Another Immortals Handbook thread

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Ulitharid_Lord dude!

I just saw the art preview. Impressive. I especially like the Cogent.

Thanks!

BTW: When's the bestiary coming out?

As soon as possible.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Cheiromancer mate!

My mistake. You just call it the eldest elemental.

Nah, it couldn't walk around then. It would only just stand/lay there.

I meant giving the creature(s) a structure similar to the symbolic meaning of the lamen.

Is Old Night going to be a character in the IH too?

?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Pssthpok dude!

UK, I'm having trouble understanding the relationship between density and Strength.

Rember that has changed since the unofficial release.

While I've found that one can multiply a material's density ratio to water by water's density ratio to flesh (0.83) in order to discern its increase in weight (i.e. gold [19.3 times the density of water] times 0.83 weighs in at roughly 16 [16.02 to be exact] times an equal volume of flesh and bone), I'm not sure how you come to the modifiers to Strength that you do.

You say that the Strength-to-weight formula can be reversed, but you never reveal the formula nor explain the relationships between density and strength any more than your table shows. Furthermore, it seems like table 1-5 and 1-6 in the Preview are not consistant. One shows a +10 bonus to Strength equalling a x2.82 increase in weight while the other shows a x2.9 increase in weight for the same increase in Strength. Furthermore still, on one hand you say that every +20 bonus to Strength equals a x8 increase in weight - so why does gold (x16 weight increase) only have a +26 to Strength? Shouldn't it be +40?

It is +40 in the official version.

Could you shed any light on this? I think I'm just missing something otherwise obvious. I'm interested in materials that are heavier than steel and gold but not as astronomically as orichalcum and ran into these snags when trying to distill your density rules into formulae.

Iridium 22.15
Platinum 21.3

Plutonium and Uranium are more or less similar in density to Gold.

You would also have to wonder about Adamantite.

 

[Pssthpok]

Hey Pssthpok dude!

Hey, thanks for the reply.

Rember that has changed since the unofficial release.

Ahh, looking forward to it, then.

It is +40 in the official version.

Well, that certainly alleviates things. I thought I had lost a marble. Wait... doesn't that make a Medium-size neutronium golem's Strength score roughly 2.08E+14?!

Iridium 22.15
Platinum 21.3

Plutonium and Uranium are more or less similar in density to Gold.

I take it these are density ratios? If so, these look nice. A Medium platinum golem would have a Str of round-about 54, then, if I'm not mistaken.

You would also have to wonder about Adamantite.

Indeed. I'd wager that its density should be somewhere around 133% the density of iron (since an adamantine object has 4/3 the hit points of a similar object made from regular metals), so let's say 10.25 density/x8.5 weight/+21 Str.
Hmm... that could be off, or else weapons 'made from' adamantine would have to incorporate a mere percentage of their constitution as adamantine, with a base metal like steel or iron.
On the other hand, a Huge adamantine golem has a Str 51 in the ELH; given a base of 30 for Huge, and that previous estimate is spot-on.

Mithril, according to the DMG, weighs about half-as-much as 'regular' metals, i.e. iron and steel. Doing the math puts it at 3.86 density/x3.2 weight/+8 Str. The ELH puts the Str of the Huge mithil golem at 39 - one point off this estimate.

Thanks for the hints and the insight. I'll consider churning out platinum weapons, though I was aiming for scrith gargants.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Is Old Night going to be a character in the IH too?

?

From a passage in Paradise Lost:

Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height
And time and place are lost; where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold eternal anarchy.

Elsewhere it is called old Night:

At which the universal host up sent
A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.

I guess this generates multiple questions. Is Chaos personified in the IH? Or Mother Nature?

I'm reminded of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series. The first one was gold (On a Pale Horse), but the others weren't as good. The incarnations are Death, Time, Fate, War, Earth, Evil and Good. [D]evil and G[o]od, of course.

 

[Fieari]

Fancy that. I was just reading the mention of "Old Night" and that reminded me of the Incarnations series as well, which I loved as a kid. I recently re-read them and... yeah. They do kinda start going downhill, but ah well. Neat concepts anyway. I was reminded of it because in "For Love of Evil" they mention Nox, another incarnation who is the most powerful of them all. The "day" incarnations were split into the 7 listed above, but the "night" incarnations all exist within one person, who has all the power there, and mystery besides.

Which started making me think that while maybe the Incarnations series doesn't hold up so well as a bunch of novels once you've grown up (despite the sex, or maybe because of it, they make great reads when you're about 13 years old)... it might make for some awesome roleplaying. Basically what amounts to godhood as an office that's inheritable.

Become Death by killing Death. This is only possible when the current Death becomes careless.

Time picks up the Hourglass left behind when his predecessor is born, then lives his life backwards in time (without deaging in the process, Time is immune to paradox) until the moment of his birth (or conception, they said they weren't clear which one mattered) at which point the hourglass drops on the ground until someone else picks it up.

Fate gets to choose their successors when they get tired of the job (fate is split into three aspects). The person selected is thus fated to become Fate.

War "dies" when at any given moment, there is no war anywhere in the world, or perhaps at least no active battles. As soon as the next conflict pops up, the most violent man on earth gets to become War (by choice, he has to pick up the sword that approaches him).

Nature has to nurture a replacement for years until the new nature is ready to take up the mantle of the office willingly.

(d)Evil loses the office by doing something good. The most evil man in the world becomes the new (d)Evil.

Go(o)d apparently loses office by being... umm... voted out by an act of the united states congress. Don't ask. I don't get it myself. I hated the last book. The new Go(o)d is also voted in.

I think it'd make for a neat campaign.

 

[historian]

Playtesting?

Hey U_K!

I was curious as to whether anyone had done any playtesting with the Bestiary Preview. I have been tinkering around and have determined that the Robe(s) of the Almighty are even more powerful than I initially anticipated.

 

[Fieari]

I've made use of the preview quite a bit, but I can't quite say I've really -playtested- it so far. Other than Quintessence Elementals and Unelementals, which were fantastic for the game (at the time, it was average party level 18, max character level 20). I've used the Dire templates quite a bit, and shown the players glimpses of the higher level stuff.

Here's what happened. They fought a polychromatic wyrmling, summoned by epic level mages who are ironically dominated by the leadership of a nation which has formed a symbiotic relationship with chromatic dragons. This nation is at war with the country to the south, which makes use of magitech ala FFVI, but who happens to be running out of their primary resources (hence the need for the PCs). After driving off several waves of adult and older dragons, the PCs (some of whome are specialized dragon slayers) were getting a little cocky until Mr. Polychromatic showed up. I bumped up a few of the little guy's stats too, in order to give him a nice Blasphemy that was decimating the city's population.

So the polychromatic was tearing up the party, who finally found a dragon they truely truely feared personally, not just feared for what the dragon could do to others. They teleported away in ignoble defeat, and found the dragon was now stalking them. Through judicious use of wish and miracle, time stop and some custom 9-th level spells they designed, they managed (at great expense, a couple levels lost in terms of XP expenditure) to only suffer one permanent death, and ALSO severed the divinity from the dragon, creating the quintessence elemental (smallest type). The dragon flees for the time being.

The quintessence elemental was actually quite nice, and the party more or less tamed it. Which attracted the attention of some other dragon worshippers who desire the end of this universe so another universe that the dragons they worship live in can better prosper. Thus, this cult made quite a few assassination attempts against the elemental, with the goal being to create an Unelemental. They nearly succeeded a number of times.

Unfortunately, what with one thing and another, this campaign was temporarily put on hold...

 

[Shariell]

Hi UK!
I've been out for a while... months ago I've purchased the first part of your awesome bestiary, the version without artwork, and not all the monsters statted.

The thread is so long..and I've not time to read again all posts to search my response, so I ask you:

- Is the full version of thr 1st part of the bestiary out there? Where I can find it?
- Has any other part of the IH been relased?

bye!
Shariell

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

Hey, thanks for the reply.

Thats what I am here for.

Well, that certainly alleviates things. I thought I had lost a marble. Wait... doesn't that make a Medium-size neutronium golem's Strength score roughly 2.08E+14?!

No it works out at 502.

I take it these are density ratios? If so, these look nice. A Medium platinum golem would have a Str of round-about 54, then, if I'm not mistaken.

Well if it wa sMedium sized then it would be a Platinum Guardian.

Indeed. I'd wager that its density should be somewhere around 133% the density of iron (since an adamantine object has 4/3 the hit points of a similar object made from regular metals), so let's say 10.25 density/x8.5 weight/+21 Str.
Hmm... that could be off, or else weapons 'made from' adamantine would have to incorporate a mere percentage of their constitution as adamantine, with a base metal like steel or iron.
On the other hand, a Huge adamantine golem has a Str 51 in the ELH; given a base of 30 for Huge, and that previous estimate is spot-on.

Mithril, according to the DMG, weighs about half-as-much as 'regular' metals, i.e. iron and steel. Doing the math puts it at 3.86 density/x3.2 weight/+8 Str. The ELH puts the Str of the Huge mithil golem at 39 - one point off this estimate.

Thanks for the hints and the insight. I'll consider churning out platinum weapons, though I was aiming for scrith gargants.

Well Platinum is a softmetal so although its heavy it will have a very poor hardness.