Underdark Overview, aka Return of Drow Weaponry

[Kae'Yoss]

Wraithdrit is right. Drowcraft is not a problem. For several reasons.

1) Faeezressness is no longer all of the underdark. Its only in some parts of the underdark. its kind of like a mineral. You don't find gold everywhere you look underground. What does this mean for drowcraft? It means that only in certain particular parts of the underdark will you even get the drowcraft bonus.

This does indeed it somewhat. Now we have something that doesn't work in all the areas you usually visit. It's like the stuff rangers get - they can't hide in plain sight when they're in a city. Of course, if these drow stay in their home city all the time (not that unlikely), they still get something for nothing here, but now there's actually a drawback here.

2) The bonus isn't enhancement, its luck bonus on attack or deflection on armor. i.e. the drowcraft armor bonus doesn't stack with shield of faith, rings of protection, protection from alignment or anything that gives you a deflection bonus. The Drow weapon bonus doesn't stack with divine favor, prayer, etc.

Luck bonus to attack only, or to damage, too?

If both, this actually makes it worse. Your average fighter won't bother with prayers and the like, but chances are good that his wizard or cleric companion casts greater magic weapon on his sword. This will mean that he keeps these +2. And you can have a weapon that gives +7 and is non-epic (so you won't pay 10 times the normal price). Even though this won't let you bypass DR/epic, you can get +6 drow for +8 goodness, and the difference between +7 and +8 is quite big (though the other reason has more weight, this may never even come up if you won't use epic rules)

If only attack, then the enhancement isn't quite worth it, actually.

3) PCs are not entitled to keep every magic item they find. If one crumbles to dust, it is not an issue. Or if it is evil aligned. Or is +5 for NPCs, but only +1 for PCs.
[/QUOTE]

You can sell that evil sword (unless you have a paladin or other zealot with you)

4) Besides, most PCs don't go down into the underdark for an hour, kill a drow NPC and take his items back to the surface. An expedition to the underdark should take weeks or months. Because you can't teleport down there (unless very high level) and there are lots of intersecting caves, which could take you a very long time to get to your destination.

As the Faerzress (or however you spell that, I won't get my CotSQ to check it) is the thing impeding it and it isn't everywhere, you can take shortcuts (and also low-level surfacers shouldn't be down there, anyway.

What, the fact that a merman will get more use out of a trident of fish control is anatomical? Well, OK, make it an aquatic elf.

Still something to do with race.

Or hell, make it a fisherman as compared to a guy that lives on a mountain. It's situational, which is the point I was trying to make.

I can kill the fisherman and sell the item.

Or you could get clever and sell it to dwarves. Or other races that live underground. You could keep it in a bag of holding between trips to the Underdark.

If the dwarves want a drow weapon. Or the other races that would trade with you rather than killing you.

And if you don't plant to return to the Night Below, you have no more use for that item.

That would miss the point. You're apparently OK with that sort of thing as long as the magic word 'NPC' isn't there. If it's a 'monster' it's OK, if it's an 'NPC' it's not. Your response to my GWF/GWS suggestion makes that even more clear.

It does hit the point right on. You complain that NPC's are weaker than mosnters. This obviously conserns *all* NPC's. You use this as an excuse to give *a small part* of the NPC's some extra treasure that you can't sell (well) later and there for has no (great) value to you.

Why not making it right by making *all* NPC's as powerful as they ought to be? Will now every NPC race get a new kind of Weapon Familiarity? Some items you can only use when you are near them? As a means of balancing NPC's against monsters without increasing the treasure load-out, drowcraft is half-baked. There *might* be other reasons for using drowcraft, but balancing NPC's against monsters isn't one of them.

In my reading of what you typed, to me you certainly did claim that (except you simply interchanged the word "Illuminati" with the equally ubiquitous "veterans").

Then your reading is faulty. It doesn't have to do anything with conspiracies, just with the "Power Of Annoyance".

Be careful when talking about "majorities" or "minorities" on messageboards. It doesn't get you very far.

That's rich. Go ahead. Spell it out. Don't beat around the bush.

There has been no mention anywhere that finding a magic item merchant in the Underdark is any more difficult than finding a magic item merchant in the world above. This argument isn't applicable.

Yea, you're perfectly right. The Underdark, just like surface Faerûn, is filled with well-marked tradeways leading to cities of benevolent rulers that care about their cities and make sure that noone is cheated in their dealings. Menzoberranzan is just the Underdark's Silverymoon in their unending acceptance of every faith, race, and background. Further, the tunnels of the Underdark, which go straight and aren't twisted at all, don't hold any monsters that could catch surface-dwellers and their being unaccustomed to the changed accoustics and total lack of light down there unawares. Oh no. Just nice furry bunnies down there. The stories about all underdark races except the Deep Gnomes being evil-mindet bastards, backstabbers, brain-eaters, cut-throats, and whatnot are rumors told by the Thayan to discourage people going there and enjoying all the bargains and discounts to be had in Duargar Fortresses or Illithid Cities, cause that would lessen the profit the Red Wizards make by them stupid surface dwellers that are just afraid of the dark......

Simply put, if the drow are charged for a +2 or +3 weapon in their gp value of equipment - whether or not the item melts in sunlight or whatever - it is balanced reasonably well.

Simply put, they pay +2 and get +3. It's a difference of 10.000gp even if you won't enhance that item any further.
But since you can't use that item anywhere in the underdark, as I have read above, this might work out.

What trouble does this give you? That you don't get the book value in treasure for a monster or NPC of a particular level? How does that mess the game up? Mechanically that's not a problem is it? Does it throw the DC system off? I don't see the trouble from a DM's point of view. Is it the fact that the average drow treasure horad isn't "balanced" with the treasure hoard of a similar monster? How is that a problem? Fill me in on what I'm missing.

The difference of NPC gear value and monster treasure wasn't my concern. I think drnuncheon complained about the difference.
My problem is that you can't compare the treasure value of one drow NPC and a non-drow NPC with the same CR because there's stuff you might very well not be able to sell.
My problem is further that while an NPC elf fighter 13 out-of-the-list will have a +2 weapon, but that NPC drow fighter 12 out-of-the-list will have a +3 weapon if he uses drowcraft for it.

 

[Gez]

Well, duh.

It's already been said, but it bears repeating: Rather than a funky weapon, use that NPC money on a big scroll or potion. Duh, even on a staff of the magi.
At the start of the encounter, the enemy read the scroll, quaff the potion, of break the staff.

There it is, PCs get hurt, and when they win, they don't get the kewl phat l00t. Unfair! Unfair!
They won't even get to sell it!
Unfair! Unfair!

Meanwhile, they've been attacked by other enemies who had humanbane or elvenbane weapons (usually, parties are majoritarily comprised of humans or of elves). For the cost of a +1, it's a +2 against them!
Unfair! Unfair!

Now, we have our adventurers, who come back from the underdark with their drow stuff. If they know about it, they'll secure them in their backpack, or bury them in a safe hiding place, or transport them in a portable hole/bag of holding/heward's handy haversack/glove of storing/etc. and thus the drowstuff will be protected from sunlight. When fighting indoors, underground, or by night, they may use it. Otherwise, they'd rather not, although a DC 8 save isn't that hard.

And when they prefer not to use them?

Well, they do have other weapons, havn't they? Or were they fighting those drow barefisted initially? As you know, any adventurer worth his salt will own a golf bag of weapons thanks to the new DR system anyway.

 

[jasamcarl]

In light of this:

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44746&perpage=30&pagenumber=19

My major conscern with drowcraft, not that it can't be used by pcs but rather it was unbalanced for use by npcs, has been quelled...Its benefits are now as passive for npcs as they are for pcs, because a PC with a suburst/beam spell could put the hurt on the drow's gear value. Gives good reason to equip atleast some underdark drow with normal magic weapons...

 

[jasamcarl]

Well, duh.

It's already been said, but it bears repeating: Rather than a funky weapon, use that NPC money on a big scroll or potion. Duh, even on a staff of the magi.
At the start of the encounter, the enemy read the scroll, quaff the potion, of break the staff.

There it is, PCs get hurt, and when they win, they don't get the kewl phat l00t. Unfair! Unfair!
They won't even get to sell it!
Unfair! Unfair!

Meanwhile, they've been attacked by other enemies who had humanbane or elvenbane weapons (usually, parties are majoritarily comprised of humans or of elves). For the cost of a +1, it's a +2 against them!
Unfair! Unfair!

Now, we have our adventurers, who come back from the underdark with their drow stuff. If they know about it, they'll secure them in their backpack, or bury them in a safe hiding place, or transport them in a portable hole/bag of holding/heward's handy haversack/glove of storing/etc. and thus the drowstuff will be protected from sunlight. When fighting indoors, underground, or by night, they may use it. Otherwise, they'd rather not, although a DC 8 save isn't that hard.

And when they prefer not to use them?

Well, they do have other weapons, havn't they? Or were they fighting those drow barefisted initially? As you know, any adventurer worth his salt will own a golf bag of weapons thanks to the new DR system anyway.

The difference between bane weapons and drowcraft is that drowcraft inherently will only ever see use when it is completly effective. I don't have major reservations about this weapon quality any longer, but some of the pro arguments are off the mark i think....

 

[coyote6]

You can sell that evil sword (unless you have a paladin or other zealot with you)
[...]
If the dwarves want a drow weapon. Or the other races that would trade with you rather than killing you.

Hang on, you think you can easily sell an evil weapon with no problems (except from "zealot" PCs), but will have trouble getting rid of something because it was drow-made? That doesn't compute. The only reason you'd have trouble selling drow weapons to people that could use 'em (dwarves, svirfneblin, kings with caverns leading to the Underdark that they want guarded, etc.) would be because the drow have a nasty, evil reputation, and folks might not want something that once belonged to nasty, evil people. Yet selling a weapon that is itself actually nasty and evil won't be a problem? Come on.

Find a neutral dwarf that doesn't give a flying elf about where the weapons he's going to sell to his shady Underdark contacts came from. Arrange to sell (through an intermediary, if need be) the weapons to some duergar or other drow-hating types that can use the weapons and will enjoy the irony of skewering dark elves with their own daggers. Find a group that's willing to pay to take the weapons out of circulation. Use the weapons as sacrifices to your favorite drow-hating deity. Donate the weapons to your favorite drow-hating church or organization as a way of building good will, reputation, and possibly earning favors and/or gifts ("Oh Holy Mother, our friends have been petrified, and the rest of us cursed, and we have no money." "No problem. We remember your deeds.") Find some deep dwarves or deep halflings to sell 'em to. Find some tritons or locathah to sell 'em too -- not much sunlight in the deep water, either. Sell them to an extraplanar merchant who can resell them on a plane of insufficient sunlight. Sell them to an assassins' guild that hates you, then sunburst the hell out of them when they come after you. Sell them back to some other band of drow. Keep the weapons as backups for a battle at night/underground/on an overcast day. Get to 13th level, and cast control weather everyday, so that all days are overcast.

Etc.

It's not like there's no way to get coin out of the weapons. It isn't even too much harder than selling other magic weapons & armor, let alone selling evil or off-sized magic items. Unloading Huge magic items would be a lot tougher, IMO.

 

[Nightfall]

Okay I don't know about the rest of you mugs but if this is the Underdark, should be more about religions and stuff. I mean this IS a culture after all.