D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Maxperson]

There's nothing unbelievable about escaping from jail. There's also no reason to believe that a corrupted official would automatically murder a witness. That's unbelievable--to assume that all corrupted officials would act in that exact same way.

No. It's neither unbelievable that a corrupt official would murder a witness OR unbelievable that he would not, because eyes are on the witness too closely or some other plausible reason. It would depend on how powerful the official was, how powerful his opponents were, and so on. None of which is in the background, so it can believably go either way.

As DM, I would go with the background the player wrote, because there's nothing unbelievable about him escaping. I'm going to be presenting the player/PC with challenges enough during game play. I don't need to start with the background.

 

[Faolyn]

Again, there are very plausible ways for it to happen. In a small town it's plausible for the prisoner's hands to be bound by rope as he is being led to execution, and plausible for him to escape those bonds, run and after a long chase escape. Prisoners escape from modern jails every year here in the U.S. It's also plausible for an enemy of the corrupted official to arrange an escape. It's plausible for a monster attack to break a portion of the jail wall, allowing the prisoner to escape in the confusion. There are many plausible ways for that background to happen that don't break verisimilitude and believability.

Other plausible reasons:

The corrupted official didn't want to risk killing the PC because it would draw too much attention somehow. Maybe the PC has connections that would investigate a death or mysterious disappearance, or maybe the official has killed a lot of people already and his superiors are getting suspicious.

The corrupted official thought the PC wasn't worth killing. There's no honor in it; the PC's just a kid; there's too much of a risk of the individual becoming undead; it would take too much time, labor, or paperwork to deal with the body. Or the official might be strongly against killing in general, but has no problem taking bribes under the pretext of fines, fees, or bail. Not every evil person is a killer, and not every killer kills indiscriminately.

That the corrupted official had a deal with someone to hand over prisoners alive for nefarious reasons, like to slavers, mages who perform human experiments, or priests who engage in human sacrifice.

And this sentence: It's also plausible for an enemy of the corrupted official to arrange an escape. For that matter, the corrupted official himself could allow the escape (those cell bars were just loose enough on purpose) because he's evil enough to enjoy hunting the PC down, or because he thinks that freeing the PC could further his own goals in some manner. That's a reason for the DM to decide, though.

 

[Maxperson]

Other plausible reasons:

The corrupted official didn't want to risk killing the PC because it would draw too much attention somehow. Maybe the PC has connections that would investigate a death or mysterious disappearance, or maybe the official has killed a lot of people already and his superiors are getting suspicious.

The corrupted official thought the PC wasn't worth killing. There's no honor in it; the PC's just a kid; there's too much of a risk of the individual becoming undead; it would take too much time, labor, or paperwork to deal with the body. Or the official might be strongly against killing in general, but has no problem taking bribes under the pretext of fines, fees, or bail. Not every evil person is a killer, and not every killer kills indiscriminately.

That the corrupted official had a deal with someone to hand over prisoners alive for nefarious reasons, like to slavers, mages who perform human experiments, or priests who engage in human sacrifice.

And this sentence: It's also plausible for an enemy of the corrupted official to arrange an escape. For that matter, the corrupted official himself could allow the escape (those cell bars were just loose enough on purpose) because he's evil enough to enjoy hunting the PC down, or because he thinks that freeing the PC could further his own goals in some manner. That's a reason for the DM to decide, though.

Or just so he can kill the PC. A murder in a jail cell is public and will bring many probably unwanted questions and investigations. That assassin that's coming for the PC in session 5, though...

 

[Chaosmancer]

Listen. I'm not arguing with him. I'm talking to you and agreeing with you.

Because I'm agreeing with you that with very few exceptions, you'd be able to escape. Those very rare exceptions? When that small town just happens to have a retired powerful wizard who grew up there or something. It happens, but not often enough to really worry about.

You really can't help yourself can you? You have to argue with people, even if they are agreeing with you.

Maybe start a post off with something like "I agree with you" instead of "well, actually"ing me

 

[Faolyn]

No. It's neither unbelievable that a corrupt official would murder a witness OR unbelievable that he would not, because eyes are on the witness too closely or some other plausible reason. It would depend on how powerful the official was, how powerful his opponents were, and so on. None of which is in the background, so it can believably go either way.

As DM, I would go with the background the player wrote, because there's nothing unbelievable about him escaping. I'm going to be presenting the player/PC with challenges enough during game play. I don't need to start with the background.

I said it's unbelievable to assume that they would automatically kill a witness. Helldritch seems to assume that all corrupt officials would immediately kill a witness (and then would likely cut out the corpse's tongue so that speak with dead couldn't be cast on it). The unbelievable part is that all corrupt officials would behave in this exact same manner and that none would ever do anything different.

It's perfectly sensible that some corrupt officials would murder a witness, and that some wouldn't, and there's a lot of reasons that would support either possibility--and lots of was a PC could escape from either of them.

Of course, there's another possibility, in that the corrupt official is only corrupt in the eyes of people who don't know him, and he's actually good. He has to beat up or imprison the PC because the boss is watching (and if he didn't, he'd be fired or killed and someone who is actually evil would take his place), but he arranges events so that people he believes are innocent can escape, or he goes out of his way to find (or "find") evidence that allows the innocent person to be freed. And the PC doesn't have to know any of this. The PC escaped from prison; it's up to the DM to figure out what really happened, if they want to.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Well, that is what the designers did. There's no thought given to world building, just made up cost that sound right for PCs to pay without any regard to how that would work on an NPC economy.

Or, just maybe, they put in a system and expected it to work for everyone.

Cause, you know, that Noble Estate that costs 10 gold per day to run in the DMG? Not the PHB where player's would immediately see it? That matches up exactly to the 10 gold per day to live an aristocratic lifestyle.

Or, you could look at how an unskilled laborer makes 2 silver per day, something that never actually applies to PCs, because they are skilled labor. And how much is a daily poor life style? 2 silver per day.


It isn't a perfect model, but just blatantly ignoring it and saying we can't know the prices NPCs pay for things because everything is geared to players, who can be nobles, clergymen, merchants or just poor commoners.... is frankly absurd.

 

[Maxperson]

Maybe start a post off with something like "I agree with you" instead of "well, actually"ing me

"Except for very rare exceptions, small villages probably won't even have locks that are that good. You don't need much more for the town drunk or some locals who got into a fight."

There's my post right above. Show me the "well actually."

I'm very clearly saying that except for very rare exceptions(which do exist), a small village probably won't even have good locks, let alone spells on the cells.

 

[Maxperson]

Or, just maybe, they put in a system and expected it to work for everyone.

Cause, you know, that Noble Estate that costs 10 gold per day to run in the DMG? Not the PHB where player's would immediately see it? That matches up exactly to the 10 gold per day to live an aristocratic lifestyle.

Or, you could look at how an unskilled laborer makes 2 silver per day, something that never actually applies to PCs, because they are skilled labor. And how much is a daily poor life style? 2 silver per day.


It isn't a perfect model, but just blatantly ignoring it and saying we can't know the prices NPCs pay for things because everything is geared to players, who can be nobles, clergymen, merchants or just poor commoners.... is frankly absurd.

The PHB lifestyle expenses are for PCs, not NPCs. An NPC will have their house and garden to defray expenses. If an adventurer wants to live a certain lifestyle, it's going to cost more, because they are going to be paying for inns, food prepared by chefs, maintaining your arms and armor, etc. which vastly increase expenses. A 2sp a day unskilled NPC is probably living a poor to modest(depending on money management skills) lifestyle.

That DMG cost you quoted for adventurers is in addition to any PHB costs by the way. Under Recurring Expenses in the DMG.

"Besides the expenses associated with maintaining a particular lifestyle, adventurers might have additional drains on their adventuring income.
Player characters who come into possession of property, own businesses, and employ hirelings must cover the expenses that accompany these ventures."

 

[Chaosmancer]

And yet, you would have to adjust the whole economy this way. They do say that the average peasant ever see a gold piece. How do they live? How do they pay their beer at the inn? How since they never see a gold piece? There are two economies in the D&D universe whether you like it or not.

By the beer costing 4 copper a mug, and the daily costs of being poor being 2 silvers, exactly what they make for unskilled labor.

Hey, maybe they do save up one thousand copper pieces or have one hundred silver... but that doesn't mean they see a gold piece, and since they are looking at daily operating costs around single digit silver.

Nope. Just doing the same thing as you do. I am using real examples but for you they do not align with your tastes so you decided that these numbers a bunk.

You are making up numbers because you didn't like the real numbers.

Power engineer here. So this is exactly my line of work. That some material will boils at room temperature are inconsequential. They will not be used to make prison walls. To have stone to explode or be seriously damaged you need both extreme heat followed by extreme cold or the reverse. Unless you take into account that ice can destroy stone, you would need water to be present already.

Water which might be present.

But, you really aren't thinking about this in terms of physics. Yes, you can guarantee thermal Shock by putting an item that is 200 degres and exposing it to -30 degree temps. That is a difference of 230 degrees... and you could have the same temperature swing going from 80 degrees to -150. Which is ALSO a 230 degree swing.

And considering the cold damage will freeze a person to death in six seconds.... it's probably pretty dang cold.

Also, just as a secondary note again, nothing in the rules says that stone walls are immune to cold damage. At best you could argue resistance, which won't prevent damage from occuring.

And guess what? These events were defined years ago in previous editions. Up to point of calculating the expected income in both cash and services expected to paid and received by various lords. You will notice heavy discount on certain goods depending on which resources a barony/duchy/county might have. The basic principle of commerce. And yes it also means that the PC that becomes the Lord of a barony will have a huge income comming his way. But not all that income will be in hard cash. This is where your lack of knowledge of previous editions shows.

Double Checks book Huh, this says that it is the Player's Handbook for 5th Edition. And it doesn't include a section titled "rules from older editions that you are required to include"

And since this example has been discussing 5th edition the entire time (since previous editions didn't have dedicated backgrounds listed like they are for 5e, and we've been discussing 5e backgrounds) then your barb falls flat. I don't need to know anything about how second edition was run to run 5th edition, and the designers didn't assume you would have 2e books sitting on your shelf.

Again you are wrong. The casting is free because it their way of paying their taxes. That is, service to the crown. Just like any military, the different castings are akin to a solider swinging a sword. He will not charge for each swing. This is an on the job payment. This way of paying people still exist today. Especially in the transport industry.

There is no reason to assume that a wizard who owes 10 gold in taxes would be required to spend 24 hours casting spells and saving the kingdoms 100,000 of gold. I don't care whether or not gold passes hands, they are being taxed on a value, and the wizard's spellcasting has value.

Would a tailor charge for every stitch? No. But if they owe 5 silvers in taxes are they going to fill a wardrobe with dozens of silk shirts worth 10 gold a pop for their taxes? No. Because they don't owe that much, unless you are exploiting their labor. And I'd be careful abut exploiting wizards who are not only intelligent enough to realize it, but powerful enough to object. Strenuously.

Yep. Depending on the amount the pick pocket might be hanged. If you have the Waterdeep legal system, you will see that death is not automatic. Probable, but not automatic. But you discovered a corrupt official. Your chances of going to jail are next to nothing.

Again, there are degrees in various crimes and their sentences. Read the legal system of Waterdeep as a basis.

Weird, I thought we were doing a medieval system of government, not Waterdeep's.

By the way, why is the tiny village of Mudville using the legal system from one of the richest trade cities in the world? And wasn't the setting Greyhawk before, not Faerun?

Strange, I could say the same thing of you. Hey, we're in a world of high magic. Temporal stasis is an excellent way of getting rid of a problem for quite a while.

And would require, at a minimum, a 13th level caster (which I'm sure you'll say is no problem, and every single kingdom has those) and would cost the government 10,500 gold per prisoner... which I'm sure you'll say is free because reasons that ignore 5e's official rules.

At that point the cost is so prohibitive, that frankly, you'll likely just kill them.

It shows that you do not even try. You simply want to argue at this point. As per usual.

I'm not the one trying to say that using 5e's rule for a 5e game is homebrewing, because I should be referencing 2e, and changing the situation every post to refer to new locations and stipulations.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The PHB lifestyle expenses are for PCs, not NPCs. An NPC will have their house and garden to defray expenses. If an adventurer wants to live a certain lifestyle, it's going to cost more, because they are going to be paying for inns, food prepared by chefs, maintaining your arms and armor, etc. which vastly increase expenses. A 2sp a day unskilled NPC is probably living a poor to modest(depending on money management skills) lifestyle.

That DMG cost you quoted for adventurers is in addition to any PHB costs by the way. Under Recurring Expenses in the DMG.

"Besides the expenses associated with maintaining a particular lifestyle, adventurers might have additional drains on their adventuring income.
Player characters who come into possession of property, own businesses, and employ hirelings must cover the expenses that accompany these ventures."

Okay, show me where those Expenses are tied to the fact that they are PCs and not just the cost of those properties? Because that's Heldritch's argument, that the costs are wrong, because NPCs would have different costs than PCs. And that we need to reference older editions of then game to find the "real" cost NPCs would pay.

Or, since you agreed that an unskilled worker is living a poor lifestyle, which is what I said, is this another instance of you agreeing with me?