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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5516217" data-attributes="member: 1165">No, it's a lot simpler than that.In no particular order2e issues:Elminster and Drizzt were designed in 1e or 2e, and largely follow those builds. Both have very high stats, and since 2e never had real guidelines over how many items you could have or how powerful they could be, it's difficult to say Elminster had great items or wimpy ones. He just had items you didn't.3e issues. In 3rd Edition, an NPC is worth less than their CR. This is because of the lack of magic items they get compared to a PC of their level. This makes up for many of an FR NPC's advantages, like having rolled weighed dice in 2e.The 3rd Edition versions of Elminster and Drizzt aren't using optimized items but things based on their flavor in 2e. For Elminster at least this is a crucial penalty; a magic item's save DCs will never be as good as his own spell's DCs, or his silver fire, or anything else. It's more difficult for a fighter's weapons to suck, but it's doable. His armor also had to be optimized for a high-Dex character, and that's really hard to do within the rules.3rd Edition Drizzt is not an optimized fighter or ranger. His Dex is much higher than his Strength, but he can't finesse his trademark weapons and he's wielding a pair of medium weapons, so his attack bonus can best be described as "pathetic" for his level (poor Strength and a -4 penalty to hit). It doesn't help that NPC rangers are much worse than PC rangers. At least the PC ranger can use his skills a lot. The NPC ranger is only really using stealth, detection and maybe the occasional Survival check to slowly track the PCs.Elminster had a varied career, but his stats in the Heroes' Lorebook in 2e didn't take this into account much. He was just a 30th-level wizard. I think they gave him proficiency in longsword, but didn't acknowledge his dual-classing. (He also broke 2e's rules about becoming a cleric and then leaving as a human, but it's not like the novels cared about the silly dual-classing rules in the first place.) So WotC gave him 30 levels but they should have given him more. (The usual rule for multiclassing from 2e to 3e is to take the highest level, then add 1/3rd [rounded down] levels of each additional class. Since Elminster's other class levels were never given, WotC could have tossed in any number of additional fighter, rogue, cleric, bard and whatever levels.)Lore issues:Elminster has numerous non-game abilities, like a spy network, a brain bigger than all of ours put together, and the love of a goddess (who, among other things, will protect him from mind-reading when he's unconscious). He has numerous abilities that are not on his person, like his personal demiplane that will heal him no matter how he dies ... and he will be saved by Elminster's Evasion. Well, probably. A metagaming player who has read his triggers could foil them, but ... that's metagaming. And while it's possible to research this in-game, the game rules don't say how, and I don't see how you could actually do so in lore. As for foiling them without knowing the triggers, again doable, but you need to be smarter than Elminster and carry an artifact to prevent Mystra from instantly teleporting to his assistance and killing you, so Anti-Magic Field is not enough. Good luck with that.Several Chosen of Mystra abilities are far more powerful in the novels than in the game. Storm Silverhand once sealed an entire castle with silverfire, enough to burn a Bane/malaugrym whenever it tried to escape. You can't make a silverfire barrier in any set of game rules, and the AoE will not encompass a castle if it's even remotely balanced.Elminster's sheer brainpower cannot be calculated in game terms. A PC wizard could have started with a 15 and end up with higher Int (especially if they're optimizing their Headband of Intellect), but Elminster is still smarter than them. No surprise, the author can take a week to give him a solution. A player has a few minutes.Elminster could use shatteringly broken spells, which at least seemed potent in the books. But his 3.x character, based on a system that venerates balance, must at least make an attempt to be balanced.I don't know if DMs routinely have PCs attack Elminster. While I think super-powered good NPCs like him were horrible for the setting, if the PCs are good-aligned, it's bad RP to just try to gank him. If Elminster's stats matched his novel stats he'd be statted like a demigod, and would give even an epic-level party a run for their money. If he had his metagaming "I'm smarter than two Stephen Hawkings" ability, then he's invincible. Of course, that wouldn't be good for the game either. IMO, the best solution is to have a powerful villain publicly kill him, using some artifact to bypass his cheesy defenses. Now you don't even need stats for him. Problem solved!Incidentally 3e FR had power seep as well. Obould of Many Arrows was only 9th-level? He culdn't beat Drizzt but it wasn't entirely one way traffic, especially when he had that armor. And barbarian levels? I know the warlord class didn't exist yet, but that's still really ... silly.</blockquote>

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