Beldar
2019-01-16, 01:09 AM
Basic Santa Claus
So, while wondering whether something like the Santa Claus myth could be made to work in D&D, and more to the point, why would Santa Claus do it (what is his motivation) we came up with this, which I share just in case the idea interests you.
It is workable as-is. There are a number of ways to optimize it, but I wanted to post the most unassailable version.
It all hinges off the "Distill Joy" spell in the Book of Exalted Deeds. This is why Santa would bother - if he can cheaply farm Distill Joy, then he can get lots of Ambrosia to use in place of Xp while making magic items. Avoiding Xp costs is motivational.
So, to prepare, Santa makes or buys a Hewards Handy Haversack and casts Fabricate a bunch of times. In our house rules Fabricate allows a Craft skill check to see what quality of items you made, but that is not necessary for this to still work.
Santa Fabricates things that the typical medieval serf or peasant may need - winter coats, blankets, new plows and saddles, tools, etc, plus toys for the children.
Santa also needs to make an item that allows unlimited Dimension Doors (Per DMG page 282-284). Say he makes it a lifesized Reindeer model which he can sit on. Then he makes an unlimited use item of Distill Joy - say a bell that he hangs on the antlers of his Reindeer.
Optionally he can also make an unlimited use item based on Create Food and Water but which makes Candy instead of the usual food. In our House rules we allow a cooking check in these kinds of cases to make tasty candy if the skill check is good enough.
Alternately he could make a variant of Field Provisions box or Everlasting Rations bag or Everlasting Feed bag (all from Magic Items Compendium) such that it makes candy and has unlimited uses per day.
But if you're a stickler for staying with only what is explicitly written, then the candy can be skipped entirely without taking out the basic mechanism or purpose of all this.
Now Santa is ready to go. He loads his Handy Haversack with items aka presents (presumably having a lot more presents ready in a warehouse somewhere for reloading), gets on his Reindeer (possibly with a helper sitting behind him with another loaded Handy Haversack) and he is ready to go - Dimension Dooring to each house in his chosen town to deliver presents (and maybe candy) and collect the resulting joy.
Procedure:
For the first instance (assuming no Santa/Christmas tradition yet exists), hire some town criers to announce it (something like this: "Santa Claus is coming to visit each of your homes next Saturday morning to give you gifts. All who are home at the time will receive gifts. He asks nothing in return but that you be at home.") so folks know what is about to happen, then when the time comes, Dimension Door to every house in a village or town, giving gifts, possibly candy and amassing Ambrosia in return.
Can then teleport to other towns/villages and do the same.
If needed, check off each house on a map you carry as you go.
Santa can Dimension Door in, and deliver 1 present (2 if he has a helper riding behind him) in the first round. Then he can deliver more presents, possibly Candy in other rounds, Then use Distill Joy and (if needed) mark his map in the final round. Figure a family of 4 takes 3 rounds.
Then he goes to the next house and repeats it.
One Santa can thus do 200 houses in an hour (minus a bit if he needed to go back and fill up his Haversack, so he'd want to do non-voluminous presents to save time). That's a good-sized village, and he can keep it up for hours, serving either a bigger town or using occasional Teleports to switch from one town to another.
We don't need to do the whole world, since this is a new local tradition, and Santa doesn't need millions of XP for making magic items.
If one Santa plus helper spend 10 hours at this and have other helpers loading spare Haversacks back at the warehouse for rapid turnaround, and assuming that families average 4, then he can get about (4*200*10*2xp each=16,000 xp usable for crafting magic items - not at all bad for a day's work {not counting prep time}.)
And he also created a heck of a lot of goodwill and positive feelings aimed at himself as well - that too can be very useful (say maybe, in exchange for a large fee, he lets a Feudal Lord take credit for the tradition).
The Naughty-or-Nice list is optional. If the goal is to get maximum Ambrosia, then give everybody gifts. But if the goal is to encourage good behavior, have Detect Evil up, (from another magic item) and any who detect as evil get coal instead of a gift. Or you could also have Detect Good up, give presents to the good, coal to those who don't detect as either good nor evil (ie neutrals), and nothing to the evil.
To the average medieval peasant, a new plow, or set of tools, or coat or blanket or saddle etc will bring great joy since they were often struggling and making do with old worn and often-repaired equipment if they had any equipment at all.
Similarly candy could possibly surpass those, since sugar was a rare luxury. And candy in this quantity could make the difference between going hungry every day for the rest of winter, or having enough calories.
But as nice as all that is, kids will be the biggest source of joy, since they can get lost in the moment - adults can still worry about the future, mitigating their joy even in a particularly joyful moment.
The houses of rich folks won't generate much joy, since a new winter coat or similar means little to those who have all their needs met already.
And since kids are a good source for generating joy and so is need, orphanages will be primary targets. Those kids have little and even being remembered at all will likely bring them joy - being remembered with presents and candy etc far more so.
Similarly, the homeless and beggars. In medieval times, I doubt there were homeless shelters, but if you have the town criers declare that on the big day, they should congregate in certain places, you could harvest quite a bit of joy by giving them presents there.
This version of Santa covers a very small area, but only needs to be 7th level (for the Dimension Door item), and he gets a full year's worth of crafting xp out of a single day's work; and could be thrown in to any campaign as background color.
TL;DR
Santa lives.
Learn to love reading - it's good for you.
Plus what is there to do on a board like this but read? Can you seriously think that anything longer than 140 characters is too much at once, yet sit and read 140 characters at a time all day?
So, while wondering whether something like the Santa Claus myth could be made to work in D&D, and more to the point, why would Santa Claus do it (what is his motivation) we came up with this, which I share just in case the idea interests you.
It is workable as-is. There are a number of ways to optimize it, but I wanted to post the most unassailable version.
It all hinges off the "Distill Joy" spell in the Book of Exalted Deeds. This is why Santa would bother - if he can cheaply farm Distill Joy, then he can get lots of Ambrosia to use in place of Xp while making magic items. Avoiding Xp costs is motivational.
So, to prepare, Santa makes or buys a Hewards Handy Haversack and casts Fabricate a bunch of times. In our house rules Fabricate allows a Craft skill check to see what quality of items you made, but that is not necessary for this to still work.
Santa Fabricates things that the typical medieval serf or peasant may need - winter coats, blankets, new plows and saddles, tools, etc, plus toys for the children.
Santa also needs to make an item that allows unlimited Dimension Doors (Per DMG page 282-284). Say he makes it a lifesized Reindeer model which he can sit on. Then he makes an unlimited use item of Distill Joy - say a bell that he hangs on the antlers of his Reindeer.
Optionally he can also make an unlimited use item based on Create Food and Water but which makes Candy instead of the usual food. In our House rules we allow a cooking check in these kinds of cases to make tasty candy if the skill check is good enough.
Alternately he could make a variant of Field Provisions box or Everlasting Rations bag or Everlasting Feed bag (all from Magic Items Compendium) such that it makes candy and has unlimited uses per day.
But if you're a stickler for staying with only what is explicitly written, then the candy can be skipped entirely without taking out the basic mechanism or purpose of all this.
Now Santa is ready to go. He loads his Handy Haversack with items aka presents (presumably having a lot more presents ready in a warehouse somewhere for reloading), gets on his Reindeer (possibly with a helper sitting behind him with another loaded Handy Haversack) and he is ready to go - Dimension Dooring to each house in his chosen town to deliver presents (and maybe candy) and collect the resulting joy.
Procedure:
For the first instance (assuming no Santa/Christmas tradition yet exists), hire some town criers to announce it (something like this: "Santa Claus is coming to visit each of your homes next Saturday morning to give you gifts. All who are home at the time will receive gifts. He asks nothing in return but that you be at home.") so folks know what is about to happen, then when the time comes, Dimension Door to every house in a village or town, giving gifts, possibly candy and amassing Ambrosia in return.
Can then teleport to other towns/villages and do the same.
If needed, check off each house on a map you carry as you go.
Santa can Dimension Door in, and deliver 1 present (2 if he has a helper riding behind him) in the first round. Then he can deliver more presents, possibly Candy in other rounds, Then use Distill Joy and (if needed) mark his map in the final round. Figure a family of 4 takes 3 rounds.
Then he goes to the next house and repeats it.
One Santa can thus do 200 houses in an hour (minus a bit if he needed to go back and fill up his Haversack, so he'd want to do non-voluminous presents to save time). That's a good-sized village, and he can keep it up for hours, serving either a bigger town or using occasional Teleports to switch from one town to another.
We don't need to do the whole world, since this is a new local tradition, and Santa doesn't need millions of XP for making magic items.
If one Santa plus helper spend 10 hours at this and have other helpers loading spare Haversacks back at the warehouse for rapid turnaround, and assuming that families average 4, then he can get about (4*200*10*2xp each=16,000 xp usable for crafting magic items - not at all bad for a day's work {not counting prep time}.)
And he also created a heck of a lot of goodwill and positive feelings aimed at himself as well - that too can be very useful (say maybe, in exchange for a large fee, he lets a Feudal Lord take credit for the tradition).
The Naughty-or-Nice list is optional. If the goal is to get maximum Ambrosia, then give everybody gifts. But if the goal is to encourage good behavior, have Detect Evil up, (from another magic item) and any who detect as evil get coal instead of a gift. Or you could also have Detect Good up, give presents to the good, coal to those who don't detect as either good nor evil (ie neutrals), and nothing to the evil.
To the average medieval peasant, a new plow, or set of tools, or coat or blanket or saddle etc will bring great joy since they were often struggling and making do with old worn and often-repaired equipment if they had any equipment at all.
Similarly candy could possibly surpass those, since sugar was a rare luxury. And candy in this quantity could make the difference between going hungry every day for the rest of winter, or having enough calories.
But as nice as all that is, kids will be the biggest source of joy, since they can get lost in the moment - adults can still worry about the future, mitigating their joy even in a particularly joyful moment.
The houses of rich folks won't generate much joy, since a new winter coat or similar means little to those who have all their needs met already.
And since kids are a good source for generating joy and so is need, orphanages will be primary targets. Those kids have little and even being remembered at all will likely bring them joy - being remembered with presents and candy etc far more so.
Similarly, the homeless and beggars. In medieval times, I doubt there were homeless shelters, but if you have the town criers declare that on the big day, they should congregate in certain places, you could harvest quite a bit of joy by giving them presents there.
This version of Santa covers a very small area, but only needs to be 7th level (for the Dimension Door item), and he gets a full year's worth of crafting xp out of a single day's work; and could be thrown in to any campaign as background color.
TL;DR
Santa lives.
Learn to love reading - it's good for you.
Plus what is there to do on a board like this but read? Can you seriously think that anything longer than 140 characters is too much at once, yet sit and read 140 characters at a time all day?