Ecology of the Deathknight up

[Irda Ranger]

90% of my job writing for MWP's Dragonlance product involved continuity cleanup and setting things in the right frame of reference. So, you know. This is why things like this kind of bug me.

Man, tough gig. Some of those novels were terrible, from a consistency p.o.v. It was bad enough when small things popped up (like Kith-Kanan referring to Human Dragonbane having died centuries before, and Huma referring to the kingdom founded by Kith-Kanan), but some were just "How did this get through?" dumb, like a main character who had orc ancestry (wtf?) and one novel that constantly referred to "the moon", without reference to its color, the other moons or even the fact that there was more than one ...

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

The elf chick is a cleric or paladin, her holy symbol is a dragon's head (Bahamut?), and she's enchanting her sword to deal more (holy?) damage to the deathknight, whose symbol is a serpent (Set?).

Actually, might she be a Ranger with some divine smacking spells and perhaps a totem or fetish of a dragon in her other hand?


Though I think Mialee style wizard with implement and elf sword swinging ability is a real good possibility too.

Except that I would be sort of dissapointed if we got the same iconics. I'd like for the old iconics to show up maybe, but if I can't translate my 3E characters then I'm going to be a little annoyed as I follow along WotC's translations of their guys and gals.

 

[Cam Banks]

Man, tough gig. Some of those novels were terrible, from a consistency p.o.v. It was bad enough when small things popped up (like Kith-Kanan referring to Human Dragonbane having died centuries before, and Huma referring to the kingdom founded by Kith-Kanan), but some were just "How did this get through?" dumb, like a main character who had orc ancestry (wtf?) and one novel that constantly referred to "the moon", without reference to its color, the other moons or even the fact that there was more than one ...

I think we did a pretty good job, all things considered.

And yes, the Dragonlance Campaign Setting (3.5) had to update the existing 3rd edition death knight template in order to make Lord Soth work, so it won't be any different for 4e.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[The Little Raven]

I think we did a pretty good job, all things considered.

The MWP Dragonlance books are the most cohesive description of the Dragonlance setting I have ever seen in RPG supplements. I still find it difficult to run a game set in it (personal preferences), but I applaud the job all of you have done to bring in all those disparate sources and retcon'd whatever you needed to in order to get everything to be 100% Dragonlance.

 

[Imaro]

Agreed that seeking out a ritual changes the flavor a lot -- but frankly, this is dirt simple to ignore. It doesn't even require any re-writing of the rules.

But, that's sort of my point...this article in no way ramped me up for an online Dragon mag. The point of the ecology articles has always been fluff...if I'm changing it then what's the point?

Soth isn't sympathetic in the sense that he made a single mistake, or suffered a moment of weakness. He was pretty much a bad guy for most of his life. It was just that his story was more understandable. It hit closer to home for most people, I think. Seeking immortality through magical means is obviously standard fair in fantasy, but it's so far outside the real-world human experience that people can't relate to it the way they can stories of love, jealously and betrayal.

I meant sympathetic in this way (not cry for you sympathetic but understandable sympathetic)...but I think you explained it better than I did in my original post.

Yeah. Luckily the whole Soul-weapon thing seems easy to ignore too. You still have to destroy the Knight himself to defeat him. Frankly, I'll probably ignore the bit about ensouling the weapon and just say that the Death Knights still wield the weapon they wielded in life, but now it has certain properties.

So again I ask, and this is really pertinent when the mag starts costing money, why am I paying for an ecologies article I would change everything in. I guess I just feel that this representation of the Deathknight is very trite and cliched. Someone who wants power and does a nasty ritual to become an undead immortal. I'm sorry, what's the difference between a Deathknight and a Liche again? Oh yeah, one uses a sword and one uses magic.

The ecologies I'm used to in the print magazine, on the average, just seem to go deeper than this one. The two articles on the Deathknight in Dragon 290 & 291 made me want to use one in my campaign NOW(another really good example was the one on the Shadar-kai)...this article makes me feel kind of meh about them.

NOTE: The article in the print mag also gave a template(not sure if it's an alternate one), that didn't have all these spellcasting abilities everyone's talking about. He had an abyssal blast 1/day and a touch attack(negative energy) as his only magical-like abilities. Everything else was already straight up melee focused.

 

[ruemere]

Potential 4E Easter Eggs:

The girl is lightly armored and her pose suggests execution of evasive manoeuver.
Expect feats allowing for lightarmored fighter builds and/or manoeuvers allowing for high dodge bonuses.

The bluish outline around the girl and lightning striking armored undead.
Some active protection spell which damages enemies in metal armors.

Faint circles around dragon head medallion. Medallion seems to float on his own. The medallion is interposed between girl and her opponent.
The undead is on offensive - probably in a middle of an attack. The girl is using some special action (immediate) to use medallion to ward/slow/repel the undead off - she does not look like she's expecting to be hit by this attack.

Possible explanation.
The girl is a paladin in full defensive mode. She is using a spell to automatically damage rushing opponent (swift action) and holy symbol to increase her chance to dodge (immediate action) or interrupt his attack. She is planning to keep outdodging, outrunning and outmanoeuvering the opponent on his turn, while dealing damage on her turn.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I really hope those "easter eggs" are not those potential heavily stylized "3" that could be interpreted into the symbol on the death knight's breastplate and into the glow from his right eye...I really would hate it if the hidden snark against 3E started showing up in the 4E artwork, too.

I'm still timidly optimistic it's NOT that. Somebody find those silly eggs and lay my worries to rest, please, because otherwise the picture is pretty nice, overall.

 

[Eosin the Red]

Could she be flying? She certainly isn't touching the ground.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

This is why 4E will split the fanbase and, as such, ultimately not meet WotC's expectations. Half the D&D players want to see massive change and reinvention; the other half just want a better, more fun version of their favorite game -- with all its tropes intact.

And so by "4E will split the fanbase," what you actually mean is that the fan base is already split and 4E has to deal with it. Let's give credit where credit is due.

@Korgoth: "Good at practically everything" is already a shtick for a fair number of monsters. Dragons come to mind immediately, and it's part of what makes them phenomenally boring, in my eyes. I want my villains to have neat abilities and memorable personalities, but my final goal isn't to create a Mary Sue. Even with that aside though, that list you made up -- "...magic resistant, reflects spells, causes fear, gates in helpers, creates an ice wall, casts symbol and casts fireball. It usually rides a Nightmare." -- seems to apply to the 4E death knight. Though obviously we haven't seen the final product, they mention a special mount, causing fear, removing and subsequently re-adding the abyssal blast ability, and undead leadership powers. That wasn't the final design, they mentioned, but they certainly seemed to be on the right track.

 

[Reynard]

And so by "4E will split the fanbase," what you actually mean is that the fan base is already split and 4E has to deal with it. Let's give credit where credit is due.

Um, no. What i mean is what I said. It wasn't really an issue before 4E started its roll out and we realized that WotC was planning on changing everything about the game -- even elements that had survived into 3E because those things are what make D&D D&D.