Post/Author/DateTime	Post
debatedeus 07-14-04, 11:22 PM	Many have complained about the Mournland's lack of healing. I find it very very interesting. It keeps the players really cautious about the Mournlands, makes them think twice about going, and when they are there they are extra careful not to barge into any place unprepared. The paranoia can, at times, be a little refreshing. That said, having a prolonged stay in the mournlands can be rather deadly. Many have suggested that WotC officially errat the Mournlands, I have a different idea: Allow the players to construct an item or device that temporarily reenables magical healing. Let the device be fairly complex to build, requiring maybe an adventure or two to construct, and make it so that it has a number of charges, that number depending on the amount of time the players must spend in the 'lands. Another option is to allow the characters to build a similar device that is always active, but that only reallows natural healing. The beauty of this device is that you can have that low-divine healing magic feeling without losing the Eberron Setting feeling. It's like one of my favorite parts of Dragonlance during the beginning of the War of the Lance meets Eberron. A third option, admitably a crazy one, is to steal an idea from my favorite SNES RPG, Earthbound, and put all of the PCs in Warforged Bodies somehow (ie: Mindswitch or something like it) and send them into the Mournlands to do what they must. Do people have other interesting or fun ideas, or commentary. Do you think that these solutions would allow the Mournlands to maintain its glory without making it so threatening that it is attended only as a last resort?
Kraydak 07-14-04, 11:53 PM	How about: Caster level check DC 20 to cast healing spells at half effectiveness, DC 30 to cast at full effectiveness. Heal check DC 20 to allow half natural healing, DC 30 to allow full natural healing. Survival DC 20 to give a 5 point circumstances bonus on the above checks, DC 30 to give a 10 point bonus. The above bonuses would only apply so long as the party did not travel. -Kraydak
stone_dog 07-15-04, 12:14 AM	As for the Mournlands in general, I will be using Taint in there with byeshk as the expensive material that absorbs taint. The PC's will find an adventurers journal where the last entry is something like "My companions are growing more and more ill as time goes on. Our sorcerer went mad as his skin began to fall off in sheets. I appear to be fine however, but my byeshk mace blunted itself on the last warforged rebel I faced. I can now carve my name into it with my fingernail. There seems to be some sort of connection, but I am afraid it comes too late to help me." Something like that. A character with untainted byeshk can heal normally at half rate and a caster using healing magic on a character carrying byeshk can cast as if the magic was merely impeded instead of nullified. I was thinking that a holy symbol of flame touched iron would do the same thing for a cleric using it as a focus, but I didn't want to give Thrane another reason to get all pompous about its state religion. Byeshk will do nicely and it acts as a nice bright red herring for players trying to link the Mournlands and Xoriat.
St23aM 07-15-04, 12:29 AM	I like the idea of not changing it at all. It is a great challenge that comes with the possiblity of great reward. It also makes things that would not normally be challenging fairly difficult. It makes so that surviving and completing a sucessful adventure in the Mornlands is a Honor badge and great acheivement that they can brag about and never forget. This awesome to me. This is the kind of thing that gets remembered about a setting. Look at Undermountain. There are two reasons Undermountain was a big deal. One, It was HUGE one of the largest dungeons in RPG history (soon to be toped). Two, It was insanely difficult in spots and to survive and crawl all of it was an acomplishment that charater could brag about and tell stories about for years to to come. If you ask me, Wizards please dont change it at all.
stone_dog 07-15-04, 12:39 AM	True enough St23aM (was st34m taken?), but I also like to give PC's the illusion of a way out of something. Their first run into the mournlands will just be a horrible meat grinder, but they will discover byesk as a resource to get out of it. One or two of my players might remember the Legend of the Five Rings game I ran and try to engineer Jade vs Taint rules, or even just accidently run across them in UA. They will certainly get the hint when their character sheets (kindly supplied by www.mad-irishman.net ) have a space for taint on them, but how long does each ounce or so of byeshk protect you for? seven days? No, the text says that protection doesn't stack nicely. It starts at seven days, but caps out at 14 with something like 5 pieces or so. I plan to have it be much shorter than that though... or do I? :smirk: maybe it deteriorates faster the more magic is forced through it? maybe it only works for a day or two no matter how much you have and then just gets all mushy. Maybe it ONLY gets all mushy and that last adventurer went crazy from the taint instead of mutated. They will never... EVER know! Oh it will be like running a little bit of Paranoia in D&D!
Bocklin 07-15-04, 04:41 AM	Two other alternative solutions: 1) A cleric usually channeling positive energy can expand a turning attempt from his daily allotment to empower one of his healing spell so that it works normally. 2) Healing spells cast in a "Consecrated" or "Hallowed" zone functions normally. In both cases, I would never allow natural healing and not give the info right away to the players: they would either have to experiment or to learn these "techniques" via a mini-quest. What do you think of that? Bocklin
Dimuscul 07-15-04, 05:33 AM	Originally posted by stone_dog As for the Mournlands in general, I will be using Taint in there with byeshk as the expensive material that absorbs taint. Jeje, i was planing to use Jade, but byeshk sounds cool to ... And after reading shugenjas info from Breland Ledger, its even more cool ^_^ -Dimuscul
MarkB 07-15-04, 05:33 AM	One solution I was wondering about for the Mournland: The 2nd-level spell Rope Trick lets you climb a rope into an extradimensional space which is explicitly cut off from the regular universe. So if you cast that, you can withdraw the entire party into that space and then cast healing spells at your leisure, since you're definitely not in the Mournland anymore. Pretty useful for the cost of a 2nd-level spell. This seems like a possible solution if you've got an arcane caster with you, at least for a once-per-day healing session, and I can't see any reason why it shouldn't work.
Steven Snyder 07-15-04, 07:38 AM	Originally posted by St23aM I like the idea of not changing it at all. This is the best idea I have heard all morning! It isn't broke, don't fix it. It is designed to be the way it is. The Mourlands are a place where WARFORGED are dominate, not the organics. It is their domain, leave it to them.
debatedeus 07-15-04, 08:04 AM	Originally posted by MarkB One solution I was wondering about for the Mournland: The 2nd-level spell Rope Trick lets you climb a rope into an extradimensional space which is explicitly cut off from the regular universe. So if you cast that, you can withdraw the entire party into that space and then cast healing spells at your leisure, since you're definitely not in the Mournland anymore. Pretty useful for the cost of a 2nd-level spell. This seems like a possible solution if you've got an arcane caster with you, at least for a once-per-day healing session, and I can't see any reason why it shouldn't work. Rope trick is a clever solution, but I don't like the idea that a single spell can ruin, or at least damage, the wonderful flavor of one of the most dangerous locations in Eberron. I would rule that although the rope trick creates an extradimensional pocket, that pocket is still coterminous with Eberron, and in particular with the Mournlands. Also, the mournlands doesn't say anything about divine healing, it says its affects apply any spell with the healing descriptor subschool. Just because cure light wounds is availible to a bard doesn't mean that it will function. And I wouldn't want my players to think that they could use Wish or Limited Wish (someday, they're no where near the level to do either) to get out of it, if you use them to heal, odds are that the spell would take on the healing subschool. Another solution is that certain necromatic effects function in a way to allow a character to regain HP in the mournland. I would allow these. They would allow a character to recover HP, but I would tell their character that although they are feeling a little better, their wounds are still open, and even festering. That way even that kind of healing doesn't make it all better. Granted this only has a roleplaying effect, I would add it just to keep the Mournlands creepy.
St23aM 07-15-04, 08:12 AM	True enough St23aM (was st34m taken?), its sapposed to be st23am, as in Stream. Its a bit silly I know but, ive used it for a long time now.
Blindside 07-15-04, 09:08 AM	You would always do the artifact route, which leads to an adventure in and of itself. Basically, some evil orignazation discovers old maniscript of an artifact that allows healing in Mournland, and they plan to find it and discovery a way to make more or harness it's power to it's members. This would allow them to raid, and retreat to mournland unchallanged... yada yada yada.. fill in the rest.
debatedeus 07-15-04, 09:31 AM	Originally posted by Blindside You would always do the artifact route, which leads to an adventure in and of itself. Basically, some evil orignazation discovers old maniscript of an artifact that allows healing in Mournland, and they plan to find it and discovery a way to make more or harness it's power to it's members. This would allow them to raid, and retreat to mournland unchallanged... yada yada yada.. fill in the rest. That's basically what I suggested above when I talked about making an item for the characters to use to allow them to have healing in the Mournlands. I like the idea with the bad guys creating such an item and then raiding places and returning to the Mournlands for healing. The warforged there already do that, I suppose...neato in any case.
Steven Snyder 07-15-04, 11:38 AM	I think the best thing would be an object that 'casts' Rope Trick or Morenkainen's Mansion once per day...or would it be once per night. For the 'not-so-low' price of 12,000gp you could get a Wand of Rope Trick at CL8.
Sabis 07-15-04, 11:51 AM	Or, you could circumvent healing in the mourn lands the easy way: Have the wizard prepare 2 teleports each day: Teleport out, have the cleric heal you, teleport in. Done and done.
debatedeus 07-15-04, 12:31 PM	There are problems with the ideas the last two of you put out. First in regards to using rope trick, I think that my solution (or dissolution above) solves that. The extradimensional space is coterminous with the Mournlands and so takes on their properties. I also think the same answer works for Magnificent Mansion. In regards to the teleport spell and also the wand of ropetrick I have the following issues. First, these are decidedly higher level solutions that my PCs cannot replicate where they are now, nor will they be able to replicate in any goodly amount of time. Part of this post is to address the issue of low level adventures like Shadows of the Last War that take place in part in the Mournlands. I was offering a solution other than to take away the Mournlands healing factor. Second, they are not entirely perfect. I've already given my personal take on how ropetrick would work, that because it creates a coterminous space with the mournlands that it will not escape the null-healing zone. In regards to teleport, this is entirely viable, but it doesn't allow for much healing between encounters, and unless you are using teleport without error, it does not perfectly guarantee that the PCs will return to where they left off at. Finally, I am not trying to say, "This is how you should run your games" but trying to figure out if there is a viable way to preserve the flavor of the mournlands, but make them playable for characters. Again, this post is the result of comments made on an Ask Keith Baker thread where Keith said that he was discussing with WotC changing the mournlands to only impeded healing spells (50% effective) rather than making them null (100% ineffective). Teleport, Rope Trick, and Mordy's Mansion don't give an argument that helps my situation or the situation of preserving the mournlands.
MarkB 07-15-04, 01:38 PM	I tend to agree with the 'dissolution' of my Rope Trick idea - it would be too easy a solution, and making the extradimensional pocket coterminous with the local region gets around it without violating the spell's basic principles. It also fits in nicely with my own personal take on the Mournland: That it's actually a newly-created Manifest Zone, leading either to a remote part of Xoriat, or to an as-yet-undiscovered, and highly inimical, Fourteenth Plane. As for other solutions, here's one which might work: The Mournland's effects upon healing magic are strong, but they take some time to work. Existing potions, scrolls and memorised spells work normally when first brought into the Mourning, but after a day, their effects become halved, they're reduced to a quarter after two days, and after three days they no longer function at all. Potions and scrolls never recover from this, but casters can re-memorise spells after leaving the area and have them work properly again. Spontaneous conversion into Cure spells is impossible in the Mournland. This allows brief 1-2 day forays into the Mournland, but makes any longer-term expedition a very difficult proposition.
The Sequal 07-15-04, 02:16 PM	Bit of a higher level solution, use a Shadow Walk. It will knock you into another plane, safe from the healing problem, and then as long as you dont move far before dismissing the spell, you show back up in roughly the same place.
St23aM 07-15-04, 02:26 PM	Once agian I maintain that it is not broken even for Lower levels so dont fix it. It is just harder than normal and affords a raise in EL of +2 which is what the DMG advocates for situations that lend to more challenging circumstances such as inablity or not having access to magical healing. This just makes the charaters approuch battle a bit diffrently and perhaps puts more importance upon stealth. If something cant find you or doesnt know your there it cant hurt you. It also allows the party to experiment with stragies such as boosting ac to one charater and allow them to tank and rotate. If damage is spread out throughout the party and you plan well then I dont see a problem. It just makes long adventures going deep into the Mournlands difficult or impossibly for low level PCs. Which I dont think it should be possible for low level NPCs to conquer such a task.
Andre La Roche 07-15-04, 09:16 PM	Well, apparently a few folks at WotC seem to think it's broken (as hinted by Keith's reference to errata) ;). My own personal take on the issue is that it makes the sort of long dangerous journeys into the Mournland (that the region was kind of designed with in mind) almost impossible. After about 3-5 level-appropriate battles, any group will be on its last legs, and will have probably not gotten that far into the region. It in effect, closes off a huge chunk to most parties. And for the arguments of "Yeah, but it provides a challenge that you have to think around!" There's a difference between a challenge and a huge freakin' roadblock. As has been demonstrated here, the most common solutions tend to have strings attached that make them almost unfeasible. And then there's the issue of carrying the magic item into the Mournlands that allows healing to occur. The thing about this is that it'd see use so often in games that it might as well be yet another part of Khorvaire's magical commodities for as common as it'd be. ;) I still say that keeping magical healing nixed but allowing natural healing provides the sort of easy medium to keep adventurers on their toes, but still definitely make adventuring into the very heart of the Mournland doable (as well as provide a logical reason for why the monsters in there are walking around with more than 1/3 of their max hp at all times).
Save_vs_DM 07-16-04, 06:31 AM	Rope trick is a clever idea, one that I'm sure none of my players would have thought of. I do like the idea of "no healing in the mournlands." Personally, if my players pull out a clever solution like rope trick, I let them use it. It's not something that will be used in every battle, but it sure can save the parties bacon at the end of the day. I'm going to keep it how it is for now. We'll see what WotC says.... Cheers, Save-vs-dm
ENHenry 07-16-04, 11:32 AM	How about we leave it alone, except for house rulings? :) I'm all for a locale in Eberron being only available to the baddest of the bad around; if you are gutsy enough, and clever enough, you can go in. If not, you're just another one of the fodder to lay on the ground and rot. Remember, no one says they HAVE to go in there; also, a DM can if he wants make it a temporary cakewalk if he has a neat plot going on that requires them to go there. Let's leave the Mournlands unhealable and dangerous - as it should be. :)
Cantuse 07-16-04, 12:14 PM	I personally enjoy the aspect of it being this dangerous. Few things will keep medium to high level players in check as well as a blanket sense of no healing. I can seriously imagine PCs turning down adventures in the mournlands because of this and that's what makes it such a great idea. A place that scares even heroes. I imagine most pc's would tromp into the demon wastes or tromp right into xen'drik than try to find one ruin or important artifact in the mournland. Realize that *immediately* after the game's release coming up with a way around it kills your ability as a DM to use the mournland's characteristics in a way that add to the gameplay. There should be NO artifact, NO spell and no permanent solution to this for PCs because it would allow for abuse. Imagine these situations: - Encounters with the lord of blades and his minions, or being requested or required to confront them on their own territory. - A villian or band of bandits that ride borders of the mournlands attacking thorps and others and retreating behind the wall of mist into the mournland. - Explorations or artifact recoveries from places such as Metrol or the fields of ruin. All I'm saying is you don't go and change this or find a workaround with serious comtemplation of just what you're losing from your game. Just like a well played mind flayer, beholder or good NPC villian, the mournland has the ability to scare players at the mere drop of its name, I'd remember that.
Blindside 07-16-04, 01:55 PM	I said their could be an arifact.... did I ever say you let them keep it? The best adventure is always when the PC's have to sacrifce power for the greater good...
JBW 07-16-04, 04:04 PM	Does the "no healing zone" extend beyond the boundaries of the Dead Gray Mist? If not, then reaching a sufficient height above the Mournland would provide another option for healing. Wind Walk would be the preferred Clerical means of accomplishing this task. Jay
St23aM 07-16-04, 04:13 PM	right on ENHenry. I feel the same way. Cantuse also has good points. I think it should stay the same and DM's can come up with the most creative way to get around it that they they like. If they even need to do this at all. This also keeps the mystery of "what the Morning was" by keeping heros out of there. It there was a way to get around this atleast one country would have found it and sent hundreds of soldiers in to investigate. There is also the option to use a Sky Ship to drop into the mornland by rope... and leave buy the same.. you just have to have friends with a airship. This is how we get miltary out of hot situations when we cant get support to them IE healing. Why should it be any diffrent here. We are all entitled to our option but, until someone comes up with something that presaudes other wise , the mornland is staying as-is in my game. Also you could use feather fall or the like from the airship flying over the Mournland. If you needed to get to the middle and were worried about running into too many enounters before you got there. Basicall the Mournland is a guantlet I see this as a good thing something that the players *gasp* at when they here of heros making it through. I can see my player bragging to others .. "Oh yea, well one time we made it 3/4 through one side of the Mornland got stuck there for 3 weeks and lived!" and then the othe person going "Dang thats Hardcore"
Just another user 07-16-04, 07:56 PM	Premise: I have not the Eberron book but I'd like to put in my 2 copper coins: I'd like the idea of the Mournland as a no-healing zone and I really hope that WOTC don't nerf it putting in some short cut or, even worse, making healing possible even if impeded. But if I wanted to do things a little less drastic, I'd put in the Mournlands some special spots, sorta of oasis in the desert, where natural healing work normally and magic heling is just impeded, this spot would be extremelly rare and well guarded, from "organics" (i.e. some of those bandits that mention Cantuse) for their obvious utility and from Warforged because they know intruders would use them. If you still think that would make things to easy for the characters, then just say that those spots aren't permanent, they could fluctuate randomly around a certain point(even in a radius of kilometers), they could appear only in some moments with a pattern or randomly, or they could just fade away after some day/week/month for apparently no reason. Just an idea.
elecgraystone 07-27-04, 05:07 AM	Extra and non-dimensional spaces are placed so that it would take an extraplanar expedition (see secret chest, the basis for the bag of holding and haversacks) to find them. Rope tricks are also only affected by plane crossing effects. For them to be coterminous with the Mournlands you would have to rule that the whole astral and ethreal planes were also! Either that or you rule that the spaces are so close to the material plane that they can be found and plundered by anyone entering those planes close to them! Neither one is supported by the core rules! If you want to house-rule it that way, fine.
debatedeus 07-27-04, 07:21 AM	Originally posted by elecgraystone Extra and non-dimensional spaces are placed so that it would take an extraplanar expedition (see secret chest, the basis for the bag of holding and haversacks) to find them. Rope tricks are also only affected by plane crossing effects. For them to be coterminous with the Mournlands you would have to rule that the whole astral and ethreal planes were also! Either that or you rule that the spaces are so close to the material plane that they can be found and plundered by anyone entering those planes close to them! Neither one is supported by the core rules! If you want to house-rule it that way, fine. Maybe, but that is a ruling I am willing to make in order to preserve the inherent danger, and thus beauty, of the Mournlands. Do you honestly understand the planar rules enough that such a ruling is unreasonable? I mean, it isn't like saying that you can power attack with a light weapon--it doens't contradict any rule out there. If two planes have a direct point of contact, shouldn't effects on the one plane resonate on the other. If you put a rope trick effect on the Elemental Plane of Fire in the DnD standard cosmology shouldn't some of the heat get in? Remember that most magic items are toast if you go to the Plane of fire, that unless you have fire resistance of 12 or more that they will burn up, so you cannot use your haversack for healing. What happens when you have an effect that isn't tangible, like 2d6 fire damage a round? How would you measure that? There is a good argument for these things, and I would say that any plane should have an effect on the regions touching it.
mean_liar 07-27-04, 11:28 AM	Rope trick is explicit in that it takes its residents to an area outside all other extradimensional spaces. House rules are fine, but I think this is more of an example of style not matching substance, the main problem I see in Eberron. There are a LOT of cool ideas, which are in turn TOTALLY unsupported by the mechanics. Rope Trick actually takes you "somewhere else", not even coterminous. Ditto for hopping into a Bag of Holding to cast your spells and tons of other cheap workarounds. Houseruling it is fine, but then you're left with the logical extensions of your houseruling - which directly affects planar mechanics and a host of other things. ... As a corollary, I see this kind of thing all the time in my job. Architects have a vision that usually end up being totally impractical and end up getting over-ruled by the engineering required to actually make something work. To do it right, Mr Baker would have had to have a strong mind for mechanics in addition to his stylistic vision, and then concocted the setting with its major mechanical features already laid out. As it is I get the impression he turned a lot of that background work over to the R&D design staff and this is the result.
debatedeus 07-27-04, 12:10 PM	Originally posted by mean_liar Rope trick is explicit in that it takes its residents to an area outside all other extradimensional spaces. True, and the effect explicitly says that it is outside all other extraplanar spaces. By definition, however, since rope trick creates a demi-plane that is accessable physically from another plane, it is coterminous with that plane. Coterminuous planes have several effects on each other, as noted in the DMG. Originally posted by mean_liar House rules are fine, but I think this is more of an example of style not matching substance, the main problem I see in Eberron. There are a LOT of cool ideas, which are in turn TOTALLY unsupported by the mechanics. The substance is all style too though! Nothing in the SRD Rope Trick entry requires that it must be as written to make it function. The spell COULD have been written to specifically say that it will create a coterminuous subplane outside of the normal cosmology, etc etc. What other ideas are not supported by the mechanics that do not have new mechanics to support them? Warforged make sense. Eldritch machines fill a large void in the mechanics. Manifest Zones of other planes also fill another big mechanical hole, plus add something neat to the mix, flavor-wise. Ultimately, mechanics are a tool of the game, not the game itself. That's what people play 3.5, or 3.0, or ADnD, but all still call it Dungeons and Dragons. The mechanics change, but the game is the same. Originally posted by mean_liar Rope Trick actually takes you "somewhere else", not even coterminous. Ditto for hopping into a Bag of Holding to cast your spells and tons of other cheap workarounds. As I've said above, by the definitions, Rope Trick takes you to what equates to a coterminous plane. Originally posted by mean_liar Houseruling it is fine, but then you're left with the logical extensions of your houseruling - which directly affects planar mechanics and a host of other things. It all depends on the level of simulation you are going for in your game. As for how I see it, making this ruling has no logical implications as it is an extension of the rules as they are written, with a slight DM judgment call. If you think this ruins the planar cosmology and sends all of the worlds into a chain effect that spins them off their axises then feel free to rule differently. Originally posted by mean_liar As a corollary, I see this kind of thing all the time in my job. Architects have a vision that usually end up being totally impractical and end up getting over-ruled by the engineering required to actually make something work.. This is slightly different. The laws of physics need not apply in the DnD world, as it is a game of the imagination. In real life I can see concepts failing because they are not mechanically sound. In a game, where holes in the mechanics are interpretable and individually defined to some degree, it is less the case. Originally posted by mean_liar To do it right, Mr Baker would have had to have a strong mind for mechanics in addition to his stylistic vision, and then concocted the setting with its major mechanical features already laid out. As it is I get the impression he turned a lot of that background work over to the R&D design staff and this is the result. Don't forget that Eberron was designed by Keith and two others. He did not make the world on his own. He came up with many of the core concepts, but a commitee developed the mechanics, a commitee went through all of the ideas and revised them. Keith has repeatedly said that he was not in charge of the mechanics. The two other people who participated were Bill Slavicsek (d20 Modern Roleplaying Game, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Revised Core Rulebook, and the Urbana Arcana Campaign Setting) and James Wyatt (Oriental Adventures, City of the Spider Queen, Fiend Folio, Draconomicon, and Player's Guide to Faerûn). These two designers do have an eye to the mechanics of this incarnation of DnD, they work with the people who wrote them! If the actual makers of the game put it in Eberron you can probably safely assume that the mechanics are there as far as they can be.
mean_liar 07-27-04, 05:29 PM	Apologetics aside, you're not left with much. I admit you can change the Rope Trick spell to be coterminous without a large effect on the game. But thats the kind of ruling that would have been easy enough to make in the Mournlands section - "any creature somehow rooted to the Mournlands' physical location is under this affect as well". Then there's all kinds of nifty things out of that like curses where a person's body is in the Mournlands and they Magic Jar out, only to be unable to heal, etc. Basically it seems like something thats cool until you realize how impotent it is in execution, and then you have to make a couple house rules to maintain the flavor. The professionals that designed the Eberron setting did a nice job, but its in no way a low-powered setting. The Action Points alone are a clear sign of that - things like Action Surge take it even further. The Heir of Siberys is a 'freebie' PrC with little to no prereqs that any class can take, which is nice, but hardly low-powered. Warforged can heal with arcane or divine (at half effect) powers, which is hardly a drawback. The Shifter is an extremely powerful race that basically falls into Bearwarrior and Warshaper. The Shifter PrC is insanely powerful. And clerics without patrons is a bad, bad idea regarding maintaining a low-powered setting. Regardless of their credentials, Mr Baker's setting has a lot of mechanical peculiarities to it that make it compete with FR for power of the PCs. The fact is that the setting's style is over-ruled by its substance, and thats fine for people like me, but its unfortunate that Mr Baker's vision isn't fully realized with the mechanics in place. I guess my point is that its clear that in order to make Eberron the low-powered setting that Mr Baker had in mind would take a LOT more houseruling. I think you'll agree the first time a level 9 Shifter hybridizes himself and Power Attacks something for 50+ damage without breaking a sweat, does it a few more times, and then does it even more since its only 2 more Action Points to do so. By the time he's done going through his APs you can be sure that he's got a new level, and he'll get to do it all over again. Or perhaps it'll come when the Artificer makes every 1st level arcane scroll for his Wizard friend for a pittance, who can then sell pages from his spellbook to other Wizards at 50gp a page. Or maybe someone will say something when the patronless cleric creates an item of Sadism to wear while he summons Celestial creatures in combat. I suggest keeping a binder handy for this kind of stuff, because its going to happen quite a bit, and its systemic to Eberron. And its precisely these things that can be headed off at the pass with sound mechanics to back up the design intent. But the problem is that Mr Baker is not a rules lawyer (probably to his credit) and his design team added a lot of cool things that perhaps carry a bit much weight.
debatedeus 07-27-04, 09:36 PM	Originally posted by mean_liar Apologetics aside, you're not left with much. :rolleyes: Was that REALLY necessary? Originally posted by mean_liar I admit you can change the Rope Trick spell to be coterminous without a large effect on the game. But thats the kind of ruling that would have been easy enough to make in the Mournlands section - "any creature somehow rooted to the Mournlands' physical location is under this affect as well". They probably could have said something there, but they didn't. My original premise on this thread is that I did not like that WotC is considering changing the Mournlands and wanted to find solutions to preserve its flavor. I like that the Mournlands are a scary place to adventure because you do not have access to the healing spells that adventurers take for granted. I do not want PCs in my game to have an easy way of taking this edge off, so I wanted to brainstorm about ways to keep the flavor of the Mournlands without making them impossible to adventure in. Originally posted by mean_liar Then there's all kinds of nifty things out of that like curses where a person's body is in the Mournlands and they Magic Jar out, only to be unable to heal, etc. Basically it seems like something thats cool until you realize how impotent it is in execution, and then you have to make a couple house rules to maintain the flavor. If someone's soul is in a magic jar in the mournlands and someone else takes their body for a ride outside of the mournlands then the body should be able to heal. It's the body that is the concern. If I am the one joy riding in bodies, then I should be able to heal my new body if I leave the mournlands, but this will have no effect on my old body at all. Ultimately, the magic jar/body recovery mission is a classic DnD adventure. How is it impotent? You aren't clear here. And again, was that REALLY necessary? Also, it doesn't seem like it is too much of a house rule to me. It seems like it is an interpretation. Because the rules say nothing explicit either way about how the Mournlands function, I'm not CHANGING the rules to preserve its flavor, just like you would not be CHANGING the rules to ignore the flavor. I admit that WotC could come out with something official. If they ruled against me, then fine, at that point I'd be happy to say I'm house-ruling it. Until then, neither one of us can be right on this issue. We can just make arguments one way or another. Originally posted by mean_liar The professionals that designed the Eberron setting did a nice job, but its in no way a low-powered setting. The Action Points alone are a clear sign of that - things like Action Surge take it even further. The Heir of Siberys is a 'freebie' PrC with little to no prereqs that any class can take, which is nice, but hardly low-powered. Warforged can heal with arcane or divine (at half effect) powers, which is hardly a drawback. The Shifter is an extremely powerful race that basically falls into Bearwarrior and Warshaper. The Shifter PrC is insanely powerful. And clerics without patrons is a bad, bad idea regarding maintaining a low-powered setting. Where did this come from? I never said Eberron was low-powered. Its supposed to be filled with over-the-top pulp action! I want my PCs to do wonderous and heroic things, and I want them to be an interesting cut above the rest. I want the bad guys to be really strong too, challenging the PC heroes along the way. Action points are subtle. They are not as strong as people think. Action Surge is playing a feat on a very limited resource (unless you take that feat that gives you a bonus temporary action point while raging). If you're happy doing that, then feel free. Yes, the Heir of Siberys is a rediculous prestige class. So? Warforged have a number of things balancing them. For instance, they do not naturally heal ability damage. They have many of the weaknesses of both constructs and flesh-bound creatures. Ultimately they are a very playable, fun race to integrate with a group. I have a Warforged PC in my group and they by no means dominate anything at all. Shifters overall are a weaker race than many of the others, and although their PrC can be crazy, by the time they can bear form a druid can wildshape into a dire bear and a wizard can polymorph into a 10 headed hydra. They aren't getting anything another class isn't already getting. You're forgetting other things like the Changeling Warshaper. All of this really comes down to judgement calls of the DM, since it is entirely the DM's option on what sources to include and what sources not to include and what rulings to make about special abilities. Maybe you call that house-ruling, I call that effectively managing my game. Originally posted by mean_liar Regardless of their credentials, Mr Baker's setting has a lot of mechanical peculiarities to it that make it compete with FR for power of the PCs. The fact is that the setting's style is over-ruled by its substance, and thats fine for people like me, but its unfortunate that Mr Baker's vision isn't fully realized with the mechanics in place. The difference between Eberron and FR is that there aren't watchdog NPCs that fill in all the gaps. The PCs are supposed to be remarkable heroes, eventually the greatest in all the land. I don't care if PCs are just as strong in Eberron as they would be in FR, I care the that PCs mean something to the world, and that they can have a noticable effect on things. I guess I don't understand what you mean about style vs. substance. I am under the impression that every setting's style determines its substance. Take adding the whole shadow weave on top of the normal weave in FR. Or Arcane Fire, or anything of the like. Originally posted by mean_liar I guess my point is that its clear that in order to make Eberron the low-powered setting that Mr Baker had in mind would take a LOT more houseruling. Again, I don't know where this is coming from, but I think Hellcow never once said anything about Eberron being low power. Sure people start at level 1, but then they move up and on from there.. Originally posted by mean_liar I think you'll agree the first time a level 9 Shifter hybridizes himself and Power Attacks something for 50+ damage without breaking a sweat, does it a few more times, and then does it even more since its only 2 more Action Points to do so. By the time he's done going through his APs you can be sure that he's got a new level, and he'll get to do it all over again. This is SO off topic. You can build characters that can do this by level 5, at the latest without Eberron rules. Go visit the character optimization board. A ninth level shifter who can hybridize probably has spent most of his feats on his shifter lineage and so doesn't have much else going for them. A competent fighter can regularly hit for 30-40 by level 9 with a decent power attack (2d6 base damage, + 9 for 24 str and two handed, +2 for magic weapon, +1d6 energy type, +2 weapon specialization, +up to 18 for a two handed power attack comes out to around 38 or more, depending on the circumstances, not counting other availible buffs and things) What's the big deal? I guess I don't see the point. Originally posted by mean_liar Or perhaps it'll come when the Artificer makes every 1st level arcane scroll for his Wizard friend for a pittance, who can then sell pages from his spellbook to other Wizards at 50gp a page. Again, off topic. I will grant that some holes like this haven't been filled in the CSB. Another one is that Artificers could make scrolls of raise dead or resurrection. Keith has mentioned that Artificer spells on scrolls cannot be copied into a wizard's spell book. And I don't know if I'd make it that easy for my PCs to find other wizards to sell their spells to. These gaps you mention are important to get out there so that they can be fixed, but until they are, DMs will probably need to keep a binder or discuss things on the boards in order to figure out what is correct or mechanically sound. But we all already knew that. That's why I'm here at least..
GoodTeletubby 07-27-04, 11:08 PM	The Mournlands description says that spells with the healing subschool and natural healing don't work so wands, scrolls, and staves, which actually cast the spell don't work potions on the other hand, don't actually cast the spell, and since several are included in the mournlands part of Shadows of the Last War, i'd say they still function normally
kildaere007 07-27-04, 11:42 PM	This is sooooo off topic (also:-)...but I had to chime in. (especially since I agree with a lot of what debatedeus is saying about intent). In the monster all consuming Keith Thread...it actually came out that the "offical" word from WotC is that Artificers choose weather they are scribing a scroll as arcane or divine when they make it. I assume they ruled this way as to not create a new "unnamed" class of magic which could complicate future additions. So actually an Artificer scroll "could" be copied into a spellbook if the spell is arcane and appears on the classes spell list. Keith may have said that he thought artificers "should" create untyped scrolls but the official rule changed that (I may house rule it back...but then again, it might not be a problem..unless you want to restrict spells).... ...but now how this applies to your discussion...I think that Keith's notes to WotC on the mournlands..probably read..."dangerous place...hard to heal" or something like that. If it is so avoidable with an extra dimentional space than it takes away some of the danger. But then again...could players rest/hide in an extra-dimensional space to avoid the heat of a volcano? If they avoid the physical properties of a co-terminious space as well as any area effects and spells (as listed under rope trick)...why not the "special" no healing ones? It kind of gets back to what is Keith's intent here? I believe that whatever happened in the mournlands is a special effect might extend across planes like a scar in reality (ie extra dinensional spaces)...that is what I plan to do in my game...BUT I may allow a schema to cancel out an area so that healing is possible...but it will be hard to get/difficult to reproduce/and be the subject of an adventure...not simply a second level spell like rope trick. (so in my opinion....as worded I think rope trick works...It avoids all effects an area produces, magical or other wise...but that is too easy...I will go with the scar in reality idea - which in my opinion is implied but not spelled out. Unless they find an eldritch machine...the players will have to be more creative, than rope trick if they plan to heal.)
kildaere007 07-27-04, 11:45 PM	as noted...potions are a spell storing device and are blocked also. REMEMBER (i think :) that the mournlands doesn't dispel the potions, just block the effect...so they work fine to heal the party as soon as they reach the border.
debatedeus 07-27-04, 11:55 PM	Originally posted by GoodTeletubby The Mournlands description says that spells with the healing subschool and natural healing don't work so wands, scrolls, and staves, which actually cast the spell don't work potions on the other hand, don't actually cast the spell, and since several are included in the mournlands part of Shadows of the Last War, i'd say they still function normally From the SRD: A potion is a magic liquid that produces its effect when imbibed. Magic oils are similar to potions, except that oils are applied externally rather than imbibed. A potion or oil can be used only once. It can duplicate the effect of a spell of up to 3rd level that has a casting time of less than 1 minute. Potions are like spells cast upon the imbiber. The character taking the potion doesn’t get to make any decisions about the effect —the caster who brewed the potion has already done so. The drinker of a potion is both the effective target and the caster of the effect (though the potion indicates the caster level, the drinker still controls the effect). The person applying an oil is the effective caster, but the object is the target. Potions do not get around it because they are like spells cast upon the imbiber. The liquid itself doesn't carry the effect, the liquid triggers the effect, or something like that.
The Sequal 07-28-04, 12:03 AM	Just a random idea, but if you are looking for an easy way out of your PC's using bags of holding, rope trick, et cetera, as a way of healing I might have it. IIRC the ECS (which I still don't have) says that the Mournlands are filled with a fog/mist. Just say that the healing inhibitor is partialy carried in the mist, and it rushes into any extradimensional space they open.
Lorehammer 07-28-04, 01:16 AM	Originally posted by mean_liar And clerics without patrons is a bad, bad idea regarding maintaining a low-powered setting. Clerics without patrons or constraints on their actions and religions with no political clout are mutually exclusive and competing theories. I's a section of the ECS worth blacking out with a Sharpie because it crossed the border into stupidity a long, long way back. Originally posted by The Sequal if you are looking for an easy way out of your PC's using bags of holding, rope trick, et cetera, as a way of healing I might have it. IIRC the ECS (which I still don't have) says that the Mournlands are filled with a fog/mist. Just say that the healing inhibitor is partialy carried in the mist, and it rushes into any extradimensional space they open. The point of playing the game is to find solutions to the challenges presented by the world. Why would you, as a DM, seek easy ways to prevent your players from using interesting or unique solutions to those difficulties? IMO, that's very much a DM vs. player mindset, and is not very much fun for the players. IMG, I love it when the players come up with solutions I didn't anticipate. It keeps me on my toes and makes the game more fun for me as well.
GoodTeletubby 07-28-04, 09:14 AM	Originally posted by Lorehammer Clerics without patrons or constraints on their actions and religions with no political clout are mutually exclusive and competing theories. I's a section of the ECS worth blacking out with a Sharpie because it crossed the border into stupidity a long, long way back. how and why would those be mutually exclusive? they have almost nothing to do with each other when did a religion need political clout to be a patron? and who says a cleric can't have a private patron? Potions do not get around it because they are like spells cast upon the imbiber. The liquid itself doesn't carry the effect, the liquid triggers the effect, or something like that. and yes potions trigger the Effect not the casting of the spell, so the effect would be the healing, correct? since the spell was already cast when the potion was created, and its effect was stored in the potion.
Ranthanas 07-28-04, 10:40 AM	Originally posted by mean_liar The professionals that designed the Eberron setting did a nice job, but its in no way a low-powered setting. The Action Points alone are a clear sign of that - things like Action Surge take it even further. The Heir of Siberys is a 'freebie' PrC with little to no prereqs that any class can take, which is nice, but hardly low-powered. Warforged can heal with arcane or divine (at half effect) powers, which is hardly a drawback. The Shifter is an extremely powerful race that basically falls into Bearwarrior and Warshaper. The Shifter PrC is insanely powerful. And clerics without patrons is a bad, bad idea regarding maintaining a low-powered setting. I'm not arguing about unpatroned clerics, but on the rest: A 4th level Eberron character is strong for a 4th level character, but is no match for a 6th level Greyhawk character (his equivalent) or an 8th level Realms character. At each given character level the characters are stronger, but they tend to have lower character levels. Regardless of their credentials, Mr Baker's setting has a lot of mechanical peculiarities to it that make it compete with FR for power of the PCs. Assuming equal level, yes. Eberron characters don't tend to be of as high levelm making them significantly weaker than the Realms. Or perhaps it'll come when the Artificer makes every 1st level arcane scroll for his Wizard friend for a pittance, who can then sell pages from his spellbook to other Wizards at 50gp a page. That gets messy. Especially as the artificier needs to pass a DC21 Spellcraft check and spend a number of days equal to the number of spells- unlikely to happen at really low levels, and not worth the investment at high levels for low level spells. Or maybe someone will say something when the patronless cleric creates an item of Sadism to wear while he summons Celestial creatures in combat. Neutral clerics are a BAD idea if in the hands of powergamers (atheistic clerics trying to disprove the existance of Gods can OTOH be quite fun)
debatedeus 07-28-04, 10:55 AM	Originally posted by GoodTeletubby and yes potions trigger the Effect not the casting of the spell, so the effect would be the healing, correct? since the spell was already cast when the potion was created, and its effect was stored in the potion. In the rules there is no difference between the triggering of an effect and the cause of that effect. Ultimately, a spell almost always causes a spell-triggered effect. For example, the Cloak of the Monteback does not teleport you itself, it allows you to use Dimension Door. The potion does not contain the benefit of the spell, when you imbibe it you trigger the casting of the spell targeted on you. Really, just read the SRD entry I included in my last post.
Kid SixXx 07-28-04, 11:18 AM	I've just finished running Queen With The Burning Eyes and will start running SoTLW pretty soon. I think I will keep the properties of the Mournlands as they are for the low lvl encounters. Not only will it promote some creative thinking on the part of the PC's once they arrive (they'll have to choose their fights very carefully), it may promote a bit of preparation on their part as it may inspire them to do some research on the Mournlands and figure out just exactly what they're getting into.
The Sequal 07-28-04, 01:18 PM	Originally posted by Lorehammer The point of playing the game is to find solutions to the challenges presented by the world. Why would you, as a DM, seek easy ways to prevent your players from using interesting or unique solutions to those difficulties? IMO, that's very much a DM vs. player mindset, and is not very much fun for the players. IMG, I love it when the players come up with solutions I didn't anticipate. It keeps me on my toes and makes the game more fun for me as well. First of all, I'm not a DM. I'm one of the players, and I would have no problem with a DM who used this logical solution to remain true to the escence of the Mournlands, a place where healing simply doesn't work. This way the DM has a logical explanation, which can possibly still be circumvented, rather than just saying, "You cant do that" or some variation thereof.
Lorehammer 07-28-04, 01:33 PM	Right, I'd have no problem with it either. I have a problem with the notion that there needs to be an easy way to circumvent cool ideas by the players.
The Sequal 07-28-04, 01:37 PM	I have a problem with the notion that there needs to be an easy way to circumvent cool ideas by the designer.
debatedeus 07-28-04, 02:09 PM	Originally posted by The Sequal I have a problem with the notion that there needs to be an easy way to circumvent cool ideas by the designer. That is the essence of this thread. I do not want to see the Mournland made less deadly. The designers are talking about changing the Mournlands, and I wanted to see if there was any way to avoid that with creative solutions. One is to make a limited use magic item, another is to have some substance, like Byeshk absorb the taint of the Mournlands for a little while. The point was to allow for temporary solutions that are difficult to pull off but that do not take the fear off of the Mournlands. I want to see the Mournland as a scary extended dungeon right in the middle of Eberron. I want to see it as a place that Players find out they have to go to and are suddenly filled with fear and doubts. I don't want easy solutions that can happen every time the Players want to heal. Sure, these resources may slightly drain their resources, but they totally take away the horror of the Mournlands. I don't want the Mournlands to be something that you get any less afraid of at high levels.
Lorehammer 07-28-04, 02:36 PM	Originally posted by The Sequal I have a problem with the notion that there needs to be an easy way to circumvent cool ideas by the designer. What you are basically saying, I guess, is that once a party has figured out a way to handle a problem in the world; and that this solution is easy to implement from then on; that the DM then needs to somehow make up for the fact that the designer did not take this solution into account. IMO, this is not a legitimate use of DM authority.
Lorehammer 07-28-04, 02:41 PM	Originally posted by debatedeus I don't want the Mournlands to be something that you get any less afraid of at high levels. I think this is pretty much unavoidable unless you introduce new challenges. Eventually, parties will teleport back to the border, heal up and teleport back. What are you going to do then? Prevent teleportation into and out of the Mournland? Once a party has solved a challenge, it is a mistake on the DM's part to circumvent the solution. Instead, bring new challenges.
Kid SixXx 07-28-04, 03:09 PM	Originally posted by Lorehammer Eventually, parties will teleport back to the border, heal up and teleport back. Meanwhile the bad guys are given a free chance to escape, prepare for the return of the PC's, move the treasure, or what have you. If my PC's think that the teleporting out of the Mournlands is the equivilent of a football time out, they're sadly mistaken. I totally agree that it's counterproductive to punish PC's that think creatively in order to overocome a set of existing dilemmas, but on the same token, you have to be wary of PC's that attempt to trivialize the encounter via a perceived loophole. DM's also have to push the action along. Things will not always go the PC's way & they have to be tough enough to accept some circumstances and trudge along as best they can despite the problems. Success or failure may depend on how fast they make judgement calls. Keep the pulp / noir edge in the game. Indiana Jones wouldn't let a little thing like a broken finger or a cracked rib stop him in mid-mission from still trying to thwart the Nazi's.
Brastan 07-28-04, 04:35 PM	I'm sorry. Normally I'm pretty good at finding things in the ECSB when their mentioned here, that I've missed to date. But I can't find were it says magic or natural healing doesn't work, at least on living things. Could some one point me a Page number to go look at. Thank you in advance.
Lorehammer 07-28-04, 04:42 PM	Page 188. Under the Government and Politics heading. First paragraph. Last line (it's in paranthesis). Now that I'm reading it, I'm having trouble reconciling the lack of natural healing with the fact that there may be natural creatues that continue to live there. Are there no natural creatures? Animals?
DwelleroftheDeep 07-28-04, 05:18 PM	Hellcow said that the creatures living in the mournland were probably created by the mourning and are adapted to the conditions there, so the creatures heal, but the Pc's dont.
Von Ether 07-28-04, 06:39 PM	For me the Mournlands is a high level area, the comments in other threads of needing to provide "low level threats" doesn't jive with me. In fact, I think WotC was too eager to show off the setting to include the Mournlands in it's first adventure. WIth that opinion, I have faith that when my players have access to higher levels, they'll suss something out. On the note, I'm also of the opinion my players will be some of the few high level characters in the game by that time. Yeah, I like a lot of Eberron as is.
Lorehammer 07-29-04, 03:47 AM	Originally posted by DwelleroftheDeep Hellcow said that the creatures living in the mournland were probably created by the mourning and are adapted to the conditions there, so the creatures heal, but the Pc's dont. My disbelief suspender just broke.
Kid SixXx 07-29-04, 10:32 AM	Originally posted by Lorehammer My disbelief suspender just broke. Not really. It's pretty much stated that magic released during The Mourning continues to have a strange effect on the creatures living there. Continuous exposure to the Mournlands have given them the ability to survive there. Conversely, abilities that allow you to survive in the Mournlands would probably lead to your death everywhere else. The radience of the Glowing Gorge (sp?) further alters the already horribly altered creatures there.
mean_liar 07-29-04, 12:01 PM	In the comic industry, that is called a 'no-prize'. In the end, you can do anything you want with the setting and call it 'magic' or 'spooky action at a distance' or whatever. I think it would be a little more obvious though if they just said 'PCs healing is stunted in the Mournlands because its COOL; all others are unaffected'.
Trudge 07-29-04, 05:02 PM	I think healing is meant to be difficult, but not impossible. Removing natural healing and the healing subschool removes the two primary methods of healing. There's various other minor ways. Leaving the mournland temporarily seems like the best option, and folks have already commented on rope trick and teleport. These pretty much sit you with once a day bouts of magic healing, but no convenient mid-combat healing. Goodberry is not part of the healing subschool, and can recover hit points. You can't heal more than 8pts a day, but its handy for low level characters. A Psion-Egoist with Empathic Transfer and Body Adjustment could act as healer. Its expensive though. Body Adjustment costs 5pp / 1d12 hp + 2pp / extra 1d12 Empathic Healing costs 3pp / 2d10 hp + 1pp / extra 2d10 You can do this by 5th level, when you'll have as many as 35 pp (40 if Kalashtar). Spells which increase Con, such as Endurance, could be used to help a little, but its only temporary hp. The Shifter feat Healing Factor recovers hit points, but some gms might call it Natural Healing. Other GMs might call it magical healing, but not from the healing sub school (like goodberry) and allow it. I think if a group of PCs (that aren't all warforged) wanted to make a career out of going into the Mournland as scavengers, Psion-Egoists are probably the best bet, and a druid would be helpful.
Trudge 07-29-04, 05:23 PM	Ack, I just saw the other thread with psychic healing. Sorry for posting duplicates. Maybe goodberry is still a decent suggestion.
debatedeus 07-29-04, 05:42 PM	Originally posted by DwelleroftheDeep Hellcow said that the creatures living in the mournland were probably created by the mourning and are adapted to the conditions there, so the creatures heal, but the Pc's dont. Can you link to where Hellcow said this?
DwelleroftheDeep 07-29-04, 06:32 PM	Sorry, I cant think of the exact page, but I believe it was somewhere on the ask keith baker thread.
Ankh 07-30-04, 06:27 AM	I will DM Sotlw in a couple of weeks and im preparing the adventure right now. About healing in the Mournlands I will rule that healing potions found in the adventure still function (when the Mournland was created all healing survived in the land but nothing can be brought in heals, something diffuse like that). That will allow the PC to get their hands on a very limited amount of healing (under your control) that whoudn't ruin the Mournlands speciall setting. At higher levels they just dont find any native healing but a 2nd level party without any kind of healing wont suvive that many encounters that the last part of the adventure contains, I don't want a total party wipe on my hands and I don't want my PC's feel im helping them by modifying the rolls to make monsters miss so they can survive (because one more hit and they will be unconssious for the rest of the adventure, sort of thing). This will still make adventuring in the Mournland and the adventure itself a real challenge, but I think no healing at all whould prove to be way to difficult for a 2nd level party (they dont powergame) especially if I use the crab encounter that I intend to do. So i think this solution will make a good addon. Still with this limited amount of healing the PC's have to be really carefull and getting though alive will indeed be a challenge. [list=1]* I whoudn't allow the PC to build a machine that hampers the Mournlands effect on healing as discussed earlier in this thread. * Neither whould I allow the "bag trick" discussed in this thread. [/list=1] This is _MY_ way of solving this dilemma an errata for healing in the Mournlands is out of the question for me. I just want to share my thoughts. One last thing though: all my gramma error are belong to me.
debatedeus 07-30-04, 10:07 AM	Originally posted by DwelleroftheDeep Sorry, I cant think of the exact page, but I believe it was somewhere on the ask keith baker thread. Reading Keith's thing on the Ask Keith Baker thread, this makes sense. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
elecgraystone 08-01-04, 08:27 PM	So debatedeus In your worlds if someone brings a closed portable hole into the elemental plane of water, it's contents get wet? On the fire plane the contents get burned? Astral and ethreal beings can walk right in and camp out in it? OK:rolleyes: I think that once the opening is closed, it is 100% in it's own. If it's so far into a plane that your have to mount an expedition to find it, how can it be so close as to take on the material planes affects? If we do it your way, people could sneak into your extra/non-dimensional from the ethreal and astral planes and rob you blind! The rope trick spell said that only effects that could cross dimensional barriers could affect someone inside. Nothing in the mournlands description said that it effected any other planes. Until a FAQ comes out that states otherwise, I can't see any reason why you can't heal in a extra/non-dimensional space. Also, if you have no healing at all in the adventure to the mournlands, you are dead. There is a lot of combat you can't avoid and any combat with no healing is VERY bad. I can't see how you could run it with no healing unless your whole party is warforged! Either that or your party has to be so LUCKY that they aren't hit very often in combat! Fire elementals, 1/2 construct wolf, living spells, several soldiers and no healing=DEAD! That's not including the encounters you can avoid!No amount of planning or strategy can bypass creatures that are tough when you HAVE healing! I don't like adventures that rely on luck because luck can only go so far. And having the monsters miss you so much that you make it through to the end would be pure, unadulterated LUCK!
elecgraystone 08-01-04, 08:47 PM	Stupid double posts!
Remnant 08-01-04, 10:27 PM	Not that this will help 2nd level adventurers, but... For temporary solutions, some spells grant temporary hit points that are not part of the healing sub school. Aid comes to mind, which is a compulsion for some reason. Also of note is the "Periapt of Wound Closure". This item's description includes the line "The periapt doubles the wearer's normal healing rate or allows normal healing of wounds that would not do so normally." Now, I realize this item was not designed taking the mournlands into consideration, but as a DM, I would be very tempted to allow one of these items to allow normal healing within the mournland. In addition, while psionic powers such as Body Equilibrium have the healing subschool, and are thus non functional in the mournland, Empathic Transfer does not carry any subschool. Also, some spells and powers that drain HP from enemies will still work as well.
Remnant 08-01-04, 11:03 PM	I too would not allow the "rope trick complex" to destroy the Mournlands. Tricks like that have been around for awhile, the wizard needs to rest but is in a highly hostile area, rope trick, rest, good as new. Clever at first, but hiding in extra dimensional spaces ceases to be clever when it is used as a blanket solution to any problem where the answer isn't apparent. Not clever. Boring, and most of the players that do it now can't even claim to have thought it up on their own. So, if a player cast "rope trick" and said they were healing up in the resulting extra dimensional space, I wouldn't let it work. On the other hand, if a player handed some healing potions to an ally, then cast imprison on them (I know at that level there would be alot of other solutions, but just for the sake of example), and then debated that so far below the surface of the earth, possibly even near Khyber itself, the healing restriction would not take effect, and then after the player healed up, cast freedom... well, I would be inclined to allow it. (Or the reverse- would flying above the 100 ft ceiling of the dead gray mists allow healing? How high up would you have to go? Certainly it cannot extend all the way to Siberys...)
DBlizzard 08-01-04, 11:21 PM	Originally posted by Remnant I too would not allow the "rope trick complex" to destroy the Mournlands. Tricks like that have been around for awhile, the wizard needs to rest but is in a highly hostile area, rope trick, rest, good as new. Clever at first, but hiding in extra dimensional spaces ceases to be clever when it is used as a blanket solution to any problem where the answer isn't apparent. Not clever. Boring, and most of the players that do it now can't even claim to have thought it up on their own. So, if a player cast "rope trick" and said they were healing up in the resulting extra dimensional space, I wouldn't let it work. I think this is a horrible argument as to why it shouldn't work. Every solution to a problem doesn't need to be original. Just because something has been done before, doesn't mean it's not a legitimate solution to a problem, regardless of how "boring" it is. I'm not saying that rope tricks certainly work. However, I'd need a better reason than "it's not original, so it doesn't work." It certainly wouldn't be enjoyable playing in a campaign where you come up with a solution to a problem because the DM doesn't think it's original enough a solution, so disallows it. Of course, it is certainly possible that healing doesn't work in nearby planes, either (and a plane with an entrance located in the Mournlands would have to count as "nearby"). The Eberron Campaign setting certainly doesn't focus on the Mournlands closely and wouldn't necessarily include this information.
Remnant 08-01-04, 11:38 PM	It wouldn't work because of some in game reason, of course. But the out of game reasoning is, the game should be fun, and essentially hiding in a hole until you're "all better", thereby defeating the purpose of a function of the game, is, IMHO, boring. In the short term, a player might enjoy it because they get to heal, but at least with my group I find that in the long run the challenge makes for a happier group and better sessions. Thus, stopping boring, done-to-death solutions works out better in the long term. As has been said, this is easily justifiable through the coterminous plane idea, or any others a DM could implement. Furthermore, before anyone gets silly and drags this off topic, I'm defining "Boring done to death" as solutions which are somewhat convoluted, and then repeated ad nauseum with no variability or risk to speak of, i.e., rope trick. Hitting something with a sword or the like does not fall under this category of course.
debatedeus 08-02-04, 03:34 AM	Originally posted by elecgraystone So debatedeus In your worlds if someone brings a closed portable hole into the elemental plane of water, it's contents get wet? On the fire plane the contents get burned? Astral and ethreal beings can walk right in and camp out in it? OK:rolleyes: Clearly you've missed the point, and the arguments I've made earlier. The rules for coterminous planes are not entirely clear, and the best the DMG has to say is that it is up to the DM. I am within my rights to argue that planes that are coterminous with the elemental plane of fire still carry some of the fire traits of the plane. I might not say that people in such a place will take fire damage, but I can rule that fire spells will be maximized, or that water spells will be impeded. I would probably always say that alignment traits carry over as well. That said, I do not think it is unreasonable to say that because rope trick creates a space that is immediately physically accessible to the Mournland, that the Mournland effect carries over. Remember, I'm writing in this thread as a DM that wants to preserve the danger and flavor of the mournlands, despite WotC's concerns about it being too hard for players. Originally posted by elecgraystone I think that once the opening is closed, it is 100% in it's own. If it's so far into a plane that your have to mount an expedition to find it, how can it be so close as to take on the material planes affects? If we do it your way, people could sneak into your extra/non-dimensional from the ethreal and astral planes and rob you blind! The rope trick spell said that only effects that could cross dimensional barriers could affect someone inside. Nothing in the mournlands description said that it effected any other planes. Until a FAQ comes out that states otherwise, I can't see any reason why you can't heal in a extra/non-dimensional space. Key words there, "I think." I think differently, as evidenced above. And actually, the only way to access the space of the rope trick spell is to plane shift or gate directly there, as it is outside of the normal multi-planar domain. Rope trick is not connected to the shadow plane or the ethereal plane. The effects of the Mournland are not physical, they aren't a spell effect either. They're one of those special effects that goes beyond definition or explanation, like alignment effects on a plane. Originally posted by elecgraystone Also, if you have no healing at all in the adventure to the mournlands, you are dead. There is a lot of combat you can't avoid and any combat with no healing is VERY bad. I can't see how you could run it with no healing unless your whole party is warforged! Either that or your party has to be so LUCKY that they aren't hit very often in combat! Fire elementals, 1/2 construct wolf, living spells, several soldiers and no healing=DEAD! That's not including the encounters you can avoid!No amount of planning or strategy can bypass creatures that are tough when you HAVE healing! I don't like adventures that rely on luck because luck can only go so far. And having the monsters miss you so much that you make it through to the end would be pure, unadulterated LUCK! Maybe that is a flaw in Shadows of the Last War. Fine. When I run adventures, I make them less of a luck concern and more of a readiness concern. If the players take the time to research and prepare, they obtain every tool they need in order to survive. But when players go into the Mournland they better be prepared. I like that PCs will have to be more careful, and take more pains to avoid combat in the Mournland than anywhere else. I like that they have to take their strategy up a notch to save themselves. I want to preserve that.
Just another user 08-02-04, 04:31 AM	what are the rules about Rope Trick and the effect of magic in the planes? i.e. if I am in a plane where divination magic doesn't work could I enter in a rope trick and be able to cast divination spells again? I think the same rule would apply to the no-healing effect of the Mournland. (maybe with the Mourning the whole country become a manifest zone of some (unknown) plane where healing is not possible.)
elecgraystone 08-02-04, 11:05 AM	To debatedeus I missed nothing in your posts. (I don't think they should be coterminous period) You are right about a rope trick isn't in the ethreal plane. However haversacks and bags of holding ARE!(read secret chest spell) I'd say a portable hole would be in the astral plane. (see portable hole and bag of holding mixing) Your ruling would allow access to these items by travelers in those planes. The planes MIGHT always be close for a rope trick because the opening is always open but for bags of holding and portable holes the opening can be closed. This places the space in the deep ethreal/astral. (again see secret chest) The only way the mourning lands affects should be felt in a closed bag of holding/portable hole is if it could affect the WHOLE ethreal/astral planes. Let me ask another question, if someone had a secret chest (as per spell) , would coterminous affects the chest? It's on another plane. Just like the bag of holding. How is being able to heal only out of combat not preserve the danger and flavor of the place. Heck, to use the haversack you have to use reduce person to get under the weight limit! "If the players take the time to research and prepare, they obtain every tool they need in order to survive. But when players go into the Mournland they better be prepared. I like that PCs will have to be more careful, and take more pains to avoid combat in the Mournland than anywhere else. I like that they have to take their strategy up a notch to save themselves. I want to preserve that." What research, what preperation? You can't heal, done. There will always be combat you can't avoid. Strategy doesn't save you from enemies rolling a lucky crit. Strategy can't save you from a missed trap. How can you really research anywere in the mournlands without going there or high level magic? (it's been 4 years for thing to change!) If you want to keep an epic level place for YOUR world then have fun and house rule it anyway you want. I'm not here to change your mind. (both of ours are already made up) I'm here for the people that don't need/want an epic battleground. Even using rope trick/bag of holding/portable holes still makes it a very dangerous place. I just don't see the need to change dangerous to lethal. To Just another user Yes, you should be able to cast a divination spell, but it would only work in the rope trick. Remember that spells that can't breach dimensional barriers can't cross the entrance of the rope trick. (it works both ways) To Remnant Just because rope tricks have been around a long time the mourning lands have figured out a way to stop it? It likes inventive ways to heal and lets them work? Either something works or it doesn't. It shouldn't matter how old or new the trick is!
debatedeus 08-02-04, 11:42 AM	Originally posted by elecgraystone To debatedeus I missed nothing in your posts. (I don't think they should be coterminous period) You are right about a rope trick isn't in the ethreal plane. However haversacks and bags of holding ARE!(read secret chest spell) I'd say a portable hole would be in the astral plane. (see portable hole and bag of holding mixing) Your ruling would allow access to these items by travelers in those planes. Is it? If that's the case, can a PC go into their bag of holding and walk out into the astral or ethereal plane? I mean, if monsters can do it, players can do it, right? That just doesn't make sense, and my ruling in no way says that. Just because the portable hole and the bag of holding together tear a rift in the astral plane does not at all mean that both are on the plane. What happens if you take a portable hole or a bag of holding onto the Astral Plane. Can you use the portable hole as a mini-gate-like passage to other parts of the plane? No. Can you hop in the bag of holding to run away from people there? Again, no. The reason that the Mournland effect is different is that it is an intangible effect that covers a region. Like an alignment trait. I think that the Astral, Ethereal, and Shadow Planar areas that correspond to the mournland will be carry over the mourning effect, but that's a ruling I am making for flavor's sake. Originally posted by elecgraystone The planes MIGHT always be close for a rope trick because the opening is always open but for bags of holding and portable holes the opening can be closed. This places the space in the deep ethreal/astral. (again see secret chest). A bag of holding is a little leather bag. If you put anything in it that is shard and it tears the bag from the inside, then the whole thing is ruined. Are you going to tell me that a little leather lid can seal out the affect of the Mournland? Why don't you just say, "Why don't we cover the PCs entirely in leather! That way they will not be affected by one of the most interesting and dangerous effects in Eberron!" Ditto for portable hole. Originally posted by elecgraystone The only way the mourning lands affects should be felt in a closed bag of holding/portable hole is if it could affect the WHOLE ethreal/astral planes. Let me ask another question, if someone had a secret chest (as per spell) , would coterminous affects the chest? It's on another plane. Just like the bag of holding. How is being able to heal only out of combat not preserve the danger and flavor of the place. Heck, to use the haversack you have to use reduce person to get under the weight limit!) This covered above. Secret chest takes the chest to the ethereal plane, and deposits it deep there. Odds are it isn't put in the area corresponding to the Mournland, so if PCs want to hop into the secret chest, give it a 75% chance of failure, and appear in the ethereal plane, I think I'd allow them to heal. Being able to heal at all makes the party want to press on. A single encounter balanced to their level probably will only damage them, not kill them. If they can heal outside of battle then they don't have to worry about what they fight, or how much they fight, until they are out of healing. Besides, if your party is healing in the middle of combat they did something wrong to begin with. Most even-CR fights last about 3-5 rounds. Originally posted by elecgraystone What research, what preperation? You can't heal, done. There will always be combat you can't avoid. Strategy doesn't save you from enemies rolling a lucky crit. Strategy can't save you from a missed trap. How can you really research anywere in the mournlands without going there or high level magic? (it's been 4 years for thing to change!) If you want to keep an epic level place for YOUR world then have fun and house rule it anyway you want. I'm not here to change your mind. (both of ours are already made up) I'm here for the people that don't need/want an epic battleground. Even using rope trick/bag of holding/portable holes still makes it a very dangerous place. I just don't see the need to change dangerous to lethal. I respect that you do not see the need to have the Mournland be so leathal. I do, because I know my players. I also know I would make the rewards worth the risk. Other DMs may do things differently, but I like the cinematic effect of the Mournland. As I said above, allowing permanent solutions such as these would take away at least some of the inherent fear of the mournlands. If you head out to the mournlands, I expect you to buff yourself and your party as much as possible, spending every resource availble to assure that you do not take a hit, so that way you don't have to heal the hit. That kind of planning can be interesting for players who have to adjust their philosophy somewhat. The only combat you cannot avoid is the combat the DM makes you fight. There is almost always a way to avoid a fight, be it invisibility, ducking into rope trick, hiding in bags of holding, etc. There are also ways to make things less deadly. Avoid area affect spells, for instance. You could also have the warforged of the party tank.
elecgraystone 08-02-04, 12:13 PM	To debatedeus If you agree that a secret chest would allow you to heal then bags of holding should. (secret chest is the base spell to MAKE them) The basis for my argument is that the should work like the spell. A portable hole can be closed from the inside, leaving no opening! No need for a "leather barrier". It uses a plane shift spell, so it takes to another plane.(astral just seemed right, taking into account what happens with the holding/potable hole mixture) It is VERy clear that your games are VERY different from mine. We don't count on only finding even-CR encounters. Our monsters are just as clever as we are. (see invisible spell for every invisibility spell) For every way to avoid damage, someone has a way to avoid your avoid. Again, unless your all warforged, it's a death trap!
mean_liar 08-02-04, 02:31 PM	Style or substance? Thats the nature of the debate. Choose Style if you want to retain the deadly flair of the Mournlands. Choose Substance if you want to retain the mechanics. What's more important to you? If you chose Style, retaining flavor is more important. It can also make your players gunshy, since they're never really certain when you're going to rewrite the rules to suit your interpretation of a setting. I understand why DMs would choose to do this, but its annoying as all hell to players - you're basically deciding when the rules matter, and when they don't. And that's something that a player could never do. You basically screw the players over whenever you think its 'cool' to do so.
elecgraystone 08-02-04, 04:10 PM	Amen, mean_liar. I couldn't agree more. :thumbsup: :bow: :bow: :bow:
debatedeus 08-02-04, 05:48 PM	Originally posted by elecgraystone To debatedeus If you agree that a secret chest would allow you to heal then bags of holding should. (secret chest is the base spell to MAKE them) There is a difference in how the base spells play out. Secret chest transports the chest to the deep ethereal. The bag of holding is accessible from the exact location you are in. See the difference? So now, I cannot, mechanically allow bags or rope tricks, or portable holes to function. Originally posted by elecgraystone The basis for my argument is that the should work like the spell. A portable hole can be closed from the inside, leaving no opening! No need for a "leather barrier". It uses a plane shift spell, so it takes to another plane.(astral just seemed right, taking into account what happens with the holding/potable hole mixture) 1.) You didn't address the bag of holding issue. 2.) You didn't address the traveling from the bag or the hole to the rest of the ethereal/astral plane. 3.) Both items are specific that they open into nondimensional spaces. Read the description. Using the rules for coterminous planes, I'm arguing that whenever the access points for these things are in the Mournland, the space is in the part of the planar space coterminous to the Mournland. The effect of the Mournland thus would carry through even if they items were closed in the Mournland. 4.) I am NOT saying that this is always the case for the items. Only when they are actually IN the Mournland. Originally posted by elecgraystone It is VERy clear that your games are VERY different from mine. We don't count on only finding even-CR encounters. Our monsters are just as clever as we are. (see invisible spell for every invisibility spell) For every way to avoid damage, someone has a way to avoid your avoid. Again, unless your all warforged, it's a death trap! So do you straight out compete with your players? Yes, it is true that for every counter, there is a counter. It requires cleverness on the part of the players to plan and act. If you a fighting someone who has access to See Invisibility, then sure, Invisibility is not the way to go. I take it for granted that the monsters are going to make effective use of their abilities. Players ought to plan around that. In my games I make sure to fairly apply monster abilities, and it give my players an advantage if they take the time to learn what those abilities are. I may change things up now and again, for example, tuking in a potion of see invisibility in a monster's loot, or giving a monster blindsight for one reason or another, but the general rule is that I let the players use their abilities as appropriate. More on topic, I do not thing that any player ability should give the repeated advantage of avoiding the Mournland's affect. I'm fine with limited use items as I said earlier in this thread, or the idea that Stone Dog suggested. I just do not want to see a permanent repeatable solution to the problem of Healing in the Mournlands. As a DM you are tasked with telling a story under mechanics. It is true that you could throw a CR20 dragon at a party of first level characters, but unless it serves some purpose, you're just being a bad DM. Likewise with encounters. Sometimes if a party chooses poorly they will have to fight a very difficult encounter, but one should not just throw dangerous fights at the players just because you can. If you are into that, you should play warhammer or something. Not every living creature is hostile to the PCs. Originally posted by mean_liar If you chose Style, retaining flavor is more important. It can also make your players gunshy, since they're never really certain when you're going to rewrite the rules to suit your interpretation of a setting. I understand why DMs would choose to do this, but its annoying as all hell to players - you're basically deciding when the rules matter, and when they don't. And that's something that a player could never do. You basically screw the players over whenever you think its 'cool' to do so.] 1.) The entire game is flavor. Using swords rather than guns is a question of flavor. Throwing fireballs is flavor. Fighting dragons is flavor. The mechanics are all created to preserve this flavor. 2.) The mechanics exist for two reasons. The first is to allow for better suspension of disbelief. If the world has consistent rules that the players understand it makes the world more believable which enhances the roleplaying experience. The second is to allow for settling the success or failure of actions. Rule 0 is what it is in order to expedite the second reasons. Rule -1 (the players choose to play) is the check against excessive use of Rule 0. 3.) There is no set mechnical ruling about how spells like Rope Trick or how haversacks and bags of holding work in the Mournland. Because there is no set mechanical ruling, DMs need to make decisions about these things, and to have reasons for them to be the way they are. 4.) In making a ruling that preserves the flavor, I am leading the characters to make more complicated/more challenging mechanics decisions. Thus, I end up pleasing both parties. Good roleplayers will appreciate the danger and glory of the Mournlands, good rollplayers will appreciate the challenge of acting under limited resources for grand rewards. 5.) If my players think to try rope trick then I will allow them a knowledge Arcana or knowledge the Planes check to see ahead of time if that will actually work. There are many instances where the DM needs to make a ruling about spells because the rules are not clear enough as they stand. The mechanics, as good as they are, are not consistent enough to be physical law. Every DM needs to make decisions, and they do not boil down to Style against Substance. In my mind, the two are unified. 6.) It sounds really like you are a bitter because you played under a bad DM. I don't just make haphazard rulings to punish my players or to take advantage of them. I make the rulings I do, as I do, because I want the game to be fun.
mean_liar 08-02-04, 07:09 PM	Dude, I'm bitter because I know that if I were to custom craft a Bag of Holding that connected to the Plane of Fire rather than the Aethereal plane and used your presented logic and ruling to allow me to cast maximized fire spells all day for no cost, you'd tell me to stuff it. And then we'd know that basically you're just cheating because its 'cool'. Style over substance. Like I said, each ruling has an impact. Changing the mechanics around because you think its 'cool' is your call, but you're cheating the players if when you do it you don't let the players play with the ramifications of that act. If your players don't care, then it doesn't matter, does it? But if they do, don't think that you're occupying the moral high ground, especially if the PCs die in the Mournlands because they thought they were adequately prepared before you pulled the rug out from under them.
Remnant 08-02-04, 10:01 PM	No DM worth his screen is going to "pull the rug out from under" the players unless they display a gross level of ignoring information. Debatedeus said himself that he would allow a skill check to figure out if a scheme such as a bag of holding will work or not. The mournlands is specifically not quanitfied in any way. There aren't any mechanics that govern what causes its situation in regards to healing, so logic that depends upon known planar mechanics does not necessarily have to work. The mournlands can be "special". The entire system is founded in magic, and while internal consistency is important, it should, IMHO, not outweigh properties deemed essential to a given campaign. Eberron is rife with such things, it usually just doesn't boil down to such detail- most eldritch machines, for example, violate some normal consistencies of magic. Heck, I compare it to the Shadowlands from Legends of the 5 rings. I am tempted to make the taint stay with a character for a while (except make it more treatable than shadowlands taint, which was a awful thing to get and overly hard to shake). Maybe even use a system akin to vile damage from the BoVD. Like both Mean Liar and elecgraystone are demonstrating, players are smart enough to come up with some pretty elegant solutions to problems- having to rely on essentially removing yourself from the mournlands to solve the problem however, seems more like avoiding it than solving it. I would prefer it be solvable, (at least in part) but not avoidable.
elecgraystone 08-08-04, 03:41 PM	Neither the bag of holding or the portable hole say thet they stay connected when closed. (I don't see the difference) You just assumed that they work like the rope trick spell even when they are based on different spells .(secret chest and plane shift) Rope trick stays connected! If they were build on this spell I would agree with you! Secret chest can be called back with the smaller chest. By your way the secret chest should be affected by the mournland because they are connected.(even though the connection isn't activated!) The portable hole said that you can close the opening from the inside. (fold up the hole!) If it's just a layer of leather then someone can just tear into a closed portable hole? Think of the magic items as gates to somewere else. (planer gate to one place only) opening them opens a small gate. closing them closes the gate. With no gate open, they are in a different dimension 100%. With the gate open you would get a crossover of affects. Just because the item remembers where to connect to doesn't mean that's it's always open. If the place for non-dimensional spaces stays connected all the time, then why do you run out of air? You could see the connection from the ethreal plane. And mean_liar has a point. your way works both ways. A portable hole uses plane shift. You could have it go anywere at creation. As an aside, are use going to stop teleports in and out of the mournland to keep your flavor intact. Flying ships? It's just a higher level way of getting a permanent repeatable solution to healing. I didn't address astral/ethereal travel because I wouldn't make them coterminous planes. Yes they are both non-dimensional spaces now. (damn 3.5!) You just seem to allow an extreme amount on research and planning on a place that has only been there a few years. 99%+ of people have never been there! A knowledge(planes) should tell you nothing unless you have info from someone who has been there and you connect the dots! Avoiding encounters in a place you don't know and really can't find out about isn't practical! You don't know if that new creature has blind sight, tremor sense, see inv., ect..., so invisibility can't be trusted. Same for hide/move silent. If it stays hidden, then how do you plan for something you don't know about? (see big crabs!) There are no maps of the new mournlands. (so you can get lost) You just can't plan away damage. And allowing limited use items is different then a more expensive permanent item how? Both bypass all that fullbodied flavor you want. Either make it a kill fest with no healing 100%, or allow all the ways to bypass it. Just picking one and not the other because one is permanent means you just want it stick it to your players. Buying mournland healing potions is so much better that having to cast 2 reduce person spells, climb into a haver sack with the cleric and drink your potions/cast spells once a day! (NOT!)
elecgraystone 08-08-04, 03:41 PM	Neither the bag of holding or the portable hole say thet they stay connected when closed. (I don't see the difference) You just assumed that they work like the rope trick spell even when they are based on different spells .(secret chest and plane shift) Rope trick stays connected! If they were build on this spell I would agree with you! Secret chest can be called back with the smaller chest. By your way the secret chest should be affected by the mournland because they are connected.(even though the connection isn't activated!) The portable hole said that you can close the opening from the inside. (fold up the hole!) If it's just a layer of leather then someone can just tear into a closed portable hole? Think of the magic items as gates to somewere else. (planer gate to one place only) opening them opens a small gate. closing them closes the gate. With no gate open, they are in a different dimension 100%. With the gate open you would get a crossover of affects. Just because the item remembers where to connect to doesn't mean that's it's always open. If the place for non-dimensional spaces stays connected all the time, then why do you run out of air? You could see the connection from the ethreal plane. And mean_liar has a point. your way works both ways. A portable hole uses plane shift. You could have it go anywere at creation. As an aside, are use going to stop teleports in and out of the mournland to keep your flavor intact. Flying ships? It's just a higher level way of getting a permanent repeatable solution to healing. I didn't address astral/ethereal travel because I wouldn't make them coterminous planes. Yes they are both non-dimensional spaces now. (damn 3.5!) You just seem to allow an extreme amount on research and planning on a place that has only been there a few years. 99%+ of people have never been there! A knowledge(planes) should tell you nothing unless you have info from someone who has been there and you connect the dots! Avoiding encounters in a place you don't know and really can't find out about isn't practical! You don't know if that new creature has blind sight, tremor sense, see inv., ect..., so invisibility can't be trusted. Same for hide/move silent. If it stays hidden, then how do you plan for something you don't know about? (see big crabs!) There are no maps of the new mournlands. (so you can get lost) You just can't plan away damage. And allowing limited use items is different then a more expensive permanent item how? Both bypass all that fullbodied flavor you want. Either make it a kill fest with no healing 100%, or allow all the ways to bypass it. Just picking one and not the other because one is permanent means you just want it stick it to your players. Buying mournland healing potions is so much better that having to cast 2 reduce person spells, climb into a haver sack with the cleric and drink your potions/cast spells once a day! (NOT!)
debatedeus 08-09-04, 12:18 AM	Oops, Double Post. Sorry.
debatedeus 08-09-04, 12:18 AM	Originally posted by elecgraystone Neither the bag of holding or the portable hole say thet they stay connected when closed. (I don't see the difference) You just assumed that they work like the rope trick spell even when they are based on different spells .(secret chest and plane shift) It actually doesn't say anything about whether they are connected or not when closed. This, among other things is something that the rules leave open to a DM for interpretation until the Sage tells us otherwise. Since a bag of holding can be pierced and ruined from the inside, I rule that the space that it opens into is a fifth dimension (One beyond the normal three, but containing them, and time) non-dimensional space that is at all points congruent to the material plane corresponding to the bag of holding's location. The spells don't illucidate anything on the issue, and the rules don't tell me otherwise. Originally posted by elecgraystone Rope trick stays connected! Amen. Originally posted by elecgraystone If they were build on this spell I would agree with you! Secret chest can be called back with the smaller chest. By your way the secret chest should be affected by the mournland because they are connected.(even though the connection isn't activated!) Secret Chest teleports the chest to a specific spot in the Deep Ethereal. The Deep Ethereal, by definition, isn't coterminous with the Material plane, so it wouldn't correspond to the Mournland. Originally posted by elecgraystone The portable hole said that you can close the opening from the inside. (fold up the hole!) If it's just a layer of leather then someone can just tear into a closed portable hole? Think of the magic items as gates to somewere else. (planer gate to one place only) opening them opens a small gate. closing them closes the gate. With no gate open, they are in a different dimension 100%. With the gate open you would get a crossover of affects. Just because the item remembers where to connect to doesn't mean that's it's always open. If the place for non-dimensional spaces stays connected all the time, then why do you run out of air? You could see the connection from the ethreal plane. And mean_liar has a point. your way works both ways. A portable hole uses plane shift. You could have it go anywere at creation. The portable hole is made of the hide of a monster, so I bet someone could tear through it. More importantly, someone could just unfold it. See my point above about nondimensional spaces. This space doesn't 'remember' where the hole entrance is, the entire space moves with the bag. A physical connection is not the same as the connection I'm talking about. I can see why you'd run out of air. Originally posted by elecgraystone As an aside, are use going to stop teleports in and out of the mournland to keep your flavor intact. Flying ships? It's just a higher level way of getting a permanent repeatable solution to healing. I didn't address astral/ethereal travel because I wouldn't make them coterminous planes. Yes they are both non-dimensional spaces now. (damn 3.5!) No. At that point, using a teleport spell is a decision to use a resource. A wizard giving up two 5th level spell slots to heal is a big decision, resource wise. That, and as you put it earlier, in combat healing is still limited. You should check out a DnD adventure by Monte Cook called the Black Rain on the Wizard's Website. Originally posted by elecgraystone You just seem to allow an extreme amount on research and planning on a place that has only been there a few years. 99%+ of people have never been there! A knowledge(planes) should tell you nothing unless you have info from someone who has been there and you connect the dots! Avoiding encounters in a place you don't know and really can't find out about isn't practical! The sourcebook talks about a group that goes into the Mournlands regularly to scavenge. I bet there are other people/groups who go regularly, like House Canneth. There is information out there about the Mournlands, like what it does to people, or what kinds of things live there, at least in general terms. 99%+people haven't been to Xen'drik and at least the folks at Morgrave University know something about it. In regards to Knowledge (The Planes), I think that's exactly what the check does. Do you have anything useful in your noggin combined with your Intelligence that allows you to make an educated guess? That's why knowledge checks get your Intelligence Mod as a bonus and not Wisdom. It isn't all about what you've read, but what you can do with what you've read. Originally posted by elecgraystone You don't know if that new creature has blind sight, tremor sense, see inv., ect..., so invisibility can't be trusted. Same for hide/move silent. If it stays hidden, then how do you plan for something you don't know about? (see big crabs!) No kidding. But a DM just doesn't drop new creatures on the party at every encounter. And a good DM creates suspense about a new creature, letting the party feel the heat before the DM skillfully applies it. Originally posted by elecgraystone There are no maps of the new mournlands. (so you can get lost) You just can't plan away damage. And allowing limited use items is different then a more expensive permanent item how? Both bypass all that fullbodied flavor you want. Either make it a kill fest with no healing 100%, or allow all the ways to bypass it. Just picking one and not the other because one is permanent means you just want it stick it to your players. Buying mournland healing potions is so much better that having to cast 2 reduce person spells, climb into a haver sack with the cleric and drink your potions/cast spells once a day! (NOT!) Read the very beginning of this thread. The limited use item would not be something that you could buy. It would be a complicated thing to create, requiring an adventure or two in itself to make. Also, it would have parts that are very rare and expensive. It would only have a certain number of charges, so that it wasn't a permanent solution to the mournlands. When you use a charge it would temporarily (for maybe 15 minutes) disable the lack of healing in the Mournlands so that a person could rezz their friend, or heal the party, etc etc. This doesn't get rid of the full-bodied flavor (lol, wonderful choice of words), I think it somewhat enhances it and makes the party feel special. I don't want to stick it to my players. I want a place in the game that puts the fear of the gods in them.
elecgraystone 08-15-04, 09:39 PM	Double post! Not one but three posts! Had to try seven times to post reply then it does this! Is it just me or has this place slowed down big time! I can't even get the search to work without trying 5+ times!
elecgraystone 08-15-04, 09:39 PM	Stupid forrum!
elecgraystone 08-15-04, 09:39 PM	Originally posted by debatedeus Secret Chest teleports the chest to a specific spot in the Deep Ethereal. The Deep Ethereal, by definition, isn't coterminous with the Material plane, so it wouldn't correspond to the Mournland. Why should an item based on this spell work different? [i] The portable hole is made of the hide of a monster, so I bet someone could tear through it. More importantly, someone could just unfold it.[/B] How can you tear through the hide if it has been folded up FROM THE INSIDE? Someone would have to go into the hole, unfold it, then tear it! Read the item. Hole can be picked up from INSIDE! [i] See my point above about nondimensional spaces. This space doesn't 'remember' where the hole entrance is, the entire space moves with the bag.[/B] It has to if you can PICK IT UP FROM THE INSIDE! Read DM's guide under portable hole! [i] No. At that point, using a teleport spell is a decision to use a resource. A wizard giving up two 5th level spell slots to heal is a big decision, resource wise. That, and as you put it earlier, in combat healing is still limited. You should check out a DnD adventure by Monte Cook called the Black Rain on the Wizard's Website.[/B] And 2 first level spells are a big deal fo a second level wizard! So what's your point? (reduce person to use haversack) [i] The sourcebook talks about a group that goes into the Mournlands regularly to scavenge. I bet there are other people/groups who go regularly, like House Canneth. There is information out there about the Mournlands, like what it does to people, or what kinds of things live there, at least in general terms. 99%+people haven't been to Xen'drik and at least the folks at Morgrave University know something about it. In regards to Knowledge (The Planes), I think that's exactly what the check does. Do you have anything useful in your noggin combined with your Intelligence that allows you to make an educated guess? That's why knowledge checks get your Intelligence Mod as a bonus and not Wisdom. It isn't all about what you've read, but what you can do with what you've read. [/B] Most of these groups don't stay in the mournlands long enough to worry about healing. If your making a day trip, you get out before your wounded too much. This is also a reason why there would be no good maps of the middle of it. My point is that you would have to have read it, and most of the people that are "raiding" the mornlands for profit are not the "book writing" type! [i] No kidding. But a DM just doesn't drop new creatures on the party at every encounter. And a good DM creates suspense about a new creature, letting the party feel the heat before the DM skillfully applies it.[/B] You are in a new place with new monsters. you said that you want to keep it as deadly as possible. And your going to sent the same old monsters at your party? Kill your party at home if your not using mournlands monsters! What "old" monsters are going to be living in a place where they can't heal AT ALL? [i] Read the very beginning of this thread. The limited use item would not be something that you could buy. It would be a complicated thing to create, requiring an adventure or two in itself to make. Also, it would have parts that are very rare and expensive. It would only have a certain number of charges, so that it wasn't a permanent solution to the mournlands. When you use a charge it would temporarily (for maybe 15 minutes) disable the lack of healing in the Mournlands so that a person could rezz their friend, or heal the party, etc etc. This doesn't get rid of the full-bodied flavor (lol, wonderful choice of words), I think it somewhat enhances it and makes the party feel special.[/B] Thanks! I do try! I just don't see why you have to change things around. If you want your players to WORK for the healing, just make bags of holding/portable holes hard to find. (everyone wants one) Also there is a limited amount of space in bags of holding, so unless you find a really big one, you need to reduce your self for it to work. (just restrict that spell until they "invent" it of find it. Portable holes don't need this spell but are lots of gold, and harder to find. you can keep them from entering until you want them to. (same with the teleport spells) I don't see the reason to make it a "temporary" solution. The 15 minutes a day heal is bad enough. [i] I don't want to stick it to my players. I want a place in the game that puts the fear of the gods in them. [/B] I just have to say that in all the worlds that I've either played in to ran that the players I've played with over the years would think you were sticking it to them. (more groups than I can count!) I've been at this when all we had was basic d&d. Running it the way you are thinking of is a death trap. And the way you are trying to make it less of a death trap is pushing it. Why make up a new item that will let you heal in the mournlands when there is an item NOW that will work? The Sage or WOTC hasn't said anything on this, so it SHOULD work. Now, I don't know your group. They may LIKE death traps, I can't say. If they don't mind, then do it anyway you want. (as long as it works for your group, do it!) I just know I wouldn't like it. (that goes for everyone else here that make me do the posting!) Now, I'm really not trying to change your mind, (I think we will just have to agree to disagree) I'd just like others that read this thread to see why I don't agree with you and why.
cjfodel 08-16-04, 08:50 AM	Just a question, how much would you say that the difficulty, of not being able to heal in the mornlands would affect the difficulty on an encounter in the mornlands, and what XZP bonus would you give to your PC? Charles :behold:
debatedeus 08-16-04, 11:25 AM	Originally posted by elecgraystone Why should an item based on this spell work different? It isn't an item based spell. I'm making a ruling on the bag of holding, the portable hole, and rope trick on the basis of how the items/spell are described. Secret Chest says in the description that the contents are teleported to the deep ethereal, so I don't have room to argue about it. A character can hop into a secret chest if they want, but it is an expensive use of resource to do so, moreover, there is a high chance that in doing so, the spell will fail. Originally posted by elecgraystone How can you tear through the hide if it has been folded up FROM THE INSIDE? Someone would have to go into the hole, unfold it, then tear it! Read the item. Hole can be picked up from INSIDE! It has to if you can PICK IT UP FROM THE INSIDE! Read DM's guide under portable hole! If you fold the hole up from the inside there will still be a folded up hole on the outside. Folding up the hole from the inside only means closing it. It doesn't make the entrance disappear. If the portable hole is "picked up from the inside" so as the make "the entrance disappear" the folded hole still exists on the outside. Originally posted by elecgraystone And 2 first level spells are a big deal fo a second level wizard! So what's your point? (reduce person to use haversack) First, it is a huge difference when my party is only level 3. Level 5 or more magic is way out of their ken. Does your party never think about resource expenditure in a serious way? Second, the haversack doesn't work, IMO as I've said. Electric, ultimately we agree about what this comes down to: we disagree. I am arguing for one point, you are arguing for another. We're having this conversation on the boards so that it can benefit other people. Originally posted by elecgraystone Most of these groups don't stay in the mournlands long enough to worry about healing. If your making a day trip, you get out before your wounded too much. This is also a reason why there would be no good maps of the middle of it. My point is that you would have to have read it, and most of the people that are "raiding" the mornlands for profit are not the "book writing" type! First, you don't know that. The only source we have on the subject is the ECS, and the ECS only says that these groups go in, and that recently one group encountered a living fireball and lost many members. Second, I agree that there are, and should, be no good maps of Mournlands. This is because it is too dangerous to map the center of it. Consider the following. House Canneth owns many portable holes. Why doesn't it supply an adventuring group with a portable hole, or send one of its own groups with a hole, or hire someone from house Ghalladra with a greater mark to go into Mournlands to map it? Or clean out all their major installations before scavengers do? I mean, your party isn't the only party out there that could use the methods that you champion to explore the Mournlands. If they actually work, other groups would be using them now, wouldn't they? Third, Indiana Jones was a raiding type and a book writing type. The two are not mutually exclusive. Originally posted by elecgraystone You are in a new place with new monsters. you said that you want to keep it as deadly as possible. And your going to sent the same old monsters at your party? Kill your party at home if your not using mournlands monsters! What "old" monsters are going to be living in a place where they can't heal AT ALL? First, Keith has said that monsters living in the mournlands are immune to its effects somehow. I don't know why, I don't know the details, but that's Keith's word. I can speculate, and we could have a whole thread about that, but getting into it isn't germane to the point at hand. Second, the Mournlands is a great place to put many monsters that don't have a home elsewhere that appear in core material. I would take advantage of that before I started making all new monsters. I will use Mournlands monsters like living spells, and carcass crabs. Originally posted by elecgraystone Thanks! I do try! I just don't see why you have to change things around. If you want your players to WORK for the healing, just make bags of holding/portable holes hard to find. (everyone wants one) Also there is a limited amount of space in bags of holding, so unless you find a really big one, you need to reduce your self for it to work. (just restrict that spell until they "invent" it of find it. Portable holes don't need this spell but are lots of gold, and harder to find. you can keep them from entering until you want them to. (same with the teleport spells) I don't see the reason to make it a "temporary" solution. The 15 minutes a day heal is bad enough. I'm not going to make the bags of holding any more hard to find for one small aspect of the Eberron campaign. I refuse to take a whole spell away from my players because it could be used in conjunction with an item to generate an inoperable effect (since, I don't agree that the bag of holding works). You accuse me of changing the game in making my rulings the way I make them, but the tell me to change the game to allow your rulings to survive, but to achieve my goals? That just doesn't make sense to me. The healing created by a temporary item would not be temporary. It would just create a window in which the party could get itself back together to allow them to keep going. It has limited uses because I don't want them using it after every encounter, and I don't want them to feel like they now have free reign of the Mournlands. If we go with any of your solutions to the healing problem in the Mournlands then both of these things happens. Originally posted by elecgraystone I just have to say that in all the worlds that I've either played in to ran that the players I've played with over the years would think you were sticking it to them. (more groups than I can count!) I've been at this when all we had was basic d&d. Running it the way you are thinking of is a death trap. And the way you are trying to make it less of a death trap is pushing it. Why make up a new item that will let you heal in the mournlands when there is an item NOW that will work? The Sage or WOTC hasn't said anything on this, so it SHOULD work. Now, I don't know your group. They may LIKE death traps, I can't say. If they don't mind, then do it anyway you want. (as long as it works for your group, do it!) I just know I wouldn't like it. (that goes for everyone else here that make me do the posting!) Now, I'm really not trying to change your mind, (I think we will just have to agree to disagree) I'd just like others that read this thread to see why I don't agree with you and why. First, I don't care how long you've been playing or how many campaign worlds you've seen. It doesn't matter for your arguement that you've been playing since the first edition. I only matters that you're playing now, under these rules. Your past experience would help you as a story-teller, but that doesn't mean that you have any more of a grasp on the rules as they currently stand. Second, have you ever played a Dragonlance campaign where the true clerics haven't returned yet, and magical healing is virtually non-existant. Third, the Mournlands are not necessarily a death trap, the way I'm running them. I've run them this way and they almost perfectly generate feelings in the characters that I want them to. Fourth, the item doesn't necessarily work. Your arguement is easily reversed: Since the Sage or anyone at DnD has not said that it will work, why sould it? As a DM I have a mechanic in my mind, and the items conform to that mechanic. Fifth, you aren't speaking for the masses. People disagree with you. People disagree with me. Why wouldn't you like the Mournlands how I run them? Because they are dangerous? That would be bad, wouldn't it, making adventurers take a risk for a reward.
elecgraystone 08-19-04, 02:49 PM	Originally posted by debatedeus It isn't an item based spell. I'm making a ruling on the bag of holding, the portable hole, and rope trick on the basis of how the items/spell are described. Secret Chest says in the description that the contents are teleported to the deep ethereal, so I don't have room to argue about it. A character can hop into a secret chest if they want, but it is an expensive use of resource to do so, moreover, there is a high chance that in doing so, the spell will fail. I'm just saying that the spell the item is based on tells you were it sends the chest. Why should we assume that the item does something different when the item doesn't say. The only thing we have to go on is the spell. [i]If you fold the hole up from the inside there will still be a folded up hole on the outside. Folding up the hole from the inside only means closing it. It doesn't make the entrance disappear. If the portable hole is "picked up from the inside" so as the make "the entrance disappear" the folded hole still exists on the outside. [/B] I must have missed this. I didn't see were it said that. What is the point on picking up the hole if someone on the otherside can just unfold it? [i]First, it is a huge difference when my party is only level 3. Level 5 or more magic is way out of their ken. Does your party never think about resource expenditure in a serious way? Second, the haversack doesn't work, IMO as I've said. Electric, ultimately we agree about what this comes down to: we disagree. I am arguing for one point, you are arguing for another. We're having this conversation on the boards so that it can benefit other people. [QUOTE][i] We think about resource expenditure in a serious way. I was not kidding about 2 second level spells being a big deal. This means that the wizard just had cantrips in the mounlands! [QUOTE][i]First, you don't know that. The only source we have on the subject is the ECS, and the ECS only says that these groups go in, and that recently one group encountered a living fireball and lost many members. Second, I agree that there are, and should, be no good maps of Mournlands. This is because it is too dangerous to map the center of it. Consider the following. House Canneth owns many portable holes. Why doesn't it supply an adventuring group with a portable hole, or send one of its own groups with a hole, or hire someone from house Ghalladra with a greater mark to go into Mournlands to map it? Or clean out all their major installations before scavengers do? I mean, your party isn't the only party out there that could use the methods that you champion to explore the Mournlands. If they actually work, other groups would be using them now, wouldn't they? Third, Indiana Jones was a raiding type and a book writing type. The two are not mutually exclusive. [QUOTE][i] #1 I'm just using logic. I may be wrong, but that is the only way I can see it working. #2 They may. A good reason to restrict portable holes. The mounlands are STILL dangerous! And there is no reason that house Cannith KNOWS where all it's installations are. The main house was in the mounlands. Between lost records and secret places, it will take a long time for them to explore even with my method. #3 True. There are always exceptions! Just don't count on them. Also raiders for profit don't want others knowing theie secrets! [QUOTE][i]First, Keith has said that monsters living in the mournlands are immune to its effects somehow. I don't know why, I don't know the details, but that's Keith's word. I can speculate, and we could have a whole thread about that, but getting into it isn't germane to the point at hand. Second, the Mournlands is a great place to put many monsters that don't have a home elsewhere that appear in core material. I would take advantage of that before I started making all new monsters. I will use Mournlands monsters like living spells, and carcass crabs. [QUOTE][i] I don't get it either, but OK. My point is that if you put monsters that don't have a place, then you are making them "mournlands monsters" (show up only there) Your players shouldn't know any more about them then "new" monsters. They shouldn't be able to plan for them anymore than they should be able to plan for the eberron only monsters. (they don't KNOW about them) [QUOTE][i]I'm not going to make the bags of holding any more hard to find for one small aspect of the Eberron campaign. I refuse to take a whole spell away from my players because it could be used in conjunction with an item to generate an inoperable effect (since, I don't agree that the bag of holding works). You accuse me of changing the game in making my rulings the way I make them, but the tell me to change the game to allow your rulings to survive, but to achieve my goals? That just doesn't make sense to me. [QUOTE][i] There would be no change in game ruling. The DM always places items for the characters to find and sets the avalibility of items they want to buy. Same goes for the spell picks. If no one has it, then no one can teach it. I was just pointing out that if you wanted to restrict your players from going into the mournlands until they get high enough that you can do it WITHOUT having to make new stuff up. You could just use what is already in the game that works. (if you agreed that bags of holding work) [QUOTE][i]The healing created by a temporary item would not be temporary. It would just create a window in which the party could get itself back together to allow them to keep going. It has limited uses because I don't want them using it after every encounter, and I don't want them to feel like they now have free reign of the Mournlands. If we go with any of your solutions to the healing problem in the Mournlands then both of these things happens. [QUOTE][i] You seem to discount the great loss of spells this means for a wizard unless they have a portable hole. 2 first level spells gets 2 people healed in a group. That's only once a day! You still have to manage healing very close. In your third level group, this means that with a group of 4, they could get healed once a day, and most likely not to full. And if the wizard gets knocked out, then no more healing. (he has the reduce spells) This is no way the free ride you seem to think it is. It's not like a teleport. [QUOTE][i]First, I don't care how long you've been playing or how many campaign worlds you've seen. It doesn't matter for your arguement that you've been playing since the first edition. I only matters that you're playing now, under these rules. Your past experience would help you as a story-teller, but that doesn't mean that you have any more of a grasp on the rules as they currently stand. Second, have you ever played a Dragonlance campaign where the true clerics haven't returned yet, and magical healing is virtually non-existant. Third, the Mournlands are not necessarily a death trap, the way I'm running them. I've run them this way and they almost perfectly generate feelings in the characters that I want them to. Fourth, the item doesn't necessarily work. Your arguement is easily reversed: Since the Sage or anyone at DnD has not said that it will work, why sould it? As a DM I have a mechanic in my mind, and the items conform to that mechanic. Fifth, you aren't speaking for the masses. People disagree with you. People disagree with me. Why wouldn't you like the Mournlands how I run them? Because they are dangerous? That would be bad, wouldn't it, making adventurers take a risk for a reward. [/B] #1 I said that to show that I've played with a lot of people, not that I have a greater insight into the game. #2 (makes a cross sign over chest and pull out holy symbol!) Back foul beasts. The power of god compells you! Sorry, BAD flashbacks! I really, really, really,really, really, really hate that game! Not because of the healing. (there were still ways to heal) Kender should be put in a pit and burned alive! Sorry, more flashbacks! #3 Cool. As I said, if your players are OK with it then go for it. #4 I look at it the other way, but I've gone over that. Stay with your idea if it works. #5 I'm just speaking for the masses I know. I still talk to most of the people I've gamed with over the years. All the ones I've talk to on this have agreed with me. That's all. I've seen on the posts that others have agreed with you. I don't like your ruling on the mounlands because I don't think it's fair. Dangerous is fine. (I've been in my share of those, and survived a few!) I don't like it when someone makes an add on rule to make a characters life harder for (in my opinion) no good reason. I see the mournlands as very dangerous using my method. You see the mournlands as not dangerous enough! (shudder) Even hellcow said that they were thinking of changing the way healing works in the mournland. Shouldn't that tell you something!
Magagumo 08-19-04, 04:00 PM	Hmm, but Keith didn't necessarily agree that they should change the ruling (I suppose he isn't permitted to say one way or another). But considering his general enthusiasm for the Mournlands published effects, I would think it preferable to keep it a "death trap." Obviously, this is just my opinion, but I am getting crotchety in my "old age" (3 yrs of gaming ;)) and have begun to prefer exquisite flavor (like no healing, no way, no how) over ducking and manipulating rules-mechanics.
Edymnion 08-19-04, 04:41 PM	I gotta say that I LIKE the no-healing of the Mournlands. Its a region where even EPIC level characters would fear to go. When I run my Eberron game, NOTHING will let you heal in the Mournlands. If you're a Warforged, you can still be repaired, but no fleshy healing at all will work. Not even Epic level magical healing would function in the Mournland. And if the players don't like it, well, stay out of the mournlands!
gamemaster000 08-19-04, 05:57 PM	I like the idea of a nasty (super hard) zone like Mournland. However, it may be imposible to do anything in if all of the "work arounds" are disallowed though. Just hire a team of Warforged to go in there and do your work for you! *slaps them on the back* "Good luck guys!" :D
Edymnion 08-19-04, 09:17 PM	Originally posted by gamemaster000 I like the idea of a nasty (super hard) zone like Mournland. However, it may be imposible to do anything in if all of the "work arounds" are disallowed though. Well, the idea is that the fleshies don't just go in there and fight anything they see. The party has got to be VERY careful to only pick fights they know they can win without getting hurt. If they just blunder through the place and fight anything and everything you put out there, it'll be their own durned fault when they die. You either fight smart, or you die. I LOVE the Mournlands for that simple fact. There is no room for being sloppy, the "I charge it!" tactic doesn't work, and it makes the Players use their brains instead of just trying to kill anything that moves.
Aiden2 08-19-04, 09:36 PM	okay, I don't have a copy of the Eberron book, and our GM is a bit paranoid, which, coupled with the fact that things seem to deteriorate whenever I touch them, means I have not read the Eberron setting beyond the statistics I needed for my character, so I had not heard that the Mournland inhibited magical healing (and apparrently, neither had he, because my party just traversed the mournlands longwise, healing all the way.) and had a question: does it affect the "repair" spell chain? Because, as a Warforged, that's my primary concern. Thanks, ~Aiden...:turkey:
Marshall Stone 08-20-04, 01:51 AM	Originally posted by Aiden2 okay, I don't have a copy of the Eberron book, and our GM is a bit paranoid, which, coupled with the fact that things seem to deteriorate whenever I touch them, means I have not read the Eberron setting beyond the statistics I needed for my character, so I had not heard that the Mournland inhibited magical healing (and apparrently, neither had he, because my party just traversed the mournlands longwise, healing all the way.) and had a question: does it affect the "repair" spell chain? Because, as a Warforged, that's my primary concern. Thanks, ~Aiden...:turkey: As it is generally understood, naturally healing, super-nautural healing, spells and or spell-like affects with the healing sub-school (both magic and psionics) do Not work while in the Mournlands. However the "repair" spell chain, not being of the healing sub-school (If I remember correctly) is not affected and therefore can be used at 100% to repair warforged. On a side note: Various people have suggested various work arounds for healing in the mournlands. From new magical items like the Tear of Cyre, to elaborate uses of telaport to move in and out of the Mournlands. Personally I have no problem with my players casting Rope Trick, climbing into an extradimensional space, and therefore not be in the Mournlands anymore, and then heal. Unfortunately none of my players have thought of this, but that only makes it all the more fun.
elecgraystone 08-24-04, 01:53 PM	Originally posted by Edymnion Well, the idea is that the fleshies don't just go in there and fight anything they see. The party has got to be VERY careful to only pick fights they know they can win without getting hurt. If they just blunder through the place and fight anything and everything you put out there, it'll be their own durned fault when they die. You either fight smart, or you die. I LOVE the Mournlands for that simple fact. There is no room for being sloppy, the "I charge it!" tactic doesn't work, and it makes the Players use their brains instead of just trying to kill anything that moves. I've never had an adventure where I could get through the adventure by only fight monsters I could beat without injury. What monster do you know that has no chance of hurting the party? (20 always hits!) I don't like it because there is NO room for error. A missed trap or an unseen monster could spell death. Bad rolls for the players or good rolls for the monsters can ruin the best of plans. By no error on the parties part(just bad dice), they could all end up DEAD! With NO healing that lucky crit KEEPS your fighter down. The hidden monster no one could see(bad rolls) knocks your wizard down before you can do ANYTHING! The only way I can see the mournlands working as-is with NO way of healing is with teleport spells or a flying ship. Take the crabs that put bodies on there shell. Very high hide check. Good chance that no one will see it until it attacks. Good chance for death with no chance for that GOOD planning! I don't mind tough or hard, I just don't like having to be LUCKY!