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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zurai" data-source="post: 3959941" data-attributes="member: 52324">I've read WotC's articles and I fail to see anything in them that does not support the Points of Light concept as I describe. I do see things in them that do not support PoL as described by detractors in this thread - namely what I have been talking about so far.Plot is the DM's best friend. It's much more likely, plausible, and sensible for there to be a new orc warlord that's uniting the clans into an army in a PoL world as I describe (and from there have increasing attacks on settlements, maybe one or two towns completely destroyed, and the PCs repel an attack on their own town, leading to an adventure to kill the warlord - as an example), than it is to suppose that every town has access to iron, flux, copious quantities of food, trained men-at-arms, leaders capable of organizing staunch resistance... and yet the roads are still utterly impassible because the wilderness is ultra-dangerous, as Irda Ranger describes.Since full plate is outside the price range of any small settlement even in 3rd edition, I don't see how your argument carries much weight in that regard. Full Plate is indeed specialized gear. Boiled leather, with maybe some metal or bone studs, is doable anywhere, though. Any village blacksmith can make ring mail or probably even something equivalent to half plate, given enough time and materials. You don't need much trade to support boiled leather armor, nor lighter metal armor. A sparse overall population density doesn't prevent there being points of light (or darkness, for that matter) that are stronger than others. Even WotC's articles have presented that there might be "kings" with castles and professional soldiers that patrol sections of the land - but they only "rule" as far as their soldiers patrol, meaning as far as normal everyday people feel safe to travel. In such a place, trade would be more frequent and specialty goods such as full plate armor would be possible. Those places are rare, though. Similarly, there are indeed areas where the darkness is an active threat - say, near a Dragon's lair. Again, though, those places are rare. Overall, though, both light and active threats to the light are sparse.Another thing that occurs to me is another common mistake (which I've mentioned on ENWorld in another thread):Points of Light is not a campaign setting. I repeat, it is not a campaign setting. By its very nature, you cannot have a "Points of Light campaign book". Points of Light is a campaign framework. It's designed such that there are no pre-set connections between anything presented in the rules. You can have the town of Thorn Hollow be in the middle of the Noonshadow Forest and beset by hordes of goblins and other dark fey creatures, and another DM can have the town of Thorn Hollow be on the edge of the Great Dune Sea, far from any other civilized presence and forgotten to time, eking out an existance farming cacti and using scorpion chitin for armor and weapons - and both DMs are correct. Both Thorn Hollows can exist as written wherever they found it, in the environments they find convenient, because there is little information about the surrounding areas in game. Points of Light is the USB of campaign worlds: plug and play.</blockquote>

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