Forgotten Realms vs Eberron NPCs

[Hunter In Darkness]

Being horrid immortal monsters means that they exist to be killed (presumably by PCs). I'm down with this. This is D&D to me.

Unless they have changed this...most of the things he meant are out of the scoop of pc's to fight, and can not be killed permanent like by any means. Eberron had high level stuff by the plenty it just was not driven by the novles

 

[S'mon]

Title VIII requires that the Lady Vols get equal levels to all those male NPCs. Pat Senett won't be pleased.

 

[Jack99]

I again agree 100%, the defualt realms should have always been the novels are NOT canon...


man I wish I played in your group...

I played him like that as well, and that only led to one thing. My players dieing

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I know FR has had a hard on for Epic level NPCs for a long time now, but I find it interesting that Eberron places one of their "name" NPCs in the high Paragon tier instead. It does bear some discussing, as to the consequences of having as many epic level NPCs as FR does, and what it means for the setting.

Eberron was designed in 3e. I hope people recall how terrible the epic rules were in 3.x; level 19 is impressive in that setting.

Also, villains can gain levels. The Lord of Blades is "only" 12th level, but he can gain levels over time. (To make it possible to fight him, presumably he'd gain levlels more slowly than the PCs.)

 

[Nymrohd]

And the epic town in Dragons of Eberron was imo the worst thing they ever did in Eberron and the one piece of lore I definitely would ignore. Sure make it a city of scholars with more high levels than elsewhere but that city reminded me of Union on a smaller scale and that is bad.

 

[Grymar]

Yep, Epicville was horrible and won't ever exist in any game I run. Not that my games will ever venture to Argonessen anyway, but in the very unlikely case that my players decide to venture there and somehow survive, they won't find that city as it is written in the book.

 

[Primal]

Elminster is there to be killed. Like everything else in D&D.

In my view, it's the best way to play him.

You're joking, right? Styles and preferences vary, but I don't run my games with every being [with name, stats and level] existing to be killed by the PCs. I like having high-level NPCs that are beyond the abilities of PCs (and other NPCs) to kill; if it were so easy, you'd think the beings such as Lords of Dust would have been dead long ago. Limiting all the NPCs to Paragon tier does not actually evoke the feeling of thousands of years of history and a world that has seen epic heroes, at least not in me -- especially if PCs can surpass (supposedly powerful) NPCs like Lady Vol or Mordain in a few months of adventure (in game time) during which they transform from fledgling heroes to demigods. Even though the PCs, as "protagonists", *are* special, you'd think high-magic settings such as Eberron or Points of Light would have at least a few epic level NPCs.

I'm fine with PCs killing Fzoul or Manshoon, but it does take more than just a quick teleport in and a few encounters against "minions" after which they corner a frightful NPC in his bedroom and kill him; it takes [years of] time and careful planning to achieve something like this, and they need loads of luck, too (but then again, I think such a triumph feels all the much sweeter).

 

[Dark Mistress]

The whole epic NPC or not epic NPC really come down to play style.

If you like games where the PC's are center stage and the ultimate hero's of the world. Then epic NPC's tend to be bad.

But if you like to have the PC's feel like they are part of a much larger world, then epic NPC's are a good thing.

It really just comes down to which type of play style of those two you prefer.