Edena_of_Neith
First Post
Edena_of_Neith here.
I am back.
I have obtained a new hard drive, and the information from the defective one has been transferred.
If I may comment, large hard drives are problematic - you save years of work on them, because they are so big, and then it can all be lost when the disk crashes.
Anyways, I wanted to say hi to all of my friends out there.
I won't list names, because I might omit a name due to memory loss: consider that I am saying hi to ALL of you!
Concerning the IR ... we have some problems there.
To be simple and to the point: when some of you decided it had to be a magic-rich scenario, or no scenario, you guaranteed the Red Death won, because the Red Death fed on magic, and only abstention from magic could save you.
If the Red Death won, you all lost. And if you lost, I lost. I wanted, and want, a legacy of good memories, not a legacy of a poor DM.
Also, understand that many of you were already well entrenched in the territories in which you possessed.
You may believe I speak only of you, Serpenteye, but in fact many of you had well established territories.
I knew that very shortly, based on my knowledge of what was coming, that the entire board was about to be scrambled (think of RISK, where 2 or 3 guys sweep the board with 50 armies each.)
In other words, you probably were going to lose the territories you had, in return for gaining new territory.
I thought this might offend people, since you had worked so hard to establish not only territories but also distinct cultures, governments, and etiquette for your lands.
If you remember the 1st IR, or go back and read it (it can be downloaded from Bugbear) the 1st IR used very loose territorial definitions, and even then everyone ended up losing and gaining large areas of territory.
For example, the elves (assume an elven player, for a moment) lost EVERYTHING. They were completely eliminated.
The Faerie lost all of Faerun.
The Illithid gained all of the Underdark, but then lost everything as they were absorbed into the United Commonwealth of Toril.
You could say the Humanoids gained a lot - but consider that in the end, with FORRESTER RUNNING THEM, that here they were, frolicking with the elves of Evermeet, intermingling, intermarrying, and basically becoming welded into one people (I am guessing some of the authors and designers of FR would faint, if they knew Queen Amlaruil's daughter voluntarily became the concubine of the supreme leader of the humanoids, but ... that IS the spirit of IRish stuff!)
Heh.
Over on the FR boards, my friends, they had a thread about technology in the Realms.
Did you know that it never got past the question? Most poo-pooed it as being utterly impossible. Others stated (with justification) that the dieties would stop it. And yet others asked why the Realms should be torn up anymore? (Of course, that misses the point - the IR was never serious. At least, not serious in the sense of being a campaign setting one would publish!!)
Try to look at the 1st IR, then at the serious publications on the Realms, and see where the two do not meet.
There is a lot of humor there, and it does not take much looking to find it:
Elminster, deciding to let the gnomes start an Industrial Revolution in the first place.
The Harpers, Chosen, and Dieties, allowing the gnomes to hack down forests, put up railroads and telegraphs, and start coal mining (you DO realize, don't you, that my question ASSUMED all this had ALREADY happened, in the 1st IR?)
The Humanoids, eating the elves of Evereska (with the heads of other nations sitting at the banquet table participating) ?
The elves, shutting off all magic?
EVERYONE ganging up on the elves?
Evermeet being blown up?
Elves being exterminated from Realmspace?
The illithid, mutating to produce a nice-guy race called the NeoIllithid. They didn't even eat brains?
The Illithid, wiping out all the Underdark and taking over?
The drow being exterminated?
Uh, ok ... the Chosen not interfering in any of this?
The shades of the elves of Evermeet fighting against their own kind?
Uh ... Lantan, Calimshan, Amn, Tethyr, the Vilhon Reach, Sembia, Chondath, Unther, Mulhorand, and others forming one nation? (think about that ... these nations have warred with each other for millennia.)
The evolvement of Technomancy without the dieties putting down their collective feet?
Tidal waves blasting away Waterdeep, Calimport, Candlekeep, Baldur's Gate, Luskan, and everything for 100 miles inland.
And THAT'S the CONSERVATIVE stuff!!
Kender running amok on Toril.
Kender, welcome in the Halls of Power, on Toril.
Kender MAGES, welcome in Toril.
Men, elves, dwarves, beholders, and neoillithid working together.
Men, elves, dwarves, beholders, neoillithid, and kender forming a World Forum.
The phaerimm becoming the champions and defenders of Realmspace.
The phaerimm and sharn becoming friends (for that matter, the phaerimm and sharn being in the same room, much less in the same room with anyone else.)
Larloch, becoming good aligned and a councillor to the new fledgling United Commonwealth of Toril.
Toril, becoming tropical. Finis the Great Glacier and the Frozenfar. The seas rising 500 feet.
The sun becoming chaotic, throwing plumes of material and vast waves of radiation at the planet, only to be blocked by magical shields brought about by vast interstellar organizations.
The Consummation (the Great Orgy) causing everyone and everything in the Underdark to become good aligned, and the sky to permanently turn green.
The Church of Toril, period (remember the Wanderer's description?)
And yet more radical yet ...
Starships bearing nuclear weapons and heavy particle cannons, manned by combined crews of humans, dwarves, halflings, elves (the elves of Evermeet only), orcs, goblins, troglodytes, gnolls, flind, illithid (GOOD illithid, despite their diet), scro, aboleth, beholders, phaerimm, and even the occasional kender.
All the peoples and countries of FR at peace (it has never happened.)
The elves and humanoids at permanent peace, by their own choice ... putting aside even their own dieties, and sharing in common theology.
Laws permanently banning all discrimination of any kind, including (ESPECIALLY INCLUDING) discrimination against kender (in other words, there WERE kender on those starships, able to fire those nuclear missiles.)
Magic available to all races and all peoples.
A world where most people (outside the humanoids) were of good alignment.
Etc.
Now, I could go over to the WOTC boards, and tell them about this.
I must wonder what they would say.
I fear that they would not consider it funny or humorous ... I get this feeling I would be lynched at the next Gen Con, instead. I'm serious!
(I mean, after all, look at the situation with the Tolkien Estate over the Peter Jackson films. Core fans of a book setting - and FR does count as one - might not take well to what they would consider desecration of their setting. Joke or no joke. I, of course, never said my IR Forgotten Realms was serious, but then ... Peter Jackson never said his films were THE definitive Tolkien world, either.)
If you play a power in an IR, you must be prepared for uproar extremis.
Or, better yet, how about Silliness Extraordinare?
It's not serious. It's just for fun.
It's not meant to defile or ruin FR. FR is FR, and will remain very nicely FR no matter how many IRs one throws at it.
But YOUR fun, my friends, IS important.
To me, it is the ONLY worthy measurement of the value of the IR.
If you are not having fun, then the IR is a failure, and I have failed ... and this reflects badly on me as a DM.
I realize that not everyone is going to have fun ... but if enough do, at least I can remember that there was some success.
It helps to soften the sting of my failures (alienating Darkness and Forrester, certainly count as failures, and I never did see Maudlin again ... and Maudlin, was a good person.)
Anyways, I am back.
Now, you will ask, will I run the 4th IR?
After all, it was in progress when I was booted offline.
Let me explain what it entails, to run an IR:
It entails spending 3 to 4 hours per day, every day, to do it.
It entails spending vast amounts of energy (one does NOT just sit and type ... it takes more than that to make for an IR!)
It entails trying very hard to please people, when pleasing one person WILL offend another person, and yet ... somehow pleasing both at once.
I just do not know if I am up to it.
I am considering the matter still.
(This, of course, assumes anyone is still interested.)
I think I'm going to go up to the House Rules section, and type in a whole bunch of wierd spells I have been dreaming up.
I think some wild and strange spells are in order. This D&D game of Hasbro/WOTC is getting too orderly for my tastes.
But gods, it is nice to see all of you again.
- - -
Let me disgress, and comment on something.
It is off-topic, so I am hijacking my own thread (LOL ... I just started it!) but it does show how things are more complicated than they might appear.
You know that Edena character of mine? You know, the Super King of All Munchkins who is 161st level?
Yeah, that's the one. (chuckles - you should have seen what happened on Nutkinland, a while back, when I brought him up.)
A VERY long time ago, back when I was still roleplaying at the WOTC chatsite, there was another player there, and this player played a character called Lumin the Redeemer.
Now, Lumin wasn't a very nice character, but he was a creative character ... that is to say, he was a memorable character.
Lumin was EVIL, and proud of it. He believed all non-humans were to be killed or enslaved, all mages were to be killed (molten silver in the ear), all magic to be stamped out, and the Redeemers would conquer the Multiverse.
Of course, my character Edena hated Lumin In Character, and the two actually battled (I played Edena at 7th level, Lumin won easily, and turned Edena into so much charred powder on the ground.)
Problem is, although I respected Lumin and his player, and thought the conception neat (if rather nasty and needing of a quick IC extermination!) his player did not think very much of Edena or of his player ... that being me.
After all, I was the super-munchkin who had the 161st level character! And just how could anyone take such a guy seriously? Much less play a game with this person?
It's sorta a pity. For if we had had mutual respect, I and Lumin's player could have set up a great good versus evil scenario. Something to spice up the chatsite. Something that would give people things to do, more to roleplay, and to otherwise have more fun.
Or, at least, that's my take.
But I digress.
When 3rd Edition came out, Lumin's player asked me privately: And just what will Edena's level be now, in 3rd Edition? 1,000,000th?
For you see, at that time we were all looking at what appeared to be the relatively low experience required to level in 3rd edition, and comparing that with the astronomical amounts of experience required to level in 2nd edition.
And yeah, had I translated Edena via experience points, then he'd be a millionth level, and then some.
Do you know I never translated Edena into 3rd Edition?
I am not sure if it is possible, even theoretically, to translate the character, and most certainly I have not tried.
Care to know why?
(If you have read this far in this article, you KNOW it is me returned. Only I would write an article THIS long on the ENBoard! So read on!)
In 1983, when Edena went from 3rd level to 9th level in the epic campaign we called Demonbane, certain realities (in the Real World) existed.
One of these was that Edena, was absolutely unnecessary in the adventure.
After all, while Edena was still 5th level, the party leader was 9th.
And who needs a 5th level cleric, when there is one in the party with a scroll of SIXTY FIVE HEAL spells?
Back at that time, Edena was limited by the rules for 1st edition (they had not invented 2nd edition quite yet) clerics.
Clerics were limited to blunt weapons. To one attack per round (10 rounds in 3E.) To a standard BAB. To set Saves. To set spells.
There were no Prestige Classes into which a cleric could specialize. Humans could not multiclass (they most certainly could not CHOOSE which class to put experience points into!) There were no Feats.
Everything was a cut and dried template, such as exists today in Hackmaster, for the cleric (although I would daresay Hackmaster is the old D&D game on an adrenaline charge.)
But what if 3E had existed then? What then?
Well, it is likely that Edena, being a stubborn cuss and a devoted cleric, would have specialized in his own class - that is, he would have taken a Prestige Class based on the cleric class.
Probably by 3rd level, Edena would not have been a cleric at all, but a cleric/prestige class of some sort.
By 9th level, I'm sure he would have had 2 prestige classes. He was ever the inquisitive type - he would have reached out for knowledge and understanding within his own class.
By 20th level, Edena would have had 3 or 4 prestige classes (low level in all of them.)
He would have hardly resembled the 20th level straight cleric I ultimately got in 1985 (2 years after Demonbane.)
Upon gaining Epic Levels, he would have gone on specializing in his specialty - that is, his cleric class.
Ultimately, he would have specialized in his specialized classes, heaping specialization upon specialization, stacking Feats and combining them with Prestige Classes (in a combination of Min/Maxing and roleplaying fun.)
Heaven knows where he'd be now. He would NOT be running around in armor wielding a mace! He would not be threatening to shoot someone with the old cleric standby, the Sling! And I doubt he'd be relying on having a whole lot of Harm spells to touch enemies with (Harm being the one clerical spell that actually kicked butt, as it were.)
The 121st level Edena, could not exist in 3rd Edition (Most would argue (chuckles) that he could not exist at all, but that is another matter.)
The 121st level Edena, still had ONE attack per round. Limited to blunt weapons or the Sling only.
The 121st level Edena, still had the saving throws of the 19th level Edena, and the BAB (THAC0, that is) of the 19th level Edena.
He had a lot of hit points (but not in 3E terms), and he had a lot of spells.
And, he could not even begun to imagine what he could have been, in 3E, assuming he knew such an alternate reality existed.
In 3E, with 121 levels to play with, using Prestige Classes to specialize within my specialization, within my specialization, within my specialization, WITHIN my specialization, combined with having every Feat in the book, I could create a character that would level Edena, 121 levels and all, into subatomic particles in 1 round. Body, mind, and soul.
He wouldn't even know what hit him.
But again, I disgress ...
To do it RIGHT, I must go back and REMEMBER how I, the PLAYER, was thinking, back in 1983.
Was I frustrated that day, so I might consider something new and different? Was I feeling happy with the world, desiring no change? Did I envy the cleric with the 65 Heals, or was that No Problem?
What events occurred, specifically, that would have caused specialization into a Prestige Class?
What events occurred, that would have caused Feats of a specific type to be taken?
In other words, I would have to go back and examine the entire 20 year history of the character, and also my own behavior and feelings through that time, in order to decide what Edena did.
Of course, this assumes I have read EVERY official WOTC supplement and nearly every d20 supplement, so that I know what all the choices are.
Back then, I had access to all the core and auxillary supplements (chuckles ... Unearthed Arcana was our auxillary supplement ...), whether because I owned them or I could borrow them from others ... so why not now?
The small matter that having them all now is impossible because I do not have THOUSANDS of dollars to spend to get them, notwithstanding!
And, of course, I'd have to do a minor thing called Breaking the Rules.
For you see, I had a DM in all of those games, and he or she dictated what I could or could not do - in those games in particular - with the character.
And now I presume to rewrite the character history, based only on my own wants and desires, without the necessity of compromising with DMs?
I can just rewrite history anyway I please, and call it official, without any DM arbitrating the matter?
To quote Drizzt Do'Urden, I think not. The game has no meaning if there are no rules. Without meaning, there is not fun to be had.
So, to summarize, to translate Edena to 3E I must:
Remember and reflect on 20 years of play IRL, then decide how that would have affected decision-making based on a different game, and:
Remember and reflect on 20 years of play IC, then decide how that would have affected the character's decisions based on a different reality, and:
I must have read and memorized every official supplement ever published, plus most of the auxillary d20 supplements, and:
I must have a DM approve of EACH AND EVERY CHANGE MADE to the character, preferably the DM who DMed the old games in the first place (honestly, to be in the spirit of the game, that is what would be needed!)
And when it's all said and done, I will have a 3E Edena of 161st level.
Of course, he'll be able to do things that the ACTUAL 2E Edena could not even imagine doing ... so in the end, I have not really translated Edena at all, but created a whole new character (nevermind that upping a character's power level without earning it is patently unreasonable, even if a DM agrees to allow it, but that's just me.)
Heh. That's why you'll never see a 3E Edena.
Methinks I could get a NEW character up to 161st level, far more easily than I could translate the old one!
It took 20 years to create the old character ... it probably would take 20 years to translate him: after 3 years of 3E, I still have not started the job!
And yet Lumin's player (remember him, from about a mile up in this article?) thought I would do a simple experience point transfer.
LOL.
I would ask him a simple question, but he is not here to answer, so it is not fair - but I'll ask anyway: where is the fun in that?
Fun, be it Edena's translation or those wild and silly IRs, can be complicated and difficult to achieve. And THAT'S the point of this whole long article.
Anyways, here I am. Back. I hope this article doesn't crash the ENBoards. May the Powers have mercy if it does!
Edena_of_Neith
I am back.
I have obtained a new hard drive, and the information from the defective one has been transferred.
If I may comment, large hard drives are problematic - you save years of work on them, because they are so big, and then it can all be lost when the disk crashes.
Anyways, I wanted to say hi to all of my friends out there.
I won't list names, because I might omit a name due to memory loss: consider that I am saying hi to ALL of you!
Concerning the IR ... we have some problems there.
To be simple and to the point: when some of you decided it had to be a magic-rich scenario, or no scenario, you guaranteed the Red Death won, because the Red Death fed on magic, and only abstention from magic could save you.
If the Red Death won, you all lost. And if you lost, I lost. I wanted, and want, a legacy of good memories, not a legacy of a poor DM.
Also, understand that many of you were already well entrenched in the territories in which you possessed.
You may believe I speak only of you, Serpenteye, but in fact many of you had well established territories.
I knew that very shortly, based on my knowledge of what was coming, that the entire board was about to be scrambled (think of RISK, where 2 or 3 guys sweep the board with 50 armies each.)
In other words, you probably were going to lose the territories you had, in return for gaining new territory.
I thought this might offend people, since you had worked so hard to establish not only territories but also distinct cultures, governments, and etiquette for your lands.
If you remember the 1st IR, or go back and read it (it can be downloaded from Bugbear) the 1st IR used very loose territorial definitions, and even then everyone ended up losing and gaining large areas of territory.
For example, the elves (assume an elven player, for a moment) lost EVERYTHING. They were completely eliminated.
The Faerie lost all of Faerun.
The Illithid gained all of the Underdark, but then lost everything as they were absorbed into the United Commonwealth of Toril.
You could say the Humanoids gained a lot - but consider that in the end, with FORRESTER RUNNING THEM, that here they were, frolicking with the elves of Evermeet, intermingling, intermarrying, and basically becoming welded into one people (I am guessing some of the authors and designers of FR would faint, if they knew Queen Amlaruil's daughter voluntarily became the concubine of the supreme leader of the humanoids, but ... that IS the spirit of IRish stuff!)
Heh.
Over on the FR boards, my friends, they had a thread about technology in the Realms.
Did you know that it never got past the question? Most poo-pooed it as being utterly impossible. Others stated (with justification) that the dieties would stop it. And yet others asked why the Realms should be torn up anymore? (Of course, that misses the point - the IR was never serious. At least, not serious in the sense of being a campaign setting one would publish!!)
Try to look at the 1st IR, then at the serious publications on the Realms, and see where the two do not meet.
There is a lot of humor there, and it does not take much looking to find it:
Elminster, deciding to let the gnomes start an Industrial Revolution in the first place.
The Harpers, Chosen, and Dieties, allowing the gnomes to hack down forests, put up railroads and telegraphs, and start coal mining (you DO realize, don't you, that my question ASSUMED all this had ALREADY happened, in the 1st IR?)
The Humanoids, eating the elves of Evereska (with the heads of other nations sitting at the banquet table participating) ?
The elves, shutting off all magic?
EVERYONE ganging up on the elves?
Evermeet being blown up?
Elves being exterminated from Realmspace?
The illithid, mutating to produce a nice-guy race called the NeoIllithid. They didn't even eat brains?
The Illithid, wiping out all the Underdark and taking over?
The drow being exterminated?
Uh, ok ... the Chosen not interfering in any of this?
The shades of the elves of Evermeet fighting against their own kind?
Uh ... Lantan, Calimshan, Amn, Tethyr, the Vilhon Reach, Sembia, Chondath, Unther, Mulhorand, and others forming one nation? (think about that ... these nations have warred with each other for millennia.)
The evolvement of Technomancy without the dieties putting down their collective feet?
Tidal waves blasting away Waterdeep, Calimport, Candlekeep, Baldur's Gate, Luskan, and everything for 100 miles inland.
And THAT'S the CONSERVATIVE stuff!!
Kender running amok on Toril.
Kender, welcome in the Halls of Power, on Toril.
Kender MAGES, welcome in Toril.
Men, elves, dwarves, beholders, and neoillithid working together.
Men, elves, dwarves, beholders, neoillithid, and kender forming a World Forum.
The phaerimm becoming the champions and defenders of Realmspace.
The phaerimm and sharn becoming friends (for that matter, the phaerimm and sharn being in the same room, much less in the same room with anyone else.)
Larloch, becoming good aligned and a councillor to the new fledgling United Commonwealth of Toril.
Toril, becoming tropical. Finis the Great Glacier and the Frozenfar. The seas rising 500 feet.
The sun becoming chaotic, throwing plumes of material and vast waves of radiation at the planet, only to be blocked by magical shields brought about by vast interstellar organizations.
The Consummation (the Great Orgy) causing everyone and everything in the Underdark to become good aligned, and the sky to permanently turn green.
The Church of Toril, period (remember the Wanderer's description?)
And yet more radical yet ...
Starships bearing nuclear weapons and heavy particle cannons, manned by combined crews of humans, dwarves, halflings, elves (the elves of Evermeet only), orcs, goblins, troglodytes, gnolls, flind, illithid (GOOD illithid, despite their diet), scro, aboleth, beholders, phaerimm, and even the occasional kender.
All the peoples and countries of FR at peace (it has never happened.)
The elves and humanoids at permanent peace, by their own choice ... putting aside even their own dieties, and sharing in common theology.
Laws permanently banning all discrimination of any kind, including (ESPECIALLY INCLUDING) discrimination against kender (in other words, there WERE kender on those starships, able to fire those nuclear missiles.)
Magic available to all races and all peoples.
A world where most people (outside the humanoids) were of good alignment.
Etc.
Now, I could go over to the WOTC boards, and tell them about this.
I must wonder what they would say.
I fear that they would not consider it funny or humorous ... I get this feeling I would be lynched at the next Gen Con, instead. I'm serious!
(I mean, after all, look at the situation with the Tolkien Estate over the Peter Jackson films. Core fans of a book setting - and FR does count as one - might not take well to what they would consider desecration of their setting. Joke or no joke. I, of course, never said my IR Forgotten Realms was serious, but then ... Peter Jackson never said his films were THE definitive Tolkien world, either.)
If you play a power in an IR, you must be prepared for uproar extremis.
Or, better yet, how about Silliness Extraordinare?
It's not serious. It's just for fun.
It's not meant to defile or ruin FR. FR is FR, and will remain very nicely FR no matter how many IRs one throws at it.
But YOUR fun, my friends, IS important.
To me, it is the ONLY worthy measurement of the value of the IR.
If you are not having fun, then the IR is a failure, and I have failed ... and this reflects badly on me as a DM.
I realize that not everyone is going to have fun ... but if enough do, at least I can remember that there was some success.
It helps to soften the sting of my failures (alienating Darkness and Forrester, certainly count as failures, and I never did see Maudlin again ... and Maudlin, was a good person.)
Anyways, I am back.
Now, you will ask, will I run the 4th IR?
After all, it was in progress when I was booted offline.
Let me explain what it entails, to run an IR:
It entails spending 3 to 4 hours per day, every day, to do it.
It entails spending vast amounts of energy (one does NOT just sit and type ... it takes more than that to make for an IR!)
It entails trying very hard to please people, when pleasing one person WILL offend another person, and yet ... somehow pleasing both at once.
I just do not know if I am up to it.
I am considering the matter still.
(This, of course, assumes anyone is still interested.)
I think I'm going to go up to the House Rules section, and type in a whole bunch of wierd spells I have been dreaming up.
I think some wild and strange spells are in order. This D&D game of Hasbro/WOTC is getting too orderly for my tastes.
But gods, it is nice to see all of you again.
- - -
Let me disgress, and comment on something.
It is off-topic, so I am hijacking my own thread (LOL ... I just started it!) but it does show how things are more complicated than they might appear.
You know that Edena character of mine? You know, the Super King of All Munchkins who is 161st level?
Yeah, that's the one. (chuckles - you should have seen what happened on Nutkinland, a while back, when I brought him up.)
A VERY long time ago, back when I was still roleplaying at the WOTC chatsite, there was another player there, and this player played a character called Lumin the Redeemer.
Now, Lumin wasn't a very nice character, but he was a creative character ... that is to say, he was a memorable character.
Lumin was EVIL, and proud of it. He believed all non-humans were to be killed or enslaved, all mages were to be killed (molten silver in the ear), all magic to be stamped out, and the Redeemers would conquer the Multiverse.
Of course, my character Edena hated Lumin In Character, and the two actually battled (I played Edena at 7th level, Lumin won easily, and turned Edena into so much charred powder on the ground.)
Problem is, although I respected Lumin and his player, and thought the conception neat (if rather nasty and needing of a quick IC extermination!) his player did not think very much of Edena or of his player ... that being me.
After all, I was the super-munchkin who had the 161st level character! And just how could anyone take such a guy seriously? Much less play a game with this person?
It's sorta a pity. For if we had had mutual respect, I and Lumin's player could have set up a great good versus evil scenario. Something to spice up the chatsite. Something that would give people things to do, more to roleplay, and to otherwise have more fun.
Or, at least, that's my take.
But I digress.
When 3rd Edition came out, Lumin's player asked me privately: And just what will Edena's level be now, in 3rd Edition? 1,000,000th?
For you see, at that time we were all looking at what appeared to be the relatively low experience required to level in 3rd edition, and comparing that with the astronomical amounts of experience required to level in 2nd edition.
And yeah, had I translated Edena via experience points, then he'd be a millionth level, and then some.
Do you know I never translated Edena into 3rd Edition?
I am not sure if it is possible, even theoretically, to translate the character, and most certainly I have not tried.
Care to know why?
(If you have read this far in this article, you KNOW it is me returned. Only I would write an article THIS long on the ENBoard!
So read on!)In 1983, when Edena went from 3rd level to 9th level in the epic campaign we called Demonbane, certain realities (in the Real World) existed.
One of these was that Edena, was absolutely unnecessary in the adventure.
After all, while Edena was still 5th level, the party leader was 9th.
And who needs a 5th level cleric, when there is one in the party with a scroll of SIXTY FIVE HEAL spells?
Back at that time, Edena was limited by the rules for 1st edition (they had not invented 2nd edition quite yet) clerics.
Clerics were limited to blunt weapons. To one attack per round (10 rounds in 3E.) To a standard BAB. To set Saves. To set spells.
There were no Prestige Classes into which a cleric could specialize. Humans could not multiclass (they most certainly could not CHOOSE which class to put experience points into!) There were no Feats.
Everything was a cut and dried template, such as exists today in Hackmaster, for the cleric (although I would daresay Hackmaster is the old D&D game on an adrenaline charge.)
But what if 3E had existed then? What then?
Well, it is likely that Edena, being a stubborn cuss and a devoted cleric, would have specialized in his own class - that is, he would have taken a Prestige Class based on the cleric class.
Probably by 3rd level, Edena would not have been a cleric at all, but a cleric/prestige class of some sort.
By 9th level, I'm sure he would have had 2 prestige classes. He was ever the inquisitive type - he would have reached out for knowledge and understanding within his own class.
By 20th level, Edena would have had 3 or 4 prestige classes (low level in all of them.)
He would have hardly resembled the 20th level straight cleric I ultimately got in 1985 (2 years after Demonbane.)
Upon gaining Epic Levels, he would have gone on specializing in his specialty - that is, his cleric class.
Ultimately, he would have specialized in his specialized classes, heaping specialization upon specialization, stacking Feats and combining them with Prestige Classes (in a combination of Min/Maxing and roleplaying fun.)
Heaven knows where he'd be now. He would NOT be running around in armor wielding a mace! He would not be threatening to shoot someone with the old cleric standby, the Sling! And I doubt he'd be relying on having a whole lot of Harm spells to touch enemies with (Harm being the one clerical spell that actually kicked butt, as it were.)
The 121st level Edena, could not exist in 3rd Edition (Most would argue (chuckles) that he could not exist at all, but that is another matter.)
The 121st level Edena, still had ONE attack per round. Limited to blunt weapons or the Sling only.
The 121st level Edena, still had the saving throws of the 19th level Edena, and the BAB (THAC0, that is) of the 19th level Edena.
He had a lot of hit points (but not in 3E terms), and he had a lot of spells.
And, he could not even begun to imagine what he could have been, in 3E, assuming he knew such an alternate reality existed.
In 3E, with 121 levels to play with, using Prestige Classes to specialize within my specialization, within my specialization, within my specialization, WITHIN my specialization, combined with having every Feat in the book, I could create a character that would level Edena, 121 levels and all, into subatomic particles in 1 round. Body, mind, and soul.
He wouldn't even know what hit him.
But again, I disgress ...
To do it RIGHT, I must go back and REMEMBER how I, the PLAYER, was thinking, back in 1983.
Was I frustrated that day, so I might consider something new and different? Was I feeling happy with the world, desiring no change? Did I envy the cleric with the 65 Heals, or was that No Problem?
What events occurred, specifically, that would have caused specialization into a Prestige Class?
What events occurred, that would have caused Feats of a specific type to be taken?
In other words, I would have to go back and examine the entire 20 year history of the character, and also my own behavior and feelings through that time, in order to decide what Edena did.
Of course, this assumes I have read EVERY official WOTC supplement and nearly every d20 supplement, so that I know what all the choices are.
Back then, I had access to all the core and auxillary supplements (chuckles ... Unearthed Arcana was our auxillary supplement ...), whether because I owned them or I could borrow them from others ... so why not now?
The small matter that having them all now is impossible because I do not have THOUSANDS of dollars to spend to get them, notwithstanding!
And, of course, I'd have to do a minor thing called Breaking the Rules.
For you see, I had a DM in all of those games, and he or she dictated what I could or could not do - in those games in particular - with the character.
And now I presume to rewrite the character history, based only on my own wants and desires, without the necessity of compromising with DMs?
I can just rewrite history anyway I please, and call it official, without any DM arbitrating the matter?
To quote Drizzt Do'Urden, I think not. The game has no meaning if there are no rules. Without meaning, there is not fun to be had.
So, to summarize, to translate Edena to 3E I must:
Remember and reflect on 20 years of play IRL, then decide how that would have affected decision-making based on a different game, and:
Remember and reflect on 20 years of play IC, then decide how that would have affected the character's decisions based on a different reality, and:
I must have read and memorized every official supplement ever published, plus most of the auxillary d20 supplements, and:
I must have a DM approve of EACH AND EVERY CHANGE MADE to the character, preferably the DM who DMed the old games in the first place (honestly, to be in the spirit of the game, that is what would be needed!)
And when it's all said and done, I will have a 3E Edena of 161st level.
Of course, he'll be able to do things that the ACTUAL 2E Edena could not even imagine doing ... so in the end, I have not really translated Edena at all, but created a whole new character (nevermind that upping a character's power level without earning it is patently unreasonable, even if a DM agrees to allow it, but that's just me.)
Heh. That's why you'll never see a 3E Edena.
Methinks I could get a NEW character up to 161st level, far more easily than I could translate the old one!
It took 20 years to create the old character ... it probably would take 20 years to translate him: after 3 years of 3E, I still have not started the job!
And yet Lumin's player (remember him, from about a mile up in this article?) thought I would do a simple experience point transfer.
LOL.
I would ask him a simple question, but he is not here to answer, so it is not fair - but I'll ask anyway: where is the fun in that?
Fun, be it Edena's translation or those wild and silly IRs, can be complicated and difficult to achieve. And THAT'S the point of this whole long article.
Anyways, here I am. Back. I hope this article doesn't crash the ENBoards. May the Powers have mercy if it does!
Edena_of_Neith
