like i was saying, sure the stuff on Jander(or the other whatevers) isn't new material to people who have been playing for decades, but it's new to new gamers. and don't they deserve a current book with that information?
Originally posted by Aion Khonsu
we continue.
like i was saying, sure the stuff on Jander(or the other whatevers) isn't new material to people who have been playing for decades, but it's new to new gamers. and don't they deserve a current book with that information?
[continuity edit. ~ WizO Jedi]
Still for me Jander's one of the main reason I hate this book. They didn't do him any justice and goofed a LOT on his stats. I know stats aren't the most important but I feel it was a major error on their part!
Originally posted by Aion Khonsu
we continue.
like i was saying, sure the stuff on Jander(or the other whatevers) isn't new material to people who have been playing for decades, but it's new to new gamers. and don't they deserve a current book with that information?
I think we all agree they do. But the problem here is, like Charney (I believe), said, that they did nothing to advance Jander's, or any other old character's, for that mather, storyline, and simply didn't do him justice.
Given the option, I would rather see Jander appear later, and fleshed more out, than some shoddy job that hardly does anything for him. Mainly because it would make Jander even more appealing to newbies, as I could just as well had made him up myself if I needed him.
And the fact that he's CE isn't the problem, but it's a *symptom.*
so, to me it seems that a lot of complaints about the stat-block might just be people a little too lazy to kick it around a bit till it fits just right.
as for the word-bits (which, obviously is what matters more):
i have never read anything else on Jander. Looking it over, yet again, i don't see any general problems with the story.
what you see, as people who have the old 2e(or older) books, is something completely different.
so from your perspective, it's terrible & not enough. From my perspective, it's a decent rundown of a backstory that obviously would take more pages than they had time to put together.
which is right? well, both are to be honest. so saying that the way they did Jander is bad, isn't exactly correct.
i'd say it's more of a gateway to learning more. you get the snippit, then you see more. like reading a book after seeing the movie. because 99% of the time if you read the book & then see the movie, you're disappointed.
I overlook the CE stat beacuse he is a vampire and does kill people. Often. He has murdered innocents and the helpless.
Which shade of evil he is is irrelevant and subjective.
But that they:
a) could not follow all the games rules and give him all his required feats
b) didn't do anything new with him beyond what was done in the Forgotten Realms villian book or Children of the Night: Vampires.
I'm aware that this could be someone's first experiance with Jander. But more often it will be someone's third or forth presentation of Mr. Sunstar, if not more. What do they get?
Has he changed since his last presentation? What has he been doing for the past eight or so years?
That's what a good product should be and do. Give the full details for the new people, while advance the character's life for the old. New with tips o' the hat to the old.
The Gazetteers are great examples of this. Lots of new information with adventure hints and new characters intermingled with the old. Much of the characters and ideas are just advancements on old stories and references in other books. Its often impossible to tell which are new and which are references unless you've read and are familiar with the old books. So it doesn't feel like you're missing out if you don't immediatly recognize who Meazel is or where he appeared before.
Even a book so heavily new as Carnival gives nods to the Carnival of Fear novel and the Where the Black Rose Blooms module.
Champions of Darkness doesn't do this.
Of the NPCs how many appeared in the past? Of the orgnanizations how many? There are plenty of NPCs and groups that have yet to be touched upon in 3E that would have been splendid for the book. And the best of the new could have still be included.
This kind of rule is especially improtant now when the setting is being updated to 3E/3.5 as there are a plethora of old characters and groups to bring into the present. But devoting entire books to reprinting brings very little that is new into the RL-verse. A full reprint of Carnival would be a waste when there is so many dark recesses in the Land of the Mists that need probing.
So that is why I think CoD is so hated. It had so much potential to bring back the old and classic and revamp it as well as include so much new and original material. It was the perfect place for Jander and the Carnival while still leaving room for Worldbreakers and such.
And the writers blew it!
i've noticed stat blocks in other games where they leave out x amount of feats for easy customization of an NPC. whether or not they did this on purpose, because it doesn't matter, it's nice to be able to add some feats as i deem appropriate.
so this argument kind of falls on deaf ears with me. if they forgot (or it was a typo or something, who cares), they forgot. add in something yourself. if they meant to do it, well great. add in something yourself. i fail to see how people who are so intimate with a character would cry because he's got empty feat slots. shouldn't you know what kind of feats to add in already?
"that's not the point!" i hear, but that kind of is the point. Every single NPC doesn't make it straight off the page into a game does it? you're telling me you never tweak an NPC to make it fit what you want? preposterous.
b) didn't do anything new with him beyond what was done in the Forgotten Realms villian book or Children of the Night: Vampires.
I'm aware that this could be someone's first experiance with Jander. But more often it will be someone's third or forth presentation of Mr. Sunstar, if not more. What do they get?
Has he changed since his last presentation? What has he been doing for the past eight or so years?
So that is why I think CoD is so hated. It had so much potential to bring back the old and classic and revamp it as well as include so much new and original material. It was the perfect place for Jander and the Carnival while still leaving room for Worldbreakers and such.
And the writers blew it!
FR Villian book was d20? i don't know, didn't pick it up.
Children of the Night: Vampires was 2e, no?
i'm well aware that this isn't someone's first experience with Jander, but i don't think 5 pages of what he's been up to in "the past eight or so years" is going to make much of a difference to me. He's going to be doing what i tell him to do. That's how NPCs work.
i don't know, maybe it's just how i'm reading it, but it seems the hefty complaints about the retouched old stuff stems from people not wanting to come up with anything themselves or extrapolate what has been going on into a future plot.
sidethought: why would you worry about what a vampire has been doing for less than a decade? that's like worrying about what went on the first 15 years of an elf's life. drop in the bucket when you live forever, man. if Jander's got plans to wander around and slay things, i'm pretty sure he doesn't change that on a whim every year. when time has no meaning, you take longer to do things.
Originally posted by Aion Khonsu
i don't know, maybe it's just how i'm reading it, but it seems the hefty complaints about the retouched old stuff stems from people not wanting to come up with anything themselves or extrapolate what has been going on into a future plot.
For me, at least, t's more a case of the fact that as a first exposure, more detail would be good. Same goes for all the NPCs, honestly. I prefer to not get hung up on Jander.
And if you're going to leave customization room you should mention it. Some people will not notice the lack of feats and the character will be weaker for it.
And I have no problem coming up with dozens of ideas of what Jander has been up to, or involving him in campaigns. That's not the issue, and my wanting official information on what he has been doing is in no way lazy or due to lack of ideas. It would just be nice not to have to come up with that info. That's what settings do, they do some of the work for you, that's why you buy the books.
Look, if I wanted to customize Jander or invent eight years of his life I would use the 2E stats given in the two books I previosuly mentioned (which I have done). But if an NPC is going to be published he should be published completely with the gaps filled. For those people who don't customize or need the NPC in a hurry. Just because you CAN customize an NPC to fit a need doesn't mean you should HAVE to customize.
This is just one problem with book.
Personally, I've never been a fan of Jander in "modern" RL continuity, regardless of the edition. I always felt that the "mists protecting him from sunlight" engine ruined what, in the original novel, should have been a victory of sorts.
Originally posted by Aion Khonsu
so, to me it seems that a lot of complaints about the stat-block might just be people a little too lazy to kick it around a bit till it fits just right.
It's not that we can't, or don't want to. But if we're paying someone else to do it (i.e. buying a book), it would be nice if they could do it right.
edited: no naming names, please. ~WizO Jedi.
Thank you Jedi.
We have multiple NPC classes that essentially do the same thing, manipulate people. We have a one size fits all PrC for darklord flunkies. This PrC has the subtlty of a sledge hammer, which might make sense for someone like Azalin who rules openly, but is inappropriate for most of the rest of the Core. We have a terrible mangling of the vision of Barovia with the Ebon Gargoyles and Sheriff von Zarovich. Here I begin my rant: If Strahd had decided to take on a "Sheriff" it should have been discussed...that's a major departure for Strahd's character. If Strahd decieded he need a schools worth of 9+ level mages it should have been discussed - again a major change in Barovia. End Rant.
Ultimately I don't like the book because: (1) it doesn't pay respect to what has gone before, (2) it doesn't move the personalites forward in a believable way from where we've seen them in the past, (3) where things do change there is a huge lurch without an explaination for the changes, (4) many of the crunchy bits I find repetitive.
Granted I'm not wild about anti-heroes to begin with. But as a DM I would have loved to have had a "tootkit" for building borderline NPCs...allies today, adversaries tomorrow. I don't feel that CoD delived on either of those fronts, and I don't recomend it.
-Eric Gorman
Originally posted by The_Jester
[b]The Jander thing is just one of the worst offenders.
I overlook the CE stat beacuse he is a vampire and does kill people. Often. He has murdered innocents and the helpless.
Which shade of evil he is is irrelevant and subjective.
But that they:
a) could not follow all the games rules and give him all his required feats
I thought it was nice that the authors strayed from the norm...proving the point that some vampires are a little less of the same cut; that there can be a uniqueness to them that the template pretty much disputes.
Or, tying things in to Ravenloft, that each individual's vampirism (curse) is a little different than the rest.
That, and the transition from life/death to undeath doesn't always have to an evil one...wouldn't that all depend on the individual's ability to adapt?
Feeding isn't neccessarily killing...it's more nature than anything (aside from the fact that a life doesn't have to be taken in order for a vampire to continue its existance)...and that'd be more neutral (considering the definitions of all the other alignments).
I like to think.
And then, isn't it possible for a vampire to switch its alignment? It has, potentially, centuries to ponder life and death (it actions; Past). Couldn't it feel remorse (or any other emotion for that matter), and change its ways? Killer to saviour, saviour to killer, etc.
I think it'd be cool, and very "realistic", if an ages-old vampire has gone through the spectrum of alignments (once or several times)...it'd be a colorful history in the least, and add (reflect) through the character in question.
This is sub-topic, I know...and I apologize for that...but some thoughts just can't be contained.
(But I guess they can, and perhaps should be switched to a different thread. Oh well...)
It's a morality point on where you draw the line between good and evil.
Drawing substenance from intelligent beings could be evil or survival. Viewing the lives you could save by the *attempted* killing other vampires as greater than the lives you will save by ending your own life.
This debate is iffy and in no way related to the strength of the book one way or another other than a coup de grace. If the book was strong this could and would be overlooked. Personally I put Jander as CN, and semi-officially so did Azalin. But I'm not splitting hairs where there are other more blatant and worthy of debate flaws in the book.
What else must be mentioned? How does everyone feel about the Freemen or Falkovnia, Sans Merci, and the Tribe of Hyskosa?
Originally posted by The_Jester
[b]I didn't want to bring in the alignment debate because it can be seen as either a flaw in the book or something you shrug about.
etc.
Yeah, you got a point there...
Now if only I could delete my posts...
((WizO whoever>> Can you delete both my posts here in this thread? Please? I'd rather see a legit thread dedicated to the topic at hand. Thanks either way...))
How come no one reported me? Don't I annoy y'all enough and go off topic enough to warrent being reported.
I feel so unloved.
Anyway. Since Barovia is such a backwater, why is the idea of a freaky tax collector so out of place? I mean the people DO call the the Darklord the Fiend Strahd and he really loves to mess with people's minds AND Strahd has never been short on lackeys... like Azalin. The sherriff might also be a personna Strahd uses himself. I.E.- it's the sherriff most of the time, but sometimes it's Strahd going out among his people and he doesn't want them to know its him.
OR
Strahd lets this idiot ride all over, so heros go pester him and leave Strahd alone.
OR
Strahd is going to let this guy keep going till he gets totally out of control, then Strahd will come charging in on his horse and slay him to be 'the Hero' of the people.
Or
Maybe Strahd thru his divination has figured out Tara's current incarnation is outside Barovia, and he's making himself a useful thug to go out and search for her.
OR
Maybe it was a hero adventurer who Strahd has broken, and has made him an instrument of the thing he hated the most.
Those are all off the top of my head. Specifically WHAT is so out of place with this character? WHY is it so WRONG to have an evil sherrif of nottingham character in a CL 7 medieval Domain?
Actually i thought it was kind of nice that they provided a bad guy for Barovia to start crap with who doesn't have the power of a god. Azalin has an entire secret police force. What's wrong with a character whose 'bad deeds' are this bad due mostly to rumor.
(He's destroyed towns but no one can tell you names). That's washwoman talk.
Or a thug to come get you because Strahd desires an audience with the players (when outside the village itself). As if Strahd himself could be bothered to go out of his way to come see or get pee-ons like us.
I'm going to go read it again. Right now. To see if i can figure out why everyone so overwhelmingly hated this guy. When I read thru parts of the book, I read most of his write up and continued. I was moved neither bad or good. I said heh, an evil sherrif of nottingham. Well someone has to collect the taxes. Kind of makes sense Strahd would have someone no one would think of robbing. Because then you have to track the perpertraitors down, and figure out an inventive new punishment for them that people will still remember in 75 years, and then its work, work, work all day.
Originally posted by Aion Khonsu
a) could not follow all the games rules and give him all his required feats
i've noticed stat blocks in other games where they leave out x amount of feats for easy customization of an NPC. whether or not they did this on purpose, because it doesn't matter, it's nice to be able to add some feats as i deem appropriate.
so this argument kind of falls on deaf ears with me. if they forgot (or it was a typo or something, who cares), they forgot. add in something yourself. if they meant to do it, well great. add in something yourself. i fail to see how people who are so intimate with a character would cry because he's got empty feat slots. shouldn't you know what kind of feats to add in already?
"that's not the point!" i hear, but that kind of is the point. Every single NPC doesn't make it straight off the page into a game does it? you're telling me you never tweak an NPC to make it fit what you want? preposterous.
There's a diffenrence between tweaking a character (switching two feats, giving another level) and choosing: 7 feats MINIMUM. Also his skills were screwed up since it didn't take the vampire template into account. That was sloppy work indeed. Most other NPC had one or two feats missing and they tend to fix that in the Gazetteer after earing our feedback from SoTDR.
Originally posted by daffy72
Anyway. Since Barovia is such a backwater, why is the idea of a freaky tax collector so out of place? I mean the people DO call the the Darklord the Fiend Strahd and he really loves to mess with people's minds AND Strahd has never been short on lackeys... like Azalin. The sherriff might also be a personna Strahd uses himself. I.E.- it's the sherriff most of the time, but sometimes it's Strahd going out among his people and he doesn't want them to know its him.
OR
He already has a personna and it's Vasili von Holtz.
Strahd lets this idiot ride all over, so heros go pester him and leave Strahd alone.
OR
Not bad, but when you read that he animated an entire village into undead, doesn't it deplenishes Strahd's foodbank a lot?
Strahd doesn't tolerate other undead predators, so why would he tolerate this?
Strahd is going to let this guy keep going till he gets totally out of control, then Strahd will come charging in on his horse and slay him to be 'the Hero' of the people.
Or
I think the Sheriff has proven with the slain village and his outlawing of the Vistani potion for the fog, that he is out of control.
Maybe Strahd thru his divination has figured out Tara's current incarnation is outside Barovia, and he's making himself a useful thug to go out and search for her.
OR
Nothing in CoD mentions (unless I'm mistaking) that the Sheriff goes anywhere outside Barovia.
Maybe it was a hero adventurer who Strahd has broken, and has made him an instrument of the thing he hated the most.
Now that's an interesting theory about his background. Actually much more better than the ones in CoD so congrats for this theory :D
Those are all off the top of my head. Specifically WHAT is so out of place with this character? WHY is it so WRONG to have an evil sherrif of nottingham character in a CL 7 medieval Domain?
Because the population is officially very small. Nottingham was WAY bigger than any city in Barovia.
Actually i thought it was kind of nice that they provided a bad guy for Barovia to start crap with who doesn't have the power of a god. Azalin has an entire secret police force. What's wrong with a character whose 'bad deeds' are this bad due mostly to rumor.
(He's destroyed towns but no one can tell you names). That's washwoman talk.
Again, according to CoD it wasn't rumors he DID destroy that town.
If they can't do the stats right, they should take them out entirely and save a lot of space.
If this was some free download, I wouldn't mind the shabby work. It's not. Someone was getting PAID to stat these guys and they didn't put any effort into doing it correctly. Those are huge mistakes they made, not minor mistakes. They did not leave the feats out to make characters more "customizable," they left them out because they made huge mistakes in creating the character and didn't bother to fix them. No respectable freelance RPG writer or game designer could (or should, at least) defend such poor work.
If you guys want to spend your money on something that obviously was barely even proofread, that's cool, but I don't really have that kind of money to spend, and I feel betrayed that 3e Ravenloft's incredibly high quality has now dropped to this level without any warning. The thing about product loyalty is that you have it because you've found a product that you feel you can trust to be good. I bought CoD, expecting it to be a good book like the previous Ravenloft books, and instead found that not only is it factually incompatible with other Ravenloft books, it also requires me to go back and restat every NPC and ban or change most of the feats and prestige classes, which constitute most of the book.
Originally posted by daffy72
they were just quick -off the top of my head- ideas on how you could use the character. It doesn't say in the book he CAN'T leave Barovia.
Yeah I know, but he's poorly written with no suggestions on how to use him. That's one of the main reason I find this book so weak.
Still you just gave me a SUPER idea for my campaign, using the Sheriff against a Knight of the SHadows in my campaign.
Anyway, for me there's also the purely subjective flavor thing. The Order and the Sheriff just don't seem to fit current Barovia as I envision it, though I've speculated (repeatedly) on how one might use a very changed version of them a little ways down the timeline, especially if the Gundarkarites become really problematic.
Originally posted by Charney
[Jander is] poorly written with no suggestions on how to use him.
oh ok. so the whole "a vampire who kills other vampires" thing really doesn't give you any suggestions. for my money, i bet he crochets little booties for adventurers all the time. so use that.
i will concede having the majority of feats missing is bad. i know how riled up i've seen some people get when a skill point is out of place, so i figured it was a minor amount. a large amount, yeah go slap someone. i never bothered looking at the stats anyway, they don't even need to be there for me, usually.
Originally posted by Aion Khonsu
oh ok. so the whole "a vampire who kills other vampires" thing really doesn't give you any suggestions. for my money, i bet he crochets little booties for adventurers all the time. so use that.
i will concede having the majority of feats missing is bad. i know how riled up i've seen some people get when a skill point is out of place, so i figured it was a minor amount. a large amount, yeah go slap someone. i never bothered looking at the stats anyway, they don't even need to be there for me, usually.
Actually we were now speaking about SHeriff
skimmed over 'im. generally not interested in barovia.
Originally posted by Charney
Again, according to CoD it wasn't rumors he DID destroy that town.
I'm proud to say that I admit my errors. I got home and reread CoD. Ok those are just rumors.
Originally posted by Reginald de Curry
Personally, I've never been a fan of Jander in "modern" RL continuity, regardless of the edition. I always felt that the "mists protecting him from sunlight" engine ruined what, in the original novel, should have been a victory of sorts.
I tend to agree with you. (And for the record, when my Creative Director said Jander Sunstar had to be in "Children of the Night: Vampires," I suggested that that the adventure be set "between chapters" during the events of Golden's novel. I was over-ruled--he said that people aren't interested in adventures that aren't set in the present day, even if the Mists provide an easy 'time shift' mechanism--and I suppose it was for the better. Paul Culotta's adventure was better than whatever I'd probably have come up with, and Jander is still available for those who want to use him.)
Originally posted by Writer of Stuff
I tend to agree with you. (And for the record, when my Creative Director said Jander Sunstar had to be in "Children of the Night: Vampires," I suggested that that the adventure be set "between chapters" during the events of Golden's novel. I was over-ruled--he said that people aren't interested in adventures that aren't set in the present day, even if the Mists provide an easy 'time shift' mechanism--and I suppose it was for the better. Paul Culotta's adventure was better than whatever I'd probably have come up with, and Jander is still available for those who want to use him.)
Writer of Stuff, I thought J. SunStar died in Vampire of the Mists ?
~B4Real
Originally posted by B4Real
Writer of Stuff, I thought J. SunStar died in Vampire of the Mists ?
Nope, even if I think he SHOULD have. It's not often that I think a neat character in a property like Ravenloft should we allowed to die a final, certain death, but Jander is one that I think would have been better served by ending with that book.
In "Children of the Night: Vampires" it was said that the Mists snatched him away, just before he burned up. That's what they say in "CoD" too.
Originally posted by Writer of Stuff
Nope, even if I think he SHOULD have. It's not often that I think a neat character in a property like Ravenloft should we allowed to die a final, certain death, but Jander is one that I think would have been better served by ending with that book.
In "Children of the Night: Vampires" it was said that the Mists snatched him away, just before he burned up. That's what they say in "CoD" too.
Is "Children of the Night: Vampires" a RL 3E book or is that 2E?
~B4Real
Originally posted by B4Real
Is "Children of the Night: Vampires" a RL 3E book or is that 2E?
~B4Real
It's a 2ed book featuring 13 vampires (Jander and Lyssa being the most noteworthy) and each has a small adventure. They also created a Children of the night for Ghosts, Created and Lycanthropes.
The one at the Karg was a online version for Demons with the same concept.
Originally posted by Charney
It's a 2ed book featuring 13 vampires (Jander and Lyssa being the most noteworthy) and each has a small adventure. They also created a Children of the night for Ghosts, Created and Lycanthropes.
The one at the Karg was a online version for Demons with the same concept.
Thanks for the speedy response on the subject. ;)
~B4Real
Originally posted by B4Real
Thanks for the speedy response on the subject. ;)
~B4Real
Throwing an opinion in on the CotN books... I think Created is the best of the four, followed by Ghosts, in terms of critters who I thought were well-written and lent themselves well to adventures. Werebeasts and Vampires impressed me less, though Werebeasts does have the fun Professor Arcanus.