Pointless D&D/background questions

[Jubal_Barca]

Ok, just a few random questions here;

1. Soul Splices
Is Soul Splice a wizard/caster only thing? We can see that V gain's feats or whatever from his splices. So if the same splices were attatched to a fighter would they do anything? Allow him to cast? Or for that matter would there be any benefit gained in splicing fighters to someone? Would the wizard get combat improvements? Could a fighter with spliced fighters gain in the same way?

2. Epic Levels
Are casters more likely to get Epic than others? It's pretty obvious what an epic caster can get, uberspells, but what can an epic fighter get? How common are they? Are they as powerful as epic casters? What about (heaven help us) an epic bard?

3. Hells and Heavens
What exactly is rewarded in the afterlives of OOTS? Roy's afterlife seems good, and Xykon evidently doesn't fancy going to the fire below, but are order and chaos factored in? Is NG going to have a less good heaven than LG?
Roy's deva on his case talks about kncking him into NG as if it were a bad thing... is it?

That's all I can think of right now,

thanks.

[Zherog]

Ok, just a few random questions here;

1. Soul Splices
Is Soul Splice a wizard/caster only thing? We can see that V gain's feats or whatever from his splices. So if the same splices were attatched to a fighter would they do anything? Allow him to cast? Or for that matter would there be any benefit gained in splicing fighters to someone? Would the wizard get combat improvements? Could a fighter with spliced fighters gain in the same way?

You'd have to ask Rich. It's something he invented for the comic.


2. Epic Levels
Are casters more likely to get Epic than others? It's pretty obvious what an epic caster can get, uberspells, but what can an epic fighter get? How common are they? Are they as powerful as epic casters? What about (heaven help us) an epic bard?

In the 3.5 version of the rules, every character turns "epic" at 21st level. (actually, that's also true in 4e.)

You can read the various epic stuff available in the game in the SRD (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/theraven_stephenh/epic/index.html).


3. Hells and Heavens
What exactly is rewarded in the afterlives of OOTS? Roy's afterlife seems good, and Xykon evidently doesn't fancy going to the fire below, but are order and chaos factored in? Is NG going to have a less good heaven than LG?
Roy's deva on his case talks about kncking him into NG as if it were a bad thing... is it?

To the best of my knowledge, this sort of information isn't defined in the "standard" cosmology. So, again, to get the sort of information you're searching for, you'd need to ask Rich.


That's all I can think of right now,

thanks.

I doubt I was overly helpful, but you're welcome anyway. :smallsmile:

[Morty]

1: Soul Splice is The Giant's idea, not featured in D&D.

2: Fighters are just as likely to get epic as casters - Kraagor was an epic barbarian, I think - and they get powerful epic combat feats. In theory at least, in practice non-spellcasters get much less from epic levels.

3: The details of the afterlives vary between worlds and/or GMs. So we can't know anything for sure in case of Stickverse.
EDIT: Ninja'd, of course.

[dancrilis]

Ok, just a few random questions here;

1. Soul Splices
This is outside standard DnD.


2. Epic Levels
Casters are viewed as more powerful by a lot of players.
But it really depends on the individuals involved.


3. Hells and Heavens
What exactly is rewarded in the afterlives of OOTS? Roy's afterlife seems good, and Xykon evidently doesn't fancy going to the fire below
The evil afterlife often depends on how powerful you were and what you can offer.

but are order and chaos factored in?
Yes.


Is NG going to have a less good heaven than LG?
It will be less good from a LG prespective, but not from a NG prespective (also Roy wouldn't have met his mother/brother/grandfather).


Roy's deva on his case talks about kncking him into NG as if it were a bad thing... is it?
She is composed of Law and Good, of course she views NG as less the LG, although if Roy was actually NG then she might have been doing him a favour (missing out on his family an obvious exception).

Edit: what the others said.

[pendell]

>1. Soul Splices

I believe Soul Splices are a Rich Burlew homebrew and not part of core D&D. So any powers gained from them are entirely author fiat.

>2. Epic Levels
>Are casters more likely to get Epic than others? It's pretty obvious what an epic caster can >get, uberspells, but what can an epic fighter get? How common are they? Are they as >powerful as epic casters? What about (heaven help us) an epic bard?

My understanding is that in 3.5 D&D after a certain level wizards become a broken class -- an epic wizard can essentially re-write the universe to her making, especially if she can cast epic spells.

"3. Hells and Heavens
What exactly is rewarded in the afterlives of OOTS? Roy's afterlife seems good, and Xykon evidently doesn't fancy going to the fire below, but are order and chaos factored in? Is NG going to have a less good heaven than LG?"

Each of the nine sections of the alignment chart have their own after life -- there is a lawful good afterlife (Celestia), a chaotic good afterlife (Happy Hunting Grounds, at last in some editions), a neutral good afterlife (don't remember), a chaotic evil afterlife (Abyss), a lawful evil afterlife (Nine Hells) and so on.

So Elan and Roy, despite both being good, probably wouldn't meet in the afterlife, as Elan mentioned in his song to Roy.

In order to get into Celestia it is necessary to be both good AND lawful. If you're not lawful, you go to one of the other two 'good' afterlives, regardless of how otherwise good you are.

Are the other 'good' afterlives 'better'?

I suspect that depends quite heavily on point of view. From the view of a Deva, a being of Pure Law and Good, anything other than Celestia is a form of exile. But if you *are* chaotic good, I suspect you would find life in Celestia a misery.

So I would say that each afterlife is best for its particular alignment. CG afterlife is better for CG beings, who would be somewhat miserable in NG territory and more miserable in Celestia. By contrast, I suspect someone like Roy would not be happy in any afterlife but Celestia.

And of course, any good afterlife is far better than any evil afterlife. The good afterlives are rewards, with the type of reward customized depending on whether you're lawful, neutral, or chaotic. By contrast, the evil afterlives are places of torture and hellish pain.

With a few exceptions. In D&D, damned souls can be promoted to devils or demons. I fully expect Belkar, when he finally goes to the netherworld, to ascend to demonhood in a hurry, and from there to Demon Prince in a matter of a decade. He'll be the God of Pain and Death in less time than it takes to count.

Heh ... most of the time demons and devils want to tempt people onto their plane. Maybe in this case they're trying to tempt Belkar into being good, so that when he dies he'll go to a good plane and introduce his brand of insanity there, rather than coming to the lower planes and taking over! Don't tell me he can't. Lord Cyric, anyone?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Jubal_Barca]

Thanks so far all...

I realise the Splices are a homebrew, but does anyone have any theories about how it might work? The idea is soooo cool I may write a homebrew for a Mordheim (Skirmish-scale Warhammer) campaign along similar lines.

So if evil is torture, and good is reward... would neutral be neither, just a bland place where people wander around doing not much?

[Optimystik]

2. Epic non-casters get variations of "sneak really well" and "hit really hard." Casters, on the other hand, get "rewrite reality," "kill with a thought," "create my own planet," and "clone myself." The game supposedly balances this by making casters harder to level up, and advantage which evaporates around level 5.

3. So far, Rich seems to be using the existing cosmology (Celestia, Abyss, Pandemonium etc.) Which is better depends on who you talk to - an astral deva would of course consider NG to be the easy way out, but an Eladrin would consider LG to be stodgy and boring. Note that she wasn't going to send Roy to the NG afterlife (Elysium) - she was going to send him to the TN afterlife (Sigil) which would definitely be a worse place for Roy to end up than Celestia.

[Keshay]

So if evil is torture, and good is reward... would neutral be neither, just a bland place where people wander around doing not much?

It might be similar to the planet of the Neutrals from Futurama.

[pendell]

So if evil is torture, and good is reward... would neutral be neither, just a bland place where people wander around doing not much?

Mechanus -- Lawful neutral -- is seen briefly in V's temptation. The fiend's had outsourced some of their tech support to Mechanus, a machine world where everything functions according to law. A world of computers and synchronization. It looks to me as if a LN person becomes in essence what they were in life: A robot, uncaring about good or evil, only about obedience to Programming.

I don't remember what the others are like. Manual of the Planes give a writeup of each, but I don't have it handy.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Zevox]

Note that she wasn't going to send Roy to the NG afterlife (Elysium) - she was going to send him to the TN afterlife (Sigil) which would definitely be a worse place for Roy to end up than Celestia.
No, actually. She briefly considered that when she noted how Roy abandoned Elan to the Bandits, but that was quickly resolved when she factored in how that situation turned out (and noted his subsequent saving of Elan via use of the belt). It was at the end there (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html) where she was considering whether he was Lawful that she indicated that he could be sent to the Neutral Good afterlife because he tends to use chaotic means to reach lawful ends.

Zevox

[dancrilis]

In fairness to Evil afterlives, they offer some great benefits.

Once you are in Celestia you are out of the game, if a being comes along to butcher your family and destroy their souls ... there is nothing you can do.

Once you are in the Abyss you are might still be in the game, if a being comes along to butcher your family and destroy their souls ... well you have options, if you have progressed past the level of a mane then you could possible enter the physical world and stop them.

[NerfTW]

Thanks so far all...

I realise the Splices are a homebrew, but does anyone have any theories about how it might work? The idea is soooo cool I may write a homebrew for a Mordheim (Skirmish-scale Warhammer) campaign along similar lines.

So if evil is torture, and good is reward... would neutral be neither, just a bland place where people wander around doing not much?

Well, from the way it's described, V's actual level and stats don't change at all. All that happens is that she has access to the spells of the other three. So she can cast any spell she (or the souls) knows as though she were a sorcerer, and the other two souls were there to cover her two barred schools so she could teleport to the dragon. (and give some awesome epic spells)

[MickJay]

As for soul splices, I'd risk guessing that the way it's working is based on the gestalt characters (especially that Vaarsuvius even calls soul splice a gestalt), so it's quite likely that the rules for both are similar.

[Ellye]

This might help you with the planes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Plane

[Snake-Aes]

I like Tormenta's cosmology more >.> 20 gods, each with his own plane. Soul goes to a random plane upon dieing. Affinity with a plane increases chances but is no guarantee.


I want to visit Al Gazara and Magika!

[David Argall]

3. Hells and Heavens
Is NG going to have a less good heaven than LG?

Definitionally, NG is More good than either LG or CG. It is pure good. The others are corrupted versions. Now those that go to either LG or CG are apt to think of the flaw as an improvement, but they are still less Good.

[Hydro Globus]

You are all forgetting one important thing (about point #3): Xykon hasn't ever been in the CE afterlife. He is no cleric either. He might not know more about the afterlife which awaits him than what all the good-aligned clerics may have tracted him with (wow, nice sentence). Redcloak isn't sure, he tells O-chul once that if the Snarl destroys the world, he will not get into any afterlife, "punitive or otherwise".

[Hydro Globus]

Definitionally, NG is More good than either LG or CG. It is pure good. The others are corrupted versions. Now those that go to either LG or CG are apt to think of the flaw as an improvement, but they are still less Good.

Your point is good, let me exemplify: with a circle. If you draw a circle, the point furthest "up" is one that isn't to the right or the left but exactly in the middle (assuming of course that the good-evil axis and the law-chaos axis are exactly perpendicular like the up-down and the left-right ones are - which isn't the case in D&D IMHO, but this isn't the point).

[Devils_Advocate]

1. According to the fiends (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0633.html), a soul splice grants a living mortal "all of the arcane powers that the damned soul held while alive." So, everything that qualifies as arcane power, but nothing that doesn't, presumably. They don't say anything to indicate that it wouldn't work on someone who isn't already an arcane spellcaster. Then again, there's no indication that it would work on a non-mage. They don't say "any living mortal."


Definitionally, NG is More good than either LG or CG. It is pure good. The others are corrupted versions. Now those that go to either LG or CG are apt to think of the flaw as an improvement, but they are still less Good.
Pure Good may be Neutral Good, but that doesn't mean that all Neutral Good is Pure Good. It's a "not all birds are chickens" sort of thing. Lawful Good characters may have their benevolence compromised by the standards of their societies and Chaotic Good characters by their resistance to being controlled, but a realistic Neutral Good character will also have his Goodness compromised by a mix of Neutral, Chaotic, and Lawful things. Only a living embodiment of Good is going to meet the standard of always making the most Good choice (be it Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic).

Neutral Good outsiders and afterlives might embody that sort of absolutely pure Goodness, but they might not. Most likely only some of them would, if any, with others embodying other forms of NG.

[Snake-Aes]

a good way of looking at the alignments is by seeing good/evil as what they want and like, and orderly/chaotic is how they think they can achieve it.

[SoC175]

Is NG going to have a less good heaven than LG?
Actually NG is getting the most good heaven, because NG is untainted good without being tainted by either law or chaos.

Roy's deva on his case talks about kncking him into NG as if it were a bad thing... is it?
From the view of a being of law and good it is. However such a being's view is inherently flawed in this regard because law makes up half of it's being.


An important thing about (pre 4th edition) D&D is that good and evil aren't all-important with law and chaos taking the backseat. If anything it's law and chaos that make the planes go round while good and evil are only secondary.


Mechanus -- Lawful neutral -- is seen briefly in V's temptation. The fiend's had outsourced some of their tech support to Mechanus, a machine world where everything functions according to law. A world of computers and synchronization. It looks to me as if a LN person becomes in essence what they were in life: A robot, uncaring about good or evil, only about obedience to Programming.
Which is actually the lawfull afterlife, not the neutral afterlife. In NG, NE, and LN the "N" isn't a second part it stand for the lack of a second part. Mechanus, being LN, is pure law.

[Kish]

An important thing about (pre 4th edition) D&D is that good and evil aren't all-important with law and chaos taking the backseat. If anything it's law and chaos that make the planes go round while good and evil are only secondary.
I've encountered a surprising number of people who think this online.

Surprising because I don't see how to support it from anything but the single-axis alignment system in 0D&D, which is very old.

[hamishspence]

Lawful Good doesn't seem to have much representation (a few deities). CE, on the other hand, has lots.

LG and G deities aren't likely to clash all that much. Similarly E monsters may have CE minions, or sometimes vice versa.

Suggesting that most times in game, it will be Good vs Evil thats the important question.

(also, one of the things I've noticed about 4th ed is it tends to relax the "Undead and dragons are the enemy and must always be smote" thing- with Draconomicon's guidelines on non-hostile chromatic dragons, and Open Grave's guidelines on undead citizenry, it feels a bit less black-and-white)

[SoC175]

Surprising because I don't see how to support it from anything but the single-axis alignment system in 0D&D, which is very old.
Once you leave behind the pointless small-scale tiffs of the mortal worlds you'll discover that the planes, from the pits of Nessus to the heights if Celestia are driven by the blood war. Almost anything that's of real importance is somehow linked to the blood war in one way or annother.

Even LE and LG deities cast aside their differences and join forces if chaos is about to get the other hand, as do CG and CE deities.

The thing that threatens to even bring the good celestial factions to war with each other is the endless argument about chaos and law (CG sees a multiniverse where law wins the bloodwar as a nightmare while LG feels the same about a chaos dominated universe). As no side can openly pull their weight into the blood war (if the CG would march fourth the LG would have to resort to bloodsheed in the heavens if that's what's needed to stop them and vice versa), so both side maintain sophisticated secret service networks just to support their side in the blood war without openly anger the other good guys.

Suggesting that most times in game, it will be Good vs Evil thats the important question.
On the mortal coil yes, but once you enter planar politics you'll learn about and have to play the true game of chaos vs. law

[hamishspence]

BoED- Archons can stomach the chaos of the eladrins much more easily than the evil of the devils. Wars in the celestial planes primarily have to do with corruption.

After all, there are regalia, books, and talismans for Good, Neutrality, and Evil, but nothing for Law and Chaos.

[SoC175]

Hellbound the Blood War: squabbling breaks out between the lawful and chaotic celestials, usually when it looks like the flends are weak and especially vulnerable to attack. That's when the infighting erupts - which armies should the celestials hammer? The orderly archons call for the total eradication of the tanar'ri, for the baatezu are a foe they can understand and maneuver against. The asuras and the chaotic aasimon, on the other hand, can't imagine the triumph of law - which is what the victory of the baatezu would entail. They prefer the random actions of the tanar'ri, believing that chance should determine the fate of the multiverse.
[...]
the dogmas of law and chaos will split the Upper Planes as well as the Lower

Generally the 2e books were much more masterfully and detailed written when it comes to the fluff. Especially the planescape setting had some books that were just almost 200 pages of pure fluff without a single rule.

Unfortunately this approach has been stopped with 3e and especially 4e

[Kish]

On the mortal coil yes, but once you enter planar politics you'll learn about and have to play the true game of chaos vs. law
If I granted that--which I don't, but just for the sake of argument--it still wouldn't support your original claim that law and chaos don't take the back seat to good and evil in D&D. Dungeons and Dragons is not about "planar politics." The main characters are humans and demihumans. "On the mortal coil" is where the vast majority of the game takes place.

[Devils_Advocate]

SoC175, I got the impression that a lot of celestials are just concerned with preventing either side from winning the Blood War, as the victorious fiendish race, whichever it was, would then turn to the rest of the multiverse.


believing that chance should determine the fate of the multiverse.
It's interesting how this shows the writer's bias. One could as easily say that the Lawful celestials want to eliminate freedom.

Truth is, individual autonomy tends to make things unpredictable, so you have to curtail it to predictably get good results. Lawful Good values that predictability, and Chaotic Good values individual autonomy. They don't want a completely tyrannical or a completely unreliable universe respectively, though. If anything, that's what the fiends want! LG just wants enough tyranny to ensure safety, and CG just wants to allow for however much randomness is a necessary result of freedom.


If I granted that--which I don't, but just for the sake of argument--it still wouldn't support your original claim that law and chaos don't take the back seat to good and evil in D&D. Dungeons and Dragons is not about "planar politics." The main characters are humans and demihumans. "On the mortal coil" is where the vast majority of the game takes place.
Aw, c'mon, Kish. SoC175 was clearly talking about how things work in the game's fictional multiverse as a whole, not the events of campaigns set in a small part of that multiverse. Law and Chaos are more important in a cosmic sense, not a story sense (in a non-Planscape game).

[SoC175]

It's interesting how this shows the writer's bias. One could as easily say that the Lawful celestials want to eliminate freedom.
Well, that's indeed what law is all about. If law wins everything will become like mechanus. Individually will be shed and all become mindless drones toiling away endlessly for the greater whole.

And that would be the "good" possibility. The other one, which seems even more likely would be total oblivion: the whole multiverse and everything within eternally frozen with nothing ever changing, the perfect rule of law undisturbed (think of this X-Men story arc where Legion produced a glitch in time by traveling back and slaying his own father and in turn the whole universe was frozen in crystal).

The modrons and other inhabitants of mechanus currently just don't reach this last state because they still need to battle for law's supremacy and thus have to settle for the first variant as mindless drones.

[Volkov]

Well, that's indeed what law is all about. If law wins everything will become like mechanus. Individually will be shed and all become mindless drones toiling away endlessly for the greater whole.

And that would be the "good" possibility. The other one, which seems even more likely would be total oblivion: the whole multiverse and everything within eternally frozen with nothing ever changing, the perfect rule of law undisturbed (think of this X-Men story arc where Legion produced a glitch in time by traveling back and slaying his own father and in turn the whole universe was frozen in crystal).

The modrons and other inhabitants of mechanus currently just don't reach this last state because they still need to battle for law's supremacy and thus have to settle for the first variant as mindless drones.

If any of the alignments destroy all the others, that would be bad, if chaos wins, even limbo of old would be far more stable. If good wins, we'd all die smiling. If Evil wins, we'd die from depression. If neutrality wins, we'd die from boredom.

[Kish]

Aw, c'mon, Kish. SoC175 was clearly talking about how things work in the game's fictional multiverse as a whole, not the events of campaigns set in a small part of that multiverse. Law and Chaos are more important in a cosmic sense, not a story sense (in a non-Planscape game).
I think that was far from clear, but since SoC175 hasn't disagreed with this statement, I'll treat it as given from here. :smalltongue:

"The forces of the Lawful Good and Chaotic Good planes, despite regarding each other as allies, do not crush the forces of the Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil planes because the Lawful Good ones want to go after the Chaotic Evil ones first and then the Lawful Evil ones, while the Chaotic Good ones want to take them in the opposite order. However, the conflicts between LG and CG are described as 'squabbles' and only take place when their agreed-upon common enemies, the LE and CE planars, appear vulnerable.

This proves that the conflict between the Lawful and Chaotic alignments is more important than the conflict between the Good and Evil alignments."

I hope you see the problem here, 'cause if you don't, I don't know what to say.