Detail Discussion

[ajanders]

Reward question

One of the characters in my Final Words adventure has been reading some forbidden tomes regarding an Evil Plot.

I had considered giving that character, as a reward, a permanent +2 bonus on a subset of his knowledge: religion checks.

Is this sort of thing disruptive to Living Eberron?

 

[Wik]

Good question. Short answer: I don't really know.

I would personally have no problem with it, but I could see how other GMs could get annoyed with a character getting a permanent bonus that they have no control over. That being said, it is *just* a knowledge skill, which is typically GM-controlled anyways.

Yeah, I'm 50/50 on this one.

 

[Rystil Arden]

It's not even all of Knowledge Religion, right? If it's sufficiently narrow, I doubt anyone could complain about giving the character a "+2 circumstance bonus on Knowledge Religion checks about the Warbling Fireclucker Cult"

However, it should have a good reason for the bonus (reading lots and lots of books at the very least, I would hope--if reading 1 book gave a bonus, I think every Cleric would have the +2, even if it is several, we wouldn't want players all jonesing to get the +2 by reading the same several books) and be sufficiently limited to the contents of the books.

 

[ajanders]

Specifically, I'd be thinking +2 on knowledge: religion checks regarding the undead.
I had considered making it really Lovecraftian and adding in a -1 to Will saves, but I thought I'd try this first.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Hmm, now that's actually a pretty significant subset of the use for Knowledge Religion in actual play in a typical adventure (some few might rarely require obscure tidbits on religious rites, but the help with monsters is always the major portion, I'd say 55% at least of actual direct in-game use, particularly for certain classes like Archivists that can actually turn that bonus against undead directly into + to attack and damage for the whole party). I would definitely think that pretty much everyone with the Knowledge Religion skill would want to read that book if they can get that +2 bonus out of it. Also, does the book really cover all the undead? Let's say I have an obscure undead in my adventure with a high Knowledge DC to recognise it--would the book give my players a better chance of knowing what it is? It might possibly be easier if the book only gave bonuses on specific undead.

Alternatively, maybe it is not just a simple text but actually has just a bit of dark magic in it. Maybe it only gives its bonus to the current possessor who has read it. Say maybe 600 or 700 gold magic item (2*2*100 for the bonus *2 for being slotless, -100 or -200 for the restriction to undead).

 

[Bront]

I would suggest making it only for a short time (like, perhaps, the rest of the adventure).

Otherwise, it's close to the equivilent to a masterwork bonus, which isn't a big deal, but requires the book. Or use Rystil's idea of making the PC lug the book around.

 

[ajanders]

Noted. I'll think up something else vaguely Delta Greenish.

One other question: anybody know the distance from Sharn to First Tower? And does anybody else want WOTC to promise that in 4th edition, all their maps will have north arrows and scales?

 

[Wik]

Noted. I'll think up something else vaguely Delta Greenish.

One other question: anybody know the distance from Sharn to First Tower? And does anybody else want WOTC to promise that in 4th edition, all their maps will have north arrows and scales?

I want 4e Eberron to have the *correct* scale, and not this mondo scale that they have now.

 

[Kaodi]

Well, according to the poster map, its ~60 miles, give or take. Maybe in the future LEB could rule for a revised scale though, if you guys wanted to...

 

[Patlin]

Personally, I like the mondo scale. Massive amounts of wilderness in between outposts of civilization makes sense in a world filled with monsters.