No Indiana Jones in D&D?

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Heretic Apostate

First Post

• Mar 29, 2002

• #1

With all the spells out there (Comprehend Languages, Legend Lore and the like), is there room for adventurers who want to explore old ruins, find out about ancient civilizations, and so on? Why bother searching through old, forgotten manuscripts in the hopes of translating ancient writings, when a spell can do it just as easily? Why bother hunting up that old sage if a spell can provide you with the same stuff without all the hunting?

Does anyone ever do this type of stuff in their games? (I was just watching this documentary about the German amateur archaeologist (sp?) who discovered the ruins of Troy and the palace of Agamemnon, all by studying Homer's Illiad. Very interesting stuff. That guy managed to find several treasures, simply by studying what was thought to be myths, and connecting the "myths" to actual places....)

 

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Lothaire

First Post

• Mar 29, 2002

• #2

I think with spells that do all the dirty work with a poof there is not much room in standard D&D for archeologist types, though it can be done. However if your were to go low magic, then such charecters would be perfectly suitible.

I recall that a few years back I played a fighter / mage / rogue high elf adventurer that was an Indiana jones type. It was mighty fun, I took a bunch of languages and loaded up on comprehension spells to buff my abilties up. I added some generic diplomacy and cha related abilities. I used a whip and modified light crossbow as weapons, and used special house ability called panache to great effect. Panache essentially was a point based system where you got points for doing nifty stuff and could spend the points to gain positive modifiers for attempting nonstandard actions, such as swinging from a rope to attack enemies, or jumping up onto a table to fight enemies and other such coolness.

 

RogueJK

It's not "Rouge"... That's makeup.

• Mar 29, 2002

• #3

Have you seen the Royal Explorer Prestige Class in Song & Silence?

It's a sort of quasi-archaeologist/geographer.

 

ColonelHardisson

What? Me Worry?

• Mar 29, 2002

• #4

The Pulp Heroes d20 game in Polyhedron/Dungeon a few issues back has material for just such a campaign and just such characters.

 

Victim

First Post

• Mar 29, 2002

• #5

Magical spells usually require a known starting point. If you don't ask the right question, you don't get the right answer. Therefore, normal research and such will still be important, except for language translation. Of course, context dependent meanings might mess up even those spells.

 

LostSoul

Adventurer

• Mar 29, 2002

• #6

The standard "Indiana Jones" archaeologist could be replaced by a multi-classed Wizard searching for long lost spells and arcane secrets.

 

DungeonKeeperUK

First Post

• Mar 29, 2002

• #7

Bluffside out soon from Thunderhead was discoverd by Archeologists and built upon by them...
I'll not go into a long discucion on it, just wanted to make you aware so you could take a peek and see if theres anything in there to your liking......

 

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JacktheRabbit

Explorer

• Mar 29, 2002

• #8

Comprehend languages will give you a literal translation of the works but that does not mean you will understand the nuances of the language.

Also in my DnD worlds Comprehend Languages visually converts the text to a language you understand. As we all know nothing ever translates perfectly so if you use a spell to read a text you are probably only going to get about 60% out of it compared to someone who speaks and reads the language.

 

drnuncheon

Explorer

• Mar 29, 2002

• #9

Heretic Apostate said:

With all the spells out there (Comprehend Languages, Legend Lore and the like), is there room for adventurers who want to explore old ruins, find out about ancient civilizations, and so on? Why bother searching through old, forgotten manuscripts in the hopes of translating ancient writings, when a spell can do it just as easily? Why bother hunting up that old sage if a spell can provide you with the same stuff without all the hunting?

Click to expand...

Why bother with Hide and Climb when you have invisibility and spider climb? Why learn to fight when you can summon monster? Why bother with the Heal skill if you can cure light wounds?

Magic can fill in for any of the other classes/abilities/skills/whatever, but if you're using your magic for that, you're not using it for things that only magic can do...

J

 

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Kaptain_Kantrip

First Post

• Mar 29, 2002

• #10

There is an "Indy" like Explorer class in d20 Pulp Heroes, back in Dungeon #90,