Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 12 Dec 2002 to 13 Dec 2002 (#2002-322) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 14/12/2002, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 10 messages totalling 359 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Water/Earth Alphatians? (2) 2. Drums of Panic? and magic item charges (2) 3. Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals (2) 4. Character Chats 5. Attracting Players to Mystara 6. Weapon Mastery Revisited 7. M1-M3 ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 09:48:55 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Water/Earth Alphatians? JJJ wrote: >>> What about Earth-Elementalists and >>> Water-Elementalists. They existed in Alphatian's >>> original homeworld, and I am sure they managed to >>> survive? > > Dark Sun modules form 2nd Ed. can came in handy for this discussion, there > is a lot of material about elemental magic. Even though it is essentially > for the priest classes the ideas and many spells can be easly adapted for > D&D. For those of you who read Dragon Kings, the elemental-priest classes > could be adapted to an "Wizardry Elemental", representing a type of mage > transmutation for Alphatians, sort of a lich thinking: "Eternal and > Powerful!HA hA HAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!" ;) IMC, I use the Complete Sha'ir's Handbook from the Al Qadim setting for wizardly elemental magic, rather than Dark Sun books. I think Elemental Wizards from the CSH work well for the Magian Fire Worshippers, and in general all of the material fits quite well with Ylaruam. Moreover, the CSH is designed for wizards rather than priests, so it's easier to port. As for the material from Dragon Kings, I think most Mystarans of higher level would pursue a path of Immortality rather than becoming Advanced Beings (who are not even as powerful as Exalted Beings). So any Advanced Being in Mystara would be basically unique. The only known character who could fit the role is, IMO, the mad wizard Gargantua. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 10:43:35 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Water/Earth Alphatians? Francisco V. Navarro V wrote: > > The SC of Earth Elem. was introduced by the Malapietras and has its roots from > extraplanar powers, probably straight from the Plane of Earth (Is this right > Giampaolo?), Actually, little is known about the history of the Secret Craft of Earth Elementalism... I think Harri had some ideas on an extraplanar origin--probably dating back to Francesco di Malapietra. However, it is clear that a tendency, perhaps not acknowledged or formalized, towards Earth Elementalism emerged during the early years of the Alphatian occupation: while at first Water Elementalism had been developed to face the Fire Magics of the Flaems, Thyatian wizards developed Earth magic to face the new threat brought by the Alphatians. Where did they took the knowledge is, up to now, unknown. > and the SC of Water Elem has the most mixed of histories, > taking water magic from many fragmented sources (including sea mages of > Darokin, Ierendi, Thyatis, and Minrothad, and undersea magic from the > undersea kingdoms), and set up by Thyatian mages. Most likely, the two SC > have no relation with the water and earth elementalists from Old Alphatia. That's much likely, except that Water Elementalists could have left Alphatia and moved to Ylaruam or Thyatis during the colonization attempts by the Alphatian Empire. Bye, -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 11:11:47 -0000 From: Colin Davidson Subject: Re: Drums of Panic? and magic item charges > I have a simmilar problem. When using the rules from DotE to create magic items > (I think they are in the RC too) you can make the item have a permanent instead > of charge based. Now clearly I can understand this for duration spells (e.g. > ring of invisibility) but for instantanious spells?!? calculated at the cost of > 50 charges. > > So far I have not allowed it yet, but I was wondering what other people have > done. The drums I assume fall under the same catagory. As in so many things, game balance is critical. If the desired magical effect is going to be overwhelminghly powerful I would suggest that you find a reason for disallowing it. If you don't want permanent, use any time drums of panic you might rule that the only components that have the durability are rivets made from baak, or eardrums of earth elemental rulers, etc. I've found that my players soon learn what kind of magical items will work and which won't, they get a feeling for what is and isn't unbalancing also. > One of my players wants to make a teleportation device that can be used as > often as he likes to transport people between two locations. Essentially he > wants to be able to move large numbers of people (say a couple of thousand) as > quickly as possible. I'm still toying as to what my decision is going to be, > but if he builds it and uses it fully there is definately going to be a price > that he hasn't counted on... *insert evil DM laughter here* Good grief... The scale and cost of such an item is mind blowing. Part of a quest for immortality perhaps? I'd rule that the materials cost would be huge. A helm of teleportation might, for example, require powdered roc eggs or perhaps the earbones of a blink dog, but the scale up to a device of that magnitude would justify the rarest, most unobtainable components. > Oh and at the receving end of the teleportation portal, if he can't be sure of > the accuracy of the destination he intends to build a large pool. Too high, > land in water, too low, arrive in water. Off to either side, same thing. and if > the water proves inefectual (people drowning and such) theres always the option > of reverse gravity beneith the platform. In my campaign, the aerodromes of major Alphatian cities all have a Teleportation pad. The concept is simple; it's a 110' hole in the ground with 10' of cushions in the bottom. Missing high can still be a major problem of course, but not unressurectable. Obviously a fee is charged for the use of said facilities, payable in advance (for a whole season) or upon arrival. In my own interpretation of the ODD rules, teleport is only really unaccurate in the up-down plane, making such contraptions quite useable. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 08:19:31 -0500 From: Castille Baromon de Preto Subject: Re: Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals Wow, what a diverse group we have. I always assumed we were all English as a first language group. My intelligence is only 13, my extra language slot was spent on kitchen gibberish, Spanish/French/Creole. So I forget there are people out there with intelligence higher than mine; I am just a dumb fighter anyway ;) I would have been a great theif, except no clerics will silence that darn pegleg of mine. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 12:39:18 -0500 From: Castille Baromon de Preto Subject: Character Chats I used to sign in to a chat room from AOL that was an Inn. This was a place that AOL members would go to chat in character for role playing. Is there chat room out on the web that can be done in Selenica or Darokin City? It was nice until all the immortals came in and booted everyone out. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 10:10:50 -0800 From: Darth Darknerd Subject: Re: Attracting Players to Mystara I thought of making the heroes targets of a criminal syndicate, where Specularuam will start to get unhealthy for them. The heroes can know that Radu is behind the Veiled Society, but then their will be no proof to substantiate those claims. The villians would have to have some chance to escape though. However, I like the idea of having lessers, that can get caught and captured. Another things I like about B6's version of Specularuam, is that the law is pretty serious and unfair. Landed nobles have more rights, and unlanded peasants are simply killed for serious crimes. This is more severe that the rosey presentation in GAZ. I think the B6 is more realistic. Though I prefer the stats in GAZ for the major villains. I'm going to update the module as is, just a canon update. But I'll provide my own errata to integrate/align B6 to GAZ1. Thus, there'll be two versions. DMs can have the tools and choose their own route. - Joaquin __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 00:22:16 -0500 From: Dan Eustace Subject: Re: Weapon Mastery Revisited > That is what i make: all monsters, but PC classes, were given an "Monster > Mastery", which functions like this: I like this. I may try something similar. Usually, I just lower ACs and/or beef up hp, but this might be a better counter balance. > In my game deflects are handled differently, like this: If you have been > beaten by a natural roll of 13, you must roll highr than 13 to deflect, NO > saving throw thing.... I made deflect into a form of parrying, which grants an AC bonus only. > Also, WM "to hit" bonuses were cancelled and became this: You reduced them more drastically than I did, but that's not a bad thing. You can check out my house rules for weapon mastery at: http://dnd.starflung.com/classbal.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 00:48:21 -0500 From: Dan Eustace Subject: Re: M1-M3 > And to give a note to immortals: I tried M1-M3. Not playable. > Simply because the story (at least of M1) is known to everyone who reads old > legends of good old greece. I ran all 3 IMC and they went fine. To destroy an evil artifact, the PCs had to travel to the outer planar home of Opal the Sun Dragon, whose breath could destroy the "Soul of Darkness". After entering the astral plane, they came to the Septahenge as a kind of demi-plane or whatever, instead of it being in the Broken Lands. Somehow I tied this in to everything else that was happening, but i forget the details. They went thru the 7 Realms and Carnifex Castle. M3 was certainly a very tough challenge, but it was plauable for L30 PCs. After continuing on to Opal's plane, the Neutral Immortal Dragon put the PCs thru some tests agreed upon with other Immortals (Koryis, Vanya, & Alphaks), and would only destroy the artifact pending the outcome of the tests. The tests sent the PCs into the Star Kingdoms where they eventually caught up with Nowold's fleet (which was sent out to deal with piracy by Qeodhar, not the gray fog). At the end, either Koryis or Vanya won, and Opal breathed on the artifact (the fleet went back to NW, and the PCs to Opal's plane). Then the PCs were returned home, IIRC. Again, a pretty good adventure. The wizard PC still vividly recalls killing Alphak's son, the giant beholder (and since he saw the creature, and it was not unique, he sometimes shapechanges into this form). When they returned to NW a few years had passed, and I ran M2. The events in various dominions stalled the PCs somewhat, and definitely caused damage to their lands. They penetrated Coiger's lair but failed to defeat him, and the lair still exists. The flying castle wiped out several dominions (1 PC & 2 NPC) before the PCs hit it in a commando type raid and captured it. The fighter PC's brain was fried by the control device, but the MU was able to create a nightwalker to land the thing. The war went on, with Thyatis not attacking. Norlan was captured, and Oceansend liberated when a PC used his call of dragons granted by Vanya at the end of M1. The war led to all sorts of political upheaval with Alphatia, Thyatis, and within NW (Oceansend joined with Ericall). Eventually, the castle was returned to Alphatia in exchange for a number of skyships for NWs defense. Part of the treaty called for NW to aid Alphatia in any war vs. Thyatis, provided the war was initiated by the Thys. This led right up to the beginning of Wrath, with tensions already high... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 01:12:58 -0500 From: Dan Eustace Subject: Re: Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals We are still doing the same campaign > with two original characters. (Ok, actually there has been one shorter > side-campaign starting from the Blade of Vengeance module...) The PCs are > on levels 12-15. I have been stingy with the exp on purpose, and our > schedule has been slow over the years. Sounds like this is going quite well. I've tended to be stingy with xp, as well, but it sounds like you have me beat! During one span IMC where we played quite regularly, I gave out ~450K xp over 44 gaming sessions (in about a year and a half, real time). This amounted to 1 level every 12-15 sessions for high level human PCs, which is double the max. recommended in the rules. It did lead to some player frustration, but they definitely felt they had earned it, along with a sense of accomplishment when they finished the whole campaign (which went along the whole SC to the Arm of the Im, and even into the Elemental Plane of Fire before ending in a climactic war between the Yavdlom and savage ogres). I've become somewhat more liberal now that we play far less often, just to keep things moving at a decent pace. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 01:51:02 -0500 From: Dan Eustace Subject: Re: Drums of Panic? and magic item charges > I have a simmilar problem. When using the rules from DotE to create magic items > (I think they are in the RC too) you can make the item have a permanent instead > of charge based. Now clearly I can understand this for duration spells (e.g. > ring of invisibility) but for instantanious spells?!? calculated at the cost of > 50 charges. > > So far I have not allowed it yet, but I was wondering what other people have > done. The drums I assume fall under the same catagory. I use my own system for magic item creation. It takes alot longer, costs more, and the chance of success is less. In short, it is harder to do, which doesn't even account for the components which need to be gathered. Very few items have been made by PCs. > One of my players wants to make a teleportation device that can be used as > often as he likes to transport people between two locations. Essentially he > wants to be able to move large numbers of people (say a couple of thousand) as > quickly as possible. I'm still toying as to what my decision is going to be, > but if he builds it and uses it fully there is definately going to be a price > that he hasn't counted on... *insert evil DM laughter here* I would only allow something like this after a tremendous amount of research, huge expense, and many years of creation time. Something like this exceeds some arftifacts in power, since it can be used w/o limitation. It could be possible, but it would amount to something of legendary status, which would lead to opposition from other powerful forces who would want to control or destroy the item. Probably, I would make it so difficult to make, that the PC would opt for a toned down version, such as 1.) mass teleportation (maybe 100 people or so?), but with only a few charges, or 2.) only usable afew times/day, or 3.) useable every round for 8 hours, then it runs out for good, or 4.) usable every round, but with a chance of shutting down with each use (for a limted duration (hour, day, week), or permanently). Is this the guy that's trying to get people to populate a dominion somewhere? ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 12 Dec 2002 to 13 Dec 2002 (#2002-322) ****************************************************************