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I'm more surprised that they managed to add psychic damage to the Sivaks death thores.
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
It seems that even WotC forgets their rules regarding immediate actions:
Oddly that was one of the first things I noticed too.
Nice concept though. Guess I'll be calling it a 'free action' until i hear otherwise
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Last edited by fba827; 6th November 2009 at 10:06 AM..
I'm more surprised that they managed to add psychic damage to the Sivaks death thores.
I did the same thing when I wrote up Draconians last year on the Dragonlance.com forums. The flavour was always that it would cause mental anguish to see your own death or fallen corpse, and psychic damage is the natural way to represent that.
Plus, Sivaks being the only ones without damage when they died made them a bit weak compared to other draconians when unmasked. Given that they were supposed to be the 7 foot tall temple guard brutes of the Draconians (along with being stealthy infiltrators) the lack of death throes made them less threatening than other draconians.
I did the same thing when I wrote up Draconians last year on the Dragonlance.com forums. The flavour was always that it would cause mental anguish to see your own death or fallen corpse, and psychic damage is the natural way to represent that.
So "mental anguish" is enough to kill pretty much any normal human (minion) when he manages to kill a Sivak?
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
So "mental anguish" is enough to kill pretty much any normal human (minion) when he manages to kill a Sivak?
Why are we comparing what happens when two enemies fight each other?
A minion has one hitpoint to represent how 'the common mook' in dramatic scenes that goes down to a single punch. It doesn't represent actual hitpoints for the creature interacting with the world, because the DM just gets to decide that. What happens when the DM's NPC Minions kills his NPC Sivaks? It's up to him!
The only time I can see it coming up in actual gameplay was if the PCs had magically created minions through items or powers. Which are few and far between, and as far as I know, every such power involves the minion being a magical entity - which, yes, it could well be appropriate to have them discorporate when faced with the internal concept of their own death.
I'm kind of curious to see if folks will be using draconians in their games or not since they've been tied so closely with Dragonlance. I know people have used them before in other settings, but does their inclusion in Draconomicon 2 make you more likely to use them?
I'm kind of curious to see if folks will be using draconians in their games or not since they've been tied so closely with Dragonlance. I know people have used them before in other settings, but does their inclusion in Draconomicon 2 make you more likely to use them?
I would, at the very least in a homebrew (and did so when I was a kid; I always thought that the death throes were the coolest abilities).
__________________ Veronica: Where's your brother?
Dick: I think he took Ghost World up to his room. They're probably up there making love. Or playing Dungeons and Dragons. Or both, at the same time. They're both, like, 12th-level dorks. I'm just sayin'
So "mental anguish" is enough to kill pretty much any normal human (minion) when he manages to kill a Sivak?
Yeah, they'd die of fright or it would force them to flee (which is also a way for to get 0 hp minions out of the game). Is it any more ludicrous a death throe attack than the dissolving in a pool of acid, turning to stone, or exploding?
Is it any more ludicrous a death throe attack than the dissolving in a pool of acid, turning to stone, or exploding?
Yes, it is. Because it does damage.
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
D&D has a long history of powerful fear effects causing damage, for example the Phantasmal Killer spell, amongst others. Hitpoints are a somewhat abstract concept and include willingness and capability to fight. A minion "killed" by a fear effect like this could be removed by passing out or fleeing the battle, and it no stretch to say that extreme fear can cause a heart attack.
For what its worth I have seen otherwise competent people reduced to useless wrecks by fear.
I'm kind of curious to see if folks will be using draconians in their games or not since they've been tied so closely with Dragonlance. I know people have used them before in other settings, but does their inclusion in Draconomicon 2 make you more likely to use them?
Absolutely, but only because I don't have to work up the stats myself.
I have used draconians off and on for my entire gaming career, and never played more than a few DL games. Draconians are, imho, one of the best aspects of DL (along with a few other fantastic monsters).
Do you follow the current abstraction that says hit points are a combination of stamina, composure, reflexes, and a bit of luck plus a few fatal hits, or do you see hit points only as chunks of bleeding wounds? Because the death throes doing damage makes sense under the first one, which has been the standard for a long time.
So "mental anguish" is enough to kill pretty much any normal human (minion) when he manages to kill a Sivak?
I think you're (again) ignoring several main factors in 4e. You've done the same thing before, but here goes....
(1) 4e's rules aren't meant to model what happens when two NPCs fight each other. You're running into a silly situation because you were pushing for a silly situation. (Like in 3.5, the good, old fashioned Bat vs. Swarm of Flies debate.)
(2) HPs in 4e aren't just physical damage, and what happens when a monster hits 0 HP is situational. It could be they surrender. It could be you knock them unconscious. It could be they run in fear. So even in this case, the human minion might have just run off, terrified - or been stunned into temporary oblivion from the shock.
(3) Minions are only minions because they are fighting the PCs. There are no free-range minions who die when a dog bites them.
(2) HPs in 4e aren't just physical damage, and what happens when a monster hits 0 HP is situational. It could be they surrender. It could be you knock them unconscious. It could be they run in fear. So even in this case, the human minion might have just run off, terrified - or been stunned into temporary oblivion from the shock.
Somebody "pretending" the definition of hp is different could be intentional or indeed severe ignorance of every version of D&D ...and is something you will find glaring in some peoples war banner sigs. Most people certainly wouldnt want to include that level of apparent misunderstanding with every post. Does anybody have the page numbers in all editions or should we give up on the offender?
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
Somebody "pretending" the definition of hp is different could be intentional or indeed severe ignorance of every version of D&D ...and is something you will find glaring in some peoples war banner sigs. Most people certainly wouldnt want to include that level of apparent misunderstanding with every post. Does anybody have the page numbers in all editions or should we give up on the offender?
That's a debate I don't think is worthwhile pursuing. IMO, all the arguments have been made already.
Whether or not it's how HPs have always been, it's pretty clear that's how they are right now, in 4e. And that's the important thing when we're talking about a 4e monster dealing psychic damage.
Returning to the excerpts, I wish they had shown off one of the new draconians. The baaz was nice, but I've already seen the sivak.
__________________ Veronica: Where's your brother?
Dick: I think he took Ghost World up to his room. They're probably up there making love. Or playing Dungeons and Dragons. Or both, at the same time. They're both, like, 12th-level dorks. I'm just sayin'
That's a debate I don't think is worthwhile pursuing. IMO, all the arguments have been made already.
Whether or not it's how HPs have always been, it's pretty clear that's how they are right now, in 4e. And that's the important thing when we're talking about a 4e monster dealing psychic damage.
-O
Just strange that all other shock moments, being attacked by undead you previously know, seeing a abbaration, a group member being killed, etc. don't do psychic damage but this one does even when you made the knowledge check and know whats going on.
Too bad that WotC felt it neccessary to add damage where it doesn't make sense just to add a combat effect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shroomy
Returning to the excerpts, I wish they had shown off one of the new draconians. The baaz was nice, but I've already seen the sivak.
I am a bit torn about their existance. On one hand I still see the new dragons not as true metallics and a bad invention of WotC, on the other hand it keeps things consistend (as long as they are not added to DL if that setting comes out. There it would destroy any consistency the setting has left).
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
Last edited by Derren; 6th November 2009 at 09:09 PM..
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