PC-level Aristocrats and Experts

[index]

Nifft wrote:

Well, for one thing, you could link to my web page -- HTML is good at that linking thing I hear.

Sorry, but I've seen too much link-rot over the years. I've even contributed my own link-rot when some ISP or webhost or another becomes unreliable. (In fact, I've avoided putting my website up at yet another location until I get my own domain name.)

However, I've added an OGC-box to that page, so you should be good to go.

-- N

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are truly a gentleman.

(BTW, do you teach Organic Chemistry, or is Dr. Fishman someone else?)

--index

 

[index]

It's amusing what my spell checker wanted to replace Prestidigitation with...

I wrote:

> > (There's nothing in the Suggestion spell description that says it
> > can't work on a sleeping person, so that they won't CONSCIOUSLY
> > remember the suggestion. Suggestion : "Master Duelist Lord
> > Other-Blackmailer has been insulting your honor. You must publicly
> > challenge him to defend your honor." Especially effective if you've
> > previously been using Alter Self to spread rumors.)

Turanil replied:

> Excellent!! I love that!

Thank you.

> A player who would do that in my campaign would automatically succeed
> the intended result (with maybe some unexpected side effect), and
> would get an important XP bonus!

Perhaps the winner of the duel is injured and laid up for a
few days? Vrecknidj only mentioned arcane spellcasting as
being outlawed, so I assume the winner of the duel could
'make a donation to the church'.

The Suggestion spell has guidelines for modifiers for
'reasonable' suggestions. With prior disguised
rumor-mongering, I'd allow the above to automatically
influence the victim's belief, but if they made their save
even at a -2 circumstance penalty, I might say they decided
their life is more important than their honor. Regardless,
with prior legwork, I'd allow such a suggestion to cause
problems for the victim whether or not the save was made.

I wouldn't CONSISTENTLY allow such problems even with a made
save, though, because then why wouldn't everybody do it?

As far as XP? If an NPC were blackmailing a PC, I'd give
that PC XP for defeating the NPC even for indirect stuff
like setting up a duel they couldn't win -- especially if
the PC made arrangements to prevent the NPC's blackmail
evidence (if any) from falling into the hands of others.

(BTW: When using Alter Self for disguise, ALWAYS back it up
with a non-magical disguise underneath. So what if you
don't have the skill? You just don't want to be identified.
If the spell fails, you don't necessarily care about framing
someone else. Underneath an Alter Self spell, I like to
have a Hollywood-ninja-style bodysuit, and under that a
workman's outfit appropriate for the area. Cut your hair
short, different from your usual look. Alter Self
dispelled? Smoke grenade, run away, run to the supply
closet, yank the door open, tear off and hide the ninja
outfit, grab a mop bucket, spill it a little and fall down
before the pursuit rounds the corner. Point with fear on
your face and an open mouth. If anyone questions you,
stammer too much to say anything useful. Don't overdo the
eye-rolling. Later on, use Prestidigitation to restore your
hair.)

(Oh, and never switch directly from a publicly-used
disguise back to your true self. Always use a brief generic
disguise in between that's not used for anything other than
getting watchers off your tail. A great way to come up with
new disguises is to pick two people at random and combine or
average features of the two. I remember a game where one
player bragged to me about his street urchins following a
troublesome NPC, and seeing him take off his disguise,
revealing one of the other PCs.)

--index

P.S. - It's amusing what my spell checker wanted to replace
Prestidigitation with...

 

[index]

Vrecknidj wrote:

[snip]
> The campaign takes place in a modified real world in England, shortly
> after the Battle of Hastings. ("Modified" roughly means that Rome
> never fully fell, Egypt is a nation of necromancers, and the Black
> Forest really is full of monsters.)

Cool. Why didn't Rome fall? Did emperor Valens treat the
Goths properly instead of humiliating them? Or did Alaric
die in battle before he could lead the sack of Rome? Did
Alaric live longer, give up on intimidating Rome into
treating the Goths with honor, and conquer Rome? Did
one of the strong Eastern Roman emperors effectively deal
with one of the weak western Roman emperors, reuniting the
empire or at least installing a trusted person as western
Roman emperor so that the Visigoth, Ostrogoths, and Vandals
could not continue dismantling the empire? Perhaps Odovacer
became an ally of Zeno instead of being deposed by Zeno's
general Theoderic?

Egypt as a nation of necromancers... That seems
appropriate. They're not all evil necromancers, are they?
I guess they have not been conquered by the Arabs?

Perhaps the Eastern Roman empire was not conquered by
Muslims either?

> The king, however, isn't supported by all of his lords,

Of course. More room for intrigue that way. I'd be very
suspicious if all the lords supported the king.

> and my character does a good job staying in lands where she can get
> by, or pretending to be someone else when in other lands. She has a
> number of aliases.

[snip]

> 3) Right, detect magic cannot tell the source.
[snip]
> (a cleric gave it to me, honest).

Heh. Just don't get caught with any arcane scrolls.

[snip]

> [...] she happens to have 18s in both Int and Cha, and
> given the rest of her background, she ends up relying on
> the Cha more than the Int

I don't know why people insist that CHA is the least
valuable score. Having a safe place to sleep, being able to
haggle decent trades, recruiting new information sources in
every city... CHA is very nice.

[snip]

Good description of an aristocrat wizard, Dave. If I have
the chance to, may I use your descriptions in a game?
(Properly folded, spindled, and mutilated, of course.) I
already have a name based on what my spellchecker tried to
do to your enworld handle.

--index

 

[Vrecknidj]

Cool. Why didn't Rome fall? Did emperor Valens treat the
Goths properly instead of humiliating them? Or did Alaric
die in battle before he could lead the sack of Rome? Did
Alaric live longer, give up on intimidating Rome into
treating the Goths with honor, and conquer Rome? Did
one of the strong Eastern Roman emperors effectively deal
with one of the weak western Roman emperors, reuniting the
empire or at least installing a trusted person as western
Roman emperor so that the Visigoth, Ostrogoths, and Vandals
could not continue dismantling the empire? Perhaps Odovacer
became an ally of Zeno instead of being deposed by Zeno's
general Theoderic?

The DM has been remarkably quiet on this issue. He has dropped a few morsels though. First, Rome never made it quite as far north as in actuality. This meant a bit less Roman influence on England and even on the Normans. Second, the empire's split into two was healed, as you suggested, and a unified Rome was strong enough to repel the rather constant attacks from both within and without. As far as historical individuals, he's left most of them out. He's included many of the figures of Western Civilization up to about Augustine, but he must have decided on something important having happened around the 6th or 7th century, because he doesn't use many references to actual folks after that.

Egypt as a nation of necromancers... That seems
appropriate. They're not all evil necromancers, are they?
I guess they have not been conquered by the Arabs?

Right, they're certainly not all evil (though, of course, enough of them are). Our PCs haven't adventured there; pretty much all the information we have is from the fact that my character has ancestry in that direction. I'm really itching to get a chance to travel south and see what's under all that sand.

Heh. Just don't get caught with any arcane scrolls.

I've come close.

I don't know why people insist that CHA is the least
valuable score. Having a safe place to sleep, being able to
haggle decent trades, recruiting new information sources in
every city... CHA is very nice.

Exactly. Her Diplomacy score is in the 20's somewhere (this DM uses an interesting house rule: once a class skill, always a class skill--so this character has taken a rank of Diplomacy at every level). And, given that she is a Lady, this gives her a lot of room to get favors, etc., while on the road--well, at least when being on the road means staying in cities and not literally on the road (which happens too much for her tastes).

Good description of an aristocrat wizard, Dave. If I have
the chance to, may I use your descriptions in a game?
(Properly folded, spindled, and mutilated, of course.) I
already have a name based on what my spellchecker tried to
do to your enworld handle.

Please do. Her name happens to be Arianna Ravensbridge, but I suppose something rather useful could come from an attempted clarification of "Vrecknidj." That name, by the way, comes from a being in my own campaign. Long, long ago Vrecknidj was a blue dragon who eventually grew fearful of death and so learned the secrets of lichdom. And, eons later, was recruited into demigod status by another deity of undeath. Vrecknidj is now the central deity of undead in my campaign and is also widely worshipped by dragon-cult zealots. ("Vrecknidj" is approximately the sound made when his breath weapon echoed in his caverns while he lived as a blue dragon.)

Dave

Dave

 

[Nifft]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are truly a gentleman.

(BTW, do you teach Organic Chemistry, or is Dr. Fishman someone else?)

You're quite welcome. It's always been my intent to make stuff OGC when it's done -- when it's in a form to which I don't hate seeing my name attached. That Aristocrat seems to be good enough, so you're very welcome to it.

Nope, I'm a programmer, and I don't even play a doctor on TV.

-- N