Talk:Main Page

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[1] : A pretty awesome .pdf that .... some guys? .... put together. It's a LOT of crazy rule shit only good for the simulationist, but the chapters on economy and other races are phenomenal. Came out from the MeFi post about Lore's comic. (Which needs to start updating again.) -gm

Oh my Omnity, what have I done? Please forgive me.
The more I read the book, the less I agree with "shit only good for the simulationist". Almost all of the rules rewrites are there to correct imbalances, not to make things more simulation-y, and most of them are less complicated than the original rules (like the treatment for grapple that replaces the messy labyrinth of complicated rules with a sensible set of actions, and also gets rid of the opposed rolls that make for a variance of 40 (!!) points on a given contest). I'm not saying this to argue that we should change mid-stride, because that would be chaos, but it might be something to think about for a future campaign when these are done. You know, when we're like forty or fifty years old. -Slitherrr
By which I mean major sections of this are going to become canon over the Christmas holidays. Starting with languages.
Holy fuck, the bit about the Aboleth in the "Empirinomicon" section is AWESOME. -Slitherrr
After reading it, and then reading our own language section, our treatment is pretty close to the one in the TOME OF NECROMANCY, etc. etc. that you linked. We gloss over the Servitor languages, but we've also sufficiently hand-waved that into a question of cultural ignorance rather than canonical laziness. The only major changes I saw fit to add were to add regional qualifiers to some of Kib's languages (there are probably also other characters who need audits, notably Germain), and some more explanatory text on the Languages and List of Languages pages. -Slitherrr
Well, not a full on rules change, but more of a codification of flavor, but not going all the way into the million dialects flavor. The more I think about it, though, the less attractive it comes. I think we're in a pretty good place, happy medium wise. The Aboleth, yes, has become one of my favorite creatures literally overnight. Anyway, with the languages, I guess I liked the Pidgin and Creole discussions enough to want to incorporate them. In face, a lot of the langauges (the ones that end in -i, coincidentally, including Ubrekti itself) are Creoles that developed from regional dialects and Old Ubrekti. The ones with -n endings (Petaran, Odessan, Petaran) are from ethic groups powerful enough to have retained their own language (like, say, Greek.) I like what you've added, having just read it, and think we're on the same page.In fact, you've done a better job that I was even imagining - i actually wrote that bit about Pigin and Creole BEFORE I read your edit. (I'm reading them all and doing one big edit to not accidentally erase half of the talk page, like I have a .... history of.) Halfling, of course, just learned Ubrekti in the same way that, say, the Etruscans eventually just abandoned their native tongue for Latin. -gm
One Eratta: As to the Lizard Men... If anyone cared enough to actually pay any attention to them, I think they'd find that Ssel'it has amazingly little variance to none at all. I wrote a little sentence as a hint that I had to strike for being too spoilerly, but suffice it to say there is a reason for the uniformity and it makes sense. Hint: Lizardman Racial Class is Druid. Hmmmmmmm.
Also down with renaming. I've actually gotten into the spoke habit of referring to the language and the people of the dwarves as Gilden. Because, I mean, Gilden Home. It's not rocket science. Gnomish, OTOH, I hadn't really thought about in those terms. Hmmmm. -gm
Reading a few more changes it, I see we are once again on the same page. Time for me to Secret Page this bitch. (Another trick I learned from this book!) -gm
Read Econimocon from the beginning - I backed into the last half last night. It's worth noting, if only for backpatting purposes, that I preempted some of these concerns. Monetary policy was one of my thoughts putting this campaign together - banks and states (with large bank accounts) have been major actors from the beginning. I'm not done yet, but I think there's a place in his discussion for the idea of patronage. Essentially spreading out money as a sort of personalized social service program has been effective from Roman Patricians to modern Hamas. But, yeah, it is kind of sad how tiny dragon hordes have to be by the mechanics. Since there are really no Wyrm-tiered dragons in this game, and usually believe in a 1 or 2 dragons per campaign ever rule, I usually go with the You Are Fucking Rich option. My thoughts at the time, since we never got to the Alexandria endgame, was that by the time the party got around to taking out the last dragons, they'd be to the point that these coins were basically social currency and probably funded a pretty substantial portion of the campaign in her absence. Of course, I also just don't think some dragons horde. Black Dragons, for example, or really anyone who doesn't live in a cave. -gm
Econimicon was the first I read after Lexicomicon, and yes, it's extremely enlightening. The fact that we're sitting on a mere 100 gp in COPPER and finding it hard to carry definitely contributes a lot of insight. -Slitherrr
Oh god, I tried to read the economicon section and all this simulationist insanity is making my eyes bleed. Who cares how much coins weigh? I barely tolerate the lightly obnoxious attention that Jones pays to this... Hell, well over half the time he tells me loot numbers I just convert to gold! Money is as heavy or small as it needs to be for the game to be fun--when its in a dragon horde its huge, and when my PC is shopping it all fits in his pocket. Thinking about the weight of gold is about as entertaining as thinking about how my character stores his matches. Creating a hierarchy of currency systems to deal with the weight of gold is downright horrifying. Bleach! I suggest an alternative system where we convert everything into gold coins with two decimals of precision, so that my 157 silver and 13 copper become 15.83 gold! Now that's progress! --146.127.253.44

Also - it's a shame Daniel hates retconning so much. Those artisan rules would be right up his alley. -gm

I have to say, I really like the stuff in the Economicon. I'm going to even put in some possible changes in a section on Kib's character sheet in case you end up integrating all/most of it. -Slitherrr

I really LOVE all the -micon section. Whoever the hell these two are, have put a lot of really awesome though into HOW a truly fantastical, hero-based setting would operate and the long term ramification of some of the weirdo stuff tossed into D&D. (Like the Aboleth ability, or the Sahuagin) There is one part, somewhere, where the point is made that the analogue for D&D isn't the "middle ages" at all. Small patches of civilization surrounded by frightening wilderness? Small bands of heroes toppling empires? That's not Chaucer, that's fucking HOMER. D&D is an iron age mindset in medieval clothing. I read that part and was like "Holy shit, that's what *I've* always thought. These guys get it*. And then I looked up and it was bedtime and I'd read like half the document. If you haven't gotten to the part about aristocrats and heroes, I laughed out loud through it. Amazing work. -gm
Quite. -Slitherrr
The tone of loving mockery makes it very readable. It's like Aristotle and Lao-Tzu got together and answered every D&D argument that ever arose over mountain dew, pizza, hootch, and/or weed. There you go! Now that we’re all on the same page(page XX)-gm


The NPC class section is, in a word, genius. -Slitherrr

The host for this document is a computer science department at Bard, which is sort of a pretentious, expensive college focusing in the fine arts. Maybe the authors must represent some sort of bizarre intersection of engineering obsessiveness and artist creativity. And at least one of them knows the LaTeX typesetting language. Weird --146.127.253.14

Ha, you have described a large percentage of D&D players.

Should we consider asking Pokey if he wants to convert Gil into the version of Barbarian in the Tome? It's quite an improvement on the class, trading passive DR and avoidance abilities for massive bonuses that only apply while raging, giving a lot more reason to actually use the ability. -Slitherrr

Pete might be similarly interested in the Elementalist class, although that might be more of a retcon than you're willing to go for. -Slitherrr
In fact, Kib's character style might even be better suited to the Tome's Fighter than our dear Professional class. Argh! So much dataaaa. -Slitherrr
Feats section! ::eyes glaze over, froth appears at corner of mouth:: -Slitherrr
We are no longer on the same page. We are not even in the same book. There will be no revisions to any of the core mechanics of 3.5e. In fact, I basically skipped everything that was an actual rules mechanic. Heh. -gm
I... guessed as much. But I can dream. Their treatment of feats is really quite spectacular, and I love what they did with armor (more than chain shirt/mw breastplate/full plate is useful? Holy Alexandria!) -Slitherrr
Also, still interested in the tweak to Professions? Because that just downright makes sense.
I find the professional changes interesting, and I agree it's a lot more sensible. Does it also apply to crafting? I can't remember and i'm afraid to go back in. -gm
I thought I'd posted this earlier, but I guess I didn't pull the trigger before leaving to see the Nutcracker. Crafting has some changes, some in the Traps section, and a lot in the Magic Items section to make it more reasonable. -Slitherrr
More clarification: Magic Items get a pretty big rework for balance. XP and gold costs to make are gone, by the argument that they don't really work as limits, and instead magic items only take time (which, really, is one of the only really valuable commodities PCs have). Also, gone is the "+2 sword" thing. Basically, it'll be a "magic sword", and the bonus you get from it scales by level. There's a strict limit on number of items that can be providing a bonus to a character at a given time, and another strict limit on non-standard bonus types (to prevent stacking). Artifacts have inherent levels that replace the character level to determine effects if the character level is lower--for example, the Black Scythe might have an inherent level of 15, which means a level 4 or 7 or 14 character would wield it with bonuses as a level 15, but a level 16 or more character would wield it with bonuses of 16 or more. It's very, very reasonable and sensible, and might even be worth switching to, since neither group has even really gotten into the magic items gig and there would be very little disruption. -Slitherrr
Also also, I love this quote:
Empires lasting thousands of years are not products of military might, but a good PR department with an eye for finding up-and-coming heroes who are smart enough to maintain the fiction of a stable society rather than upset the peasants by reminding them that they live and die by the whims of guys who think that summoning angels from heaven to set off dungeon traps is an acceptable practice.
-Slitherrr
Haha, yeah, I remember that one. I wish the real source books were written so cheekily. -gm

There's a Leadership section in the Tome that has a statement that talks about a thing I had just asked about:

In any case, if Leadership is allowed at all, there are some ground rules. First of all, no Cohort should ever be more or less than 2 levels lower than the PC. Ever. So if someone has a cohort that’s something dumb like an Iron Golem, it's got to advance so that its CR advances in line with the character's level. Cohorts that can't be excused doing that aren’t appropriate cohorts. Secondly, followers are traditionally of the crappy classes (Warrior, Expert, Aristocrat), and that’s why followers are given appropriate CRs like 1=2 rather than levels like "1".

Just tossing that here for reflection. -Slitherrr


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