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2015-09-16, 03:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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2015-09-16, 03:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
Being a doctor is can also be considered a very honorable life.
Being a divine spell caster require certain capabilities, for this particular spell,
the Wisdom value of at least 13,(and will have only so much of the right slots).
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There were few clerics in Azure city, there no reason to assume that there are that much more among the dwarves.Last edited by EAN; 2015-09-16 at 03:26 PM.
English is not my native tongue , so if i make a mistake, feel free to correct me.
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2015-09-16, 03:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
Concluded: The Stick Awards II: Second Edition
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2015-09-16, 03:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
How many Divine casters were there in Azure City, again?
A population doesn't need many clerics, per se, they just need divine casters. And Azure City had a TON of Divine Casters. If they are used as a comparison, then I'd imagine the dwarves would be swimming in them as well.
And most divine casters can cast Remove Disease. Paladins can't only because it's a class feature instead.
EDIT: They had 65 Clerics of at least 4th level, which is 0.65% of their population. We don't know how many Druids or Rangers they had on top of that who could also cast that spell. But they also had a LOT of high level Paladins who, in another town, would probably be distributed more evenly among all the Divine classes.
So yes, my numbers were off, but it stands that any given population has a pretty sizeable bloc of people who can stave off a plague.Last edited by littlebum2002; 2015-09-16 at 03:42 PM.
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2015-09-16, 03:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
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2015-09-16, 03:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
That's a nice moving of the goalposts, from witnessing an accident to being in an accident.
I have seen probably a dozen car crashes in my life, none of which I was involved in (and a few more that I was). Lived through several hurricanes, two earthquakes, and a flood. Walked by a house fire as the firefighters were arriving one time. Worked in Lower Manhattan on 9/11. In all of those cases, there were people more qualified and trained to take action than I was, but that all happened within my 41 years of life. Someone who was 300 would have lived through every bad day in this country's history, and this country doesn't have mind flayers and ochre jellies roaming about.
But then, I don't think you actually care about anything other than arguing with me, so I don't know why I responded to this.
EDIT: This:
Rich Burlew
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2015-09-16, 03:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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2015-09-16, 03:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
Sure it is.
Azure city has a bunch of divine casters. Why would it be special? I'd make the argument that most cities probably have a lot of divine casters as well mainly because of the exact reasons we're saying they would be needed. Azure City's Divine Casters just happen to be weighed heavily towards one class, I would think most towns would have a similar amount but divided more equally among classes.
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2015-09-16, 03:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
Huh. I had a response here to a post pages and pages back. Not sure how that happened. Ignore :)
Last edited by Murk; 2015-09-16 at 03:50 PM.
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2015-09-16, 03:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
Where does it say that Azure City had 10000 people?
They had 9000 soldiers. so this number seem very off.
either way, the 11 level average is not even close, should a serious plague had hit Azure City, these numbers would not be sufficient to stop it.
There is no reason to belive that the dwarves have that much more clerics.English is not my native tongue , so if i make a mistake, feel free to correct me.
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2015-09-16, 04:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2008
Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
That was not my intention. I am assuming that the chance to witness such an rare accident in a way that you are not only helplessly watching it but are in a position to valiantly try to stop is will not be that much higher.
Most of which didn't involve more than damage to the cars I hope.
Sorry to hear that, but that's hopefully not a typical experience in the US. I admit I didn't even think about those, since we simply do not have them here
Mourning the thousands dying on this fateful day, it were still >2 million people that were on Manhattan at the same time without being hit or being able to interfer with what was going on
But would he had been at the epicenter?
But seeing one from far away or the aftermath on an accident that happend before you were on the scene is not giving you the chance to honorably die while intervening.
That is being particulary unlucky indeed
That's something that many people have, but it doesn't help in any way getting a shot at a honorable dead while trying to prevent it
That's what I said, illness is a much much more serious threat than the potential for an fatal accident.
I have broken my limbs a couple of times in various activities. None were threating beyond that pain however.
I am 31.
And being very unlucky. That's what the concentration and abundance from the records (administration, insurances, etc.) tell.
We had to burry 4 person from cancer, that's a threat, even statistically applicable to have been witnessed by a lot of families, but accidents I worry as much as the chance of being struck dead by a brick falling from a random roofLast edited by SoC175; 2015-09-16 at 04:05 PM.
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2015-09-16, 04:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
I think Azure City would be special because it's home to the Sapphire Guard, one of the world's largest and most powerful divine casting orders, which, while often secretive about its activities, clearly has a ton of influence (and concurrent divine infrastructure) given that the High Priest of the 12 Gods (i.e. biggest guy in the entire Southern priesthood as far as we know) was on-hand to try and resurrect their city's leader. Do I expect most places to have a similar portion of divine casters? Not really, no.
The bigger point, though, is about the level of characters. If you decide you want to keep considering Azure City a fair baseline, consider this: the guard captain had thirteen level 5 warriors, which were described as his best soldiers, and of the 314 Clerics they had (technically, the 314 capable of turning undead, which I suppose was meant to discount the odd ones out who were Favored Souls or ACF'd away the Turn Undead or something), only about a fifth of them (65 to be exact) were above level 3. So even characters capable of casting third-level spells (or the equivalent, getting two attacks per round for the full BAB'ers) are pretty darned rare in your understanding of a typical city.
You brought up earlier the idea that level 11 could be a reasonable baseline for the available Clerics, but Miko and the high priest of the 12 gods were the only characters in all of Azure City (not counting our band of adventurers, of course) that provided any reasonable proof of being 11th-level or higher, and both Roy and Durkula seemed to consider it entirely reasonable to assume that a high priest, the strongest or close to it of all of a god's Clerics (which is what they thought Veldrina was before they got to know her story) would be incapable of casting 7th-level spells. I'd be a bit concerned about the state of OOTSworld if the very strongest Clerics anywhere couldn't be consistently expected to rise more than 3 or 4 levels above the average.
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2015-09-16, 04:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2008
Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
*
How do the statistics of being in a fatal car crash relate to the full spectrum of dangerous situations and other opportunities to conduct oneself honorably that one might experience or be witness to in one's lifetime?
I have had to call 911 dozens of times in my life, either to report drunk drivers, a person having a seizure, robberies or—just the other day—after observing one homeless person hitting another homeless person with a metal pipe. Sometime one can remain a safe distance away and call professionals, but sometimes a person must decide whether to physically take action. I have had to make that decision numerous times in my life. I feel that on some occasions I was braver than I was on others.
The point is, one only has to leave one's house and look around once in a while to see that the world is an imperfect and sometimes dangerous place, full of moments where one must make a decision.
In this setting, there isn't a 911 number to call. If a Dwarf sees a troll attacking her clan-mates, she either joins the fight or she runs away. What's so hard to understand about that?
*2012 Kickstart Pledge Drive Backer# 12,851
Their: a possessive pronoun like “her” or “our”
There: refers to a place ("the Kobold is over THERE"), or to indicate the existence of something, or to mention something for the first time. ("THERE is a Halfling sneaking up on him")
They're: a contraction of “they are.”
Also: Your/You're, Its/It's, Then/Than.
And... I believe in you.
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2015-09-16, 04:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
The way I understand it is that if you live an honorable life by dwarven standards, 99,999% of all dwarves will at some point or another during ~300 years give their life in the course. But they'll also have done a whole lot of good every time they survived.
Then for those left, how many it may ends up being, who lives through hundreds of years in the dwarven honorable way and somehow manages to survive, in their state of old age their chance of honorable dying only increases. I'd be surprised if the few, maybe one out of every million, who somehow miraculously still manages to survive, won't end up in the honorable afterlife anyway, simply by virtue of doing honorable stuff when they die, even if what ultimately kills them is old age.
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2015-09-16, 04:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
Because the impression was that it's the act of dying honorably not just havin lifed a honorable live and then dying in bed you still go to heaven as you have not sined during your life.
If it's just "live good and you're fine whenever you die" it's easy to fullfil the requirementsLast edited by SoC175; 2015-09-16 at 04:25 PM.
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2015-09-16, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
Your assumption that these events are 'rare' is based on your experience in the real world*. It's baffling that you insist on basing all your arguments on the fact that it's that way where you live in real life, when the context of your arguments is a fictional world, and the creator of that fictional world is telling you that such events are not as rare there.
*in your presumably first-world industrialized nation representing the highest levels of safety and sanitation ever achieved in human history."For you see, I theorize that the halfling does not possess a true sentient brain, like you or I, but rather a simple lump of nerve tissue that serves as a primitive "proto-brain" that can only process two emotional reactions to people: Hate or Lust."
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2015-09-16, 04:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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2015-09-16, 04:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
"For you see, I theorize that the halfling does not possess a true sentient brain, like you or I, but rather a simple lump of nerve tissue that serves as a primitive "proto-brain" that can only process two emotional reactions to people: Hate or Lust."
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2015-09-16, 04:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
*
Again, what do the statistics of fatal car crashes have to do with dying honorably?
Dying honorably suggests making choices, not just a chance occurrence of getting hit by a car.
The honorable choice is usually to be vigilant, responsible and to get involved if necessary.
If you live your whole life like that, the odds increase that the thing that finally kills you will occur while you're acting honorably.
*2012 Kickstart Pledge Drive Backer# 12,851
Their: a possessive pronoun like “her” or “our”
There: refers to a place ("the Kobold is over THERE"), or to indicate the existence of something, or to mention something for the first time. ("THERE is a Halfling sneaking up on him")
They're: a contraction of “they are.”
Also: Your/You're, Its/It's, Then/Than.
And... I believe in you.
—click!
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2015-09-16, 04:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
Also, think about all the times you've had to park in a sketchy neighborhood, and made sure to walk only on well lit and well trafficked streets.
Now imagine every time, instead, you walked through the dimmest and sleasiest alleyways hoping someone would mug you so you can try and fight them off...Last edited by littlebum2002; 2015-09-16 at 04:50 PM.
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2015-09-16, 04:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
If you have enough opportunities to get involved in that you're actually killed by a "thing" instead of living through "things" and then dying in bed despite having done some things
If most "things" happening in a way that you're witnessing them from away, you don't really have the chance to die through getting involved
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2015-09-16, 04:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
Or rather, by the Giant's description, hoping to find somebody else stupid enough to walk in the dim and sleazy alleyways so they'll get mugged and you can protect them. Only one culture hopes for the suffering of others precisely so they can alleviate that suffering...
The big difference is which one culture. In OOTSworld, it's dwarves. In realityland, it's medical professionals.
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2015-09-16, 04:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. I totally forgot, you can use your Heal skill to help people recover from a disease. So not only can the few high level clerics cure some people of the disease every day, they can also use their high Heal skills to help cure people that way as well. And you can do that to as many people a day as you need.
EDIT: If you have at least 16 points in Heal, which even a medium level medical Cleric would hopefully have through items and such, you'll cure everyone who doesn't roll a natural 1 on their saving throw after 2 days.
So I was wrong, it WON'T take 10 days to cure everyone. It will be much sooner than that.Last edited by littlebum2002; 2015-09-16 at 04:56 PM.
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2015-09-16, 04:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
It's not easy. That's the whole point! Why do you think it's supposed to be easy? What does being happy have to do with being a dwarf?
What you are describing is what every other race has. The dwarves do not have that. The dwarves have it worse. They have an unfair, unjust system that forces them to live their life a certain way or risk eternal damnation. You can feel however you want to feel about that system, but that's what it is. If you're expecting me to agree to some sort of loophole that you can then feel better about how it works...No. No, there are no loopholes, other than the broad definitions of honorable death I've already discussed. Some dwarves live honorable sainted lives of pure humility and service and then choke on a chicken bone and die and are condemned to Hel forever for an eternity of torture and misery. This is a thing that happens. The world is not fair.Rich Burlew
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2015-09-16, 05:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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2015-09-16, 05:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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2015-09-16, 05:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
*
I think you may be writing quickly; some of your post may need some editing…
Assuming that I understand correctly, I'd like to point out that many of the events that I got involved in were events that I initially witnessed from a distance. It was my choice to directly involve myself with the altercation between the homeless people, it was my choice to get out of my car and go see if the person who had been driving erratically needed help (she did). Either of these examples could have been the scenario in which I met my demise.
I'm not using this as an opportunity to brag. There have also been a number of occasions in my life where I did not act when I could have, either due to inattentiveness on my part or due to uncertainty or fear.
*2012 Kickstart Pledge Drive Backer# 12,851
Their: a possessive pronoun like “her” or “our”
There: refers to a place ("the Kobold is over THERE"), or to indicate the existence of something, or to mention something for the first time. ("THERE is a Halfling sneaking up on him")
They're: a contraction of “they are.”
Also: Your/You're, Its/It's, Then/Than.
And... I believe in you.
—click!
C fl epefggj cd gpyb hcex jpz.
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2015-09-16, 05:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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2015-09-16, 05:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
I could have got involved in every single one. Every. Single. One. Society does not require me to. OotS Dwarven Society clearly would.
You... don't do a lot of driving, do you? I've driven for 20 years, and do maybe 5,000 miles a year. I know people who do four times that or even more. 2 accidents in that time is not even close to being "particularly unlucky".
Firemen risk their lives in every burning building. Paramedics risk their lives at every roadside crash. If I followed the ambulance or the fire engine and got involved, there would be a serious risk of my death, and not due to my lack of training.
These particular "illnesses" were an asthma attack leading to 3 weeks in intensive care, and anaphylactic shock from a previously unknown allergy. In both cases it was a "sudden emergency" style medical situation, in which quick action was vital.
That is remarkably lucky. Broken bones can easily cause punctured lungs, kidneys and arteries. One guy I'm thinking of fell off a cliff, fell 30 feet and shattered his leg. He is lucky to be alive.Last edited by JustIgnoreMe; 2015-09-16 at 05:07 PM.
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2015-09-16, 05:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2015
Re: Why aren't 95% of dwarven souls going to Hel anyway?
The problem is the countermeasures that dwarven society would take to tackle that unfair reality.
That is creating death worshiping culture with many duels,
and little to no regard to dwarf's lives in battle or risky professions, as saving lives and reducing risks just increases the chances of dwarves lost to Hel.English is not my native tongue , so if i make a mistake, feel free to correct me.