According to the short story The Sacrifice in The Second Generation, Samar put the Kagonesti guards in Rashas' house to sleep with a spell- yet in 3rd edition D&D, elves are immune to sleep spells, and even in 2nd edition they had 90% resistance to such spells, so this must have been pretty hard. Can anyone account for this discrepancy?
This is one area of concern for game designers because although it's understood that elves work like they do in core D&D, in many ways they don't. Core D&D elves don't sleep - they go into a restorative trance for 4 hours a night. DL elves do sleep, not only in cases where magic gets cast upon them but in general. Note also in Dragons of Winter Night, where Silvara puts all of the heroes (except Tas) to sleep in Huma's Tomb - and that group includes Laurana and Gilthanas.
Cheers,
Cam
I know that in my version of the DL gaming world I have houseruled the elven sleep immunity. Since DL elves need sleep, I have ruled that elves gain a +9 (to simulate an 90% chance).
Actually, I think a +8 bonus would simulate a 90% chance. +9 would simulate a 95% chance.
Cheers,
Cam
Actually, I think a +8 bonus would simulate a 90% chance. +9 would simulate a 95% chance.
Cheers,
Cam
Oh. . . . well . . . shush, I suck at math. :D
According to the short story The Sacrifice in The Second Generation, Samar put the Kagonesti guards in Rashas' house to sleep with a spell- yet in 3rd edition D&D, elves are immune to sleep spells, and even in 2nd edition they had 90% resistance to such spells, so this must have been pretty hard. Can anyone account for this discrepancy?
Why? Authors not being familiar with the D&D system. It's happened before, and it'll happen again. If I recall correctly, when the novel Dalamar the Dark was released and it featured an dwarf wizard, D&D was still in 2nd edition, where dwarf wizards weren't a viable choice. But it's all good
, turns out that with the current D&D ruleset you can have dwarf wizards. Maybe a later ruleset will remove the elven immunity to sleep. ;)Why? Authors not being familiar with the D&D system. It's happened before, and it'll happen again. If I recall correctly, when the novel Dalamar the Dark was released and it featured an dwarf wizard, D&D was still in 2nd edition, where dwarf wizards weren't a viable choice. But it's all good
You know, Iltharanos, just because you even mentioned a new rules set/edition, a new one will be coming out next year. Thanks a lot, pal :P.
Anyway, I think retconning the sleep immunity to a 90% resistance again is fine by me. Make the caster of the spell roll d100 to figure out if it works on an elf. Easily fixed. A whole whopping 10% chance of being put to sleep shouldn't bother an elven player too much. Silvara and Samar were just really lucky, I guess. Personally, I always hated the idea of the trance, it made elves too inhuman for me. In my game, elves just sleep for four hours. They can't prepare spells or anything, but they can still keep watch. The ranger and the mystic alternated watches at night, worked out pretty good.
[EDIT] Why not give elves spell resistance equal to 5+Character level to sleep spells? Anyone who puts an elf to sleep with a simple spell had better be a freaking powerful spellcaster. Of course, how Silvara managed to put a large group of characters to sleep with the use of one measley spell is beyond me. Once again, the authors have the ultimate power there.
Why? Authors not being familiar with the D&D system. It's happened before, and it'll happen again. If I recall correctly, when the novel Dalamar the Dark was released and it featured an dwarf wizard, D&D was still in 2nd edition, where dwarf wizards weren't a viable choice.
Well, one clan has always had wizards, even in 2nd ed. One of the dark dwarf clans. I just figured Tramd was from that clan...
Why? Authors not being familiar with the D&D system. It's happened before, and it'll happen again.
Given that the authors in question were Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, authors of the original DL modules, I hardly think this likely.