Mortal rank -- like divine rank, but for mortals! - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Mortal rank -- like divine rank, but for mortals!

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
julescarv
May 26, 2008 18:28:07 I'm thinking that there could be some statistic that's kinda like divine rank, but would apply to everyone (actually, mortal rank is a misnomer, because deities could have one too -- albeit a high one). I'm not really sure why I had this idea, or even if I'd actually implement it in a game, but I just thought I'd post it anyway, just to see if I could get some of the kinks and inadvertent implications worked out.

To simplify, mortal rank's importance would be relative: the relationship between someone with a mortal rank of 3 and someone with a mortal rank of 1 would be the same as the relationship between someone with a mortal rank of 6 and someone with a mortal rank of 4.

Mortal Rank:

1. Commoners, prey animals other than mounts (rabbits, cattle, etc), most ordinary vermin (spiders, etc).

2. Warriors (town guards, goons, etc), predatory animals (wolves) and mounts (horses), officials/aristocrats, exceptionally wealthy merchants, minor monsters like mindless undead.

3. Typical low-to-mid-level PCs, powerful monsters, major adverseries.

4. Powerful outsiders, demigods, superheroes and supervillains, high-to-epic-level PCs

5. Typical deities or major cosmic forces

6. Overdeity

Mortal Rank's importance is in the difference:

If the MR difference is at least 1:
-The higher ranked character does maximized damage.

-In opposed skill checks, the higher ranked character is considered to have rolled a 20.

-The lower ranked character does nonlethal damage

-The lower ranked character is considered to have rolled no higher than 10 on any save against an effect by a higher ranked character.

If the MR difference is at least 2:
-The higher ranked character can kill the lower ranked character with a glance, so long as the lower ranked character is within visual range, as a swift or move-equivalent action.

-The higher ranked character automatically succeeds on all opposed skill checks with the lower ranked character, regardless of modifiers.

-The higher ranked character is always considered to have rolled at least a 10 on any save against an effect by the lower ranked character.

-The lower ranked character automatically fails any save against an effect by a higher ranked cahracter.

-The lower ranked character only hits in an attack roll on a natural 20.

If the MR difference is at least 3:
-The higher ranked character is considered to have the following spell-like abilities at-will against the lower ranked character, with no save: charm monster, dominate monster, harm, heal, regenerate, resurrection. Caster level equals higher ranked character's hit dice.

-The higher ranked character always succeeds on any save against any effect by the lower ranked character.

-The higher ranked character can kill the lower ranked character at will, but the higher ranked character no longer needs to be able to see the lower ranked character, so long as the higher ranked character has the lower ranked one clearly in mind, and can do so as a free action, with no limited on the number of times this can be done in a single round.

-The lower ranked character only does damage on a confirmed critical in which maximum damage is rolled. (i.e., two consecutive 20s, followed by, in the case of, for instance, a longsword, two 8s on the two d8 rolls) Even then, damage is reduced to 1 point.

UPDATE 6-04-08: Added stipulations that lower ranked characters need natural 20s to hit if MR difference is 2, and need to roll a critical with maximum damage if MR difference is 3.
#2
rhialto
May 27, 2008 2:15:31 Ooh, my first level rogue can now kill anything from small insects up to that store clerk who shortchanged her, just with a mean stare! Awesome.
#3
julescarv
May 28, 2008 0:50:16 Cool. What do you think the best applications of the death-glance ability would be for day-to-day adventuring? The two that come to mind for me are hunting (killing a deer for food or the like, without having to hunt it down with a bow) and stealthy killing of low-MR types when a more conventional killing would attract attention -- like, you're undercover agents operating in a tyranny, and your informan innkeeper has discovered this and is going to inform on you, and killing him would ordinarily attract attention if you used a sword or the like, but if no one knows you're MR 3 types (or, at any rate, the sort of people with that ability), you could use the death glance to silence him and it would seem to everyone but you that he'd just had a heart attack or something.
#4
bahamut920
May 28, 2008 23:55:34 I dunno. I could see this being used in a campaign where the PCs are supposed to be some form of superhero right off the bat (PCs of any level being at least MR 3 makes them rediculously more powerful than "generic" NPCs right off the bat). Under this system, a single 1st-level adventurer could probably take over a small town. Maybe a large one if he played it smart. Higher-level characters who have a bit more resistance could walk into a large city and just take down anyone who opposes them until they own the place. I was typing this long explanation about how a 7th-level warblade could take over a small city, but it's unneccesary. Yeah, this system is only for if you want superhero PCs, something like gestalt games. The PCs are really above and beyond normal human beings, something like the X-Men, only more so. It would throw off game balance, but if you can adjust for it, I can see it being fun. Of course, you'd have to explain why high-ML monsters haven't simply overrun all of these pathetic mortal humans whom they can kill at a glance. Maybe better is to only have the BBEGs that the PCs face (and the PCs themselves, as well as a few, isolated NPC adventurers) have a ML above, say, 2. That way, verisimilitude AND game balance are maintained. You have the important ML 3 baddies that the PCs are supposed to have trouble with, and their ML 2 mooks who go down easily due to power difference. Maybe at higher MLs, you can allow the PCs to perform a ritual which raises an NPCs ML (at cost, and no higher than one ML lower than theirs), so that henchmen and cohorts don't fall victim to the BBEG's death gaze.
#5
rhialto
May 29, 2008 3:20:58 Best bit is, once you hit high level, say, level 15 or so, you can commit genocide against an entire continent just by thinking about it.

And then ressurect them all just as soon as you can get round to visiting them all. Is the ressurection at will ability limited to visual range, or do you just need to have a specific person in mind?
#6
julescarv
Jun 02, 2008 23:18:05 Thanks for the thoughts, bahamut920. I guess my idea is that basically if, say, a city is worth taking over in the eyes of some MR 3+ being or the like, it gets taken over. If not -- say, if it's an impoverished hamlet of no strategic or economic value -- then it might retain its autonomy. You seem to be saying that for a setting to retain verisimitude, MR 1-2 beings can't generally be under the domination of MR 3+ beings. I'm not exactly sure why, though: whose to say cities aren't generally "overrun" by MR 3s, if they're valuable enough?

Best bit is, once you hit high level, say, level 15 or so, you can commit genocide against an entire continent just by thinking about it.

And then ressurect them all just as soon as you can get round to visiting them all. Is the ressurection at will ability limited to visual range, or do you just need to have a specific person in mind?

Hm... neat idea, but I fear that the rules for MR difference 3+ beings may not allow it. Unless you could clearly think of each and every inhabitant of a continent, it wouldn't work. You don't need to know their names if you know their faces, and you don't need to know their faces if you know their names, but at any rate you have to have some clear idea of who you're thinking of. You can't kill every MR 1 being on Khorvaire -- you have to kill Harie Macsar the Waitress. If you can think of, say, a few thousand people you want dead, then you coudl do that, but I doubt you could remember all of the inhabitants you wanted to kill of a whole continent.

However, maybe that would work for MR differences of 4+? Or do you think that 3+ MR differences should be revised to allow the "kill everyone on a given continent" scenario? I'm thinking that maybe, whether as a revision or an addition for larger MR differences, it could be, instead of having to clearly have a person in mind, you have to think of a specific category (i.e. "people on Khorvaire," "adult male orcs," "elves over 300 years in age," etc, or just "every MR 1 being in the world," if you had some reason to want to.).

As for the resurrection SLA, it's an SLA of the "resurrection" spell, so it has a range of touch. Furthermore, using it takes 10 minutes. Maybe it could be made infinite range and a shorter action time with MR 4+ differences?

Thanks for the ideas, ya'll. Sorry I haven't gotten around to replying until now.
#7
bahamut920
Jun 08, 2008 17:21:59 Well, my point is, if high-level monsters have higher ML in addition to Hit Dice and their normal powers and abilities, then why hasn't a ML 4 or 5 dragon just wandered over to a city, Death-Gazed all of its inhabitants, and taken their stuff back to its lair?

I'd honestly say that MLs over one should reserved for great heroes (or villains) and can only be bestowed by divine beings or beings of higher MLs. Maybe you should just change how divine ranks work, making these "mortal levels" actually divine ranks, and these beings are simply semidivine creatures. Give more and more powers based on the difference between divine ranks, instead of actual divine rank, and more divine ranks are required to actually achieve full divine status. This has a side-effect of making the gods more powerful, but I don't think most DMs would have a problem with that...

In fact, I can see a system like this working quite well for a "Godswar" campaign, where the deities choose champions (some of whom "just happen" to be the PCs) and have them duke it out, with the winners becoming demigods or lesser deities themselves.
#8
m-bark
Jun 12, 2008 12:11:09 So this is what happens if one would try to make Deathnotes in DnD?
#9
ORC_Nashira
Jun 17, 2008 6:35:33 Moved at VCL request.
#10
julescarv
Jun 17, 2008 15:41:23
Well, my point is, if high-level monsters have higher ML in addition to Hit Dice and their normal powers and abilities, then why hasn't a ML 4 or 5 dragon just wandered over to a city, Death-Gazed all of its inhabitants, and taken their stuff back to its lair?

Hmm... I'd say that it would be an awful lot of work. Killing everyone's easy, but the gold and jewels that a dragon's interested in are scattered throughout a bunch of bedrooms, corpses, etc.

I'd say it would be more practical for the dragon to tell the people of the city "give me all of your treasure." Then, if they don't do it, kill, say, 5% of them. Then ask again.

So, I suppose MR 1 people generally do what MR 4s tell them to, assuming they're intelligent enough to comprehend orders. That doesn't seem inappropriate, though.
#11
julescarv
May 04, 2009 19:00:22 I've been thinking about how to 4e-ify these rules.

Maybe for "The lower ranked character is considered to have rolled no higher than 10 on any save against an effect by a higher ranked character," we could substitute "The higher ranked character is considered to have rolled no lower than a 10 on any attack against the lower ranked character."

For the stipulation that lower-ranked characters do nonlethal damage, I'm not sure.

For the "swift or move-equivalent" ability to kill lower-ranked characters with a glance, that can just be a minor action.

Thee spell-like abilities from MR differences of 3+ would need to be altered quite a bit.
#12
cyberianhusky
May 06, 2009 7:40:51 Mortals already have something like this : its called 'levels'.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 julescarv May 26, 2008 18:28:07	I'm thinking that there could be some statistic that's kinda like divine rank, but would apply to everyone (actually, mortal rank is a misnomer, because deities could have one too -- albeit a high one). I'm not really sure why I had this idea, or even if I'd actually implement it in a game, but I just thought I'd post it anyway, just to see if I could get some of the kinks and inadvertent implications worked out. To simplify, mortal rank's importance would be relative: the relationship between someone with a mortal rank of 3 and someone with a mortal rank of 1 would be the same as the relationship between someone with a mortal rank of 6 and someone with a mortal rank of 4. Mortal Rank: 1. Commoners, prey animals other than mounts (rabbits, cattle, etc), most ordinary vermin (spiders, etc). 2. Warriors (town guards, goons, etc), predatory animals (wolves) and mounts (horses), officials/aristocrats, exceptionally wealthy merchants, minor monsters like mindless undead. 3. Typical low-to-mid-level PCs, powerful monsters, major adverseries. 4. Powerful outsiders, demigods, superheroes and supervillains, high-to-epic-level PCs 5. Typical deities or major cosmic forces 6. Overdeity Mortal Rank's importance is in the difference: If the MR difference is at least 1: -The higher ranked character does maximized damage. -In opposed skill checks, the higher ranked character is considered to have rolled a 20. -The lower ranked character does nonlethal damage -The lower ranked character is considered to have rolled no higher than 10 on any save against an effect by a higher ranked character. If the MR difference is at least 2: -The higher ranked character can kill the lower ranked character with a glance, so long as the lower ranked character is within visual range, as a swift or move-equivalent action. -The higher ranked character automatically succeeds on all opposed skill checks with the lower ranked character, regardless of modifiers. -The higher ranked character is always considered to have rolled at least a 10 on any save against an effect by the lower ranked character. -The lower ranked character automatically fails any save against an effect by a higher ranked cahracter. -The lower ranked character only hits in an attack roll on a natural 20. If the MR difference is at least 3: -The higher ranked character is considered to have the following spell-like abilities at-will against the lower ranked character, with no save: charm monster, dominate monster, harm, heal, regenerate, resurrection. Caster level equals higher ranked character's hit dice. -The higher ranked character always succeeds on any save against any effect by the lower ranked character. -The higher ranked character can kill the lower ranked character at will, but the higher ranked character no longer needs to be able to see the lower ranked character, so long as the higher ranked character has the lower ranked one clearly in mind, and can do so as a free action, with no limited on the number of times this can be done in a single round. -The lower ranked character only does damage on a confirmed critical in which maximum damage is rolled. (i.e., two consecutive 20s, followed by, in the case of, for instance, a longsword, two 8s on the two d8 rolls) Even then, damage is reduced to 1 point. UPDATE 6-04-08: Added stipulations that lower ranked characters need natural 20s to hit if MR difference is 2, and need to roll a critical with maximum damage if MR difference is 3.
#2 rhialto May 27, 2008 2:15:31	Ooh, my first level rogue can now kill anything from small insects up to that store clerk who shortchanged her, just with a mean stare! Awesome.
#3 julescarv May 28, 2008 0:50:16	Cool. What do you think the best applications of the death-glance ability would be for day-to-day adventuring? The two that come to mind for me are hunting (killing a deer for food or the like, without having to hunt it down with a bow) and stealthy killing of low-MR types when a more conventional killing would attract attention -- like, you're undercover agents operating in a tyranny, and your informan innkeeper has discovered this and is going to inform on you, and killing him would ordinarily attract attention if you used a sword or the like, but if no one knows you're MR 3 types (or, at any rate, the sort of people with that ability), you could use the death glance to silence him and it would seem to everyone but you that he'd just had a heart attack or something.
#4 bahamut920 May 28, 2008 23:55:34	I dunno. I could see this being used in a campaign where the PCs are supposed to be some form of superhero right off the bat (PCs of any level being at least MR 3 makes them rediculously more powerful than "generic" NPCs right off the bat). Under this system, a single 1st-level adventurer could probably take over a small town. Maybe a large one if he played it smart. Higher-level characters who have a bit more resistance could walk into a large city and just take down anyone who opposes them until they own the place. I was typing this long explanation about how a 7th-level warblade could take over a small city, but it's unneccesary. Yeah, this system is only for if you want superhero PCs, something like gestalt games. The PCs are really above and beyond normal human beings, something like the X-Men, only more so. It would throw off game balance, but if you can adjust for it, I can see it being fun. Of course, you'd have to explain why high-ML monsters haven't simply overrun all of these pathetic mortal humans whom they can kill at a glance. Maybe better is to only have the BBEGs that the PCs face (and the PCs themselves, as well as a few, isolated NPC adventurers) have a ML above, say, 2. That way, verisimilitude AND game balance are maintained. You have the important ML 3 baddies that the PCs are supposed to have trouble with, and their ML 2 mooks who go down easily due to power difference. Maybe at higher MLs, you can allow the PCs to perform a ritual which raises an NPCs ML (at cost, and no higher than one ML lower than theirs), so that henchmen and cohorts don't fall victim to the BBEG's death gaze.
#5 rhialto May 29, 2008 3:20:58	Best bit is, once you hit high level, say, level 15 or so, you can commit genocide against an entire continent just by thinking about it. And then ressurect them all just as soon as you can get round to visiting them all. Is the ressurection at will ability limited to visual range, or do you just need to have a specific person in mind?
#6 julescarv Jun 02, 2008 23:18:05	Thanks for the thoughts, bahamut920. I guess my idea is that basically if, say, a city is worth taking over in the eyes of some MR 3+ being or the like, it gets taken over. If not -- say, if it's an impoverished hamlet of no strategic or economic value -- then it might retain its autonomy. You seem to be saying that for a setting to retain verisimitude, MR 1-2 beings can't generally be under the domination of MR 3+ beings. I'm not exactly sure why, though: whose to say cities aren't generally "overrun" by MR 3s, if they're valuable enough? Best bit is, once you hit high level, say, level 15 or so, you can commit genocide against an entire continent just by thinking about it. And then ressurect them all just as soon as you can get round to visiting them all. Is the ressurection at will ability limited to visual range, or do you just need to have a specific person in mind? Hm... neat idea, but I fear that the rules for MR difference 3+ beings may not allow it. Unless you could clearly think of each and every inhabitant of a continent, it wouldn't work. You don't need to know their names if you know their faces, and you don't need to know their faces if you know their names, but at any rate you have to have some clear idea of who you're thinking of. You can't kill every MR 1 being on Khorvaire -- you have to kill Harie Macsar the Waitress. If you can think of, say, a few thousand people you want dead, then you coudl do that, but I doubt you could remember all of the inhabitants you wanted to kill of a whole continent. However, maybe that would work for MR differences of 4+? Or do you think that 3+ MR differences should be revised to allow the "kill everyone on a given continent" scenario? I'm thinking that maybe, whether as a revision or an addition for larger MR differences, it could be, instead of having to clearly have a person in mind, you have to think of a specific category (i.e. "people on Khorvaire," "adult male orcs," "elves over 300 years in age," etc, or just "every MR 1 being in the world," if you had some reason to want to.). As for the resurrection SLA, it's an SLA of the "resurrection" spell, so it has a range of touch. Furthermore, using it takes 10 minutes. Maybe it could be made infinite range and a shorter action time with MR 4+ differences? Thanks for the ideas, ya'll. Sorry I haven't gotten around to replying until now.
#7 bahamut920 Jun 08, 2008 17:21:59	Well, my point is, if high-level monsters have higher ML in addition to Hit Dice and their normal powers and abilities, then why hasn't a ML 4 or 5 dragon just wandered over to a city, Death-Gazed all of its inhabitants, and taken their stuff back to its lair? I'd honestly say that MLs over one should reserved for great heroes (or villains) and can only be bestowed by divine beings or beings of higher MLs. Maybe you should just change how divine ranks work, making these "mortal levels" actually divine ranks, and these beings are simply semidivine creatures. Give more and more powers based on the difference between divine ranks, instead of actual divine rank, and more divine ranks are required to actually achieve full divine status. This has a side-effect of making the gods more powerful, but I don't think most DMs would have a problem with that... In fact, I can see a system like this working quite well for a "Godswar" campaign, where the deities choose champions (some of whom "just happen" to be the PCs) and have them duke it out, with the winners becoming demigods or lesser deities themselves.
#8 m-bark Jun 12, 2008 12:11:09	So this is what happens if one would try to make Deathnotes in DnD?
#9 ORC_Nashira Jun 17, 2008 6:35:33	Moved at VCL request.
#10 julescarv Jun 17, 2008 15:41:23	Well, my point is, if high-level monsters have higher ML in addition to Hit Dice and their normal powers and abilities, then why hasn't a ML 4 or 5 dragon just wandered over to a city, Death-Gazed all of its inhabitants, and taken their stuff back to its lair? Hmm... I'd say that it would be an awful lot of work. Killing everyone's easy, but the gold and jewels that a dragon's interested in are scattered throughout a bunch of bedrooms, corpses, etc. I'd say it would be more practical for the dragon to tell the people of the city "give me all of your treasure." Then, if they don't do it, kill, say, 5% of them. Then ask again. So, I suppose MR 1 people generally do what MR 4s tell them to, assuming they're intelligent enough to comprehend orders. That doesn't seem inappropriate, though.
#11 julescarv May 04, 2009 19:00:22	I've been thinking about how to 4e-ify these rules. Maybe for "The lower ranked character is considered to have rolled no higher than 10 on any save against an effect by a higher ranked character," we could substitute "The higher ranked character is considered to have rolled no lower than a 10 on any attack against the lower ranked character." For the stipulation that lower-ranked characters do nonlethal damage, I'm not sure. For the "swift or move-equivalent" ability to kill lower-ranked characters with a glance, that can just be a minor action. Thee spell-like abilities from MR differences of 3+ would need to be altered quite a bit.
#12 cyberianhusky May 06, 2009 7:40:51	Mortals already have something like this : its called 'levels'.