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Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
enoch_van_garret
Sep 15, 2004 12:30:07 It seems my Planescape Newbie thread got lost in the migration to the new boards. So, if someone could please answer this question for me, I'd be very happy.

Previously, it was told to me by the helpful regulars of the planescape board that Sigil campaigns are not so much about power level as much as about belief and that which can change the nature of a man. In order to 3E this approach a bit, I was wondering how most of you viewed the following idea:

IMC, the cosmology has different dimensions, so to speak - the entire planar setup, with prime material and inner and outer planes, has parallel versions of itself as a whole, with different probabilities and versions extending into infinity. Sigil, however, is singular - the place where all these different versions meet. Therefore, any person who arrives in sigil is simultaneously a potential amalgram of all his other versions throughout the phases of existence. Outwardly, the person appears unchanged, but the potential is there for belief and metaphysicality to have physical effects - a person who goes ultra-lawful in both thought and deed could unconsciously train his mind to be rigid and unyielding, and actually begin to be unaffected by most attacks or even spells.

Does this seem reasonable?

Also, can any one of you berks kip me the true Dark on what happens when the Lady pens a sod into the dead-book? Word on the streets is they can't be resurrected - where do they go? What happens to them? How does it work?
#2
enoch_van_garret
Sep 16, 2004 7:01:48 argh, no takers?
#3
zombiegleemax
Sep 16, 2004 8:06:59 Possibly, although Sigil is in many ways the most 'normal' place in the Outer Planes - it isn't the home of the gods, and rather than reflecting a certain belief it plays host to all the conflicting ideologies of the planes (so that they cancel one another out). You could play the rules you suggest, but bear in mind that Sigil is not the abode of the ultra-powerful - merely a crossroads where the power of the planes is kept in check.

And yes, if the Lady wants a sod to stay lost, that berk stays lost. Her gaze (or her shadow, depending on who you listen to) passes across them, and suddenly they are slashed and ripped, as though by the blades of her mask. Their body - or at least what's left of it - hits the dust, whilst presumably their soul goes wherever souls go, becoming a petitioner.
#4
enoch_van_garret
Sep 16, 2004 9:56:08 Here's my dilemma -

In my campaign, there are three trees of advancement:

1. Character class or racial hit dice, which can advance into 100+ per the Epic Level Handbook. Character Advancement past 20th is not as simple as just gaining enough experience - you must have a 9th-level spell cast on you which is known to very few people - but due to the inclusion of all campaign worlds (including the epic-level-heavy Faerun cosmology), there are a reasonably high number of epic-level characters running around, especially in places like Union.

2. Divinity. Gods acquire character classes (and outsider hit dice) according to their divine ranks and portfolios, and there are gods above Divine Rank 20 with their own interests, settings, and adventure hooks. Divine Rank 0 characters have their own special tree, called...

3. Immortals (you may remember this from earlier D&D versions). A creature that is divine rank 0 loses all class levels and instead gains levels in "Immortal" equal to its previous levels. Immortals gain levels this way, and are generally treated as divine beings that cannot normally become divine rank 1 or higher - doing so requires possession of at least one portfolio, which is no easy thing to accomplish. Immortals are, in general, the cosmic free agents of metaphysical power - whereas an epic-level character advances through expanded personal ability and infusion with the essence of planar power, Immortals expand their own personal power and spheres, unable to die and typically dealing more in philosophical matters than in loot and exp. An immortal who becomes a rank 1 or higher diety loses all its immortal class levels and instead gains outsider hit dice equal to its lost immortal levels, in addition to character class levels dictated by its portfolio (see above).

Here's the rub of it - Places like Union and more dangerous planes are typically dominated by power level - what your base attack and saves are, how much damage your spells and attacks do, and how many hit points of damage you can absorb before you die and must be resurrected. Very by-the-book, very dry, very number-crunchy - there's nothing wrong with that, but variety is the spice of undeath, as they say. So, for Sigil, I wanted things to be different - I wanted a character to have a way to fight back against an 80th level badass that wasn't contingent on level or things like that. In other places, characters should have to watch their backs for claws or swords, and in some ways, I didn't want sigil to be different from that - people still get hurt, take damage, and die just like anywhere else. But I did want *something* to keep people in check, and I didn't want it to be an external force like the threat of the dabus or the Lady - I wanted an 80th level character here to be afraid of attacking or hurting people not because he feared retribution, but because Sigil is an ancient and mysterious place where the soul is not a commodity or a thing you stuff back in a dead body, it's a teaching unto itself, a philosophy, with incredible results not possible in most other places.
#5
deekin
Sep 16, 2004 17:58:18 BTW, If the lady flays you, nothing, not even divine intervention, can bring you back.
#6
zombiegleemax
Sep 17, 2004 1:17:52 While I like your infinate universe approach I think you're in for trouble. In my opinion, which you are welcome to ignore, PS isn't especially compatible with epic levels, much less places like Union. PCs in PS are finite in their abilities and get by through learning about the secrets of the cosmos to outhink and outmaneuver their foes as they go. Not by gaining amazing abilities their opponents can't counter.

One reason for this is that despite PCs traveling through the (sometimes literally) backyards of the Gods and pits of Hell PS doesn't do much for adding crunch to the really big wigs. For example in one of the published mods you have to get inside Dispaters tower in Dis. You probably even meet Dispater at one point. He doesn't get stats. He's invincible in his tower and effectively as unbeatable as her Serenity is in Sigil. And that's that even if you are epic. (whether or not an immortal or deific entity could tear down his tower might be open to debate).

In another module the archfiend Orcus comes back from the dead. Its a plot device and no mechanics are given for bringing other dieities back from their "death" on the Astral Plane. Later Orcus kills Primus with something called the Last Word. No details on what the word is but it apparently gacks *anything* no save no power resistance.

It sounds like, from your post, that you want similiar mechanics for the above that your (N)PCs can exploit. Stating out how tough Dispater is in his tower, or how Orcus gacks a greater god (or lesser or whatever) IMO fails to focus on what makes planescape planescape as opposed to "dungeons of the planes."

-Eric Gorman

PS - the Lady Mazes her foes at least as often as outright killing them. They have one exit, carefully hidden, to torment their captives...but as a general rule no one who gets mazed ever finds their way out.
#7
enoch_van_garret
Sep 17, 2004 10:26:30 Eric -

Thanks for your well thought-out post. I am, indeed, hankering for trouble, but I'm walking into it with eyes open - my decision is that anything, no matter how powerful, has statistics. I am free to make outrageous statistics if I like, such as giving an NPC an Armor Class of 743 or a strength score of 1.23 x 10^12, but every NPC should have statistics, and these statistics should be in line with that NPC's power level. For example, in my campaign...wait a minute.

Enoch Van Garret begins to cast a spell.
Enoch Van Garret is protected from flame.

In my campaign, the Lady of Pain does indeed have statistics. Her Armor class is 1038, her hit points are 32000 with regeneration per round equal to her hit point total, all her ability scores are 4 digits, she is immune to all spells and salient divine powers, and she has DR 999/+42i, but she does have statistics. I have chosen to classify her as a rank 25 divine being, equal in stature to Ao. If a PC were to advance to a level where he or she could defeat these statistics, then in my opinion, that PC has earned the right to do whatever he pleases if he or she is capable. The reason is that any character who is capable of obtaining statistics or abilities necessary to accomplish such a thing would be disgustingly far into either epic levels or divine rank, or both - and therefore has a power level reasonably consistent with such an accomplishment.

Therefore I always make it a point to make allowances for, heh, realism, in my campaigns. Every NPC has an Armor Class, a hit point total, ability scores, saving throws, and a finite number of special attacks and special qualities - just like any other NPC, from a worm to a rank 20 diety.

Why?

Simple. I originally played D&D like most people - with the idea that a campaign world is, for the most part, static, with static NPCs that are not supposed to die, and static events and locales that are not supposed to change. Then, I played in a fantastic campaign which begain at 12th level in Baator and ended at 21st level in which nothing was sacred to the DM. Gods were slain, Silverymoon and other major cities were completely destroyed, key Forgotten Realms NPCs got mulched right alongside red-shirt guards, and in general massive havoc was wreaked upon my pristine mental picture of Forgotten Realms. Time and again my character would start to say, 'Why don't we go to Icewind Dale, they have dwarves there' or 'I think we can probably get those rubies from a Calimshite pasha' and then recall, 'oh yeah, Tiamat melted the great glacier and Icewind dale is a 36,000 mile slurpee with a population of roughly zero' or 'doh, that's right, Calimshan is now ruled entirely by iron golems that use humans for firewood.' Our DM's rule was hard and simple - if you could, you could. If you couldn't, you couldn't. If you wanted to pick fights with gods, or start taking Union apart rock by rock, he didn't stop you - no caps on your power, no artificial limits on your behavior. His only requirement was that if you stepped up, you had better bring the heat - because his NPCs didn't hold back either, and you haven't lived until you've encountered monsters with +110 to hit at level 16.

To make a long story short, I follow the rules, and if there are no rules in place, I put 'em in to make it fair. in the examples you described, I would have given Dis his normal statistics as described in the Book of Vile Darkness with his described bonuses for being inside his tower - I would have the Last Word have a DC of over 100 (pretty sure Primus, as a greater diety, only has saving throws in the 50-80 range), and I already have mechanics for bringing gods back from the dead. Start with a worshipper base, add one or more portfolios, sacrifice one or more artifacts, stir, heat, serve.

With these Sigil rules, what I wanted was a way to combine this gameplay style with the philosophy and mystery of the Planescape setting. I didn't want players to suddenly have huge stat bonuses from nowhere, I wanted their stats to become irrelevant in some situations, with the focus shifting to the balances of power and unknown undercurrents in the metaphysical troposphere.

I appreciate your attempts to warn me about what I'm getting into, but I'm very aware - what I was looking for was more along the lines of ways to better incorporate my existing system.

It sounds like, from your post, that you want similiar mechanics for the above that your (N)PCs can exploit. Stating out how tough Dispater is in his tower, or how Orcus gacks a greater god (or lesser or whatever) IMO fails to focus on what makes planescape planescape as opposed to "dungeons of the planes."

And therein lies the problem - I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want to be able to focus on the key elements of planescape without throwing the key rules that bind 3+E out the window. The difference between a reality-spanning campaign and a 'planar dungeon crawl' isn't it what ruleset you use, or what stats you give your NPCs - it's how you present the game. If NPCs are just stat blocks to you, then your campaign will never advance beyond 'smash mob, get loot, w00t i leveled'. If, however, you treat your world as a living document, with characterized NPCs with personal agendas and personalities, and have them act in a reasonable manner consistent with their character and environment, it's pretty hard to go wrong. Whether or not Dispater has stats doesn't change what happens if the party attacks him or if he attacks the party - it's *whether* either of these things happen that are the true telling point. If your party says, 'i think we can beat this NPC, he's probably only level 4' then they are going about things the wrong way.
#8
Shemeska_the_Marauder
Sep 17, 2004 18:25:07
Also, can any one of you berks kip me the true Dark on what happens when the Lady pens a sod into the dead-book? Word on the streets is they can't be resurrected - where do they go? What happens to them? How does it work?

Obliteration. I'd wager either they instantly merge with their home plane in some way that prevents deities from extracting them back to raise them. Or their souls are snuffed out like a candle and destroyed for their offenses.
#9
ohtar_turinson
Sep 17, 2004 20:18:19 I'd have thought more along the lines of the soul getting the same treatment as the body- flayed until it's beyond all hope of resurrection, similar to what happens when a soul is devoured, but more extreme.
#10
zombiegleemax
Sep 19, 2004 5:23:45 Enoch I think theres a 50% chance you're nuts and/or masochistic but at least you have panache.

I can't argue that non-static campaigns are infinately more interesting than campaigns with sacred cows (ie. that don't deviviate much from cannon material). Though on a much smaller scale, I remember a Ravenloft campaign that more or less kicked off with the darklord Dominic being hit and killed by an assassin aiming at our PCs. That not only dropped our jaws it also changed the way we looked at the setting (by taking nothing for granted).

Given all that though I think part of a good DMs bag of tricks is using plot elements that simply can't be stated out. Done incorrectly it causes players to suspend belief in the world. Done right and you introduce wonder. And wonder is really what PS is all about. Puting mechanics into everything is not too far from removing the dark from the planes.

As I ruminate on this I'm left thinking about the 2E Book of Artifacts which had a very good discussion at the begining about wonder versus power. Though powerful, artifacts are really just objects of (1) terrific history that (2)provoke adventure/storry and (3) act wonderously (ie. not fully in accord with core rules). I think one of the points Zeb Cook was trying to make in the begining was that part of the game needs to be driven by plot elements that won't always be supported by the core rules. Enoch you said in reply that you found Union a little dry. I would argue to the extent that it is dry is the extent that the "wonder" has been removed from the equation (and the ability to achieve everything through stats has replaced it).

This could be a wrong premise, but if it is right it suggests you are always going to have problems stating out all power levels of your campaign while maintaining the flavor of PS.

Okay. On to constructive help. I admit I have little. I have no idea how to create a balanced mechanic for level 1 commoner to smoke an epic wizard through "belief" or resist spells by being ultra lawful. But I do know how I would fake it. Deal with such issues through plot and storry. If there is a good storry about the belief of Farmer Joe that helped him best a titan then your (N)PCs by extention will be more likely to treat farmers with respect lest they too get bested. This could help explain why Sigil isn't a den where the strong prey on the weak

(okay you all stop laughing, in Sigil the strong do prey on the weak...its just not the only dynamic).

Back to RL. To protetct the guilty the DM in the above example had taken the "core" of Dominic's history and abilities, and renamed him. His name was now Roderik. The DM also left the original Dominic as a described sans abilities of DLship (on the Council of Brilliance and seemingly puppet master of the Duke) as something of a red herring. Roderick was one of Dominic's aides. For those skilled enough to look, Dominic seemed to be controlling the Duke - while he was actually controlled by Roderick. From the point of view of us players the DM had gone wwaaaayy outside the box by killing the Dominic/the Darklord of the domain - which should have had all sorts of "cosmic" significance in RL. But the reality of the situation wasn't so wild as it seemed to us. The DM got a lot of milage by playing with our preconceptions (not just that one time).

Perhaps you can get milage out of similiar strategies by manipulating your players perceptions as well. To a certain extent wonder demands a level of ignorance on the part of the (N)PCs. Regardless of what "stats" your world supports your ability to fill your PCs with "wonder" will be a prominent benchmark of conveying a PS feel.

-Eric Gorman
#11
zombiegleemax
Sep 19, 2004 6:23:41 Wait a sec... if everyone in Sigil is altered in the same way, surely Farmer Joe still won't be able to whup dat Titan, because the Titan will also believe in himself, and because he's a Titan he'll probably believe in himself even more than poor ol' Joe. In fact, all this would do would make the downtrodden even more downtrodden and the powerful even more powerful.
#12
enoch_van_garret
Sep 19, 2004 11:17:52 What I wanted was uncertainty, on the part of both NPCs and PCs. I wanted there to be at least some rudimentary mechanic, very random in nature, that would make even extremely powerful NPCs think twice about attacking PCs that seemed to be weaker, and vice versa.
#13
ripvanwormer
Sep 19, 2004 11:25:22
Also, can any one of you berks kip me the true Dark on what happens when the Lady pens a sod into the dead-book? Word on the streets is they can't be resurrected - where do they go? What happens to them? How does it work?

I kind of like your idea for combining incarnations; it's very Moorcock, very Tanelorn.

Anyway, what happens to berks killed in Sigil is they go to the Soul Cage, a parallel version of the city where ghosts walk and all the doors are closed.
#14
Shemeska_the_Marauder
Sep 20, 2004 3:30:11
Anyway, what happens to berks killed in Sigil is they go to the Soul Cage, a parallel version of the city where ghosts walk and all the doors are closed.

That was always one of the more unique and fun 'what ifs' that was put up on the mimir, and one that I've toyed with in my campaign for a while when a PC was 'ganked' so to speak, inside the city.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 enoch_van_garret Sep 15, 2004 12:30:07	It seems my Planescape Newbie thread got lost in the migration to the new boards. So, if someone could please answer this question for me, I'd be very happy. Previously, it was told to me by the helpful regulars of the planescape board that Sigil campaigns are not so much about power level as much as about belief and that which can change the nature of a man. In order to 3E this approach a bit, I was wondering how most of you viewed the following idea: IMC, the cosmology has different dimensions, so to speak - the entire planar setup, with prime material and inner and outer planes, has parallel versions of itself as a whole, with different probabilities and versions extending into infinity. Sigil, however, is singular - the place where all these different versions meet. Therefore, any person who arrives in sigil is simultaneously a potential amalgram of all his other versions throughout the phases of existence. Outwardly, the person appears unchanged, but the potential is there for belief and metaphysicality to have physical effects - a person who goes ultra-lawful in both thought and deed could unconsciously train his mind to be rigid and unyielding, and actually begin to be unaffected by most attacks or even spells. Does this seem reasonable? Also, can any one of you berks kip me the true Dark on what happens when the Lady pens a sod into the dead-book? Word on the streets is they can't be resurrected - where do they go? What happens to them? How does it work?
#2 enoch_van_garret Sep 16, 2004 7:01:48	argh, no takers?
#3 zombiegleemax Sep 16, 2004 8:06:59	Possibly, although Sigil is in many ways the most 'normal' place in the Outer Planes - it isn't the home of the gods, and rather than reflecting a certain belief it plays host to all the conflicting ideologies of the planes (so that they cancel one another out). You could play the rules you suggest, but bear in mind that Sigil is not the abode of the ultra-powerful - merely a crossroads where the power of the planes is kept in check. And yes, if the Lady wants a sod to stay lost, that berk stays lost. Her gaze (or her shadow, depending on who you listen to) passes across them, and suddenly they are slashed and ripped, as though by the blades of her mask. Their body - or at least what's left of it - hits the dust, whilst presumably their soul goes wherever souls go, becoming a petitioner.
#4 enoch_van_garret Sep 16, 2004 9:56:08	Here's my dilemma - In my campaign, there are three trees of advancement: 1. Character class or racial hit dice, which can advance into 100+ per the Epic Level Handbook. Character Advancement past 20th is not as simple as just gaining enough experience - you must have a 9th-level spell cast on you which is known to very few people - but due to the inclusion of all campaign worlds (including the epic-level-heavy Faerun cosmology), there are a reasonably high number of epic-level characters running around, especially in places like Union. 2. Divinity. Gods acquire character classes (and outsider hit dice) according to their divine ranks and portfolios, and there are gods above Divine Rank 20 with their own interests, settings, and adventure hooks. Divine Rank 0 characters have their own special tree, called... 3. Immortals (you may remember this from earlier D&D versions). A creature that is divine rank 0 loses all class levels and instead gains levels in "Immortal" equal to its previous levels. Immortals gain levels this way, and are generally treated as divine beings that cannot normally become divine rank 1 or higher - doing so requires possession of at least one portfolio, which is no easy thing to accomplish. Immortals are, in general, the cosmic free agents of metaphysical power - whereas an epic-level character advances through expanded personal ability and infusion with the essence of planar power, Immortals expand their own personal power and spheres, unable to die and typically dealing more in philosophical matters than in loot and exp. An immortal who becomes a rank 1 or higher diety loses all its immortal class levels and instead gains outsider hit dice equal to its lost immortal levels, in addition to character class levels dictated by its portfolio (see above). Here's the rub of it - Places like Union and more dangerous planes are typically dominated by power level - what your base attack and saves are, how much damage your spells and attacks do, and how many hit points of damage you can absorb before you die and must be resurrected. Very by-the-book, very dry, very number-crunchy - there's nothing wrong with that, but variety is the spice of undeath, as they say. So, for Sigil, I wanted things to be different - I wanted a character to have a way to fight back against an 80th level badass that wasn't contingent on level or things like that. In other places, characters should have to watch their backs for claws or swords, and in some ways, I didn't want sigil to be different from that - people still get hurt, take damage, and die just like anywhere else. But I did want something to keep people in check, and I didn't want it to be an external force like the threat of the dabus or the Lady - I wanted an 80th level character here to be afraid of attacking or hurting people not because he feared retribution, but because Sigil is an ancient and mysterious place where the soul is not a commodity or a thing you stuff back in a dead body, it's a teaching unto itself, a philosophy, with incredible results not possible in most other places.
#5 deekin Sep 16, 2004 17:58:18	BTW, If the lady flays you, nothing, not even divine intervention, can bring you back.
#6 zombiegleemax Sep 17, 2004 1:17:52	While I like your infinate universe approach I think you're in for trouble. In my opinion, which you are welcome to ignore, PS isn't especially compatible with epic levels, much less places like Union. PCs in PS are finite in their abilities and get by through learning about the secrets of the cosmos to outhink and outmaneuver their foes as they go. Not by gaining amazing abilities their opponents can't counter. One reason for this is that despite PCs traveling through the (sometimes literally) backyards of the Gods and pits of Hell PS doesn't do much for adding crunch to the really big wigs. For example in one of the published mods you have to get inside Dispaters tower in Dis. You probably even meet Dispater at one point. He doesn't get stats. He's invincible in his tower and effectively as unbeatable as her Serenity is in Sigil. And that's that even if you are epic. (whether or not an immortal or deific entity could tear down his tower might be open to debate). In another module the archfiend Orcus comes back from the dead. Its a plot device and no mechanics are given for bringing other dieities back from their "death" on the Astral Plane. Later Orcus kills Primus with something called the Last Word. No details on what the word is but it apparently gacks anything no save no power resistance. It sounds like, from your post, that you want similiar mechanics for the above that your (N)PCs can exploit. Stating out how tough Dispater is in his tower, or how Orcus gacks a greater god (or lesser or whatever) IMO fails to focus on what makes planescape planescape as opposed to "dungeons of the planes." -Eric Gorman PS - the Lady Mazes her foes at least as often as outright killing them. They have one exit, carefully hidden, to torment their captives...but as a general rule no one who gets mazed ever finds their way out.
#7 enoch_van_garret Sep 17, 2004 10:26:30	Eric - Thanks for your well thought-out post. I am, indeed, hankering for trouble, but I'm walking into it with eyes open - my decision is that anything, no matter how powerful, has statistics. I am free to make outrageous statistics if I like, such as giving an NPC an Armor Class of 743 or a strength score of 1.23 x 10^12, but every NPC should have statistics, and these statistics should be in line with that NPC's power level. For example, in my campaign...wait a minute. Enoch Van Garret begins to cast a spell. Enoch Van Garret is protected from flame. In my campaign, the Lady of Pain does indeed have statistics. Her Armor class is 1038, her hit points are 32000 with regeneration per round equal to her hit point total, all her ability scores are 4 digits, she is immune to all spells and salient divine powers, and she has DR 999/+42i, but she does have statistics. I have chosen to classify her as a rank 25 divine being, equal in stature to Ao. If a PC were to advance to a level where he or she could defeat these statistics, then in my opinion, that PC has earned the right to do whatever he pleases if he or she is capable. The reason is that any character who is capable of obtaining statistics or abilities necessary to accomplish such a thing would be disgustingly far into either epic levels or divine rank, or both - and therefore has a power level reasonably consistent with such an accomplishment. Therefore I always make it a point to make allowances for, heh, realism, in my campaigns. Every NPC has an Armor Class, a hit point total, ability scores, saving throws, and a finite number of special attacks and special qualities - just like any other NPC, from a worm to a rank 20 diety. Why? Simple. I originally played D&D like most people - with the idea that a campaign world is, for the most part, static, with static NPCs that are not supposed to die, and static events and locales that are not supposed to change. Then, I played in a fantastic campaign which begain at 12th level in Baator and ended at 21st level in which nothing was sacred to the DM. Gods were slain, Silverymoon and other major cities were completely destroyed, key Forgotten Realms NPCs got mulched right alongside red-shirt guards, and in general massive havoc was wreaked upon my pristine mental picture of Forgotten Realms. Time and again my character would start to say, 'Why don't we go to Icewind Dale, they have dwarves there' or 'I think we can probably get those rubies from a Calimshite pasha' and then recall, 'oh yeah, Tiamat melted the great glacier and Icewind dale is a 36,000 mile slurpee with a population of roughly zero' or 'doh, that's right, Calimshan is now ruled entirely by iron golems that use humans for firewood.' Our DM's rule was hard and simple - if you could, you could. If you couldn't, you couldn't. If you wanted to pick fights with gods, or start taking Union apart rock by rock, he didn't stop you - no caps on your power, no artificial limits on your behavior. His only requirement was that if you stepped up, you had better bring the heat - because his NPCs didn't hold back either, and you haven't lived until you've encountered monsters with +110 to hit at level 16. To make a long story short, I follow the rules, and if there are no rules in place, I put 'em in to make it fair. in the examples you described, I would have given Dis his normal statistics as described in the Book of Vile Darkness with his described bonuses for being inside his tower - I would have the Last Word have a DC of over 100 (pretty sure Primus, as a greater diety, only has saving throws in the 50-80 range), and I already have mechanics for bringing gods back from the dead. Start with a worshipper base, add one or more portfolios, sacrifice one or more artifacts, stir, heat, serve. With these Sigil rules, what I wanted was a way to combine this gameplay style with the philosophy and mystery of the Planescape setting. I didn't want players to suddenly have huge stat bonuses from nowhere, I wanted their stats to become irrelevant in some situations, with the focus shifting to the balances of power and unknown undercurrents in the metaphysical troposphere. I appreciate your attempts to warn me about what I'm getting into, but I'm very aware - what I was looking for was more along the lines of ways to better incorporate my existing system. It sounds like, from your post, that you want similiar mechanics for the above that your (N)PCs can exploit. Stating out how tough Dispater is in his tower, or how Orcus gacks a greater god (or lesser or whatever) IMO fails to focus on what makes planescape planescape as opposed to "dungeons of the planes." And therein lies the problem - I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want to be able to focus on the key elements of planescape without throwing the key rules that bind 3+E out the window. The difference between a reality-spanning campaign and a 'planar dungeon crawl' isn't it what ruleset you use, or what stats you give your NPCs - it's how you present the game. If NPCs are just stat blocks to you, then your campaign will never advance beyond 'smash mob, get loot, w00t i leveled'. If, however, you treat your world as a living document, with characterized NPCs with personal agendas and personalities, and have them act in a reasonable manner consistent with their character and environment, it's pretty hard to go wrong. Whether or not Dispater has stats doesn't change what happens if the party attacks him or if he attacks the party - it's whether either of these things happen that are the true telling point. If your party says, 'i think we can beat this NPC, he's probably only level 4' then they are going about things the wrong way.
#8 Shemeska_the_Marauder Sep 17, 2004 18:25:07	Also, can any one of you berks kip me the true Dark on what happens when the Lady pens a sod into the dead-book? Word on the streets is they can't be resurrected - where do they go? What happens to them? How does it work? Obliteration. I'd wager either they instantly merge with their home plane in some way that prevents deities from extracting them back to raise them. Or their souls are snuffed out like a candle and destroyed for their offenses.
#9 ohtar_turinson Sep 17, 2004 20:18:19	I'd have thought more along the lines of the soul getting the same treatment as the body- flayed until it's beyond all hope of resurrection, similar to what happens when a soul is devoured, but more extreme.
#10 zombiegleemax Sep 19, 2004 5:23:45	Enoch I think theres a 50% chance you're nuts and/or masochistic but at least you have panache. I can't argue that non-static campaigns are infinately more interesting than campaigns with sacred cows (ie. that don't deviviate much from cannon material). Though on a much smaller scale, I remember a Ravenloft campaign that more or less kicked off with the darklord Dominic being hit and killed by an assassin aiming at our PCs. That not only dropped our jaws it also changed the way we looked at the setting (by taking nothing for granted). Given all that though I think part of a good DMs bag of tricks is using plot elements that simply can't be stated out. Done incorrectly it causes players to suspend belief in the world. Done right and you introduce wonder. And wonder is really what PS is all about. Puting mechanics into everything is not too far from removing the dark from the planes. As I ruminate on this I'm left thinking about the 2E Book of Artifacts which had a very good discussion at the begining about wonder versus power. Though powerful, artifacts are really just objects of (1) terrific history that (2)provoke adventure/storry and (3) act wonderously (ie. not fully in accord with core rules). I think one of the points Zeb Cook was trying to make in the begining was that part of the game needs to be driven by plot elements that won't always be supported by the core rules. Enoch you said in reply that you found Union a little dry. I would argue to the extent that it is dry is the extent that the "wonder" has been removed from the equation (and the ability to achieve everything through stats has replaced it). This could be a wrong premise, but if it is right it suggests you are always going to have problems stating out all power levels of your campaign while maintaining the flavor of PS. Okay. On to constructive help. I admit I have little. I have no idea how to create a balanced mechanic for level 1 commoner to smoke an epic wizard through "belief" or resist spells by being ultra lawful. But I do know how I would fake it. Deal with such issues through plot and storry. If there is a good storry about the belief of Farmer Joe that helped him best a titan then your (N)PCs by extention will be more likely to treat farmers with respect lest they too get bested. This could help explain why Sigil isn't a den where the strong prey on the weak (okay you all stop laughing, in Sigil the strong do prey on the weak...its just not the only dynamic). Back to RL. To protetct the guilty the DM in the above example had taken the "core" of Dominic's history and abilities, and renamed him. His name was now Roderik. The DM also left the original Dominic as a described sans abilities of DLship (on the Council of Brilliance and seemingly puppet master of the Duke) as something of a red herring. Roderick was one of Dominic's aides. For those skilled enough to look, Dominic seemed to be controlling the Duke - while he was actually controlled by Roderick. From the point of view of us players the DM had gone wwaaaayy outside the box by killing the Dominic/the Darklord of the domain - which should have had all sorts of "cosmic" significance in RL. But the reality of the situation wasn't so wild as it seemed to us. The DM got a lot of milage by playing with our preconceptions (not just that one time). Perhaps you can get milage out of similiar strategies by manipulating your players perceptions as well. To a certain extent wonder demands a level of ignorance on the part of the (N)PCs. Regardless of what "stats" your world supports your ability to fill your PCs with "wonder" will be a prominent benchmark of conveying a PS feel. -Eric Gorman
#11 zombiegleemax Sep 19, 2004 6:23:41	Wait a sec... if everyone in Sigil is altered in the same way, surely Farmer Joe still won't be able to whup dat Titan, because the Titan will also believe in himself, and because he's a Titan he'll probably believe in himself even more than poor ol' Joe. In fact, all this would do would make the downtrodden even more downtrodden and the powerful even more powerful.
#12 enoch_van_garret Sep 19, 2004 11:17:52	What I wanted was uncertainty, on the part of both NPCs and PCs. I wanted there to be at least some rudimentary mechanic, very random in nature, that would make even extremely powerful NPCs think twice about attacking PCs that seemed to be weaker, and vice versa.
#13 ripvanwormer Sep 19, 2004 11:25:22	Also, can any one of you berks kip me the true Dark on what happens when the Lady pens a sod into the dead-book? Word on the streets is they can't be resurrected - where do they go? What happens to them? How does it work? I kind of like your idea for combining incarnations; it's very Moorcock, very Tanelorn. Anyway, what happens to berks killed in Sigil is they go to the Soul Cage, a parallel version of the city where ghosts walk and all the doors are closed.
#14 Shemeska_the_Marauder Sep 20, 2004 3:30:11	Anyway, what happens to berks killed in Sigil is they go to the Soul Cage, a parallel version of the city where ghosts walk and all the doors are closed. That was always one of the more unique and fun 'what ifs' that was put up on the mimir, and one that I've toyed with in my campaign for a while when a PC was 'ganked' so to speak, inside the city.