No. It's exactly what I wrote. I'm curious to see it. If I wanted someone to go get it for me, I'd have said so.
Sorry, I read more into what you were saying than you meant, and then later down the thread someone did ask me to find it. I feel like that is karma talking.
It's a good theory, but it's just not backed up by the rules. The Deck of Many Things and the Librams that give levels for that matter, are written exceptions to the rule. Gods have been written and they have not been given the ability to grant exp. Nor can demon lords. Now, it would certainly make sense for them to be able to do it, but you have to engage a house rule since you are altering the rules involving mechanics.
Where are the gods written out in 5e? Tiamat has an avatar, but no one else has been statted have they? And I’m sure plenty of beings had abilities involving XP in old editions. Undead used to have the ability to grant negative levels after all. However that worked in the game lore.
That isn't necessarily true. People assume a great deal and lose their minds over piddly crap. To think that lots of fans assumed what was cannon, were wrong, and then lost their minds is not a large step to take.
But, the fact that the company felt the need to call it out speaks towards the community that was involved. Sure, they may have assumed with no evidence, but after a long enough time the community making the assumption there is little difference between official canon and assumed canon.
Canon itself is a product of the community that consumes the material after all.
That's just not true. You can of course make it hard on yourself as a DM and play it like that, but you have to ignore the options available to you.
The bigwigs watch and plot against each other, so they could easily miss a world spanning even, or just plain be unable to leave their own. When you get down to the city level it's even easier. Lady Alustiel is making a state visit to Bruenor. The Lords of Waterdeep are busy working out a trade deal with another major city. The Simbul is planewalking like the lore says she enjoys. High level NPC is assassinated, opening up the ability to rule the city to the PCs.
You really are making things about 1000x harder than it needs to be.
I have options sure, but how many times can I use each excuse? If I have players who care about such things the fact that everyone else is conveniently busy when the plot arrives will begin to wear thin.
I know as a player I started getting frustrated with the Guard of Waterdeep in the mercenary game I was playing in. Time and time again we would have an issue, something would be threatening someone or something mysterious would be going on or someone would be missing, and we’d hear “And the guards won’t do anything about it so I turned to you”.
And sure, that was the story, we were mercs, and having the guards fixing all the problems would make us unnecessary, but seriously, why does this major city have the most useless and lazy guards ever? Like, this New York essentially, and we never encountered the police doing anything about serious threats to the city. Cult in the sewers? Meh. Giants destroying farms? Meh. Major Demon summoned and ravishing the countryside? Meh. Rash of mysterious deaths? Meh. We never even got the guard coming to us admitting they couldn’t handle the problem, it was always just that they didn’t care enough to get involved or send anyone to look into it. It let us be the heroes but it made my character who was a former army officer insane, because all I wanted to do was go and beat them into shape so they actually protected the city.
This same type of storytelling tool is used all the time, and it isn’t a bad one, I get that. But, if used too much or improperly it starts stretching my believability and I am certain my limit for such things is average, some people can’t stand it even less than I can, and for them it just will not fly.
If he's using minions until the party is high enough level to handle him, he's not overshadowing now, is he? The same goes for Elminster and the Realms NPCs.
You are the one who keeps insisting Raistlin is the exact same as Elminster. That competing against the PCs is therefore the exact same as helping them.
Having Raistlin show up and fight the PCs enough times for him to overshadow them would be like playing one of those JRPGs where you have the fight you are scripted to lose, only instead of happening just once to show how powerful the villain was it happens at the end of every single dungeon. Very few people would be ridiculous enough to do that. However, it is much less ridiculous to have a powerful ally show up to help at the start of every dungeon. And, it takes a lot fewer times for that to happen at the table for people to get fed up with it.
It is a matter of degree, a matter of nuance, I won’t deny that. Heck, it’s a matter of table preferences and player tolerances too. But if it was never an issue, no one would say it is an issue. If no one thought Driz’zt being a heroic drow and people playing Driz’zt clones was a problem, no one would say it is a problem.
The same applies to the PCs and the Realms. The DM is the one who wrecks that or not.
But, those high level NPCs are actually everywhere. I’m sure a list of all the high level NPCs officially in FR would be far higher than the list of superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It’s a lot easier to juggle one or two individuals than it is ten or twenty.
No one may be talking about “Ulder Ravengard, Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate and Marshal of the Flaming Fist” but that doesn’t mean he or she doesn’t cause issues for some parties because she needs to be at Trade Negotiations any time something needs to happen in Baldur’s Gate. And actually, even if she is, aren’t the Flaming Fist a pretty tough bunch? Why aren’t they helping clear the cemetery of the Undead scourge that is threatening the people? Or tracking down the vampire killings next month? Or dealing with the Werewolf reports that begin cropping up three months later? Or the Orc raids? Or the Zhent crime spree? How many threats can you craft plausible scenarios for? Most tables deal with dangerous threats every session, leading to multiple threats a week in some instances and we are supposed to believe the “tough and ready” guard force is absent or unable to deal with any of them? Oh, and lets not forget the Temples who also stand by and do nothing, despite the fact that a famous paladin makes his home there, or a former adventuring cleric. And the powerful sage wizard whose tower is in the center of the city. Or the well-known adventurers like Minsc who tend to make Baldur’s Gate a stopping point between their exploits. Or any of the former adventurers turned inn keepers or shop keeps or blacksmiths.
A lot of people who are too busy to do anything about the problem, every single time.
But I just need to think of all my options… every single time.
