Post/Author/DateTime	Post
GraphiteGolem 12-17-07, 01:22 PM	I apologize if this has already been clarified, but I'm new to Eberron, and I was thinking of playing a changeling. The text in RoE says: "When you use your minor shape change ability to assume the form of a humanoid creature, you can emulate any of that humanoid's subtypes. Though you do not gain any of the humanoid's traits, you are considered a member of that race ..." Which leads me to ask: *Can* you "assume the form of a humanoid creature?" I thought the minor change shape ability worked like disguise self, which wouldn't allow this, instead allowing you a bonus on Disguise checks and minor alterations to appearance within the description of disguise self's spell text- You make yourself look different. You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller, thin, fat, or in between. You cannot change your body type. Otherwise, the extent of the apparent change is up to you. You could add or obscure a minor feature or look like an entirely different person. ... nothing about taking the form of another creature, which sounds more like alter self, and would make more sense as written for the purposes of the feat: You assume the form of a creature of the same type as your normal form. The new form must be within one size category of your normal size. The maximum HD of an assumed form is equal to your caster level, to a maximum of 5 HD at 5th level. You can change into a member of your own kind or even into yourself. You retain your own ability scores. Your class and level, hit points, alignment, base attack bonus, and base save bonuses all remain the same. You retain all supernatural and spell-like special attacks and qualities of your normal form, except for those requiring a body part that the new form does not have (such as a mouth for a breath weapon or eyes for a gaze attack). ... You do not gain any extraordinary special attacks or special qualities not noted above under physical qualities, such as darkvision, low-light vision, blindsense, blindsight, fast healing, regeneration, scent, and so forth. ... If you assume the form of a creature with the Aquatic, Fire, or Cold subtypes, can you breathe water, become immune to fire or cold, respectively? These are not traits of the subtype, at least according to the RAW, they're just... there, and all creatures with that subtype are assumed to have these qualities in addition to the traits of their type or any other subtypes they might have... ie: an aquatic archon would have archon traits (from archon subtype)and the aquatic subtype (swim speed and water breathing). I guess it would also help to clarify the extent of a changeling's shapechange ability, as flavorwise it seems a lot more powerful than it actually is, as the art in the books depicts it being a lot more than "minor changes" being made to a creature with no facial features... :confused:
joshmvii 12-17-07, 03:09 PM	You just make yourself look like any other type of humanoid within the range of the description, you can't make yourself too much taller or shorter, etc. It does not grant you any special ability, period. You are just able to use the bit of doppelganger in your blood to *look* like whatever humanoid. You don't gain anything by using the changelings minor shape change. You just look different.
Nerdicus 12-17-07, 03:14 PM	Me personally I wouldn't allow anything like that. HTe idea is that the Changeling can emmulate a humanoid by making physical changes to itself, but that it can not make changes that grant it any benefits. I would say that if you devoted a feat to it or something you could learn to make gills to breath in water, but this would be something that had to be worked towards for several levels. And even then I would have to really look over the rules to see if this was in direct contradiction of any rules. But per the racial abilities, a changeling can not take on super natural abilities of a creature of the elemental sub type. Just like a changeling could take on the form of a lycanthrope, but wouldn't gain the same claw attacks, though it would appear to have claws. The changeling claws would be mostly superficial. There is my two bits on the matter.
Edymnion 12-17-07, 07:38 PM	Really, the bottom line is that Minor Shapechange is a beefed up Disguise check. You can make your ears pointed, but you don't get bonuses to listen checks. You can grow small little horns and darken your skin, but you're still not a tiefling and don't get darkvision. You can look like you have armor plated skin, but you won't get a Warforged's composite plating. Racial Emulation won't give you any of that either, but it will let you take feats with racial prereqs. It doesn't necissarily mean you can USE the feat (especially if it advances something you don't actually have), but a Changeling with Racial Emulation could become an Arcane Archer.
Kreistor2 12-17-07, 11:01 PM	Minor Change Shape is not Disguise Self. It draws from Disguise Self, but is not exactly equivalent. Disguise Self will not add a new limb (like a tail), so Minor Change Shape can't either, but Disguise Self can change your clothes, while Minor Change Shape can't. Like DS, MCS does not confer a new type or subtype. You don't gain the ability to breath water if you choose to look like something with the [Water] subtype, since you don't gain that subtype. You can look like it, but once you get in the water, you're going to be drowning. Since you don't gain new limbs, you can't look like most lizardkin, but goblinoids are fair game. Most of the medium PC races are fine, but you can't change size, so gnomes and halflings are out. Some dwarves may be too short. Changlings get around very well in many places, but they aren't infinitely powerful. They will make mistakes and they will need to escape and create new identities. Changlings are a lot of fun. I don't think they are terribly overpowered, especially if you're trying to hide your identity from the party. That forces you into one identity most of the time, and that's not using the power to its full extent, so you're intentionally nerfing yourself.
redhase 12-18-07, 04:15 AM	The feat is a good one Racila Emulation, another feat I choise is this one: Jack of all trades, complete adventure p.p. 110. it will allow your changeling to mimic skills your changeling uses for other classes and people. Such as a merchant, street pedeler helps to make others think you know what your doing. I will add if you are going to use these two feats together then study the class and race you wish to emulate. exsample: if your character wants to be a half elf bard, learn the common songs bards know and a few specail ones. such as some famouse heroes. And pratice with your instrument and your singing. The two feats together will help your character be more believable.
Tordak 12-18-07, 10:29 AM	I think all this feat does is give you the ability to use weapons, items, etc... as if you were a member of a race you try to emulate; this essential give you an automatically succesfull 'use magic device : emulate a race ' check for the race you try to copy. I'm not sure this extend to feats and PrC (as in satisfying prerequisites), since they are a more permanent feature (more permanent then your change self), but it is possible I suppose if it doesn't say it doesn't or if it says 'for all purposes' or the like.
Edymnion 12-18-07, 11:43 AM	I think all this feat does is give you the ability to use weapons, items, etc... as if you were a member of a race you try to emulate; this essential give you an automatically succesfull 'use magic device : emulate a race ' check for the race you try to copy. I'm not sure this extend to feats and PrC (as in satisfying prerequisites), since they are a more permanent feature (more permanent then your change self), but it is possible I suppose if it doesn't say it doesn't or if it says 'for all purposes' or the like.It works for PrC, but only when you are in that form. You could take levels in Arcane Archer, and benefit from the BAB, saves, skillpoints, etc in all forms, but you would only be able to fire the magic arrows and the like while you were in elf form.
skrap-san 12-18-07, 01:32 PM	It works for PrC, but only when you are in that form. You could take levels in Arcane Archer, and benefit from the BAB, saves, skillpoints, etc in all forms, but you would only be able to fire the magic arrows and the like while you were in elf form. Hmmm hello im the arcane archer/dwarven defender thingie...
Edymnion 12-18-07, 06:26 PM	Hmmm hello im the arcane archer/dwarven defender thingie...Long as you've got the prereqs, and are good enough to trick those organizations into letting you in, sure thing. You could switch back and forth between the class abilities pretty much at will. Of course, you'd really suck, because you'd have effective dead levels any time you changed race.
ArcTan 12-18-07, 08:16 PM	Minor Change Shape is not Disguise Self. It draws from Disguise Self, but is not exactly equivalent. Disguise Self will not add a new limb (like a tail), so Minor Change Shape can't either, but Disguise Self can change your clothes, while Minor Change Shape can't. MCS is, similarly, real and not an illusion. It cannot grant you a *mechanical* benefit of, say, having claws, but in the non-mechanical realm of D&D, a Changeling really can give itself long fingernails (useless for fighting, but real) that feel like claws. No one can make a Will (disbelief) save against MCS, and for things that are *not mechanical effects of the rules* MCS is entirely real. Example: A Changeling can give itself red hair, cut off the red hair, and really have red hair, for whatever purpose she might have for red hair. (In a noir-ish intrigue game, this is a great way to leave false clues behind to frame someone for a crime -- footprints that match someone else's, strands of same-colored hair, etc.) And, importantly, RoE says that Changelings can reproduce as members of the race (and gender) they're disguised as. This is important, since not many Changelings mate with each other and many -- perhaps even a majority -- of Changelings are born into unsuspecting families that think the child is a member of their race (hence the connection with the real-life term "changeling" for a stolen-and-replaced child). The fact that Changelings who have "female" written on their sheets can still impregnate members of another race while in male form, or Changelings with "male" on their sheets can still become pregnant while in female form, is controversial on these boards with certain posters, but is very clearly stated as fact in Races of Eberron, doesn't contradict any rules that I can see, *makes sense* (if a Changeling can become cross-fertile with any random species by taking that species' shape, then clearly the shapechanging *does* affect reproductive abilities) and has the approval of Keith Baker as being a good idea that creates story opportunities, so I see no reason not to be all for it. Like DS, MCS does not confer a new type or subtype. You don't gain the ability to breath water if you choose to look like something with the [Water] subtype, since you don't gain that subtype. You can look like it, but once you get in the water, you're going to be drowning. The question was about the Racial Emulation feat, which *does* grant you the new race and new race's subtype, technically (you can change it on your sheet and everything) *without* granting you any of the race and subtype's *traits*. So a Changeling with RE who becomes an Elf is still just as vulnerable to the spell sleep as she was before. She can, however, now do things that require one to be an Elf as a prereq, like take PrCs like Arcane Archer. Or, for another example, she can take the feat Silver Tracery while in Warforged form (but not get any of the other benefits of being a Warforged except Silver Tracery). Flavorwise, think of it as her working really hard to physically emulate one particular aspect of being a race and being able to do it well enough to pull one effect off, like having the semblance of alchemical silver on her body as a WF or coming to understand the harmony of body and mind an Arcane Archer needs. She can only use these feats or class abilities while in a form of that race, though, which is a strong limitation on this ability. (You're more likely to use it for magic items and spells or other temporary things, like becoming a Hobgoblin so you can use a Dhakaani Weapon of Legacy.)
ArcTan 12-18-07, 08:17 PM	It works for PrC, but only when you are in that form. You could take levels in Arcane Archer, and benefit from the BAB, saves, skillpoints, etc in all forms, but you would only be able to fire the magic arrows and the like while you were in elf form. Basically you just have to apply all the precedents from reincarnation.
Edymnion 12-19-07, 09:20 AM	Basically you just have to apply all the precedents from reincarnation.Not really, they both take off of the same base, prereqs for feats and abilities. If anything, the PrC stuff came first, since it was in 3.0 and hasn't changed, where Reincarnate gets changed at the drop of a hat around here. You lose all special abilities of a PrC if you ever stop meeting it's prereqs. Special abilities are defined as the things over on the right hand side of the ability table, the stuff that has entries and descriptions (like Sneak Attack). Things like BAB, skillpoints, saves, hitdice, etc are not special abilities, and are retained. It may not always make logical sense for those special abilities to be lost, especially if they are fairly mundane (like extra sneak attack dice), but they are. Just like any feats you have with racial pre-reqs. And yes folks, by the RAW, a Changeling with Racial Emulation meets the mechanical prereqs for taking a Dragonmark. Not that I would ever allow a changeling to do so, no matter what feats they had, but it is rules legal.
Kreistor2 12-19-07, 10:18 AM	And personally, I'd never allow a player to suffer with dead feats and class levels. It breaks the game balance, since they wind up grossly underdesigned compared to everyone else at the table. With old versions of reincarnation, the new character came from another plane of existence or prime material world. It was a different version of the same character, not the old character in a new body. Such a character would not have dead feats or levels, since they would need to be internally consistent to be a viable character in the first place. This dead level and ability thing is an artefact of this redesign. Expecting someone to enjoy being told "No, you have to keep that feat even though you can't use it" is just asking to have players walk out your door. It just isn't reasonable to think they'll enjoy playing a character that has been slugged in the skull by a lead-lined nerf bat over the long term. It might be funny for a night or two, but no one likes being ineffective week after week. It's boring, and boring isn't fun. It's also especially perverse when you consider that players are often not the cause of their own deaths in the first place. If a player's character dies as the result of something beyond their control, then punishing them like this isn't fair in the first place. Sure, if they did something stupid (like dive into a shark's stomach), then make them pay. But if they died to a crit from a scythe that did 2x their maximum HP damage, there's literally nothing the player could do to avoid the damage, except be non-heroic, non-adventuresome, and non-playing. We play this game to be heroes. Punishing a player if they happen to die while being a hero provides negative feedback for positive play, which can cause people to change play style to a negative one. Reward positive behavior: don't punish it.
Tordak 12-19-07, 01:54 PM	At any rate, there's much better to do for a changeling than getting into a prestige class he only meets the prerequisite some of the time (I know now you can do it, and I'm not saying anyone is saying it's a great thing, only that it's the rule). If you'd really like to be an arcane archer, just be an elf; sure it makes an interesting background story (changeling really getting into one race, raised by them or whatever), but you want your character to be more than background. Changeling are awesome and there are prestige classes they can acces (or should be allowed to acess, like Chamelon from races of destiny for example) that other races cannot. I think what you really want from emulation is the ability to use certain objects, and perhaps qualify for a feat that would synergize well with your main abilities (I can think of demolition strike, a dwarf feat that enables you to deal critical and sneak attack against construct).
ArcTan 12-19-07, 09:27 PM	And personally, I'd never allow a player to suffer with dead feats and class levels. It breaks the game balance, since they wind up grossly underdesigned compared to everyone else at the table. With old versions of reincarnation, the new character came from another plane of existence or prime material world. It was a different version of the same character, not the old character in a new body. Such a character would not have dead feats or levels, since they would need to be internally consistent to be a viable character in the first place. This dead level and ability thing is an artefact of this redesign. Expecting someone to enjoy being told "No, you have to keep that feat even though you can't use it" is just asking to have players walk out your door. It just isn't reasonable to think they'll enjoy playing a character that has been slugged in the skull by a lead-lined nerf bat over the long term. It might be funny for a night or two, but no one likes being ineffective week after week. It's boring, and boring isn't fun. It's also especially perverse when you consider that players are often not the cause of their own deaths in the first place. If a player's character dies as the result of something beyond their control, then punishing them like this isn't fair in the first place. Sure, if they did something stupid (like dive into a shark's stomach), then make them pay. But if they died to a crit from a scythe that did 2x their maximum HP damage, there's literally nothing the player could do to avoid the damage, except be non-heroic, non-adventuresome, and non-playing. We play this game to be heroes. Punishing a player if they happen to die while being a hero provides negative feedback for positive play, which can cause people to change play style to a negative one. Reward positive behavior: don't punish it. I would only ever encourage the use of reincarnate in a campaign when it was at low levels (and therefore the dead-level stuff and so on didn't matter) -- otherwise, no reason not to make available regular resurrection (or, hell, just making a new character). I *might* consider using reincarnate by-the-book in mid-levels as a special prelude to a PHB2-style "rebuild quest" to get the character in his old form back.
ArcTan 12-19-07, 09:29 PM	At any rate, there's much better to do for a changeling than getting into a prestige class he only meets the prerequisite some of the time (I know now you can do it, and I'm not saying anyone is saying it's a great thing, only that it's the rule). If you'd really like to be an arcane archer, just be an elf; sure it makes an interesting background story (changeling really getting into one race, raised by them or whatever), but you want your character to be more than background. Changeling are awesome and there are prestige classes they can acces (or should be allowed to acess, like Chamelon from races of destiny for example) that other races cannot. I think what you really want from emulation is the ability to use certain objects, and perhaps qualify for a feat that would synergize well with your main abilities (I can think of demolition strike, a dwarf feat that enables you to deal critical and sneak attack against construct). Right, the PrC would almost always be a horrible idea from a mechanical standpoint -- it's just being used as an extreme case to show what the feat can do. (As a mechanical concept it might be an interesting way to make an NPC with abilities from two PrCs who can switch between them, and whose CR would be lowered because of the dead levels.) Most of the things I'd actually want to do with Racial Emulation would be grabbing stuff like race-based tactical feats (where the race-based-ness isn't always really logical, and mostly exists as a bottleneck to make the feat less abusable).
Edymnion 12-19-07, 10:45 PM	IMO, the risk of having dead feats and levels is part of the price for the fact that you aren't dead. If you don't want to risk it, then don't get reincarnated, just make a new character.
Kreistor2 12-19-07, 11:06 PM	Part of the game is telling a story. We, the DM's, get to tell our story no matter what, because it accomodates the death of our characters. Their deaths happen when we make those deaths available, so they are incorporated into the plot. Players don't get that. They have a story to tell, but it cannot incorporate their own deaths, because it can often be random and cruel. Even we, the DM's, can't incorporate those deaths into the story as plot elements, because we can't plan on them happening. If the player finds a way to make his ending powerful, a heroic end, do oyu reward that player by allowing him more equipment or experience on the new character, or do you make him pay by making him come in one level behind everyone else, like a lot of DM's? It's a rhetorical qustion: I'm not arguing with you specifically, Edy, and don't take it personally, please. I'm just using your attitude as an example to demonstrate that a lot of DM's do not think about these issues. They lose players, or find the players rarely want them to DM, and they don't know why. The Raise Dead concept that costs a player a level presumes that the player made a mistake upon death: it has to, because making someone pay for not making a mistake is, well, cruel and malicious. The problem is, the player often is not responsible for the death in the first place. The DM has far more control over the game than the player. How many times have I seen a DM come on here and ask "How can I kill this character?" If that character then dies, who made the mistake? Not the player: he was a victim and given the seriousness of the ideas presented for the DM to choose from, the character really has no chance of survival. So the player didn't make a mistake, but he pays the price for the DM's malice, because the rules say dying costs a level? Making players pay a cost like this for dying is, inherently, a presumptuous position. You're presuming the player deserves the punishment. If the player did something good and heroic, then dying shouldn't be punished. Playing a weak character is not, ever, a reward of any kind: it is a punishment. If this is weighed against the typical alternative (again, I'm not saying you do this, Edy) of playing a character 1 level lower than everyone else, then it's only a choice of weak vs. weak, when excellent roleplaying that results in a character's death needs to be rewarded. If you don't want dead characters coming back, then reward the player for a good death. If he knows he'll get more for leaving the character dead than raising the character, then you'll see dead characters stay that way. Play the rules as harsh as they're written and you'll be looking for new players. It's a no-brainer, as far as I'm concerned.
ArcTan 12-20-07, 12:09 AM	IMO, the risk of having dead feats and levels is part of the price for the fact that you aren't dead. If you don't want to risk it, then don't get reincarnated, just make a new character. Think about what that means -- making a new character from scratch at level 10 is *so much better*, mechanically speaking, than actually casting raise dead on your character (to say *nothing* of the issues involved in casting reincarnate, which is one of the most pointless things you can do at mid-levels) that you're basically *rewarding* a player with a killed character for not giving a crap about his old character and treating characters like disposable avatars. People who strongly invest in their characters as ongoing personalities are *punished* for this because, at least for a certain range of levels, getting that old character back is a costly pain in the ass. People who don't give a crap about their character and are eager to switch out their dead Barbarian for a Sorcerer build (an easier one to play because you can build it from scratch at level 10) get *rewarded* for this attitude. That's kind of backwards.
Edymnion 12-20-07, 07:56 PM	If the player finds a way to make his ending powerful, a heroic end, do oyu reward that player by allowing him more equipment or experience on the new character, or do you make him pay by making him come in one level behind everyone else, like a lot of DM's? It's a rhetorical qustion: I'm not arguing with you specifically, Edy, and don't take it personally, please. I'm just using your attitude as an example to demonstrate that a lot of DM's do not think about these issues. They lose players, or find the players rarely want them to DM, and they don't know why.Dying sucks. Especially in my Eberron games, when you die, you freaking die. No extra lives, no running to the nearest temple to get raised, you are just dead. Make a new character. Harsh? Yeah, but so is life. The entire point is that you as a player should actually be afraid of dying. Don't stand your ground against a foe you know you can't beat, and then whine when you die and have to make a new character. If you didn't want to go out with a bang, you should have run away. You fight smart, or you die stupid. Anybody thats seen my stance on the Mournlands knows I go by that motto. I don't allow *ANY* healing in the Mournlands, period. No rope trick, no goodberries, no psionic healing, nothing. Only exceptions are repair checks and repair X damage for Warforged, and temporary hitpoints from things like vampiric weapons. Its great, it means I can have a bunch of lvl 1 NPCs do Mournland dives and come out alive, while mid level parties typically die. Why? Because the NPCs hire warforged mercinaries to fight for them, and avoid combat whenever possible, where the PCs are too greedy about xp and treasure to fight smart. But whats your reward for a powerful, moving death? A great way to end your character. When you stand there staring death in the face so your party members can escape, you are making a sacrifice. The sacrifice is meaningless if you just come back to life at the end, because you didn't really lose anything. As for the issue of them dying, yes, if they manage to come back, they will be a level lower. If they make a new character, they come back at a level lower than the rest of the party. The standard xp rules mean they catch up quickly, and it prevents rampant character switching. Players that just keep dying to get new characters become progressively weaker as they keep coming back at lower levels. Players that are attached to their characters don't get them killed in the first place. I don't kill characters willy nilly outside of combat, and in combat, running away from a superior foe or surrendering are almost always options. And when they're not options, the players had the option of deciding if they wanted to get into the fight in the first place. Its not my fault if the players are too stiff necked to admit they've been beat before they get killed.
Kreistor2 12-20-07, 10:10 PM	Dying sucks. Especially in my Eberron games, when you die, you freaking die. No extra lives, no running to the nearest temple to get raised, you are just dead. Make a new character. You're allowed, Edy. If you've found players that can accept those restrictions, then good for you. But I think they're a rare breed. That attitude risks losing players. Yeah, but so is life. Real life? In my games? Not a chance. I get enough of that the rest of the other 6 days a week. My games are an escape from the hell we call Earth. You will never find me accepting "real life" as an acceptable reason for any game decision. The entire point is that you as a player should actually be afraid of dying. If that were true in "real life", then I'd agree with you. But tell that to the Spartans. Tell that to the "Forlorn Hope" that were first into the breach. Tell that to the Americans that bombed Berlin. Being afraid of dying is not being unwilling to die. Death for heroic reasons is not uncommon in our world. Sacrifice for other people's gain is considered the pinnacle of heroism. Your very premise, that death is always to be avoided, is simply not consistent with the reality you pretend to emulate. Don't stand your ground against a foe you know you can't beat, and then whine when you die and have to make a new character. How do they know what they can and can't beat? Until they die to it, they don't know it was too tough to beat. Do you think that sacrificing your life to slow down a big monster that is about to eat a village of children is not a worthy end and the epitome of heroism? No, it's not smart if all oyu consider is that the person loses his life for it, but if you count the one lost life vs. the 30 children that would have died, society is better off. If you didn't want to go out with a bang, you should have run away. You fight smart, or you die stupid. The problem is that you, the DM, control the circumstances of the event. You're talking as though situations such as I've described can't exist. They can. They have. Any student of history can point them out. If you're creating the situations such that a PC is never in a situation where they have to choose between their character's death and the death of others, then that's fine for your world. You're inherently right: it's always stupid, in your world, to die, since it's never the right thing to do. But in mine, those situations do exist. In my world, the players sometimes have to choose: risk death, or watch evil win. Anybody thats seen my stance on the Mournlands knows I go by that motto. I don't allow *ANY* healing in the Mournlands, period. No rope trick, no goodberries, no psionic healing, nothing. Only exceptions are repair checks and repair X damage for Warforged, and temporary hitpoints from things like vampiric weapons. Its great, it means I can have a bunch of lvl 1 NPCs do Mournland dives and come out alive, while mid level parties typically die. Why? Because the NPCs hire warforged mercinaries to fight for them, and avoid combat whenever possible, where the PCs are too greedy about xp and treasure to fight smart. Uhm... hunh? It's smart to, what, not adventure? Players are stupid because they risk character death in order to advance their characters? Uhm, Edy, uh... what? The players go to the Mournlands because my plot leads them there, or it doesn't. If I send them there, they have to trust that what I'll put in front of them will be a reasonable challenge. Your kind of Mournlands is a challenge, but if the players want to go see it at L1, then you get a choice. TPK them, find a way to keep them out, or let them have an adventure appropriate to their level. People game to have fun, Edy. They don't need a game to teach them that life is random, that good people die for no reason, that horrible people sometimes get long lives, while the best of people suffer horrible abuse at the hands of criminals. Life bites, and that is why we game. There is only one thing a DM is responsible for at the table -- making certain everyone has fun. So long as it's fun, it doesn't matter if you play DnD RAW or have a binder full of houserules. Fun is fun, but fun must happen, or the game dies. But whats your reward for a powerful, moving death? A great way to end your character. When you stand there staring death in the face so your party members can escape, you are making a sacrifice. The sacrifice is meaningless if you just come back to life at the end, because you didn't really lose anything. If the PC's went through a hard fight to get that body back, after the player thought the body would be irrecoverable, then you're dead wrong. The others risked their characters to reward their heroic friend. Why? Because sacrifice deserves reward. You have to understand -- I'm not advocating zero loss for any death whatsoever. I'm advocating reward for good storytelling. A player that chooses to save other lives at the cost of his own is being heroic. As much as you seem to belittle that concept, you're in the minority. Dying to save the lives of others is considered the epitome of honorable sacrifice. As for the issue of them dying, yes, if they manage to come back, they will be a level lower. If they make a new character, they come back at a level lower than the rest of the party. The standard xp rules mean they catch up quickly, and it prevents rampant character switching.[/.quote] I don't think I have to say it again: punishing good game play is like shoving a child that dug out your driveway into the snow instead of paying him. You're not going to see that play again, and it is that heroic, sacrificial game play that Pulp is all about. Critical situations in which the hero risks life and limb to save the world are the standard fare of the pulp adventure hero. You are punishing that behavior. Pulp is Larger Than Life, and your "smart" game play is counter to the very style that Eberron was designed for. Players that just keep dying to get new characters become progressively weaker as they keep coming back at lower levels. [quote]Players that just keep dying to get new characters become progressively weaker as they keep coming back at lower levels. Players that are attached to their characters don't get them killed in the first place. I don't kill characters willy nilly outside of combat, and in combat, running away from a superior foe or surrendering are almost always options. And when they're not options, the players had the option of deciding if they wanted to get into the fight in the first place. Its not my fault if the players are too stiff necked to admit they've been beat before they get killed. Did they really have a choice? They come to the table to play DnD, not Vampire. They came to fight monsters, kick in the door, swing on the chandelier, and be larger than life! You're asking them to "not play stupid". Well, guess what? Adventuring is stupid. Take a look at all of the comic pages that dot the Eberron handbooks. You've got lots of people in exciting, but very, very stupid situations. You're trying to avoid those. Was INdy Jones smart when he went up against the Nazis to keep the Ark out of their hands? that's classic pulp, but it's one man choosing to fight an army alone. Stupid, but exciting. It's that kind of excitement the players want to take part in. If you don't want people taking those crazy, exciting risks, then that's fine for your game. But I'm pretty certain most people around here want to emulate those exciting events in their games. If that's what they want, then reward that crazy, exciting, fun (but stupid) behavior, instead of punishing it.
Edymnion 12-21-07, 09:43 PM	You're allowed, Edy. If you've found players that can accept those restrictions, then good for you. But I think they're a rare breed. That attitude risks losing players.I think it just requires you to play with mature players. When I run a game, I make sure and tell everyone up front that A) I don't kill characters outside of combat if I can help it, to the point I will openly reroll damage or the like and take the less of the two (although if the second one kills you as well, tough luck), and B) that I will not throw nothing but level appropriate monsters at the party. They go into the game knowing that if they're level 1 and see a dragon fly by, and they are dumb enough to attack it, then I'm not going to try and figure out a way to get them out alive, I'm going to make that dragon respond appropriately. Low level critters won't run and hide just because you're high level, and the high level critters in an area won't hide just because you're low level.If that were true in "real life", then I'd agree with you. But tell that to the Spartans. Tell that to the "Forlorn Hope" that were first into the breach. Tell that to the Americans that bombed Berlin.And did any of them face death knowing they could just get raised later? No, they knew they were going to die, and they did it anyway. Thats what makes it a heroic sacrifice.Being afraid of dying is not being unwilling to die. Death for heroic reasons is not uncommon in our world. Sacrifice for other people's gain is considered the pinnacle of heroism. Your very premise, that death is always to be avoided, is simply not consistent with the reality you pretend to emulate.Then guess what? If you know your character is going to die if they do something, and you do it anyway, then the character dies. There just isn't going to be anyone to raise you later. If you aren't comfortable with that, then don't go on suicide missions.How do they know what they can and can't beat? Until they die to it, they don't know it was too tough to beat.PC: I power attack it for *dice roll* 20 points of damage! Me: It shrugs the blow off and just looks :censored:ed at you. Me: *rolls dice* Me: It takes a swing and does <insert half of the player's HP in one hit>. Yeah, you know when you're outclassed and should run away. As opposed to "Its covered in great gaping wounds, its breathing heavily, and can barely lift it's sword", then you pretty much know its about to go down. So yes, the players can and do know roughly how well they are doing in a fight.Do you think that sacrificing your life to slow down a big monster that is about to eat a village of children is not a worthy end and the epitome of heroism?Sure. Do you think the gesture is anywhere near as meaningful if the character is totally immune to all of the attacks the monster can make? No, of course not. Same thing here. Sacrificing yourself for the good of others means nothing if you don't actually sacrifice yourself. If you walk away from it, you still bought time, but there was no glorious heroic sacrifice. At most you were just a little inconvenienced by the whole thing. In my world, the players sometimes have to choose: risk death, or watch evil win.Yeah, but they're still making the call to get into that fight. And not every fight you have is "You have to win or the world blows up!".Uhm... hunh? It's smart to, what, not adventure? Players are stupid because they risk character death in order to advance their characters? Uhm, Edy, uh... what?My Mournlands are highly lethal, you just plain don't go into them if you can help it. And if you do have to go in, you go in, do what you're there to do, and you get out as fast as you can. If the adventure is to dive into the Mournlands to get Artifact X to save <insert plot point here>, then the entire reason you are going into the Mournlands is to get that item. You are not going in there to fight, you're not going in there to loot, you are going in there to get that item, and get back out. If the item is guarded by something, then that does not mean you yell CHARGE! and run in swords swinging. You try to lure them away, or set up a trap, or send in warforged mercenaries to fight instead of you. But most PCs won't fight smart because they see the fights as walking XP and loot. So they don't try to avoid fights, they actively seek them out. And in my Mournlands, thats the absolute stupidest thing you can do, because you can't heal afterwards. Every single hp damage is a hp you will not get back until you leave. But, the PCs won't hire mercenaries, because that dilutes the amount of xp and gp they get per fight. Hence, low level NPC parties that go in smart come out alive, because they aren't worried about xp and phat l00t, they're just there to get the job done. Greedy PCs bite off more than they can chew, and die, unless they fight smart. if the players want to go see it at L1, then you get a choice. TPK them, find a way to keep them out, or let them have an adventure appropriate to their level.Its not the DMs job to keep them out. They will have NPCs telling them its a bad idea left and right, but I'm not going to railroad them out of doing what they want to do. And they will get a level appropriate session, if they play it smart. Again, all the high level monsters aren't going to run hide just because low level PCs show up. So, the party had better be playing smart. They better have scouts keeping watch for threats, and run away from anything they don't think they can take down in one round before the other thing gets a change to fight back. But if I tell a lvl 1 party in the Mournlands that they see a carcass crab or something like that, and they charge into melee with it, then I'm not going to protect them from their own stupidity. There is only one thing a DM is responsible for at the table -- making certain everyone has fun.I'll just put it this way. I have *NEVER* had a player walk out on any game I've run.If the PC's went through a hard fight to get that body back, after the player thought the body would be irrecoverable, then you're dead wrong. The others risked their characters to reward their heroic friend. Why? Because sacrifice deserves reward.Thats fine. If they want to make an adventure out of storming the gates of hell to drag the soul of their friend back to the mortal plain, sweet, I'll go make up the adventure. But they will *NEVER* be able to drag a corpse into town, throw some money at a cleric, and get that person raised. It just won't happen.You have to understand -- I'm not advocating zero loss for any death whatsoever. I'm advocating reward for good storytelling. A player that chooses to save other lives at the cost of his own is being heroic. As much as you seem to belittle that concept, you're in the minority. Dying to save the lives of others is considered the epitome of honorable sacrifice.Yeah, it is. But in the end, its no different than saying "Yeah, Gary gets to be a level higher than the rest of the party because he always roleplays his guys really well." How you played a previous character should not affect your current one. Again, I don't count it as a sacrifice if you come out better off afterwards than you were before. Did they really have a choice? They come to the table to play DnD, not Vampire. They came to fight monsters, kick in the door, swing on the chandelier, and be larger than life! You're asking them to "not play stupid". Well, guess what? Adventuring is stupid. Take a look at all of the comic pages that dot the Eberron handbooks. You've got lots of people in exciting, but very, very stupid situations. You're trying to avoid those. Was INdy Jones smart when he went up against the Nazis to keep the Ark out of their hands?Does Indiana Jones walk up in front of the Nazi army with his whip and pistol and start trying to plow through them? No, he goes and finds one off by themselves, knocks 'em out, takes their uniform, and sneaks in. One of those is playing stupid. One of those is playing smart.If you don't want people taking those crazy, exciting risks, then that's fine for your game. But I'm pretty certain most people around here want to emulate those exciting events in their games. If that's what they want, then reward that crazy, exciting, fun (but stupid) behavior, instead of punishing it.And whats the fun of taking crazy and exciting risks if you know you can't fail? Why even bother to have rules for a game if the results will always come out in your favor? IMO, its like playing a shooting game with God Mode on. Yeah, its fun for a little while, but then you get bored because there is no threat, there is no challenge. If there is no penalty for failure, there is no real reward in success.