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What is "grim and gritty" and "low magic" anyway?
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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 1425309" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>It does? Naaah, just that the DM is ready to be a rat bastard to actually get his plot done. You want the myth, I give you the Odyssey, By the Rules. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, assuming that we're only using the core books and not going for the ELH for anything other than the occasional monster (but we could probably avoid it for that too), I tend to like to give my players opportunity to gain a few levels while adventuring. By the time these blokes make it back to Ithica, they've gone up a level or two. Otherwise, if we 'cap out' at 20th so we're only using the core, they don't have anywhere to go, and may as well retire right there on the battlefield, because a character who can't advance at all isn't any fun.</p><p></p><p>It's simply a matter of giving them room for XP. Your accusation is reaching at straws.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Dude, PLANE SHIFT?! The spell is wildly inaccurate as a 'teleport substitute,' and there's no garuntee that in the bit of time you're on the planes you won't be harassed by some might outsider. In addition, it doesn't get the ship-mooks home. They try to plane shift to Olympus, then back to Ithica, they could wind up just as bad as when they started (or worse, because Posseidon could throw one of his best allies at them while they were on Olympus rather than attacking them through the sea). They have no idea where they'll end up when they shift back, they could manifest on some wacky foriegn land or such, and a portable hole doesn't contain enough air(one creature for ten minutes divided by thousands of creatures.....the math don't seem to favor that, even for 6 seconds).</p><p></p><p>So plane shift does not work. Even on the odd chance they decided to do exactly as you posit, and the DM overlooked the 'breathable air inside a portable hole' thing, they risk a TPK at TWO points in the quest, when they are in Olympus, and when they land again (Perhaps directly in the ocean, where some sea creature can swallow them up without so much as a ceremony)....so I just took it for granted that were such a thing proposed, Jozan or Mialee would've succeeded on their Intelligence check to Detect A Stupid Plan, and Regdar would've been beaten for trying to think.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, there's a few reasons she wouldn't or can't.</p><p></p><p>#1) they don't really have the time. They just sacked Troy, and the retainers are going to be back, and Mialee, being one of the heros, is really needed at the front lines and not locked away in a ship for months/weeks</p><p>#2) She *just* got 15th level....she can't craft anything until she's gotten slightly more XP, because she can't drop a level by spending it. </p><p>#3) Her character is playing a bit of a selfish wench, so of course she *wouldn't!* (why d'ya think Jozan had to cast all the spells before?) Aaaand Character Developing Plot +++!</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So now not only are you suffocating the crew in a hole, you're killing them....what kind of mook would agree to this?! It's disrespectful and decietful, and all too wicked.....NONE of the gods would be happy with it (though if we're using Deities and Demigods maybe Hades would be), and you'd get more than a storm coming down on their heads. On top of it being Evil to kill people for expedience (they still suffer the trauma of having been killed, after all). And even if they *did* try it, it would cost at the very minimum, 28,825 gold PER DEATH. At a bunch of thousand shipmen, this destroys the loot from Troy and more....what's the point in going to the Trojans and taking their stuff if you're just going to spend it on your mooks? In addition, these are HEROES! To kill staunch allies is reprehensible to them. Even if they were a party of complete evil bastards (not bloody likely, given most DM's and players, but still possible), who somehow managed to make it to troy, the other 15th+ level characters there wouldn't allow it. To kill the mooks, they'd have to fight a war against Heracles, Agamemnon, and all the other survivors, and their mooks, too. And they can *still* be killed at two points (plane shift), or blown off course (normally). And yeah, pissing of Hades is the least of their worries in that case (Zeus doesn't want to here Jozan's prayers anymore, at least, stripping him of all class abilities....and probably of the pull in the church needed to get these mooks resed for at price/cheap).</p><p></p><p>So no, Resurrection-transportation doesn't work, for moral quandries and logistical ones.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Gate: Possiedon (who has control in Olympus nearing Zeus's) puts the kibash on it, since opening a gate into a deity's realm can be forbidden by the deity there. Even if not, the spell is slightly more reliable than Plane Shift, but Possiedon can still axe them in Olympus, and then they'd be bringing trouble home with them (what do they fear more, killing the mooks on the ship with Pos's wrath, or killing their friends and family with it...). They still have the problem with transporting the whole army (the gate doesn't stay open forever). And, again the Int check to Detect A Stupid Plan succeeds, Regdar is beaten with sausages,a nd the peasants rejoice. This is assuming they are either higher level, or have ready access to the higher level, and want to spend the significant bling to get it done, which is no small feat in and of itself, though you seem to write it off as a given.</p><p></p><p>Teleportation Circle: It's a 5-ft radius, not a large enough area to get a ship by any means. And Greater Teleport has many of the same problems as Regular Teleport (no distance limit, but then there are problems transporting the entire army, and the bringing of the trouble of the gods home with them).</p><p></p><p>Any other ideas you want me to defeat, or will you rest with that and accept the fact that high-level, high-magic adventures can have all the elements of a classic mythical story? Heck, on the odd chance they do manage to circumvent the rules (not bloody likely), it just means that the planned adventure happens *after* their homes, friends, and children get destroyed by the earthquake Possiedon brings onto Ithica, and it happens with the entire population of the island instead of a portion of the troops from Troy, if you want to be a little less rail-roading (still preserving the same essential elements of plot, but certainly not being slavishly faithful to the myth anymore).</p><p></p><p>In Other News: I'm not sure it takes a potentially great DM to do this (though I'm flattered you think me in the realms of P-Kitty!). It just takes someone who's reading along, who knows the capabilities of the players, and who makes sure they know that no matter how powerful they are, there is *always* something more powerful out there, that can as handily whoop their butts as they can whoop the butts of goblins. To do this without railroading at all, it also takes a DM who is comfortable with allowing the players to script some of the plot, since they will be doing it, quite often. Which is why the inaccurate claim levied at some lm/gng DM's is that it means you're a control freak -- because your characters can't shape the quest as much as you can. In the higher-level games I've been a part of, I've never worried about railroading them to the adventure, I've worried about having the adventure follow them. No matter what Odysseus and his crew do, they're going to go on a long journey and meet strange people. If I have to make the traumatic event something a bit more personal than a storm at sea, I'm more than willing to do it, and if I have to adopt the map so that the lotus eaters are land-locked instead of an island, I'm willing to do it. Admittedly, not all DM's are -- they like to be able to almost 100% control the story. Which is fine, but is a different flavor from that of D&D....IMHO, it's less like playing a game, and more like writing a story, which is not something I'm interested in using D&D for at all, since I can get paid for writing a story without using my friends as the main characters.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 1425309, member: 2067"] It does? Naaah, just that the DM is ready to be a rat bastard to actually get his plot done. You want the myth, I give you the Odyssey, By the Rules. Well, assuming that we're only using the core books and not going for the ELH for anything other than the occasional monster (but we could probably avoid it for that too), I tend to like to give my players opportunity to gain a few levels while adventuring. By the time these blokes make it back to Ithica, they've gone up a level or two. Otherwise, if we 'cap out' at 20th so we're only using the core, they don't have anywhere to go, and may as well retire right there on the battlefield, because a character who can't advance at all isn't any fun. It's simply a matter of giving them room for XP. Your accusation is reaching at straws. Dude, PLANE SHIFT?! The spell is wildly inaccurate as a 'teleport substitute,' and there's no garuntee that in the bit of time you're on the planes you won't be harassed by some might outsider. In addition, it doesn't get the ship-mooks home. They try to plane shift to Olympus, then back to Ithica, they could wind up just as bad as when they started (or worse, because Posseidon could throw one of his best allies at them while they were on Olympus rather than attacking them through the sea). They have no idea where they'll end up when they shift back, they could manifest on some wacky foriegn land or such, and a portable hole doesn't contain enough air(one creature for ten minutes divided by thousands of creatures.....the math don't seem to favor that, even for 6 seconds). So plane shift does not work. Even on the odd chance they decided to do exactly as you posit, and the DM overlooked the 'breathable air inside a portable hole' thing, they risk a TPK at TWO points in the quest, when they are in Olympus, and when they land again (Perhaps directly in the ocean, where some sea creature can swallow them up without so much as a ceremony)....so I just took it for granted that were such a thing proposed, Jozan or Mialee would've succeeded on their Intelligence check to Detect A Stupid Plan, and Regdar would've been beaten for trying to think. Well, there's a few reasons she wouldn't or can't. #1) they don't really have the time. They just sacked Troy, and the retainers are going to be back, and Mialee, being one of the heros, is really needed at the front lines and not locked away in a ship for months/weeks #2) She *just* got 15th level....she can't craft anything until she's gotten slightly more XP, because she can't drop a level by spending it. #3) Her character is playing a bit of a selfish wench, so of course she *wouldn't!* (why d'ya think Jozan had to cast all the spells before?) Aaaand Character Developing Plot +++! So now not only are you suffocating the crew in a hole, you're killing them....what kind of mook would agree to this?! It's disrespectful and decietful, and all too wicked.....NONE of the gods would be happy with it (though if we're using Deities and Demigods maybe Hades would be), and you'd get more than a storm coming down on their heads. On top of it being Evil to kill people for expedience (they still suffer the trauma of having been killed, after all). And even if they *did* try it, it would cost at the very minimum, 28,825 gold PER DEATH. At a bunch of thousand shipmen, this destroys the loot from Troy and more....what's the point in going to the Trojans and taking their stuff if you're just going to spend it on your mooks? In addition, these are HEROES! To kill staunch allies is reprehensible to them. Even if they were a party of complete evil bastards (not bloody likely, given most DM's and players, but still possible), who somehow managed to make it to troy, the other 15th+ level characters there wouldn't allow it. To kill the mooks, they'd have to fight a war against Heracles, Agamemnon, and all the other survivors, and their mooks, too. And they can *still* be killed at two points (plane shift), or blown off course (normally). And yeah, pissing of Hades is the least of their worries in that case (Zeus doesn't want to here Jozan's prayers anymore, at least, stripping him of all class abilities....and probably of the pull in the church needed to get these mooks resed for at price/cheap). So no, Resurrection-transportation doesn't work, for moral quandries and logistical ones. Gate: Possiedon (who has control in Olympus nearing Zeus's) puts the kibash on it, since opening a gate into a deity's realm can be forbidden by the deity there. Even if not, the spell is slightly more reliable than Plane Shift, but Possiedon can still axe them in Olympus, and then they'd be bringing trouble home with them (what do they fear more, killing the mooks on the ship with Pos's wrath, or killing their friends and family with it...). They still have the problem with transporting the whole army (the gate doesn't stay open forever). And, again the Int check to Detect A Stupid Plan succeeds, Regdar is beaten with sausages,a nd the peasants rejoice. This is assuming they are either higher level, or have ready access to the higher level, and want to spend the significant bling to get it done, which is no small feat in and of itself, though you seem to write it off as a given. Teleportation Circle: It's a 5-ft radius, not a large enough area to get a ship by any means. And Greater Teleport has many of the same problems as Regular Teleport (no distance limit, but then there are problems transporting the entire army, and the bringing of the trouble of the gods home with them). Any other ideas you want me to defeat, or will you rest with that and accept the fact that high-level, high-magic adventures can have all the elements of a classic mythical story? Heck, on the odd chance they do manage to circumvent the rules (not bloody likely), it just means that the planned adventure happens *after* their homes, friends, and children get destroyed by the earthquake Possiedon brings onto Ithica, and it happens with the entire population of the island instead of a portion of the troops from Troy, if you want to be a little less rail-roading (still preserving the same essential elements of plot, but certainly not being slavishly faithful to the myth anymore). In Other News: I'm not sure it takes a potentially great DM to do this (though I'm flattered you think me in the realms of P-Kitty!). It just takes someone who's reading along, who knows the capabilities of the players, and who makes sure they know that no matter how powerful they are, there is *always* something more powerful out there, that can as handily whoop their butts as they can whoop the butts of goblins. To do this without railroading at all, it also takes a DM who is comfortable with allowing the players to script some of the plot, since they will be doing it, quite often. Which is why the inaccurate claim levied at some lm/gng DM's is that it means you're a control freak -- because your characters can't shape the quest as much as you can. In the higher-level games I've been a part of, I've never worried about railroading them to the adventure, I've worried about having the adventure follow them. No matter what Odysseus and his crew do, they're going to go on a long journey and meet strange people. If I have to make the traumatic event something a bit more personal than a storm at sea, I'm more than willing to do it, and if I have to adopt the map so that the lotus eaters are land-locked instead of an island, I'm willing to do it. Admittedly, not all DM's are -- they like to be able to almost 100% control the story. Which is fine, but is a different flavor from that of D&D....IMHO, it's less like playing a game, and more like writing a story, which is not something I'm interested in using D&D for at all, since I can get paid for writing a story without using my friends as the main characters. [/QUOTE]
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