Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ripzerai" data-source="post: 3680931" data-attributes="member: 38324">You still seem to be saying exactly what I accused you of saying before - that the only "real difference" between cities is their power level. I don't understand why the fact that it's built on floating islands in a twilight demiplane by a race of enigmatic and slightly malevolent planar merchants doesn't count as a real difference. The lay-out of the city, its origin, its purpose, and its peculiar mix of inhabitants seem vastly more important differences than the character levels involved. An "epic" version of Greyhawk or Freeport or Waterdeep would still be Greyhawk or Freeport or Waterdeep. All the high level characters would inevitably cause changes, but they'd still be recognizable and distinctive from one another. An epic Greyhawk would never be mistaken for an epic Freeport, and neither would ever be mistaken for Union, and that's because the "epicness" of a city isn't the most important difference a city can have.Of course they don't have to be "realistic" - Union's built on flying rocks in another dimension! But they should make sense given the assumptions of that dimension and the characters around them. I don't necessarily have a problem with Union having a lot of epic characters. My main concern isn't that Union has a lot of epic characters in it, but that it behaves as if low-level characters don't vastly outnumber them without providing an explanation for why this would be the case. There are any number of incentives the mercanes could use, if their pockets were deep enough, to attract a number of powerful clients, and they could have any number of reasons to want to do so (although this is still such a stretch, given how I would expect epic adventurers to behave, that I would strongly argue against it). But they have no reason to actively turn away less powerful clients, which is what Union as it's been described would require. Using the word "balanced" in this context prejudices the argument by implying that cities are something that should or can be balanced for a particular average party level the way an individual encounter can be. If you're looking for that sort of "balance" in a city, you don't really want a campaign setting; you want a dungeon level, or the equivalent. Certainly an individual encounter in Union, in an epic campaign, should be balanced for epic play, but that's a long way from warping the entire setting to suit whatever level your PCs happen to be at. I agree, with the caveat that you're not correctly identifying its main premise. You seem to be under the impression that the only point to Union is that it's "like every other city only EPIC," which would be the most boring premise imaginable. It doesn't even qualify as a premise, any more than "like any other monster only EPIC" is the premise for a worm that walks or an umbral blot. Union's premise is that it's an artificial city, recently built by a race of aliens for the sake of trade across planes and worlds. This is a very cool premise, and not mundane at all.Making Union the sort of city where 21st level characters have to run from town guards in the same way that 1st level characters do is what makes it mundane, and makes epic adventures in general seem mundane. This misguided view of "balance" is the primary and most cogent criticism of the city. Epic characters are so beyond that, and I can't see a good reason for sacrificing suspension of disbelief to pursue that sort of counterproductive goal. Union could be awesome, if its actual premise is seen and developed - what are the real goals of the mercanes, what are they after, where did the city come from and how is it affecting the politics of the planes? And how do the politics of the planes affect it? How many 20+ level characters it has is completely beside the point.</blockquote>

Verification