Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
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Dungeons and Dragons Megathread
- Thread starter Havocfett
- Start date
earthboy
(verified ape)
- Location
- NYC
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I suspect that a "steel shield" is just a wooden shield with steel reinforcements, much like an iron-bound door is a wooden door which is merely strengthened by the use of iron.
It's enough metal to make Druids unhappy, but not necessarily enough metal to replace all the wood.
- Location
- Silicon Valley
Yea, that does make sense. Shields were bound with metal around the edges all the time, and metal bosses were definitely a thing.
Please remember that people in D&D can have Strength scores of "not-actually-possible-in-the-real-world".
Also the fact that Ogres, Troll, and Giants exist.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Then... don't do that. Like, seriously, all the D&D magic systems lead to ridiculous ends if you extrapolate them outward to their logical conclusions so you don't do that. It's like saying "Why doesn't Tony Stark and Reed Richards turn Marvel Earth into a techno-utopia?" Because they don't, that's why. Because it they did, then the setting would not be Marvel Earth.
The same thing applies with D&D magic. You just... don't industrialize Wall or Iron or Decanters of Endless Water or necromancy. The standard early 1200s Europe setting for D&D already makes no sense if you examine it under a microscope so... you just don't examine it that closely.
That doesn't mean you can't create an interesting setting with advanced magical 'technology' but I don't think 'start with the modern world and reverse engineer the internet with 1st level spells' really is an interesting way to take it.
I'm saying reverse engineering thing from the real world to stick into your D&D setting is unimaginative and lazy. Take trains for example, Eberron has trains. Why?
Because trains are a genre conceit of its kind of roaring twenties pulp adventure setting its trying to be. Same with airships. Like, the idea of using Illusion spells to emulate movie theatres. That's... kind of lame and limited. We've seen all that before. Why not do something cool and interesting instead? Something new?
I'm saying its much cooler if you come up with something that could only be accomplished with magic and extrapolate how society would function with that.
For instance, transportation. Instead of trains and airships let's think of some stuff that only magic can do; teleportation and planar travel. How does society change when its possible to set up a teleportation circle at any major city and transport between them instantly? How does this influence the various logistics of the world such as agriculture, shipping and warfare? How do you defend a city when attackers can teleport in at any time? And no 'wards against teleport is boring and stupid as an answer because it basically is a non answer which amounts to 'that setting element is too difficult I don't want to think about it'. Imagine a world where empires don't have logistics trains for their conquests. Suddenly geographical features don't necessarily form the boundries of nations. If one country is able to get a teleportation circle set up in a city surrounded on all sides by enemies they can just teleport in troops and supplies as needed to hold off any attempt to overrun it. You could have very strange alliances and break ups.
Then get into planar travel, because nations could spread out into other planes as easily as across the prime material. Outposts mining pure materials from the elemental plane of Earth, a foundry that consists of portals into the elemental plane of Fire and so on. Astral plane redoubts could be the fortress centers of most nation states, or you could have the government sheltering inside a demiplane like a giant portable hole. If no teleportation circle exists in an area you could shift a caravan over to the ethereal plane and have it make a straight pass through any material obstacles to its destination.
Think of the kind of thing that in the real world is not possible, and then justify it with magic to make interesting worlds. Does the D&D spell system support your visions? Who cares? The D&D spell system doesn't support any setting, it was never designed to. Just stop worrying about that the same way we don't talk about how we should be worried about Peak Superman. Create a setting that is really magical, not just '(insert historical era)' emulation with some magical keywords added on to make it sound exotic.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
You're being incoherent, Aaron. First you say to extrapolate from the magic, and when we point out the consequences of doing so you say not to. What is it that you want then?
Only to extrapolate on limited things? Applying logic half the time is worse than not applying it at all. It makes you setting look soapboxy and based on author appeal. There's a good reason for my comments on putting IRL physics in D&D.
The solution to teleport and scrying spells is other spells that prevent that, duh.
Only to extrapolate on limited things? Applying logic half the time is worse than not applying it at all. It makes you setting look soapboxy and based on author appeal. There's a good reason for my comments on putting IRL physics in D&D.
The solution to teleport and scrying spells is other spells that prevent that, duh.
- Location
- Silicon Valley
It's not so much a matter of strength. It's the fact that really big swords aren't really suited to the mobility of my setting's warfare, and aren't needed to smash through pike formations. The tactical niche just isn't there.
earthboy
(verified ape)
- Location
- NYC
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Or better yet, other things which are NOT spells (so they're available to non-spellcasters).
In my Shadowrun game, for example, I had some very simple blood magic rituals which could prevent scrying & teleportation into an apartment-sized area for a week. (You drew some runes in your own blood, you put the runes in all eight corners of the space, and the space was protected for a week. You could mix blood with friends and then all of you were "keyed" to the barrier.)
IMHO stuff like that makes the setting more plausible.
D&D adds a new niche which is very well suited to large 2-handed weapons: stabbing big monsters.
(IIRC there was something in 1e about different weapon types dealing half, full, or double damage to larger creatures. Anyone remember that rule?)
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
I'm saying take the ideas of magic and use them to create magical societies not societies that look just like our own but with magical keywords.
There is no logic to D&D. There never has been. Stop trying to logic it up. Create some cool magical stuff that sounds fun and exciting; make magic able to do those cool things and figure out what those consequences are.
Ignore PC magic. PC magic is a game convention that does not exist in the 'reality' of the setting.
No, those are stupid non answers. They are 'make things suck' answers. If I wanted to play a game where teleport and scrying could not be used to accomplish cool things I would not equip everyone else with anti-teleport and anti-scrying, I would simply remove teleport and scrying.
If I were running a superhero campaign and every villain they fought had a gadget that turns off all the heroes powers my players would rightly consider me an asshole for doing so. The same is true of teleport wards and scrying wards. They're boring unfun concepts.
earthboy
(verified ape)
- Location
- NYC
- Pronouns
- He/Him
But figuring out consequences is logic.
I don't really have a dog in this fight but I do like consistent settings.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
I can't help but feel you are making a false dichotomy there @Aaron Peori . Magic is technology on the D&D paradigm, and should be in any settings where humans tinker like humans are wont to.
Magic that lets you speak at distances has more or less the same consequences as telephones. Even exotic magic like teleportation isn't going to give your setting anything radically new, we've had that in sci-fi at least as far back as Star Trek. So it won't be like RL, it'll just be like that stuff we've been extrapolating from RL for fifty years worth of genre fiction.
You seems to be convinced that Eberron has magic trains solely because the writer wanted to emulate real life mass transit. But real life mass transit is a thing because it's a relatively efficient way of getting people and goods where they need to go. Having magical tools instead of mechanical ones isn't necessarily going to change what we use them for all that much. Indeed, it's unlikely that ends would change much unless the peope using them are very different from IRL humans.
Teleportation is really rare, so "put an engine (or the magical equivalent) on a vehicle so it can move itself, is entirely reasonable and logical as a thing to do if you can figure out how.
Magic that lets you speak at distances has more or less the same consequences as telephones. Even exotic magic like teleportation isn't going to give your setting anything radically new, we've had that in sci-fi at least as far back as Star Trek. So it won't be like RL, it'll just be like that stuff we've been extrapolating from RL for fifty years worth of genre fiction.
You seems to be convinced that Eberron has magic trains solely because the writer wanted to emulate real life mass transit. But real life mass transit is a thing because it's a relatively efficient way of getting people and goods where they need to go. Having magical tools instead of mechanical ones isn't necessarily going to change what we use them for all that much. Indeed, it's unlikely that ends would change much unless the peope using them are very different from IRL humans.
Teleportation is really rare, so "put an engine (or the magical equivalent) on a vehicle so it can move itself, is entirely reasonable and logical as a thing to do if you can figure out how.
So you are completely ignoring not-as-advanced civilizations, gotcha.
edit:
Also pre-modern Artifacts.
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Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
Don't logic it up from the PC's capabilities is what I meant. The PC spell list is meant to make a fun and exciting D&D game focused around exploration of monster filled locations and the looting of goods. It is not meant as a recipe for setting construction.
If the existence of a particular spell in the D&D spell list is so onerous to your suspension of disbelief that it makes getting into the setting impossible then remove that spell from the list, don't create a Make That Spell Not Work field and then drop it everywhere the setting may be distrubed by the spells existence.
Either you ignore the consequences of a specific spell, or you remove it. The other way is just... blah. Why bother?
You can create a consistent setting that is magical without having it work on D&D game system logic.
That's fine. But I think they should tinker in ways that lead to cooler results then making things work just like they did in (name historical era).
The first isn't always true depending on how you make the speaking magic work. If industrial scale 'communicate at a distance' magic has limitations and consequences that modern radios do not then it won't be the equivalent of cell phones.
And yes, stealing from sci-fi is better than stealing from the modern world. But even then sci-fi almost always starts with a lot of assumptions that it grew out of the normal world. There is a huge difference between developing teleportation when you are a post-industrial society with worldwide internet coverage and developing teleportation technology when you are bronze age goatherders.
Not to mention that just because we thought of a use for a particular technology doesn't mean everyone will. There are plenty of examples of ancient societies developing a technology we now consider fundamental but not using it either because someone didn't think of the applications or the required other technology doesn't exist. Like, the greeks knew how to create and store electricity but it was just a curiosity to them because they didn't have efficient batteries or anything to power with electricity.
Eberron has trains because Pulp adventure novels had trains. No more, no less.
Teleportation for PCs is a highish level spell. There is no reason why industrial teleports have to be limited in the same way.
I mean, if I wanted to get from my apartment to the grocery store in under five minutes I could spend years training and building up my leg muscles and learning to sprint and eventually I could maybe run fast enough to do it... or I could buy a car and make the journey with ease.
Technology makes doing things the hard way easier, that's the point.
- Location
- Silicon Valley
Well, it's more that people use what's most effective, and large European greatswords were a late medieval development with a specific purpose. That stage of development was never achieved, because pike and shot tactics never became popular, and neither did extensive plate armor. I'm not sure what the situation is with large East Asian swords, but I can't really see Vendalia having a use for something much bigger than a longsword. It's possible Vendalia has been exposed to large Asian swords, but hasn't adopted them for use. I wouldn't call the Chinese or Japanese a less advanced civilization, though. Or anyone, really. My setting has plenty of Native Americans (Vendalia is in what is basically North America), and I would never call them a less advanced civilization. I wouldn't expect a less technologically developed civilization to have such a thing, because greatswords are later period developments, not early developments, and a pre-modern artifact probably wouldn't be in any shape to wield, anyway.
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AuraTwilight
The Sorcerer of Smiles
- Location
- The Silver City
What the actual FUCK are you talking about, Aaron? Literally every NPC of similar chops has the PC's tools. There are monsters who cast spells as clerics. There are NPC wizards who've retired and been making a living for themselves longer than your character's been alive.
How can you not have PC capabilities inform the setting save for making the PCs special snowflakes who are inventing spells and shit?
I meant stuff like Goblins, Lizardfolk, Giants, etc....not actual real-life cultures.
Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
You just ignore all that.
D&D makes no sense. It's setting is entirely arbitrary. Nothing in it survives even the most minute examination if you explore the PC abilities in the slightest.
So just. Ignore. Them.
It's a genre conceit. Roll with it.
AuraTwilight
The Sorcerer of Smiles
- Location
- The Silver City
...And?
Like...we know. We know the setting is fucking arbitrary. We were discussing hypothetical setting extrapolated from what the game tells us through it's magic system and you threw a hissy fit.
Like...we know. We know the setting is fucking arbitrary. We were discussing hypothetical setting extrapolated from what the game tells us through it's magic system and you threw a hissy fit.
- Location
- Silicon Valley
I just don't see the greatsword as a weapon of any of those groups. I'd think Goblins and Giants mostly use what they can get their hands on, and Lizardfolk likely use whatever everybody else in the area is using.
I meant stuff like Goblins, Lizardfolk, Giants, etc....not actual real-life cultures.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nah, a lot of Giant species are absolutely capable of advanced metalwork and enchanting, and Hobgoblin society (Which generally includes lots of goblins) is generally described as super militaristic/regimented and would be big on materials science necessary for weaponsmithing. Giant weaponry is going to look a bit different due to raw size and the fact that bows/crossbows aren't hugely useful to them (Large Rocks are generally more effective) while Goblin weaponry might bring up Greatswords early due to the fact that what are spearwalls for larger creatures create the environment for Greatswords for small-sized goblinoids.
(Humanoid cultures might also run into the impetus for Really Big Swords earlier due to trolls and demons with plus sized pikes as well as the early development of Plate Armor to deal with Giant Fucking Monsters. Also beasties with natural defenses equivalent to rather heavy armor, including Plate.)
shepsquared
Erratic Aussie
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
What do Azers have to do with the discussion? They're just as advanced (if not more so) than any society in d&d.
Thank-you.
And what are those in the second picture, troglodytes?
- Location
- Silicon Valley
I prefer hill giants. Big and stupid, little metalworking. Fire giants and cloud giants and stuff never did it for me. Goblins don't do much metal working because they likewise probably couldn't figure out how to use a forge, and I've never used hobgoblins. That said, goblins could try to carry swords designed for larger wielders, creating a similar effect to the greatsword if they could figure it out. I believe Pathfinder does have a couple options for that.
That said, I'm revisiting technology, because I've been watching Tudor-era documentaries, and I'm thinking it might be cool to shift over to more Renaissance weaponry, which could well include plate and some larger swords like claymores. Kinda fits the whole "this isn't Medieval" thing I've got going. Also, halberds and basket hilts galore. I like those. Not many pikes, though. I'm sticking with artillery making close formations too costly and smaller, more mobile units composed of professionals being the norm in war.
That said, I'm revisiting technology, because I've been watching Tudor-era documentaries, and I'm thinking it might be cool to shift over to more Renaissance weaponry, which could well include plate and some larger swords like claymores. Kinda fits the whole "this isn't Medieval" thing I've got going. Also, halberds and basket hilts galore. I like those. Not many pikes, though. I'm sticking with artillery making close formations too costly and smaller, more mobile units composed of professionals being the norm in war.
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The first picture is a trio of Fire Giants, who despite being about 14' tall are shaped like dwarves.
The third picture is a trio of Trolls. Specifically a normal Troll, an Advanced Troll(Huge rather than Large), and a War Troll(much smarter and can regenerate Fire Damage).
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Aaron Peori
Rest in Peace
No, we were discussing Eberron. Which also ignores the implications of the magic system but does it in service of trying to emulate Doc Savage novels.