D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Maxperson]

Also, unlike fires, cold can't catch your fat layer on fire and spread to be worse, or begin eating through your organs.

Right. Extreme instant cold would just burst the cells as the liquid in the cells freezes and expands. Much better.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Right. Extreme instant cold would just burst the cells as the liquid in the cells freezes and expands. Much better.

Yes actually. That cold is still limited in exposed area. If you walk around with a hole in your jacket that subjects your side to extreme cold that damage is going to be mostly limited to the exposed skin.

If you get unlucky with fire that ends up using your fat reserves as a fuel source, it spreads to your entire body.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes actually. That cold is still limited in exposed area. If you walk around with a hole in your jacket that subjects your side to extreme cold that damage is going to be mostly limited to the exposed skin.

If you get unlucky with fire that ends up using your fat reserves as a fuel source, it spreads to your entire body.

I cam into this conversation in the middle and someone mentioned spells, so I figured this was something like a coldball(fireball doing cold damage) doing lots of instantaneous cold damage. If this is simple elemental exposure, it will take a long time(15-30 minutes) to get to that point, but damage will still be done on the cellular level. Frostbite causes cellular damage as it freezes the water in the cells.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I cam into this conversation in the middle and someone mentioned spells, so I figured this was something like a coldball(fireball doing cold damage) doing lots of instantaneous cold damage. If this is simple elemental exposure, it will take a long time(15-30 minutes) to get to that point, but damage will still be done on the cellular level. Frostbite causes cellular damage as it freezes the water in the cells.

The point is that cold spells that can kill you with cold in six seconds are extremely cold, to the point that they are cold enough to also damage stone. Which is in the rules. 8d8 cold damge is enough to freeze a man solid after all.

The counterpoint was that Fire Extinguishers are cold and frostbite can kill a person. Later revealed to be liquid Carbon Dioxide Fire Extinguishers, and it takes the stone being incredibly hot then chilled to shatter and explode it, and that extremely cold temperatures can't damage stone.

As part of this I mentioned that frost burn doesn't seem to kill anyone, which is where the commnet of frost burns still being burns and killing people came in, which as I said, is usually more of an instance of infections and bleeding killing the person, not the burns themselves.

 

[Maxperson]

The point is that cold spells that can kill you with cold in six seconds are extremely cold, to the point that they are cold enough to also damage stone. Which is in the rules. 8d8 cold damge is enough to freeze a man solid after all.

The counterpoint was that Fire Extinguishers are cold and frostbite can kill a person. Later revealed to be liquid Carbon Dioxide Fire Extinguishers, and it takes the stone being incredibly hot then chilled to shatter and explode it, and that extremely cold temperatures can't damage stone.

As part of this I mentioned that frost burn doesn't seem to kill anyone, which is where the commnet of frost burns still being burns and killing people came in, which as I said, is usually more of an instance of infections and bleeding killing the person, not the burns themselves.

I don't know about killing people, but localized frostbite from fire extinguishers can happen within a few seconds, causing the cellular damage I mentioned.

It won't do much to stone, but D&D cold and stone aren't real world cold, so I wouldn't put too much stock in what a cold spell can do to stone in D&D.

A reason to be careful about frostbite injury: carbon dioxide fire extinguisher failure. | Semantic Scholar

Semantic Scholar extracted view of "A reason to be careful about frostbite injury: carbon dioxide fire extinguisher failure." by C. Şahi̇n et al.

www.semanticscholar.org

 

[Voadam]

I just realized I've just undermined my own point a little there because Pazuzu falls into sort of a similar category as Set. I withdraw my argument.

Pazuzu is a bit like Set in that the real world version has a tradition of being invoked against other evils while the fantasy version (D&D) is a different incarnation with a separate tradition and connotations.

 

[Helldritch]

Well, I can't find any evidence that shows frost burns killing people... ever. The closest I can get is the obvious "if your heart starts freezing you'll probably die" but that isn't frost burn. I've also got no idea what you mean by "coolants". Many of those are dangerous because they are toxic, not because they are cold. The ones that are dangerous because they are cold are in the -100's of degree area like I was talking about previously.

Additionally, if you are thinking of gangrene and sepsis caused by necrotic tissue that can be created by a frost burn... that isn't the frost burn killing you, that is the resultant infection killing you weeks later.

Depending on where the coolant or liquid co2 would hit you, death will be fast. That is something akin to make that saving throw.

Can you point me to wear I said "it explodes"? I said it would damage it. There is a difference between "damage" and "exploded" I also said it would especially damage it where the iron or steel bars are in the stone. I would like to remind you that metal heats and cools at different rates than stone.

IF the stone were to be damaged enough to allow easy escape as you claimed, you need large chunks of the stone wall to literally break in one shot. Thus exploding. Not all explosion are big bangs.

One of my links was powder, the other wasn't.

But yeah, talking about a liquid CO2 extinguisher was not anywhere near what I got from your original point.

Again, I am guilty of my experience. I use mainly those. (Well, trained to manoeuver but we never actually have had to use them. Thank god).

Well, there is a difference between submerging in it for a biological being and being sprayed with it.

Additionally, it CAN harm glass, if there is any flaws in it. I would hope that you are aware that scientific professional grade glass instruments are not the same material as the glass you can buy at Walmart. That's why certain glass (like Pyrex) is safe to put in the oven and heat to 300 degrees, and some glass will break if you do that.

Not that most people who are using Glass with Liquid Nitrogen are using scientific tools that are also meant to be utilized over Bunsen Burners. Which can heat the material to hundreds of degrees.

SO it can if you want it, but it can't if it does not fit your goal...

Or Eberron. But wow, that sure is convincing. It is the only setting we have except the four other settings. And "all" adventures take place there...

Hey! In Ebberon it would not be whether the cell would be treated with the spells, but if they would simply be already enchanted in the first place!

Except for Witchlight, or Candlekeep, or Descent into Avernus, or Frostmaiden, or Curse of Strahd, or Ghosts of Saltmarsh or Tomb of Annhilation... huh... that's seven... and aren't there only like 14 adventures that have been released. So, like half of them easily don't have "waterdeep" in mind at all? And I know for a fact that Storm King's Thunder and Rise of Tiamat have you traveling quite extensively. In fact, only two of the adventures actually address Waterdeep as a place you will definitely go. Which is a bit different than "all but two"

Houuuuuuuuu. Read them again. Witchlight starts in the Realm. So does Candlekeep, Descent into Avernus and ToA too. Ghosts of Saltmarsh is set in Greyhawk but if you look carefully, many of the "side" adventures are directly taken from adventures originally set in the Realms if I remember correctly. And if you read again my posts, since we only have the legal code of Waterdeep, if you remove all mentions of the Lords, you get a legal code that is quite acceptable for any places in the realm. Travelling has no bearing on whether or not the adventure is in the realm or not. The legal system can be used.

That would be the Player's Handbook, on page 159. To Quote:

"Hiring someone to cast a relatively common spell of 1st or 2nd level, such as cure wounds or identify, is easy enough in a city or town, and might cost 10 to 50 gold pieces (plus the cost of any expensive material components). Finding someone able and willing to cast a higher-level spell might involve traveling to a large city, perhaps one with a university or prominent temple."

Note how it talks about cities and towns, followed by large cities. Note how a small village is not a town, a city or a large city. Yes, I'm aware that the DM can change anything at any time for any reason, but since I would fully expect as a player that 3rd level magic would be found in large cities, not tiny villages, it would seem like the DM is altering the rules just to play the "gotcha" game.

So, does the DM get to decide? Sure. Do they have any reason other than petty spite to decide that 3rd level magic is now trivially found and utilized in small villages? Not really.

Note the "might". This is not a certainty. And nothing prevents the central authority to actually have a caster travel to said village to renew the spell if needed. If you need to repair your dishwasher, you will call in the repairman. Samething for magic. The mayor/constable/sheriff or whatever will send a letter or messenger for the central authority to send someone to replace the spell that discharged. And since years might pass between discharges it will not be such a drain on the coffers.

EXACTLY! Ding ding ding! He gets it! Now, I'm sure you are about to tell me that this makes me wrong. However, let us not forget your original and actual claim. That the wizard was paying HIS taxes. Not that he was sent to pay some noble's taxes, but that they were his taxes being paid.

Something you finally acknowledged makes no sense.

Wow! You are the champion on how to make wrong conclusions. The wizard can still pay his taxes by working for the noble. Where is the contradiction in that? None.

Now, I'm sure you are going to start pivoting, making this all about a servant wizard being sent by a noble whose taxes he is paying off. Which was not your original example. In fact, originally before it was about taxes, it was that the Sheriff could trivially spend 200 gold to enchant the cell himself.

So, we've moved from "the sheriff is buying a wizard's services to enchant the cells in the tiny village" to -> "The sheriff is benefiting from the wizard paying his taxes in the process of enchanting the cells in the tiny village" to -> "The sheriff is benefiting from a wizard being sent to cover a noble's taxes by enchanting the cells in the tiny village"

The sheriff, constable, or whatever is working for someone. That is evident. Claiming that I have to precise that the sheriff that beat you up is working on funds alone is utter BS. That is the weakest arguement you ever made.

And why are these cells in this tiny village being enchanted again? Oh, right, because potentially they could be used to house a spy or criminal. So they are willing to blow hundreds of gold on death trapping every cell in the region.

And how many cells would there be? How many would be thus enchanted when more than one was found?

And all this, because I said a corrupt sheriff beat someone. Not that they ever went to jail, but that they were beat. But you aren't controlling or anything, trying to force your will upon a character that isn't yours. I mean you've only changed the location, the setting, the price, then reasoning, the situation, the people involved... You know... ALL OF IT.

But unfortunately the world is there. The thing you control in the world is exactly your character. All the rest must conform to the world. If the world has no Tabaxi, you can't make a Tabaxi character. You have to follow the guidelines given to you by your DM.

Except for the repeated truth that not all priests and acolytes have access to spellcasting, which is repeated over and over and over again in the PHB. And the fact that limiting it to the PHB you still have to immediately have a caveat of not counting the acolytes.

Read the MM. Priests have access to 3rd level spells. IF you limit yourself to the PHB, the only fully religious characters are clerics and druids. (Monks could be arguably religious, but they are more martial than anything else and are more close to philosophical stuff than to religious. But that is debatable and for another thread). We are actually talking about casters here. So why do bring non sensical thing about non casting priests? Of course to use a spell that NPC must be a caster.

But sure, we have no historical evidence that powerful and influential people weren't forced to do menial labor that is a massive waste of resources. I mean, except for all the times that didn't happen in human history. I guess we have all of those.

And where do you get that I said that? Is casting a spell a menial labor? Is a general in a military campaign doing menial labor? Of course not! That point is utter BS. A court wizards, a priest, war wizards in armies, all these will work for the crown or lord of the land. Some paid, some to pay their taxes and some out of patriotism.

And you literally have no proof that says the prices change when NPCs buy things. Nowhere, anywhere in the PHB or DMG does it state that you should discount prices for NPCs.

Again, you can homebrew it. But that doesn't make it the rules.

Logic my friend. Simple plain old logic. To sell something at that price, you need to get it at a lower costs. And if you had travelled just a little bit, you would have seen how in bazaar you can get things for a much much lower price that what is called for in the first place. The prices in the PHB are for the players only.

 

[Helldritch]

There is also the model of the evil serpent god Set in the Conan World.

An evil state religion, the priests number powerful sorcerers. Set does not seem to offer people good stuff other than his priesthood being powerful and state sanctioned.Following him seems cultural for a whole society as well as for the power hungry.

There is also the question of whether serpent Set is really Yig from the Lovecraft Mythos with the mixing of the two by the authors. A bit different than real world non serpent Set who fights off Apep every night as the serpent tries to devour Ra the Sun god.

In Conan, the priests do not get their powers from their "god" but from their knowledge. Some are "white" sorcerers/wizards and others are evil to the core. It all depends on the type of "god" they are following. Conan is really close to the lovecraftian mythos in that horrors from other dimension/space are the real enemies. Religion is seen a way of controlling masses for their own "good" of the "benefits" of the actual religion or the benefit of the lord.

All in all, gods in Conan are simply powerful beings but they do not give priests any powers (but they can facilitate access to powers through knowledge and rituals).

 

[Maxperson]

Read the MM. Priests have access to 3rd level spells. IF you limit yourself to the PHB, the only fully religious characters are clerics and druids. (Monks could be arguably religious, but they are more martial than anything else and are more close to philosophical stuff than to religious. But that is debatable and for another thread). We are actually talking about casters here. So why do bring non sensical thing about non casting priests? Of course to use a spell that NPC must be a caster.

How are you defining "fully religious?" My last character was an wlven bladesinger with the Acolyte background. I roleplayed him as a fully religious priest of Corellon, but whose devotion took him to be a bladesinger of Corellon, rather than a cleric of Corellon. He had prayer books, a holy symbol, and roleplayed his religion to the hilt.

If you're talking spellcasting, then I would consider Paladins to be a fully religious(though not a full caster) class.

 

[Helldritch]

How are you defining "fully religious?" My last character was an wlven bladesinger with the Acolyte background. I roleplayed him as a fully religious priest of Corellon, but whose devotion took him to be a bladesinger of Corellon, rather than a cleric of Corellon. He had prayer books, a holy symbol, and roleplayed his religion to the hilt.

If you're talking spellcasting, then I would consider Paladins to be a fully religious(though not a full caster) class.

That is in the eye of the beholder. But getting your powers only from gods and only through prayer and devotion would be ok. Druids could be debatable but since there are gods like Sylvanus...
As for paladin, they can get their spells from "whatever philosophy". Gods are not mandatory.

As for your Bladesigner. Being devout is quite commendable. But your devotion is not on the level a priest/cleric will have with the god. The connection is stronger with the god, but maybe it is my background in previous editions that is tainting my perception of what is "fully religious".