D&D General BECMI - okay how do you Immortal?

[dave2008]

They could wipe out entire planets pretty easy. Just blink a small sun into existence a few feet away from a planet. But that's why Immortal powers have the restriction against killing mortals directly with their powers. I believe the example given in one of the books was teleporting Earth inside the orbit of Mercury only costs 9pp. So the other Immortals invoked the ban.

Yes, but that was not what I was talking about when I said "damage." I was talking about the disconnect between their amazing powers and the relative mundane abilities of their manifest forms. In my conversion I am trying to smooth out that difference a bit, but that means an Initiate can simple "pop" a planet or sun into creation. Conversely the can do about 100hp of damage on average with a simple attack (not even using a power).

 

[The Glen]

Yes, but that was not what I was talking about when I said "damage." I was talking about the disconnect between their amazing powers and the relative mundane abilities of their manifest forms. In my conversion I am trying to smooth out that difference a bit, but that means an Initiate can simple "pop" a planet or sun into creation. Conversely the can do about 100hp of damage on average with a simple attack (not even using a power).

They do try to explain it with that's the most powerful form they can manifest without getting into trouble. You can manifest as your full divine person and throw mountain ranges at people but the other Immortals are going to want to have a word with you afterwards. So you have to keep a low profile so to speak

 

[dave2008]

They do try to explain it with that's the most powerful form they can manifest without getting into trouble. You can manifest as your full divine person and throw mountain ranges at people but the other Immortals are going to want to have a word with you afterwards. So you have to keep a low profile so to speak

Ya, not a situation (having to explain why you can't use your full powers) I am interested in recreating!

I mean there has to be a lot of gray area between throwing a mountain at someone and doing 4 punches for 4d6 damage! And that is the most powerful immortal!

So maybe that is 34 (4d6 + 20) damage x4 for a DPR of 136? Is that right? Or you know throw a mountain on someone.

 

[Yaarel]

Ya, not a situation (having to explain why you can't use your full powers) I am interested in recreating!

I mean there has to be a lot of gray area between throwing a mountain at someone and doing 4 punches for 4d6 damage! And that is the most powerful immortal!

So maybe that is 34 (4d6 + 20) damage x4 for a DPR of 136? Is that right? Or you know throw a mountain on someone.

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If damage dealing is an epic boon or even a boon chain each with improved damage, the gradations in between become manageable.

It would change the nature of the game, but it might make sense to improve by orders of magnitude:

1, 3, 10, 30, 100, 300, 1000, etcetera.

Thus the scale accelerates from punch, to boulder, to mountain, eventually planet, and beyond.

 

[dave2008]

If damage dealing is an epic boon or even a boon chain each with improved damage, the gradations in between become manageable.

It would change the nature of the game, but it might make sense to improve by orders of magnitude:

1, 3, 10, 30, 100, 300, 1000, etcetera.

Thus the scale accelerates from punch, to boulder, to mountain, eventually planet, and beyond.

Any reason you wouldn't just go 1,10, 100, 1000, 10000, etc.?

 

[Yaarel]

Any reason you wouldn't just go 1,10, 100, 1000, 10000, etc.?

Too fast?

The 1-3-10 sequence allows adjacent levels to at least interact with each other.

It is possble to stretch the magnitude further,

10, 13, 16, 20, 25, 32, 40, 50, 63, 79, 100,

but 1-3-10 is simple and probably good enough.

 

[le Redoutable]

One can roughly correlate 5e.

Levels 1-4: Basic
Levels 5-8: Expert
Levels 9-12: Champion
Levels 13-16: Master
Levels 17-20: Immortal (Lower Rank)

Levels 21-24: Immortal (Upper Rank)

tiens! looks like BASE 6 to BASE 10

BASE ==> max stat
10 100 ===> 42 => I
9 81 ===> 36 ==> M
8 64 ===> 30 ==> C
7 49 ===> 25 ==> E
6 36 ===> 18 ==> B
5 25 ===> 14 ==> 0-level

 

[Orius]

I don't really agree there, 5e has a more compact range than BECMI, and you really can't play Immortal with the 5e rules anyway.

For me it would rather be:

• Basic: Levels 1-4: Local Heroes
• Expert: Levels 5-10: Heroes of the Realm
• Champion: Levels 11-16: Masters of the Realm
• Master: Levels 17-20: Masters of the World + Epic, at least a few levels
• Immortal: I have yet to found epic rules for 5e that give you something even approaching what an Immortal game feels like, actually.

Yeah, the four Tiers of 5E seem to track to BECM pretty well.

Interesting you guys should mention that....

Classic D&D had a 36 level spread, primarily in Mentzer and also RC, but the Cook/Marsh Expert set originally promised the Companion set to take things to level 36. The Mentzer sets broke things down by these level ranges:

Basic 1-3
Expert 4-14
Companion 15-25
Master 26-36

Now, one could just try porting those levels straight over to AD&D, and maybe later editions too, but by early 2e, it seems like the guys writing the D&D stuff realized that straight D&D to AD&D conversions weren't quite right. There were some conversion to 2e guidelines in the later Gazetteers I think starting with Ethengar as well as at least one of the Creature Crucibles, but the most comprehensive was probably in the RC. The RC suggests treating levels 1-12 on a 1:1 basis and then 1 AD&D level for every three D&D level afterwards. When you run the levels for the Mentzer sets through that you get these level ranges:

Basic 1-3
Expert 4-13
Companion 13-17
Master 17-20

Isn't that interesting?

Now I'd bump Companion down to about 10 -- I feel that the domain game should have started around name level all along and that the levels are an artifact of the B/X Expert going up to 14 -- and you'll note the levels for the Mentzer sets match 5e's tiers pretty closely.

The main problem is that Master's isn't really a great set IMO. It mostly locks the PCs into seeking godhood and I feel that there should be more varied goals at this stage. Companion did touch on PCs becoming wandering heroes instead of ruling a dominion after all. Plus the Paths of Immortality were all locked into specific classes. Maybe the Masters modules gave a good example of showcasing typical play like CM1 does but I've never bothered to look at them.

Immortals as I understand was mostly Frank just finishing up the BECMI stuff before leaving TSR to work with Gary, and there's a lot of weird esoteric material in there that just does its own thing. WotI might have cleaned some of that up, but unfortunately its adventures suck as they have nothing to do with the PCs becoming Immortals and focus on blowing up parts of Mystara instead.

 

[jgsugden]

....I understand (and agree) that Champion would have probably made more sense...but that isn't what it is called.

Companion makes sense when you look at the contents of the ruleset - at least to me. A lot of it was about Strongholds, Rulership and Dominions of the PCs. I saw the Companion name as a reference to the followers of the heroes under these rules.

 

[Rogerd1]

I have mentioned this before, but Primal Order would be a better fit to be honest in terms of powerset.

That said, Immortals is totally the wrong terminology. Immortals are unaging individuals - Eternals would be more apt, or Ascended.

Whereas deities are have found a way to use the psychic energy generated through worship, eternals do not require worship.

Thing is, and DnD writers have not understood the consequences of worship in their cosmology. In a multiverse with infinite worlds, it also means infinite worshippers, therefore each deity has infinite power.