New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 16 of 32 FirstFirst ... 67891011121314151617181920212223242526 ... LastLast
Results 451 to 480 of 934

Thread: DnD Head Canons

  1. - Top - End - #451
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2016

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    I just thought of something. The city of Sigil itself is probably a portal to somewhere. The largest and most prominent bounded space in the city is the center of the torus.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
    Now, this does not mean the entire world is stupid, but it will slow the technological process, especially when many needs that might be met with science are instead met with magic. Do they practice three field agriculture, if you can use Plant Growth to do the same thing? Do they study epidemiology if Cure Disease is always at someone's fingertips? What about Meterology when a Gust of Wind spell seven hundred miles away leads to the entire model falling apart? Magic throws a lot of sciences into disarray, even assuming they would work like they do in the real world (Forgotten Realms, for example, long held that gunpowder simply did not work in the setting; you had to use smokepowder, which was functionally identical, but prevented people from whipping up a cannon every time they faced a gorn.)
    Why not study those things when divination magic is at their fingertips?

    Also, gunpowder not working doesn't really matter. There are plenty of other things in D&D that could produce similar explosive reaction. In 1e you could do create an explosion by mixing two magic potions of the correct types together (DMG p.119). It would be a simple matter to store small samples of the correct liquids in small glass capsules that could be smashed by a hammer operated by the trigger and thereby allowed to intermix.

    EDIT:
    And furthermore, in a more general sense, not working the same way as in the real world is not the same as not working
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2020-10-23 at 11:48 AM.
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

    Omegaupdate Forum

    WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext

    PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket

    Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil

    Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)

  2. - Top - End - #452
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2015

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    I just thought of something. The city of Sigil itself is probably a portal to somewhere. The largest and most prominent bounded space in the city is the center of the torus.



    Why not study those things when divination magic is at their fingertips?

    Also, gunpowder not working doesn't really matter. There are plenty of other things in D&D that could produce similar explosive reaction. In 1e you could do create an explosion by mixing two magic potions of the correct types together (DMG p.119). It would be a simple matter to store small samples of the correct liquids in small glass capsules that could be smashed by a hammer operated by the trigger and thereby allowed to intermix.

    EDIT:
    And furthermore, in a more general sense, not working the same way as in the real world is not the same as not working
    Does not works because gond magically makes the writers of that setting unable to realise the fact that guns are not solely the result of gunpowder but instead the result of being able to get high amount of energy under the form of short bursts.

    I mean it is among the least consistent settings do not try to find logic in it.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-10-23 at 11:53 AM.

  3. - Top - End - #453
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2016

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    "Like 300 years" doesn't delineate a defined amount of technological progress. Compare the 300-year period between 1700 and 2000 with the period between 1640 and 1940--the two starting years have basically the same tech level for all intents and purposes, being in the tail end of the Renaissance, whereas the gap between 1940s tech and 2000s tech is absolutely massive. Compare either one to the period between 1720 and 2020 and you end up with yet more massive technological leaps.

    And remember, technology doesn't follow a "tech tree" model in the real world where technology steps through through a fixed and known set of advancements at a fixed and reliable pace:

    1) One technology doesn't necessarily follow another: Ancient China invented gunpowder in 850 and didn't do anything with it beyond fireworks and primitive rocket weapons, whereas Europe discovered gunpowder in the late 1200s and developed the first handheld firearms in the 1360s. Totally different contexts (a long-dominant empire vs. kingdoms at war, to massively oversimplify) and totally different uses cases lead to totally different outcomes, and a post-apocalyptic D&D world would be yet a third context and use case.

    2) The next technology is not always obvious: Early firearms were very inaccurate, and every gunsmith wanted to find a way to improve their accuracy, yet it wasn't until 1498 that rifling was invented. Nearly a century and a half to develop what seems to be an obvious invention (because most inventions seem obvious in retrospect), and that's with many experts working on the problem from many angles over a long period of time. Start with a few ancient one-of-a-kind revolvers (which might have been lost, stolen, corroded into uselessness, not allowed to be disassembled for study because they're holy relics, etc.) with no existing tech base or expertise (i.e. having to reverse-engineer gunpowder, needing to invent standardized parts manufacturing, etc.) and there's no guarantee that a prospective gunsmith would make any useful progress before giving the endeavor up as a lost cause.

    Both of those factors go double for a world with functioning and widespread magic, which all of the published D&D settings are (except debateably Dark Sun, and in that case the raw materials for technological alternatives simply don't exist), where the kingdom may never invest in rocketry research when wands of fireball are capable of filling the "make all those people over there explode" role just fine and where primitive guns may not measure up to existing weapons (not even magic ones, just arbalests and such) well enough to justify continuing down an obviously-dead-end route.
    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    It's an artifact. By definition, artifacts and relics are magic items whose means of (re)creation are unknown.

    As a point of clarification, you can just copy the Nether Scrolls in the sense of writing down what they say; writing down the teachings on magical theory and spreading them around is precisely how Netheril ended up with tons of powerful wizards, and you can copy spells out of them like you can a regular scroll. You just can't Xerox a set of Nether Scrolls and get a copy with the artifact-level powers the originals possess.
    It's not just technology though. As you yourself have pointed outed about artifacts, it's magic as well. Magic doesn't stay advanced, and there's evidence of a past time so advanced that even Netheril, which is generally an exception to this, couldn't replicate its achievements.

    Also I brought up Murlynd specifically because he's a combination of immortal, brilliant, rich, and specifically interested in firearms technology. Because of him alone it should have advanced.

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    You can. Major creation will do it temporarily and true creation or reality revision/wish will do it permanently. The problem, of course, is that those are 5th and 8th/9th level spells and powers, the former lasts only a few rounds, and the latter costs large amounts of XP, so mining for it is much more time- and cost-effective than conjuring it.

    If you mean "Why does it require such a high-level spell and a large XP cost to permanently conjure up mithral and adamantine," well, it's the same reason why raise dead and teleport are 5th level: in-game because that magical effect is hard and complex to achieve, out-of-game because certain magical effects "come online" at different levels as the game changes in scope and PC capabilities expand.
    Yeah, but IIRC True Creation is 2 levels higher than raise dead. And Major Creation can't create cold iron (I think that may have been what I was thinking of in my original post

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Even putting aside the fact that gods have a limited ability to act on the Prime (which we'll get to in a minute), you forget that even if a given god helps out their own followers (A) they can only really act in a way that fits with their portfolio and (B) other gods can act to prevent or meddle with their help.

    For instance, in the Forgotten Realms, it is flat-out impossible for anyone to make gunpowder because Gond, god of technology, has decreed it so. You can try to make smokepowder, an alchemical substance with similar properties, but only if you're a priest of Gond, otherwise it's flat-out impossible because Gond has decreed it so. No amount of innovation over any amount of time will get you from revolvers to AK-47s while on Toril, and those revolvers would themselves stop working the moment you took them into Realmspace.

    Now, this unilateral decree is allowed because the other gods agree that everyone getting their hands on gunpowder would be...suboptimal...and so let his ban go by without issue. But if Gond started arming all of his followers with tons of gunpowder weapons while still barring it to other gods' followers, you can bet your last copper that Torm would be arming his own followers with ballistas while making siege weapons not work for any other gods' followers, Umberlee would be giving her followers ships while sinking any ships used by other gods' followers, and so forth...at which point all the many and varied servants of Mystra from novice priests to her Chosen stomp everyone flat because they've got magic coming out their ears and no one else can cast the simplest cantrip.

    (None of which would actually happen because of Ao's rules to the contrary, of course, but that scenario is why those rules exist.)

    This scenario isn't exactly analogous in every setting (gunpowder obviously works just fine on Oerth, and we have no reason to believe it wouldn't on other worlds), but the general principle stands that wherever there are active gods there are constraints on those gods' behavior to avoid too much interference (either positive or negative) with mortals.

    Because the gods all agreed that directly meddling in the lives of mortals would have majorly bad consequences and are thus in the midst of a metaphysical and philosophical cold war, and things like limiting the revelations they give their followers fits into that.
    I'm not sure if something like Gond's ban is even possible in other crystal spheres. Usually (individual) gods' power in D&D doesn't seem to be quite so absolute. It may be dependent on either the weave or Ao to hold (Or failing that it may have required a very long term project to cover the whole sphere in interdiction effects, or possibly a single interdiction zone that slowly grows). (And even if the power of the gods was that absolute in general, it would still be possible for any other god of technology to cancel it)

    In any case, I don't really see the chaotic and evil deities (and especially the chaotic evil deities) willingly agreeing to this*, and actually intending to honor the bargain, and reliably sticking to that intent. (Or, for that matter, not forum shopping and paying off the Lords of Woe to issue rulings in their favor that have nothing to do with the Compact;s actual terms). It would have to be forced on them somehow.

    *(as in any of it. The pact, the ban, any of it)
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2020-10-23 at 03:27 PM.
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

    Omegaupdate Forum

    WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext

    PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket

    Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil

    Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)

  4. - Top - End - #454

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Honestly, D&Dland probably isn't so much in Medieval Status as locked into a cycle of repeating apocalypses. You can summon demons that can destroy mid-sized kingdoms, and there are literal slaughter cults that can summon those demons and who want nothing more than to destroy anything they can find. This is not a setup that produces a stable equilibrium. So realistically, the reason that everything is medieval is the same one invoked in The Stormlight Archive during the Desolations: it's really hard to hold on to technology, let alone advance, when the world ends every couple generations.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Yeah, but IIRC True Creation is 2 levels higher than raise dead. And Major Creation can't create cold iron (I think that may have been what I was thinking of in my original post
    Three, actually (at least in 3e). And a good sight rarer, as the former is a Domain spell, while the latter is known to literally every single Cleric.
    Last edited by NigelWalmsley; 2020-10-23 at 03:28 PM.

  5. - Top - End - #455
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2015

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Honestly, D&Dland probably isn't so much in Medieval Status as locked into a cycle of repeating apocalypses. You can summon demons that can destroy mid-sized kingdoms, and there are literal slaughter cults that can summon those demons and who want nothing more than to destroy anything they can find. This is not a setup that produces a stable equilibrium. So realistically, the reason that everything is medieval is the same one invoked in The Stormlight Archive during the Desolations: it's really hard to hold on to technology, let alone advance, when the world ends every couple generations.



    Three, actually (at least in 3e). And a good sight rarer, as the former is a Domain spell, while the latter is known to literally every single Cleric.
    we were talking about forgotten realms which is not the same thing as dnd land.
    There is so many dnd settings with all their own reasons for stagnation.
    Some even have no medieval stasis and have tech that does absolutely everything provided someone skilled enough designs it(ravenloft) but are awful because everything is wrong.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-10-23 at 03:55 PM.

  6. - Top - End - #456
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2016

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Honestly, D&Dland probably isn't so much in Medieval Status as locked into a cycle of repeating apocalypses. You can summon demons that can destroy mid-sized kingdoms, and there are literal slaughter cults that can summon those demons and who want nothing more than to destroy anything they can find. This is not a setup that produces a stable equilibrium.
    It's still static in the same way that the society in the first act of Gurren Lagaan was static. Continuing the Gurren Lagaan metaphor, the version of the Age Before Ages and early Blood War that I'm imagining is somewhat similar to the later acts of Gurren Lagaan, where there is destruction on a cosmic scale, but things continue on regardless (edit: I think at one point in the movie the entire universe is destroyed and even that doesn't end the fight).

    Another possible metaphor for what I'm imagining in the Eldar empire from WH40K. The entire empire was overrun my mass murder, mass mayhem, mass destruction, and widespread degeneracy and corruption, and being a serial killer was considered a legitimate artform, but due to its magical and technological might it was in no danger of being destroyed by these things directly (it did eventually end them indirectly when the Eldar's souls eventually collapsed into a singularity of pure chaos due to hundreds of reincarnation cycles of being exposed to this society, but it was in no danher of destroying them directly is my point)
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2020-10-24 at 03:59 AM.
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

    Omegaupdate Forum

    WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext

    PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket

    Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil

    Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)

  7. - Top - End - #457
    Titan in the Playground
     
    PairO'Dice Lost's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Malsheem, Nessus
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    It still does not makes sense for them to make their predictions cryptic: by doing a cryptic prediction they just get it to be read by someone intelligent enough to understand it which then can explain it and if the prediction is not intentionally ambiguous to the point of uselessness then they granted information and interfered.

    So they should just not send predictions if the goal was non interference.

    Especially since in most published adventures and campaigns the "cryptic" predictions are so obvious and non ambiguous monkeys could understand them just fine (because they want all the playtesters even the one who is just sitting at the table and not listening because it is where their friends are to understand the prediction)
    So there is no real point in making them cryptic if you use the amount of cryptic used in published campaigns.
    The best reason to make cryptic pronouncements is a letter of the law/spirit of the law issue. If the Divine Compact says "Thou shalt not tell your followers how to do X" and you make a big stone tablet appear in some random place with a riddle on it, well, you're not breaking the rules, are you? You just created a thing (which your followers happened to stumble across) that could, perhaps, be interpreted to imply how to do X, which is totally a different thing.

    Look at commune and contact other plane, the most direct way a priest has to communicate with his patron or a wizard has to communicate with a planar lord. One gives yes/no answers, or a five-words-or-fewer phrase "in cases where a one-word answer would be misleading or contrary to the deity’s interests," while the other gives any single-word answers. Why are those spells so constrained, when one has to be a powerful caster already to be able to cast them so their usage is pretty limited? Presumably because the Divine Compact says so. Why are the two spells so open-ended in what they can communicate in edges cases? Possibly so the gods can cheat like hell around the exact wording of the Divine Compact.

    (The out-of-game reasons for vague divinations are totally unrelated, of course, but vague-but-easily-decipherable pronouncements show up in mythology all the time so there's plenty of precedent.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Also, gunpowder not working doesn't really matter. There are plenty of other things in D&D that could produce similar explosive reaction. In 1e you could do create an explosion by mixing two magic potions of the correct types together (DMG p.119). It would be a simple matter to store small samples of the correct liquids in small glass capsules that could be smashed by a hammer operated by the trigger and thereby allowed to intermix.
    Quote Originally Posted by noob
    Does not works because gond magically makes the writers of that setting unable to realise the fact that guns are not solely the result of gunpowder but instead the result of being able to get high amount of energy under the form of short bursts.
    You're both coming at the issue from the perspective of wanting to invent guns and trying to reverse-engineer a way for magic-users to develop them, either justifying the invention of gunpowder or finding an equivalent alchemical or magical substance to use as a substitute. But a magic-user isn't going to look at a potion explosion, think that's something that could be weaponized, save a bunch of samples, and start researching how to stick it in a metal tube to let commoners chuck tiny bits of metal at each other, he's going to go "Oh no, my potion of flight and elixir of fire breath have just reacted poorly with one another, utterly ruining two powerful and valuable potions spell! Damn you, Ioulaum's Theorem of Potion Miscibility, damn you straight to Baator!"

    If an arcanist wanted to make a non-wand projectile weapon of some sort, and if he wanted to do so without simply enchanting a crossbow with an object-launching spell or the like, and if he wanted to base the weapon on unknown principles of an entirely new area of research, and if he didn't think that doing things with exploding powders was a job better suited to an alchemist, and if a bunch of other caveats, then yes, any magic-user likely has the Int score, the resources, and the creativity to invent guns and gunpowder. But there's nothing inevitable about guns and there's a ton of baggage both cultural and personal pushing magic-users in a bunch of other directions to make their development quite unlikely.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    It's not just technology though. As you yourself have pointed outed about artifacts, it's magic as well. Magic doesn't stay advanced, and there's evidence of a past time so advanced that even Netheril, which is generally an exception to this, couldn't replicate its achievements.
    This is true, every advanced magical civilization has its own form of advanced magic on which its civilization is built (Batrachi dimensional shenanigans for the Imaskari, 10th+ level spells and mythallars for the Netherese, teachable psionics and udoxia for the Jhaamdathi, ubiquitous bound demons and Things Man Was Not Meant To Know for the Nar, circle magic and place magic for the Raumathari, and so on). But every one of those magical civilizations started from the same baseline of low-level magics that survived the previous civilizations' falls, and none of them branched off in radically different directions because they were focused on recovering secrets of the past and honing their own unique specialties.

    Also I brought up Murlynd specifically because he's a combination of immortal, brilliant, rich, and specifically interested in firearms technology. Because of him alone it should have advanced.
    Technology doesn't advance because of one person's interests, no matter how rich and eccentric they may be. Henry Ford didn't invent cars and interstates, Thomas Edison didn't invent batteries and the national electric grid, Elon Musk didn't invent rocketry and flying drones. All that Murlynd tinkering with guns for a few centuries might do is ensure that he has a bunch of advanced firearms, all of which would basically be strange artifacts just like his original enchanted revolvers, because one hobbyist does not a field of industry make.

    Even if we stipulate that Murlynd opened Murlynd's Academy of Teaching People to Build and Shoot Guns and started trying to spread his love for and knowledge of guns, there's no guarantee it would take off. It might be banned by local rulers who find it a threat to their rule, shunned by other wizards who consider it beneath them, attacked by demons who don't want cold-iron-bullet-chucking weapons to be more common, and so on--and even if Murlynd can deal with all of those things because he's a badass, it's not great for his PR and wouldn't necessarily attract a lot of adherents if everyone's ganging up on him for it.

    And note that that's something he didn't do, instead ascending to be the Hero-Deity of Magical Technology--magical technology, not plain ol' normal technology--and then giving his priests and only his priests access to firebrands (magical equivalents of firearms, not actual firearms) to use to aid the common people. The one guy best placed to do what you propose explicitly didn't do that, and instead set himself up as a bottleneck and arbiter of technological development on Oerth, just like Gond did in Toril.

    Yeah, but IIRC True Creation is 2 levels higher than raise dead. And Major Creation can't create cold iron (I think that may have been what I was thinking of in my original post
    Cold iron indeed can't be created by magic, because it's a magic-resistant metal whose properties derive from it originating in specific places and being subject to specific manipulation. It makes plenty of sense that you can't create a magic-resistant metal with magic and have it retain its properties, and that you can't create "iron mined in the Underdark" by magic (because conjured iron and other materials are pulled from the Inner Planes) in the same way that Joe Wizard can't create "silver conjured by Bob the Sorcerer," because it's a contradiction in terms.

    In any case, I don't really see the chaotic and evil deities (and especially the chaotic evil deities) willingly agreeing to this*, and actually intending to honor the bargain, and reliably sticking to that intent. (Or, for that matter, not forum shopping and paying off the Lords of Woe to issue rulings in their favor that have nothing to do with the Compact;s actual terms). It would have to be forced on them somehow.

    *(as in any of it. The pact, the ban, any of it)
    Being Chaotic and Evil doesn't mean refusing to enter agreements or being unable to abide by them; Chaotic does not mean Insane or Arbitrarily Contrary and Evil does not mean Psychopathic or Compulsively Antisocial.

    It is, in fact, in the best interests of Chaotic and/or Evil powers-that-be to agree to a bargain that limits divine interference on the Material Plane across the board. If anyone can pop on down to the Prime in person at any time to do what they want, Chaotic and/or Evil gods are going to get stomped by Lawful and/or Good ones because Law and Good are good at cooperating against common enemies (Law won the War of Law and Chaos, after all, and Good is all about playing nice with others) and Chaos and Evil manifestly are not. If anyone can empower any number of followers and avatars to mess around on the Prime, Lawful and/or Good gods can afford to spend their power on that because they have allies to watch their backs on their nice and safe home planes while Chaotic and/or Evil gods can't afford to weaken themselves like that because they'll get ganked by their minions, other gods, demon princes, etc. while their backs are turned. And so on.

    If, on the other hand, only indirect action is possible, then that's great for Chaotic and/or Evil gods! A Chaotic god can get tons of mileage out of empowering one high priest to go poison a bunch of water supplies in one kingdom and frame a neighboring kingdom for it to kickstart a war, and an Evil church can tempt tons of mortals into giving in to their base impulses for power and slowly corrupt them until their souls are headed for the Abyss. Good gods, meanwhile, get to empower one high priest who has to go around foiling evil plans and saving orphans from burning buildings and such, and what the heck is a Lawful god going to "tempt" people with, tax deductions?
    Better to DM in Baator than play in Celestia
    You can just call me Dice; that's how I roll.


    Spoiler: Sig of Holding
    Show

    Quote Originally Posted by abadguy View Post
    Darn you PoDL for making me care about a bunch of NPC Commoners!
    Quote Originally Posted by Chambers View Post
    I'm pretty sure turning Waterdeep into a sheet of glass wasn't the best win condition for that fight. We lived though!
    Quote Originally Posted by MaxiDuRaritry View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'DiceLost View Post
    <Snip>
    Where are my Like, Love, and Want to Have Your Manchildren (Totally Homo) buttons for this post?
    Won a cookie for this, won everything for this

  8. - Top - End - #458
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Zombie

    Join Date
    May 2010

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    But a magic-user isn't going to look at a potion explosion, think that's something that could be weaponized, save a bunch of samples, and start researching how to stick it in a metal tube to let commoners chuck tiny bits of metal at each other...
    That's literally what happened in the real world. Chinese alchemists tried to make a potion of longevity and ended up making gunpowder by accident instead. They used it to make rockets and guns.
    The Curse of the House of Rookwood: Supernatural horror and family drama.
    Ash Island: Personal survival horror in the vein of Silent Hill.

  9. - Top - End - #459
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2015

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post

    You're both coming at the issue from the perspective of wanting to invent guns and trying to reverse-engineer a way for magic-users to develop them, either justifying the invention of gunpowder or finding an equivalent alchemical or magical substance to use as a substitute. But a magic-user isn't going to look at a potion explosion, think that's something that could be weaponized, save a bunch of samples, and start researching how to stick it in a metal tube to let commoners chuck tiny bits of metal at each other, he's going to go "Oh no, my potion of flight and elixir of fire breath have just reacted poorly with one another, utterly ruining two powerful and valuable potions spell! Damn you, Ioulaum's Theorem of Potion Miscibility, damn you straight to Baator!"

    If an arcanist wanted to make a non-wand projectile weapon of some sort, and if he wanted to do so without simply enchanting a crossbow with an object-launching spell or the like, and if he wanted to base the weapon on unknown principles of an entirely new area of research, and if he didn't think that doing things with exploding powders was a job better suited to an alchemist, and if a bunch of other caveats, then yes, any magic-user likely has the Int score, the resources, and the creativity to invent guns and gunpowder. But there's nothing inevitable about guns and there's a ton of baggage both cultural and personal pushing magic-users in a bunch of other directions to make their development quite unlikely.
    Not only did gond give basic firearms to their followers thus making non initiate realise it is doable and know what it is after killing an initiate(only the powder is impossible to do for non gond followers) but there is also a story of cost reduction.
    You need to do a basic magic missile wand to spend a full 750 gold.
    That is huge in fact and it does not provide a lot of firepower and can not hit targets that are in antimagic zones.
    So if you find an alternate way to do your magic missile wand cheaper or significantly more powerful(ex: make the projectile non magical and propelled by magic as an intermediary step to guns) of course you will use it and then it will spread.
    Magical items being ridiculously expensive to make are a huge motivating factor to seek cheaper or better non magical alternatives.
    Even more since you can just cast fabricate to make instantly any non magical item.
    So clearly gond mind controls people to make them not take his gun designs and use something else than his copyrighted powder.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-10-27 at 02:49 PM.

  10. - Top - End - #460
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2016

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Being Chaotic and Evil doesn't mean refusing to enter agreements or being unable to abide by them; Chaotic does not mean Insane or Arbitrarily Contrary and Evil does not mean Psychopathic or Compulsively Antisocial.
    Itmdoes generally imply that they have no honor though, and I would point out that many of the CE deities are indeed portrayed as just full on psycho (Erythnul and Urdlen come to mind)
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

    Omegaupdate Forum

    WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext

    PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket

    Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil

    Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)

  11. - Top - End - #461

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    I mean, alignment doesn't make any sense to begin with, but Erythnul's issues may have more to do with being the god of concepts like "Hate" and "Malice". Drow apparently manage to have an extremely complicated society despite being chaotic and evil (though, of course, that's one of the parts of alignment that doesn't make any sense).

  12. - Top - End - #462
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2016

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    You're both coming at the issue from the perspective of wanting to invent guns and trying to reverse-engineer a way for magic-users to develop them, either justifying the invention of gunpowder or finding an equivalent alchemical or magical substance to use as a substitute. But a magic-user isn't going to look at a potion explosion, think that's something that could be weaponized, save a bunch of samples, and start researching how to stick it in a metal tube to let commoners chuck tiny bits of metal at each other, he's going to go "Oh no, my potion of flight and elixir of fire breath have just reacted poorly with one another, utterly ruining two powerful and valuable potions spell! Damn you, Ioulaum's Theorem of Potion Miscibility, damn you straight to Baator!"
    Yeah. Admittedly he'd probably simply be making a bomb for 1/3 the price (of a 1 use sound burst item) instead. Well, maybe not from those potions specifically, but from two level 1 potions
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2020-10-27 at 08:12 PM.
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

    Omegaupdate Forum

    WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext

    PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket

    Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil

    Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)

  13. - Top - End - #463
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2015

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    It is true that they might not do guns and instead do grenade launchers and explosive shell siege weapons but if you start doing this kind of things and that you have crossbows then guns are not very far from being invented.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-10-28 at 03:55 PM.

  14. - Top - End - #464
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    RedMage125's Avatar

    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    I'm on a boat!
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    I mean, alignment doesn't make any sense to begin with, but Erythnul's issues may have more to do with being the god of concepts like "Hate" and "Malice". Drow apparently manage to have an extremely complicated society despite being chaotic and evil (though, of course, that's one of the parts of alignment that doesn't make any sense).
    That's because you're taking a very narrow view of alignment. It's ALWAYS been true that alignment is not an absolute barometer of action nor affiliation.

    The War of the Spider Queen series is actually quite clear on Lolth's tendency towards Chaos, and how her children -the drow- do not fully appreciate and embrace it. To Lolth, Chaos is a crucible. One become stronger by fully embracing chaos. To the drow, Chaos is a means to an end. They attempt to harness Chaos, to direct and use it for their advantage. They don't fully surrender to the ebb and flow of Chaos, and Lolth believes it holds them back.

    Erythnul, OTOH, is a savage, almost animalistic god of slaughter. He is Chaotic because he acts upon every savage whim and impulse.
    Red Mage avatar by Aedilred.

    Where do you fit in? (link fixed)

    RedMage Prestige Class!

    Best advice I've ever heard one DM give another:
    "Remember that it is both a game and a story. If the two conflict, err on the side of cool, your players will thank you for it."

    Second Eternal Foe of the Draconic Lord, battling him across the multiverse in whatever shapes and forms he may take.

  15. - Top - End - #465
    Titan in the Playground
     
    PairO'Dice Lost's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Malsheem, Nessus
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by Xuc Xac View Post
    That's literally what happened in the real world. Chinese alchemists tried to make a potion of longevity and ended up making gunpowder by accident instead. They used it to make rockets and guns.
    The major difference here, of course, being that the Chinese alchemists were (A) experimenting with unknown materials and procedures to (B) try to create a hypothetical substance but (C) ended up accidentally inventing a novel substance which (D) had a lot of new and interesting applications, whereas a magic-user brewing potions who caused an explosion via potion miscibility was (A) working through a standard procedure with standard ingredients to (B) create a standard potion that's been known about for thousands of years but (C) ended up accidentally generating one of a bunch of random effects that don't depend on the input materials at all [because potion miscibility results don't depend on which potions were used, just that multiple potions were used at all] which (D) had zero usefulness compared to the panoply of magical effects that he could already generate.

    It's like the difference between a Bronze Age person accidentally stumbling across iron smelting (by e.g. picking up a rock containing iron ore, accidentally dropping it into a forge, noticing an interesting result, and going from there) versus a Medieval smith working on forging an iron sword and accidentally getting a chunk of bronze in the molten iron. The former could lead to a major serendipitous advancement in metalworking, the latter is a mistake that messed up what he was already working on to no real effect.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Yeah. Admittedly he'd probably simply be making a bomb for 1/3 the price (of a 1 use sound burst item) instead. Well, maybe not from those potions specifically, but from two level 1 potions
    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    It is true that they might not do guns and instead do grenade launchers and explosive shell siege weapons but if you start doing this kind of things and that you have crossbows then guns are not very far from being invented.
    For the umpteenth time, bombs and guns are not an inevitable advancement, especially when the world already has magic weapons!

    Seriously, early firearms sucked. Big, heavy, slow to load, slow to fire, short-ranged, unpredictably timed, weak, inaccurate, and pretty much pathetic in every way compared to bows and crossbows. The gun eventually overtook the crossbow (around 600 years after the gun was invented) because it had been slowly increasing in accuracy and range and decreasing in weight and reload times while the crossbow had improved at a much slower rate...but in D&D settings, there are two major advantages to an enchanted crossbow compared to a gun:

    1) Ease of creation. A reasonably handy peasant can make a crossbow himself with access to common materials, and then a spellcaster can enchant it himself, or a sufficiently handy spellcaster can do the whole thing himself. A usable gun, however, requires a lot more precision in its creation than a usable crossbow, and it involves more materials for the gun itself, rare materials and special expertise for the powder, and so on, so you need more people involved to create it and it's unlikely a spellcaster would be able to do the whole job himself. An adventurer or researcher or hobbyist wouldn't care, they're willing to go to some length to make or fund one, but a king trying to outfit his army is going to care about the expense and difficulty of creation and a village trying to equip its militia is going to care about the skill floor and difficulty of sourcing materials.

    2) Cost-effectiveness. Someone used to enchanted crossbows is used to weapons that, once enchanted, can shoot flaming bolts (or exploding bolts or sleep bolts or whatever) forever with needing to be re-enchanted, making the only ongoing cost that of the bolts, which can be created by peasants relatively easily and cheaply. A gun already has a higher upfront cost than a crossbow, but then you add on the fact that the bullets are more expensive and harder to make, and then you add on the fact that every shot consumes gunpowder for an additional cost. Again, an individual might not care about the cost, but it would definitely hamper widespread adoption.

    In the real world, guns provided a quantitatively different kind of projectile weapon and were worth investigating because firearm technology was something entirely novel. In D&D settings, primitive guns are strictly inferior to weapons they already have and don't provide any novel benefits.

    The only ways in which guns are possibly superior to enchanted crossbows are (A) when comparing enchanted guns to enchanted crossbows, but to get to that point you have to have guns already, and (B) if you want the populace to be able to make their own weapons without being reliant on spellcasters, and I say possibly superior here because there's a really good chance that all the people who might otherwise research guns would have as patrons rulers who don't want the masses to get their hands on any better weapons than they already have, and so they would discourage such research even if they thought it might provide benefits over enchanted crossbows. But again, that's possibility, not inevitability.

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    Not only did gond give basic firearms to their followers thus making non initiate realise it is doable and know what it is after killing an initiate(only the powder is impossible to do for non gond followers) but there is also a story of cost reduction.
    You need to do a basic magic missile wand to spend a full 750 gold.
    Why would you compare a gun to a wand of magic missile? A much more direct comparison would be to a heavy crossbow, and not even an enchanted one.

    As per the DMG, a musket deals 1d12 damage (x3 crit) with a range increment of 50 feet, weighs 10 lbs, and takes a full-round action to reload, while a heavy crossbow deals 1d10 damage (19-20/x2 crit) with a range increment of 120 feet, weighs 8 lbs, and takes a standard action to reload. A musket costs 500 gp upfront and costs 1.4 gp to fire (0.3 gp per bullet, 1.1 gp per measure of gunpowder), while a heavy crossbow costs 50 gp upfront and costs 0.1 gp to loose (0.1 gp per bolt). The only dimensions along which the musket isn't equal to, equivalent to, or strictly worse than the heavy crossbow are the damage (and 1 point on average is trivial) and reload time (and full-round vs. standard only gives you better mobility, it doesn't let you fire any faster).

    And if you do compare the gun to a wand of magic missile? Well, firstly, the wand has a bunch of advantages: automatically hits, can hit incorporeal creatures, ignores DR, weighs practically nothing, requires no ammunition, and has no reload time. (And, if you craft one with a higher CL, you get things like multi-targeting, better single-target damage, longer range, etc., but we're just talking the basic version.) Yes, there are edge cases like fighting in dead magic zones, but lots of settings have "that one enclave of weird and secretive tinker gnomes experimenting with clockwork and alchemy" somewhere on the map where magic is less common or less than reliable, and if dead magic or wild magic is common enough for anyone to need to take that into account when picking weapons, you're dealing with a "DM's poor attempt at a low-magic setting" situation where all the standard assumptions go out the window anyway.

    And secondly, the cost isn't actually that exorbitant, comparatively: a CL 1 wand of magic missile is 750 gp for 50 charges, while a musket is 570 gp for 50 shots (500 gp musket + 50 * 1.4 gp ammo), so it's not like you'd get a half-dozen guns for the cost of one wand, you don't even get two guns for the cost of one wand--but you can get 13 heavy crossbows (50 gp crossbow + 50 * 0.1 gp ammo) for the cost of 1 wand, or 10 crossbows for the cost of 1 gun. Certainly, over time the gun gets comparatively cheaper since you don't need to buy a new musket every 50 shots like you do a wand, but (A) it's not the kind of drastic price difference that would make the initial investment choice obviously in favor of the gun over the wand and (B) if you're considering arming your rank-and-file soldiers with wands of anything at all, you have enough magic at your disposal to do much more impressive things than make guns or crossbows.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Itmdoes generally imply that they have no honor though, and I would point out that many of the CE deities are indeed portrayed as just full on psycho (Erythnul and Urdlen come to mind)
    You don't need to be honorable, or adhere to any rules of behavior at all, to make a deal and then hold to it if you believe that holding to it is in your best interests; that's basic game theory. And of course we see that Chaotic and/or Evil gods do try to cheat around the Divine Compact all the time--whenever you have a "the cult of [god] is trying to summon [god/god's avatar/etc.] to the Material Plane" plot or a "the followers of [god] is [impersonating/slaying/etc.] the followers of [god's rival] on a large scale" plot or similar, like the entire basis for the Red Hand of Doom adventure path--it's just that whenever they try it they get their butts handed to them by adventurers so the other gods are incentivized not to try that again for a while.

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    I mean, alignment doesn't make any sense to begin with, but Erythnul's issues may have more to do with being the god of concepts like "Hate" and "Malice". Drow apparently manage to have an extremely complicated society despite being chaotic and evil (though, of course, that's one of the parts of alignment that doesn't make any sense).
    Drow society makes perfect sense with the alignment system if you recall that (A) having a baroque social structure doesn't mean valuing a baroque social structure (drow society is imposed on them by Lolth for kicks and giggles and they do their best to cope within it, as RedMage noted) and (B) that whole thing is just a facade. To quote myself from an earlier thread on the topic:

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost
    People like to complain about drow society being "obviously" LE with its strict rules and hierarchy when drow themselves are CE, so drow should really be LE instead, but the whole point is that the drow don't follow any of their own supposed rules.

    Lesser Houses absolutely aren't allowed to wage wars against their betters...but they do anyway and no one cares unless they get caught, in which case they're punished not because they broke the rules but because they were incompetent enough to not cover their tracks well enough and the Greater Houses just like punishing rivals when they know no one's going to object. All priestesses are absolutely unified under Lolth and follow a strict hierarchy of favor where lesser priestesses defer to greater ones...but yochlol go around actively sowing dissent among the priestesshood and any priestess who schemes against a rival on her own and manages to depose said rival is immediately recognized and rewarded for it. Males are absolutely not allowed to hold any positions of power and are supposed to be utterly disposable for the needs of the priestesshood...but many powerful archmages rival or exceed priestesses in power, and house mothers often protect favored males from their sisters' schemes (or cede power to them outright).

    The drow have instituted a superficially-complex web (heh) of laws and rules and commandments, but they don't actually believe in any of it. All of the rules go out the window the moment someone either thinks they can get away with something that will improve their standing without getting caught or is ordered by Lolth to do a particular thing. No one actually respects the law itself or trusts that anyone else respects the law--especially since "the law" is basically "whatever the Matron Mother feels like doing at the moment"--but solely focuses on how they can do whatever they want despite the law.

    There's only one commandment, "Thou shalt not go against Lolth," and that's less a "commandment" and more a handy piece of advice like "Don't go near a rabid dog" or "Don't piss off a hungry tiger."
    Last edited by PairO'Dice Lost; 2020-10-30 at 05:55 AM.
    Better to DM in Baator than play in Celestia
    You can just call me Dice; that's how I roll.


    Spoiler: Sig of Holding
    Show

    Quote Originally Posted by abadguy View Post
    Darn you PoDL for making me care about a bunch of NPC Commoners!
    Quote Originally Posted by Chambers View Post
    I'm pretty sure turning Waterdeep into a sheet of glass wasn't the best win condition for that fight. We lived though!
    Quote Originally Posted by MaxiDuRaritry View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'DiceLost View Post
    <Snip>
    Where are my Like, Love, and Want to Have Your Manchildren (Totally Homo) buttons for this post?
    Won a cookie for this, won everything for this

  16. - Top - End - #466
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2015

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    The major difference here, of course, being that the Chinese alchemists were (A) experimenting with unknown materials and procedures to (B) try to create a hypothetical substance but (C) ended up accidentally inventing a novel substance which (D) had a lot of new and interesting applications, whereas a magic-user brewing potions who caused an explosion via potion miscibility was (A) working through a standard procedure with standard ingredients to (B) create a standard potion that's been known about for thousands of years but (C) ended up accidentally generating one of a bunch of random effects that don't depend on the input materials at all [because potion miscibility results don't depend on which potions were used, just that multiple potions were used at all] which (D) had zero usefulness compared to the panoply of magical effects that he could already generate.

    It's like the difference between a Bronze Age person accidentally stumbling across iron smelting (by e.g. picking up a rock containing iron ore, accidentally dropping it into a forge, noticing an interesting result, and going from there) versus a Medieval smith working on forging an iron sword and accidentally getting a chunk of bronze in the molten iron. The former could lead to a major serendipitous advancement in metalworking, the latter is a mistake that messed up what he was already working on to no real effect.

    For the umpteenth time, bombs and guns are not an inevitable advancement, especially when the world already has magic weapons!

    Seriously, early firearms sucked. Big, heavy, slow to load, slow to fire, short-ranged, unpredictably timed, weak, inaccurate, and pretty much pathetic in every way compared to bows and crossbows. The gun eventually overtook the crossbow (around 600 years after the gun was invented) because it had been slowly increasing in accuracy and range and decreasing in weight and reload times while the crossbow had improved at a much slower rate...but in D&D settings, there are two major advantages to an enchanted crossbow compared to a gun:

    1) Ease of creation. A reasonably handy peasant can make a crossbow himself with access to common materials, and then a spellcaster can enchant it himself, or a sufficiently handy spellcaster can do the whole thing himself. A usable gun, however, requires a lot more precision in its creation than a usable crossbow, and it involves more materials for the gun itself, rare materials and special expertise for the powder, and so on, so you need more people involved to create it and it's unlikely a spellcaster would be able to do the whole job himself. An adventurer or researcher or hobbyist wouldn't care, they're willing to go to some length to make or fund one, but a king trying to outfit his army is going to care about the expense and difficulty of creation and a village trying to equip its militia is going to care about the skill floor and difficulty of sourcing materials.

    2) Cost-effectiveness. Someone used to enchanted crossbows is used to weapons that, once enchanted, can shoot flaming bolts (or exploding bolts or sleep bolts or whatever) forever with needing to be re-enchanted, making the only ongoing cost that of the bolts, which can be created by peasants relatively easily and cheaply. A gun already has a higher upfront cost than a crossbow, but then you add on the fact that the bullets are more expensive and harder to make, and then you add on the fact that every shot consumes gunpowder for an additional cost. Again, an individual might not care about the cost, but it would definitely hamper widespread adoption.

    In the real world, guns provided a quantitatively different kind of projectile weapon and were worth investigating because firearm technology was something entirely novel. In D&D settings, primitive guns are strictly inferior to weapons they already have and don't provide any novel benefits.

    The only ways in which guns are possibly superior to enchanted crossbows are (A) when comparing enchanted guns to enchanted crossbows, but to get to that point you have to have guns already, and (B) if you want the populace to be able to make their own weapons without being reliant on spellcasters, and I say possibly superior here because there's a really good chance that all the people who might otherwise research guns would have as patrons rulers who don't want the masses to get their hands on any better weapons than they already have, and so they would discourage such research even if they thought it might provide benefits over enchanted crossbows. But again, that's possibility, not inevitability.



    Why would you compare a gun to a wand of magic missile? A much more direct comparison would be to a heavy crossbow, and not even an enchanted one.

    As per the DMG, a musket deals 1d10 damage (x3 crit) with a range increment of 50 feet, weighs 10 lbs, and takes a full-round action to reload, while a heavy crossbow deals 1d10 damage (19-20/x2 crit) with a range increment of 120 feet, weighs 8 lbs, and takes a standard action to reload. A musket costs 500 gp upfront and costs 1.4 gp to fire (0.3 gp per bullet, 1.1 gp per measure of gunpowder), while a heavy crossbow costs 50 gp upfront and costs 0.1 gp to loose (0.1 gp per bolt). The only dimension along which the musket isn't equal to, equivalent to, or strictly worse than the heavy crossbow is the reload time, and full-round vs. standard only gives you better mobility, it doesn't let you fire any faster.

    And if you do compare the gun to a wand of magic missile? Well, firstly, the wand has a bunch of advantages: automatically hits, can hit incorporeal creatures, ignores DR, weighs practically nothing, requires no ammunition, and has no reload time. (And, if you craft one with a higher CL, you get things like multi-targeting, better single-target damage, longer range, etc., but we're just talking the basic version.) Yes, there are edge cases like fighting in dead magic zones, but lots of settings have "that one enclave of weird and secretive tinker gnomes experimenting with clockwork and alchemy" somewhere on the map where magic is less common or less than reliable, and if dead magic or wild magic is common enough for anyone to need to take that into account when picking weapons, you're dealing with a "DM's poor attempt at a low-magic setting" situation where all the standard assumptions go out the window anyway.

    And secondly, the cost isn't actually that exorbitant, comparatively: a CL 1 wand of magic missile is 750 gp for 50 charges, while a musket is 570 gp for 50 shots (500 gp musket + 50 * 1.4 gp ammo), so it's not like you'd get a half-dozen guns for the cost of one wand, you don't even get two guns for the cost of one wand--but you can get 13 heavy crossbows (50 gp crossbow + 50 * 0.1 gp ammo) for the cost of 1 wand, or 10 crossbows for the cost of 1 gun. Certainly, over time the gun gets comparatively cheaper since you don't need to buy a new musket every 50 shots like you do a wand, but (A) it's not the kind of drastic price difference that would make the initial investment choice obviously in favor of the gun over the wand and (B) if you're considering arming your rank-and-file soldiers with wands of anything at all, you have enough magic at your disposal to do much more impressive things than make guns or crossbows.



    You don't need to be honorable, or adhere to any rules of behavior at all, to make a deal and then hold to it if you believe that holding to it is in your best interests; that's basic game theory. And of course we see that Chaotic and/or Evil gods do try to cheat around the Divine Compact all the time--whenever you have a "the cult of [god] is trying to summon [god/god's avatar/etc.] to the Material Plane" plot or a "the followers of [god] is [impersonating/slaying/etc.] the followers of [god's rival] on a large scale" plot or similar, like the entire basis for the Red Hand of Doom adventure path--it's just that whenever they try it they get their butts handed to them by adventurers so the other gods are incentivized not to try that again for a while.



    Drow society makes perfect sense with the alignment system if you recall that (A) having a baroque social structure doesn't mean valuing a baroque social structure (drow society is imposed on them by Lolth for kicks and giggles and they do their best to cope within it, as RedMage noted) and (B) that whole thing is just a facade. To quote myself from an earlier thread on the topic:
    The problem is that you used the dungeon master manual stats which were intended to balance firearms with regular ranged weapons and did not include any of the advantages of early firearms such as armour piercing (except against bullet proof armour that is close to being masterwork plate armour since basically the smith makes a full plate armour and tests if the torso blocks a bullet by firing at it and if it does not then the plate armour is not bullet proof) or being easier to use than a crossbow at point blank range.
    Guns progressively improved over time because there was people using them and/or developing them despite the fact they were not yet superior to crossbows and bows in real life so saying "crossbows and bows are superior in dnd" is not a good argument since it did not work in real life.
    Also when comparing to a magic missile wand you are using the costs instead of the cost/3 which is wrong since a high level wizard comparing making guns and making magic missile wands knows the existence of fabricate which would allow them to make a whole bunch of guns at 1/3 of the written cost in a single cast and would not take weeks. (because when making 50 magic missile wands you spend 50 days while for making 50 guns it takes a single cast of fabricate)

    The existence of fabricate makes non magical things vastly easier to produce than magical things.

    As for damage everyone knows that in real life we can scale up guns firepower and weight until they kill the target it is intended to kill and the fact it is possible to do is easy to realise when you see how guns works.
    You could literally make guns that kills elephants on a good hit with late era blackpowder guns that were wearable by humans in 1850(so a critical strike with 104 damage in dnd terms)

    The possibility of scaling up firepower is extremely interesting seeing how many big dangerous creatures there is in dnd or just adventurers with way too many hp.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-10-30 at 05:53 AM.

  17. - Top - End - #467
    Titan in the Playground
     
    PairO'Dice Lost's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Malsheem, Nessus
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    You might want to delete the block quote and only quote the portion that you're responding to, makes things shorter and easier to read.

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    The problem is that you used the dungeon master manual stats which were intended to balance firearms with regular ranged weapons and did not include any of the advantages of early firearms such as armour piercing (except against bullet proof armour that is close to being masterwork plate armour since basically the smith makes a full plate armour and tests if the torso blocks a bullet by firing at it and if it does not then the plate armour is not bullet proof) or being easier to use than a crossbow at point blank range.
    None of that is true.

    1) The DMG stats are generally balanced with non-firearm weapons, but they weren't "nerfed" to fit in or anything; early firearms actually were on par with contemporary weapons, and the modern and futuristic weapon stats are indeed stronger than Renaissance firearms, as you'd expect.

    2) Early pistols were basically ineffective against contemporary plate armor, and longarms were ineffective at battlefield ranges, hence why firearms and plate coexisted for about 200 years. The first firearms were quite effective against shoddy, mass-produced plate armor, which then drove the development of better forms of plate armor that could resist bullets fairly easily (at the cost of being heavier and more expensive). It wasn't until massed arquebus fire became a thing that plate really started to go obsolete.

    3) Early firearms were not easier to use than crossbows. Crossbows require either a four-step process (load bolt, pull back cord, aim, fire) for lighter ones or a six-step process (attach winch, winch back cord, detach winch, load bolt, aim, fire) for heavier ones, while even the simpler muskets required a twelve- to fourteen-step process and were much harder to aim (the flash pan got in the way and could blind you momentarily when it fired) and fire (the pricker or match was fairly unreliable).

    The assumption you're making, once again, is that the inventor of firearms in a given setting would jump right from "what's a firearm?" to "1700s-level firearms," skipping decades of knowledge and refinement and ignoring any corresponding defensive advancements. Sure, if a mid-level wizard cast summon flintlock rifle from 18th century Earth and got such a gun it would be very effective, but that's not how the development process works.

    Guns progressively improved over time because there was people using them and/or developing them despite the fact they were not yet superior to crossbows and bows in real life so saying "crossbows and bows are superior in dnd" is not a good argument since it did not work in real life.
    People worked on developing guns because they had a large psychological effect and gunpowder was already being used in bombards and other siege weapons so the logistics were already in place, but neither of those apply in D&D (blasting spells and flaming/thundering bolts are already effective psychological weapons and there's no infrastructure in place).

    Also when comparing to a magic missile wand you are using the costs instead of the cost/3 which is wrong since a high level wizard comparing making a gun and making a magic missile wand knows the existence of fabricate which would allow them to make a whole bunch of guns at 1/3 of the written cost in a single cast and would not take weeks. (because when making 50 magic missile wands you spend 50 days while for making 50 guns it takes a single cast of fabricate)
    Firstly, a wizard who can fabricate a bunch of muskets can do the same for heavy crossbows, which as noted before still have several advantages even if you remove the cost...assuming, of course, that the wizard has the Craft ranks to make the gun, the gunpowder, and the bullets, which isn't guaranteed given that bows have their own Craft subskill and so guns might as well, gunpowder might be considered alchemical and require Craft (Alchemy), and so forth.

    Secondly, wands can be crafted starting at 5th level, so there's actually a 4-level range in which a wizard can craft a wand of magic missile but not fabricate guns or crossbows. And given the demographics rules, every Large Town can have wizards making wands but you need to be in a Small City to have a chance to have fabricating wizards or a Large City to guarantee it, which runs into the issue of logistics and infrastructure again.

    As for damage everyone knows that in real life we can scale up guns firepower and weight until they kill the target it is intended to kill and the fact it is possible to do is easy to realise when you see how guns works.
    You could literally make guns that kills elephants on a good hit with late era blackpowder guns that were wearable by humans in 1850(so a critical strike with 104 damage in dnd terms)

    The possibility of scaling up firepower is extremely interesting seeing how many big dangerous creatures there is in dnd or just adventurers with way too many hp.
    Actually, it would only need to be 50 damage if the elephant fails the massive damage Fort save, meaning ~17 average damage before a x3 crit multiplier; not all that impressive.

    But that aside, yes, you can kill stronger people with big explosions. You may have heard of this convenient spell called fireball and wands thereof?

    Early forays into grenades and bombs were, as with guns, unreliable and heavy and inaccurate and so on and so forth. Given the choice between that and a nice, reliable, safe-to-the-caster, lethal-to-his-enemies, very-long-range, no-crater-making fireball, there's once again very little reason to detour into bomb development.

    EDIT: The gunpowder derail has gone on for almost a full page. If anyone wants to continue the discussion I'd be happy to make a new thread for that, but we should probably get back from head cannons to headcanons at this point.
    Last edited by PairO'Dice Lost; 2020-10-30 at 06:44 AM.
    Better to DM in Baator than play in Celestia
    You can just call me Dice; that's how I roll.


    Spoiler: Sig of Holding
    Show

    Quote Originally Posted by abadguy View Post
    Darn you PoDL for making me care about a bunch of NPC Commoners!
    Quote Originally Posted by Chambers View Post
    I'm pretty sure turning Waterdeep into a sheet of glass wasn't the best win condition for that fight. We lived though!
    Quote Originally Posted by MaxiDuRaritry View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'DiceLost View Post
    <Snip>
    Where are my Like, Love, and Want to Have Your Manchildren (Totally Homo) buttons for this post?
    Won a cookie for this, won everything for this

  18. - Top - End - #468
    Ettin in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jun 2015

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    You might want to delete the block quote and only quote the portion that you're responding to, makes things shorter and easier to read.



    None of that is true.

    1) The DMG stats are generally balanced with non-firearm weapons, but they weren't "nerfed" to fit in or anything; early firearms actually were on par with contemporary weapons, and the modern and futuristic weapon stats are indeed stronger than Renaissance firearms, as you'd expect.

    2) Early pistols were basically ineffective against contemporary plate armor, and longarms were ineffective at battlefield ranges, hence why firearms and plate coexisted for about 200 years. The first firearms were quite effective against shoddy, mass-produced plate armor, which then drove the development of better forms of plate armor that could resist bullets fairly easily (at the cost of being heavier and more expensive). It wasn't until massed arquebus fire became a thing that plate really started to go obsolete.

    3) Early firearms were not easier to use than crossbows. Crossbows require either a four-step process (load bolt, pull back cord, aim, fire) for lighter ones or a six-step process (attach winch, winch back cord, detach winch, load bolt, aim, fire) for heavier ones, while even the simpler muskets required a twelve- to fourteen-step process and were much harder to aim (the flash pan got in the way and could blind you momentarily when it fired) and fire (the pricker or match was fairly unreliable).

    The assumption you're making, once again, is that the inventor of firearms in a given setting would jump right from "what's a firearm?" to "1700s-level firearms," skipping decades of knowledge and refinement and ignoring any corresponding defensive advancements. Sure, if a mid-level wizard cast summon flintlock rifle from 18th century Earth and got such a gun it would be very effective, but that's not how the development process works.



    People worked on developing guns because they had a large psychological effect and gunpowder was already being used in bombards and other siege weapons so the logistics were already in place, but neither of those apply in D&D (blasting spells and flaming/thundering bolts are already effective psychological weapons and there's no infrastructure in place).



    Firstly, a wizard who can fabricate a bunch of muskets can do the same for heavy crossbows, which as noted before still have several advantages even if you remove the cost...assuming, of course, that the wizard has the Craft ranks to make the gun, the gunpowder, and the bullets, which isn't guaranteed given that bows have their own Craft subskill and so guns might as well, gunpowder might be considered alchemical and require Craft (Alchemy), and so forth.

    Secondly, wands can be crafted starting at 5th level, so there's actually a 4-level range in which a wizard can craft a wand of magic missile but not fabricate guns or crossbows. And given the demographics rules, every Large Town can have wizards making wands but you need to be in a Small City to have a chance to have fabricating wizards or a Large City to guarantee it, which runs into the issue of logistics and infrastructure again.



    Actually, it would only need to be 50 damage if the elephant fails the massive damage Fort save, meaning ~17 average damage before a x3 crit multiplier; not all that impressive.

    But that aside, yes, you can kill stronger people with big explosions. You may have heard of this convenient spell called fireball and wands thereof?

    Early forays into grenades and bombs were, as with guns, unreliable and heavy and inaccurate and so on and so forth. Given the choice between that and a nice, reliable, safe-to-the-caster, lethal-to-his-enemies, very-long-range, no-crater-making fireball, there's once again very little reason to detour into bomb development.
    You are wrong on the 50 damage: the thing is that a shot in the head that enters the brain does not just cause 50 damage nor does the death corresponds to massive damage.(else elephants that have a bullet enter the head would have only 15% chance to die)
    I think that a bullet entering the head of the elephant is quite definitively a one hit kill critical rather than massive damage death since massive damage death corresponds more to the traumatic shock causing death while it could have not killed and the odds of a bullet in the brain of the elephant not killing it are not 85% which is what it would be if it was massive damage rules.
    They did not say "after a fortitude save the location of the hit retroactively changes" which is the only way to make it be excessive damage death and consistent with the odds of the elephant dying from a shot in the brain.
    Also early fireballs were unreliable and lethal to the caster in early dnd: fireballs progressively became less and less dangerous to the caster with the editions (like how it can not bounce back anymore nor kill you with flame returns when used in a corridor and so on) so it fits exactly the same progress pattern: people would understand "seeing how fireballs progressed in all odds bombs will probably become safe to use too after a bunch of tinkerings"

    Also you did nor read well I told "early firearms are easier to use point blank" and you did think I meant "early firearms are easier to use" which is not the same thing: it was common for people to fire a firearm at point blank then switch to a melee weapon which is hard to do with a crossbow but there is no dnd rule saying that firearms does not provoke aoo when shot at point blank range while it hardly opens any aoo opportunities (not more than a sword swing).
    Last edited by noob; 2020-10-30 at 07:12 AM.

  19. - Top - End - #469
    Dwarf in the Playground
    Join Date
    Apr 2020

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    I shoot my gunsword at him. Then I swing my gunsword at him. Gunswords are great.

  20. - Top - End - #470
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Spore's Avatar

    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    Germany
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by Stattick View Post
    I shoot my gunsword at him. Then I swing my gunsword at him. Gunswords are great.
    I mean there is also the faction that thinks gunblades and similar fantasy constructs are horrible and bad. Like in WH 40k, someone who has a chainsaw sword, when the enemy has long range ray cannons, or weaponized disease.

    Sometimes suspension of disbelief kicks in, sometimes it does not. Gunblades are very viable in a weird Final Fantasy style game, but make little or no sense in other media such as sword and sorcery that just happens to mull over into the industrial revolution (ala Arcanum, if you know the game).

    But then again, this game's gadgeteer class has much much less believable trinkets.

  21. - Top - End - #471

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Having a weapon that is both a melee weapon and a gun isn't a "fantasy construct". That's just a bayonet, something that has existed for basically as long as guns have. Certainly you could imagine fantasy bayonets that were physically implausible, but so are the absurdly giant swords of fantasy.

    That said, I don't really understand the hangup on guns specifically. There probably should be more guns in fantasy, on the basis that the Powder Mage books are cool, but in-world there's way more low-hanging fruit.

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost;24777698Drow society makes perfect sense with the alignment system if you recall that (A) [I
    having[/I] a baroque social structure doesn't mean valuing a baroque social structure (drow society is imposed on them by Lolth for kicks and giggles and they do their best to cope within it, as RedMage noted) and (B) that whole thing is just a facade. To quote myself from an earlier thread on the topic:
    Then why is Lolth pushing the baroque social structure? It doesn't really matter if she's imposing a Lawful social structure because she thinks it's fun. You've still lost any predictive power alignment might have had when one baroque backstabbing nightmare is "Lawful" and another is "Chaotic".

  22. - Top - End - #472
    Colossus in the Playground
     
    hamishspence's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2007

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Having a weapon that is both a melee weapon and a gun isn't a "fantasy construct". That's just a bayonet, something that has existed for basically as long as guns have. Certainly you could imagine fantasy bayonets that were physically implausible, but so are the absurdly giant swords of fantasy.
    I believe people are thinking more of "swords with built-in guns" Which are also historical:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_sword
    Marut-2 Avatar by Serpentine
    New Marut Avatar by Linkele

  23. - Top - End - #473
    Troll in the Playground
     
    PaladinGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Location
    UK
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Then why is Lolth pushing the baroque social structure? It doesn't really matter if she's imposing a Lawful social structure because she thinks it's fun. You've still lost any predictive power alignment might have had when one baroque backstabbing nightmare is "Lawful" and another is "Chaotic".
    It doesn't have to just be Lolth. From the look of things a lot of powerful chaotic beings will impose a very rigid/lawful structure on the society they head in an attempt to control it - they don't see the laws as applying to them. (Also, lots of people in the struture will support it for similar reasons.)

    Conversely people who are innately lawful may have a much more chaotic society because they don't see the need for rules...

  24. - Top - End - #474
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    RedMage125's Avatar

    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    I'm on a boat!
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Then why is Lolth pushing the baroque social structure? It doesn't really matter if she's imposing a Lawful social structure because she thinks it's fun. You've still lost any predictive power alignment might have had when one baroque backstabbing nightmare is "Lawful" and another is "Chaotic".
    Did you not even read what I responded? Drow society is an imperfect reflection of what Lolth teaches.

    Can this thread get back to "D&D Head Canons"?
    Red Mage avatar by Aedilred.

    Where do you fit in? (link fixed)

    RedMage Prestige Class!

    Best advice I've ever heard one DM give another:
    "Remember that it is both a game and a story. If the two conflict, err on the side of cool, your players will thank you for it."

    Second Eternal Foe of the Draconic Lord, battling him across the multiverse in whatever shapes and forms he may take.

  25. - Top - End - #475
    Titan in the Playground
     
    ElfRangerGuy

    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Imagination Land
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by Stattick View Post
    I shoot my gunsword at him. Then I swing my gunsword at him. Gunswords are great.
    This actually makes me want to play like a crazy gnomish rogue who uses a big swiss army knife contraption that has a sword part and a hammer part and a built in crossbow and thieves' tools and whatever else all attached to it. Like a gnome hook hammer, but with just everything he owns stuck on.

    I have no idea how that would work in an actual game, but it would be amazing and hilarious.
    "Nothing you can't spell will ever work." - Will Rogers

    Watch me draw and swear at video games.

  26. - Top - End - #476
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2016

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by KillianHawkeye View Post
    This actually makes me want to play like a crazy gnomish rogue who uses a big swiss army knife contraption that has a sword part and a hammer part and a built in crossbow and thieves' tools and whatever else all attached to it. Like a gnome hook hammer, but with just everything he owns stuck on.

    I have no idea how that would work in an actual game, but it would be amazing and hilarious.

    That's actually an item in the videogame Dungeons of Dredmor

    https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hTzZNEP5V...1600/lai03.JPG
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

    Omegaupdate Forum

    WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext

    PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket

    Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil

    Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)

  27. - Top - End - #477
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2016

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Then why is Lolth pushing the baroque social structure? It doesn't really matter if she's imposing a Lawful social structure because she thinks it's fun. You've still lost any predictive power alignment might have had when one baroque backstabbing nightmare is "Lawful" and another is "Chaotic".
    I think it's possibly like the difference between a Baatezu courtroom, vs the Abyssal courtroom layer Woeful Escarand. The baator court is going to be cruel but it's going to follow the rule of law, whereas the abyssal court exists as a mockery of the rule of law and is openly corrupt.
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

    Omegaupdate Forum

    WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext

    PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket

    Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil

    Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)

  28. - Top - End - #478
    Dwarf in the Playground
    Join Date
    Apr 2020

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Headcannon: There are very few battleaxes out there that only do slashing damage. For that, you'd need a battleaxe that has an axeblade on both sides of the shaft, and that's just silly. What you want, is an axeblade on one side of the shaft, and either a pick on the other side of the shaft, or a hammer. Or you start with a pick on the side opposite of the hammer, and then when you snap off the spike in someone's head, take it to the blacksmith and have him grind it down and affix a bludgeon in the place of the spike. Hell, for that matter, who even uses an axe? Put a bludgeon on one side of the shaft and a spike on the otherside.

    Oh, that isn't supported in the official weapon's list? So, if you want that, you'd need a GM that'll say "yes" and let you spend an extra 2d10 GP on your melee weapons? Sure. I mean, what else is a warrior gonna spend his coin on?

  29. - Top - End - #479
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    Zombie

    Join Date
    May 2010

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by Stattick View Post
    Hell, for that matter, who even uses an axe? Put a bludgeon on one side of the shaft and a spike on the otherside. Oh, that isn't supported in the official weapon's list?
    That's a warhammer. If you look at images of actual medieval warhammers instead of game illustrations of sledgehammers labeled "warhammer", you can see a lot of examples of them.
    The Curse of the House of Rookwood: Supernatural horror and family drama.
    Ash Island: Personal survival horror in the vein of Silent Hill.

  30. - Top - End - #480
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    KoDT69's Avatar

    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    USA and proud of it!
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    I have a head cannon to share. Since I've played most editions up to 3.5, this is how I see it all as being the same world. Basically as time passes, the laws of magic and whatever it is that governs the powers available to the living people/creatures changes and evolved over time. That would explain how even PC classes started with minimal capabilities and we're very limited in power, then developed immunities, resistances, faster actions, etc.
    The timeline as I see it:
    OD&D - Early Dark Ages
    AD&D 1E - Transition of Dark Ages to Early Renaissance
    AD&D 2E - Early Renaissance
    D&D 3.0-3.5 - Mid Renaissance
    D&D 4E - NEVER HAPPENED - or possibly a past timeline off of the d20 Modern setting
    D&D 5E - After Renaissance, maybe just before what would have been our Industrial Revolution
    *Eberron in play is like adding the Industrial Revolution to the edition's timeline

    I've been considering converting some older edition magic items but making them with no change if possible and tagging them as "Heirloom" or "Ancient" just to see how it goes.
    Quote Originally Posted by McMindflayer View Post
    Of course, this still doesn't answer the question... "How does it POOP?"
    Quote Originally Posted by TheFurith View Post
    I roll a swim check on the street. Why not, right? Through a series of rolls I rob a bunch of people of 75g. I didn't actually notice their existence but I swam over there and did it anyway because this guy couldn't make sense if he tried.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •