D&D 5E Eberron versus Multiverse

[Hussar]

FR was one of the first settings that wanted to make Dragons more special and powerful.

Dragonlance would like to have a word.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Dragonlance would like to have a word.

Dragonlance sadly did a bad job. They tended to be glofied mounts at best. And there was even stuff around that made killing them really easy.

 

[tetrasodium]

Dragonlance would like to have a word.

Ahh don't tell him, you'll hurt eliminster's feelings if word gets back that fr wasn't first or best at something

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Ahh don't tell him, you'll hurt eliminster's feelings if word gets back that fr wasn't first or best at something

I don't particularly care if FR was first or best. FR is not even my favorite setting. I did not even say that it was first just one of the first.

I did not even know about this fact about dragons until this week. When reading through a review of some original dragonlance products. Which brought up that Dragonlance dragons were not particularly special and for sure not more powerful then the baseline ones. FR introduced many new mechanics and buffs to dragons to power them up, including stuff like being immune to the damage of their breath weapons. Stuff that later became baseline in 2e and on.

 

[gyor]

Well depends, in FR I'd say Elminster wins because a goddess has his back if everything else fails.
Alone in Athas? No way. The sorcerer king would drain Elminsters lifeforce to power spells cast at Elminster.
Also a sorcerer king is a level 20+ psionic. Elminster has not enough defenses on his side to counter this.

Mystra doesn't just have Elminster and the other Chosen of Mystra back, she invests a portion of her own divine power in them, they are functionally independant extensions of her own divinity in them, Avatars in a more traditional sense of the term.

And when Elminister ended up in Hell, trapped, Mystra walked in, butchered the Devils by the thousands and pimp slapped Asmodeus so hard he forgot Elminister was ever there.

If a Sorcerer King drained Elminster's life force, he'd blow up like a fat kid in Willy Wonk's factory, because he'd containing part of the life force of a Goddess.

See Mystra has so much juice she has to dump part of her essence/power in mortals, she traditionally is the most powerful of FRs Gods, to the point where she can cut off even Gods from Magic, so it's almost too much juice for her to contain with out having a spellplague like disaster every Tuesday, so she stores some of it in Volo, some in Elminister, some in crazy Manshoon, some in Larloch, some in the Seven Sisters, ect..., so a Sorcerer King trying to tap into lifeforce/magic is a like three year old sticking a fork into an electrical socket.

Mystra's still waking up to her full power after being dead, a death that wreck an entire star system so hard that an Overgod had to fix it, but one she does, a treaty with the Promordials of Athas, most of whom are gone anyways, won't stop her from coming to Athas and causing mayham till Elminister is returned to her. Mystra doesn't like having her toys stolen, she tends break thing, like worlds, planes of existance when that happens.

 

[Azzy]

Elminster stuff

So, we can clearly infer that Elminster is a Gary Stu of the worst kind.

 

[tetrasodium]

So, we can clearly infer that Elminster is a Gary Stu of the worst kind.

That's pretty much how FR works. Look at this thread, Khyber is Eberron's Underdark and Eberron's version of The Abyss. Eberron's dragons are on a different level, armed with the prophecy and a continent spanning civilization going back a gajillion years... the last time they went to war against someone they destroyed a continent spanning empire they trained in magic to the pint thay it was advanced enough to create the elf & drow races, destroy a moon & shift the orbit f a plane, the result was both a race and continent being cursed.. but but FR dragons have a continent but some ragtag elves kicked them out. No you don't get it dragons in eberron are elevated beyond just what the MM shows, here's a quote... nuuh-uh! FR's dragons are elevated too & FR did it first just ignore how a bunch of elves kicked them out of their own homes.

 

[Gradine]

@Gradine sometimes that "lore" is part of what makes up the setting's baselines & defines the settings. FR is not FR if you throw in eberron style shades grey of morality, dump the drgonmarked houses complete with their eberron role in the world into faerun, bind all the gods & make it clear that they are an unprovable thing, and treat magic as a science rather than a mysterious poorly understood gift from the gods. Similar problems exist when you start shipping in lore from a setting like FR over top of eberron or dark sun's lore & don't put any care into not breaking things. Even when ToA inserted the merchant princes , WotC didn't say abny rediculous nonsense like "Bob is the house cannith of Faerun" because there are massive differences between the merchant princes & dragonmarked houses despite some vague similaritiesroughly on par with khyber & the underdark... Meanwhile phrases like "Khyber is the Underdark" keeps getting printed in eberron sourcebooks again and again edition after edition

* Baator/asmodious & the like from 4e is unquestionably the high apex of these... but X exists in $settingA and Y in $settingB has some vague similarities if you ignore the huge differences so Y is $settingB's X is a close second.

If only there was something we could do to make these problems go away...

Or not do...

 

[MonsterEnvy]

That's pretty much how FR works. Look at this thread, Khyber is Eberron's Underdark and Eberron's version of The Abyss. Eberron's dragons are on a different level, armed with the prophecy and a continent spanning civilization going back a gajillion years... the last time they went to war against someone they destroyed a continent spanning empire they trained in magic to the pint thay it was advanced enough to create the elf & drow races, destroy a moon & shift the orbit f a plane, the result was both a race and continent being cursed.. but but FR dragons have a continent but some ragtag elves kicked them out. No you don't get it dragons in eberron are elevated beyond just what the MM shows, here's a quote... nuuh-uh! FR's dragons are elevated too & FR did it first just ignore how a bunch of elves kicked them out of their own homes.

Man you are coming across as super whiny.

Khyber still is Eberron's version of the Underdark and Abyss.

Eberron's Dragons are indeed elevated above the other settings dragons. Partially because their empire is still intact. FR's Dragons are much more solitary and their powerful empire collapsed as a result of their 1000 year war with the giants.

I do agree as well that Elminster in Hell does not sound like a good book.

 

[gyor]

So, we can clearly infer that Elminster is a Gary Stu of the worst kind.

It's a little more complicated then that, he gets tortured and tormented too often to be a Gary Stu, and he does occasional lose fights. It's more that he is the favoured servant of one of the most powerful Gods in D&D, and a battery for Mystra's power.

So the Sorcerer King would probably win at first, before he either ODs on Elminster life force (El is kind like Gandoff in that he is more Angel like being then man at this point, having a body is a luxury for Elmimister), or Mystra comes and trashes Athas till the SK hands Elminster back. It's mostly borrowed power, without that Elminister is just a regular Archmage.

So I don't think that counts as a Gary Stu or Mary Stu (Elminister has had female bodies before), more knowing the right folks.