RE: Dragonborn - In 3.5 Dragonborn was a template that any character of any race could adopt after a ritual that involved a "rebirth" as a Dragonborn. It granted you a +2 to Con and a -2 to Dex and it gave you darkvision or a breathweapon or wings that could glide...

4E made them more prevalent.

In reply to jkeogh (msg # 54):

Huh. Good to know. It seems like 4th Edition's contribution was to make them a race in their own right.

In reply to engine (msg # 55):

More accurately, 4e (and later, 5e) took a variety of similar-but-not-the-same, humanoid, dragon-like creatures and consolidated them into a single stat and lore.  The 'dragonborn' that jkeogh mentioned were one of many things called dragonborn or something similar...including draconians from krynn, half-dragons, dragon-kin from Faerun, and the Dragonborn of Bahamut (which are what jkeogh is talking about).  In the end, though...none of them are quite what 4e or 5e ended up using.



I relate strongly to this.  I already have a lot of trouble with players that memorize statbooks and try to correct my use of monsters and spells mid-stream.  Having to deal with players making the same kinds of comments about my setting too is a massive headache.  It's the primary reason I put forth the effort of creating my own setting for when I DM.

Still, I've learned a few tricks over the years to deal with this (including my favorite, "Yeah, your character notices that difference too and thinks its weird; there's gotta be some reason for that discrepancy"...which gives me enough time to make up a story-based reason for later that makes it look like I made the change on purpose.)  So, I feel more confident about the idea of jumping into DMing in a setting that I might not know the most about, now.  I still haven't done it, but I'm no longer vehemently opposed to it, at least.

For me, I think I'd just openly have to request help, probably from the outset. Far from planning the adventure in advance, I'd pick some aspect of the world that interested me and ask the players what is important to them about that aspect and which of its ties back to the rest of the world they'd like to focus on, and how we could make it work with the rules we want to use (i.e. 4th Edition).

But I do like the Eberron approach, which I probably lean on a tad too heavily: just about anything the characters think they know might just be something they either have wrong or have misunderstood.

I got a copy of the Keep on the Borderlands remake that was used for encounters. I'm familiar with the original module. Is the remake worth reading, let alone trying to recruit for? Given that it was for Encounters, I expect a lot of kill-em-all encounters.

Okay, history time.

In very ancient times, there was one world, called Abeir-Toril. Primitive, except for the elves, and the gods were fighting with the Primordials. Imagine elementals turned up to 11 then mixed with each other. Anyway, things got really bad and the chief god Ao split the world in two.

One part, called Abeir, got about a third of the landmass, all the primordials, and a smattering of other races (though, notably, no elves except for drow). And lots of dragons. So they had a lot of base-level elemental stuff, and lots of dragons. Did I mention a lot of dragons?

Anyway, the rest -- Toril -- got most of the land, all the elves, and all the gods. The two worlds coexisted, with Abeir being in a sort of pocket dimension that was physically in the same place as Toril, but otherwise cut off from it.

Now, the Realms has always been notable for having portals leading to other places. Some portals just bridge two spots on the map (like, say, one leading from a hilltop near Neverwinter to a similar hill in Cormyr). Others bridge elemental or astral planes (like the one in Myth Drannor that linked directly to one of the Nine Hells). Still others lead to completely alien worlds -- there was a persistent one that made a two-way link between Mulhorand and Earth's Egypt around 2000 BC. Seriously, they even had copies of the Egyptian gods.

Anyway, when the goddess of magic, Mystra, was assassinated by two other gods, this temporarily destabilized arcane magic in Toril. This had happened before, except this time one of the assassins had been secretly installing a double of the magic-stabilizing thing that drew from the Plane of Shadow, and it went haywire too. This made a big explosion of wild magic that spread across the world, then went through the numerous portals into every plane of existence, and eventually reached Abeir.

When it did, it basically screwed up everything there too, to the point of grabbing entire landmasses and forcibly swapping them with sections of Toril. That's how dragonborn came into the Realms, and how genasi became much more common.

Whew!

Okay, I thought I'd described this before. The Slow Poisoner is a character concept I've had for a long time, that would be a total headache for a DM at a live table -- because its primary focus is ongoing damage. I'd worked out a way to make a Dark Pact warlock that could eventually tag people with mixed poison/necrotic ongoing, penalize their saves, hurt them for making their saves, and make the effects viral.

Not really a heroic character concept, as it implies a mindset that enjoys inflicting slow, lingering harm on people. Which, really, says "drow" to me.

Thanks!

Does the fact of the two worlds enter into gameplay at all, prior to 4th Edition? Like, could a party be from Abeir, and have all their adventures there? From what I understand, it's quite a bit less "Earthlike" than Toril. I don't recall seeing game or book art that mentioned a difference. Anyone have any they can point me towards?


Yes, I think you did. I'd forgotten. I think I'd probably prefer that players not bring concept characters like that to my games. I get concerned about corner cases that the designers didn't consider. I guess I'm still smarting over the last optimized brawler fighter I encountered.

It was hinted at, in passing, in one of the original 1E books. Up until the 4E cataclysm, it was never brought up again.

But then, the setting has a lot of secrets that are hinted at here and there, then resurface years later. For instance, in the original books the sage Elminster has a manservant with him named Lhaeo. He was the source of long-suffering sighs, practical advice, and the occasional but of a joke.

Until he learned that his real name was Haedrak Rhindaun III, and that he was the last living heir to the kingdom of Tethyr. Something that had been hinted, but never spelled out, in the early books -- and they waited until late during the 2E stuff to bring it back up.

That makes it substantially more interesting to me, and seems like it would make it easier to DM for Forgotten Realms veterans. It seems like an aspect of the setting that they can't be closely familiar with (outside of what's in the 4e books).


I can respect that. I don't know that I can work with it, but I can respect it.

Here's the thing: you don't have to use any of the existing lore, you can just make up your own thing. If you want to use it, you'll have a much easier time of it nowadays thanks to the semi-official FR wiki. It's pretty thorough.

But you can easily make up your own stuff, even involving the Big Damn Heroes. I once made up a high-level campaign built around the rivalry between two of the most powerful wizards in the Realms. Essentially, I took the fact that Elminster had this little pocket dimension socked away with a spell that would automagically send him there in a crisis -- then had his enemy Manshoon do some magical research to make that little dimension's access one-way. So all he had to do was put the Old Sage in enough danger.

I made up this elaborate scheme that not only involved Elminster, but required heroic intervention (thus the PCs). I even managed to find a way to contact Ed Greenwood, the setting's creator, and asked him to nit-pick the plot I'd worked up. He gave me some harsh, but fair advice, and added that it could possibly be book-worthy if filled out more. (I should have taken that as a cue to try writing.)

Much later -- like fifteen to twenty years -- I got to go to a convention and met Mr. Greenwood there completely at random. As I was introducing myself, I told him about that e-mail exchange we'd had regarding the "trap Elminster" plot... and halfway through recounting it he finished the description for me. He remembered the story from that far back.

Anyway, point is, if you use the Realms don't be afraid to break from what's canonical. It's not like we're just recreating one of the novels and have to get it verbatim.

In reply to LonePaladin (msg # 63):

That's a cool story.

engine, you mentioned in another thread that you don't care for the elven/eladrin subraces presented in the Neverwinter book. Can you elaborate?

In reply to LonePaladin (msg # 65):

At least one of the options for elves in the Neverwinter Campaign Setting seemed hugely overpowered to me. Something about being able to use Perception for initiative checks without much downside. Seemed a little preposterous to me, but maybe I missed something. Maybe it was just the player using one in a game I was in.

Why does Forgotten Realms seem to go crazy with the elven subraces? Is that key to the setting? Eberron has some distinct elves, but they're all left mechanically the same.

I actually wish Eberron had made a clearer distinction in the rules, given how different Aerenal elves are from Valenar. But there should also be subraces for halflings -- either human-integrated urban halflings or nomadic dinosaur-riders from the Talenta plains. I know when I was making a Pathfinder conversion, I used the optional racial traits to do just that.

Anyway. The Realms has always had several elven subraces, all the ones listed in the Neverwinter book. In 1E there really wasn't much distinction mechanically, but that was normal for the rules -- elves were elves, period. 2E started expanding on it, suggesting different bonuses and options and such, and 3E made it a fixed thing.

The way they divided it in 4E actually works, since eladrin come across as more, well, civilized and educated, while 4E elves seem more primal and wild. So it makes sense that the eladrin subraces are Moon and Sun, and the elf subraces are Wood and Wild. I'd actually rule that the original races ('eladrin' and plain 'elf') are not available in the Realms. Also, both races -- plus drow -- are all elves, so some of their options may be interchangeable. (For instance, a feat strictly for eladrin might be made available for elves. Case-by-case.)

The same goes for dwarves -- Gold Dwarves and Shield Dwarves are the most common types, so I'd consider disallowing 'vanilla' dwarves.

In reply to LonePaladin (msg # 67):

Me, I don't see my value in the subdivision. Just gives more opportunity for accidental brokenness, one way or another. I like how Eberron's elf elves are all the same mechanically, but would have very different personalities. The options given for a choice of ability scores really seems to be all that's necessary, and I actually even question that. I saw it mainly as a sop to people who won't play a character that doesn't have a 20 in their main stat, so I take a dim view of it. The key upside I saw was a nod to concepts like the psi-forged.

I was thinking about trying to run (at least parts of) Scales of War. Then I got to thinking that maybe I should look into trying to convert and run Red Hand of Doom for 4th Edition.

I probably won't have time to get into it before the summer. Would anyone be interested in advising me on that? Advisors would still be invited to play if they didn't feel it had been too spoiled for them. I probably wouldn't try converting it all at once, but as things went along.

I actually don't imagine I'd get very far into it, as I gather it's a pretty massive module, but it might be fun just to try it out, since it's considered a classic module.

I have nothing personally on Red Hand of Doom. I'm to understand it was alright, but not outstanding. I do, however, have extensive notes on Scales of War, it's pseudo-sequel, because I tried running it IRL. Personal time stopped me, but I made it about two or three in before life stopped us.

And that is an adventure series you want to read in advance, and modify. Some of the design decisions and story decisions are absolutely boneheaded, as in playing the game "What Where They Thinking?" levels of dumb...especially one moment that seems to believe player character groups will just up and surrender without a fight to, well, actually anything to be honest with you. But they keep all their weapons after the fact while the BBEG monologues to them, because...reasons?

Seriously, though. Don't be afraid to tweak the adventure, and don't be afraid to use advance knowledge to change the past.

Oof, yeah. That doesn't sound well-thought out. That, overall, is probably my main issue with modules: the assumption of how things will go. I mean, they can't plan for everything, but the writers should know enough to know that it's hard to get a specific outcome from combat and stay plausible.


I'll be honest, I am afraid. I don't believe I could read the whole adventure before running it, unless it's super-compelling reading. I should probably start with smaller adventurers, things that can only go so far awry if I modify things.

In reply to engine (msg # 71):

Red Hand of Doom always seemed interesting to me but I have never made it past the first little bit.

I would highly recommend the Paizo Adventure Paths if you want to convert something.  You may want to skip Kingmaker though

If you decide to go the simpler route and run Scales of War, don't think too hard about the maps. It's something I tend to obsess over, especially when a map is three-dimensional -- I usually try to recreate them in SketchUp to see how things line up, and more often than not I run into problems.

For instance, in the dungeon of the first Scales of War module, there's a part where an open pit drops into another room. They describe the drop as being something like twenty feet, but if you actually plot out the map it comes out to something like fifty. One of the later maps looks really good on paper, but if you try to create what they're describing as a 3-D thing it just doesn't line up right.

In an older adventure, one from the Age of Worms campaign, there's this little fort in the wilderness that's being attacked, and when I made it 3-D I realized that it'd be impossible to defend. I did end up with a really neat looking recreation of the BBEG's tower at the very end, though -- I even made an animated fly-by to show it off to the players when they got to it.

So sometimes I get rewarded for wanting to extrude the game maps. Undermountain lines up really well, and there's a mid-level 4E adventure set in a crumbling building that looks really neat in three dimensions.

In reply to LonePaladin (msg # 73):

All in all it tends to cement my preference to avoid maps entirely, or at least make the connections between them vague, rather than having them crammed onto one page. King of the Trollhaunt Warrens has a crowded little cave system and eventually I decided that it made more sense and was more fun if the rooms were hundreds of yards of twisty passages apart, and all the passages had unworked side passages.

I like the idea of putting them in SketchUp, though.

Yeah, I've been doing that pretty much since SketchUp came out. I once had a full map of the entire first level of Undermountain. ALL OF IT. It was a beast of a map, but everything lined up. Heck, I'd even bothered to include wall thickness where it mattered, and had the doorways the right size ('cause the original book bothered to tell you how big they were).

I believe someone even took my map and ported it into Unity to make an interactive model you could 'walk' through. Not sure if it's still around.

Remember the Caves of Chaos? B2, Keep on the Borderlands? The map looks okay in 3-D, until you include a contour map of the ravine itself -- then none of the entrances look right. C'est la vie.

Anyway, if you run across a multi-level map and want to see it extruded, let me know.

I'm looking for one or two players who would be interested in joining an in-progress game of The Slaying Stone, a standalone adventure. I'm generally open to any race and class, but I would like to suggest that, since the party is in a town run by "monstrous" races that choices like kobold and goblin would be more appropriate in this game than in some others. So, if you've wanted the chance to play such a character (while still being, at worst, "unaligned" and still able to cooperate with the party) you might enjoy this game.

More traditional characters are, of course, welcome.

At present, we have a swordmage, an invoker and a cleric.

Are you still looking Engine?

In reply to jacktannery (msg # 77):

Not at this time, thanks. I may have something else in the works next year.