NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9257435" data-attributes="member: 29398">We agree so far......and here, if that in-setting reason is both a) airtight and b) somehow discoverable by the players if they so desire.Otherwise, you're wide open to the question: "If that NPC Dwarf Fighter can have a stat that high, why can't my PC Dwarf Fighter have the same?", to which there really is no acceptable answer.Here I disagree, in that for consistency reasons I think the GM should be constrained by the established parameters of the setting, just like the players are.  And yet this still allows the GM to create a Gollum-like NPC, becasue on examination that NPC is a) fully explainable within the setting's parameters and b) theoretically replicate-able by a PC if the same steps are followed (i.e. be a Hobbit and possess the One Ring for several centuries).On this we agree, but only if the resultng NPC falls within the roll-able limits for a PC.  You don't need everything every time; you just have to know that if you for some reason suddenly do need something, it'll fall within PC-achievable limits.That's a difference, then: I do see classes as being very real things within the setting.  A Magic-User is a Magic-User, distinctive both in- and out-of-game from an Illusionist or a Thief or a Fighter.  And thus, if that Vampire is a MU it's going to have a spellbook somewhere*, and the spells it casts are going to work the same as if a PC was casting them.  But a lich, for example, who has some spell-like abilities that aren't spells, doesn't need to use the MU mechanics for such.  The same is true of a Vampire's innate charming ability; it's not a spell, therefore doesn't need to follow the spellcasting mechanics.* - a creative way of preventing the PCs from taking home a Vampire's spellbook: instead of being written on paper, the spells be carved into the inside of his coffin and-or into the walls of the chamber said coffin is in.  Yes, I can be a nasty DM sometimes. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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