thereaper
2011-03-01, 02:48 AM
So, I was flipping through the Tome of Magic and then I thought to go look up the epic vestiges again. And something occurred to me.
They make absolutely no sense.
The justification for the epic vestiges being epic is that "they are more powerful because they are part of a dead god, a multitude of slain souls, and a harbinger of apocalypse".
This would make sense, were it not for three things:
A) Tenebrous, Dantalion, and Chupoclops have effectively the same origins, and none of them are epic.
B) If the power a vestige had in life had anything to do with it's power as a vestige, Marchosias (a mortal) would not be 5 levels higher than Amon (a dead god).
C) Tome of Magic states that the greater vestiges are closer to the nothingness (which is why higher-level vestiges are harder to contact).
C) is especially troubling for epic vestiges, because of Halphax and Orthos. By the reasoning given in Tome of Magic, in order for an epic vestige to be, well, epic, it would have to be closer to the nothingness than these two. Halphax doesn't even remember who he was. And Orthos, well... whatever he once was is gone. He is the nothingness now. Heck, even his manifestation is nothing. He's just there, and the description implies that whether or not the pact is good or bad is entirely up to him.
Basically, in order for the epic vestiges to make any sense whatsoever, they would have to be more Orthos-like than Orthos. And they...well, aren't. Not even close. Sure, mechanically, they are superior to the 8th level vestiges (but so is Zceryll, which just goes to show the disconnect between mechanics and fluff). They don't have any special place in Binder history, their origin isn't a complete mystery, and (perhaps most importantly) they aren't manifesting as nothing from nowhere. The only one that comes close to that last one is Tkhaluuljin, and the mere fact that he has a physical form in his manifestation at all demonstrates that he's nowhere near as close to the nothingness as Orthos. At best his power as a vestige should be equal to Halphax, according to the logic of Tome of Magic. That's close to Orthos, yes (if we take Binding DC to be some measure of relative power within vestige levels), but it's still far from epic.
tldr; Based on the "rules" established in Tome of Magic, the epic vestiges should not be epic. Also, they don't have a binding DC, and they really need one. How else are we supposed to know when we make a bad pact when we're using them?
But, this isn't the first time WotC has put contradicting fluff into their game.
Other examples:
Anything with an int score below 3 is TN (because it can't make moral judgements). Mindless undead with Int 0 are inexplicably evil.
The Tarrasque is a monster with Int 3 (capable of making moral judgements) that consumes and kills everything, fitting the PHB definition of CE to a T. It is TN.
The Targetteer's Vital Aim ability allows you to use your Dex mod for damage when shooting instead of your Strength mod. Of course, to make use of this, you need to use a composite bow whose strength rating is too high for you normally (which results in you taking an attack penalty). So, a character with 12 Str and 18 Dex with Vital Aim will do more damage with a given composite bow than a character with 16 Str and 16 Dex, but be less accurate.
Anyone else have some other examples? There's gotta be some really absurd (maybe even funny) ones out there.
They make absolutely no sense.
The justification for the epic vestiges being epic is that "they are more powerful because they are part of a dead god, a multitude of slain souls, and a harbinger of apocalypse".
This would make sense, were it not for three things:
A) Tenebrous, Dantalion, and Chupoclops have effectively the same origins, and none of them are epic.
B) If the power a vestige had in life had anything to do with it's power as a vestige, Marchosias (a mortal) would not be 5 levels higher than Amon (a dead god).
C) Tome of Magic states that the greater vestiges are closer to the nothingness (which is why higher-level vestiges are harder to contact).
C) is especially troubling for epic vestiges, because of Halphax and Orthos. By the reasoning given in Tome of Magic, in order for an epic vestige to be, well, epic, it would have to be closer to the nothingness than these two. Halphax doesn't even remember who he was. And Orthos, well... whatever he once was is gone. He is the nothingness now. Heck, even his manifestation is nothing. He's just there, and the description implies that whether or not the pact is good or bad is entirely up to him.
Basically, in order for the epic vestiges to make any sense whatsoever, they would have to be more Orthos-like than Orthos. And they...well, aren't. Not even close. Sure, mechanically, they are superior to the 8th level vestiges (but so is Zceryll, which just goes to show the disconnect between mechanics and fluff). They don't have any special place in Binder history, their origin isn't a complete mystery, and (perhaps most importantly) they aren't manifesting as nothing from nowhere. The only one that comes close to that last one is Tkhaluuljin, and the mere fact that he has a physical form in his manifestation at all demonstrates that he's nowhere near as close to the nothingness as Orthos. At best his power as a vestige should be equal to Halphax, according to the logic of Tome of Magic. That's close to Orthos, yes (if we take Binding DC to be some measure of relative power within vestige levels), but it's still far from epic.
tldr; Based on the "rules" established in Tome of Magic, the epic vestiges should not be epic. Also, they don't have a binding DC, and they really need one. How else are we supposed to know when we make a bad pact when we're using them?
But, this isn't the first time WotC has put contradicting fluff into their game.
Other examples:
Anything with an int score below 3 is TN (because it can't make moral judgements). Mindless undead with Int 0 are inexplicably evil.
The Tarrasque is a monster with Int 3 (capable of making moral judgements) that consumes and kills everything, fitting the PHB definition of CE to a T. It is TN.
The Targetteer's Vital Aim ability allows you to use your Dex mod for damage when shooting instead of your Strength mod. Of course, to make use of this, you need to use a composite bow whose strength rating is too high for you normally (which results in you taking an attack penalty). So, a character with 12 Str and 18 Dex with Vital Aim will do more damage with a given composite bow than a character with 16 Str and 16 Dex, but be less accurate.
Anyone else have some other examples? There's gotta be some really absurd (maybe even funny) ones out there.