[Dungeon] Lich Queen's Beloved: Am I missing something? (spoilers)

[jasamcarl]

Exactly!

Uh, yes, and now this baddy is being handled by the PCs. They are the ones who are handling this anomoly, because the adventure assumes that some players would actually like to take this role. If you are knowledgable enough about the sketchy core background to be able to refute every possible explanation as to why she hasn't been axed in those centuries, you probably need some medication for the delusions that conjured this nonexistent canon.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Uh, exactly that the npcs are not preoccupied and the threat is longstanding and that they are even aware of it. Those are both dubious assumptions. They don't apply in this case because the default setting is so vague that creating any such time table of what is current and not is pure dm fiat, besides which, if i understand the adventure correctly, there was a threat that pretensed the module. This isn't FR.

Fact is, if the high-level NPCs of the setting (Mord, Otto, and the rest) aren't able to detect and handle the threat, than they are, for all intents and purposes, impotent and meaningless despite their existance within the setting. It's not a matter of a timetable existing or not existing, it's that any time-table would require the canonized big-wigs to have no real purpose or influence since the "real threats" to the world are constantly being detected, found and dealt with by lower leveled characters (the PCs). This, in turn, creates a paradox: How can these NPCs be so powerful if they are truly never the ones to do anything, especially since their "history" within the setting has them doing almost everything prior to the occurance of the PCs?

Greyhawk and FR both have this problem, being that they feature such NPCs but are supposed to be the stage of the heroic events of the PC's lives and adventures.

Two, why those other elements (which aren't even alluded to in the core setting), why not the pcs? For those DMs who consider the heroic actions of the PCs paramount, they ARE the equilibrium. There is no special contrivance here, the PCs are simply the ones to handle the problem, because it is presumably appropriate for them to do so given their experience at the time the hook presents itself. Its nice that you have a world working in real time in your head that doesn't need to the pcs, but that certainly isn't the assumption that goes into creating most GAME products and isn't supported by any evidence you have provided from supplements.

Rather, it implies the opposite: That despite the presence of these high-level NPCs, they are never able to detect the presence of lower-level threats (some of which are capable of destroying the city/nation/world/cosmos/whatever). This makes such characters little more than window-dressing, and could be very easily replaced by high-level Experts with lots of Lore but little actual power since this is the role they are generally religated to in order to contrive the importance of the PCs.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Uh, yes, and now this baddy is being handled by the PCs. They are the ones who are handling this anomoly, because the adventure assumes that some players would actually like to take this role. If you are knowledgable enough about the sketchy core background to be able to refute every possible explanation as to why she hasn't been axed in those centuries, you probably need some medication for the delusions that conjured this nonexistent canon.

Y'know, Numion got me back into a serious mood on this discussion, but if you want to go back to being insultive, I can easily go back to being rediculous.

Your choice, of course.

 

[drnuncheon]

However, as the adventure being discussed picked from not one, not two, but three non-Core sources (MotP, PsiHB and ELH), than the existance and use of other non-Core sources should not be overlooked (lest we allow WotC to pick-and-choose for us, which, in my opinion, would really make for an uninteresting campaign).

That's fine, but if you decide to go ignoring parts of what they've picked, then you cannot make any meaningful assertions about whether Wizards is doing a good job at making a cohesive campaign setting.

In short, you can't take things out of context and expect to have a worthwhile discussion.

That's all from me on this topic.

J

 

[Numion]

Yeah, yeah... I had to dig for it...

Alright, let me get serious...

[serious]

The issue isn't Gith vs Mind Flayer, but rather of the effect that the attrition of high-level Gith has in the strength of the Githyanki in relation to the increasing strength of the Mind Flayers (which the Half-Illithid Template and other bits-and-pieces released here-and-there only serves to increase) would make the Githyanki more of a nuisance than a threat to the Mind Flayers. While neither has achieved dominance over the other since the fall of the Mind Flayer Empire, I think that the old standards of Gith society combined with the new rules for races with class-levels creates a situation that deflates the potency of the Githyanki overall.

Thanks for the reply. However I have to disagree. I maintain that nowhere does the core setting discuss the numbers and levels of the different factions. Thus it's impossible to make this conclusions you are making.

I think you're making the mistake of taking the 2e situation, slamming 3e rules on top of that, and saying that Illithids have become more powerful and thus should have toppled the Lich Queen. But there is no situation that we could compare the illithids to, to say that they've become more powerful. The numbers, levels and motivations of Illithids have always been in this edition such that the Lich Queen still exists. As a 25th level Sorceress Lich. How do I know this? Because she still exists.

Edit: I hope that all sides can keep this civil. This is an intresting discussion, IMO.

 

[barsoomcore]

In my opinion a world should be able to function without PCs.

It's nice that you have an opinion. It's not relevant, but it's nice.

What you are describing is one paradigm for a campaign. There are others. There are, potentially an infinite number. I understand that according to yours, internal consistency is important.

It's not OBJECTIVELY important, though. Internally consistent campaigns aren't BETTER than inconsistent ones. You just happen to like them.

Saying that a world require PCs to maintain the status quo is using meta-game elements to justify in-game elements

So? That's perfectly acceptable. Maybe not in your campaign, but who cares about your campaign? What I mean is, there's no reason why a DM can't use meta-game elements to justify in-game elements. The fact that you don't like to do so is no evidence that it's wrong.

It's not wrong. It's fine.

(remember, the difference between adventurers and PCs is a meta-game difference, the inhabitants of the world don't know that they're fictional entities controlled by humans in another world)

Right. So they're the only ones likely to complain that they never get to do anything fun.

But it's my understanding that the Githyanki Queen and her enmity with various, powerful factions has been around for centuries.

Again, you keep talking about your campaign as though it were everybody's campaign. Maybe my campaign doesn't have any of those factions she's so enmitous with. Maybe it's never had githyanki... until now.

So in your campaign there's a GLQ who is enmitizing various powerful factions. The GLQ in Dungeon doesn't depict yours.

This does not make the people at Dungeon wrong. Or fools, or incompetent or anything else. It just means they're not writing material for your campaign.

 

[jasamcarl]

Fact is, if the high-level NPCs of the setting (Mord, Otto, and the rest) aren't able to detect and handle the threat, than they are, for all intents and purposes, impotent and meaningless despite their existance within the setting. It's not a matter of a timetable existing or not existing, it's that any time-table would require the canonized big-wigs to have no real purpose or influence since the "real threats" to the world are constantly being detected, found and dealt with by lower leveled characters (the PCs). This, in turn, creates a paradox: How can these NPCs be so powerful if they are truly never the ones to do anything, especially since their "history" within the setting has them doing almost everything prior to the occurance of the PCs?

Greyhawk and FR both have this problem, being that they feature such NPCs but are supposed to be the stage of the heroic events of the PC's lives and adventures.

Rather, it implies the opposite: That despite the presence of these high-level NPCs, they are never able to detect the presence of lower-level threats (some of which are capable of destroying the city/nation/world/cosmos/whatever). This makes such characters little more than window-dressing, and could be very easily replaced by high-level Experts with lots of Lore but little actual power since this is the role they are generally religated to in order to contrive the importance of the PCs.

Wow, now that is a fallacy. You have a very uninteresting interrpretation of these settings going on, where, if a high level character doesn't know and solve, everything, they are impotent. There can't be things that slip through the cracks. Or, better yet, they can't have motives and ideals that preclude there direct involvment (regardless of how it effects the metasetting). Yes, they may function as little more than masters of lore for the players, but putting 'adventurer' in their background would not be inconsistent, just add texture. The fact that you are unable to figure pcs into the current history of your 'world' makes it a place which is ironically (given how much focus you place on it) completly uninteresting and static.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Thanks for the reply. However I have to disagree. I maintain that nowhere does the core setting discuss the numbers and levels of the different factions. Thus it's impossible to make this conclusions you are making.

Numbers aren't required. Unless a DM dictates that less than 4 Mind Flayers exist in his world, and that each of these has less than 5 Class Levels, than they cannot threaten the Githyanki Lich-Queen. However, the creation/publication of an adventure in which four 18th Level characters can threaten her existance means that in any world in which four Illithid with at least 5 Class Levels exist that the Lich-Queen's continued existance is as good as forfeit. Since the default for the Mind Flayers is to dwell in cities (plural) of "two hundred to two thousand" (MM, 136), the chances of this are actually more likely than others are willing to admit.

I think you're making the mistake of taking the 2e situation, slamming 3e rules on top of that, and saying that Illithids have become more powerful and thus should have toppled the Lich Queen. But there is no situation that we could compare the illithids to, to say that they've become more powerful. The numbers, levels and motivations of Illithids have always been in this edition such that the Lich Queen still exists. As a 25th level Sorceress Lich. How do I know this? Because she still exists.

Except that the 2E situation does still exist, as it is described to some extent in the PsiHB (Page 148), almost a direct reflection of the history originally presented for Illithid/Gith in 1E/2E recapped for public consumption in 3E.

Additionally, it distinctly lays out the situation as I have described it: The Illithids are capable of increasing their power over time by means of gaining levels, while the Githyanki are hindered by their Lich-Queen, who consumes those Githyanki that achieve higher than 16th Level (though if this is in Character Levels or Class Levels seems to be a gray spot). At any rate, this presents the problem I originally indicated: By virtue of the level-cap imposed by the Lich-Queen, the Githyanki are effectively limited in power, yet by the new 3E rules regarding level-gain for non-standard races, the Illithids are now able to reach that level and exceed it.

Consequently, for those who have the adventure, it states in the PsiHB ...Besides eliminating potential rivals, the lich-queen enhances her power with the stolen life-essence.

Does the adventure explain this at all, or was it overlooked in development?

 

[Bendris Noulg]

The fact that you are unable to figure pcs into the current history of your 'world' makes it a place which is ironically (given how much focus you place on it) completly uninteresting and static.

Okay, let me put it this way: You are completely ignorant of what I can or can't do. This is nothing more than an attack, which your posts tend to contain more than a few of. This is why I refuse to take you seriously in this discussion: You have proven yourself unopen to discussion but would rather make assumptions about me and my game.

Well, here's an assumption: You're a jerk.

 

[jasamcarl]

Numbers aren't required. Unless a DM dictates that less than 4 Mind Flayers exist in his world, and that each of these has less than 5 Class Levels, than they cannot threaten the Githyanki Lich-Queen. However, the creation/publication of an adventure in which four 18th Level characters can threaten her existance means that in any world in which four Illithid with at least 5 Class Levels exist that the Lich-Queen's continued existance is as good as forfeit. Since the default for the Mind Flayers is to dwell in cities (plural) of "two hundred to two thousand" (MM, 136), the chances of this are actually more likely than others are willing to admit.

Except that the 2E situation does still exist, as it is described to some extent in the PsiHB (Page 148), almost a direct reflection of the history originally presented for Illithid/Gith in 1E/2E recapped for public consumption in 3E.

Additionally, it distinctly lays out the situation as I have described it: The Illithids are capable of increasing their power over time by means of gaining levels, while the Githyanki are hindered by their Lich-Queen, who consumes those Githyanki that achieve higher than 16th Level (though if this is in Character Levels or Class Levels seems to be a gray spot). At any rate, this presents the problem I originally indicated: By virtue of the level-cap imposed by the Lich-Queen, the Githyanki are effectively limited in power, yet by the new 3E rules regarding level-gain for non-standard races, the Illithids are now able to reach that level and exceed it.

Consequently, for those who have the adventure, it states in the PsiHB ...Besides eliminating potential rivals, the lich-queen enhances her power with the stolen life-essence.

Does the adventure explain this at all, or was it overlooked in development?

Uh huh...and all of this requires a series of events to have occured with the setting which Wotc has not alluded to. Namely that four illithids were able to get to the queen and murder her, which can have any number of mitiagating factors that they leave the dm to apply as he/she sees fit. And know, just because the 'history' described is consistent with 2e, doesn't mean that every detail applies; again, there was a reason those details were excluded in the first place from 3e. They are suppossed to represent elements dms use to create adventures, not create a rigidly detailed, consistent world.

And why the hell would an adventure need to include such information (life draining) when the main intereaction the pcs have will be to kill her? Sorry, products are made for group utility, not for your mastubatory fantasy.