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Flarp
2009-10-12, 09:35 PM
I'm sure I'm going to piss off the grogs by asking this, but where did the quintessential dungeon team mentioned in nearly every 3.5e source book come from?

I'm referring to to the group of Redgar, Mialee, Lidda, and... some others. Regardless, they're mentioned in all of core (MM, maybe not. I think so, though), and even on these forums.

Did they exist before 3.5e? Are they just D&D's equivalent of Urist the Dwarf, or do they have a secret and sinister backstory involving darker and edgier subplots? Who knows? I don't.

Mando Knight
2009-10-12, 09:42 PM
I'm pretty sure they've been around a while. I don't know their tale, but I'm pretty sure their origins date back to somewhere in the TSR days.

ShadowFighter15
2009-10-12, 09:59 PM
I don't know either, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were the characters used by playtesters.

d13
2009-10-12, 10:32 PM
I'm sure I'm going to piss off the grogs by asking this, but where did the quintessential dungeon team mentioned in nearly every 3.5e source book come from?

I'm referring to to the group of Redgar, Mialee, Lidda, and... some others. Regardless, they're mentioned in all of core (MM, maybe not. I think so, though), and even on these forums.

Did they exist before 3.5e? Are they just D&D's equivalent of Urist the Dwarf, or do they have a secret and sinister backstory involving darker and edgier subplots? Who knows? I don't.

...Jozan, the human Cleric xD.

As ShadowFighter15 says, I wouldn't be surprised if they were the characters used by playtesters, but I think that they are just archetypal (sp?) characters made to illustrate the (intended, or not) point of the classes.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-10-12, 10:33 PM
They were all created as "iconic characters" for 3e, as none of them appear in any 2e material I'm familiar with. Maybe they were used by playtesters, maybe not, but their whole purpose is continuity--if you need an illustration of a feat or item, or you need to mention a wizard's/fighter's/etc. name in an explanation, you can use these names and appearances instead of creating new names and art all the time.

Tyndmyr
2009-10-12, 10:34 PM
I'm sure I'm going to piss off the grogs by asking this, but where did the quintessential dungeon team mentioned in nearly every 3.5e source book come from?

I'm referring to to the group of Redgar, Mialee, Lidda, and... some others. Regardless, they're mentioned in all of core (MM, maybe not. I think so, though), and even on these forums.

Did they exist before 3.5e? Are they just D&D's equivalent of Urist the Dwarf, or do they have a secret and sinister backstory involving darker and edgier subplots? Who knows? I don't.

My 3.0 Phb has em. I guess they're just random examples cooked up by the designers to show us how little they understand their own system.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-10-12, 10:39 PM
My 3.0 Phb has em. I guess they're just random examples cooked up by the designers to show us how little they understand their own system.

As I noted, they're not random examples, they were designed to make artists' and authors' jobs easier. Statting them out, however, was a poor move that did indeed show us the developers' knowledge or utter, total, and complete lack thereof.

Grynning
2009-10-12, 10:42 PM
Is there a link to their stats? I'm kind of curious to see them, though I'm sure they'll be woefully sub-optimal (as most NPC's created by WotC are).

Edit: Also I think that crew was used in a series of novels, though they were almost certainly written after the release of 3.0. Never read them, in my experience, most licensed fantasy novels are not that good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitle3tinj4tz?from=Main.SturgeonsLaw).

LurkerInPlayground
2009-10-12, 10:45 PM
Well.

The older editions have Bigby. Tenser. Ragnar. Robilar.

As far as I know, those were actual characters though.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-10-12, 11:38 PM
Is there a link to their stats? I'm kind of curious to see them, though I'm sure they'll be woefully sub-optimal (as most NPC's created by WotC are).

They were in Enemies and Allies, I believe. Unless your local bookstore still stocks 3e books, you're probably out of luck.


Edit: Also I think that crew was used in a series of novels, though they were almost certainly written after the release of 3.0. Never read them, in my experience, most licensed fantasy novels are not that good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitle3tinj4tz?from=Main.SturgeonsLaw).

Yeah, I checked them all out of my library because they had literally no other fantasy books I wanted to read that I hadn't read yet. Those books are terrible for the most part; if I were one of the players in those plots, I'd have smacked the DM upside the head.


Well.

The older editions have Bigby. Tenser. Ragnar. Robilar.

As far as I know, those were actual characters though.

Yep, they were all characters of Gygax's players. Melf was actually played by his son ("Melf" being short for "male elf" in keeping with Gygax's suggestion to not grow attached to characters before 5th level or so).

LurkerInPlayground
2009-10-13, 12:22 AM
Melf's Acid Arrow

Seriously. That's badass.

T.G. Oskar
2009-10-13, 12:27 AM
Is there a link to their stats? I'm kind of curious to see them, though I'm sure they'll be woefully sub-optimal (as most NPC's created by WotC are).

Edit: Also I think that crew was used in a series of novels, though they were almost certainly written after the release of 3.0. Never read them, in my experience, most licensed fantasy novels are not that good (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitle3tinj4tz?from=Main.SturgeonsLaw).

Odd that you spoke about the novels. They have stats for the iconics there (http://web.archive.org/web/20031210043405/www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/dnd). Heck, they even have progressions for those classes up to level 5 or so!

Enemies and Allies also have the iconics, up to level 20 IIRC. But that's 3.0 material, and the info from the books uses more up-to-date material than E&A.

The Manly Man
2009-10-13, 12:58 AM
I remember reading that Regdar was the last one created. The designer was trying to avoid having a male, white, human fighter, as wanted a bit more variety & diversity.

He then went on vacation, and when he came back Regdar was front & centre, and a lot of marketing guys were looking very pleased with themselves and their revolutionary character idea.

Fiendish_Dire_Moose
2009-10-13, 01:30 AM
FOOLS! They are not just a group of adventurers, but THE group. One day once the great Cheese Wars are over, and all that is left are the hardcore role players and the munchkins, they will descend from the heavens, lead by Gary Gygax and show us the true path to D&D enlightenment.

jiriku
2009-10-13, 01:54 AM
The cheese wars have ended, but Pun-Pun is now overgod, and he's forcing Gygax to run games for him.

Fiendish_Dire_Moose
2009-10-13, 02:06 AM
The cheese wars have ended, but Pun-Pun is now overgod, and he's forcing Gygax to run games for him.

Fool, thou believest in a false PunPun. Surely thou shalt be doomed to spend an eternity in Customer Support Call Centers!

AslanCross
2009-10-13, 02:26 AM
All I know about Regdar is that he is depicted as dead, dying, or otherwise in some form of mortal danger more than any other iconic character. It seems to be some kind of running joke about being the party tank.

1. Bits and pieces of his armor are all over the place on the cover of Heroes of Horror. The implication is that he was dismembered messily.

2. His armor and weapons (and Tordek's too) are lying among the GPs in the dragon's hoard on the cover of Draconomicon 3E. MAYBE they killed the dragon later and took their iconic outfits and weapons from there, but it seems more likely that they got fried.

3. Regdar is depicted as dead and in need of a rez in the 4E chapter on rituals.

4. He's covered in flaming spiders in Spell Compendium.

5. He's being slimed by an Aboleth in Lords of Madness.

6. Later in Lords of Madness, he's about to be sniped by a neogi with a poisoned dart.

I'm sure there are more, but I don't see the other iconics depicted in bad places as often. Except maybe that incredibly disturbing picture of Hennet being manhandled by a mohrg.

kamikasei
2009-10-13, 04:04 AM
Bear in mind that it's not just a small core party, there's at least one iconic for every base class. Krusk, Gimble, Jozan, Vanadia, Regdar, Ember, Alhandra, Soveliss, Lidda, Hennet, Mialee, and then more outside core. So the idea that they're the playtesters' characters seems suspect... the reason we see some more than others is most likely simply that their classes are themselves more iconic.

The Tygre
2009-10-13, 09:40 AM
Sigil Prep (http://www.google.com/search?q=Sigil+Prep&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a) does a great job of characterizing the core characters, even if they are younger. They've even stayed with the new 4th edition stuff.

Matthew
2009-10-13, 09:52 AM
If you check out the pre-release articles for D20/3e on the Wizards of the Coast website you can find the origins of the "iconics", as they were used to demonstrate via previews the forthcoming (at that time) D20 rules. Their statistics appear on the website, character cards, and possibly in Enemies & Allies, as referred to above. I seem to recall posting a bunch of them up on this forum a few years back.

Hmmn; looks like the pre 2007 WotC archive is no longer available, might have to use the WayBackMachine (http://web.archive.org/web/20010215034535/www.wizards.com/dnd/DnD_Regdar_End.asp).

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-13, 10:09 AM
Fool, thou believest in a false PunPun. Surely thou shalt be doomed to spend an eternity in Customer Support Call Centers!

WotC's CustServ has a worse reputation than even Microsoft's. Spending an eternity with that CustServ is part and parcel with their phone number.

Seriously, you're going to need a better threat than CustServ. And no one threatens law suits these days. Maybe a bridge (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DroppedABridgeOnHim). Buses (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PutOnABus) work (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BusCrash) too (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/McLeaned). And the fridge (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge) is always an option.

Matthew
2009-10-13, 12:25 PM
Found a bunch of them via the WayBackMachine:

Jozan (http://web.archive.org/web/20030211004053/www.wizards.com/dnd/3E_Character_Cleric.asp)
Mialee (http://web.archive.org/web/20021219001637/www.wizards.com/dnd/3E_Character_Wizard.asp)
Lidda (http://web.archive.org/web/20030220095453/www.wizards.com/dnd/3e_character_rogue.asp)
Tordek (http://web.archive.org/web/20021218211048/www.wizards.com/dnd/3E_Character_Fighter.asp)
Ember (http://web.archive.org/web/20021219001030/www.wizards.com/dnd/3E_Character_Monk.asp)
Imsh (http://web.archive.org/web/20021218211149/www.wizards.com/dnd/3E_Character_Barbarian.asp) (later renamed)
Devis (http://web.archive.org/web/20021218225552/www.wizards.com/dnd/3E_Character_Bard.asp)

Saph
2009-10-13, 12:51 PM
Heh, Mialee has a Charisma of 8? That explains a lot.

Maybe it was some sort of anti-minmaxer campaign. "If you dump Charisma, you'll look like THIS." It would scare me . . .

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-10-13, 01:31 PM
Heh, Mialee has a Charisma of 8? That explains a lot.

Are you kidding? Oh, she might have started with an 8, but she must have been Cha-drained down to 1 at some point. That, or she gets a free fear aura whenever she does get Cha-damaged.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-10-13, 03:41 PM
...Jozan, the human Cleric

Of the Burning Hate.

Set
2009-10-13, 06:27 PM
I remember reading that Regdar was the last one created. The designer was trying to avoid having a male, white, human fighter, as wanted a bit more variety & diversity.

He then went on vacation, and when he came back Regdar was front & centre, and a lot of marketing guys were looking very pleased with themselves and their revolutionary character idea.

Todd Lockwood (http://www.toddlockwood.com/galleries/dnd/02/regdar.shtml) makes brief mention of this in some of the blurbs under various characters.

And yeah, the art department seemed pretty united on making multi-cultural iconics, only to find out that the marketing dudes have given Regdar (who had hispanic coloration) the Michael Jackson skin-lightening treatment and made him the new 'face' of D&D.

But hey, they managed to keep Mialee, the Iconic Transvestite...

paladin_carvin
2009-10-14, 12:02 AM
I, for one, enjoyed the novels. I've as a DM stolen ideas from them from time to time. It works well. I for one think 'The Savage Caves' is an ideal 1st level adventure told in detail.

It's funny everyone hates on Mialee... she's the only female that has any skin showing. Well, maybe the monk... but hey, she's an elf. What do you expect? She does get into a few naked romps in one of the books.

kpenguin
2009-10-14, 12:08 AM
I don't find Mialee all that ugly. I mean, not pretty or particularly pleasing to look at, but not hideous.

herrhauptmann
2009-10-14, 02:47 AM
I don't find Mialee all that ugly. I mean, not pretty or particularly pleasing to look at, but not hideous.

Well, when most people want their elven women to look like Elrond's daughter Arwen, she's hideous. :smallamused:
Right when 3.0 was released, there was a magazine published (not Dragon or Dungeon, but probably also no longer being printed) which included the stats for the characters at level 5 or 6, complete with optimization ideas.
Like whirlwind attack for the human fighter, and a human wizard who's first level was fighter (for the HP yo!). I'm sure next time I go home, I could find it lying around in a pile somewhere.