Search results

Narrative curses plus adventurers can mean bad, bad things for a campaign setting, the natural disaster one especially. What happens when clever PCs take the item to the Evil area of the campaign map and camp out until the area has been wiped clean of evil life? It is my considered opinion...

Add me to the 'genius' pile. As noted, it was a brilliant way to make tactical use of your last remaining hit point. As for those of you who consider it metagamey: consider things from the character's perspective. The character has by now doubtless seen many pieces of evidence that the...

It's questionable whether or not the ocean counts as running water. If it does, Mr. Vampire will probably be very upset. In his situation, I'd see if I couldn't coax my The Dead Walk invocation (he does have it, right?) to Command a few zombies, and carefully (and slowly) direct them to haul...

Or even more interestingly, heroic PCs are magical creatures, and warlords have the ability to tap that magic. He's not healing you with Inspiring Word, he's letting you see how to heal yourself.

IMC, orcs have a lot of yelling, threats, bragging, displays of strength, and occasionally brawling to resolve disputes, but lethal force is reserved for pinkskins. Orc tribes that don't keep their aggression focused outward rapidly cease to become orc tribes and quickly become the last...

The other problem is that if there exist aforementioned world-ending threats, and if the PCs engage in sociopathic slaughter of the threats, then it's not likely that they will remain in the position of anathema or even pariah for very long. What happens when the PCs don't engage in a web of...

Domiel and his Slayers would take issue with this philosophy. Exalted Good is quite down with murder, under the right circumstances. They're also down with inflicting horrible, tortuous fates on Evil critters (so long as the correct implements of suffering are used). They also think that mind...

Meh. I can accept Sleep or Halt Undead or Halt Vermin or Halt Construct, and posit that the Sleep daily is actually a multispell that's an amalgamation of all of the above. Now we just need to get Sleep defined to the point where it's a condition that can be applied to all of the above creatures.

Crust, an interesting flip-side you may want to consider: killing in a blood frenzy is bestial. Fighting for dominance is bestial. Murdering someone because they were vulnerable and you might not get a chance later is human. The interesting thing here is that the character completely...

In the above example, he did give the paladin said excuse, and doubtless would have continued with graphic examples as to the retribution that would be inflicted for that specific blow. Really, there are two reactions I see as appropriate in this kind of circumstance. One: Assume the heretic...

Alternatively, throw temptation at him. Have a devil / agent of an evil god offer him a way out of the curse, and bonuses besides, in return for abandoning Selune. Have the temper be quite explicit about the terms of the offer. "We don't care who you choose to kill." However, the loophole is...

Obviously, they watched the show and redesigned their existing interstellar power source to require beryllium spheres. Kind of like the Crusher Corridor.

I saw those scenes as the Fellowship playing under Saga rules, and gaining a sufficient damage bonus that every hit could drop a foe of orc-toughness. You want minions? Make characters powerful enough to mow through enemies like a scythe through wheat. Don't make the enemies into wheat.

Level six is right about the elbow of the exponential power curve of D&D full-casters. Consider that you don't just need to worry about sorcerors: that dolphin leaping about the waves could be a wild-shaped druid who just cast Call Lightning and will torch your crew until he runs out of...

I do wonder how Batman keeps his sterling reputation, given the presence of copy-bats, as they are referred to. It's hard to be known as one who does not kill when you are also known only as a man in a mask, and other men in the same mask often go out with guns and shoot those you only disable.

Fear works less well as an aggressive motivating force when the Batman, instead of running, replies "Screw you." spends a Healing Surge, and adds a few more dead cops to his kill total. The flip side of "He has done horrible things, we must stop him!" is "If we try to stop him, he will do...

Criminal justice is the wrong metaphor. We do not live adjacent to a hostile species in direct and murderous competition with us for land, resources, and the like, whom we mutually kill on sight. If we did, interactions with that species would be a military matter, not a civil matter...

Pointe the Firste: the quick and simple way for the village to end up realizing the error of its ways is for one of the PCs to sneak in under cover of darkness and pull the same stunt a few times (this time with authentic dragonfire). Fear as a weapon only works as long as your target doesn't...

The high-level team picked one of the many class-leveled NPCs out of the world and brought him along, knowing that he will quickly master the arcane secrets of enhanced blasting after dicing up a few Legion Devils. Look, you can't have it both ways. Either we follow the book, and legion devils...

One legion devil vs. one wizard. Let us assume that the wizard has Cloud of Daggers. The minion attacks. The minion is incapable of slaying the wizard in one blow. The wizard uses Cloud of Daggers. The minion's defenses are bypassed, it takes a point of damage, and auto-expires. It's not a...