<< PLANESCAPE >> How do you defeat the Lady of Pain?

[herald]

Die Vecna Die wasn't declared as such officially from on high by TSR/WotC because it wasn't in the PS setting and PS wasn't an active line at that point. It got more than anything else decanonized by being ignored and unused. And then of course Planewalker made parts of it not valid.

The back cover plainly states that the characters to the "Planescape" city of Sigil. That is one of the many ways that "offically" ties it to Planescape.

I don't see how you can make the claim that it got "Decanonized" by being ignored. Much of the the way the plot is done is reflected in the way 3e goes forward. Panthions of whole worlds are shifted, planes are realigned and some done away with. Para-elemental planes....gone. Multiple parallel primes are now fact in 3e. Oearth and Faerun are now on different primes.

It seem that you just don't want the story because it wasn't done by the people you wanted it done by. And that's garbage. The adventure was done very well, with an eye to how 3e was going to be in the future.

 

[herald]

Well it's hard to either directly prove my point or your point by anecdotal evidence. However while you in your game may use it and embrace the module happily, it's my experience that not a person on the Planewalker team feels the same way about it. Ranging from selective dislike for a few points to apathy to loathing of certain aspects. I fall on the former end of the scale.

Sure the group I'm picking my so called statistics from is going to have some sampling error and bias as compared to the whole of gamers as well, many of whom in my experience have never heard of DVD in more than passing. However the group is the one advancing the PS storyline, so take that as you will.

And I specifically did not say "majority" because that sort of blanket assumption tends to be flame bait. I avoided it, you brought the term up now. Nor did I use terms such as "shot to hell" and calling a point invalid while pushing the burden of proof on the other side of the issue. I don't care to get into anything more than a friendly argument here.

But the fact is your invalidating the history of two other game worlds history just because you don't like what it does to your game world.

I remember how I would hear other DMs complain about Planescape because in interfered with there champaigns backstory and I used to think that they were being picky, but I'm begining to see thier point.

I think that the Planewalker site is treading on some dangerous ground when they try to invalidate part of a story line that effects one or more other game worlds, specially since much of Plancescape is now folded into Greyhawk.

 

[herald]

Well, I don't ignore it and I use it, so that argument has been shot to hell.

Oh, do you mean the "majority"? Show me clear statistics, and maybe I'll consider it a valid point.

I use it too. I have to admit, I hate the idea of paying for material and then someone else coming along and saying, "Oh, that, that's not offical. It's just not good enough to be used."

"To hell you say, I paid for it, I like it and it's going to be used."

 

[Arnwyn]

However the group is the one advancing the PS storyline, so take that as you will.

And I specifically did not say "majority" because that sort of blanket assumption tends to be flame bait. I avoided it, you brought the term up now. Nor did I use terms such as "shot to hell" and calling a point invalid while pushing the burden of proof on the other side of the issue. I don't care to get into anything more than a friendly argument here.

Good enough for me. I now see that when you said "ignored and unused", you were referring to the Planewalker people. That bit of clarification helped.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

And there's still the question of "3E canon", as it were... Does MotP or DDg at all indicate that "things were different and now it's this", or do they present as, "this is how it is, as it has always been, and will forever be"?

This is important because if the planes are now "as they have always been", then an event that supposedly changed the planes to their current state becomes a non-sequitor event: The planes never changed, so how could it have changed the planes?

This is akin to the change of the dwarven race in FR: Previously, they were presented as rough and gruff because they were a dying race (low female birth rate), while in 3E an event is added to the history of the Realms (Day of Thunder, IIRC) that makes them a now-thriving race (making all those rough and gruff dwarves rough and gruff for no reason because game play happened after the event prior to the event being added to the mythos).

I guess the issue to me isn't so much canon vs non-canon, but rather that these changes present near-paradox conditions that can only be avoided by pretending some parts are true and others aren't. This makes it hard to accept it as canon because each element of the event becomes seperate from the event itself by virtue of retaining or loosing relevance within the new mythos presented for the individual settings. (In this case, parts of the event are meaningless in Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms because the "new history" renders it moot, while other settings like Planescape and SpellJammer must either ignore [different] parts of the event or loose some of their hallmark features.)

 

[Shemeska]

Good enough for me. I now see that when you said "ignored and unused", you were referring to the Planewalker people. That bit of clarification helped.

*nodding* I should have been more clear and less dogmatic in a couple of my posts, sorry for the confusion there.

 

[Whitey]

Back to what the original poster was asking for. They wanted to know how to defeat the 'lady' as such a question was raised on another thread. It can be done. Much like overcoming any other walking handwipe, something that Always Wins Forever, just find something else that Always Wins Forever and set it in opposition. Whitey proposed some of these earlier - here's another batch.

Get a whole pile of ether scarabs (from MM2) and alarm or destroy enough of them that they open a planar rift big enough to encompass Her Royal Pincushion, or the whole of Sigil, and dump that on another plane, where some other deific figure gets to make up rules and Always Wins Forever. Since it's a rip, specifically not a gate, it's unlikely this effect could be just waved away.
Have an earth elemental weird (also MM2) to predict her demise.
'A weird can divine information that can change the very course of history. It has its finger on the pulse of fate and knows exactly where possible courses of action might lead. <snip> A weird's warning and advice are never wrong.' It's never wrong. It Always Wins Forever, too.
And the best one - or the one best applicable to an actual game. Say a chipper adventurer shows up, and just isn't grovelling like he/she should. As the lady starts that whole maze/flay/0wnz0r bit, our intrepid hero/heroine smiles and says "Don't think so, pumpkin." Turns out they'd earlier drawn the Fates from a deck of many things. There's no trump to that card. From the SRD:

This card enables the character to avoid even an instantaneous occurrence if so desired, for the fabric of reality is unraveled and respun.

Fate itself is on the bearer's side. This adventurer's done what even the gods could not. With that the lady is overthrown, or at least the original poster's goal is accomplished, and there was much wailing and gnashing from the fanboys. Sure, the adventurer might not Always Win Forever, but to have the setting and its 'canon' serve the interests of the gaming group and not vice versa, there's always a way.

 

[Shemeska]

Get a whole pile of ether scarabs (from MM2) and alarm or destroy enough of them that they open a planar rift big enough to encompass Her Royal Pincushion, or the whole of Sigil, and dump that on another plane, where some other deific figure gets to make up rules and Always Wins Forever. Since it's a rip, specifically not a gate, it's unlikely this effect could be just waved away.
Have an earth elemental weird (also MM2) to predict her demise.
'A weird can divine information that can change the very course of history. It has its finger on the pulse of fate and knows exactly where possible courses of action might lead. <snip> A weird's warning and advice are never wrong.' It's never wrong. It Always Wins Forever, too.
And the best one - or the one best applicable to an actual game. Say a chipper adventurer shows up, and just isn't grovelling like he/she should. As the lady starts that whole maze/flay/0wnz0r bit, our intrepid hero/heroine smiles and says "Don't think so, pumpkin." Turns out they'd earlier drawn the Fates from a deck of many things. There's no trump to that card.

Well, back to the argument between a plot device and people who think that a big enough sword and enough dice and rules picking will defeat anything at all becuase they must be able to even if its gods or overpowers, etc.

First of all, the Ether scarab idea won't won't. The Planar Rip ability refers to the Ethereal when it says a rip between "it's plane" and another. Sigil doesn't overlap the ethereal plane, and even an astral rift (since Sigil overlaps the Astral) won't really work because you still won't leave the city, just be potentially dumped into the sequestered region of the Astral the city does overlap, you can't enter or leave the city to the astral at large still except by way of a portal in the city.

The Earth Wierd is an amusing idea, but it only says they can predict when something can die, they don't actually cause the person's death or make fate twist to have a person die at a specific place and time. What if they Earthwierd refuses to answer the question, or cannot answer it, or begins to scream in horror when they begin to ponder the question, the answer (or lack of it) driving them insane or killing them? I would certainly think that deities would be able to hide their own fate from the knowledge of a simple elemental being. If your own worshippers asked an earth wierd when you would die, and got an answer that screws you over with your base of worshippers. They know you're not immortal for all time, and will one day die. Why then do they, or anyone worship you and not another deity?

As far as the fate card, would you want to allow that to actually function in such a way? Ie. would you let them walk up to a deity after that card pick and fight them bare handed and win because the card somehow trumps divinity?) The Lady is certainly capable of blunting entry to Sigil with something like that, or an artifact that would damage Sigil for instance. The artifact or the holder of it, or both, just wouldn't enter the city.

In your own game, fine if that's your way of playing, sure. But it's not supported by any 'canon' ways to defeat The Lady, which was the original question for this thread as you yourself mentioned.

I'll ignore the use of the word banboy, it's offensive and uncalled for. That doesn't win you any arguments.

 

[Zappo]

Ether scarabs won't do a thing to Sigil, because the city doesn't border the Ethereal.
I think the Fates card could allow a character to resist the attack. Once, of course. He's toast the following round. That's what the card does, it doesn't allow you to win any fight.
The weird predicts future, doesn't create it. If asked, he could only answer "never".

You see, it's not a matter of being fanboys. There is no way to kill the Lady. This is explicitly stated multiple times throughout the Planescape material. You may not like it, but that doesn't change it. In order to kill her, you have to break canon, which is all well and good but not what the original poster asked for.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Has it ever been decided if the Lady is all powerful only while she is in Sigil or would she be all powerful if she ever left Sigil. The reason I was asking is because you could put a bag of holding inside of a portable hole (or whichever way it is supposed to go) to open an astral rift to suck her and everything else around the rip into the astral plane. If she is still all powerful then no big deal for her. If not then she'd be in a world of hurt if some of the more powerful entities on the Astral were to get wind of her presence.