Web Enhancement for White Plume Mountain

[Nightfall]

Well he's supposed to be skeletal. If you just make him a skeletal dragon or even use skeletal creature template from BoVD...doesn't make him that powerful.

At least with Draco-lich, he's semi-powerful. If I had to template a dragon to undead status, I'd use something with more undead oomph, like say Favored of Kyuss template or maybe Dread (insert undead type) from Green Ronin's Advanced Beastiary.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Good points: The map is awesome... it's a perfect reminder of how we aren't necessarily better off with today's computer-generated art.

Bad points: Frostrazor as a 'Legacy Weapon'. I really hate this mechanic, which basically says that low level characters shouldn't ever find awesome treasure. I mean come on... no one who finds Frostrazor -- and I mean not even the first level porter who picks up the sword after the last high-level member of his party dies, killing the last surviving monster in his dying gasp -- should find that it is only a +1 Greatsword for them. How bland. The tyranny of game balance, killing all sense of wonder in a misguided quest for 'fairness'.

Dragotha -- done far better, elsewhere. They should have just gotten permission to reprint the paizo one (actually, they probably don't even need permission).

Ken

 

[Alzrius]

It is somewhat annoying how Dragotha was reduced to being a "mere" black wyrm dracolich. They should either have used the Paizo version, or at the very least, updated the 2E version of him from Dragotha's Lair. This genericized version seems to strip the character of its uniqueness, reducing him to merely being the sum of his parts.

 

[Glyfair]

I really hate this mechanic, which basically says that low level characters shouldn't ever find awesome treasure.

While I don't have the book (and am not in a hurry to get it), I think it's just the opposite. It allows a low level character to find amazing magic items.

It's not like many DMs are going to allow a low level character to have a +5 Holy Avenger. This allows the low level character to have the +5 Holy Avenger, but they don't get the full benefit of the abilities until they learn to master it or release those abilities. They get to say they have the cool weapon and the prestige that goes with it, without smiting things beyond their character level left and right.

At the same time, nothing in the WoL rules that I know about says they replace the magic items in the game. If, as a DM, you feel it's appropriate for the low level paladin to have that Holy Avenger, you can give it to him. You don't have to make it a legacy weapon.

 

[Dave Turner]

It's not like many DMs are going to allow a low level character to have a +5 Holy Avenger. This allows the low level character to have the +5 Holy Avenger, but they don't get the full benefit of the abilities until they learn to master it or release those abilities. They get to say they have the cool weapon and the prestige that goes with it, without smiting things beyond their character level left and right.

As we drift further off-topic, I'd suggest that this is a bit glib. A character's sword might someday be a +5 Holy Avenger, but it's not really the same as a +1 longsword he's currently holding. As an analogy, while it might be said that I have an oak tree in my hand when I hold an acorn, having an acorn is not the same as having an oak tree.

 

[jmucchiello]

Wight dragon.

"How do we know this is the wight dragon?"

 

[Glyfair]

"How do we know this is the wight dragon?"

Because we found it on the Isle of Wight?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

To tell the truth, if I were using the White Plume Moutain map and was creating Dragotha the "undead dragon," I wouldn't make him a dracolich. At this point, it's just too cliche. I'd certainly go a different direction (mummy dragon? vampire dragon? ghost dragon?)

Good call. A ghost dragon could be really, really nasty.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's just, as Nightfall said, that the "first" Dragotha (the Dragon 134/AoW one) is more interesting. He's unique. He has a history and unique abilities. This Dragotha's pretty bland. Well, as bland as a dracolich can be, really.

None of which speaks to the idea of having multiple interpretations of the name Erol jotted down.

The strangling tendrils of continuity have already snaked into D&D enough as it is. (Witness what happens any time anyone does ANYTHING with the freaking planes at this point -- people absolutely freak out if it's not a phonebook-sized reprint of everything that's come before PLUS magically building on all of that in a way that all of the continuity mongers all approve of.)

It's a name on a map. Rock on with the reinterpretations, even if it does use Weapons of Legacy.

For what it's worth, I suspect this means we won't see an Expedition to White Plume Mountain in 2007, if they're giving this away for free in 2006.

 

[demiurge1138]

None of which speaks to the idea of having multiple interpretations of the name Erol jotted down.

The strangling tendrils of continuity have already snaked into D&D enough as it is. (Witness what happens any time anyone does ANYTHING with the freaking planes at this point -- people absolutely freak out if it's not a phonebook-sized reprint of everything that's come before PLUS magically building on all of that in a way that all of the continuity mongers all approve of.)

It's a name on a map. Rock on with the reinterpretations, even if it does use Weapons of Legacy.

For what it's worth, I suspect this means we won't see an Expedition to White Plume Mountain in 2007, if they're giving this away for free in 2006.

Well, they gave it away in 2005. They're just adding some butter-flavored topping in 2006. And I can understand them not wanting to do an Expedition to it. For one thing, there was already a Return to White Plume Mountain in the 2e years. For another, White Plume is one of those dungeons that's really at odds with 3e game design. It's a Disneyland Dungeon, a twisted amusement park that is not at home to Mr. Sense. I love it, but its simplicity and illogic don't play nicely with modern aesthetics.

And I'm not that much of a continuity whore. I'm fine with all sorts of planar tweaking, f'r instance. The Dragotha legend of other versions just spoke to me, is all. Dragon 134 is one of the few older issues of Dragon I own, and Dragotha's appearance in Age of Worms made me insanely happy. Plus, I strongly suspect that the Web Enhancement's Dragotha was stolen and name-switched from a recent Dragon Mag Ecology of the Dracolich article, but that's just my rampant paranoia.

Oh, and Fiendish Codex 1 proved that the magical continuity building can happen - although I think it's hilarious that Erik Mona's said several times that he's very happy he didn't get stuck writing about Hell.

Demiurge out.