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

[jasamcarl]

I know, a good troll knows how to make people feel threatened. Bendris is just making himself a laughing stock. And I'm still not convinced he didn't believe all this when the thread began. He probably saw himself loosing and raised the 'Troll' flag as a last escape.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Survey says BZZZT! Nope sorry, play again. Nothing in Dungeon is Cannon. Adventures which may change something in there don't necessarily affect the settings in question. For example, Liviing Greyhawk is not dependent on anything which comes from Dungeon. I don't believe Dungeon has any effect on Forgotten Realms either.

Say what you wish, but without some inter-relation with WotC (which might be a license, but likely involves Dungeon's relationship with WotC to begin with), the inclusion of the specific character of the Lich-Queen makes the Paizo Publishing issue a moot point (unless, as I stated, there was a license, which I don't believe was the case).

Now if you believe that making yourself look like a fool gets people's panties in a wad, well sure- wear that "Kick Me" sign in public and gloat over your triumph.

Nice way of trying to make yourself feel better about so easily taking arguement-fodder, but the fact is, I've enjoyed watching several people get all uptight over this issue. I don't know how many more "don't take this seriously" notices I could have put out, but I feel there were enough and the folks that missed them have nobody but themselves to blame.

 

[Endur]

Divine Rank 1

So, if you want a tougher Lich Queen than a level 25 spell caster, just give her Divine Rank 1 from the DDG.

That should make her pretty darn powerful.

After all, that's what Vecna is, a Lich with some divine ranks.

Tom

 

[Bendris Noulg]

I know, a good troll knows how to make people feel threatened. Bendris is just making himself a laughing stock. And I'm still not convinced he didn't believe all this when the thread began. He probably saw himself loosing and raised the 'Troll' flag as a last escape.

Now now... No sense getting all insultive because you stepped in it. Seriously, go back and reread my posts, and I do mean from the beginning. I'd think it's fairly obvious to anyone actually reading it (the conversation with Elminster should have been a big clue, but some people don't know a fish when it slaps them in the face...).

Edit: When the thread began, I did take it serious that she was powered-down, as it were, compared to her "role" in Githyanki society. I've just found that, post by post, taking the topic seriously stopped being a real concern. I don't normally do this sort of thing... Guess I was in a wierd mood. Perhaps my 5 year old is rubbing off on me.

 

[Numion]

Bendris, could you address if you can () the points on my last post, before this thread goes totally up in smoke

 

[Tiefling]

You are being ridiculous. You are making wide campaign assumptions about a lot of thing, notably the timing of the threats as well as the activities of all the high-level NPCs.

What do you mean? What's he assuming about the timing of threats and the activities of all the high-level NPCs?

Fundementally, you are asking 'Why hasn't this setting sorted itself out?' What you do not seem to understand is that PCs are suppossed to play the roll of sorting it out.

I think he does understand that, but thinks that it makes no sense that the PCs must sort this out, and that other elements should have sorted it out already.

You feel the need to create a perfectly functioning model in your mind that exists absent the pcs, when in fact the entire justification of a setting's existence is to provide conflicts the pcs can resolve.

In my opinion a world should be able to function without PCs. It isn't necessary that it should function without adventurers, you realize, just PCs. Saying that a world require PCs to maintain the status quo is using meta-game elements to justify in-game elements (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).

The existence of powerful npcs does not preclude that. You are suppossed to assume that the pcs are the ones doing the enemy slaying that day.

Which would be fine assuming that this situation had just come up, and other forces had not had time to deal with it. But it's my understanding that the Githyanki Queen and her enmity with various, powerful factions has been around for centuries.

 

[jasamcarl]

What do you mean? What's he assuming about the timing of threats and the activities of all the high-level NPCs?



I think he does understand that, but thinks that it makes no sense that the PCs must sort this out, and that other elements should have sorted it out already.



In my opinion a world should be able to function without PCs. It isn't necessary that it should function without adventurers, you realize, just PCs. Saying that a world require PCs to maintain the status quo is using meta-game elements to justify in-game elements (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).



Which would be fine assuming that this situation had just come up, and other forces had not had time to deal with it. But it's my understanding that the Githyanki Queen and her enmity with various, powerful factions has been around for centuries.

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.

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.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Bendris, could you address if you can () the points on my last post, before this thread goes totally up in smoke

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

Alright, let me get serious...

[serious]

But since nowhere in the core books does it give information on Gith vs. Mind Flayer power levels in macroscopic scale (race vs. race), isn't speculating about that pretty moot? You're basically saying that one can add levels to mind flayers, and this directly leads to the demise of the Githyanki as written.

I admit that you can add levels to mind flayers. But I don't see how this would lead to Githyanki society being ridiculous. The core books don't tell you how many Illithid have levels, how many there are, how many of them plot the demise of the Gith, how many Gith there are, their levels or what are they doing.

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.

As you can see there's no real direct cause and effect here. Rather you should look at the status quo (the Lich Queen exists), and deduct from there that there aren't enough levelled Illithids to kill her.

Remember also that DMG doesn't talk about awarding exp to monsters. Whole lot of your speculation rested somehow on monsters gaining steadily exp from doing monstrous things, while that hasn't been established. Savage Species tells how to give exp to monsters when they are PCs.

That's what bothers me in this equation: A lot of leveled Mind Flayers aren't needed. Indeed, at ECL13, it would only require a group of four Mind Flayers with 5 or more Class Levels each to take out the Lich Queen. In addition, the Illithid's "weakness" regarding undead has been removed in 3E, making the power and taboo of the Lich-Queen to the Illithid less predominant and imposing to them.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Which would be fine assuming that this situation had just come up, and other forces had not had time to deal with it. But it's my understanding that the Githyanki Queen and her enmity with various, powerful factions has been around for centuries.

Exactly!

 

[jasamcarl]

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.

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. Uh, and yes, it is metagame, because a setting is creating for the UTILITY of a gaming group. Understand?