Everyone who is tired of reading Scarbonac's stuff, don't bother reading this post.
As far as I understand elves, they don't sleep. As far as I understand sorcerors, their big mechanical advantage is that they're almost always equally prepared.
That's a fundamental misunderstanding of how the racial feature and class ability both function; elven trance is more like sleep than not-sleep and elven arcane casters still have to get their eight straight of rest in order to refill their spell-slots.
No. It isn't. The only variable which affects sorcerors is how many spell slots they have used up; they are not affected by which spells they have memorized as long as they haven't cast a large number of spells, they are almost always equally prepared.
More importantly, elves really do not sleep. You even admit this. I am completely baffled by your insistence that my statement that elves do not sleep is a misinterpretation of the rules. How can it be a misinterpretation of the rules to state something that everyone agrees is true!?
The ''big mechanical advantage'' that sorcerers enjoy, as we all lnow, is their ability to cast spontaneously, not that they nearly always have a full compliment of spells at hand.
Yep. Look at my statements; where am I implying that they almost always have all their spell slots useable?
These flawed understandings could very easily have informed his decisions on how the Duke was played...which was apparently as an Uberelf super-sorcerer who needed no sleep and could take off at a moment's notice to fill in the shoes of the PCs and Save The Day by blasting 20 vampires (or spawn...or helpless guards-it's hard to tell from his description).
On what basis do you suggest that my statement
(a) that elves do not sleep; and
(b) sorcerors are almost always equally prepared
is a misunderstanding of the rules. You have just admitted that sorcerors do not have to prepare which spells they're casting and that elves do not sleep. You are really stretching here to argue that the context in which I have made indisputably true statements indicates that I must believe patently false things.
And, just to clarify, the duke killed about 20 innocent guards along with the 1 vampires and 2 spawn he killed.
Dunno about anyone else, but to me, that ain't how the game should be played; back in the day I had a few bad DMs whose idea of a good adventure was us trailing after an NPC who made us all look like chumps, while they wasted the opposition in the twitch of a nostril-hair.
So, of the vampires who died that episode, one, I repeat,
ONE was killed by the duke. How does that fit into your deus ex machina theory? He killed one 7th level vampire while the PCs managed to take out the 14th level archmage and some other vampires.
It also makes his insistance on adhering to ''the rulez'' less defensible, since he himself is wrong about some of them; I have difficulty buying the ''IMC'' explanation that he gave in his last post; it's awfully convenient.
Ok. Which rules am I wrong about? Are you really contending that because I said elves do not sleep that I meant elves never rest? Are you contending that my stating that sorcerors are almost always equally prepared that I meant that sorcerors don't need to rest, as opposed to the more obvious meaning that sorcerors don't need to choose and memorize the next day's spells every night?
Ok. Let's suppose that my words don't mean what their lexical definitions indicate but in fact mean the fiction that you've dreamed up. If the duke cast no spells the previous day, given that casting spells is not a normal everyday thing for an aristocratic ruler to do, how would things be any different based on your misinterpretation of my words?
Re: the Duke and what he was doing- According to fusangite, he was having a meeting with someone. in the middle of the night, and was apparently unconcerned about the horrible explosion nearly at his doorstep until one of the PCs showed up.
The PC arrived 54 seconds after the explosion. How do you know whether or not the duke was concerned?
See, that's another thing; he's the Duke, it's his city, and he knows the Vampires are a Big-Ass Threat™. The city had a meeting and everything that very day. Someone else already brought this up (and forgive me for not remembering who), but why wasn't the Duke already there when the PCs showed up initially? Why would anyone have to go get him?
Good question. Maybe it had something to do with the nature of the meeting he was having. I could explain what the meeting was about and with whom it was being held but I somehow know that you will then attack the plausibility of the meeting and somehow use it to argue that my campaign reality is flawed based on that.
You see, the real problem here is that you continue to make outrageous assumptions about what is going on in my campaign world based on nothing other than your apparent resentment about other campaigns that have over-involved powerful NPCs and your oft-declared lack of sleep.
I find the fact that he suggested that they take time to put on lesser armor, cast several spells, gather up magic items to defend themselves with, saddle up the griffin, et cetera, instead of just letting them armor up and get to the scene in time to whale on the Vamps anyway suggests to me that he simply wanted to pimpslap them around without their armor
No. I never told them to put on any armour. What I kept saying was "you can stop putting on your armour any time." How is that telling them to don different armour? I didn't tell them to cast any spells. What I did was inform the people in this discussion that they had
Negative Energy Protection, a spell whose duration suggests that one wouldn't cast it until after one had arrived at the combat,
Lesser Restoration, a spell that wouldn't have been useful unless someone was already damaged by an energy drain attack, and
Searing Light and
Cure (various) spells which were touch attack spells that again, shouldn't have been cast until after arriving at the combat. Why did I mention the griffin? Well, because riding the griffing would have been the fastest way to get to the combat.
Since the party didn't have the characters whom he was counting on to be there with their turning and spell-powers that may have ultimately saved the day after much harsh correction via the Vamps, he needed another option or everyone was toast and the campaign that he'd slaved over so lovingly would go down the crapper.
So Super-Duke is pressed into service (thankfully, the stage for that had been set with his standing invite to the PCs to ''come up and see him'' anytime, so it wasn't horribly scenario-busting) and whoosh! Away he goes.
You seem to forget that for the first half of the combat, the duke wasn't even there.
Now, there's your story about your capacity to wake up in the middle of the night and react... While it's very interesting that you, who do not live by the sword, cannot wake up and be combat ready, I don't think it can be generalized to argue that no one can wake up and be combat ready. Think of all the Hollywood movies in which people sneak up on tough guys in their sleep and the tough guy wakes up and puts them in a choke hold. That's the reality D&D is interested in replicating -- not your hotel room in DC but the reality in compelling violent hero narratives.
Originally posted by fusangite
Because of this new tone of civility in the thread, I'm going to do my best to be restrained in replying to the latest set of comments by Scarbonac. It's clear this individual is taking an absurdly contrary position
You meant to say ''I don't have any good answers to his questions, he isn't going to shower me with unconditional acceptance & affirmation, so I'll pretend to ignore him after I make an insult or two.''
Well, this insulting little statement made me actually bother to respond to your latest missive point by point. But the fact is that when you try to argue that my completely true statement that "elves do not sleep" is proof positive that I don't understand the rules might make you consider the possibility that not all of your points actually merit a response.
Originally posted by fusangite: the fact that he finds it implausible that evil NPCs meet with other evil NPCs at night
I had no idea who or what he was meeting with, let alone that he was meeting with an evil NPC. For all that I knew his Mom could have been there to wish him ''Happy Birthday''.
Right. And what did you assume? You assumed that because it was after dark, the duke must be resting alone in his room in his bedclothes. Why? Not because you had any evidence either way but because you are predisposed to believe whatever I do in my campaign must be absurd, unfair and against the rules.
You then go on to state that the following statements contradict eachother:
Originally posted by fusangite: that permission to see someone might not include permission to interrupt their meeting is just the latest indication of this.
Originally posted by fusangite: Well, I've repeatedly stated (a) the palace is guarded; (b) the guards had standing orders to allow the characters to see the duke.
Originally posted by fusangite: (the character had already been given the duke's blessing to come to see him whenever he wished)
So, if the duke is having a private meeting, perhaps even about a confidential matter, what is your problem with the guards being unsure about whether they should stop someone from coming to see the duke with an urgent message? The guards know the duke would normally want to see the character but are not sure whether this should supersede his desire to have a private meeting.
Plus, there was the horrible explosion only a few seconds previouslly about 120 yards away from where the guards were standing, in the direction of The Evil Tower Of Bikini Vampire Archmages™.
So, does that make this individual itching to see the duke more or less threatening? It might be a tough judgement call to make for a member of the Ylyvian Guard, mightn't it?
Why should they think that it might be important that the guy, whom the Boss apparently gave carte blance to come and see him at any time, 5 hours after a city meeting on the subject of the Looming Vampire Menace™, seconds after a horrible explosion (your term, not mine) that was loud enough to rouse the sleeping party-members (but apparently, not their servants, nor did it seem to pique the interest of the guards, the Duke, or anyone else in the bloody city) that issued from the direction of the Looming Vampire Menace's Tower Of Doom™, get in to see the Boss, especially if he says it's an emergency?
Do you recall your original position was that it should have been impossible for the sorceror to come in and speak to the duke without being attacked or otherwise stopped? I'm now finding it rather amusing that you're arguing that it is completely outrageous that the guards could be unsure after a 12 second verbal exchange about whether to allow the sorceror to interrupt the duke's private meeting.
This is what I meant earlier about your extreme contrariness indicating that perhaps your posts do not merit point by point responses.
Originally posted by fusangiteThere seems little point in continuing the point by point debate here, except to clarify something about my understanding of elven sorcerors: sorcerors, like wizards, need 8 hours of rest to re-memorize spells. Not 8 hours of rest every night. So, if a sorceror didn't cast any spells the day before, there is absolutely no reason he would need 8 hours of rest. Furthermore, I reject the idea that an elven trance is as incapacitating as human sleep; such a trance is a form of meditation -- thus, is usually performed sitting up or standing, while the elf is fully conscious. The elves in my games typically perform this trance fully dressed.
That's not what you said; this is what you said:
Originally posted by fusangite: As far as I understand elves, they don't sleep.
Ok. Here's another reason I stopped responding to you point by point before. You are repetitive.
So, I guess I have to be repetitive. You chose to read between the lines of my statement and conclude that I was taking the position that elves never rest. Look, the sorceror who went to get the duke is an elf as well. I know what the rest requirements are for elves because he rests almost every night. You have decided to conclude that when I say "sleep" I mean "rest" while when you say "sleep" you mean "sleep."
1) Not knowing whether he actually cast any spells, my best guess would be that if he's a sorcerer, is an elf, runs a city, has a fair number of reasonably-powerful enemies, is evil and probably has several good reasons to fear for his life on a daily basis, he's probably cast some spell or spells during the period when he's awake, if only to gather information on the opposition or to have some sort of protective magic up in case someone tries to cack him.
Actually, he's not much into divination and enchantment spells -- he's more into evocation and the like (the spells that got him the job as opposed to the ones that keep him in it); those spells are generally cast by Jamuansi, his Supreme Secret Councilor. The everyday uses of
Wall of Ice and the like are surprisingly limited when ruling a city.
That seems a perfectly reasonable assumption to me, but I know that as a DM there's a tendency to play our NPCs with a full complement of spells, regardless of the logic involved.
Well, I actually maintain spell spreadsheets for all my major villains and NPCs; they took a while to set up but now I can go into every game, with only 20 minutes' work and know precisely how many and which spells are available to most of the key people in the city.
2) We don't play in your games; you can reject anything that you choose, but we don't know all of your house rules, so we can only assume the default unless otherwise informed -- elven trance is defined in the PHB as deep meditation, filled with dreams/reflexive mental exercises; in other words, a 4-hour period of sleep with elven flavor text.
I've studied some monastic traditions which involve deep meditation. Part of the discipline is developing the capacity to enter and leave the state with relative ease while at the same time being able to meditate deeply. I've also worked with two hypnotherapists and this capacity to move between these two states of consciousness with ease is a much valued aspect of the training.
Ok. Now I'm done. This is the last point by point response to you on which I'm going to expend my time.
