JollyDoc's Age of Worms (Updated 11/30, Epilogue!)

[Quartz]

Sheer brilliance!

 

[JollyDoc]

Sweet! I really like the epilogue and the summaries of Faust, Giovanni, and in particular Hawk. Great job pulling everything together.

A quick question, though, as I'm not very familiar with Realms mythology. Who is Jergal, and who are the three deities who become the Ebon Triad?

Jergal was the original god of Death, but became 'bored' with his lot, and so divided his portfolio among Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul. Bhaal and Myrkul were destroyed during the Times of Troubles, when Ao the Overgod forced all the gods to walk Toril in mortal form. Jergal's ultimate plan was to usurp Ao, but he could make any overt plans. So instead, he seeded his plan in the first Kyuss worm, gave it to the Harbinger, then promptly erased his own memory. Over time, the Kyuss worm procreated, and thus Jergal's plans were fragmented millions of times, waiting to come to fruition with the ascension of Kyuss. Jergal would then step in again and claim ultimate power. In our situation, a new Ebon Triad, Bane, Cyric and Kelemvor, decided not to let that happen, lest they be eliminated with the rise of Jergal, so they killed Kyuss before Jergal could reclaim his power. Nonetheless, Jergal has still become the most powerful deity of Toril, second only to Ao, and now the Ebon Triad serve him.

 

[JollyDoc]

Once again I want to thank all of our readers for you continued support and devotion to our little stories. Your appreciation and input are what make these a labors of love. It's almost as if instead of a group of 8, we are actually a group of thousands. I hope you enjoy watching our game world evolve as much as we do, with the characters from previous campaigns going on to assume roles in the new ones. You will note already the darker tone of Savage Tide. I hope to weave in the events that have changed in Faerun, and how they have affected the population of the Realms.

I also want to again thank my players. I'm just the narrator. They are the talent, and the muses for my imagination. It's been almost ten years that I've gamed with this group, in all its incarnations, and I look forward to many, many more years ahead. Thanks guys!

 

[Cosmic.Justice]

Well, when I say caster, I include Pisons, as they simply use a different mechanic to achieve basically the same effect. Havok may have been a Warlock, but it seems a great deal of his power came from intelligent usage of pure caster items, such as scrolls of Timestop. The reason I am asking is I'm attempting to design a long term campaign that is equally accessible to all classes, especially after watching and reading about campaigns like this one, which seem to have been a great time for all.

However, the more I examine the system and the classes, the more it seems to me that the Fighter type classes just take a background role to the casters. They are completely nullified in the out of combat roles, it seems, due to the abundance of versatility spells available to the casters at higher levels, and doubly reliant on them to achieve even close to their level of power in combat, from buffs. It seems to me that the caster classes will vastly out perform the non caster classes starting at 13th level due to this, and that includes in combat as well.

In addition I have yet to see a Rogue, in specific, be of great or significant use in the late stages of the game, since his out of combat abilities are completely dwarfed by spells that serve the same effect, and his in combat role is markedly limited. Would you say the Rogue class can be a powerhouse or effective character in the late game when compared to casters?

Setting up a full attack seems to be much more difficult than setting up an advantageous or powerful display of caster abilities, and in addition the casters actually seem to also have a higher chance of survival in lethal combats due to escape abilities/spells, and the fact they can avoid benig the main target with intelligent tactical positioning.

I was just wondering what you and your players experiences have been, as you seem to have a great deal of knowledge and hands on information about how the classes work out at high level.

In any case, again a great story, and I am very interested in seeing what the Ebon Triad working under the machinations of Jergal will accomplish. By the way, I had a question about them based on a comment made by a character in the epilogue. Have the deities of the Ebon Triad been stripped of their personal intellect and personality, and completely subsumed by Jergal, or are they merely forced to serve under him due to the vast powers at his command?

 

[war wizard]

To quote the evil overlord of the Springfield Nuclear power plant.

“Excellent!”

Joe once again good work on the SH, G man the epilogue was great.

Keep up the good work.

 

[JollyDoc]

By the way, I had a question about them based on a comment made by a character in the epilogue. Have the deities of the Ebon Triad been stripped of their personal intellect and personality, and completely subsumed by Jergal, or are they merely forced to serve under him due to the vast powers at his command?

I'll let the players address your other questions, since they are the true power gamers. The new Ebon Triad are still unique individuals, but they are now totally subservient to Jergal. This will set up many interesting situations, since Jergal is not, strictly speaking, evil, and neither is Kelemvor.

 

[JollyDoc]

To quote the evil overlord of the Springfield Nuclear power plant.

“Excellent!”

Joe once again good work on the SH, G man the epilogue was great.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks Ed! There's still a seat saved for you at the table!

 

[gfunk]

Thanks for the kudos, everyone. The epilogue was truly a labor of love and I very much enjoyed writing it.

I was just wondering what you and your players experiences have been, as you seem to have a great deal of knowledge and hands on information about how the classes work out at high level.

Your analysis is spot on I believe. Fighter-types tend to be ascendant at low levels and Caster-types at high-levels. I particularly liked your break-down of the full-attack routine vs. a 9th level spell. Hawk, in particular, was an extremely well-designed fighter type that had great buffs for the party in addition to good attack rolls. However, the damage he could do (and to a single opponent) paled compared to the casters in the party.

In 3.5, the problem was exacerbated. With the advent of many spells that have SR: No, casters can now affect creatures (like golems) that they used to need fighters to protect them against.

I'm not quite sure about your analysis of skill monkeys like Rogues. Sneak attack is fairly worthelss at high levels (two-weapon fighting Rogue builds at high levels are suicide), but I think high social/searching skills are useful. We definitely didn't play this way, but I think RP-friendly modules like Prince of Redhand and Dawn of a New Age could've have played out rather differently if we had a Bard or social Rogue in the party.

However, with all the feats (esp. the anti-caster feats) and splatbooks available for fighter-types now I think they are not as worthless as high levels if properly designed. I would've liked to experiment with Ferox, but obviously I didn't get very far.

 

[Joachim]

Your analysis is spot on I believe. Fighter-types tend to be ascendant at low levels and Caster-types at high-levels. I particularly liked your break-down of the full-attack routine vs. a 9th level spell. Hawk, in particular, was an extremely well-designed fighter type that had great buffs for the party in addition to good attack rolls. However, the damage he could do (and to a single opponent) paled compared to the casters in the party.

This is the reason that a lot of the most recent books have had a lot of tweaks to the melee-based classes. Many of the feats in the PHBII give high-level fixes for fighters, and the Book of Nine Swords has got so much crunch in it that it's the powergamer's dream book.

Having said that, I don't think that the League would have been nearly as successful without Hawk there, and too often people tend to obsess on 'how much damage I can do in a round'. Hawk was the front line, and allowed the psion and warlock to do their thing in the back. On a good round, he could do 100 pts of damage by expending a minimal percentage of his resources. His armor class was in the mid-50's. He gave everyone a +11 to initiative. He had over 200 hps.

But, Hawk was optimally built and used 4 different classes. Grubber, Havok, Faust, and Mak were able to be major contributers and went through the whole module with only 1 class.

 

[R-Hero]

Indeed, one of the most feared noises an invader could hear was an elephantine blast. This always heralded a legion of fanatical paladins and templars led by Vertias himself, mounted atop his ever faithful mount Alice. Let the Ebon Triad beware.

Love it! Love IT! LOVE IT!!
Beats Ike's epilouge by a country mile...

Having said that, I don't think that the League would have been nearly as successful without Hawk there...

(Blushing Profusly) Thanks!
What can I say, Its been a fun ride with my best character build to date!

Still....I would have like to seen Capt. Holocaust in action.