Recent content by Aelryinth

Faerun has all the standard metals with 'Alchemical' in front of them, giving them unique properties, with Gold and Platinum among the metals that make Heavy Weapons (-2 to hit, do damage as if a size larger, Str Reqs to wield), among other things. The original Volo's Guide to all things Magical...

My point on this comes from extremely high-end items, and a comment in the Forgotten Realms that components consumed in making magic items and spells are actually taken by the gods and inserted back into the ecology to be recycled and used again. What exactly IS 100,000 gp of expensive magical...

Hey there, Master of Economics degree. Some implications and things for you. SOme are covered elsewhere, some are covered here, but they are points to think about. 1E) The primary makers of permanent magic items would be clerics using divine power. The simple reason is the Permanency spell. It...

Space Opera, and no mention of The LEnsman series, which basically invented true Space Opera? Say it isn't so!...

This. The barbarian class is a berserker. Conan is NOT a berserker. There's just times he goes on a Power-Attacking, Cleaving streak of bloody destruction. The ranger class sums up his abilities with stealth, since it doesn't get the true theif stuff Conan never learns (locks, traps, etc), the...

You mean Nymph 'I'm so beautiful I take my shirt off and you die. If you DON'T die, maybe you are only blinded?' is strong mechanically? Nymph's Beauty was a 9th level spell. Have your lovely elven archmage cast it, take off her top, and fly in front of the invading army. Goodbye, army.

Re: Gunpowder, yeah, limits on chemistry do limit martials vs magical, and keeps the flavor of a magical world. I write a fantasy series, and there are several rules which inherently limit technology and so favor magic. 1) That which is most combustible is the most likely to spontaneously...

The chess book should have gratuitously attached links to all the old and awesome Dragon Magazine chess covers! :)

COnan was not a berserker, he was definitely a fighter-type and specialist with the broadsword. In 3E, Conan is perfectly summed up by making him a Ranger with FE: Humans, Beasts, and Magical Beasts, with Weapons Focus: Broadsword. It gives him a plethora of skills, it explains his phenomenal...

This is very true. There were numerous xp tables in 1E. Monsters were worth so much. But the only class-related XP gains were for fighters, who got like 10 xp/hd of foes overcome in combat. The other classes? Theives got double xp for gold, mages got xp for magic items and esp. spellbooks, and...

There is a huge article in the first Volo's Guide to All Things Magical about FOrgotten Realms gemstones that I still reference to this day.

In a bout of supreme irony for this thread, the primary and most well-known monk organization in AD&D for the World of Greyhawk was the Scarlet Brotherhood, who were a bunch of fair-skinned, golden-haired, blue-eyed racial supremacists.

Three tiers of skills: You are UNSKILLED with Skills outside your class list or not chosen, and take a -2 to them, and cannot take 10 or 20 on them. You are Familiar with all Skills on your Class list, and may use them with no bonus or penalty. A Jack of All Trades would explicitly be able to...

I'd posit that you're ignoring Alignments. As long as the setting has Alignments, what you're basically saying is that you can't see a Good system here, but only a LN or LE one. What is being noted is that the people in charge are Good, and so the system works as it is designed to do. As soon as...

Double post, apologies.