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Vorpal Cat
Mar 19, 2009

Oh god what did I just post?

seebs posted:

Okay, so how do you keep these thousands of skeletons around while you are adventuring not precisely at the battlefield? I guess a demiplane or something could be a starting point.


You could just get your skeletons to carry your spare skeletons for you. Just get a cart or two and use your free undead labor to pull them.

Edit: did not expect 5 post to show up in between as I was writing this.

Vorpal Cat fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Aug 12, 2014

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Tendales
Mar 9, 2012
Also, justifying fighters doing supernatural things is easy as gently caress. Here you go:

Doing heroic things fills you with heroic power.

Bam. Done. The same heroic power that embiggens a wizard's head enough to hold more spells makes a fighter's sword arm able to hew mountains.
Oh, and hey, maybe doing heroic stuff with items imbues THEM with heroic power, so now you've got a perfectly good explanation for where magic items come from that isn't just 'wizards, it's always wizards.'

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



"This was the sword used by the great hero Krongar to slay the Apocalypse Wyrm".

Tendales posted:

a perfectly good explanation for where magic items come from.

It's a better sword because it was carried by a big drat hero. Why? Magic Heroics.

Mendrian
Jan 6, 2013

seebs posted:

It's not that it's "more fantastic". It's that it contradicts things we know, rather than obviously being completely outside our experience. We know how "throwing objects" works. We have no idea at all how magic works. So the suspension of disbelief is harder; we have to simultaneously think about things we know about how physical objects work and completely disregard them.

But this makes for terribly boring gameplay and is incredibly unimaginative.

Consider for a moment that because we have no idea how magic works, we can make it do anything we want (as designers). That's how you bring magic down to a point where we have buy-in to this fictional world. Magic does the impossible, but it conforms to rules and we can understand those rules. Martials, on the other hand, conform to our expectations about what is possible in the real world. Of course much of what we (nerds) know about real world combat is based on movies, videogames, books, and (to a lesser extent) sports, so it's not really based on anything 'real' to begin with. We 'know' that a person cannot jump 30 feet into the air, but not how high a person can jump. We know a person cannot kill 30 men with one swing, but we don't know how many is reasonable, and so forth.

So as others have said, the real trick is to create a framework for what is way too much for Magic to do and loving stick to it. Or make Fighters as crazy as Wizards currently are, but having them exist in two completely different worlds ("anything is possible" and "I'm pretty sure I have a good feel for exactly what a person is capable of") at the same table is stupid.

Tendales
Mar 9, 2012
"Oh, where did this flaming gauntlet come from? Well, a red dragon tried to breath fire on me while I had my arm down its throat choking the life out of it from the inside and, you know, these things happen."

Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc
Keep in mind D&D is a world where SENTIENT FIRE exists, maybe that fire just likes you.

Mendrian
Jan 6, 2013

Tendales posted:

"Oh, where did this flaming gauntlet come from? Well, a red dragon tried to breath fire on me while I had my arm down its throat choking the life out of it from the inside and, you know, these things happen."

I actually really like Heroics as a source of legendary power. I mean I can already hear the grog reaction of, "Nuh-uh, being super heroic won't make you any stronger" while simultaneously studying Crowley to gain Real Ultimate Power, but you know, whatever.

I suppose the other possible objection is that sounds a lot like 'superhero' and you know how much grogs hate that.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

Mendrian posted:

I actually really like Heroics as a source of legendary power. I mean I can already hear the grog reaction of, "Nuh-uh, being super heroic won't make you any stronger" while simultaneously studying Crowley to gain Real Ultimate Power, but you know, whatever.

I suppose the other possible objection is that sounds a lot like 'superhero' and you know how much grogs hate that.

Once upon a time the name title given to 8th level fighters in OD&D was "Superhero," true fact.

Tendales
Mar 9, 2012

Piell posted:

Keep in mind D&D is a world where SENTIENT FIRE exists, maybe that fire just likes you.

The party has to cross a raging river; the fighter insults the river's mother until the living incarnation of the river itself manifests to throw down. The fighter wrestles the river into submission; once it's calmed down the refugees the party's escorting can safely cross. Afterwards, the fighter and the river go out for drinks. They still keep in touch. The river is getting help for its anger issues. I may have wandered afield from my original point, but I 100% want this scenario to just be poo poo Fighters Do.

Mendrian
Jan 6, 2013

Tendales posted:

The party has to cross a raging river; the fighter insults the river's mother until the living incarnation of the river itself manifests to throw down. The fighter wrestles the river into submission; once it's calmed down the refugees the party's escorting can safely cross. Afterwards, the fighter and the river go out for drinks. They still keep in touch. The river is getting help for its anger issues. I may have wandered afield from my original point, but I 100% want this scenario to just be poo poo Fighters Do.

I mean I'm fine with people who want their Fighters to be grounded in less esoteric poo poo. I can totally get it if somebody doesn't want to take 'can wrestle anything' that literally, but Fighters should have that level of agency, yes.

EDIT: I am aware this was a joke.

Bongo Bill
Jan 17, 2012

The barbarian can carry people across the river no matter how deep, fast, or cold it is. The fighter can take out his sword and cut an alternate route for it as quick as you please. The ranger conveniently knows a spot very close by where it can be forded as safely and easily as if it were dry land.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
I also feel like it's worth pointing out that there was plenty of grog bitching to be had out there even over the Next Fighter in its various incarnations. Entire subforums devoted to people having the vapors over a Fighter with a great weapon doing 4 hitpoints of damage on an attack that didn't hit. People bemoaning action dice and all they stood for. Even in the final iteration of the player book there's Fighter stuff getting nerfed, like that level 15 ability that used to be "regain 2 action dice every round if you're out" and got turned into "you get 1 action die when you roll initiative if you're out." The Monk level 20 capstone ability is similarly tepid.

At no point were Next Fighters even close to Hercules or Cuchulain in importance or capability and it still wasn't enough for folks to consider them "properly plausible."

Boing
Jul 12, 2005

trapped in custom title factory, send help
^^^ grogs are terrible

It'd probably be absolutely fine if the Wizard really was 8 different classes, each having one spell school. Having an entire spell school still lets you do way more than any Fighter, but means the game isn't all about you. And that's how fictional wizards are portrayed - so-and-so is a necromancer, that one's a master of fire, this dude over here weaves illusions while that one controls your thoughts. It's far more interesting than the other thing where Elminster creates demiplanes and summons meteors and raises armies of the dead and wishes for eternal life while seeing the future because gently caress that poo poo.

Having multiple wizards in a party is now cool, spell school choice is important, and if you want to bend reality to your will you have to make important sacrifices in other areas because that's how magic works.

Do that and give the fighter all his superiority dice back and DnD is fixed. Uhh and some rogue stuff.

Lightning Lord
Feb 21, 2013

$200 a day, plus expenses

Mendrian posted:

I suppose the other possible objection is that sounds a lot like 'superhero' and you know how much grogs hate that.

Grogs love superheroes. But uh, I think you'll find that Superman has 5 levels of wizard and 6 of psion... :smaug:

jigokuman
Aug 28, 2002


Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current President of the United States. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality.

Kai Tave posted:

At no point were Next Fighters even close to Hercules or Cuchulain in importance or capability and it still wasn't enough for folks to consider them "properly plausible."
This is true even of 4E fighters. I really want to know what gets people into that mindset, but I have a sneaking suspicion it is so they have a basic mortal to compare the awesome might of their characters to.

seebs
Apr 23, 2007
God Made Me a Skeptic

Kai Tave posted:

I would hesitate to say that Exalted was necessarily good at anything but something you really ought to be taking away from what I'm telling you is that Beowulf didn't have a bunch of nerds ginning up a background full of essence shards and charms to explain why he could rip a monster's arm off and club it to death singlehandedly or how he could swim an ocean in full armor then have a furious battle underwater that raged for hours, he just did it.

There was no need to "plausibly frame" Beowulf's incredible prowess in the context of some kind of chi or "martial magic" or whatever, he did it because he was an incredible badass warrior hero and that's what badass warrior heroes do.

I guess I've usually interpreted stories like that as being in the same genre as Paul Bunyan; not actual claims about what people could do.

quote:

"Just throwing a few meteors, no big deal. Y'know, low fantasy stuff."

Compared to cutting down a mountain? Sure.

quote:

Seriously, look at the things you're saying here. Do you not see the dissonance in it, like, even a little bit? What is a "Level 20 Fighter," that is to say the peak pinnacle of fighterness, supposed to be then in a game where level 20 Wizards are throwing meteors and casting Wish? Why is it that one set of characters have to abide by your imaginatively-stunted conception of what a legendary warrior should "plausibly" be while Wizards can just toss around "a few meteors" and it's no big deal?

I guess because one of them is magic, and is supposed to be doing things which are obviously impossible, and one is supposed to be possible but insanely good?

quote:

This is something that comes into play even before you hit level 20 as well by the way as handily illustrated by the fact that a Fighter in Next is never going to be the cause of the sorts of GM hoop-jumping and "common sensing" necessary in the wake of summoning you own private undead army. All the ways you can fiat someone's skeleton army into irrelevance misses the forest for the trees, which is that it's only spellcasters that cause this sort of issue in the first place.

Yeah. But I guess I'm used to it and it doesn't bug me, regardless of which kind of character I'm playing. I like that they feel different, and I don't think that "different kinds of ability" necessarily means "only one of them is important".

I dunno. I should probably play for a while and figure out how it feels playing out.

Rigged Death Trap
Feb 13, 2012

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

I'd be fine with 'A Hero did it' replacing 'A Wizard did it'.

"While you were looking for and memorizing Mordenkainen's Autofellation I rounded up an Orc Army by wrestling their half-troll warlord to submission while only in my loincloth and stormed Dick Badman's castle. His head, and the skull of his dracolich, are on this here cart."

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

seebs posted:

I guess I've usually interpreted stories like that as being in the same genre as Paul Bunyan; not actual claims about what people could do.

People can't actually throw meteors either but you've decided that one of these things gets the seebs stamp of approval while the other is "too out there" regardless of whether it pigeonholes someone who wants to play a legendary warrior in this supposed "something for everyone" edition of D&D into your narrow, imaginatively bankrupt conception of what that means.

Lightning Lord
Feb 21, 2013

$200 a day, plus expenses

seebs posted:

I guess I've usually interpreted stories like that as being in the same genre as Paul Bunyan; not actual claims about what people could do.

Yes, those legendary myths sure were fantastical, huh?

seebs posted:

Compared to cutting down a mountain? Sure.

Bringing down a giant rock from space with mumbo-jumbo and handwaving is "low fantasy" to you?

seebs posted:

I guess because one of them is magic, and is supposed to be doing things which are obviously impossible, and one is supposed to be possible but insanely good?

It's impossible to take a sword and fight goblins, though. All of this is fake. Why should a person get to be better than everyone else because he wrote "Wizard" on his sheet? At least in Magic you don't actually auto-win all the time if you pick Blue, despite some people believing otherwise.

seebs posted:

Yeah. But I guess I'm used to it and it doesn't bug me, regardless of which kind of character I'm playing. I like that they feel different, and I don't think that "different kinds of ability" necessarily means "only one of them is important".

I dunno. I should probably play for a while and figure out how it feels playing out.

Honestly? Sometimes it doesn't bug me either. But other times it really does. I have also had cases where players felt like quitting because they didn't get to do poo poo. They also thought they were going to have a sword man who slayed legions of monsters, not be the water carrier to a bunch of magical jerks. That bugs me. So the Fighter not having the option to cause deadly shockwaves by flexing really hard bugs me too.

Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Aug 12, 2014

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



seebs posted:

I guess I've usually interpreted stories like that as being in the same genre as Paul Bunyan; not actual claims about what people could do.

Merlin, Gandalf, not actual claims about what people could do.

Aragorn, Conan: not actual claims about what people could do.

Paul Bunyan, Elminster: not actual claims about what people could do.

Fantasy: Not actual claims about what people could do.

Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Aug 12, 2014

Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc
If you really must have everything be "magic" just think of it this way:
Everything in D&D is already flooded with magic. Wizards do their incredible things by forcing the magic to do what they want. Fighters do their incredible things by not being jerks to the ambient magic and it lets them be awesome.

Baku
Aug 20, 2005

by Fluffdaddy
Honestly the real problem with running low fantasy D&D is that there aren't enough limits on what a caster can do or in what context they can do it. You can retain the "mundane fighter" and have him be comparatively cooler without making him hew mountains if that's what you prefer. There are a dozen ways to do this: hack off the top 4 or 5 levels of spells so nobody has Greater Teleport or Time Stop, make things like focuses and components meaningful to the point where Johnny Wizard has to spend every dime he earns on dragon poo poo and unicorn balls instead of being able to buy or make the same magic items and wands and poo poo anyone else has, have some sort of consequence on over-reliance on magic besides running out of magical gas (like in WFRP, where every time you channel a meaningfully powerful spell there's a chance a demon will coming tearing through space right behind you or your legs will give out).

Casters would still be more versatile with any of this in place, but it would either saw off some of their power or force them to make the kind of risk/reward choices that I think at one point the Vancian model was supposed to force. (i.e. you CAN use Knock to open this door, but then you've given up a lot of combat utility, or put yourself in danger of going blind or whatever, and is it really worth doing that to open a lock when you have a guy in the party who can open locks without loving up the cosmic scales?)

It's telling that so many other fantasy games or alternative settings (like the 7th Sea d20 poo poo) do this as a matter of course.

Baku fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Aug 12, 2014

Mendrian
Jan 6, 2013

seebs posted:

I guess I've usually interpreted stories like that as being in the same genre as Paul Bunyan; not actual claims about what people could do.

I'm really confused about this claim. I get that you want a classification for "good, but plausible"; but the stupid thing is that box is where we always put the Fighter and never put the Wizard. I've already explained a bunch of times that letting magic be the catchall box for 'poo poo that is Impossible" is a mistake. There are a variety of good ways you can bring a Wizard closer to the 'plausible' characters, there are a great many ways to justify an 'impossible' Fighter and you shouldn't have them both at the same table if you're going to take both of those stances very literally.

Zombies' Downfall posted:

Honestly the real problem with running low fantasy D&D is that there aren't enough limits on what a caster can do or in what context they can do it. You can retain the "mundane fighter" and have him be comparatively cooler without making him hew mountains if that's what you prefer. There are a dozen ways to do this: hack off the top 4 or 5 levels of spells so nobody has Greater Teleport or Time Stop, make things like focuses and components meaningful to the point where Johnny Wizard has to spend every dime he earns on dragon poo poo and unicorn balls instead of being able to buy or make the same magic items and wands and poo poo anyone else has, have some sort of consequence on over-reliance on magic besides running out of magical gas (like in WFRP, where every time you channel a meaningfully powerful spell there's a chance a demon will coming tearing through space right behind you or your legs will give out).

Casters would still be more versatile with any of this in place, but it would either saw off some of their power or force them to make the kind of risk/reward choices that I think at one point the Vancian model was supposed to force. (i.e. you CAN use Knock to open this door, but then you've given up a lot of combat utility, or put yourself in danger of going blind or whatever, and is it really worth doing that to open a lock when you have a guy in the party who can open locks without loving up the cosmic scales?)

It's telling that so many other fantasy games or alternative settings (like the 7th Sea d20 poo poo) do this as a matter of course.

I've been saying this for loving ever. Since magic doesn't have to worry about physics and poo poo it literally has whatever bizarro rules we want to give it. Why DnD has consistently said, "gently caress it, give the Wizard everything you can possibly imagine" I'll never know.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

jigokuman posted:

This is true even of 4E fighters. I really want to know what gets people into that mindset, but I have a sneaking suspicion it is so they have a basic mortal to compare the awesome might of their characters to.

I dunno what 4e you played, but my epic 4e fighter is busting the asses of gods right now.


Bongo Bill posted:

The barbarian can carry people across the river no matter how deep, fast, or cold it is. The fighter can take out his sword and cut an alternate route for it as quick as you please. The ranger conveniently knows a spot very close by where it can be forded as safely and easily as if it were dry land.
This. THIS is how it should work. Everyone having roughly the same levels of agency, to affect the plot in cool ways unique to themselves, and sometimes to do it with less cost or challenge depending on the thing and location.

So, you need to get through a locked door. The fighter breaks it. The Wizard spends ten minutes casting Knock and makes a loud noise. The Rogue picks it quietly and non-destructively.

You need to negotiate - the fighter threatens, browbeats, or challenges to an arm wrestle. The Wizard creepily wiggles his fingers until people agree with him... kinda. The Bard talks mellifluously and everyone loves him. Etc.

But, you know, that's not 5e.

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



D&D Next: Not actual claims about what people could do*.










*May not apply if you choose Fighter

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
Also so we're clear, I don't mind if someone wants to use D&D to play a Fighter whose progress through 20 levels boils down to "swings sword slightly more often, hits harder" any more than I mind someone who wants to play a Wizard who tosses around fireballs and lightning bolts all day long as opposed to one who leverages his arcane might into an entire playbook of stupid wizard tricks.

What I do mind is that the designers and a vocal, stupid segment of the fanbase simply can't conceive of a non-spellcaster that has the same access to cool, fantastical stuff as a wizard and as a result you get this lopsided disparity between "simple classes" (a.k.a. Fighters, also spellcasters if you want) and more complex, capable ones (spellcasters only).

"Something for everyone" should mean everyone, not just "everyone whose imagination rests at a level comparable to my own."

seebs
Apr 23, 2007
God Made Me a Skeptic

AlphaDog posted:

Merlin, Gandalf, not actual claims about what people could do.

Aragorn, Conan: not actual claims about what people could do.

Paul Bunyan, Elminster: not actual claims about what people could do.

Fantasy: Not actual claims about what people could do.

Gosh, I never knew before that tall tales and fantasy novels were the exact same genre and had the exact same narrative conventions and structures. Learn something new every day, I guess.

Mendrian
Jan 6, 2013

seebs posted:

Gosh, I never knew before that tall tales and fantasy novels were the exact same genre and had the exact same narrative conventions and structures. Learn something new every day, I guess.

Beowulf is not a 'tall tale' any more than Lord of the Rings is. It is certainly not Fantasy as we understand it but that's because it literally predates genre. If you're saying mythology and fantasy is not the same genre than that's valid but I mean you have to admit there's some loving similarity there.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib

seebs posted:

Gosh, I never knew before that tall tales and fantasy novels were the exact same genre and had the exact same narrative conventions and structures. Learn something new every day, I guess.

D&D has none of the narrative conventions or structures of any of those things, existing as a bastardized version of fantasy fiction filtered through a 40 year old game of telephone and nerds waxing rhapsodic over Appendix N while cheerfully admitting that D&D doesn't actually emulate most of what you find there very well at all, but that doesn't stop morons like you from cherrypicking what does and doesn't qualify as "proper" fictional references in order to prove that it's okay for fighters to be marginalized in your game of make-believe.

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



seebs posted:

Gosh, I never knew before that tall tales and fantasy novels were the exact same genre and had the exact same narrative conventions and structures. Learn something new every day, I guess.

Let me break this down for you.

Fantasy and mythology are often based on the exploits of heroes.

Fantastic and mythological heroes often have capabilities beyond the capabilities of normal people.

Tall tales also include characters that have capabilities beyond the capabilities of normal people.

Wizards, unnaturally mighty warriors, thieves that can steal your name, etc are subsets of fantastic, mythological, and tall tale characters that have capabilities beyond those of normal people.

None of these characters are bound by the laws of reality, that's why it's called fantasy, mythology, or a tall tale.

People with minds that are unimpaired by the Dungeon & Dragons roleplaying game can recognise that in a fantasy/mythological story, the characters are not bound by the rules of reality, regardless of whether they're referred to as "Raistlin the Red", or "Beowulf" and regardless of whether a description of what they do in the story includes the word "magic".

D&D causes brain damage.

Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Aug 12, 2014

ianvincible
Jan 23, 2004

Piell posted:

If you really must have everything be "magic" just think of it this way:
Everything in D&D is already flooded with magic. Wizards do their incredible things by forcing the magic to do what they want. Fighters do their incredible things by not being jerks to the ambient magic and it lets them be awesome.

I think this is actually a good point. The spellcaster/martial divide has been conflated with the supernatural/mundane one, when there's really no reason that has to be true. Why should Fighters have to be mundane? The fantasy world at large is a naturally magical one. You've got displacer beasts and beholders and things that just somehow 'naturally' can do very supernatural things, without reading about them in a book. There's no reason a character who was born under a Blood Moon in the Sign of the Spear/blessed by the spirits of his clans ancestors/dropped into a cauldron of potion when he was a baby shouldn't just be able to do incredible things because the world is incredible and some of that incredibility has rubbed off on them. And there's no reason the way that their incredibility manifests shouldn't be that they are just supernaturally skilled at martial tasks. Like, the only thing a person can be magically good at is reading books?

Of course, some people want to play in low fantasy settings where everyone (martial classes) is mundane, and that's cool. You could make a module for it.

A Catastrophe
Jun 26, 2014

seebs posted:

It's not that it's "more fantastic". It's that it contradicts things we know, rather than obviously being completely outside our experience. We know how "throwing objects" works. We have no idea at all how magic works. So the suspension of disbelief is harder; we have to simultaneously think about things we know about how physical objects work and completely disregard them.
This is truly tortured logic, especially when you consider that 3e and 5e martials aren't even allowed to do things that real people can be seen doing right now on youtube.

seebs posted:

I'm mostly used to quasi-simulationist GMing, where the answer to the question "are there a lot of bones here" is primarily determined by where you are and what the GM thinks the world should be like there, not whether or not the GM loves or hates the necromancer idea.
I don't think you're being quasi-simulationist, you're being obviousi-rationalizationist. You're very clearly just adopting whatever stances support your argument no matter how strange the quasi-logic involved.

quote:

Go to a small town, kill everyone? You have a lot of corpses. Out in the wilderness? There may not be any usable corpses in range.
Any small town will have THOUSANDS of skeletons. A village could easily have 40-50. Wherever pcs can find iron rations and potion shoppes, they can find skeletons, culture permitting.

And no, it's not constructive to fill your world with cultures that just happen to burn their dead-
-and ring a huge gong at midnight every night for one hour and one minute
-and build all their castles and temples with a single narrow entrance perfect for use by lightning breathing dragons dragons fending off skeleton armies
-and have banned paper, papurus, vellum and everything else that can be used to create spellbooks and scrolls
-and on and on and on.

A Catastrophe fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Aug 12, 2014

Stormgale
Feb 27, 2010

So I got to sleep wakeup and we get like 100 posts of skeleton Chat, now for an addition to this discussion:

If you want a mythical figure who fights and does awesome stuff in 5e Which class should you play?

((It's the warlock))

((They make really good fighting types due to pact weapon + all the stuff they can throw on it))

((Caster supremacy))

A Catastrophe
Jun 26, 2014

seebs posted:

Yeah. But I guess I'm used to it and it doesn't bug me, regardless of which kind of character I'm playing. I like that they feel different, and I don't think that "different kinds of ability" necessarily means "only one of them is important".
One is staggeringly, vastly more powerful and important than the other. And I think we both know which one you and all your friends are going to be playing in 5e.

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



You know what? Tall tales are a valid loving basis for D&D characters anyway.

I want to be the guy with the big hammer who got supernaturally good at hammering by out-hammering the newfangled hammer golem. Yes, John Henry died that day, but Johan Hammerman was born. He smashes the gently caress out of wizards now because he doesn't want his children to have to out-hammer any hammer golems. (There's no chance that they won't be Hammermen, even the girls. Their children will also be Hammermen and so will their children, until a Hammerman fails in his duty to smash the poo poo out of stuff with a hammer).

I put it to you that this is no sillier or less believable than having to memorise spells that you forget as soon as you use them.

e: That's the backstory for the character class that's supernaturally great at breaking stuff. They use a hammer for their signature weapon and they sure are good at physically smashing poo poo, but once they get good they break really important stuff, like curses and other people's promises. Your PC is probably like a 20th generation Hammerman.

Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Aug 12, 2014

Boing
Jul 12, 2005

trapped in custom title factory, send help
The thief that steals someone's name or their memories or the concept of forgiveness sounds like an awesome concept. Where can I play that game?

Bloody Hedgehog
Dec 12, 2003

💥💥🤯💥💥
Gotta nuke something

Boing posted:

The thief that steals someone's name or their memories or the concept of forgiveness sounds like an awesome concept. Where can I play that game?

ianvincible
Jan 23, 2004

A Catastrophe posted:


Any small town will have THOUSANDS of skeletons. A village could easily have 40-50. Wherever pcs can find iron rations and potion shoppes, they can find skeletons, culture permitting.


That's assuming there haven't been centuries of necromancers roaming around the countryside raising everyone as skeletons. A small hamlet doesn't have a town cemetery, they just have a town grave, since whoever they bury is always raised as a skeleton before the next guy dies.

Necromancers get into bidding wars for exclusivity contracts over particularly corpse-producing towns ("500 gold to build a new mill, and 25 skeletons' labor each year at harvest time for exclusive rights to your dead for the next 5 years." "Well, Lord Skullfist is offering to build a new mill and put a new roof on the tavern. And the old witch is saying we're due for a plague in the next few years..." ). Of course, they could just go in and start killing, but skeletons are fragile. They might break some of yours, you might break some of theirs, and if there's a wandering gang of adventurers around who knows what will happen? You might end up with fewer usable skeletons than you started with! Better to play it safe, that's just simple necronomics.

You can't expect to just graduate fresh from Wizard College and immediately get into the skeleton game. You gotta know people who know people. Do some internships. Work your way up.

Earthorn
Jul 18, 2012

Boing posted:

The thief that steals someone's name or their memories or the concept of forgiveness sounds like an awesome concept. Where can I play that game?

13th Age: An epic level rogue with the right talent and feat can steal "(a) dream. A vision. A spell. Someone's hope."

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thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!
4e, there's an Epic Destiny (Master Their, I think) which among other things, gives you a passive stealth stat so if your stealth modifier beats their perception modifier (easy enough in most cases), they cannot see you unless you choose to let them; and which at higher levels (26 or 30) lets you steal anything from any creature you reduce to 0 HP. Anything you can think of.

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