Has the wave crested? (Bo9S)

[Nightfall]

Eh it might not have crested, but I might have to get PCs to watch House of Flying Daggers (undubbed!) to fully appreciate the power of Bo9S.

Scott,

So that means you're not selling me Dragon like you promised?! *is kidding*

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I love it...well...most of it, a few of the games were average and one of them was horrible. It has its share of awesomeness...and who doesn't like Advent Children?

Raises hand.

Not that I didn't *like* Advent Children, mind you - it's an absolute visual feast, the motorcycle sequences were pure concentrated awesome, and the

Spoiler

Sephiroth vs. Cloud

battle at the end was truly epic. If it were Exalted: The Motion Picture, I'd have been all over it.

But it's not *at all* how I've always pictured combat between Final Fantasy characters. Advent Children pretty much assumed that what the characters did in their limit breaks was what they, or at least Cloud, could do all the time, rather than the way they fought in cut scenes or their cameos or more action-oriented games.

I see most FFs as much, much lower-magic than typical D&D, much less the Exalted-like power level of Advent Children, and I think that's backed up by what's shown of the characters fighting in cut scenes.

Mind you, I totally think Sephiroth or Auron could cut through an adamantine wall if it were a necessary demonstration of badassitude - but Auron, unlike Sephiroth, could not do it while flying. Because Auron *doesn't fly.* :\

 

[Arnwyn]

According to the way D&D works, it's not about what the DM wants and it should NEVER be about what the DM wants. It should be about what the players want. Or you quickly lose players.

I'm cool with that. I'm not a charity.

Unless your players go for stone-age super-realistic stuff than more power to you.

Cute false dichotomy. And wrong, of course.

 

[Hussar]

At some point or another I am sure every book (from D&D to Dan Brown) ends up and a bookseller like Half Price Books. BO9S has sold well and continues to do well. There are any number or reasons why it may be there but most likely distributor, retailer, or retail chain needed to clear inventory and sold the product. It could also be due to someone going out of business. Remaindering is the industry term for selling excess inventory to a discount seller and is a common practice in the book business. I would not read much into this and assume this makes any sort of statement about the health of D&D.

Humph, Buzzkill. Shame on you for injecting reality into people's theories.

 

[Chiaroscuro23]

I wouldn't read anything into it. There have been PHBs and Spell Compendiums in my local HPBs in recent months, and I don't think the PHB has suddenly gotten less popular among D&D players.

 

[DreadArchon]

At some point or another I am sure every book (from D&D to Dan Brown) ends up at a bookseller like Half Price Books.

Anecdote: The last time I was at Half Price Books, they had seven copies of Complete Psionic and no more than one copy of any other 3.5 book. When I see something like that, I get a little suspicious, but one or two copies of something is certainly not cause for concern.

 

[Razz]

But it's not *at all* how I've always pictured combat between Final Fantasy characters. Advent Children pretty much assumed that what the characters did in their limit breaks was what they, or at least Cloud, could do all the time, rather than the way they fought in cut scenes or their cameos or more action-oriented games.

I thought it made perfect sense for Final Fantasy games. Just look at the creatures they deal with in all the games. You'd have to be able to battle like the characters in Advent Children to defeat such monstrosities. FFIV and the Babel Tower, FFVI and the Floating Island, Atma Weapon, the Ghost Train, the Gods of Magic, and Kefka. And, of course, FFVII and their fights against all sorts of technological weaponry and creatures as colossal as the Weapons Ruby, Emerald, Ultima, and Diamond (I think Diamond was one of them?). As I recall, the battle with Squall and Bahamut in FFVIII was very Advent Children-like.

It drove me nuts playing FFVII and I see something like Barret getting blasted by laser beams, Red XIII getting zapped with 10 thunderstorms worth of electricity, and Cloud getting owned by plasma breath weapons...but when I watch Advent Children I realize,"Ohh...the way they fight totally explains the challenges they were able to overcome."

It works and it made the Final Fantasy series much more believable.

 

[WhatGravitas]

It drove me nuts playing FFVII and I see something like Barret getting blasted by laser beams, Red XIII getting zapped with 10 thunderstorms worth of electricity, and Cloud getting owned by plasma breath weapons...but when I watch Advent Children I realize,"Ohh...the way they fight totally explains the challenges they were able to overcome."

It works and it made the Final Fantasy series much more believable.

For some reason, that sounds totally like D&D... I mean most characters have survived their fair share of dragon breath's, fireballs, lightning bolts, negative energy and magic missiles, eh?

At least that's my impression...

 

[Razz]

For some reason, that sounds totally like D&D... I mean most characters have survived their fair share of dragon breath's, fireballs, lightning bolts, negative energy and magic missiles, eh?

At least that's my impression...

Which is exactly why I model my D&D games off of japanime...not all of it, just the atmosphere of it.

I mean, surviving a disintegrate spell and still fighting as if nothing happened; getting swallowed whole and managing to fight your way out its gizzard; having 20 goblin archers with Precise Shot shoot at you and not have one single scratch on you while you're in the middle of fighting a horde of orc berserkers as you avoid and take them down copeira-style...and you're a ROGUE...yeah...I've already accepted the fact that when 3E began, WotC would be taking the more japanime/comic book approach to D&D.

Heck, Eberron has that graphic novel approach to it and it's working wonders for that setting.

Not that I have any problem with it, I was born and raised in the DBZ-era (not that DBZ is spectacular anime, it was just a starting point) so anime is already infecting my brain everyday. Stuff like Naruto, Bleach, Samurai Champloo, and Death Note aren't making it any easier

 

[Arkhandus]

But it's not *at all* how I've always pictured combat between Final Fantasy characters. Advent Children pretty much assumed that what the characters did in their limit breaks was what they, or at least Cloud, could do all the time, rather than the way they fought in cut scenes or their cameos or more action-oriented games.

Odd. IIRC they didn't use limit breaks more than once in a while in Advent Children. Barret seemed to have opened up with one against Bahamut-SIN but couldn't get another such blast charged up afterward, likely cuz he hadn't regained enough energy or re-absorbed enough mako from the area yet. Cloud used a few limit breaks over the course of the movie, but he was fighting a lot and never used more than one per battle or so (building up to it each time). I may be forgetting some point where he may've used a limit break at both the beginning and end of a fight, but I don't recall ATM. And of course, Cloud was taking a serious beating sometimes, so it's not implausible he wouldn't have been able to execute two limit breaks over the course of his last battle or the earlier one at the Forgotten Capitol of the ancients, where he was fighting all of Kadaj's gang at once.

Anyway, I don't recall that much being done in there that was too over-the-top for normal stuff. Vincent of course isn't even really human anymore, and always had strange abilities since Hojo's experiments, so his aerial movements in Advent Children are perfectly in tune with his floating around in FF7. Though, I'm kinda disappointed he can't float/glide/whatever in Dirge of Cerberus. :\ Cloud's got inhuman abilities of course as a psuedo-Sephiroth-clone-experiment subject. And Kadaj's gang were using materia most of the time to augment themselves and unleash magic attacks once in a while, mostly materia they stole from Cloud.

Still, I could see the limit breaks as being kinda like Bo9S maneuvers, possibly stuff like from the Martial Study feat, so only useable once per battle each.

I see most FFs as much, much lower-magic than typical D&D, much less the Exalted-like power level of Advent Children, and I think that's backed up by what's shown of the characters fighting in cut scenes.

Mind you, I totally think Sephiroth or Auron could cut through an adamantine wall if it were a necessary demonstration of badassitude - but Auron, unlike Sephiroth, could not do it while flying. Because Auron *doesn't fly.* :\

I don't remember these cut scenes you're talking about, where Final Fantasy characters are fighting like normal people with little or no magic at their disposal.... Then again, I haven't played any of the FF games for the past year or two, except for some FFVII and FFIX a few months ago, so I may just be forgetting.

Also, it seems odd that you'd consider FF lower-magic than D&D.... FF games often include magic-powered technology, magic crystals or other items that are fairly significant in numbers (...even North Corel in FF7 had some guy trying to sell a bit of materia, right? And Corel was dirt-poor), absurdly abundant populations of monsters running amuck in the wilderness.......and people who can fight such monsters and even mecha, using their own combat skills and a bit of magic.

I think D&D and the Book of Nine Swords pretty well compare to the level of magic in many Final Fantasy games.



Anyway, backon topic, errrmm.......I agree with Razz. Characters in D&D are pretty extraordinary in their combat abilities, given the monsters and such that they fight and defeat regularly, so the Book of Nine Swords doesn't seem all that unusual given the amount of exceptional skill, toughness, and magical power wielded by typical D&D characters. Or something like that.