You wake up in Faerun, what do you do?

[Clistenes]

Eberronwise the world is lowish leveled because a couple things: a long war just ended... with the destruction of the most magically rich area: probably most circa-epic fellas ended up Mourned or killed during the conflict; and the world experiences regular Cataclysms that require powerful beings to sacrifice themselves; and the dragons/lords of dust probably both want to keep humanoids from getting too strong (so assassination of them is probably not infrequent)

The war ended four years before "present time"; the xp farms should be churning the next generation of high level champions by now...

The last global Cataclysm happened around 5,000 years ago.

And the point of the xp farms is that they are easy to create and easy to keep secret (again, a guy breeding rats in his basement can reach level 8... what are the Lords of Dust going to do? kill everybody who owns a rat-infested basement, just in case?). The Lords of Dust and the dragons of Argonessen would have to spend all their time seeking them and prune a large percentage of every generation of humanoids with PC classes. Somebody would notice.

[Someguy231]

So, gonna bring in a new topic. I know that Toril had it's own version of the Golden Horde (The Grand Army of the Tuigan), but what's their version of the Winged Hussars? I mainly ask so that the Winged Hussars can finally arrive.

[Coidzor]

Well, but, why don't people use it to train themselves?

Well, either they never thought of it, or it doesn't work for some reason, like only some limited group of PCs are the only ones able to level up by gaining experience points from overcoming challenges.

That or it somehow doesn't count if you're the one who arranged for the challenge or made it yourself.

[atemu1234]

Eberronwise the world is lowish leveled because a couple things: a long war just ended... with the destruction of the most magically rich area: probably most circa-epic fellas ended up Mourned or killed during the conflict; and the world experiences regular Cataclysms that require powerful beings to sacrifice themselves; and the dragons/lords of dust probably both want to keep humanoids from getting too strong (so assassination of them is probably not infrequent)

I mean, a war just means more high leveled characters because of the conflict, doesn't it?

[Someguy231]

I mean, a war just means more high leveled characters because of the conflict, doesn't it?

I'm not sure that's how it works, especially since the war in Eberron is meant to resemble World War I and II.

Which most likely means a lot of people died, and their life expectancy in combat was short.

[darksolitaire]

So, gonna bring in a new topic. I know that Toril had it's own version of the Golden Horde (The Grand Army of the Tuigan), but what's their version of the Winged Hussars? I mainly ask so that the Winged Hussars can finally arrive.

Purple Dragon Knights spring to mind.

[Clistenes]

Well, either they never thought of it, or it doesn't work for some reason, like only some limited group of PCs are the only ones able to level up by gaining experience points from overcoming challenges.

That or it somehow doesn't count if you're the one who arranged for the challenge or made it yourself.

Well, it would be nice to know before starting; I wouldn't like to realize it only after killing thousands of rats and not getting access to second level spells...

[Florian]

Well, but, why don't people use it to train themselves?

This is a flaw in the class- and level-based system.

We know that repeatedly shooting Dire rats with a crossbow should only advance your skill at shooting Dire rats with a crossbow, nothing else, especially not give you the insight to cast a Fireball.

[Clistenes]

This is a flaw in the class- and level-based system.

We know that repeatedly shooting Dire rats with a crossbow should only advance your skill at shooting Dire rats with a crossbow, nothing else, especially not give you the insight to cast a Fireball.

It shouldn't, but it does.... It also helps you to learn languages, to open locks, new professions.... etc.

5th edition avoids the issue making NPCs different from PCs.

[Someguy231]

Purple Dragon Knights spring to mind.

Thanks. Now I know who to use for the Winged Hussars meme.

[Sagetim]

This is a flaw in the class- and level-based system.

We know that repeatedly shooting Dire rats with a crossbow should only advance your skill at shooting Dire rats with a crossbow, nothing else, especially not give you the insight to cast a Fireball.

And yet, if characters were able to advance their understanding of magic just by study and experimentation and practice of spells, then they would never need to go on Adventures or Fight, or Kill Monsters, or act like Murder Hobo's. And I think we all know that the designers of D&D would consider that to be Heresy.

So, you know, wanting to avoid getting the inquisition on you for daring to try and grow your skills like a person instead of a dnd character, I think we would have to stick with the rat farming for safe leveling. That said, once you start dire rat farming, or anything bigger than that, you're basically turning yourself into the source of low level adventuring quests. Because at some point the plot is going to demand that some of your dire rats (or what have you) escape and start breeding completely outside your control and causing problems for the country side. Why, because of you they might even be bigger, meaner, and used as mounts by goblins.

[Florian]

It shouldn't, but it does.... It also helps you to learn languages, to open locks, new professions.... etc.

It shouldn't, but it does....

That´s because we´re talking about an abstraction here.

[Coidzor]

Well, it would be nice to know before starting; I wouldn't like to realize it only after killing thousands of rats and not getting access to second level spells...

It would be, but I'm not sure if it is the kind of thing one can know without going and testing.

Well, it's about 0.1 copper to feed 1 rat per day, and you can probably sell the rats as meat to the dwarven quarter, there's probably been enough memetic bleed over the years for at least one of the short races to eat rats.

So it shouldn't be that expensive to learn that it doesn't work when you should have gotten the XP to have made it to level 2 and instantly gotten two new spells in your spell book.


It shouldn't, but it does....

That´s because we´re talking about an abstraction here.

Indeed, but we get the abilities of a character and level and XP based upon said abstraction, so our capabilities certainly shouldn't be lessened from this, otherwise the hypothetical falls apart and you get an even larger morass of unknown territory that cannot be commented upon.

So what is your point, anyway?

[Quertus]

The best statistical estimate I know of for the number of people an average person will meet in a lifetime is 80,000. +4 sigma (18) is about 1 in 30,000, +4.5 sigma (19) is about 1 in 300,000.

So, if you're not quite at your midlife crisis yet and are average, 18 is a good guess.
If you've incredibly gregarious, or perhaps work in a field where you meet new people constantly at work, 19 might be closer.

The 1 person smarter than you comes out in the wash - you're +3.9 sigma instead of 4 for the 18, +4.4 instead of 4.5 for the 19 estimate.


This relies on some questionable presumptions:
The people you meet have intellect reflective of that of the general population
Your assessment of your own intellect is free of biases like the Dunning–Kruger effect
Evaluating the validity of those presumptions is left as an exercise to the reader.


Edit/PS: as an aside, this makes a good example for pointing out why a seemingly larger number of people sitting 18 in real life is not a priori troubling. By D&D standards, a city with an adult population if 25,000 is a metropolis. For D&D demographics, the smartest person you know stands a good chance of being the smartest (humanoid) person in the kingdom.

You actually replied. And you understood what I was asking. Sweet! And I agree with the questionable nature of the givens, which is why this is a hypothetical question for curiosity purposes only.

But now I'm confused. See, I start out with the dice model of one in 216 odds of an 18. Whereas you're listing the odds of getting 18+ at one in 30,000. From where do you draw your initial mapping of stats to the probability curve?

[Hecuba]

You actually replied. And you understood what I was asking. Sweet! And I agree with the questionable nature of the givens, which is why this is a hypothetical question for curiosity purposes only.

But now I'm confused. See, I start out with the dice model of one in 216 odds of an 18. Whereas you're listing the odds of getting 18+ at one in 30,000. From where do you draw your initial mapping of stats to the probability curve?

Standard deviations of a normal distribution lining up to a bonus/penalty- 3d6 does, after all, model a normal distribution. It's not perfect: 3d6 becomes a progressively worse approximation of a normal curve as you leave the center. For a bonus of 0 to +1, it's fairly close (33.7% on the dice vs 34.1% on the distribution). From +1 to +2 it starts to waver (11.5% vs 13.6)%. From +2 to +3 is where the flaws of the dice generation method become apparent: (4.1% v 2.1%). Edit: Imperfections like this is unavoidable when moving from a discrete distribution like 3d6 to a continuous distribution like real-life human int.

There it's a noteworthy error in how I estimated for your question though: I really should not be treating 19 as 4.5 Sigma like I did there. The four Sigma probability properly maps to any bonus of +4 which should include both 18 and 19. Switch the numbers in my reply to 19 and 20 respectively to correct this.

[Dappershire]

And this amounts to you saying that I'm not the smartest person to ever live. And for that, I would like to see your sources, because I for one have not measured the intellect of every person to ever live, but my profoundly massive ego (which is apparently measured in imperial instead of metric, for reasons) tells me that I'm smarter than they are. So does my mother, and she would never lie to me. She knows better.

Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons.

Still, if you insist that my Int is 22, and I insist that it's 26, I will demonstrate my magnanimity and compromise with you. My Int is 30.

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.


Well, but, why don't people use it to train themselves?

I mean, Bob the Grim is a very ambitious wizard with big dreams. He would like to run the show, but he is smart enough to realize he is small fish in a big pond full sharks... so he trains himself killing stuff for the xp.

He starts breeding and killing rats with Magic Missile and a crossbow, maybe captures or buys dire rats or centipedes or scorpions and breeds them in order to speed the leveling up.

Eventually he reaches level 8, and he moves to the countryside, buys a cottage, and starts breeding giant vermin and oozes in his basement, all the while pretending to be a peace-loving scholar who makes a living writing low level scrolls and maybe crafting wands or brewing potions (he has xp to spare).?

Why I would be careful with this plan, is thus: Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING has a God in Faerun. You start pulling of some sort of Rat holocaust, and you're likely to get visited by some sort of Rat God, or Nature Protector Angel. And taken care of. Your best bet is to mix up which 1/4 CR creatures you start off slaughtering. But that would be prohibitively expensive, time consuming, and difficult to gather. You'd literally be better off taking a traditional leveling role.


It shouldn't, but it does.... It also helps you to learn languages, to open locks, new professions.... etc.

5th edition avoids the issue making NPCs different from PCs.

I always just assumed those sort of "outside what you've actually done" types of skill leveling happened outside the normal RP. For instance, your clearing the sewers of dire rats with your trusty, city issued crossbow, and you stumble across a feces stained, torn up spellbook, the only legible page (legible, but still swirly and unreadable) having the word "Fireball" written across the top. You ask the other grizzled Ratkillers about how easy it would be to just fireball the rats twelve at a time, and sure, but learning is on your time. So you do. At night. During prayer. While on your sewer lunch. Until the squiggles finally become readable.
If the DM took the time to explain all this though, for every spell you learn, every skill you pick up, games would take a lot longer. But just because it seems like "Killing X amount of Rats learns me Y", doesn't mean the knowledge is just downloaded into you. Even in a fantasy.

[Vizzerdrix]

Still, if you insist that my Int is 22, and I insist that it's 26, I will demonstrate my magnanimity and compromise with you. My Int is 30.

If red fel is giving himself an int of 30 then I want a wis of 30 so I can make an xbox and a huge tv out of shapesand! :smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue:

[Clistenes]

So, you know, wanting to avoid getting the inquisition on you for daring to try and grow your skills like a person instead of a dnd character, I think we would have to stick with the rat farming for safe leveling. That said, once you start dire rat farming, or anything bigger than that, you're basically turning yourself into the source of low level adventuring quests. Because at some point the plot is going to demand that some of your dire rats (or what have you) escape and start breeding completely outside your control and causing problems for the country side. Why, because of you they might even be bigger, meaner, and used as mounts by goblins.

That's the reason I'm moving to the country once I hit level 8 (and I start killing anything more dangerous than a rat) and I'm moving my hatchery to an abandoned mine once I hit level 9 and become able to cast Teleport.

And if murderhobos come to my door asking for that Monstrous Spider that escaped away? I thank them for fixing my mess and offer them magic items on a discount as a show of gratitude.


Why I would be careful with this plan, is thus: Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING has a God in Faerun. You start pulling of some sort of Rat holocaust, and you're likely to get visited by some sort of Rat God, or Nature Protector Angel. And taken care of. Your best bet is to mix up which 1/4 CR creatures you start off slaughtering. But that would be prohibitively expensive, time consuming, and difficult to gather. You'd literally be better off taking a traditional leveling role.

While there are many gods in Faerun, I don't think there is a god for everything; this isn't Exalted.

And anyways, if the God of Sardines, the God of Mollusks, the God of Chickens, the God of Silkworms, the God of Rats, the God of Snails an the God of Frogs have left alone fisherfolk, shellfish gatherers, poultry farmers, silk producers (they have to boil the cocoons before the butterfly is formed), rat catchers and french cooks, then I think I will be safe too...


I always just assumed those sort of "outside what you've actually done" types of skill leveling happened outside the normal RP. For instance, your clearing the sewers of dire rats with your trusty, city issued crossbow, and you stumble across a feces stained, torn up spellbook, the only legible page (legible, but still swirly and unreadable) having the word "Fireball" written across the top. You ask the other grizzled Ratkillers about how easy it would be to just fireball the rats twelve at a time, and sure, but learning is on your time. So you do. At night. During prayer. While on your sewer lunch. Until the squiggles finally become readable.
If the DM took the time to explain all this though, for every spell you learn, every skill you pick up, games would take a lot longer. But just because it seems like "Killing X amount of Rats learns me Y", doesn't mean the knowledge is just downloaded into you. Even in a fantasy.

That's is what I have always assumed too. Like, those two spells you learn every time you level up as wizard are the product of your quiet work as a scholar.

But the point is, for some reason a guy who spends his time hanging with murderhobos, exploring dungeons, walking by the countryside, sleeping outdoors, foraging his food, shooting goblins in the face with a crossbow and beating kobolds with a staff somehow learns complex magic faster than another guy who spends all his waking hours studing in the library and working in the lab...

Does it make any sense? No. But that's how it is.

[Yogibear41]

I'd be a 1st level cleric or cloistered cleric of any deity really. I'd spend my time hanging out and selling overpriced low level healing spells to desperate low level adventuring parties who don't have a healer in their group, just like I've had to do over and over again when no one in our group plays a character with healing potential. Also anything that can cast identify as a Divine spell so I don't have to pay the 100gp material component, start selling my services cheap to adventurers who want their items identified. Even selling 1 or 2 spells a day would give almost anyone enough gold to hang out and have a pretty great life compared to most 1st level npc commoners.


Alternatively if I actually wanted to go out and kill things could play a battle sorcerer that has Power Word: Pain as a spell known. Not alot of things at low level can survive that spell. Wouldn't have to worry about losing my spell book, and would have enough HP/AC to not just get killed as easily, not to mention being able to pose as a fighter when in fact I was a spellcaster.

[Dappershire]

While there are many gods in Faerun, I don't think there is a god for everything; this isn't Exalted.

And anyways, if the God of Sardines, the God of Mollusks, the God of Chickens, the God of Silkworms, the God of Rats, the God of Snails an the God of Frogs have left alone fisherfolk, shellfish gatherers, poultry farmers, silk producers (they have to boil the cocoons before the butterfly is formed), rat catchers and french cooks, then I think I will be safe too...


But the point is, for some reason a guy who spends his time hanging with murderhobos, exploring dungeons, walking by the countryside, sleeping outdoors, foraging his food, shooting goblins in the face with a crossbow and beating kobolds with a staff somehow learns complex magic faster than another guy who spends all his waking hours studing in the library and working in the lab...

Does it make any sense? No. But that's how it is.

Actually any Nature God would get his kilt in a bunch over that. Circle of life hunting is expected, but breeding them just to die, without eating the flesh. Without even the joy of the hunt to get the Hunt God on your side? Yeah, expect a curse or two.
As for the learning curve, that's a good point. I guess I can only assume a lot is attributed to "practice makes perfect", an adventurer uses spells more frequently perhaps. Also, coming across other spells, either used against them, or lore buried in places only an adventurer would find.



I'd be a 1st level cleric or cloistered cleric of any deity really. I'd spend my time hanging out and selling overpriced low level healing spells to desperate low level adventuring parties who don't have a healer in their group, just like I've had to do over and over again when no one in our group plays a character with healing potential. Also anything that can cast identify as a Divine spell so I don't have to pay the 100gp material component, start selling my services cheap to adventurers who want their items identified. Even selling 1 or 2 spells a day would give almost anyone enough gold to hang out and have a pretty great life compared to most 1st level npc commoners.
.

Good luck with your money making scheme when the church tithes the heaven out of you. Divine power isn't given to just any lay fellow. Priests can't use prayer magic. Only clerics can. And I can't see many Gods being happy with one of their clerics just lazing about, not increasing their worth to the church, becoming worthy of the blessing bestowed. Don't get me wrong, Cleric is a great way to go. Always got someone to rely on with that one. But its definitely a 'So I giveth, so to do I taketh' sort of plan.

[Sagetim]

Actually any Nature God would get his kilt in a bunch over that. Circle of life hunting is expected, but breeding them just to die, without eating the flesh. Without even the joy of the hunt to get the Hunt God on your side? Yeah, expect a curse or two.
As for the learning curve, that's a good point. I guess I can only assume a lot is attributed to "practice makes perfect", an adventurer uses spells more frequently perhaps. Also, coming across other spells, either used against them, or lore buried in places only an adventurer would find.




Good luck with your money making scheme when the church tithes the heaven out of you. Divine power isn't given to just any lay fellow. Priests can't use prayer magic. Only clerics can. And I can't see many Gods being happy with one of their clerics just lazing about, not increasing their worth to the church, becoming worthy of the blessing bestowed. Don't get me wrong, Cleric is a great way to go. Always got someone to rely on with that one. But its definitely a 'So I giveth, so to do I taketh' sort of plan.

Or do things the American way and find a playgrounder trying to set themselves up as a god, then ride their coat tails as one of their first clerics. Sure, they might need you to be a little more active than just sitting around casting cure light wounds every so often, but it would give you someone bigger, higher level, and most importantly, also a nerd from earth to provide you with some security in your survival. I'm sure someone on here has already stated wanting to go Psion/Thrallherd or something as a stepping stone to divinity.

[Dappershire]

Or do things the American way and find a playgrounder trying to set themselves up as a god, then ride their coat tails as one of their first clerics. Sure, they might need you to be a little more active than just sitting around casting cure light wounds every so often, but it would give you someone bigger, higher level, and most importantly, also a nerd from earth to provide you with some security in your survival. I'm sure someone on here has already stated wanting to go Psion/Thrallherd or something as a stepping stone to divinity.

Oooo, good point. Not sure I could keep up with the human sacrifices were someone like Red Fel to transcend, but nothing beats being top brown noser to a god. Look at Adon from the first Times of Troubles. Sunite cleric, handsome, egotistical. Then he gets face scarred. 'Woe is I! My Goddess (who likely has issues of her own right now) has forsaken me." Next thing he does, is plant face to shapely behind, and suck up to the new Goddess of Magic. Knowing absolutely nothing about the faith, the worshippers, or magic at large, he still manages to become leader of the church. And if Catholicism has taught me anything, its that nuns are hot, and all the best hats are at the top.
Faerunian Pope or Bust.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Still, if you insist that my Int is 22, and I insist that it's 26, I will demonstrate my magnanimity and compromise with you. My Int is 30.

Truly the argument of a genius. Someone with your powers of reasoning could and should be the most powerful person on the planet.

We are truly blessed.

*Ducks away*

[logic_error]

And if Catholicism has taught me anything, its that nuns are hot, and all the best hats are at the top.
Faerunian Pope or Bust.

I suspect the former is a result of watching too many pornos.

[Dagroth]

And if Catholicism has taught me anything, its that nuns are hot, and all the best hats are at the top.
Faerunian Pope or Bust.


I suspect the former is a result of watching too many pornos.

Blasphemy!




There's no such thing as too many pornos.

[Gildedragon]

Blasphemy!




There's no such thing as too many pornos.

Plus watch enough pornos and you can get into Metaphysical Spell Shaper
And that is a good step towards ultimate power

[Coidzor]

Actually any Nature God would get his kilt in a bunch over that. Circle of life hunting is expected, but breeding them just to die, without eating the flesh. Without even the joy of the hunt to get the Hunt God on your side? Yeah, expect a curse or two.
As for the learning curve, that's a good point. I guess I can only assume a lot is attributed to "practice makes perfect", an adventurer uses spells more frequently perhaps. Also, coming across other spells, either used against them, or lore buried in places only an adventurer would find.

Do you have something to back that up about Silvanus? Because he really seems mostly like he doesn't give a **** as long as you're not despoiling the wild places of the world. He's fine with dwarfs digging in the earth or humans living in cities and towns, but he'll get tetchy if they try to clearcut a forest for fuel or raw material.

It's entirely outside of Mielikki's bailiwick from what I can tell as she's concerned with battling evil incursions into the wilderness or evil trying to pervert nature.

Chauntea would cover the animal husbandry aspect, but would probably give a nudge towards using the bodies for food before actually trying any cursing because she's one of the few FR gods that is actually nice.

Eldath is a complete pacifist and is concerned with peace, groves, and lakes. As long as one avoids despoiling or ruining any lakes, streams, rivers, or druid groves, one isn't going to blip on her radar.

Gwaeron Windstrom is a god of rangers and tracking, so he's not going to care about someone breeding and farming rats or eventually other monsters.

Lurue wouldn't approve of being a homebody who doesn't go out and adventure, but as no intelligent, talking beasts are being harmed, it's outside her jurisdiction and other things would attract her attention well before she had time to look for that kind of setup.

Shaundakul is concerned with travelers, traveling, portals, and planeswalking, so, again, outside of his bailiwick.

Shiallia explicitly doesn't involve herself in matters outside of her portfolio, and she's concerned with pregnant forest creatures, the fruitfulness of forests, and the suitability of them as places for beasts to live and multiply.

I can't remember or dig up any other nature gods beyond Talona, Umberlee, Talos, and Malar, who are all evil gits but are also preoccupied with destroying things with storm, being poisonous, or being a bloodthirsty little hunter and evil lycanthrope patron. Of whom, only maybe Malar would actually have it tangentially related to his bailiwick. Talos might throw some lightning bolts at the wizard and the locations where his setup is located, but those will be incidental as part of his general throwing of lightning bolts due to being a git.



Good luck with your money making scheme when the church tithes the heaven out of you. Divine power isn't given to just any lay fellow. Priests can't use prayer magic. Only clerics can. And I can't see many Gods being happy with one of their clerics just lazing about, not increasing their worth to the church, becoming worthy of the blessing bestowed. Don't get me wrong, Cleric is a great way to go. Always got someone to rely on with that one. But its definitely a 'So I giveth, so to do I taketh' sort of plan.

Point of order, Adepts are totally a thing.

And many temples literally do have clerics who offer healing between their general priestly duties which often aren't all that all-consuming because most of their religions were designed with having at least one of the dudes with mojo being able to easily get called upon to dole out things like Remove Curse.

To not be expected to have obligations to an established church would require a bit of digging to find a deity, but I'm sure there's a few which give a fair amount of latitude about enriching themselves for extended periods of time by selling spellcasting services. Almost all of them would expect some actions taken to further their portfolio and interests, though, but for some of those, just helping out organized crime from time to time in a low-risk way would be enough.

[Vizzerdrix]

Plus watch enough pornos and you can get into Metaphysical Spell Shaper
And that is a good step towards ultimate power

Ah. Well then I guess my levels have been selected for me.

[druid91]

Firstly, start worshiping Amanauter. Because having the literal Netherese god of rules lawyers as your patron can't be a bad thing.

[atemu1234]

Ah. Well then I guess my levels have been selected for me.

Look, it already takes an hour a day to prepare spells, but at least this way you can multitask.

[Vizzerdrix]

Look, it already takes an hour a day to prepare spells, but at least this way you can multitask.

Wait. I only get an hour?!?!

[Gildedragon]

Look, it already takes an hour a day to prepare spells, but at least this way you can multitask.

Nobody said that the diagrams in the spell book needed to look like geometric obscure squiggles. Just look at marginalia

[Someguy231]

Plus watch enough pornos and you can get into Metaphysical Spell Shaper
And that is a good step towards ultimate power

Dear god, not the Book of Erotic Fantasy!

[atemu1234]

Dear god, not the Book of Erotic Fantasy!

You know, for something that's both poorly written and third-party, and widely (not to mention vocally) loathed, a lot of people seem to treat it as gospel.
(I mean, I have it as a 'just in case' thing, for my really mature players, but...)

[ErebusVonMori]

I would love to see a game run with this premise, having to justify our starting stats etc. One guy with a ludicrous history score as he's a huge fan of the setting. Most of us with a decent knowledge religion cause undead stuff. that one guy who's a doctor IRL with a huge heal score etc etc.

[CIDE]

I would love to see a game run with this premise, having to justify our starting stats etc. One guy with a ludicrous history score as he's a huge fan of the setting. Most of us with a decent knowledge religion cause undead stuff. that one guy who's a doctor IRL with a huge heal score etc etc.

I was briefly part of a 2e game based on a similar premise. Where everyone had two characters. The "player" and the "character". The group having shown up to a tabletop game and all just passed out at the table before waking up as their characters. As far as I know the game never actually got off the ground but it was a really cool premise. There were no meta exploitations on character creation but meta knowledge once actually inside the game was welcome (though, lacking the odd reality warping powers of Red Mage).

[Gildedragon]

You know, for something that's both poorly written and third-party, and widely (not to mention vocally) loathed, a lot of people seem to treat it as gospel.
(I mean, I have it as a 'just in case' thing, for my really mature players, but...)
It's probably because of the "adult" books it is the best written one, the name fits in with the name of the 1st party "mature" books... Actually it might be better written than the BoED and BoVD...
And it has an interesting assortment of spells.

So if one is going to joke and be bawdy that one is a somewhat sane option...

I mean between Metaphysical Spell Shaper and Mystic Pimp... One is a more functional class than the other

[prototype00]

Do you have something to back that up about Silvanus? Because he really seems mostly like he doesn't give a **** as long as you're not despoiling the wild places of the world. He's fine with dwarfs digging in the earth or humans living in cities and towns, but he'll get tetchy if they try to clearcut a forest for fuel or raw material.

It's entirely outside of Mielikki's bailiwick from what I can tell as she's concerned with battling evil incursions into the wilderness or evil trying to pervert nature.

Chauntea would cover the animal husbandry aspect, but would probably give a nudge towards using the bodies for food before actually trying any cursing because she's one of the few FR gods that is actually nice.

Eldath is a complete pacifist and is concerned with peace, groves, and lakes. As long as one avoids despoiling or ruining any lakes, streams, rivers, or druid groves, one isn't going to blip on her radar.

Gwaeron Windstrom is a god of rangers and tracking, so he's not going to care about someone breeding and farming rats or eventually other monsters.

Lurue wouldn't approve of being a homebody who doesn't go out and adventure, but as no intelligent, talking beasts are being harmed, it's outside her jurisdiction and other things would attract her attention well before she had time to look for that kind of setup.

Shaundakul is concerned with travelers, traveling, portals, and planeswalking, so, again, outside of his bailiwick.

Shiallia explicitly doesn't involve herself in matters outside of her portfolio, and she's concerned with pregnant forest creatures, the fruitfulness of forests, and the suitability of them as places for beasts to live and multiply.

I can't remember or dig up any other nature gods beyond Talona, Umberlee, Talos, and Malar, who are all evil gits but are also preoccupied with destroying things with storm, being poisonous, or being a bloodthirsty little hunter and evil lycanthrope patron. Of whom, only maybe Malar would actually have it tangentially related to his bailiwick. Talos might throw some lightning bolts at the wizard and the locations where his setup is located, but those will be incidental as part of his general throwing of lightning bolts due to being a git.

Nobanion, aka, literally Aslan from the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe possibly might have some pointed words?

prototype00

[Zanos]

You know, for something that's both poorly written and third-party, and widely (not to mention vocally) loathed, a lot of people seem to treat it as gospel.
(I mean, I have it as a 'just in case' thing, for my really mature players, but...)
I'm honestly not sure why people are defending it as a serious inclusion in games. If I'm having someone roll to measure their "performance", I'm doing it as a joke, and I don't need rules to make fun of your PC. The only real value I found in that book was for laughs.

[Coidzor]

Nobanion, aka, literally Aslan from the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe possibly might have some pointed words?

prototype00

Hardly Aslan going off what I've read. More actual lion mixed in, for example.

Also, while he might not like it, it doesn't intersect with his portfolio from what I can see, so it coming to his attention is unlikely so long as one doesn't mess with wemics, lions, or beasts intelligent enough to be Good.

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Nobanion


I'm honestly not sure why people are defending it as a serious inclusion in games. If I'm having someone roll to measure their "performance", I'm doing it as a joke, and I don't need rules to make fun of your PC. The only real value I found in that book was for laughs.

I think there's a spell or two that makes for good world building? Been ages since I read it, and then it was primarily for the laughs, with a secondary curiosity about just how broken the broken content was.