks are either resolved against Touch AC or regular AC
2. If they are resolved against Touch AC, you deduct damage from the attack equal to the Armor Bonus, Natural Armor Bonus and Shield Bonus, plus their respective Enhancement Bonuses, effectively treating them as DR.
3. If they are resolved against regular AC, they are resolved like any other attack.
4. All guns have 10 range increments like every other ranged weapon in the game.
And that's about it. So to kill, say, a Manticore, the important part becomes how skilled you are. The Manticore has AC 17 and a Touch AC of 11 with 57 HP, so if you are a low skilled shooter with a Musket, you will generally want to resolve against Touch AC. Thus you deal 1d12-6 damage per shot, which is, pretty obviously, not exactly a lot. That is balanced out somewhat by crits dealing x4 damage. The PC-level shooter has much better odds of making the regular AC with his shots, so he mostly works as a very loud archer.
That being said, I feel the damage of guns is generally a bit on the low side, given the quite high action cost to reload them. I'd consider to bump the Pathfinder values up by a dice step or two, or maybe to expand the crit range.
Edit: For those not knowing the Pathfinder default rules, they allow to always hit against Touch AC at low ranges, without granting any bonus for having a high armor bonus. This ruling is thus both a nerf (deducting armor from damage) and a buff (allowing to resolve against Touch AC regardless of range).
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- Location
- florida
Morning all.
Mmmm. Most weapons are not that spectacular on their own. Siege weapons aside naturally.
Feats and class features are what help make them deadly, deadly weapons.
Gunslinger in particular adding dex to gun damage and reducing reload time can get pretty wild.
I dont know if we would have acess to any of those features however.
Mmmm. Most weapons are not that spectacular on their own. Siege weapons aside naturally.
Feats and class features are what help make them deadly, deadly weapons.
Gunslinger in particular adding dex to gun damage and reducing reload time can get pretty wild.
I dont know if we would have acess to any of those features however.
Seems fair enough.
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
A City Divided
Twenty Seventh Day of the Second Month 294 AC
Set upon an island in the troubled waters of the south, between Tolos and the Lands of Long Summer that trail into the tomb of Valyria, Elyria is a minor power among its neighbors, a backwater port in a region which traded mostly in slaves, of which the Elyrians are wary of keeping in any great numbers since what their histories call the Great Slave Revolt. As for the histories of others, the settlement is mostly recalled for being the city closest to Valyria on the hour of the Doom which did not fall under its shadow.
One can see the marks of that history approaching harbor by air, the straight lines and pale marble of the temples, the tight tenements creeping up the hills, where in other realms the Houses of the wealthy would dwell in splendor. Unlike Old Volantis, which had the wealth and the power to build ever grander and more baroque monuments to the legacy of the Freehold, Elyria looks like a city whose basic lines were frozen in time, preserving the architecture of an earlier age not through reverence, but a too light purse.
"Looks a bit crowded doesn't it?" Dany hisses in draconic. She motions not at the pier draped in flowers and crimson silk in honor of your visit, but at the city behind it.
"They took in refugees after the Doom from places inland that weren't wholly wrecked, but it could no longer support the population. There wasn't much room to build inside the walls, nor coin to build new ones," you reply, recalling the reports you received from your delegation.
That fateful migration and the shift in demographics that followed was what defined the politics of Elyria after the Doom. Transformed overnight from a minor but prosperous city on the eastern fringe of Valyria proper into a backwater barely able to feed itself and without any great stock in trade, Elyria had seen social unrest culminating with an island wide slave revolt partly engineered by priests of the Lord of Light who thought the Doom heralded the End of Days.
While the rebellion was in the end crushed, it was done only by arming the very poorest of freedmen and the newcomers, many of whom had probably been slaves themselves years earlier, their collars and their masters both lost in the chaos of the Doom. The fact that the last dully appointed governor of the city died in he final battle of the rebellion is, among the aristocracy, often blamed on the metics, for they would be the ones most benefiting from the shift in political winds.
The grey-haired men who greet you with wide smiles, each with there oiled beards forked down the middle, are representatives of the Council of Elders, the seat of traditional patrician power in the city. Though the archon of the city is selected from among their ranks, a title limited to a three year term, they do not rule alone.
In the centuries after the Doom, the metics were far more than the 'foreigners' the name had once implied. They became the backbone of a new Elyrian trade network, and organized in their own Council of Speakers, they held sway over many of the city's affairs, including taxation and the appointment of judges. Their representative, a clean shaven man of perhaps five and twenty, was also looking upon the arrival of your delegation with favor, expecting an expansion of their power, perhaps even an abolition of the Council of Elders. In talks with your envoys, the High Speaker had emphasized that he represented a class of former slaves even though most metics were ten generations removed from slavery and some of the more wealthy were slave owners themselves, for while slavery was less common in Elyria than almost anywhere else in this corner of the world, personal slaves were still a symbol of status.
Taking advantage of the fractures in the Elyrian political system, your envoys had played one side against the other until each individually was willing to come under imperial rule, whether in hopes of rekindling old glories or building a new future without what they saw as the deadwood of the past.
The question now before you as the ceremony is about to start, is who to commit to, the Council of Elders who had reached out to you first and would in all likelihood be staunchly loyal in the name of some dream of Valyria, or the Council of Speakers representing a greater portion of the city's population, but also more likely to be tied into the trade networks of Slaver's Bay and perhaps more open to the machination of evils?
Who do you favor in Elyria under your rule?
[] The old aristocracy
-[] Write in plans
[] The popular and numerous trader faction
-[] Write in
[] Try to reach a balance between the two
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: I need to know this before the ceremony, because who you favor influences who gets the best gifts. Not yet edited.
- Location
- Germany
[X] Plan Go Go Unsatisfying Compromise
-[X] Reform the local government along the same lines as Myr.
-[X] Government will be handled by bi-cameral, legislative body, made up by the Council of Elders (traditional allocation of seats is kept) and the Council of Speakers (allocation of seats will be changed to match Imperial rules for elections of voices).
-[X] The de facto ruler of the city will still be called Archon (it will only be a count-level title in the Imperial hierarchy, but historic precedent allows them to keep the name.) and carry executive power, while local legislative power and the power to appoint judges will be given to the parliament, requiring 2/3rd approval from both chambers to enact a measure.
-[X] The Archon will be elected from among citizens of good standing, requiring also a 2/3rd majority in both chambers to be elected.
-[X] To the aristocracy, this will be sold as reigning in the upstart merchants by bringing back control over things like taxation and the judicary to the aristocracy.
-[X] To the merchants, this will be sold as giving them the ability to take full control of the government if they can field a popular enough candidate for Archon that can be elected by pressure from the street to bully the aristocracy into compliance.
-[X] In fact, the system will largely favor bickering, indecision and partisan grandstanding, allowing Relath as the Governor of the area and Viserys as the Imperator to rule the area by decree without a strong local government standing in their way.
-[X] Reform the local government along the same lines as Myr.
-[X] Government will be handled by bi-cameral, legislative body, made up by the Council of Elders (traditional allocation of seats is kept) and the Council of Speakers (allocation of seats will be changed to match Imperial rules for elections of voices).
-[X] The de facto ruler of the city will still be called Archon (it will only be a count-level title in the Imperial hierarchy, but historic precedent allows them to keep the name.) and carry executive power, while local legislative power and the power to appoint judges will be given to the parliament, requiring 2/3rd approval from both chambers to enact a measure.
-[X] The Archon will be elected from among citizens of good standing, requiring also a 2/3rd majority in both chambers to be elected.
-[X] To the aristocracy, this will be sold as reigning in the upstart merchants by bringing back control over things like taxation and the judicary to the aristocracy.
-[X] To the merchants, this will be sold as giving them the ability to take full control of the government if they can field a popular enough candidate for Archon that can be elected by pressure from the street to bully the aristocracy into compliance.
-[X] In fact, the system will largely favor bickering, indecision and partisan grandstanding, allowing Relath as the Governor of the area and Viserys as the Imperator to rule the area by decree without a strong local government standing in their way.
- Location
- florida
[X] Plan Go Go Unsatisfying Compromise
Goldfish
Friendly Spider-Fish Abomination
- Location
- Formerly of the Far Realm
Either method works for me, but we need to decide on one or the other. We can't have it both ways.
Personally, I would prefer to use the Touch AC + Effective DR method. It's not the simplest way to resolve the issue of hitting a target vs damaging them, but I think it's the most reasonable way to do so within the rules.
I agree that Pathfinder damage values for firearms are a bit too low. Those used for D&D Modern firearms are much more reasonable, IMO. 2d6 for most pistols, 2d8 to 2d10 for most rifles.
Reload times are an issue for me that are pretty much make or break. Single-shot personal firearms which require manual reloading after each shot, such as muzzle-loading rifles, are completely unacceptable. Self-contained cartridges are essential for this to work, along with a firing mechanism which allows for multiple rounds to be loaded simultaneously as part of a single action, either in the cylinder of a revolver or a clip/magazine.
This is one of the engineering hurdles that would have to be overcome before ever considering mass implementation of firearms among our forces.
- Location
- Germany
No, it's explicitly both for balance reasons. The DR method does not scale all that well to high levels, where high AC's will eclipse your capability to output damage really fast, with the option to instead attack against full AC allowing high-level gun-users to stay relevant.
Shooting against full AC is meant to convey the skilled sniper who aims for the dragons eye, while the Touch AC method is the peasant just shooting center-mass.
Edit: Take a Cornugon, who has 17 NA, DR 10 and Regeneration 5. Unless you are shooting Good-aligned silver bullets, he deducts 33 damage from each shot you take at him with the Touch AC method. Doing any damage to him at all is pretty much impossible that way, unless you are using a full on Steam Cannon. This is good when we are talking about the peasant squad firing at him (under regular Pathfinder rules, a line of Muskets could take him down) but would suck really badly for a lvl 15 Fighter that decided to make pistols his weapon of choice.
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