Points of Light and the Forgotten Realms
Part of the problem with Elminster is that he's not just a powerful wizard, he's a Chosen of Mystra, etc. He breaks the rules, or the rules warp to accomodate him. Realistically, the PCs have no chance to get to his power level.
Also, being told that Elminster can't help you because what you are doing is unimportant, is demoralizing. And it implies that if it were actually important, he'd come in and save the day.
Driz'zt is a different matter. He's closer to mortal, and his own problems are on a much more local scale. Most people don't like Driz'zt more because people kept rolling drow with 2 scimitars, not because of his power level.
Heh, in some ways the problem is with teleport and information gathering spells. If Elminster doesn't come and help, you know that it's because he chose not to, that it wasn't worth his time, not that he couldn't reach the area in time, or was unaware of the problem. If he couldn't arrive in time, then it would be up to the PCs to defeat the enemy.
Also, being told that Elminster can't help you because what you are doing is unimportant, is demoralizing. And it implies that if it were actually important, he'd come in and save the day.
Driz'zt is a different matter. He's closer to mortal, and his own problems are on a much more local scale. Most people don't like Driz'zt more because people kept rolling drow with 2 scimitars, not because of his power level.
Heh, in some ways the problem is with teleport and information gathering spells. If Elminster doesn't come and help, you know that it's because he chose not to, that it wasn't worth his time, not that he couldn't reach the area in time, or was unaware of the problem. If he couldn't arrive in time, then it would be up to the PCs to defeat the enemy.
BadMojo
First Post
Majoru Oakheart said:
An attack of this magnitude would seem like the stuff high level adventures are made of. It wouldn't be something where I'd think Mystra would ring up the nearest 1st level adventuring party.
If a group of high level or near-Epic level PCs is working to stop the destruction of the Weave, why couldn't they work in concert with Elminster? It can easily be a scenario where there are multiple battles all over Faerun would need to be fought. Even a Big Name FR NPC (except maybe Manshoon) can be several places at once.
Elminster is certainly not infallible. He could be tricked or delayed by a very powerful enemy.
As a player, I really don't feel the need to be the most powerful entity in the entire setting.
Another way to look at things is this: FR NPC's tend to be a tempermental, flaky lot. Much like a large corporation, the various groups like the Chosen, Khelben's group (forgot the name) or the Harpers may be too busy arguiing internally and among the various power groups to act quickly enough. It may sound silly, but this sort of behavior would fit with our "real world" history.
Besides, Elminster would probably be halfway across the multiverse handcuffed to a bedpost.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Uzzy said:
No, there aren't. At least not in any of the FR books I've seen. Most of the "villainous" NPCs are far from superpowered, and most of them are severely inactive or "spiders in their web"-types.
I think your "Elminster should be level 35 if the PCs can reach 30!" idea shows that you don't, and are perhaps incapable of, understanding why a stat'd NPC is always worse than one without stats, if he's genuinely intended to be used for "flavour". I'll try though - if you take the stats out, the game only improves. That's all that happens. It gets better. You don't need those stats for anything.
No-one needs Elminster's stats. Seriously. You don't. If you're personally putting him an adventure in a position where he'll need stats beyond GM fiat, you and about three others have already told us that you're a "bad GM" for doing so, so clearly that's not a reason, and what, you can't MAKE UP the stats now?
Your example of "why the NPCs can't help" are limited, I'm afraid, because they're all cases of "they can't help at this precise moment, but could soon!", which has always been the problem - we need things that take the NPCs out for DECADES, not nine months. I mean, Elminister is screwed up, but how long is it going to take for him to "get over it"? Not freakin' long, I imagine. The Seven Sisters, several of who are psychopaths who have no right to have "G" anywhere in their alignment can all potentially get out of their complications within days, weeks, or months at the most.
The problem with the FR is not so much "individual adventures". Yeah, it's eaaaaasy to come up with an individual adventure where none of these jerks (and most of them actually are jerks, to judge from the books/descriptions, even by PC standards) would have a reason to become involved, but as you continue to play in the Realms, two problems potentially emerge:
1) Sweeping epic campaigns become hard to do if you care about maintaining any kind of continuity with the extant FR.
2) Campaigns where anything genuinely important happens become hard-to-credit UNLESS the Unecessarily Overpowered NPCs (UONPCs) are "accounted for", and stuff like "oh lol shez runnign a university" isn't a good accounting or reason to not be involved, or are involved (in some ways this is the less painful option, if you use them indirectly).
3) The players are the heroes of the setting - this again can become "hard to credit" - you can repeat endlessly that you "don't see why" players want to be the heroes - that doesn't stop the vast majority of players wanting this, especially in the long-term.
Taking out the stats for "good" NPCs helps a great deal. I strongly suggest that whether the setting jumps 10 years or 100, that they DO NOT stat up good-aligned NPCs beyond "class/race/level", and if they can, avoid even that. No-one needs a freakin' stat-block for each of the Seven Psycho Sisters.
It's better to leave that to individual DMs to handle themselves. This way players are never going to feel directly overshadowed (because who knows what level this person is, eh?), the DM is less concerned with "NPC interference", because their power levels become vague and malleable without outright breaking with the setting, and a lot of time and space are saved in sourcebooks which otherwise had to be filled with stat blocks, spell lists, and details of extensive Kewl Powerz. It's only positive, and I'd really like to know if you oppose such a thing, and why?
As for "Elminster isn't a pet", those reasons sound almost as flaky as Elminster himself, to me. Just because someone consistently denies something that would reflect on them negatively, doesn't mean it ain't so. Similarly, just because he created Elminster when he was eight, doesn't mean it's a good idea for the character to stay in the setting. He's clearly been refined many times. In 1E/early 2E he WAS Gandalf only more interfering and arbitary. Later he's turned into this sort of "super-fit sexy older man" wanna-be Sean Connery creep, I see, which is even worse. His evolution needs to end, with any/all of de-statting, crippling, killing, or apotheosis.
It's not just the "big names" that are a problem though - I think you'll acknowledge that the FR has had a consistent problem in that the rulers of any given area, even on a small scale, tend to have an AWFUL lot of class levels, and should really be fighting a lot of threats directly. Settings like Eberron have leaders with 5-7 class levels, which makes a hell of a lot more sense.
This PERVASIVE use of "many PC-class levels for every npc!" (instead of making them Experts or the like) is more the reason that the setting needs to be advanced a handful of magic bastards I admit. Getting rid of the magic bastards would be a bonus, though.
PS - Before anyone attempts any lectures of how to remove the FR UONPCs from the setting - I know all this, and I've already spent time going through a lot of the books doing precisely that, but it's a tiresome chore, and unsuitable in a setting that's meant for general consumption.
BadMojo - I completely agree that the "Good" FR NPCs tend to be tempremental and flaky. In fact, they're so tempremental and flaky, that labelling a lot of them as good, as WotC, like TSR before them, insists on doing, is very very very very questionable.
The fact that they're in the setting, and that the setting consistently portrays them as "good people" who players should "respect" produces immensive amounts of cognitive dissonance for me. It's downright mindbending. I mean, they tell me just exactly how giant a "crazy bitch" one of the Seven Sisters is (based on her murderous actions), then mark her NG and talk about how she's a wonderful person - most NG characters in the FR seem very NON-self-sacrificing, too, though perhaps Elminister is going to finally change that a bit.
As a RPG DM and player, too, it's sick, because I know that it's "pet-ism" that causes them to be labelled as "good people". If this was a typical setting, the same NPC would be CN or the like, and there would be nothing about how wonderful they were, we would be left to judge on their own merit (indeed, they'd be detailed far more briefly per se). However, they're pets, because they're all either writer's pets (like Elminster - he's just not a pure Mary Sue - that doesn't make him a partial Mary Sue, or a pet), or worse, ex-PCs, as I am given to understand the Knights of Myth Drannor and possibly the Seven Sisters are. There's nothing more irksome than someone else's PCs slap-bang in the middle of a setting.
Manshoon, Fzoul, Szass Tam, Aznar Thrul, Druxus Rhym, Lallara, Lauzoril, Mythrellaa, Nevron, Yaphyll (The other seven Zulkir's.). The 12 Princes of Shade. Telamont. The Faceless. Sammaster. Halaster Blackcloak. Arklem Gleem of the Arcane Brotherhood. Countess Sarya Dlardrageth. Tordynnar Rhaevaren of the Eldreth Veluuthra. Slarkrethel of the Kraken Society. The Five Malalugryms, Arathluth, Luthbyr, Luthvaerynn, Taltuth and Zarasluth. Jymahna of the Twisted Rune. And, of course, Larloch. All high level and very powerful arcanists, all mentioned in Lords of Darkness.
I never said that. I said that Elminster being level 35 would be a problem IF the PC's could easily reach an equivalent level. If you read my post, you would have seen me agreeing that Elminster doesn't need stats. A 'Wizard 35, CG Human, Chosen of Mystra' statblock would do me fine.
Now then, there is nothing more I can add to Paul S Kemp's post about the 'Concerns of the Mighty'. He summed it up perfectly. If you continue to stubbornly deny those truths due to your utter lack of knowledge about the Realms, then there's nothing I can do. I've tried explaining it, with sources, yet you continue to repost the same nonsense as before. As such, I'll leave this thread.
Last edited:
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
"Truths" . . . huh.Uzzy said:
The "truths" in that sidebar do not cover every problem DMs have with having high level NPCs all over the Realms. Declaring that the sidebar is revealed "truth" does not change that many folks are unconvinced by it.
But to bring it back on track with the thread, I am one of those who has been bothered by the accumulated number of high level good guys and bad guys. But that is something I'm fully aware came about from decades of high output in adventures, accessories, and novels. And it is the setting "reset" (or whatever it is that happens with the spellplague and timeline advance) that appeals to me because it sounds like like the vast amount of accreted cumbersome weight is being shed. It sounds like a nearly clean slate for newcomer DMs to make something of their own with like when the gray boxed set first appeared, points of light-like
Now, I also understand that this could go badly. TSR did a similar thing with the Mystara setting trying to bring the Rules Compendium version of the setting forward into the AD&D 2nd ed system. It's not a perfect analogy between Mystara's failed "update" to AD&D and FR's update to 4e. But I think the Known World/Mystara update to AD&D is a better analog that any other setting revision for many reasons. The differences between Mystara-to-AD&D and FR-to-4e are great enough that I think FR-to-4e will prove successful enough that sales numbers won't suffer as Mystara's AD&D line did.
I agree with the stats thingy. However, it seems that that somewhere, some group of people are always begging for stats for some NPC or whatnot, such as Drizzt. This began in 1e with TSR statting up the gods, then you people claiming to armwrestle Thor and gain his hammer. I agree, that with those designed as "flavourtext" or deities, there should be no stats. If a campaign gets up in power and those pcs want to take on gods, then let the GM think up his or her own plan!
PaulKemp said:
Only with Stormbringer or his potions and drugs, otherwise I could head in the sink his ass, prison style.
Similar Threads
