Queen Robyn Looking for Players

[shad0wfax]

You're not likely to lose your current bow ranger.

[Ithildur]

You're not likely to lose your current bow ranger.

Bold words...

[Zelknolf]

Bold words...

To be fair, when someone in a mixed-level group dies, it's almost always the lowest-level PC.

[orangetree]

Bold words...

To be fair, when someone in a mixed-level group dies, it's almost always the lowest-level PC.

So very true. It's also the mark of good teamwork if we all survive it. I'm actually pleased that we kept one of our newest member alive

[Zelknolf]

So very true. It's also the mark of good teamwork if we all survive it. I'm actually pleased that we kept one of our newest member alive

I'm also kinda a wimp as a DM. Whenever monsters are accidentally too powerful, everything must stop so I can fix it; whenever monsters are accidentally too weak, congrats! Gold star! You guys are the best! And it's really rare for a fight to just... be correct.

[t-ice]

I'm also kinda a wimp as a DM. Whenever monsters are accidentally too powerful, everything must stop so I can fix it; whenever monsters are accidentally too weak, congrats! Gold star! You guys are the best! And it's really rare for a fight to just... be correct.

Sounds more fair than whimpy, given the permadeath setting. Of course sometimes if it smells like a piece of cake it is a cake. On the other hand the game can have a surprisingly big component from randomness at times: A couple of bad rolls could have taken out the key party member and what seemed like a cakewalk can have a much bigger chance for failure than was apparent. Even when the probabilities under the hood might actually have been quite "correct", the feeling of excitement of a tight fight can be hidden in the game. I don't think D&D is very good at hair-raisingly tight fights at the edge of your seat overall. At least if you remove the revolving-door-afterlife features and make death a show-stopper rather than an exciting time to overcome.

I maintain the death system could be much more conductive to excitement by simply making the PCs saved by the floor disabled from the current fight, one technical way or another. It is counter-productive to have a single, lucky greataxe crit permanently kill off PCs in our game. But when the only options are permanent death, and bouncing right back swinging after a simple healing spell, it's hard to wiggle for excitement in between. A disabled-by-the-floor system would also give more tools to the likes of ambushes and traps: Tanks tend to fail reflex saves, and even a lesser enemy can be a great excitement if the party has to fight with the main tank lying out cold on the ground. (D&D has many ways to non-lethally disable characters, even not counting spells, but they don't work in NWN2. So a direct damage alternative would likely be useful)

(no topic creep or nothing...)

[Adanu]

I'd rather have the certainty of fairness over the randomness of a technical adrenaline rush, and I can tell you that if you do that route, you'll lose any chance of ever gaining higher level tanks.

[Ronan]

I'm also kinda a wimp as a DM. Whenever monsters are accidentally too powerful, everything must stop so I can fix it; whenever monsters are accidentally too weak, congrats! Gold star! You guys are the best! And it's really rare for a fight to just... be correct.

From what I've seen this is very common.

[Zelknolf]

From what I've seen this is very common.

Certainly so, but I'm taking the bold stand that while it's common, it's not really ideal. Being challenged is usually part of enjoying games.

I still tend to go simulationism in how I construct my encounters, and groups can totally cheat themselves out of epic sea battles with a zombie kraken, but there's still a bottomless pit of perfectly-in-character reasons for people to work near their capacities (see also: the real world).

[Ithildur]

You guys lost me, but I'd gladly participate in mashing stuff on the Queen Robyn if someday schedule/level appropriate PC allowed on server thing ever works out.

[kid]

It was fun. I think I stopped coming due to a mix of being busy and hating my elf.

[Ithildur]

You houldn't hate your elf. Rather, learn to accept and love your elf, with fault and flaw, wart and all. They ay elf hatred i one of the root of many emotional problem

orry, couldn't re i t!

[kid]

Oh i've nothing against elves, I loved 'em reading lord of the rings when I was a kid.
ALFA elves however just don't measure up to proper elves, mine didn't either, so had to chuck him.

[Veilan]

Oh i've nothing against elves, I loved 'em reading lord of the rings when I was a kid.
ALFA elves however just don't measure up to proper elves, mine didn't either, so had to chuck him.

I hear you; there's a reason vanilla TOR only allows wood elves (you know, the white trash that never saw the light of the blessed realm) as playable, and even then only crazed youngsters among them. Thinking DnD elves are Tolkien elves is a big mistake. Most brands of Tolkien elves just don't lend themselves to being player characters in a PW with its requirement for at least some "balance". In PnP, such as reflected in TOR's Rivendell expansion, "proper" Elves and Dunedain become playable, but then with a strong emphasis that they are more potent and are only good if people accept a discrepancy of power for narrative purposes (say, a highly experienced character leading a bunch of bushy-tailed newbies through the Midgewater Moors...). Most fittingly, they have rules such as "servants of the enemy below attribute level x automatically flee before you". That's a very good approach - but not what DnD elves are, and not how DnD works, least of all in a PW. The tricky thing is that some DnD source material nevertheless emphasises a lot of "Tolkien fluff" even though it is not reflected in their rules, and elf fanboys are often somewhat guilty of helping the problem by idealising elves and exaggerating the positive attributes they are attracted to, rather than accepting that DnD elf are a bunch of nimble but sickly wanna-bes who are just as flawed as humans while sporting pointy ears. Though I doubt DnD spent time thinking about it, there's some help in them being labelled a different "race", rather than a different species. Or maybe DnD did think about it, seeing elves and humans are interbreedable - Tolkien elves and humans are distinctively not; there is a grand total of three instances and they basically all amount to divine intervention and epic exceptions, or can be traced back to that (Arwen-Aragorn basically border on incest).

Perhaps surprisingly, I'd suggest looking at the NWN 1 Original Campaign for (moon elf) inspiration - most of the elven characters are just as flawed as interesting human characters should be, while maintaining a distinctive "elvenness" (see Elaith Craulnober in act II, for instance).

0.02€,

[Castano]

Agreed Veilan. DnD supports elves of all alignments. It's been refreshing to sometimes see on rare occasion an elf rogue or an evil elf wander into ALFA. Same with dwarves. I think the addition of the underdark subraces have sort of skewed perceptions, people wanting to play evil elves or dwarves have gravitated to those, leaving behind a half fleshed out character base.