Well, first, the concept of witch-burning and angry mobs more or less goes away. In our world, it is not a foregone conclusion that the old woman or strange outsider hauled in front of the village tribunal does not have the capacity to bind Amon, the Void Before the Altar, to her very soul, or manifest Psionic Dimension Door, or cast Circle of Death in the middle of the courtroom. In a realm with magic, trying to arrest people for the crime of witchcraft is like trying to give a traffic ticket to a M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank: it only works if the people in the tank decide to let it work.
What about epidemics? They're not much of a threat, given the way disease is handled in D&D. For another, the presence of druids, clerics, and paladins mean that sudden, effective response to outbreaks can happen, and the existence of divination magics means that it is very likely that a few moderately-leveled divine casters will know where they need to go and when they need to be there.
But all of these things are more or less piddling. What happens when a 20th-level wizard moves into a city? The city cannot effectively tax him, or limit his behavior in any meaningful way; unless the city is already full of heroes. The wizard can simply ignore any edicts he disagrees with and magically slay any civic officials that irritate him. By this point, the wizard is almost certainly sleeping in extradimensional spaces, or possibly is saving a teleport each day to end up in a safe lair to rest. If he's reasonably intelligent, he simply can't be caught with his pants down (or robe up, as the case may be). Moreover, any actual attempt to thwart him may very well result in a few Walls of Fire along the most flammable sections of the city and Walls of Stone plugging the city gates. A high-level caster has the power of a modern nation-state, and needs to be treated as such.
In our world, the fundamental exercise of power is a large number people with guns. In our world, any person, no matter how heroic, will be shot. We don't read in the news about how a bank robber ripped his way into the vault with his bare hands, stuck around to slay the SWAT team and also killed an additional 40 police officers on the side for the XP. And yet, this sort of thing is expected in the D&D world.
You could try to include civic heroes, of course. You can say that the Commander of the Watch of the city is the equal to a war hero in combat experience. You can posit that there's an even higher-level wizard that works for the king and defends his lands as best he can.
But if this wizard exists, what other sign of him is there? Is the wizard cranking out wondrous architecture to benefit the country? Is he making use of permanent--and instantaneous--duration spells to benefit the kingdom's economy? What signs of this enormously-powerful wizard exist in the world? No, including high-level members of the world breaks the status quo just as much as high-level PCs.
Either you can adapt your world to accept powerful magic-users. You can put low-level wizards in every town, and have knowledge of the broad capacity of magic to be common. But if you do so, then you radically alter the dynamic of the world right there. In short, if you play in 'standard' medieval-esque setting, accept the fact that the first character, PC or NPC, of a high CR will be able to drastically alter the world at will.
There are two solutions, in my mind. One is to ignore it, as most of the D&D material does. This creates a world that largely "works" but lacks any sort of realism. The other is to follow the evolution of the world with magic. Doing this, i think you can end up with one of four things: a world where magic is wiped out, a world where there is some other powerful force that vies with magic for dominance, a world where magic is incredibly common (read EVERYONE casts spells) or a world that is ruled utterly by an immortal council of Mages.
Personally, I prefer breaking the realism in my fantasy games so that I don’t have to do the extra work, but you're free to follow any of these paths for your campaign.
First off, yes it is difficult to arrest manifesters of supernatural powers if they don’t want to. But depending on the setting, the townsfolk themselves might have limited means to deal with it somewhat, or as it more often happens, a band of merry travelers (read adventurers) happens by, and ends up helping. But, as a rule, whether the manifesters are more or less powerful than the townsfolk/adventurers/whomever, the attempting capturers will have to use brains to assure the capture. It is often surprising how little investment is usually required to capture a manifester. Stealth, guile and preparation can bring even the mightiest low. And also, when all else fails, never underestimate the power of an angry mob.
As to epidemics, you are completely correct, but only if you count upon the benevolence of the divine spellcasters. And as a rule the clergy are an introspective, slow and greedy lot, especially the more the world resembles the real medieval age. They will normally charge for their services, and the charge will often be too high for the common rabble, whom will then have to ride the epidemic out. The rich and mighty are usually the only ones whom have the funds for it.
And at some point the epidemic is so widespread that the clergy simply cannot do anything to stop it, no matter how much they might by then want to. So basic human nature will usually aid the epidemics.
As for the other divine spellcasters, the druids will be far too busy hugging their trees, and keeping their animals safe and in good health. And face it, paladins just aren't equipped for that kind of job... They need to go "kick a** in the name of the Lord (or Lady)", as that is what they can do, and leave the healing to primary divine spellcasters.
Now for your tricky point. Yes, as levels accumulate, any character will notice that the respect for, and obedience to, for example city-watch and the like will become more and more dependent upon his well-willing. And if it doesn't suit him do "play nice," he can simply raze the entire city at will... But as these characters grow in power, they should also realize that they shouldn’t do that. This is actually best answered by another question: Why doesn’t the epic wizard and his old adventuring buddies, the supreme rulers of Blargh send their army against the mighty horde from Wugga-bugga, instead of just gearing up, and obliterate the enemy before tea-time?
That is because the most powerful people in the realms simply KNOW that if they interfere personally, others of opposite ideology will do the same. It will be a cascading effect that will draw all the mortal powers into a conflict that might not end before their world simply is no more!
Therefore, many of the personally most powerful are also the most law-abiding (although they usually are rulers or the like). Due process must be followed. So these powers will in various ways usually make sure that this realization dawns upon the ones coming to their power in some way or another. And if someone repeatedly transgresses upon this understanding, well, let’s just say that even mortal enemies sometimes find a common cause.
What is really important in this is that the players gets to realize that as they raise in levels and power, they must think more and more about when and where to act. As more and more options open before them, they must also realize and accept that some options will forever become closed to them, and must be left to the younger and less experienced, simply to not disrupt the balance of things. So as they gain power and minions, they must use them, and be willing to let them die if needs be. Such is the cost of power.
But then again, is magic really all that powerful vs a city? A fireball is instant death in a 20' radius for commoners. In real terms, it's the equivalent of toting round some real-world grenades. It will mess up a monster, and allow you to dominate a village but would it really hand you rulership of a city?
Real world events occurring now suggest that raw firepower will not subjugate a people, that you cannot govern without legitimacy of some sort. Imagine a real D&D wizard with a real D&D wizard's power landing in merry old London - a city of hundreds of thousands. Even with all that Blammo, he's not going to make himself ruler without some political nous.
I rather like Terry Pratchett's solution. Yes, the wizards wield awesome power. But being that powerful makes you uninterested in ruling. A wizard, who to be a wizard must spend hours in arcane research each day, why on earth would he want to be settling disputes regarding dog licensing laws? At the end of the day, that wizards would mind their own business and allow a city to exist and supply them with material comforts makes sense.
First of all, these are fantasy worlds, no matter how close to medieval history they are, they are NOT our world. I know the "it's fantasy so it doesn't matter" card gets played too often on the boards, but in this case I think it's valid. In a fairly standard D&D world, why would there be a need for witch hunts? Historical witch hunts were about the powerful people in the world using the common people's ignorance and fear of the potential of magic as a tool to keep them in line. In most fantasy worlds, even those where powerful casters are rare, magic is known to exist, not feared to exist. And if there are witch hunts, wouldn't the hunters know they need magic of their own to stop the powerful magic-users? (Which can be great for adding an ironic touch to the game.)
If by "alter the world at will," you mean make it different from history, then the first powerful PC to appear shouldn't be the one doing it, the DM should be doing it before the campaign even starts, or else you won't be challenging the players much. The existence of monsters and magic in a world forces changes from our own real world already.
Historical themes from the real world don't always work in a fantasy world. If that's "disrupting" the campaign for you, I'd suggest playing a non-FX game of d20 Past instead of D&D.
Secondly, your example of a high level wizard sounds like he's Chaotic Evil or at best Chaotic Neutral. Not every high level spellcaster flaunts his power just because he can. A 20th level Lawful spellcaster may WANT to pay his taxes, and a 20th level Good spellcaster wouldn't burn down a town and ruin its economy just to spite a single town official (even though he very easily could). You are ignoring the fact that not every high level character would want to act in such a way, and also ignoring the opposite--a high level character that wants to rule over a town or province or entire nation will DO JUST THAT.
That's where older editions of the game did something right that d20 does not. In older editions such as the BECM box sets and 1st Edition AD&D, once you reached "Name" level (9th or 10th) you were very likely to become ruler of some sort in the game world. Whether you ruled benevolently or with an iron fist, or decided not to take up the responsibility, was up to your character. The rules supported ruling a territory, leading an army, and using your personal power (be it magical or physical) to help you achieve political power.
In other words, high level wizards or clerics or fighters or whatever should be running the town. If they aren't, then that's because they've made a choice not to do so. And if they've made a choice to live peacefully in the town, they'll likely pay their taxes and play by the town's rules even though they are powerful enough not to need to do so. And if the town won't let them peacefully coexist, then they are just as likely to take over or just move somewhere else as they are to destroy the place (and the reaction should be determined by their personality and alignment).
Now, why doesn't this spellcaster work to benefit the kingdom? Well, first off, who says he doesn't? A powerful spellcaster attracts powerful enemies, and any work done on behalf of the kingdom would be behind the scenes - or through proxies, such as lower-level characters. The most important service a spellcaster could provide would be information, particularly divinations. In Eberron this service is provided by the two Houses with the Mark of Shadow, but in a lower-tech and higher-level setting high-level wizards take their place.
A common mistake is the belief that spellcasters of high level break the status quo. The presence of magic items and the survival of society in the face of monsters and other beings of power far exceeding anything a normal human is capable of is only a possibility if high-level spellcasters do exist, since they are the only beings capable of dealing with such threats. Were there no high-level characters, the fiends would have taken over the Material Plane eons ago, or else the Material Plane itself would have been destroyed by the cosmic forces fighting for control of it with no neutralizing force. Thus high-level characters do not disrupt the world - they are the only reason the world still exists in a recognizable state.
In short, if you play in 'standard' medieval-esque setting, accept the fact that the first character, PC or NPC, of a high CR will be able to drastically alter the world at will.
Much the way Hercules, Perseus, Samson, Jason, Hector, Achilles, Xena, Tanis, Raistlin, Elminster, Fafnrd and the Grey Mouser, Gawain, Arthur, Lancelot, and Merln... and on... and on... and on... were all able to drastically alter their world?
D&D characters are Heroes. They are movers-and-shakers. I want them to be able to alter the world, that's why I play the game.
But all of these things are more or less piddling. What happens when a 20th-level wizard moves into a city? The city cannot effectively tax him, or limit his behavior in any meaningful way; unless the city is already full of heroes. The wizard can simply ignore any edicts he disagrees with and magically slay any civic officials that irritate him. By this point, the wizard is almost certainly sleeping in extradimensional spaces, or possibly is saving a teleport each day to end up in a safe lair to rest. If he's reasonably intelligent, he simply can't be caught with his pants down (or robe up, as the case may be). Moreover, any actual attempt to thwart him may very well result in a few Walls of Fire along the most flammable sections of the city and Walls of Stone plugging the city gates. A high-level caster has the power of a modern nation-state, and needs to be treated as such.
I would like to point out that this is an iconic storyline, and not a bad quest for a group of 18th level adventurers.
You could try to include civic heroes, of course. You can say that the Commander of the Watch of the city is the equal to a war hero in combat experience. You can posit that there's an even higher-level wizard that works for the king and defends his lands as best he can.
I think that this is an excellent counter for mid-level PCs, but at least in my campaigns, high-level characters are supposed to be quite rare, and I don't know how hard it would be to sell to the players the idea of a 20th level Samuel Vimes.
Either you can adapt your world to accept powerful magic-users. You can put low-level wizards in every town, and have knowledge of the broad capacity of magic to be common. But if you do so, then you radically alter the dynamic of the world right there. In short, if you play in 'standard' medieval-esque setting, accept the fact that the first character, PC or NPC, of a high CR will be able to drastically alter the world at will.
I would like to point out here that a standard medieval setting would include no magic. Wizards didn't exist in the middle ages, so trying to truthfully create a medieval society with magic isn't possible any more than trying to create a Roman society but adding in technology. You are absolutely right: magic changes everything about a world.
Second, I truly believe that a D&D world has a system of checks and balances. As I like to put it, for all great good there is great evil. I also tie a person's level to reputation. A 1st level commoner has no chance of being known outside his village, but a 20th level heroic paladin's name resonates throughout the land. Evil dragons are balanced by good dragons. Evil empires are balanced by good empires. And depending on one's world, there are generally more good people than evil people. This is what keeps a rogue high-level character in check.
By this point, the wizard is almost certainly sleeping in extradimensional spaces, or possibly is saving a teleport each day to end up in a safe lair to rest.
He's got all these insta-travel spells and a hidden fortress. Why does he even live in town in the first place? What does it have to offer for him?
In old D&D (I forget specifically which kind), you had new books with different kinds of adventurers to introduce as the PCs leveled. People would build strongholds and attract followers at "Lord" level, then go plane-hopping at high levels, then do godlike things far removed from the day-to-day cares of mortals at really, really high levels. High-level heroes just didn't do that much mundane stuff, much like they didn't go digging through first-level dungeons. High-level heroes were just beyond this stuff.
In short, if you play in 'standard' medieval-esque setting, accept the fact that the first character, PC or NPC, of a high CR will be able to drastically alter the world at will.
Just like the first country that developed nuclear power was able to conquer the world? See the problem with your analogy?
First, wizards are people, not tanks. And yes, some might be selfish, greedy bastards willing to hold thousands of civilians hostage to their whims, but there are just as many that are honest, decent citizens who don't mind paying their taxes and doing their duty to their nations.
And obviously, smart rulers recognize the value of having those guys on their side. Just think of Khelben Arunson or Vanderghast in the Forgotten Realms (especially Vandy).
So, yeah, wizard X might decide to build a tower in city Y, and then when the tax man comes knocking at the door, he might feel the urge to just Baleful Polymorph the problem away.
Except, the problem won't go away, because he's not the only high-level wizard around. And the other guy has the King backing -him- up, which means if Wizard X manages to kill him, odds are he's already got a True Resurrection waiting, something wizard X doesn't have, since every local temple will be siding with the crown (who's probably giving them tax breaks, being temples and all).
In the end, Wizard X is going to realise that going to war with the authorities is just too much of a bother and he'll either pack his stuff up and build his tower in the middle of nowhere, or he'll pay his taxes and pass the bill on to the next bunch of looser adventurers that need something from him.
It's not because you're in a M1 Abrams tank and the cop is in a Pontiac that you should forget that the cop's boss has plenty of tanks of his own...or that he controls the gas pumps and the cannon shell factories.
I would also add that other high level classes do the same thing. A twentieth level fighter is virtually immune to any punishment even elite city guards can dish out. To keep a fighter in check, you have to assume that the city employs brigades of super guards -- who we never see evidence of.
Maybe your PCs will cause havoc and chaos, but that also sends out calls to other adventurers out there, more altruistic ones that seek to wipe out these blights upon the land. I'm not saying it's perfect, but your high level characters will leave an impact on the world, it's their choice as to what sort of impact they leave.
As for the military men, if you're retired, you don't want to have to go around and fight people every other day just to say 'look at me!' In short, there will always be high-level people floating around in cities. Just because you started your life as an adventurer, doesn't mean you'll forever be one. Everyone has to sit back and relax someday.
Take the example of a Court Mage:
I'm (25th or something) level, and about 80 years old. I've lived a long and arduous life to get where I am today. Most of the time, I'm content to sit back, offer advice every now and then, and be left to my own devices. If a crisis breaks out, I'll either handle it myself discreetly, or I'll get the king to find a band of adventurers to deal with it. After all, the next generation has to be trained somehow. Now, if someone came into MY city (because, let's face it, if you're a high level NPC, you will consider it your city) and started acting up, they'll be on the swift receiving end of a baleful polymorph spell followed by a teleport into a nice little cage on my desk, where I have a talk to them about what's proper.
1- What great deeds did The Hero do to reach such levels of power? Was it geo-political, like laying an invading goblin armies to waste? Was it spiritual/dimensional, like fighting off an Outworlder incursion? Or perhaps it was solving a long-term problem, like finally putting down that great wyrm that has plagued the lands for decades. Each one puts The Hero in a slightly different position within the power structure of a large city. His actions also influence the growth and development of the city itself. If putting down the great wyrm re-opened trade routes to the city, for instance, what does that mean for the future of the city? If the war with the goblins left the country around the city in ruins, how will the lack of food and the refugees from the war affect the city’s inhabitant’s view of The Hero?
2- Was The Hero alone, or with a group of fellows? If so, what happened to them? Are they all deceased? Are the all living in the city? Have they taken up residence in other cities? How do the local authorities view these connections and their impact on the political landscape?
3- What kind of pocketbook does The Hero have? How willing would merchants be to accept ancient coins, or coins from another civilization, at face value? For all they know, they could be copper enchanted to appear as gold. How willing are the money-changers to work with The Hero to re-mint his coinage? Is there a tax that the money-changers have to pay, and they would pass along to The Hero. Or perhaps there are provisions in local law- such as commoners being prohibited from possessing minted Platinum. And how about accessibility? Where is the wealth kept and how easy would it be to steal? A Bag of Holding loaded with gold is convienent, but it could be stolen right from The Hero’s hands by a skilled rogue. And, at 25 GP per pound, how much can The Hero really carry around?
4- Can the city support The Hero? Does it have the appropriate religion, or sufficient religious tolerance? Can it provide a source for the exotic material components needed in arcane casting? Are the smiths, alchemists and bowyers skilled enough to keep The Hero's weapons, equipment, and armor in fine shape? Is there enough surplus of goods to support The Hero’s followers/disciples/groupies?
5- How overt is The Hero in flaunting his abilities? The more overtly powerful, the more likely The Hero will attract the attention of others of similar power who are looking to make a name for themselves by defeating you. Think of it as the ‘fastest draw in the West’ syndrome. Or perhaps The Hero’s domicile would become a center for people seeking to learn what The Hero knows- spending their days following The Hero about, begging him to share his knowledge and living off of his largesse.
6- How does The Hero react to all of this? Is he vengeful, or feeling slighted, or is he willing to work within the established power structure to find a place? What does his alignment dictate- can a chaotic character, even a chaotic good one, integrate into a position of power in a lawful city?
These are just a few places to start and think about how to integrate a high-level person into a game.
On the other hand, we have the pseudo-medieval world D&D wants to model. In this, there are no high level heroes. The strongest person is King Joe, who's an Aristocrat. He has power because he's king, and therefore the other people support him. These people may be low level fighters-the highest of them might even be level 6. But they have armies, and vassals, who have armies and vassals, and the king sits on top of the pyramid scheme. However, D&D does not support this. Look at the rules for a metropolis, and you'll see that there's likely a 17th level wizard there. By the rules presented in every D&D sourcebook, this world doesn't exist, even though they want it to.
Then of course, not everyone has those nifty little things and some are in fact powerful and evil, or at least immoral. Take a look at the Forgotten Realms setting for example, powerful people exist both malignant and belligerent. Some of them do rule entire nations, Szass Tam comes to mind, as does the Simbul. These people defy each other and because of this they're power is no longer as absolute as you claim a powerful individual in such a world would be. They have other things to worry about, like the next assassination attempt or Mystra forbid, their spellbook being stolen right from under their very noses.
Yet another little gripe. People with power often have the resources to pay their taxes and other costs simply because it doesn't really affect them. The trouble of killing a tax collector is bothersome and most would rather save the time instead of wasting it on these "lowly" individuals. Time is a very important factor for people with power, even for people without it. Time can easily dictate someone's behavior in certain situations because it is, relatively, the most precious resource a person has. One can't truly make more time without spending some and most don't really bother unless it is necessary.
Lastly power doesn't merely exist in the physical realm, psychological, political and economical power can have large impact on even the most powerful of wizards. If the government would issue a high tariff on spell components and thus they become rarer and precious, you're cutting a mage's power significantly. This would be a combination of both political and economical power.
Psychological power is seen when powerful people are surrounding themselves with bodyguards, traps, contingency spells and then still have a crucifix hanging from their necks "just in case". Powerful people are often as dangerous as they are in danger themselves. They grow paranoid. Would you be able to sleep comfortably knowing that you have many enemies willing to slit your throat? Would you walk your dog if anyone passing by could just as easily shoot you with a gun? Would you order in food if it could be poisoned? A powerful individual has to be on the lookout for anything, continuously.
Powerful individuals in the real world don't just kill "ordinary" people or boss them around because they can; they'd rather be safe and comfortably far away from harm. Life, in whatever way you want to put it, wouldn't be life anymore when you spend all of it to stay alive. You might as well be dead if you do.
You have some choices. For one, you can try to design a world from the rules up. That's going to be frustrating and probably fruitless, as the rules allow so much and contain so many exceptions that I doubt it's even possible to create a stable, self-sustaining world out of them.
For another, you can posit that the rules work on the scale of the PCs and maybe a town or village, but at the level of armies, castles, and countries, massive spellcasting ability doesn't amount to much. All the spells, classes, and equipment in the books are there to provide adventures for the characters, but there's no reason to believe that there is nothing else in the world. If you're attached to the world, just tell the players that there are spells and classes and abilities and world-spanning effects in place behind the scenes that make it work. Huge armies still fight in wars because for some reason area effect spells don't actually make much of a difference at such a massive scale. Maybe kings always have cadres of wizards who cast massive protections spells over battlefields, but the actual reasons shouldn't matter, as long as you keep your characters focused on the scale the game was meant to model: small parties facing other small parties in a small area.
Of course there are some things this can't fix directly, such as the ease with which disease can be cured. For things like that, you have to approach the problem in a different way and make the issue one of, say, escorting a caravan of healers to a plague ravaged area.
The third thing I can think of is that you can remove the PCs from the world. Ever read Johnathan Livingstone Seagull? As the seagulls get to be better fliers, they ascend to other levels of existence. In D&D terms, when the PCs get to the level at which they can topple empires, they find that their opportunities for actual in-game experience dry up on their home plane and they must travel to other planes to find suitable challenges. This is equivalent, I guess, to scrapping your medieval setting, but it would at least still be in the rules of the game.
One other thing: if your players are invested in the setting as well, then you might not have to change anything. If everyone just agrees that it's the setting they want, then the reason a Dark Ages setting works is because it just does and not even the enemies try to disrupt it.
Arresting a mage usually involves binding their hands, sometimes using locked gauntlets to prevent arcane (or obscene) gestures. Trap a mage in an angry mob (mob template) and he is pretty much dead. A powerful mage can deal with an angry mob but such a massacre leads to it's own problems, notably more organised and potent opposition.
High level wizards should be treated with respect. But the behaviour from the wizard in your example would lead to all kinds of problems. First of all, heroes would journey far and wide to fight against such a mage. Second, such a mage would be hard-pressed getting supplies to do anything more meaningful than just make a pain of himself. Thirdly, any major wizard's guilds would take offense at such wanton destruction in such a public manner, since these organisations depend on good relations with others for magical supplies, apprentices, customers and support.
Take the "king of a graveyard" approach - high level characters depend on the world they live in. A mage does not survive to 20th level by making enemies needlessly.
Modify the Planar Binding and Planar Ally spells slightly, instead of called outsiders demanding gold they cannot use, have them demand some service to their cause fitting for the task asked of them. Outsiders may be obligated to set a price for their services, but they are not obligated to make it a reasonable price - a celestial called to do something it disagrees with may demand that the summoner "suffer the torments of all the hells for all eternity, secure in the knowledge that you have never done an impure deed."
Something like an inevitable, which only cares about it's job, can simply be called, shown it's target, and all it would want is any help the summoner could offer. A lawful good church should have enough mid-high level clerics somewhere in its structure that it can send inevitables against such a powerful criminal.
What is the D&D equivalent to a SWAT team? My guess is a large, well equipped and organised fighters, clerics and mages working together and with chance to buff on route.
Look at the Making Low Level Soldiers Scary thread, think of something similar for the 40 guardsmen.
DMG2 has the Mob template, which can be very dangerous.
What I am saying is a high level character should have an impact on his environment, it is the satisfying part of being high level, so use it to your advantage rather than fearing it.
The first and most important guideline to remember is that D&D magic serves the same function as technology in the real world. It facilitates communication, travel, combat, diplomacy, defense, investigation, etc. Think of any tech item today and you'll find a magical near equivalent in D&D. Cell phones = sending, internet= divination, surveillance camera = crystal ball, grenade = fireball, alarm system = alarm spell, vault door = forbiddance, lie detector = zone of truth, and so on.
So model your society after modern society with magic in the place of technology. For example in my campaign magic has created a means of marking your property so that if its stolen any shopkeeper or guard will know it and refuse to do business with you or have your arrested. Magic items exist that allow city watchmen to cast a spell called warrant. This marks you as a wanted individual and guarantees a bounty if you're brought in. The symbol can include whether you're wanted dead or alive, etc. Of course, the thieves guild has developed counterspells, contacts, and networks to get around these problems (which creates a very good reason to join the guild).
Second, I highly recommend using the mob rules in the DMG 2. This allows a group of commoners to be a CR 8 threat. Several mobs can be a serious threat to a mid-level party (probably upto level 12). This requires a higher-level of abstraction in the rules and accepting that things affect the mobs differently (such as fireballs) than they do individuals, but the impact on the game world is to seriously reduce the dominance of high level characters. It effectively pushes off the point at which characters become invincible. A level 6 party is approaching invincible as far as the city watch is concerned unless you use the mob rules. Then its probably more like level 12. Plus if you have a level 12 spellcasting npc supported by 300 men (six mobs) this becomes a very serious challenge for even higher level characters.
Third, use guilds, armies, etc to limit the powers of high level PCs. If a rogue gets out of line have a guild that exists to reel them in. The most important guilds are your mages guild and the churches of the various gods since they place a limit on spellcasters by having a ready source of challenging opponents. These guilds should extend beyond the cities so that if a village is threatened they can call in a guild mage for assistance. Angry commoners may even have an illegal recourse by hiring a member of the assassin's guild and so on. Every guild should have members or resources capable of challenging the PCs at every level.
Fourth, throw out the guidelines in the DMG for how many high level characters are in a city as well as the guidelines for how much the average person earns per year. Use NPCs of any level as you need them for the situation. You should be able to have a 20th level wizard in a thorpe if there's an interesting magical phenomenon nearby and so forth. Also if you accept that commoners earn more than a few gold pieces a year then suddenly they may be able to afford to hire adventurers or they may be able to support a tax base that allows for high-level PCs to be paid money worth making.
Just some thoughts. Happy gaming.
-Fin
Sure, a 20th level wizard could throw his weight around in a typical medieval city, but what happens to him when he blows up a temple of Pelor? I don't think it would be pretty.
Put simply, high-level casters and civilization don't often mix. The most logical reason a L20 wizard is on your current plane is because he's either defending or invading it. (See Faerun's Chosen of Mystra for examples of high-level defenders and just think of all the necromasters and master manipulator villains for invaders.)
In D&D, magic is power. The higher level spells you can use, the more power you have. The only logical way I see for a wizard of such power to peacefully exist with his surroundings is if he gets complacent/lazy/pacifistic/bored with them.
-EE
Frankly, I think the scaled system in D20 Modern works far better for level distributions than D&D. Level 20 folks should be top professionals (Experts, Commoners) and you should probably have a level 20 commoner in every substantial town, and places like New York City should have level about 3-5 level 20's running about. Police Chiefs, Military Commanders and the like usually default at level 10, along with skilled professionals (PhD holders, Neurosurgeons). Your celebrities and famed generals are going to be level 20. (George S. Patton, McArthur, Hitler, Michael Jackson) If your world has as many 'heroes' running around as ours does, then things should be kept relatively in check.
And yes. There isn't much in the way of D&D magicks in keeping with traditional Tolkien fantasy; it's more like a console RPG with juxtapositions and logical fallacies a plenty for mere entertainments sake.
However, high-level characters will definitely be putting some of their skills to use in ways that rival modern technology. The OP mentioned walled cities - walled cities are a deathtrap in a world that has Soften Earth and Stone, Rock to Mud, Passwall, Shape Earth, etc. All the defenders on the wall will fall screaming to their deaths with the judicious application of any of these spells, while massive use of Passwall renders the wall trivial at best and harmful at worst - as the enemy army unexpectedly bypasses the gates, then seizes them, your armed forces are unable to retreat to more strategically sound locations.
High-level, high-magic warfare owes much more to modern-day tactics of aerial warfare and special-ops than it does to traditional knights in armor.
The problem is, as much as we DMs would like it to be so, that D&D doesn’t fallow the rules of the real world. That is just something we have to accept and move on with.
High-level divine casters would either be saints of sorts (think Mother Teresa), or recluses, constantly contemplating the mysteries of their god and defending the priesthood. In short, high-level characters ARE there, just waiting to be disturbed. Who do you think is the head of the temple in the big city you just visited? A high-level cleric of course! Not to mention if the high-level good guys start using their powers to assist the general populace, it leaves the Bigger, Badder Evil Guys (the ones the PCs are still to weak to face or even know about) more of a free rein to do evil.
Even a separate "wild area" for monsters poses problems. Imagine a fantasy kingdom protected by the best defense any medieval kingdom ever had, the Chinese Wall. Now tell me any monster from the MM that would be stopped by a few thousand low-level warriors on the Chinese Wall. It would be climbed, flown over, dimension doored, fire breathed, disintegrated... forget it.
The sad answer is: D&D is a nice monster-bashing game system, but don't ever see it as a way to emulate a medieval society. Not even a high-fantasy one. It does not work. It was never meant to work.
Well, first, the concept of witch-burning and angry mobs more or less goes away. In our world, it is not a foregone conclusion that the old woman or strange outsider hauled in front of the village tribunal does not have the capacity to bind Amon, the Void Before the Altar, to her very soul, or manifest Psionic Dimension Door, or cast Circle of Death in the middle of the courtroom. In a realm with magic, trying to arrest people for the crime of witchcraft is like trying to give a traffic ticket to a M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank: it only works if the people in the tank decide to let it work.
In a world where magic is quite normal, there will not be angry mobs that go witch-burning.
What about epidemics? They're not much of a threat, given the way disease is handled in D&D. For another, the presence of druids, clerics, and paladins mean that sudden, effective response to outbreaks can happen, and the existence of divination magics means that it is very likely that a few moderately-leveled divine casters will know where they need to go and when they need to be there.
The problem here is: How many druids, clerics and paladins of a high enough level to cure a major part of the population do you have ready? And do they not have anything else to do than sit around with remove disease spells prepared to cure commoners?
In D&D worlds clerics and paladins very often are charged with battling opponents of their gods, etc. so they might not have time to sit around and play nurse for a city all the time.
But all of these things are more or less piddling. What happens when a 20th-level wizard moves into a city? The city cannot effectively tax him, or limit his behavior in any meaningful way; unless the city is already full of heroes. The wizard can simply ignore any edicts he disagrees with and magically slay any civic officials that irritate him. By this point, the wizard is almost certainly sleeping in extradimensional spaces, or possibly is saving a teleport each day to end up in a safe lair to rest. If he's reasonably intelligent, he simply can't be caught with his pants down (or robe up, as the case may be). Moreover, any actual attempt to thwart him may very well result in a few Walls of Fire along the most flammable sections of the city and Walls of Stone plugging the city gates. A high-level caster has the power of a modern nation-state, and needs to be treated as such.
Yes, if a level 20 wizard moves into a city, they more or less will not stand a chance to make him obey any laws in the city with force.
If the wizard is really evil and slays all officials that try to make him pay taxes, he definitely will draw the attention of high level adventurers to himself. This is the time when Joe the high level priest and Jack the high level paladin come to free the city from the evil wizard.
If the wizard is good or neutral, he might not care about the authorities of the city. But why should he actively try to harm them? With his power most of the time he will run around in other planes, teleport to foreign places and reveal secrets other man couldn't even understand. Ok, some tax collector comes and wants taxes from him? No problem, his assistant uses the fabricate spell to produce goods to sell in order to pay the taxes. he doesn't agree with some laws? Well, use the wish spell and create your own little island somewhere in the sea.
In our world, the fundamental exercise of power is a large number people with guns. In our world, any person, no matter how heroic, will be shot. We don't read in the news about how a bank robber ripped his way into the vault with his bare hands, stuck around to slay the SWAT team and also killed an additional 40 police officers on the side for the XP. And yet, this sort of thing is expected in the D&D world.
So you think people only stick to the law because they are afraid to get punished? This I think is quite a pessimistic view on life.
You could try to include civic heroes, of course. You can say that the Commander of the Watch of the city is the equal to a war hero in combat experience. You can posit that there's an even higher-level wizard that works for the king and defends his lands as best he can.
But if this wizard exists, what other sign of him is there? Is the wizard cranking out wondrous architecture to benefit the country? Is he making use of permanent--and instantaneous--duration spells to benefit the kingdom's economy? What signs of this enormously-powerful wizard exist in the world? No, including high-level members of the world breaks the status quo just as much as high-level PCs.
Why should the wizard want to cast spells that benefit this city? Does a lvl 20 wizard not have something else on his agenda than crafting traffic lights for a city?
Either you can adapt your world to accept powerful magic-users. You can put low-level wizards in every town, and have knowledge of the broad capacity of magic to be common. But if you do so, then you radically alter the dynamic of the world right there. In short, if you play in 'standard' medieval-esque setting, accept the fact that the first character, PC or NPC, of a high CR will be able to drastically alter the world at will.
True enough.
High level characters disrupt the ordinary workings of the world around them simply by the fact of their existence. Let us assume we play in some flavor of medieval fantasy, with walled cities, castles, kings, knights, and so on and that we're not playing in an Eberron-esque world. Now, add magic. What happens?
There is an implicit assumption that we are playing in a world where magic is if not common place at least is not rare. There are several very fine threads on these boards discussing the life of the common man and one very common theme is that magic just aint a large part of it. Not gonna rehash those arguments here as I could not do them justice.
Well, first, the concept of witch-burning and angry mobs more or less goes away.
Really? Actually here I disagree with you. In a world where these people do exist not only can these things happen they are likely to be very well run because the people doing it are not irrational fanatics. The mobs are a very practical way of dealing with low level casters. Charm person on one guy when 300 yokels are bearing down on you? Mob mentality is not going to be diverted by a magic missile and the more you do to a determined mob the worse you will suffer when they get there hands on you. (Some of the flashy "coloured lights in the sky" type spells might slow them down enough for you to run though, but see my next point.)
In our world, it is not a foregone conclusion that the old woman or strange outsider hauled in front of the village tribunal does not have the capacity to bind Amon, the Void Before the Altar, to her very soul, or manifest Psionic Dimension Door, or cast Circle of Death in the middle of the courtroom.
I am fairly sure that the highlighted not is a mistake... Now my rebuttal to that is that in a world where some people can do such things steps will be taken to nullify the opportunity. My first thoughts? All detainees will have hands bound and have a gag inserted, after that they will have all clothing forcibly removed (in a good or neutral state alternate clothing will be provided) and any all animal companions will be caught and detained. The escape of either an animal companion or the suspect will result in the death of either not caught. Probably there are others such as requiring a person who has not had contact with the prisoner to lock and unlock doors but they can be worked out. My point is that a high level caster can with surprise be rendered helpless. And that’s without fancy nullifying items.
In a realm with magic, trying to arrest people for the crime of witchcraft is like trying to give a traffic ticket to a M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank: it only works if the people in the tank decide to let it work.
Two points here really. First everyone lives in a society, and agrees to abide by the rules of the society for the mutual benefits that accrue. That’s why the guy in the tank might agree, for gods sake are you going to be a fugitive just for a ticket?
Secondly, yeh these things happen. We all have seen movies like convoy or the "police go nuts" shows where they always at some point show the loony who stole a tank and drove it down the street. How do you deal with that? Well you avoid confrontation until they run out of gas and then lock them up. It’s that simple, and it happens rarely because everybody knows that eventually you have to open the hatch. (And to save time I will concede that teleport does give an escape route which undermines my argument.)
What about epidemics? They're not much of a threat, given the way disease is handled in D&D. For another, the presence of druids, clerics, and paladins mean that sudden, effective response to outbreaks can happen, and the existence of divination magics means that it is very likely that a few moderately-leveled divine casters will know where they need to go and when they need to be there.
There are again two issues here. First the scarcity of magic might mean that people may not be able to do the necessary suppression to stop it from going to the wildfire stage. Assuming that it does get to that stage then a few piddling remove disease abilities will make no odds. Remove disease does not confer immunity and if everybody (or even as low as one person in twenty) has the disease then you will catch it again and the cleric has a fulltime job on his hands just dealing with you. Epidemics do not catch on due to the "herd effect" of immunity granted by vaccinations. Simply put a disease does not pass on because everybody is immune not because they got better. Remove disease can not stop an epidemic once it’s started.
Secondly assuming the clerics wish to spend all day every day casting remove disease on anyone bitten by a monkey (or got a sniffle or,or,or) the gods may well not be interested in helping and deny them the magic. "oy you stop healing everyone and work on my followers". Or there might be a valid reason that overview wise makes sense, If this epidemic happens the next king who is young might raise a crusade/ put proper drainage in/ marry and produce the promised one...
But all of these things are more or less piddling. What happens when a 20th-level wizard moves into a city? The city cannot effectively tax him, or limit his behavior in any meaningful way; unless the city is already full of heroes. The wizard can simply ignore any edicts he disagrees with and magically slay any civic officials that irritate him.
True. This is where argument gets weaker but let’s try anyway. You know a lot of accountants claim you don't need to pay tax? That if you do enough jiggery pokery with the books you can always make exactly one penny less than the tax threshold? so why do rich people pay tax then? Simply put its just far too much like effort not to. They decide how much they have to pay in order to avoid getting a live in tax inspector and pay that much. Maybe Mr. high level mage takes the same approach?
By this point, the wizard is almost certainly sleeping in extradimensional spaces, or possibly is saving a teleport each day to end up in a safe lair to rest. If he's reasonably intelligent, he simply can't be caught with his pants down (or robe up, as the case may be). Moreover, any actual attempt to thwart him may very well result in a few Walls of Fire along the most flammable sections of the city and Walls of Stone plugging the city gates. A high-level caster has the power of a modern nation-state, and needs to be treated as such.
But by that level does he really want to go to war with city hall? America it has always been assumed can pretty much kick the beejesus out of anybody yet they end up (At least historically) paying off dictators and ignoring insults. Why? Too much effort not to.
In our world, the fundamental exercise of power is a large number people with guns. In our world, any person, no matter how heroic, will be shot. We don't read in the news about how a bank robber ripped his way into the vault with his bare hands, stuck around to slay the SWAT team and also killed an additional 40 police officers on the side for the XP. And yet, this sort of thing is expected in the D&D world.
If you can't beat them then you join them. In employment i know the first person you promote to management is the loud mouthed union rep providing he has an ounce of ability. Why? Because you'd rather him on your side than against you. The same principle applies to the one man A team. If he just will not be co-opted to the establishment than he is a rarity who either forms his own state (and let him deal with the problems, effectively the same solution he just joins at the top) or you pay enough for someone to kil.. er detain him. If the local economy does not have enough to pay someone good enough to take him it certainly does not have enough money to keep him interested.
You could try to include civic heroes, of course. You can say that the Commander of the Watch of the city is the equal to a war hero in combat experience. You can posit that there's an even higher-level wizard that works for the king and defends his lands as best he can..
In practice most people use this route of course. I just think society’s pressures would be better in the long run; and they may explain why there is a high level whatsit ready to act in this way.
But if this wizard exists, what other sign of him is there? Is the wizard cranking out wondrous architecture to benefit the country? Is he making use of permanent--and instantaneous--duration spells to benefit the kingdom's economy? What signs of this enormously-powerful wizard exist in the world? No, including high-level members of the world breaks the status quo just as much as high-level PCs.
Either you can adapt your world to accept powerful magic-users. You can put low-level wizards in every town, and have knowledge of the broad capacity of magic to be common. But if you do so, then you radically alter the dynamic of the world right there. In short, if you play in 'standard' medieval-esque setting, accept the fact that the first character, PC or NPC, of a high CR will be able to drastically alter the world at will.
You may not have seen the "wall of iron + fabricate= economic collapse" threads that were around for a while. They make the argument better than I could that a mage COULD produce x thousand goods a day at 37gp cost but that he would have better things to do. Further if he did waste his time this way the resulting economic collapse would hinder him more than any pile of gold would help.
In practice, I agree high level characters would change the way the world works. I just don’t think by as much as you imply.
thehivemind5: A fifth way is to follow the zero-hour superhero paradigm, in which characters past about 5th-level have passed into song and story, and only now is anyone climbing to the lofty heights of power.
But still, once they get there, a mid-to-high-level character can demolish a city all the more easily. If a society is typical high-fantasy, then a determined high-level character can alter it at will. They can assassinate the court wizard (who must be a reasonably public figure) and rain arcane wrath down on the king's castle unopposed, if they so choose. It may be that the NPC characters in your world do not. But what happens when the PCs do?
Zcorpio: In this case, the first religion that sent a high-level cleric that Wind Walked from village to village with a contingent of mid-level clerics who had filled their 3rd-and-up slots with Remove Disease would get a lot of new converts, very quickly. Moreover, the gods of the various Good religions probably wouldn't look too well on churchmen callous and stupid enough not to plop the petitioner down before an altar, have them pray while they get the necessary spell, and then cast it, having hereby demonstrated the might and generosity of God X.
And if this creates a line of petitioners longer than the church can handle? Great! This will make the ones that do get clerical aid all the more thankful, and in case of disease, keep the sick away from other healthy folk.
Also, I don't underestimate the power of an angry mob. They're a CR 8 swarm-ish creature detailed in DMGII. Mobs don't have ranged attacks, they can't magically dispel buffs, and they are very big targets for area-of-effect painfulness. A Warlock6 can demolish a pure mob of any size with Fell Flight and Eldritch Spear; casters can do it more quickly.
If you're looking for real-world justification, one example that comes to mind is the Battle of Mogadishu, detailed in Black Hawk Down. In the real world, one side with rapid mobility, superior weaponry, artillery, and air support can and do defeat opposing forces dozens of times their size: in addition, these forces have weapons available to them that D&D common folk do not. (Notice: I am not making a value-comparison between either U.S. military forces and adventurers, or the militia of Mogadishu and a mob. I'm just pointing out that firepower often trumps numbers.)
And for the druids and the paladins not eradicating disease; you are perfectly correct that NPC druids might feel that it's better for a population to develop natural immunity to a plague, and all the paladins of 6th level or above might be busy. But there's nothing stopping a high-level PC Druid or Cleric from taking a day out to Wind-Walk from village to village and Remove Disease on everyone they see. That is the real issue; you can (up to a certain point) say that various NPC organizations won't work to change the world, but you can't make the PCs do so.
The balance-of-power argument is a very good one, and it's been done quite well before. But, as you point out, it depends on people wanting order and stability and the world to continue as it currently is. If these people really are trying to make the world a better place, why not act en masse to do so?
Moreover, what do you do about the folk who want to drag the prime material plane into war and bloodshed? They exist. There are a lot of them in the Lower Planes, in fact.
But finally, you're just displacing the problem. High level characters are still 'disrupting' the world; this hypothetical group of casters willing to put aside their differences long enough to scry and ambush that young jackanapes that just Earthquaked another city for kicks are still, by their own personal decisions, shaping the way the world is.
pmurray: It's not just the Fireball. It's the Fireballs raining down from the Rope Tricks in the sky, that the caster is getting to with Invisibility and Fly. It's the Shrunk boulders raised hundreds of feet into the sky, and dropped. It's the summoned monsters targeting the guards, the conjured fire elementals in the thatch of the houses, and so on and so forth. Sheer destructive ability is useful, but it's the utility spells that conquer the world.
I'm also glad that you brought up Pratchett. The problem is that adventuring wizards are a whole lot more like Alberto Malich or Coin than they are the UU faculty. There's also the simple fact that Discworld runs on narritivum; the reason that no wizard has leveled the Patrician's Palace in a fit of pique is purely story.
rudie: Bigger does not mean invulnerable. "You can't conquer the world with magic because the White Council says so." means that anyone who wants to conquer the world with magic will do their best to assassinate the White Council. Moreover, it means that a group of people who have devoted their lives to magic have all decided not to use magic.
Lord Gwydion: By alter history, I mean quickly and dramatically change the course of world events. If a 20th level wizard decides that the orcish hordes aren't going to fall on the kingdom of Brelia, then what would have been a massacre of the lightly-defended kingdom now become a light-show for the Brelish kiddies as our wizard single-handedly blasts the orcish horde into oblivion. Or, our wizard could flit over to the Orcish lands with his druid buddy, cultivate some crops, import some farming technology, and forcibly kick-start orcish urban civilization, by charm and compulsion magic and eradication of all opposing orcs if by no other means. What I mean is that on a macro level of world events, it's the high-level folk that decide what happens.
You make my point for me with the Named character system. If high-level characters exist in a particular setting, then they should be in charge of their area. But again, if a significant percentage of the lower-nobility of a kingdom personally fought for and won their peerage and titles, then we've got a very different world than ours already (although one much more closely approaching standard High Fantasy). In both cases, personal power ties directly to political power, and if a player gains enough levels to take on the king, the king's court, and the king's forces, then the king is ruler in name only.
TrueMallowman: It's exactly those arguments that I'm considering. If one ticked off wizard could level a medium-sized city lacking in magical protection against ticked off wizards, than all cities need some form of protection, or there are no ticked off wizards. In medieval times, folk came to the cities because walls offered some protection against otherwise-deadly forces. In D&D-esque worlds, high temples and wizard's towers (or the manse of Kruk Dragonslayer) may serve as similar seeds for urban development. After all, the wizard up in his tower might be strange and otherworldly, but you know for damn sure that no orcish army is going to come anywhere near it.
I do believe that I misphrased my thesis statement here. I hereby propose to amend it to "High-level characters shape the world. If the world existed in a previous shape before the high-level characters came along, then they may choose to reshape it, and no one who isn't a high-level character can do anything about it."
He's got all these insta-travel spells and a hidden fortress. Why does he even live in town in the first place? What does it have to offer for him?
Furthermore, if he does live in a city, any annual tax will be nothing to him, lunch money in fact. He probably makes a thousand times more money than taxation costs him. Or rather than paying taxes, he casts a beneficial spell on the city, say, once per month. Maybe he keeps the city hall vermin free? Maybe he ensures good weather all-year round?
It is not only the characters, PCs and NPCs. What about monsters? I always wonder how agriculture works in a world where the peasants out in the fields can be easily slain by the monsters that lurk in the forest nearby. A dragon can easily defeat the forces of a small duchy and replace its ruler even before his adult age. Anything beyond ECL 15 can destroy a city. A hive of giant ants makes an area of miles uninhabitable. How does sea trade work when an aboleth (CR 7) can sink a ship? How do you place such creatures on the map? They can't coexists with society.
Even a separate "wild area" for monsters poses problems. Imagine a fantasy kingdom protected by the best defense any medieval kingdom ever had, the Chinese Wall. Now tell me any monster from the MM that would be stopped by a few thousand low-level warriors on the Chinese Wall. It would be climbed, flown over, dimension doored, fire breathed, disintegrated... forget it.
The sad answer is: D&D is a nice monster-bashing game system, but don't ever see it as a way to emulate a medieval society. Not even a high-fantasy one. It does not work. It was never meant to work.
I assumed that much of that had to do with numbers and concentration of adventurers. Adventurers are a greater threat and while some dragons might seek great power more of them are perfectly happy sitting on their treasure pile. If a dragon conquers a place it also has to maintain it which is a lot more work than most dragons are willing to do considering that their payoff for it is minimal at best.
But these benefits do not necessarily apply to high-level characters. Casters, if they want an ale and some company, probably have adventuring buddies to hang out with. Even if they don't, they're one Disguise Self away from being able to mingle in a bar without arousing suspicion. (Of course, depending on the company they're interested in, they could always just cast Planar Binding and demand that the outsider make small talk and pretend to enjoy their company.)
Arcane casters are self-contained in a way that people in tanks simply aren't. Plus, they're not just in tanks; they're in armored helicopters that can activate jet engines if necessary. There is simply no real-world analogue for how society limits a person that can cast Invisibility, Fly, Teleport, and any summoning spell.
Likewise, societal sanctions assume that the wizard doesn't simply engage in random and wanton punitive actions until the sanctions are lifted. The mayor who imposes a guano tax may well end up Balefully-Polymorphed into a bat. In the real-world, the assumption is that people who go all Grand-Theft-Auto will be apprehended and punished. If the person doing so is a high-level D&D character, then this, barring extraordinary circumstances that can't be relied upon, will not happen.
I'd also like to point out that Korhol and others are doing an excellent job of making my point for me. If a world has established anti-caster procedures that work, then it's not a medieval-esque world. If fear of demons and witches crosses from folk belief to 'If you invite the pale man with the funny teeth into your house at night, you will die.', then it's not a medieval-esque world. If there are high-level court wizards, trained squads of SWAT-team Fighters with complementary feats, if "Heroes will save us!" is not just a forlorn hope of those about to perish but something that has happened to major population centers of a world, then it's not a medieval world.
Another campaign ran with the "high-level people are everywhere, they are just constrained by society" solution. The party, level 12, made an enemy of one Duke, and had an entire Guild of Assassins sicced on them. The party preemptively assaulted and wiped out the level 5 and 7 trainees, took down the level 12 lieutenants... and were slain by the guild's grandmasters, level 15, 15, and 16.
Another campaign used the "you're the first to reach this level!" approach. The world's average level is 3rd, experienced professionals are 4th or maybe 5th. The Mastermage at the academy is a Wizard 6; the Principal of the War College (biggest and most prestigious on entire continent) is Sorcerer 8. there are legends of a Sorcerer 10 who figured out how to teleport... and was never seen again. The party reached level 4 saving a kingdom from undead, and were made Knights and Ladies of the Court (with a manor, kingly gifts, and the responsibility of fealty). They hit level 7 while saving the (local area of the) world, and were called as Heroes of the Land to go off into other worlds to halt bigger threats.
Similarly, I played in a campaign where the party reached 12th level adventuring on the material plane. At that point, the Psion 12, the StormPriest (cleric 7, PrC 5), the Flaming Fist (cleric 5 / Prc 7), and the incantatrix (wizard 7, Prc 5) decided to go to the Planes for various personal reasons, not the least of which were more interesting challenges and better loot. (The Rogue 9 / Fighter 3 and the Rogue 3 / Sorcerer 4 / Medusa 4 tagged along for fun, but the other, with massive casting abilities, determined the course of action.) Once on the planes, they discovered they weren't as powerful as they once thought.
One campaign actually had this as the driving question, “What *was* happening to all potential heroes as they gained in power? Why *weren't* there any beings of great skill or puissant magical ability?” The situation had existed long enough that "normal" adventurers learned to retire before hitting the "danger zone". PCs, on the other hand, can't resist a mystery...
Pick an explanation, have the players acknowledge it (suspension of disbelief), and go from there.
The numbers
CR Number of people killed
1 2
2 4
3 8
4 16
5 32
6 64
7 128
8 256
9 512
10 1,024
11 2,048
12 4,096
13 8,192
14 16,384
15 32,768
16 65,536
17 131,072
18 262,144
19 524,288
20 1,048,576
1 2
2 4
3 8
4 16
5 32
6 64
7 128
8 256
9 512
10 1,024
11 2,048
12 4,096
13 8,192
14 16,384
15 32,768
16 65,536
17 131,072
18 262,144
19 524,288
20 1,048,576
What if the dragon wants to destroy the nearby village you say? SOMEONE is bound to make a call for adventurers - dead dragon. What if the high-level wizard wants to destroy the town guard for bugging him about taxes? Well someone is bound to make a call for adventurers - dead wizard. What if some adventurers go nuts and want to create random destruction? Well there are other adventurers, ready to destroy them for loot and XP!
The thing is; high level characters ARE disruptive to the world. And that only gives DMs more choices for quests! If high level characters/monsters were not disruptive, then high-level PCs would have no one to face! :D A basic assumption in D&D is that high-level characters are quite common. There are a bunch of them in every adventuring party!
And since adventurers are so easily motivated (even that level 1 aristocrat in the backwater town can use them, for some gold), high-level characters tend to keep each other in check, balancing the forces of the cosmos.
My 2 cents.
P.S. I do prefer Tolkien's style of fantasy. But even that is filled with high-level characters balancing each other out, if you think about it.
High level characters disrupt the ordinary workings of the world around them simply by the fact of their existence. Let us assume we play in some flavor of medieval fantasy, with walled cities, castles, kings, knights, and so on and that we're not playing in an Eberron-esque world. Now, add magic. What happens?
Well, first, the concept of witch-burning and angry mobs more or less goes away. In our world, it is not a foregone conclusion that the old woman or strange outsider hauled in front of the village tribunal does not have the capacity to bind Amon, the Void Before the Altar, to her very soul, or manifest Psionic Dimension Door, or cast Circle of Death in the middle of the courtroom. In a realm with magic, trying to arrest people for the crime of witchcraft is like trying to give a traffic ticket to a M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank: it only works if the people in the tank decide to let it work.
Except the tank is less disruptive, and has limited resources.
What about epidemics? They're not much of a threat, given the way disease is handled in D&D. For another, the presence of druids, clerics, and paladins mean that sudden, effective response to outbreaks can happen, and the existence of divination magics means that it is very likely that a few moderately-leveled divine casters will know where they need to go and when they need to be there.
Any small village could have the disease down yes, if they had lots of clerics, who would probably heal it. Why do you think there isn't very much about disease in the rules? And there are Magic resistant diseases...
But all of these things are more or less piddling. What happens when a 20th-level wizard moves into a city? The city cannot effectively tax him, or limit his behavior in any meaningful way; unless the city is already full of heroes. The wizard can simply ignore any edicts he disagrees with and magically slay any civic officials that irritate him. By this point, the wizard is almost certainly sleeping in extradimensional spaces, or possibly is saving a teleport each day to end up in a safe lair to rest. If he's reasonably intelligent, he simply can't be caught with his pants down (or robe up, as the case may be). Moreover, any actual attempt to thwart him may very well result in a few Walls of Fire along the most flammable sections of the city and Walls of Stone plugging the city gates. A high-level caster has the power of a modern nation-state, and needs to be treated as such.
Your point is what exactly? This is painfully obvious.
In our world, the fundamental exercise of power is a large number people with guns. In our world, any person, no matter how heroic, will be shot. We don't read in the news about how a bank robber ripped his way into the vault with his bare hands, stuck around to slay the SWAT team and also killed an additional 40 police officers on the side for the XP. And yet, this sort of thing is expected in the D&D world.
Yes. Because it's not the same. But, if it were, it would be similar.
You could try to include civic heroes, of course. You can say that the Commander of the Watch of the city is the equal to a war hero in combat experience. You can posit that there's an even higher-level wizard that works for the king and defends his lands as best he can.
Then why doesn't the mage rule his own nation? Because he does it only if he wants to.
But if this wizard exists, what other sign of him is there? Is the wizard cranking out wondrous architecture to benefit the country? Is he making use of permanent--and instantaneous--duration spells to benefit the kingdom's economy? What signs of this enormously-powerful wizard exist in the world? No, including high-level members of the world breaks the status quo just as much as high-level PCs.
I would say that for the same reason he's not ruling the place. Because he's a lazy bastard.
Either you can adapt your world to accept powerful magic-users. You can put low-level wizards in every town, and have knowledge of the broad capacity of magic to be common. But if you do so, then you radically alter the dynamic of the world right there. In short, if you play in 'standard' medieval-esque setting, accept the fact that the first character, PC or NPC, of a high CR will be able to drastically alter the world at will.
Yes. That's the whole point of heroic fantasy. Why do you think so many people dislike Forgotten Realms? Because being "Just another High-Level Adventurer" isn't nearly as fun as being "The ultimate adventurer".
However, I've been reading a few posts now that carry the tone of their poster being the first to realize that power unchecked causes problems. Either they're insinuating that NO ONE ELSE realizes this, or trying to flex their own power and imaginations by providing ways to counter it. All you need to do is assume (within reason) that communities of greater and greater power have had to deal with these things in the past, and give them reasonable methods to ensure that things work the way they are. Norms build over time, because that's the very nature of stability. Cities would not exist for a character to run amok in the first place if no one learned how to keep order.
But your lvl 20 wizard might face some divine consequences, no? Unless he was evil, in which case he might find that the town packed up and left around him. Just one thought I had. Good job.
Civilizations have large cities, armies, navies, trade routes, political institutions, and the like. These civilizations are large tools to extract wealth, prosperity, and progress from the world. But what would a wizard need from this? They have other tools with which to extract the exact same wealth, progress, and prosperity.
Suppose a wizard establishes himself as ruler of a city. There are many ways to do it. Many spells aid political subterfuge and massive destruction alike. Once the wizard becomes ruler, then what? He could raise armies, build navies, establish trade, and bestow titles for the loyalty of his followers.
Of course, these armies and navies could be easily destroyed by a rival arcane group. The political system could be infiltrated in the same ways the wizard might have originally. The only way to stop this would be for the wizard to intervene himself and you ultimately end up with a showdown between these two opposing arcane casters or groups.
It would probably be far more productive to remain hidden or secretive. There the wizards and other arcane users can study and research to gain more knowledge, which ultimately leads to a greater ability to progress their way of life.
There would be plenty of things to disrupt this status quo however. If a nation was intent of destroying an arcane stronghold, the arcanists would probably have to intervene. Magic users might also get involved in the affairs of mundane empires and kingdoms as part of a larger scheme. This involvement could be covert or overt.
One: You can give an armored tank a ticket if you have more armored tanks to back it up.
Two: It is noted in the Eberron Campaign Book that with the high cost of Remove Disease, epidemics are not going to be eradicated any time soon. It probably costs more to pay for such a spell than most peasants make annually, so unless the king is a somewhat mad philanthropist with an army of clerics with Wands of Remove Disease, disease isn't going anywhere.
Two things:
One: You can give an armored tank a ticket if you have more armored tanks to back it up.
Two: It is noted in the Eberron Campaign Book that with the high cost of Remove Disease, epidemics are not going to be eradicated any time soon. It probably costs more to pay for such a spell than most peasants make annually, so unless the king is a somewhat mad philanthropist with an army of clerics with Wands of Remove Disease, disease isn't going anywhere.
1: This is a very valid point. But, in order to give this tank a ticket, you need to catch it. If the tank can avoid the other tanks long enough to launch chemical or biological agent shells into enough cities to disrupt the economy of the kingdom it's in, then your own offensive capacity is meaningless unless it's combined with a way to find and stop the one tank from destroying you.
In D&D terms, a 15-level wizard employed by a kingdom can probably hunt down a 10th-level wizard, no problem. But a 10th-level wizard can destroy large sections of the kingdom before he is caught. If he can destroy enough and hide long enough for the kingdom to have to stop paying their archmage, then he wins.
2: The idea was that the spell slots to cast the Create Disease would be donated by a high-level cleric or druid that wanted to eradicate the plague. Barring that, wondrous architecture of Cure Disease is cheap. 3750 to 7500 gp will net you an immovable item of Remove Disease at will, according to the price guidelines in Races of Stone. Having one of these around will neatly remove the problem of disease in the big cities (just make people walk through it to have to enter the city), and aggressive transportation will get a caster to be able to hit multiple smaller towns in succession.
This is contingent, of course, on the high-level caster being willing to craft the wondrous items, and take a few-week hiatus when a plague happens. This is because (say it with me now) high-level characters can change the way the world works.
Any high level adventuring party should be vastly outnumbered by other high level characters and high level adventuring parties active, semi-retired and retired. Most of the good and lawful ones tend to support their government or rulers even the Chaotic Good Ones. Think the CG Elminster in Shadowdale.
Consider one of the worst the normally Insane CE Halastar BlackCloak (LE when sane). In Waterdeep he basically limits himself to occasionally kidnap/transport someone or something to Undermountain usually for some reason before letting them find their way out on their own.
The more people the high level PCs kill, rob (personally or via destruction of their house, business etc.) the greater the chance one of those little commoners the idiot high level characters just bothered for no reason will turn out to be a favorite niece, nephew, cousin or sibling of someone powerful like Vangerdahast (Cormyr Royal Magician and Leader of the War Wizards with the power of a King and Nation behind him) or Influential like that low level aristocrat and 4th cousin of the King or Duke.
Most of those commoners are either "Innocent Children" or Taxpayers so when high level characters start running amok and killing them off in droves or setting poor examples there should be a negative effect in the campaign world for those same high level trouble makers reducing tax revenue while increasing civic expenditures repairing the damage from their rampages.
IMO a DM would be perfectly within their rights to have High Level Deputies knowing who they are, where they are going to be striking next, where they are based out of, who their relatives are, where they own property they can be destroyed etc.... (simply by using a Commune from one of the Level 9+ clergy of the most popular religions since the high level characters are killing off their followers and causing a crisis in the church which would negate Party Mindblanking or similar divination defying effects).
Get those same religious groups to declare those high level characters persona non grata and enemies of the faith. Start a church crusade to have them killed with extreme prejudice by the faithful which include many high level characters plus access to various outsiders. This is a good tool for crossing national borders and kingdoms and groups running around a lot. Most religious orders have knights who can and do enforce law and justice in various countries or nations.
Two things:
One: You can give an armored tank a ticket if you have more armored tanks to back it up.
Two: It is noted in the Eberron Campaign Book that with the high cost of Remove Disease, epidemics are not going to be eradicated any time soon. It probably costs more to pay for such a spell than most peasants make annually, so unless the king is a somewhat mad philanthropist with an army of clerics with Wands of Remove Disease, disease isn't going anywhere.
Slight correction here. Remove Disease doesn't COST anything. To BUY a Remove Disease takes gold. It doesn't cost the caster a dime to cast the spell, hence, why it can be used to help control an Epidemic. It just takes a very generous high level caster.
As for Remove Disease not helping someone develop immunity, says who? The character still has been exposed to the disease...despite the fact that it was wiped away, they were still exposed and they still survived. It's not called "Remove Disease Resistance." The next time they get exposed to the disease they'll be much more resistant. The effect would be exactly the same as being exposed to a vaccine of dead cells.
===Aelryinth
If peasants faced both then surely they'd all be dead. Basically the one balances the other out. Remove disease protects them from epidemics, but the various monster/evildoers leave them back where they started. And don't forget there's a "cause disease" spell too...
I would say high level characters affect the world around them to various degrees but the more regularly and negatively they affect the campaign world increasingly greater forces in the campaign world are informed of their presence and begin to act in varying degrees. All campaign worlds should have some kind of Cause and Effect because PCs Do Not Exist in a Vacuum.
High-level is a relative term. An ex-druid5/blighter5 can destroy villages and even nations, if left unopposed for long enough. But if this punk blighter thinks that they can walk all over the crops of a nation ruled by a level-20 diviner, then he has another thing coming. This is because the high-level character (the diviner) has chosen to affect the world. The world is still only as stable as the Diviner wants it to be. If you have a world ruled by Epic characters, then it is as stable as the Epic characters wish to make it. Moreover, it's still quite easy to light up large portions of a kingdom ruled by epic characters before you're caught. If you have large-scale precautions (mythals against spawning undead in major population centers, say), then, as I keep coming back to, you have high-level characters affecting the world.
High-level is a relative term. An ex-druid5/blighter5 can destroy villages and even nations, if left unopposed for long enough. But if this punk blighter thinks that they can walk all over the crops of a nation ruled by a level-20 diviner, then he has another thing coming. This is because the high-level character (the diviner) has chosen to affect the world. The world is still only as stable as the Diviner wants it to be. If you have a world ruled by Epic characters, then it is as stable as the Epic characters wish to make it. Moreover, it's still quite easy to light up large portions of a kingdom ruled by epic characters before you're caught. If you have large-scale precautions (mythals against spawning undead in major population centers, say), then, as I keep coming back to, you have high-level characters affecting the world.
I agree that was my point. Your diviner probably would have little trouble with a level 10 divine healer of some sort going around the nation doing "Beneficial Things" like healing and helping subjects of the nation.
Your diviner is one of those greater forces in the campaign world who responds in various degrees when PCs begin negatively affecting the nation in the campaign world.
For convenience, I define that in my campaign world, the ultra high levels are squabbling on the higher planes and cancel each other out.
In a realm with magic, trying to arrest people for the crime of witchcraft is like trying to give a traffic ticket to a M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank: it only works if the people in the tank decide to let it work.
Unless of course, you have your own tanks, and your tanks come in larger numbers and/or bigger sizes. For every dangerous high-level criminal out there, you can find a high-level mercenary or hero (read: the PCs) ready to take them down. Given that, the balance is maintained.
What about epidemics? They're not much of a threat, given the way disease is handled in D&D. For another, the presence of druids, clerics, and paladins mean that sudden, effective response to outbreaks can happen, and the existence of divination magics means that it is very likely that a few moderately-leveled divine casters will know where they need to go and when they need to be there.
In a fantasy world, powerful magical diseases resistant to healing (or at least until some powerful spellcaster comes up with a cure) take the place of regular diseases. Barring that, a particularly virulent disease might just spread and kill so quickly that every church in the area cannot contain it fast enough.
But all of these things are more or less piddling. What happens when a 20th-level wizard moves into a city? The city cannot effectively tax him, or limit his behavior in any meaningful way; unless the city is already full of heroes. The wizard can simply ignore any edicts he disagrees with and magically slay any civic officials that irritate him. By this point, the wizard is almost certainly sleeping in extradimensional spaces, or possibly is saving a teleport each day to end up in a safe lair to rest. If he's reasonably intelligent, he simply can't be caught with his pants down (or robe up, as the case may be). Moreover, any actual attempt to thwart him may very well result in a few Walls of Fire along the most flammable sections of the city and Walls of Stone plugging the city gates. A high-level caster has the power of a modern nation-state, and needs to be treated as such.
In a fantasy setting, the rulers of nation-states are either high-level characters themselves or command the loyalty of high-level characters. Those that are neither tend to lose their status rather quickly. So a 20th-level wizard moves into Waterdeep; who cares? If he decides to make trouble, the Lord of Waterdeep can have him dead or fleeing in moments.
In our world, the fundamental exercise of power is a large number people with guns. In our world, any person, no matter how heroic, will be shot. We don't read in the news about how a bank robber ripped his way into the vault with his bare hands, stuck around to slay the SWAT team and also killed an additional 40 police officers on the side for the XP. And yet, this sort of thing is expected in the D&D world.
But what is also expected is the presence of superheroes to stop them. Read some superhero comics or watch some superhero films. Unstoppable villains go on rampages all the time, and the police are usually helpless . . . but heroes (either vigilantes or government agents) will eventually arrive to deal with them.
But if this wizard exists, what other sign of him is there? Is the wizard cranking out wondrous architecture to benefit the country? Is he making use of permanent--and instantaneous--duration spells to benefit the kingdom's economy? What signs of this enormously-powerful wizard exist in the world? No, including high-level members of the world breaks the status quo just as much as high-level PCs.
Why not? Why can't there be signs of powerful magic, such as the mythals of the Forgotten Realms? You are creating your own scenario where things don't make sense, but there are fantasy worlds where they do.
Either you can adapt your world to accept powerful magic-users. You can put low-level wizards in every town, and have knowledge of the broad capacity of magic to be common. But if you do so, then you radically alter the dynamic of the world right there. In short, if you play in 'standard' medieval-esque setting, accept the fact that the first character, PC or NPC, of a high CR will be able to drastically alter the world at will.
You may want to read some fantasy novels, especially FR, Eberron, or Dragonlance, and then reconsider. High-level characters are significant and notable, but they balance each other out.
An ECL 20 character cannot simply do whatever they feel like because there are other ECL 20s, and beings even more powerful than that. At the top of that list are the deities themselves, who certainly would intercede if a menace becomes sufficiently annoying.
So the characters learn to go along or they end up dead very early in their careers, before they're a real threat. High-level characters who've abused their power in the past will lead to anti-magic hysteria similar to the anti-mutant hysteria in X-Men comics.
So I would imagine that spellcasters tend to get watched by the authorities. VERY carefully. There's probably some group like the White/High Council in The Dresden Files which keeps the rogues under control.
There's only a couple of spells that put the caster out of reach of normal authorities. And by that point, the DM is perfectly within his rights to bring in abnormal authorities.
As for Remove Disease not helping someone develop immunity, says who? The character still has been exposed to the disease...despite the fact that it was wiped away, they were still exposed and they still survived. It's not called "Remove Disease Resistance." The next time they get exposed to the disease they'll be much more resistant. The effect would be exactly the same as being exposed to a vaccine of dead cells.
The rules say so.
Note: Since the spell’s duration is instantaneous, it does not prevent reinfection after a new exposure to the same disease at a later date.
And as it doesn't say that people get a bonus to their save against the disease the next time around, they don't. So really all you need for a pandemic is for people to be infected faster than the clerics can heal them. Sure this would be slower than a "normal" pandemic, but so what? It means that the Evil Plague of Death(tm) is something worthy not note--because the normal 5th level clerics couldn't stop it. It would make a good adventure for the high-level characters. You know, those guys whose existence defines this game?
The Game Balance is defined that 2 level is equivalent to twice as many people. A 20th lvl character is equal to 1024 characters, so 2000 people could overcome him. A Metropolis includes about 5 dozen 15th lvl characters who could splat the wizard if they get together.
Actually, 2000 people against a 20th level character will usually end with 2000 people either being toasted by area spells, cleaved to death, or rapid shotted before they get anywhere near killing the level 20. Against something that powerful it's usually 1 hit and you're dead.
And this is ignoring the problem of finding 2000 weak people who won't retreat after watching the first 40 get fireballed.
Unless of course, you have your own tanks, and your tanks come in larger numbers and/or bigger sizes. For every dangerous high-level criminal out there, you can find a high-level mercenary or hero (read: the PCs) ready to take them down. Given that, the balance is maintained.
The ability to blow up a tank does not equate to the ability to stop the tank from killing lots of other cars. Moreover, if your ability to send tanks after that one tank is contingent on you having, for example, a civilian population and an economy. It's easy to simply run from any serious opposition and attack whoever isn't being protected by similarly-leveled people at the time. Yes, enemies of your CR+10 can probably outrun you, track you down, and slay you...but if these enemies exist, then you aren't high-level for a given world, and what is expected is happening. Moreover, it's always easier to destroy than to protect; the protector needs to win every time, but you only need one lucky attack to cause irreparable harm.
In a fantasy world, powerful magical diseases resistant to healing (or at least until some powerful spellcaster comes up with a cure) take the place of regular diseases. Barring that, a particularly virulent disease might just spread and kill so quickly that every church in the area cannot contain it fast enough.
Huh. In a fantasy world where magic exists for millennia, I tend to assume it's a 'mature technology'. That is to say, I assume that every permutation of Contagion-II (which resists Remove Disease) has been discovered, as has every permutation of Remove Disease-II (which also removes Contagion-II). However, you are correct that this does not preclude the spontaneous generation of new, virulent diseases in the world. This is strictly a DM-choice, however.
In a fantasy setting, the rulers of nation-states are either high-level characters themselves or command the loyalty of high-level characters. Those that are neither tend to lose their status rather quickly. So a 20th-level wizard moves into Waterdeep; who cares? If he decides to make trouble, the Lord of Waterdeep can have him dead or fleeing in moments.
I have no FR-books statting out Waterdeep handy. However, the sheer offensive potential of a level-20 wizard is such that I am highly-skeptical that the wizard could not level large portions of Waterdeep on his way out. Again, the ability to inflict harm does not imply the ability to prevent it.
Also, most fantasy settings include things like monarchy and feudalism, which work extremely poorly in a D&D setting. The king may be a level 20 paladin, yes, but his heirs do not necessarily inherit his class levels.
But what is also expected is the presence of superheroes to stop them. Read some superhero comics or watch some superhero films. Unstoppable villains go on rampages all the time, and the police are usually helpless . . . but heroes (either vigilantes or government agents) will eventually arrive to deal with them.
This is because superhero universes in which the heroes slip up once and lose the island of Manhattan do not tend to keep readers. Superhero universes have massive plot-shields; this is because a story in which Magneto flies into orbit and simply rains iron asteroids down onto the capitals of the world and Xavier's school for the gifted would, by necessity, be the last X-men story told.
I repeat your challenge; go read Watchmen. Watchmen has a few moderately-leveled characters in a level-one-commoner world, and one Psion15 who, in his off time, reshapes the world's technological, economic, and political landscapes.
Why not? Why can't there be signs of powerful magic, such as the mythals of the Forgotten Realms? You are creating your own scenario where things don't make sense, but there are fantasy worlds where they do.
There can be. Indeed, there should be; the mythals are an excellent example of things that should be the default. The problem is the cities that aren't protected by the mythals, or the gaps in the mythals that can be exploited (one obvious one being flying high above it and dropping Shrunk boulders, say).
In our world, it's hard to destroy a city on a whim; mobilizing an army or even launching a nuke requires a lot of people to co-operate with you. In D&D, one person can have the offensive capacity of an entire conventional army.
You may want to read some fantasy novels, especially FR, Eberron, or Dragonlance, and then reconsider. High-level characters are significant and notable, but they balance each other out.
An ECL 20 character cannot simply do whatever they feel like because there are other ECL 20s, and beings even more powerful than that. At the top of that list are the deities themselves, who certainly would intercede if a menace becomes sufficiently annoying.
Well, yes. A world with active gods has no high-level characters, any more than our world has advanced-in-HD ants. This does not answer the question of a God willing to use mass-hand-of-death aggressively to drop the divine rank of its opposing deific enemies, for instance.
By invoking the problems, you're just pushing the problem back. The truth of D&D universes is that they are only as stable as the personalities enforcing stability.
The thing everyone forgets is that high-level characters learn to behave when they're low-level, or they never become high-level. Sure, a mob can't go witch-burning a high-level spellcaster. But that's not who they burn. They burn the guy at the stake when he's 1st-level, or 4th, or anytime before he knows teleport. Given that D&D spellcasters can't cast spells when they're bound, gagged, or lacking material components, they are SCREWED.
Can the mob tell at a glance if the wizard that just use Burning-Hands to incinerate a guardsman is 3rd-level, and used his Sudden Empower feat for the day, or is 15th level? Moreover, isn't this just incentive for wizards to destroy civilization and repopulate it with controlled undead servitors to do the food-growing and the spell-component collecting?
Come to that, wouldn't a high-level wizard just be more likely to just save towns that don't burn wizards, and let the armies of evil humanoids and giants overrun the bigoted towns? In D&D universes, there is very strong selection pressure to keep adventurers happy with you.
So the characters learn to go along or they end up dead very early in their careers, before they're a real threat. High-level characters who've abused their power in the past will lead to anti-magic hysteria similar to the anti-mutant hysteria in X-Men comics.
Anti-mutant hysteria is an artifact of the author controlling the universe. If the X-men characters were controlled by D&D players, then Xavier would have himself be declared god-king of the Earth, and forcibly implant telepathic compulsions to be good, honest, upright, work for the public good, etc. in everyone. More to that, it's also dependent on the X-Men not saying, "OK, America? You don't like mutants? That's fine with us, we'll just move to some country in Europe. Have fun dealing with Apocalypse, by the way."
So I would imagine that spellcasters tend to get watched by the authorities. VERY carefully. There's probably some group like the White/High Council in The Dresden Files which keeps the rogues under control.
Again, you're not addressing the risk of irreparable damage. What could the High/White council do if some smart aleck dropped a werewolf into a riot or a refugee camp, say? Unless that particular riot or refugee camp was being monitored, you could be on multiple generations of weres before it was noticed, and even if it was picked up on right away, you'd still need to stop it.
It doesn't matter how powerful you are; certain effects will utterly disrupt the normal functioning of the world if they are used as written. Viral reproduction of anything (except possibly Spider-eaters) is one of these effects. You can argue that no spectre has any particular interest in leaving their ruins to head to a city where they can acquire a few hundred thousand servitor spectres, say, but you'll have problems when a PC starts using Command Undead or Control Undead to make this happen anyways.
There's only a couple of spells that put the caster out of reach of normal authorities. And by that point, the DM is perfectly within his rights to bring in abnormal authorities.
A: You will run out of authorities eventually.
B: The ability to find and destroy does not imply an ability to protect or repair.
Witch burnings are more of a 1300s thing anyway.
There weren't actually witch hunts in the Middle Ages. Well, a handful, mostly in Switzerland and Croatia.
The European witchhunts only began on a large scale during the Early Modern period, starting around 1450.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_hunt#Early_Modern_Europe
The phenomenon was heightened after the Protestant reformation. When the reformers rid themselves of Canon Law, they also lost centuries of legislative development. The Catholic Church learned fairly early that a witch hunt very swiftly devolved into a frenzied mob. As such, the penalties for incantation were generally two or three years of penance. For some time, the Church actually discouraged the belief in witchcraft.
It seems to me as though the convention of the Medieval witch hunt is sort of forced. If you wanted to be true to the form of actual Medieval Europe, you'd do well by dropping the stereotype of violent ignorance. Our ancestors were more cosmopolitan than we give them credit for.
The level of disruption is tied directly to how close to the Middle Age Europe model you wish to stay true to. This is all up to the campaign world creator and/or the DM. I, personally, never try to stick too close to that real world campaign setting. As others have posted, I tend to assume the model of there are plenty of high-level folk existing in the world and they all balance out. (Plenty, in this case meaning high level is still rare population wise).
I also tend to try to make the campaign world fit the existence of magic, instead of ignoring it and running into conflict. It seems plausible to me that Law Enforcement should be capable of dealing with a magic-user arrest and confinement. It does not seem far fetched to me that the Kingdom Capitol city(at least) should have a jail cell with an anti-magic field or perhaps a bracelet designed to cancel out the user's spellcasting ability. Things like that, used sparingly, make sense. Even in real life not every police station can handle special needs criminals or has the capability to send out a large SWAT team.
The rules say so.
And as it doesn't say that people get a bonus to their save against the disease the next time around, they don't. So really all you need for a pandemic is for people to be infected faster than the clerics can heal them. Sure this would be slower than a "normal" pandemic, but so what? It means that the Evil Plague of Death(tm) is something worthy not note--because the normal 5th level clerics couldn't stop it. It would make a good adventure for the high-level characters. You know, those guys whose existence defines this game?
The science is “your body didn’t fight it off, the spell did.”
I think there are two possibilities: All-might kingdoms and puny city-states and loose communities.
...And hardly anything in between. Either a nation has the power and stability to prosper, then it will prosper, or it is instable, one powerful being can possible overthrow a certain region - and in fact, this happens every 1 or 2 years, the people are already used to it.
However, the small instable countries rules by strong warlords (think of pre-roman empire Europe - with magic) is uninteresting from a fantasy-political point of view.
Let's look at the large Kingdoms, those that last for centuries, winning epic wars, surviving Attacks of Demons, Dragons and 20th level evil Adventurer parties. How could one estimate their power?
A Kingdom should not have below 1 Million people, 2-5 Millions are likely for the somewhat big ones, 10-50 Millions for the "Empires"
I personally don't like that "90% are 1st level commoners" thinking, not that it would not work, but seriously, why don't those people get XP? The majority of the population in my games is 3rd level, followed by second level, but also quite a bunch of higher level folk.
And by "higher" I mean the mid-high level. Epic characters are likely 1 (or let's say less than 5) in a million, and usually, they are not really belonging to that nation, just currently on a visit. However, someone said, a 20th level character could slay hundreds of low level commoners? What about the Kingdoms SWAT Team Alpha, consisting of 20 Rangers, and ~3 each Druids, Psions and Battlesorcerers, all of Level 12-15?
A 10th level Psion can cast a Dispel Psionics with a +20 Modifier - Take 3 of them and the Wizard is in trouble. 20 Rapid Shooting Rangers, tightly packed into 3 Globe of Invisibility Pre-fight, shooting 4 arrows each, 80 attacks, likely adamantine, definitely magic arrows.
Anti-Magic field is only 6th level Spell - the highest, the Sorcerer can cast - but he can cast it.
The 14th level Wizards from Arcane Support Unit 4, scryed out the 20th level Wizards location, 3 Sorcerers Level 12 teleport in, bringing along 4 Warrior-Types each. (1 of the 3 teleports wrong)
Surprise round: Anti-Magic Field! Mobbing around the Wizard, so he can't run out.
Round 1: Wizard dead meat.
...And it hardly matters, weather the wizard is level 20 or more, you just need better scryers.
But how "higher" can they get? What would be a 3 Million people Kingdom's resources?
Army:
A 5% army size is more then civil (*checks this with ancient Rome*). Yes, it is.
150,000 man (and women) at arms, let's put 99% of them into the "regular army", 2nd to 4th level warriors, every 10 let by a fighter of 3rd-5th level, every 100 one fighter with leadership (6 level or higher), and one 8th (or higher level General at the Top of every 1000 man. With a little conflict zones in the territory to keep the unity in shape, one can expect 2 or 3 "veteran" battalions (the 1000s) 1 level higher and maybe a single elite battalion, with scars and war stories and 2 levels above that.
But one Percent is cut of. Unlike the Generaly, distributed over the whole army, those are assigned special strike forces. This percent are the characters above 10th level and the main bunch of mightier magic users (Magic users below 6th level are kept in the army, however with a customised training plan to level up quickly. You know, real bloody training fights against captured monsters or (in case of an evil empire *imagine imperial march*) against captured slaves.)
1,500 man and women.
Arcane short Battalion: 500 divided into companies à 100 and Troops à 20, so, that always 1 caster of 11th or higher level guides a number of lower level casters and there is still a 10 person strike team of solely highest level arcane characters (14+, at least 3 able to cast 9th level spells), solely at the disposal of the King. The normal troops of 20 usually support the army or other special Troops and are maneuvered company-wise only in times of war, or threats of a likely big scale.
Special Operations: High Level Rogues, Rangers and Monks go into these Divisions, as well as a good number of "Gish" characters. They have a loose command structure, teams of 5-20 are usually assembled for missions and disbanded afterwards (of cause long infiltration (etc.) missions can take up to a year or something). This team acts like adventurer-groups, just often with a heavy stealth-aspect. Most of the time, those characters spend training and improving their skills. Their number should be a few hundred, too.
Undead-defence strikeforces:
High level divine casters are hard to get into military, so those that are there are really cared for. These 20 strikeforces à 25 man and women are mainly composed of fighters (and Paladins, if available at the nation's alignment-choice), but based around one high level (11+) cleric each force and a small number (up to 10) of level clerics (6-10). The fighters are well equipped with slashing, bludgeoning, silver and ghost-touch weapons.
Dragon-Riders and Beastmasters:
Speaking of High-level Monsters, we have those, too. One or two hundred mighty individuals are training mighty Monsters or special Slave-Troops.
10-20 should at least be Dragon Riders, those are cool - through a Wyrven can substitute for this.
There should be a heavy infantry, and here I'm not talking about heavy armor, but about War-Trolls, Ogres and Minotaurs.
Basically Animal and Magical bears of sufficient low Intelligence (Dire Elephants, Bulette, Frost Worm) could be used as shock attackers. Actually the regular troops use the same tactic, but there it's more like "Wolverine" or "Boar", while these special beastmasters might push a 45 HD Razor Boar at the enemies.
This is because superhero universes in which the heroes slip up once and lose the island of Manhattan do not tend to keep readers. Superhero universes have massive plot-shields; this is because a story in which Magneto flies into orbit and simply rains iron asteroids down onto the capitals of the world and Xavier's school for the gifted would, by necessity, be the last X-men story told.
You touch on this a couple of times. I would argue that D&D has a similar plot-shield in place. Just like a comic book, D&D is about telling a story. Sure you can have players who destroy the world, but then that's the end of the campaign--in your words "the last X-men story told." Every game I've ever played in has an unspoken contract between the players and the DM: if you let me, I'll give you a good story. If the PCs act in such a way that they disallow a good story, then the game doesn't happen.
D&D has plot shields because it's no fun if they don't. At least I don't think it's very fun. And even if it was, it wouldn't last long.
Yes, high-level characters can influence the world. This isn't a bad thing. But I put forth that high-level PCs do not disrupt the world. Because if they do, then they may no longer have a world to play in. If the world could survive their disruption, then they really didn't disrupt it at all.
For example, sure maybe the 20th level PCs can level entire towns without breaking a sweat. But if the game continues despite their doing that, then they haven't really disrupted the game now, have they? Sure maybe they've disrupted the world as you might historically imagine it, but they haven't disrupted (or perhaps even influenced!) the world where people go about destroying towns all the time.
The ability to blow up a tank does not equate to the ability to stop the tank from killing lots of other cars. Moreover, if your ability to send tanks after that one tank is contingent on you having, for example, a civilian population and an economy. It's easy to simply run from any serious opposition and attack whoever isn't being protected by similarly-leveled people at the time. Yes, enemies of your CR+10 can probably outrun you, track you down, and slay you...but if these enemies exist, then you aren't high-level for a given world, and what is expected is happening. Moreover, it's always easier to destroy than to protect; the protector needs to win every time, but you only need one lucky attack to cause irreparable harm.
It is indeed easy to run . . . for the moment. Once a given creature has announced themselves as a threat, however, the result will be that they will find themselves hunted fugitives by both powerful members of law enforcement and bands of player characters eager for bounties. Most importantly, the knowledge that this will happen provides significant deterrence and impetus to abide by the law. Being a fugitive is simply undesirable, and having extra enemies in addition to the ones you already have is always a bad idea.
I have no FR-books statting out Waterdeep handy. However, the sheer offensive potential of a level-20 wizard is such that I am highly-skeptical that the wizard could not level large portions of Waterdeep on his way out. Again, the ability to inflict harm does not imply the ability to prevent it.
It does, however, usually come with the ability to repair it. Clerics and wizards of similar levels should be more than capable of undoing most if not all of the damage that can be caused. When the offender is hunted down, brutally ambushed and slaughtered, and then has their soul sucked into a gem summarily thrown into a vault, however, that offender is a lot less likely to be a recurring problem. The very threat of such a possibility provides ample deterrence.
Also, most fantasy settings include things like monarchy and feudalism, which work extremely poorly in a D&D setting. The king may be a level 20 paladin, yes, but his heirs do not necessarily inherit his class levels.
Monarchs in D&D can live substantially longer due to magic if they so choose, which would give their heirs ample time to gain needed experience. Most would-be heirs would probably try to develop accomplished skills if they wish to hold a throne, and those that don't will be replaced when their kingdom is overrun.
This is because superhero universes in which the heroes slip up once and lose the island of Manhattan do not tend to keep readers. Superhero universes have massive plot-shields; this is because a story in which Magneto flies into orbit and simply rains iron asteroids down onto the capitals of the world and Xavier's school for the gifted would, by necessity, be the last X-men story told.
And likewise, a D&D campaign in which the PCs are not able to stop the villains from destroying the world has a tendency to end suddenly.
In our world, it's hard to destroy a city on a whim; mobilizing an army or even launching a nuke requires a lot of people to co-operate with you. In D&D, one person can have the offensive capacity of an entire conventional army.
And one law enforcement official or bounty hunter can likewise have the same capacity. Things are evened out.
Well, yes. A world with active gods has no high-level characters, any more than our world has advanced-in-HD ants. This does not answer the question of a God willing to use mass-hand-of-death aggressively to drop the divine rank of its opposing deific enemies, for instance.
I have not asserted that deities will actively smite left and right. However, especially powerful and dangerous entities who go out of their way to disrupt the world are going to incur the anger of multiple deities, which can hurt them even without appearing to administer a smiting.
By invoking the problems, you're just pushing the problem back. The truth of D&D universes is that they are only as stable as the personalities enforcing stability.
The problem is not being pushed back. The problem does not exist at all unless you are referring to a theoretical situation where you have a character who is so incredibly powerful that nothing can stop them (deities included). In that case, then yes, there will be no stability, but that's a result of bad campaign design, not an inherent problem with high-level characters.
You touch on this a couple of times. I would argue that D&D has a similar plot-shield in place. Just like a comic book, D&D is about telling a story. Sure you can have players who destroy the world, but then that's the end of the campaign--in your words "the last X-men story told." Every game I've ever played in has an unspoken contract between the players and the DM: if you let me, I'll give you a good story. If the PCs act in such a way that they disallow a good story, then the game doesn't happen.
D&D has plot shields because it's no fun if they don't. At least I don't think it's very fun. And even if it was, it wouldn't last long.
While I agree very much with this point in theory, there are two counterarguments that I'd like you to consider.
A: A lack of control over the players. Even if the players are not trying to, by the time they reach high levels, they can massively destabilize the world. Here's one example: One set of my players, as a result of a one-off comment made by one of my villains as they defeated him, started investigating their current quest-giver more closely. I let them find out a few interesting data-points that I was planning on bringing up later (when he would have gone from quest-giver to similarly-leveled ally). The players jumped to the incorrect conclusion that their quest-giver was an evil replacement of the actual quest-giver, and tried to assassinate him, assuming that they were doing what I, as DM, wanted them to do.
Thankfully, I didn't have to fudge anything; the nature of their quest-giver was such that he was both very difficult to assassinate, and understanding of such attempts given their knowledge of the time, but if the quest-giver had been different (or the king of a realm, say), and I hadn't been willing to say out-of-game, "Guys, you have this wrong. He's not a doppelganger or succubus" the game would have been disrupted.
B: The dice. Sometimes the heroes roll 1s (or 20s) that you are not expecting. If you establish that the fate of the world will rest on a battle (or series of battles), and the PCs keep losing them, what do you do then?
Yes, high-level characters can influence the world. This isn't a bad thing. But I put forth that high-level PCs do not disrupt the world. Because if they do, then they may no longer have a world to play in. If the world could survive their disruption, then they really didn't disrupt it at all.
For example, sure maybe the 20th level PCs can level entire towns without breaking a sweat. But if the game continues despite their doing that, then they haven't really disrupted the game now, have they? Sure maybe they've disrupted the world as you might historically imagine it, but they haven't disrupted (or perhaps even influenced!) the world where people go about destroying towns all the time.
I think this is a very important distinction to make: altering the face of the game world, even in a way contrary to the DM's expectations, is not necessarily the same thing as disrupting the game. If you, as DM, are willing to allow characters that can go to war against city-states and win, then you may well end up saying "OK, you have, at one master stroke, leveled the capital city of Charander. Groups X and Y want you dead, group Z has stopped wanting you dead, and groups A, B, and C will protect you from groups X and Z to the best of their ability. You now have to deal with massive political instability, refugees, local warlords, etc. What do you do now?"
You are within your rights as DM to insist on the players not causing massive political or environmental change, or on capping their levels such as they cannot enact such change, but if you don't say beforehand "When you to go war against these people, I don't expect you to actually win.", then you've lost your window to complain if the players do take the fight to their enemy, and out-think them.
It is indeed easy to run . . . for the moment. Once a given creature has announced themselves as a threat, however, the result will be that they will find themselves hunted fugitives by both powerful members of law enforcement and bands of player characters eager for bounties. Most importantly, the knowledge that this will happen provides significant deterrence and impetus to abide by the law. Being a fugitive is simply undesirable, and having extra enemies in addition to the ones you already have is always a bad idea.
A: Bounty-hunters require payment. One of the great things about wiping out large percentages of your opponent's tax base is that they very rapidly lose the economic advantage they had because of their political position.
B: Evil characters and monsters are more or less perpetually in the state of being hunted for breaking the law. This does not appear to have endangered them as a group.
C: Deterrence is also incentive to remove your opponent if possible. If you can weaken a stronger foe than yourself, others like you in their wanting-of-dead-enemy may well join in. After all, villains are traditionally the ones with the most to gain in an "Everyone attacks everyone else." scenario.
It does, however, usually come with the ability to repair it. Clerics and wizards of similar levels should be more than capable of undoing most if not all of the damage that can be caused. When the offender is hunted down, brutally ambushed and slaughtered, and then has their soul sucked into a gem summarily thrown into a vault, however, that offender is a lot less likely to be a recurring problem. The very threat of such a possibility provides ample deterrence.
There are numerous and myriad effects that can't be easily repaired by magic. Dead civvies is the biggest. How would a bunch of high-level wizards and clerics undo a carefully-tended spectre-nova* in the middle of a capital city?
*In short, you apply a spectre to a humanoid in the city. You get another spectre. You have two spectres, who attack more humanoids, and so on and so forth.
Also, you're being very blasé about the ability of the cleric-and-wizard alliance to find the spectre-nova creator. You're also assuming that the nova-maker doesn't simply use whatever divination methods available to the alliance to brutally ambush them first, given that it is likely he will know of them before they know of him.
Monarchs in D&D can live substantially longer due to magic if they so choose, which would give their heirs ample time to gain needed experience. Most would-be heirs would probably try to develop accomplished skills if they wish to hold a throne, and those that don't will be replaced when their kingdom is overrun.
These are both very valid points; hereditary monarchies would need to select their heir based on merit rather than birth order, lest a lazy firstborn son spell doom for an entire kingdom.
And likewise, a D&D campaign in which the PCs are not able to stop the villains from destroying the world has a tendency to end suddenly.
It depends on what you mean by 'destroy the world', of course. You can still adventure in the post-apocalyptic wasteland (there are even d20 supplements about it), or go plane-hopping.
And one law enforcement official or bounty hunter can likewise have the same capacity. Things are evened out.
Their ability to destroy the civilian population of your kingdom is not a negative incentive when you don't have a kingdom.
I have not asserted that deities will actively smite left and right. However, especially powerful and dangerous entities who go out of their way to disrupt the world are going to incur the anger of multiple deities, which can hurt them even without appearing to administer a smiting.
Why? Who is declaring that Erynthull and Nerull, for example, want the world stable? Why aren't the Many and the Reaper giving their homeboys on the Prime Material Plane at least as much interest as their Good counterparts?
You can assert that Nerull does not want to extinguish the world of all mortal life, and therefore does not throw all of his resources into one big push to drop the believing populations (and divine ranks) of the other gods with Mass Life and Death to less than his, and then simply kill every mortal not worshipping him with his own salient divine abilities. But by the book, Nerull can do this quite easily, and you as DM should have a better reason for having him not do so than "Because the game would end otherwise."
The problem is not being pushed back. The problem does not exist at all unless you are referring to a theoretical situation where you have a character who is so incredibly powerful that nothing can stop them (deities included). In that case, then yes, there will be no stability, but that's a result of bad campaign design, not an inherent problem with high-level characters.
The point I'm making is that it's not just PCs who can choose to level cities, decimate populations, bring back disco, etc. The NPCs of your world can choose to do so. You, as DM, can decide that no NPC with the ability to destroy the world ever does. But, when a lot of the NPCs with the ability to destroy the world have the stated desire to do so (like the evil gods mentioned above), you'd better have some very good excuses why they haven't yet.
So, what can you do about all of this? Well, you can move to Iron Heros, or a similar alternate rule-set where no character can level armies and nations while waiting for his crumpet to finish toasting.
You can institute a hard cut-off as to the existing character-level of folk in your world. You may, for instance, have magic above 5th level be unknown in civilized lands; the reason no one's pulled off a spectre-bomb is that no one can cast Create Greater Undead.
You can rely on MAD, and hope like the 9 hells that no one (PC or NPC) realizes, "Hey, wait a minute, we want a huge apocalyptic battle with lots of souls/loot/XP available for taking from the wreckage! Start calling those extraplanar shock troops!"
Finally, you can rely on the DM's best friends, fate and coincidence. It may be that anyone, PC or NPC, who threatens to disrupt the way you think the world should work fail, get distracted, or dies of a spontaneous heart attack (even liches). You can manage this easily enough with your own NPCs. But by the time a character gets to be of high level...they can choose to alter the various landscapes of the world.
A: A lack of control over the players. Even if the players are not trying to, by the time they reach high levels, they can massively destabilize the world. Here's one example: One set of my players, as a result of a one-off comment made by one of my villains as they defeated him, started investigating their current quest-giver more closely. I let them find out a few interesting data-points that I was planning on bringing up later (when he would have gone from quest-giver to similarly-leveled ally). The players jumped to the incorrect conclusion that their quest-giver was an evil replacement of the actual quest-giver, and tried to assassinate him, assuming that they were doing what I, as DM, wanted them to do.
Thankfully, I didn't have to fudge anything; the nature of their quest-giver was such that he was both very difficult to assassinate, and understanding of such attempts given their knowledge of the time, but if the quest-giver had been different (or the king of a realm, say), and I hadn't been willing to say out-of-game, "Guys, you have this wrong. He's not a doppelganger or succubus" the game would have been disrupted.
This is a fair point to make. If you let the PCs control the plot of the game (which is certainly not a bad thing), then they make take it in a direction you were not expecting. This may disrupt your world. Of course I'd argue that this is totally distinct from being high level--if the 1st level PCs decide to kill the messenger who was going to warn them about the goblin invasion, so that the entire town of Happyville is destroyed, then your world is disrupted. High level PCs just mean they might disrupt things on a larger scale. Thus the correct statement changes from "High level PCs disrupt the world" to "PCs of any level can disrupt the world if you let them."
If you let them. How many sessions did it take for the PCs to come to the conclusion that the quest-giver was evil? How many more for them to assassinate the guy? In this kind of situation, the DM should have enough time to either turn the PCs off their path, or adjust his world to match their path--in the later case, the world has been changed, but not necessarily disrupted since the DM should have formed a new world. And as you said: "if the quest-giver had been different (or the king of a realm, say), and I hadn't been willing to say out-of-game." Those are two pretty significant ifs. I'll ignore the first, but the second is what matters. By stepping out of game to save your world, you kept the PCs from disrupting the world. You are enforcing the Plot Shield that I hypothesize. If that shield is properly enforced, then the world doesn't get disrupted. If that shield isn't enforced, then your world isn't stable enough that anyone should care about disrupting it anyway.
B: The dice. Sometimes the heroes roll 1s (or 20s) that you are not expecting. If you establish that the fate of the world will rest on a battle (or series of battles), and the PCs keep losing them, what do you do then?
If the PCs are involved in a battle that determines the fate of the world, then their losing that battle should probably result in their death. Or the death of the world. Either way, the campaign is over. The world isn't disrupted--it is finished. That's what the Plot Shield does. If you've got a battle where the PCs can lose but the campaign doesn't end, then I don't see how that could disrupt the world--now you're just on the "the PCs lose" branch of the story tree. If it was a significant enough battle that bad/good rolls would disrupt the world but not end the campaign... I guess I'd see that as bad story design. You made the battle significant for the world but not for the PCs. That kind of situation destroys the Plot Shield that I say protects the game from PC disruption. So again, the fault for a disrupted game is because the DM wrote a bad story, not because of high level PCs. I acknowledge that this isn't my strongest argument, unfortunately.
You are within your rights as DM to insist on the players not causing massive political or environmental change, or on capping their levels such as they cannot enact such change, but if you don't say beforehand "When you to go war against these people, I don't expect you to actually win.", then you've lost your window to complain if the players do take the fight to their enemy, and out-think them.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you don't have to insist on it. By the cooperative, narrative nature of the game, PCs won't cause massive, disruptive world change without your compliance--if the world is disrupted, it's the DMs fault as much as the level of the PCs.
And again, massive political or environmental change does not equal disruptive! If the world is such where such drastic change is the norm, then it isn't disruptive to the game or the world for such change to occur. Again, I'm not saying PCs can't change the world. I'm saying they can't disrupt the game.
A: Bounty-hunters require payment. One of the great things about wiping out large percentages of your opponent's tax base is that they very rapidly lose the economic advantage they had because of their political position.
Payment does not have to come in the form of wealth. Offering land and titles to powerful adventurers with Leadership results in baronies cropping up with fresh tax bases, and these baronies will be well-protected by leaders who can also offer additional services to the crown.
B: Evil characters and monsters are more or less perpetually in the state of being hunted for breaking the law. This does not appear to have endangered them as a group.
Not at all true. Focused attention over an atrocity leads to a much harsher crackdown. As an example, note the status of terrorist groups throughout the world prior to and after events such as September 11th. They were always outlaws, but significant events dramatically increases the chances of an individual group being destroyed or at least losing their power base.
There are numerous and myriad effects that can't be easily repaired by magic. Dead civvies is the biggest. How would a bunch of high-level wizards and clerics undo a carefully-tended spectre-nova* in the middle of a capital city?
Dead civilians can be raised if the crown has cash to spare (or a cleric on hand with Ignore Material Components). Their labor can also be replaced with magical creatures, or civilians brought in from elsewhere in the world or on the planes by spellcasters.
Also, you're being very blasé about the ability of the cleric-and-wizard alliance to find the spectre-nova creator. You're also assuming that the nova-maker doesn't simply use whatever divination methods available to the alliance to brutally ambush them first, given that it is likely he will know of them before they know of him.
The benefit of having a large kingdom is that there will be many more spellcasters than that one lone psychopath and/or his group, and he can't possible ambush them all before someone realizes something up. After the disruptive character is permanently dealt with, the dead spellcasters can be resurrected.
Their ability to destroy the civilian population of your kingdom is not a negative incentive when you don't have a kingdom.
It's a negative incentive if it is used to destroy you, or whatever power base and followers you do have.
The point I'm making is that it's not just PCs who can choose to level cities, decimate populations, bring back disco, etc. The NPCs of your world can choose to do so. You, as DM, can decide that no NPC with the ability to destroy the world ever does. But, when a lot of the NPCs with the ability to destroy the world have the stated desire to do so (like the evil gods mentioned above), you'd better have some very good excuses why they haven't yet.
The point I'm making is that there is a very good reason why they haven't yet. Other NPCs. If the world is not completely dominated by Good or Evil, Law or Chaos, that means that there are sufficiently powerful NPCs on both sides that a balance is struck. The world is not yet destroyed because no one can manage to do so successfully do to the interference of other beings.
Absolutely none of your proposals are necessary in a world with other high-level characters. As long as you do not have a given NPC who is far stronger than every other character in the world, this issue will not come up.
I recommend that you read some Forgotten Realms novels and get an idea of how things work. Likewise, you should read Power of Faerun for its insightful depiction of how high-level characters influence the world.
Payment does not have to come in the form of wealth. Offering land and titles to powerful adventurers with Leadership results in baronies cropping up with fresh tax bases, and these baronies will be well-protected by leaders who can also offer additional services to the crown.
This is a very good point, and one that should be emphasized. The easiest way to stop people from wanting to break the status quo to get stuff is to give them a stake in keeping everything as it is.
Not at all true. Focused attention over an atrocity leads to a much harsher crackdown. As an example, note the status of terrorist groups throughout the world prior to and after events such as September 11th. They were always outlaws, but significant events dramatically increases the chances of an individual group being destroyed or at least losing their power base.
This is very true. On the other hand, a 20th-level wizard needs no support network or power base; he can strike and hide out until he is discovered, and with Mind Blank, being in a nondimensional space, etc., he will be extremely hard to find.
Dead civilians can be raised if the crown has cash to spare (or a cleric on hand with Ignore Material Components). Their labor can also be replaced with magical creatures, or civilians brought in from elsewhere in the world or on the planes by spellcasters.
A: You need to destroy the hundreds of thousands of angry spectres first.
B: You are talking thousands of GP of diamonds per casualty inflicted. (Unless epic cleric, of course. If Epic, then all bets are off.) I'd say that forcing your opponent to spend billions of gold per spectre-bomb is a worthwhile investment.
C: You can't just shuffle hundreds of thousands of humanoids into a city that was just depopulated and expect them to pick up where the previous casualties left off. People are not fungible.
D: The original caster can just strike again.
The benefit of having a large kingdom is that there will be many more spellcasters than that one lone psychopath and/or his group, and he can't possible ambush them all before someone realizes something up. After the disruptive character is permanently dealt with, the dead spellcasters can be resurrected.
A: Again, I'm still in the dark as to how this large group of pro-kingdom spellcasters intends to find and stop their adversary.
B: Killing them all is not necessary, as I said. All you need to do is kill enough that neighboring kingdom B who doesn't like kingdom A feels that their court-appointed thaumaturgical agencies can pick up where you left off.
It's a negative incentive if it is used to destroy you, or whatever power base and followers you do have.
The ability to destroy millions of clustered-together humanoids does not imply the ability to find and destroy a paranoid, patient level-20 caster-type.
The point I'm making is that there is a very good reason why they haven't yet. Other NPCs. If the world is not completely dominated by Good or Evil, Law or Chaos, that means that there are sufficiently powerful NPCs on both sides that a balance is struck. The world is not yet destroyed because no one can manage to do so successfully do to the interference of other beings.
Are you arguing for MAD here, or capacity? "Larloch (or other evil NPC of your chouce) doesn't randomly level cities because he can't." is flatly incorrect given the standard D&D rules.
"Larloch doen't level cities because if he does, Good will crusade against him." also doesn't make sense, because Good is already crusading as hard as it can against him.
"Larloch doesn't level cities because if he wastes energy doing so, his more important evil schemes will be weakened, to his overall evil detriment." almost works. The problem is that you can set off a an incorporeal undead nova at no cost, once you have one incorporeal undead under your control, and a means of teleportation into and out of the city with it. Larloch loses nothing by getting one of his pet incorporeal undead in an extradimensional space, Greater-Teleporting into a city-of-your-choice, and ordering his spectre to make spawn, and pass on this order to the next generation of incorporeal undead. In one night, Larloch could inflict millions of casualties.
This would destroy the D&D gameworld, yes. So what? Does Larloch care about the D&D game world? You can ad-hoc reasons why he doesn't do it (including that he just doesn't care enough about the great mass of people to bother removing the urban, nonmagical segment of Faerun's population in a single night of incorporeal slaughter), but, at the end of the day, he can, and so can a PC with Larloch's resources.
Absolutely none of your proposals are necessary in a world with other high-level characters. As long as you do not have a given NPC who is far stronger than every other character in the world, this issue will not come up.
I recommend that you read some Forgotten Realms novels and get an idea of how things work. Likewise, you should read Power of Faerun for its insightful depiction of how high-level characters influence the world.
If there is material in Power of Faerun that explains why you can't use incorporeal-undead novas to level cities on a whim (and then hide out on another plane while mind-blanked for a while until you decide to do it again), I'd love to hear it.
It is not necessary for you to be stronger than the rest of the world to change it irrevocably. It is only necessary that you are able to do something that they cannot undo faster than you can keep doing it.
Payment does not have to come in the form of wealth. Offering land and titles to powerful adventurers with Leadership results in baronies cropping up with fresh tax bases, and these baronies will be well-protected by leaders who can also offer additional services to the crown.
By adding in these high level adventurers who react to other high level adventurers and start to rule the world, you've already disrupted the world. Your argument is self defeating.
Not at all true. Focused attention over an atrocity leads to a much harsher crackdown. As an example, note the status of terrorist groups throughout the world prior to and after events such as September 11th. They were always outlaws, but significant events dramatically increases the chances of an individual group being destroyed or at least losing their power base.
Terrorism is stronger than ever since 9/11.
Dead civilians can be raised if the crown has cash to spare (or a cleric on hand with Ignore Material Components). Their labor can also be replaced with magical creatures, or civilians brought in from elsewhere in the world or on the planes by spellcasters.
It costs 5,000 gold to raise one person. And again, do you not see how your argument is self defeating? If you bring in magical creatures to replace dead peasants, than hasn't the high level character disrupted the world?
The benefit of having a large kingdom is that there will be many more spellcasters than that one lone psychopath and/or his group, and he can't possible ambush them all before someone realizes something up. After the disruptive character is permanently dealt with, the dead spellcasters can be resurrected.
Your argument is essentially equal to "nukes didn't alter the world at all since both the US and the Soviet Union had them." Your argument is the textbook definition of a contradiction.
Church officials should be able to locate the BBEG who is a threat to the church who is killing off their God's followers and the reach of many churches crosses national borders.
Greater Miracle or Wish All the BBEG Wizard's Spellbooks Destroyed or Transported to a Secure Holding Area. Do It Each Time he steps out of line.
A: You need to destroy the hundreds of thousands of angry spectres first.
B: You are talking thousands of GP of diamonds per casualty inflicted. (Unless epic cleric, of course. If Epic, then all bets are off.) I'd say that forcing your opponent to spend billions of gold per spectre-bomb is a worthwhile investment.
C: You can't just shuffle hundreds of thousands of humanoids into a city that was just depopulated and expect them to pick up where the previous casualties left off. People are not fungible.
D: The original caster can just strike again.
You assume that the problem is not stopped quickly, and in a world filled with divination and teleportation magic, authorities can arrive very quickly.
It is not a worthwhile investment for the problematic character to sacrifice their lives and souls so that they can deal some random amounts of damage.
A: Again, I'm still in the dark as to how this large group of pro-kingdom spellcasters intends to find and stop their adversary.
B: Killing them all is not necessary, as I said. All you need to do is kill enough that neighboring kingdom B who doesn't like kingdom A feels that their court-appointed thaumaturgical agencies can pick up where you left off.
If it were that easy, kingdom B would have done it on their own. One more aggressive wizard won't make that much more of a difference.
Note also that most nations don't simply attack weakened nations on the spot. Wars require significant amounts of debate and approval before they begin. Only if kingdom A was already at war or severe hostilities with kingdom B would an attack be launched at the slightest opportunity.
The ability to destroy millions of clustered-together humanoids does not imply the ability to find and destroy a paranoid, patient level-20 caster-type.
Use your imagination as to how a kingdom can use its vast resources to find a paranoid caster. Between wish, miracle, and epic spells, no refuge is safe.
A CR 20 opponent is implied to have the abilities to destroy another CR 20, especially if the first is heavily supported by others.
"Larloch doesn't level cities because if he wastes energy doing so, his more important evil schemes will be weakened, to his overall evil detriment." almost works. The problem is that you can set off a an incorporeal undead nova at no cost, once you have one incorporeal undead under your control, and a means of teleportation into and out of the city with it. Larloch loses nothing by getting one of his pet incorporeal undead in an extradimensional space, Greater-Teleporting into a city-of-your-choice, and ordering his spectre to make spawn, and pass on this order to the next generation of incorporeal undead. In one night, Larloch could inflict millions of casualties.
You make a lot of assumptions, namely that the spectre will not be stopped. A CR 7 creature is not going to make too many problems when the proper authorities (or even those adventurers in the nearby inn) become aware of it.
This would destroy the D&D gameworld, yes. So what? Does Larloch care about the D&D game world? You can ad-hoc reasons why he doesn't do it (including that he just doesn't care enough about the great mass of people to bother removing the urban, nonmagical segment of Faerun's population in a single night of incorporeal slaughter), but, at the end of the day, he can, and so can a PC with Larloch's resources.
You're making assumptions that you have yet to prove. You have not yet proven that you can destroy the world with tactics that only work in a vacuum.
If there is material in Power of Faerun that explains why you can't use incorporeal-undead novas to level cities on a whim (and then hide out on another plane while mind-blanked for a while until you decide to do it again), I'd love to hear it.
That wouldn't be Power of Faerun, but mere common sense. If a CR 7 spectre can truly spell doom for millions, then the problem you have isn't with high-level characters, but CR 7 spectres.It is not necessary for you to be stronger than the rest of the world to change it irrevocably. It is only necessary that you are able to do something that they cannot undo faster than you can keep doing it.
As I have mentioned, you will be dealt with rather quickly, so there will be little to undo.
By adding in these high level adventurers who react to other high level adventurers and start to rule the world, you've already disrupted the world. Your argument is self defeating.
They already exist. Do you really think the PCs are the first ones to get there? Refer to any campaign setting and you will find the existence of powerful characters who came to power long before the PCs were born.
Terrorism is stronger than ever since 9/11.
Yes, but the specific groups responsible have taken casualties, loss of power bases, and been forced into hiding.
It costs 5,000 gold to raise one person. And again, do you not see how your argument is self defeating? If you bring in magical creatures to replace dead peasants, than hasn't the high level character disrupted the world?
Not if this happens only once every several centuries because characters stupid enough to try this are killed soon after. In the general context of history, the world remains the same.
Your argument is essentially equal to "nukes didn't alter the world at all since both the US and the Soviet Union had them." Your argument is the textbook definition of a contradiction.
Nukes did alter the world, but that doesn't meant they disrupted it (although if they were fired, they probably would have). Mutually assured destruction has essentially made nukes irrelevant, as no one is willing to fire one.
My argument has been that D&D settings as they exist already take high-level characters into account and are not simply subject to unraveling because some upstart villain (who aren't the first ones, nor the last) comes along.
Heroic fantasy in fact assumes powerful villains will be a part of many settings, but the ones who fail to understand subtlety and presume that they are invulnerable are not the ones who will remain to terrorize future generations. The mechanics to deal with high-level villains already exists in the D&D world.
This high level wizard shouldn't be able to live in a vacuum. Mindblank doesn't render a high level wizard immune from the divine sensing of powers. Commune is a level 5 spell.
Commune is a 5th-level divination spell. Mind Blank "protects against all mind-affecting spells and effects as well as information gathering by divination spells or effects." I believe that there is a special exemption for Portfolio Sense and Remote Sensing in Deities and Demigods, but including the printed rules for salient divine abilities in D&D is an action of unparalleled silliness.
Church officials should be able to locate the BBEG who is a threat to the church who is killing off their God's followers and the reach of many churches crosses national borders.
Thankfully, there is a church of God-of-Divine-Rank-~N that dislikes the targeted church; almost all gods have enemies. If you posit a Church of Pelor that hunts down genocidal liches, you should also posit Church of Nerull that aids and abets them. Plus, all you need to do is kill enough of Pelor's followers to drop his divine rank below Nerull's, and Nerull can do the rest Himself.
Greater Miracle or Wish All the BBEG Wizard's Spellbooks Destroyed or Transported to a Secure Holding Area. Do It Each Time he steps out of line.
Just by the name alone, I'm going to assume that GM is a Faerunian spell ("New, from the same campaign setting that brought you Venomfire and druids in metal armor!"). If so, it is not of great utility outside of Faerun, nor against psions, clerics, druids, sorcerers, wizards with variant spellbooks, wizards with magically-protected spellbooks, wizards with backup spellbooks, wizards who make a habit of just memorizing spells from borrowed spellbooks and never actually scribe a spell themselves, perverse wizards who jacked their Int to Char-Opt levels and then took Spell Mastery multiple times, and so forth.
In any case, unless this is one of the listed effects of Greater Miracle, I'm going to have to point out that if you can arbitrarily destroy items remotely with a Wish or Greater Miracle, then the world's fragility is even greater than I had expected.
Yes, you as DM can rule that arbitrary NPCs or effects stop people from killing off entire nations, but you cannot effectively enforce it with anything other than "I decree as DM that the world will be such!" If heroes can do it to a villain, then a villain can do it to an unprotected civilian population. If a god can tell the cleric of an adventuring party "The murdering /b-tard that leveled those eight cities last night is at this location", another god can say, "Hey, dude, awesome slaughter! By the way, there are going to be some adventurers here to harsh your mellow in a few weeks. Want some crash space in my divine realm to re-scribe scrolls and stuff?"
That god may not. There may be consensus among the gods that outright warfare and leveling heathen cities with salient divine abilities won't happen, and that if any mortal does start poking holes in the Prime just for fun, then they'll stop him from mussing up their carefully-tended game board.
But you have still simply pushed back the definition of high-level to a certain amount of DvR, rather than character level, and it is still the actions of your God-NPCs that is disrupting the natural order of the world, under the D&D rule set, to explode violently into anarchy and slaughter if anyone makes the attempt.
They already exist. Do you really think the PCs are the first ones to get there? Refer to any campaign setting and you will find the existence of powerful characters who came to power long before the PCs were born.
By their very existence, these characters invalidate the feudal system that people believe D&D to be based on.
Yes, but the specific groups responsible have taken casualties, loss of power bases, and been forced into hiding.
And their single act has changed the world forever. The actions of a single terrorist organization, carried out by 17(?) hijackers and their support group, has caused two wars, a massive change in American foreign policy, unprecedented anti-Americanism throughout the world, and has disrupted the status quo. If flying a plane into a building can do that, imagine what a man capable of literally rewriting reality could manage.
Not if this happens only once every several centuries because characters stupid enough to try this are killed soon after. In the general context of history, the world remains the same.
It doesn't even need to be a high level character. A single spectre wandering into a city does this. Just one shadow let loose by a careless necromancer can kill an entire city in days.
Nukes did alter the world, but that doesn't meant they disrupted it (although if they were fired, they probably would have). Mutually assured destruction has essentially made nukes irrelevant, as no one is willing to fire one.
North Korea.
My argument has been that D&D settings as they exist already take high-level characters into account and are not simply subject to unraveling because some upstart villain (who aren't the first ones, nor the last) comes along.
But they don't take it into account. Faerun is a weird feudal world made up of patchwork states and filled to the brim with people powerful enough to level mountains for fun. The only reason it hasn't been destroyed is because the authors of the setting say it hasn't, even though by any reasonable interpretation the setting should have died long ago.
Heroic fantasy in fact assumes powerful villains will be a part of many settings, but the ones who fail to understand subtlety and presume that they are invulnerable are not the ones who will remain to terrorize future generations. The mechanics to deal with high-level villains already exists in the D&D world.
But they don't. There are no mechanics that can defend against a high level character on a killing spree other than DM fiat.
You assume that the problem is not stopped quickly, and in a world filled with divination and teleportation magic, authorities can arrive very quickly.
They arrive. For every 2.5 rounds that have passed since the original caster has been here, there are order-of 2^n spectres, up to the city's population (assuming that the nova happens in the center of a densely populated area and the spectres can radiate outwards easily. In practice, it would be less, but not much).
Moreover, to what divinations do you refer that will let you know when one arbitrary level-20 caster (who is working to defeat divinations) has teleported into a city, unleashed a spectre, and is now teleporting out?
It is not a worthwhile investment for the problematic character to sacrifice their lives and souls so that they can deal some random amounts of damage.
A: Evil cultists bent on destroying the world are a dime a dozen in most campaign worlds (including Faerun). They are usually not terribly big on the cost/return analysis.
B: Again, this assumes that you can catch them in time. It is much easier to teleport to a population center an unleash a few spectres, then teleport to the next, then it is to find and catch each teleportation. Mind you, if the Forces of Goodness have enough people to put a 10th-level anti-undead party on every street corner of every major city on the plane...
Well, you'd hit up the minor cities and large villages.
If it were that easy, kingdom B would have done it on their own. One more aggressive wizard won't make that much more of a difference.
Note also that most nations don't simply attack weakened nations on the spot. Wars require significant amounts of debate and approval before they begin. Only if kingdom A was already at war or severe hostilities with kingdom B would an attack be launched at the slightest opportunity.
A: It is that easy. As I keep demonstrating, one very simple tactic can destroy a city that's not laden with Consecrated areas, reinforced with Force, or all-over-Forbiddanced against Evil.
B: Nations may not, but individuals sure can, and it's individual actions of aggression that we're debating here.
Use your imagination as to how a kingdom can use its vast resources to find a paranoid caster. Between wish, miracle, and epic spells, no refuge is safe.
Try using the rules, instead. I can just as easily imagine a refuge that no spell can operate on than a tactic to defeat any refuge.
A CR 20 opponent is implied to have the abilities to destroy another CR 20, especially if the first is heavily supported by others.
Implied, yes. In point of fact, not necessarily. You can't fight what you can't target, and you can't target what you can't reach. Moreover, this still hasn't stopped the original CR 20 from massacring all of your peasants in the meantime.
You make a lot of assumptions, namely that the spectre will not be stopped. A CR 7 creature is not going to make too many problems when the proper authorities (or even those adventurers in the nearby inn) become aware of it.
A: Yes, it is. It can hang out inside walls or floors indefinitely, pop out, kill, and retreat. It can move faster than a horse, and can do so in any direction, through any non-Force obstacle. You need one of a very small set of resources to damage it at all, and if by some miracle you kill it before it inflicts a single casualty, all that happens is that the original bringer-of-the-spectre pops back in with another somewhere else.
B: You appear to misunderstand the spectre nova. It's only one spectre for 2.5 rounds*. Then it's two spectres. After a minute, it's 8. After 3 minutes, it's over 4,000. This is all happening at night, completely silently; unless your adventurers regularly sleep with groups of impovrished beggars in the most crowded slums of the town, they won't notice before they're attacked by multiple incorporeal undead at once.
*Simplified. This assumes the spectre is mostly killing groups of people asleep in beds, in groups wherever possible, and that the multiple-attacks-on-a-row balance out the random gaps between people mathematically.
You're making assumptions that you have yet to prove. You have not yet proven that you can destroy the world with tactics that only work in a vacuum.
You have yet to cite an actual rules-legal method to counter spectre-bombing, nor any reasons for evil spellcasters wanting to extinguish all life on the Prime to do so. Absent such methods, you can well destroy 99.9% of the world, even if the course of events means you get hunted down by the remaining high-level survivors who eventually repopulate.
If there is material in Power of Faerun that explains why you can't use incorporeal-undead novas to level cities on a whim (and then hide out on another plane while mind-blanked for a while until you decide to do it again), I'd love to hear it.
That wouldn't be Power of Faerun, but mere common sense. If a CR 7 spectre can truly spell doom for millions, then the problem you have isn't with high-level characters, but CR 7 spectres.
You appear to be arguing that "If spectre-bombing, then civilization can't exist as it is. Civilization exists. Therefore, spectre-bombing doesn't work." The problem is that if someone does try to spectre-bomb, then civilization goes away. Just because a course of events would make a game world immensely boring does not mean that it's not rules-legal.
Commune is a 5th-level divination spell. Mind Blank "protects against all mind-affecting spells and effects as well as information gathering by divination spells or effects." I believe that there is a special exemption for Portfolio Sense and Remote Sensing in Deities and Demigods, but including the printed rules for salient divine abilities in D&D is an action of unparalleled silliness.
Your own normative opinions of rules aside, the deity rules allow deities to defeat a mind blank spell.
Thankfully, there is a church of God-of-Divine-Rank-~N that dislikes the targeted church; almost all gods have enemies. If you posit a Church of Pelor that hunts down genocidal liches, you should also posit Church of Nerull that aids and abets them. Plus, all you need to do is kill enough of Pelor's followers to drop his divine rank below Nerull's, and Nerull can do the rest Himself.
Again, you're arguing out of a vacuum. All the forces of evil arrayed against all the forces of good results in at least enough of a stalemate that the status quo is maintained (with some help from the forces of neutrality if necessary). That genocidal lich is part of that balance, and isn't likely to suddenly disrupt it. If that lich is indeed a threat to the existing scheme of the world, then the forces of neutrality are likely to enter the mix and turn the tide (or perhaps even other evil beings who have would prefer world domination over world destruction; e.g. LE).
Yes, you as DM can rule that arbitrary NPCs or effects stop people from killing off entire nations, but you cannot effectively enforce it with anything other than "I decree as DM that the world will be such!" If heroes can do it to a villain, then a villain can do it to an unprotected civilian population. If a god can tell the cleric of an adventuring party "The murdering /b-tard that leveled those eight cities last night is at this location", another god can say, "Hey, dude, awesome slaughter! By the way, there are going to be some adventurers here to harsh your mellow in a few weeks. Want some crash space in my divine realm to re-scribe scrolls and stuff?"
Actually, you've got it upside down. You're the one creating arbitrary NPCs to kill off entire nations. The existing NPCs are already balanced by other NPCs.
You touch on this a couple of times. I would argue that D&D has a similar plot-shield in place. Just like a comic book, D&D is about telling a story. Sure you can have players who destroy the world, but then that's the end of the campaign--in your words "the last X-men story told." Every game I've ever played in has an unspoken contract between the players and the DM: if you let me, I'll give you a good story. If the PCs act in such a way that they disallow a good story, then the game doesn't happen.
D&D has plot shields because it's no fun if they don't. At least I don't think it's very fun. And even if it was, it wouldn't last long.
Exactly, otherwise you'd be just as likely to run into the Tarrasque at 1st level as at 20th. The CR system is a plot shield. And of course the DM not wanting to TPK.
There is some merit to the idea that characters are influenced by their training background. For example most RL martial arts associations will exclude those with violent criminal records and expell members who go around kicking the crap out of people for no reason. RL martial arts pale into insignificance next to the power of magic (or even D&D's martial arts) so wouldn't wizards be pretty careful who they trained? Even Evil wizards (they don't want their students rocking the boat or murdering them).
Wizards also have high Int, surely they think about what they do? Random fireballing is pretty dumb. Evil wizards could get want with far more subtle means (charm, dominate, divination+ blackmail). An evil wizard might takeover a kingdom without anyone even realising. Plus the evil wizard might poo poo taking over a mere material realm kingdom - it'd be much more interesting to takeover a Brass Kingdom on the elemental plane of fire....
They arrive. For every 2.5 rounds that have passed since the original caster has been here, there are order-of 2^n spectres, up to the city's population (assuming that the nova happens in the center of a densely populated area and the spectres can radiate outwards easily. In practice, it would be less, but not much).
Densely populated does not imply that you have an endless mob of first-level commoners stacked right on top of each other.
Assuming this takes place at night, so that the spectres aren't limited to half their normal actions, most people will be spread out in their homes, and guards will be walking the streets (as would be expected for any densely populated city).
It will take time for the spectres to move from house to house to find more victims. Furthermore, it won't be long before somebody screams and the guards arrive to the location of the spectres (and this will be sped up if the spectres simply charge from house to house instead of floating underground and back up).
Moreover, to what divinations do you refer that will let you know when one arbitrary level-20 caster (who is working to defeat divinations) has teleported into a city, unleashed a spectre, and is now teleporting out?
I'm referring to divining the culprit responsible for those actions, and specifically contact other plane and commune to do so.
A: Evil cultists bent on destroying the world are a dime a dozen in most campaign worlds (including Faerun). They are usually not terribly big on the cost/return analysis.
True, but the ones who are stupid don't live to reach high levels.
B: Again, this assumes that you can catch them in time. It is much easier to teleport to a population center an unleash a few spectres, then teleport to the next, then it is to find and catch each teleportation. Mind you, if the Forces of Goodness have enough people to put a 10th-level anti-undead party on every street corner of every major city on the plane...
Well, you'd hit up the minor cities and large villages.
Villages that cannot fend off an incursion of undead probably shouldn't exist anyway, villain or not. Any village without some capacity to defend itself from a common undead (or within reach of help that can) is doomed to spectres period, high-level villains or not.
Try using the rules, instead. I can just as easily imagine a refuge that no spell can operate on than a tactic to defeat any refuge.
Commune, contact other plane, wish, miracle, and epic spells all work. The trace teleport power will work if the psion can arrive at the scene in time.
Implied, yes. In point of fact, not necessarily. You can't fight what you can't target, and you can't target what you can't reach. Moreover, this still hasn't stopped the original CR 20 from massacring all of your peasants in the meantime.
Given the above divinations, you can find anyone, and if you are strong enough, you can destroy them. That deters smart CR 20s from going around on killing sprees. If they do end up killing peasants, that's fine. It will be a while until another 20th levle villain comes around to bother the kingdom, given their rarity.
B: You appear to misunderstand the spectre nova. It's only one spectre for 2.5 rounds*. Then it's two spectres. After a minute, it's 8. After 3 minutes, it's over 4,000. This is all happening at night, completely silently; unless your adventurers regularly sleep with groups of impovrished beggars in the most crowded slums of the town, they won't notice before they're attacked by multiple incorporeal undead at once.
This assumes that every spectre gets a kill every single round. That's not going to happen. It takes time to spread out and find targets, especially if the spectres are forced to travel in roundabout routes to avoid guards, dogs and other animals who will make a lot of panicked noises if the spectre comes within 30 ft., and citizens who are awake and can therefore scream. An attack is not a guaranteed kill, not when the spectre can miss (unless a spectre takes a full-round action to coup-de-grace, which slows it down). Not every commoner is 1st or 2nd level either, and you'll eventually get people who survive the first attack. Your numbers are unrealistic even in the case of a perfect scenario.
You appear to be arguing that "If spectre-bombing, then civilization can't exist as it is. Civilization exists. Therefore, spectre-bombing doesn't work." The problem is that if someone does try to spectre-bomb, then civilization goes away. Just because a course of events would make a game world immensely boring does not mean that it's not rules-legal.
My argument is also that you are overlooking a huge number of things and oversimplifying the act of spectre-bombing. It's all good and well in simplified theory, but once you take into the account that (1) it can be stopped, and (2) villains who do this won't live to do it again, then you can see why it isn't done.
Unless the High Level PC(s) has a Death Wish. Most PC(s) will be Extremely Intelligent or Very Wise. Intelligence and Wisdom 19+ Normally just using standard generation unless using a Charisma based power.
Just because The PC(s) "Knows" He Could Do Something. Doesn't mean it would be an Intelligent or Wise Choice and that the PC(s) actually would.
Consider High Level Characters Trying to Destroy Your Campaign World. How would You Stop the High Level PC(s)?
Commune is a 5th-level divination spell. Mind Blank "protects against all mind-affecting spells and effects as well as information gathering by divination spells or effects." I believe that there is a special exemption for Portfolio Sense and Remote Sensing in Deities and Demigods, but including the printed rules for salient divine abilities in D&D is an action of unparalleled silliness.
Thankfully, there is a church of God-of-Divine-Rank-~N that dislikes the targeted church; almost all gods have enemies. If you posit a Church of Pelor that hunts down genocidal liches, you should also posit Church of Nerull that aids and abets them. Plus, all you need to do is kill enough of Pelor's followers to drop his divine rank below Nerull's, and Nerull can do the rest Himself.
Just by the name alone, I'm going to assume that GM is a Faerunian spell ("New, from the same campaign setting that brought you Venomfire and druids in metal armor!"). If so, it is not of great utility outside of Faerun, nor against psions, clerics, druids, sorcerers, wizards with variant spellbooks, wizards with magically-protected spellbooks, wizards with backup spellbooks, wizards who make a habit of just memorizing spells from borrowed spellbooks and never actually scribe a spell themselves, perverse wizards who jacked their Int to Char-Opt levels and then took Spell Mastery multiple times, and so forth.
In any case, unless this is one of the listed effects of Greater Miracle, I'm going to have to point out that if you can arbitrarily destroy items remotely with a Wish or Greater Miracle, then the world's fragility is even greater than I had expected.
Yes, you as DM can rule that arbitrary NPCs or effects stop people from killing off entire nations, but you cannot effectively enforce it with anything other than "I decree as DM that the world will be such!" If heroes can do it to a villain, then a villain can do it to an unprotected civilian population. If a god can tell the cleric of an adventuring party "The murdering /b-tard that leveled those eight cities last night is at this location", another god can say, "Hey, dude, awesome slaughter! By the way, there are going to be some adventurers here to harsh your mellow in a few weeks. Want some crash space in my divine realm to re-scribe scrolls and stuff?"
That god may not. There may be consensus among the gods that outright warfare and leveling heathen cities with salient divine abilities won't happen, and that if any mortal does start poking holes in the Prime just for fun, then they'll stop him from mussing up their carefully-tended game board.
But you have still simply pushed back the definition of high-level to a certain amount of DvR, rather than character level, and it is still the actions of your God-NPCs that is disrupting the natural order of the world, under the D&D rule set, to explode violently into anarchy and slaughter if anyone makes the attempt.
Robert, "all" of us agree that High level characters can disrupt the world to some degree. We are not in agreement with you that they get carte blanche treatment if they run amuck as they do not exist in a vacuum. The primary basis of your arguments seems to be that the high level characters live in a vacuum and No One would take Any Action and If they did take action it would be Ineffective.
I could be mistaken but it seems like you either have a misunderstanding regarding some of the game mechanics or are unaware of them based on several of your posts or you are just being argumentative.
First you didn't know what a Greater Miracle is and then made suppositions and expounded on them. Second you don't seem to understand how Commune works mechanically in game and why Mind Blank is ineffective against it regarding this thread topic of high level PCs killing off lots of worshippers of lots of Gods. (One of the source books said it best. If killing off mortal worshippers early was in the best interest of Gods/Powers then they would be doing it). Third, you don’t understand how Divine Sensing and Divine Blocking works in game mechanics.
"Greater Miracle" isn't some Funky New FRCS or other campaign spell. That was a Majorly Bad Assumption IMO. It is when a Cleric Fuels the Miracle Spell from the PHB with 5,000 Exp. Straight out of the PHB middle column on page 253 begins "Alternatively......" Maybe in a campaign world where Greater Miracle doesn't work the way it says it does in the PHB.
Maybe in a campaign where Mindblank works against Gods All Divinations are Doomed to Failure even Commune asking the God for information. Maybe Mindblank blocks Clerics from Communing with their Gods for information in your campaign by giving the Commune a busy signal.
Maybe in a campaign where the Evil Greater Gods are So Bored and Have Nothing better to do than go around using their Limited Divine Blocking on behalf of Disruptive High level characters killing off their followers 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year instead of having their own agenda.
IMO that is a lot of maybes.
Deities and Demi-Powers explain how Divine Sensing and Blocking works and it's limits.
Your own normative opinions of rules aside, the deity rules allow deities to defeat a mind blank spell.
I'm reasonably sure that they also allow a higher DvR god to protect against the effects of a lower-DvR god, thus providing both incentive for mass genocide against heathens.
Of course, using the deity rules just means that you can have the gods themselves wiping out entire cities in seconds, not minutes, and gods that don't maintain vaults of worshippers carefully locked away somewhere will get wiped out in short order.
Again, you're arguing out of a vacuum. All the forces of evil arrayed against all the forces of good results in at least enough of a stalemate that the status quo is maintained (with some help from the forces of neutrality if necessary). That genocidal lich is part of that balance, and isn't likely to suddenly disrupt it. If that lich is indeed a threat to the existing scheme of the world, then the forces of neutrality are likely to enter the mix and turn the tide (or perhaps even other evil beings who have would prefer world domination over world destruction; e.g. LE).
A: You appear to be persisting in the argument that balances of power work like they do in our world, on the nation-state model. This is simply inaccurate in D&D worlds. It doesn't matter how many enemies you have if they can't find you. It is extremely easy to set up enough contingencies and misdirections that, short of DM-fiat or divine intervention (which can be blocked by the now-strengthened gods of death and destruction), such that you simply can't find your original attacker. Mind blank plus hanging out on a plane with a funky time trait (like the Far Realm) is a good start in and of itself. If you can't find the genocidal lich, you can't threaten him, and if you can't threaten him, there is no balance.
Actually, you've got it upside down. You're the one creating arbitrary NPCs to kill off entire nations. The existing NPCs are already balanced by other NPCs.
If you cannot catch the lich that decided, on a whim, to spectre-bomb the Prime's population centers, then the lich has no reason to avoid doing so.
You want to alter the rules, such that it is not trivially easy to level cities and have no chance of being caught? Please do so; a lot of DMs do. But by the rules as written, and by any set of rules that involves breaking the laws of reality, when you get really good at it, you will be a superior power in your world.
For example, take a look at this NPC I made for my campaign world. I am doing an entire urban campaign set in a single city this summer (F.Y.I. my campaign world is set in the year 5600 of our world)...
The Guardianis
This class focuses on reacting to and tracking down magical threats. This class cannot be taken without very specific training with the guild itself and it is not available to characters who are not members. Note: when the term "dispel" is used, it is referring to any kind of action which dispels magic or psionics. It also pertains to the actual dispelling powers and spells.
Hit die: d8
Requirements: To qualify to become a Guardianis, you must fulfill the following criteria:
Alignment: any nonevil
Skills: sense motive 4 ranks, knowledge (local) 4 ranks, spell- or psicraft, 8 ranks
Feats: improved initiative, shield proficiency, improved counterspell
Special: Ability to cast dispel
Special: Must pay a 6000gp entry fee and train alongside another Guardianis until the basics are learned (IE, level 2).
Table:
(I hope Regdar's allows images... if not, it's http://harvestmooncampaign.com/images/guardianisTable.jpg)
Class skills: autohypnosis, concentration, craft, diplomacy, gather information, knowledge, listen, profession, psicraft, sense motive, spellcraft, spot.
Skill points at each level: 4+int bonus
Class Features:
Weapon and armor proficiency: The Guardianis gains proficiency with no new weapons or armor.
Duty and code: The Guardianis is bound to aid the guild in city patrols from time to time and is considered on call. If he wishes, he may sign up for week-long patrol duty for 50gp.
If a Guardianis is within the Jerusalem city limits and he encounters a person or event who is causing harm to property or the population, he is duty-bound to help repel the threat as best he can.
Antimagic penetration: When dispelling, your caster level is equal to your character level up to your caster level +4.
Antimagic senses (Su): If a spell being cast or power being manifested within 60' of the Guardianis, or if a spell effect passes into that area, such as a fireball, he immediately senses it as if with the detect magic spell. The ability will not trigger if material that would normally block detect magic is between the caster and the effect.
The Guardianis may also immediately attempt to determine the school of the spell as per the detect magic description. If she has line-of-sight to the caster or the effect, she may also use spellcraft or psicraft to determine the name of the spell or power.
At this point, the Guardianis may choose to roll initiative against the caster of the detected spell or power. The Guardianis suffers a -4 to this roll. If the Guardianis wins, he may attempt to dispel the spell. If he does not, he forgoes his action for that round.
Shielded caster (Ex): A Guardianis does not recieve spell failure from wielding shields. This ability cannot be used as a prerequisite for the Armored Caster feat.
Spontaneous dispel: By second level, the Guardianis has become proficient with the knowledge required for dispelling and needs only rudimentary knowledge of specific spells to dispel them.
Guardianis who rely on preparing their spells may now dispel spontaneously as clerics cure spontaneously and druids summon spontaneously. As long as a spell is on the characters spells known list, they may, at any time, switch it out with another prepared slot of the same level in order to dispel with it. The Guardianis may also spontaneously cast his actual dispel magic or dispel psionics.
Knowledge pool (Ex): Also by second level, the Guardianis has learned enough about a great many different spells and powers that, combined with his advanced knowledge of dispelling in general, he may not need to posess it on his list of known spells or powers to dispel it.
Any time the Guardianis wishes to dispel an effect she does not possess on her list of known spells or powers, she may determine whether she has a rudimentary knowledge of it. With a psi- or spellcraft check DC 25+spell level, she may use her Spontaneous Dispel ability to swap out a spell or power of equal level to the one she is attempting to dispell.
If the roll fails, the Guardianis may, instead elect to take a different action (such as cast dispel).
Whether the Guardianis is divine, arcane, or psionic doesn't matter. The guild works and studies together seamlessly and its members may very well have rudimentary knowledge of powers and spells they might otherwise have no way of casting themselves.
Spell shield (Ex): At second level, a Guardianis has gained the trust of the Guild. In a ceremony, she is given her shield, a symbol of service in the guild. It is a +2 heavy steel shield which looks quite formidable with a brushed steel finish and what appear to be two inch rivets along the sides. When wielding this shield, the character adds its bonus to her armor class against all normal and touch attacks. The shield may be further enchanted by the guild at a discount.
Face reality: All dispel checks made by the Guardianis gain a bonus equal to his class level -1.
Trace teleport (Su): At level three, Guardianis may trace teleport as the level 4 Psion / Wilder power once per day. This ability can be used twice per day at level five.
Generalized readied dispel (Ex): By third level, the Guardianis has become lightning-fast in her ability to dispel. She may ready an action to dispel magic without designating a specific target or spell. As long as the Guardianis is aware of the caster either through normal means, she may immediately attempt to dispel. If the Guardianis is aware of the caster through her Antimagic Senses ability, then his dispel is adjudicated as per that ability instead (I.E. with the initiative check at -4).
Identify magic (Su): By third level, the Guardianis has become an irreplacable member of Jerusalem society. She is actually capable of analyzing magical or psionic residue to determine the unique signature of the person who created an effect. Residue is left behind whenever a spell is cast or a power is used. The "fingerprint", as the Guardianis like to call it, is left on the 5' square the caster or manifester was stading in, the target or targets of the effect, and the area of effect of the effect, if any. The residue usually remains visible after 1d4 hours plus a number of days equal to the spell or caster level of the effect.
The residue doesn't actually give the Guardianis the ability to discern the person who did it, but the Guardianis can memorize the fingerprint and if she analyzes an effect generated by a suspect, she can determine whether they have the same fingerprint. A spellcraft check DC 15 is required to successfully compare the two fingerprints.
A Guardianis may, if needed, use an illusion to display the fingerprint for other officers with a DC 15 spellcraft check. It appears as nothing more than a mass of colors and shapes to anyone who doesn't posess this ability.
It is difficult, though not impossible to differenciate the fingerprints of twins and clones. A spellcraft check DC 25 will render the correct result.
Piggyback teleport (Su): At fourth level, a Guardianis may follow anyone who has used teleport or any other space-folding spell (such as transport via plants). This is an immediate action that does not incur an attack of opportunity. The Guardianis and his target immediately re-roll their initiative.
The Guardianis may perform this only twice per day. This is considered a 4th level effect.
Deeper knowledge pool (Ex): The DC for the Guardianis's knowledge pool roll decreases to 20 + spell level.
Enhanced dispel: By fifth level, a Guardianis's dispel is almost as effective as a greater dispel. The effect no longer has a +10 caster level check cap.
Advanced antimagic penetration: When dispelling, your caster level is equal to your character level.
Here's one of the more powerful NPCs:
Guardianis Defender (Cleric) – CR 13
Human Cleric (Mars) 5, Guardianis 5, Warpriest 3
AC: 22 HP: 60 DR: 2/- Init: +5
Masterwork longsword: +9/+4 (1d8 [19-20])
Masterwork short sword: +9/+4 (1d6 [19-20])
Masterwork longbow: +10/+5 (1d8 [x3])
Saves: +12/+6/+11
Dispel check: +19
Caster level: 10
Spell penetration: +10
Feats: improved initiative, improved counterspell, still spell, augmented healing, combat casting, practiced spellcaster
Attributes: str 10, dex 12, con 14, int 10, wis 17, cha 14
Skills: sense motive +17, knowledge (local) +6, diplomacy +11, spellcraft, +14, spot +10, concentration +7 (+13), heal +7
Abilities: spellcasting, turn undead (level 8), protection domain (protective ward, +5 to next save 1 hr), inquisition domain (+4 dispel checks), duty and code, antimagic penetration, antimagic senses, shielded caster, spontaneous dispel, deeper knowledge pool DC 20+spell level, spell shield, face reality, identify magic, trace teleport 2/day, generalized readied dispel, piggyback teleport, enhanced dispel, advanced antimagic penetration, glory domain (turn undead: +2/+1d6), rally +3, inflame +2, mass cure light wounds 1/day (level 11),
Spellcasting: DC 13+spell level. (*healing spells do +2 hit points per spell level) Spells prepared: Level 0 (4) Level 1 (resurgence (CD), remove fear x3, D-Sanctuary) Level 2 (make whole x2, lesser restoration, silence, D-zone of truth ) Level 3 (wrack (CD), dispel magic x2, D-searing light)
Gear: masterwork longsword, masterwork short sword, masterwork longbow, ring of protection +1, +2 heavy steel shield, full plate
Alignment usually lawful good or lawful neutral.
Languages: eastern common
Affiliations: Guardianis, Nationalist Party
Influence: 10
Speed: 30'
This won't win any battles against a level 20 character, but it will prevent horrible terrorist actions against the commoners of my city. This is only the tip of the iceberg in my campaign world. PCs need to tread very carefully. They may get lucky terrorizing my world's denizens, but it will only go so far.
I'm just glad I have a good group of players.
Densely populated does not imply that you have an endless mob of first-level commoners stacked right on top of each other.
Assuming this takes place at night, so that the spectres aren't limited to half their normal actions, most people will be spread out in their homes, and guards will be walking the streets (as would be expected for any densely populated city).
It will take time for the spectres to move from house to house to find more victims. Furthermore, it won't be long before somebody screams and the guards arrive to the location of the spectres (and this will be sped up if the spectres simply charge from house to house instead of floating underground and back up).
All of these are very true factors. However, exponential growth is exponential growth; dropping the growth rate by a factor of 20 will still net you a nigh-unkillable number of spectres in a very short amount of time.
I'm referring to divining the culprit responsible for those actions, and specifically contact other plane and commune to do so.
Are contact other planeand commune divinations?
Are they gathering information about our attacker?
If Yes to both, then they fail. That is what Mind Blank does. They don't stop a deity with Divine Sensing from foiling the Mind Blank for his own personal divine information, but they do stop the two spells mentioned above from getting any information from said deity.
Now, the deity can choose to hop down to the Prime to impart this information, surely enough...but another deity with higher DvR may well stop this. Given that the first deity just lost a lot of followers, and given that a lot of gods have enemies, this is at least as reasonable an assumption as the original one of a god deciding to personally impart the information.
True, but the ones who are stupid don't live to reach high levels.
They sure don't stay alive at high levels.
Of course, this is more of an argument for their world-destroying schemes to work (if it is possible for them to be made to work.)
Villages that cannot fend off an incursion of undead probably shouldn't exist anyway, villain or not. Any village without some capacity to defend itself from a common undead (or within reach of help that can) is doomed to spectres period, high-level villains or not.
Amen.
This does tend to resolve to Earthdawn-style settings, where metropolises are protected with as many magical wards as possible and areas outside of them are no-humanoid's-land. This is perfectly acceptable; however, it's not the way most people choose to run their campaigns.
Commune, contact other plane, wish, miracle, and epic spells all work. The trace teleport power will work if the psion can arrive at the scene in time.
Sorry, you have read the Mind Blank spell description? You have noted especially the part where it protects against information gathering spells or effects, explicitly including Miracle and Wish?
Epic I'm not touching. Epic divinations can be defeated by epic wards, and epic spells means that you don't even need creativity to destroy the world.
Given the above divinations, you can find anyone, and if you are strong enough, you can destroy them. That deters smart CR 20s from going around on killing sprees. If they do end up killing peasants, that's fine. It will be a while until another 20th levle villain comes around to bother the kingdom, given their rarity.
Again, please check the Mind Blank spell description. Also, consider that the side effect of the spectre-bomb is about a few dozen cubic feet of spectre. Your kingdom will have to deal with said spectres before they can meaningfully rebuild.
This assumes that every spectre gets a kill every single round. That's not going to happen. It takes time to spread out and find targets, especially if the spectres are forced to travel in roundabout routes to avoid guards, dogs and other animals who will make a lot of panicked noises if the spectre comes within 30 ft., and citizens who are awake and can therefore scream. An attack is not a guaranteed kill, not when the spectre can miss (unless a spectre takes a full-round action to coup-de-grace, which slows it down). Not every commoner is 1st or 2nd level either, and you'll eventually get people who survive the first attack. Your numbers are unrealistic even in the case of a perfect scenario.
Indeed, my numbers do reflect an optimum scenario. However, you can multiply my projected times by 10, 20, or 50, and still have horrible numbers of spectres in a very rapid amount of time.
Moreover, so what when they're noticed? Spectres can easily outpace humanoids, and panicking and rioting as people choke the streets trying to escape will push the availability of victims into the .95 per rounds per spectre territory.
This will also draw whatever resources the city has into spectre-killing. These resources can be quite considerable. However, I am personally stumped to see how you could deal with spectres faster than they can reproduce themselves without active and obvious pre-prepared defenses.
My argument is also that you are overlooking a huge number of things and oversimplifying the act of spectre-bombing. It's all good and well in simplified theory, but once you take into the account that (1) it can be stopped, and (2) villains who do this won't live to do it again, then you can see why it isn't done.
1: Assuming that the spectres have had even a few rounds to replicate and radiate outwards, how, exactly, do you plan on finding and stopping all of them, more quickly than they can replicate, without prepared defenses?
2: You're down to "The villain doesn't cast Mind Blank for some reason." or "The gods intervene, and the gods who hate the first gods don't stop them and then destroy them in their now-weakened state." Either are risks I, as an enterprising genocidal mass-murderer, would cheerfully take.
Plus, even if he is destroyed right after, if you're relying on find-and-catch to deter him, then one suicidal villain is all it takes to cause the incorporeal to inhabit the Earth.
Does this make for good play? No, not really. But by the rules, things like this can and should happen.
Maybe I should have been more specific in my post earlier. Commune is contacting the Deity or one of it's agents for Information. Mind Blank does not protect the PC(S) from the Sensing Ability of the Deity. Killing Worshippers of a Deity would certainly qualify in that regard especially if the PC is going to be targeting lots of people for death and destruction.
And Mind Blank explicitly protects against the deity using Commune to provide information. The deity can go ahead and send down an angelic/send up a fiendish messenger to provide it, but when you're relying on the actual gods to take actions as NPCs, you're in trouble, especially if you get enough people killed to drop the offended god's DvR below that of his enemies.
Unless the High Level PC(s) has a Death Wish. Most PC(s) will be Extremely Intelligent or Very Wise. Intelligence and Wisdom 19+ Normally just using standard generation unless using a Charisma based power.
Y. Check out the high-end fiends. Intelligence and wisdom do not prevent you from trying to kill everyone; they just mean you do so correctly.
Just because The PC(s) "Knows" He Could Do Something. Doesn't mean it would be an Intelligent or Wise Choice and that the PC(s) actually would.
Intelligence and wisdom do not indicate character goals; they just serve to inform the resources available to the characters attempting said goals.
Consider High Level Characters Trying to Destroy Your Campaign World. How would You Stop the High Level PC(s)?
PCs? PCs are easy. "No, you can't do that, because as DM, I don't want to tell that kind of story." You can always invoke the meta-game, but this does not change the fact that without it, the world survives only as long as no sufficiently-leveled character wants it gone.
Robert, "all" of us agree that High level characters can disrupt the world to some degree. We are not in agreement with you that they get carte blanche treatment if they run amuck as they do not exist in a vacuum. The primary basis of your arguments seems to be that the high level characters live in a vacuum and No One would take Any Action and If they did take action it would be Ineffective.
High-level characters in a vacuum: False. I deny your assertion that most external conditions could stop a dedicated high-level nihilist from destroying everything.
No effective action can be taken: True. I've yet to see numbers explaining how cities not magically protected out the wazoo can expect to survive spectre-bombing.
I could be mistaken but it seems like you either have a misunderstanding regarding some of the game mechanics or are unaware of them based on several of your posts or you are just being argumentative.
First you didn't know what a Greater Miracle is and then made suppositions and expounded on them. Second you don't seem to understand how Commune works mechanically in game and why Mind Blank is ineffective against it regarding this thread topic of high level PCs killing off lots of worshippers of lots of Gods. (One of the source books said it best. If killing off mortal worshippers early was in the best interest of Gods/Powers then they would be doing it). Third, you don’t understand how Divine Sensing and Divine Blocking works in game mechanics.
A: As said, I do not assume the divinity rules as default, because if I did, then it would be gods with 20 levels of wizard pulling these stunts, not liches.
B: Mind Blank is perfectly effective against using Commune or Contact Other Plane to gather information. It's not at all useful against a divinity shouting down/up "Yo, the guy you're looking for is in the Castle of Ruin just north of Meducala, and he's got a Mind Blank up! Happy hunting!", of course, but if you have gods willing to interfere in the PMP to that regard, then Nerull should have already killed enough Pelor-worshippers to promote him to highest-DvR-divinity with Life and Death, and then finished the job himself.
"Greater Miracle" isn't some Funky New FRCS or other campaign spell. That was a Majorly Bad Assumption IMO. It is when a Cleric Fuels the Miracle Spell from the PHB with 5,000 Exp. Straight out of the PHB middle column on page 253 begins "Alternatively......" Maybe in a campaign world where Greater Miracle doesn't work the way it says it does in the PHB.
I have never heard the XP-expending use of Mircale referred to as a Greater Miracle before. In any case, I don't see "Automatically destroy tens of thousands of incorporeal undead and restore them to life without Con loss." as among the listed effects of the XP-burning variety, and that's what would need to happen.
Maybe in a campaign where Mindblank works against Gods All Divinations are Doomed to Failure even Commune asking the God for information. Maybe Mindblank blocks Clerics from Communing with their Gods for information in your campaign by giving the Commune a busy signal.
A campaign where Mind Blank works as written, possibly.
Maybe in a campaign where the Evil Greater Gods are So Bored and Have Nothing better to do than go around using their Limited Divine Blocking on behalf of Disruptive High level characters killing off their followers 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year instead of having their own agenda.
IMO that is a lot of maybes.
Deities and Demi-Powers explain how Divine Sensing and Blocking works and it's limits.
The agenda of a lot of evil gods is the complete destruction of all life. If they exist and are statted appropriately as per D&D, then they only need to protect their mortal massacre-champions long enough to bump them one point of DvR above their enemies, and then, in the words of Black Mage, it's murderin' time.
Powerful casters do make things difficult, but a savvy DM builds a world to accommodate it. Powerful characters don't exist in a microcosm. D&D doesn't take an average middle-ages world and drop a bunch of crazy-powerful heroes in the middle of it. A good campaign world envelops all the rules of the game into a strong tapestry that can handle the power of these PCs.
For example, take a look at this NPC I made for my campaign world. I am doing an entire urban campaign set in a single city this summer (F.Y.I. my campaign world is set in the year 5600 of our world)...
This won't win any battles against a level 20 character, but it will prevent horrible terrorist actions against the commoners of my city. This is only the tip of the iceberg in my campaign world. PCs need to tread very carefully. They may get lucky terrorizing my world's denizens, but it will only go so far.
I'm just glad I have a good group of players.
I like this class (although the optimizer in me is dubious about caster classes that don't increase manifester levels.) Having a few of these folk around would surely make magical terrorism more difficult.
But the nature of the D&D rule set is that any such class as this will have gaps in their protective ability. In order to be successful, the defenders will need to win every single battle; one successful attack can be devastating for a population. Moreover, spectre-bombing can't be counterspelled, and Trace Teleport and Piggyback Teleport can easily be circumvented by either moving out of range conventionally, or simply hopping to a hazardous area.
In addition to wiping out cities, one must also consider a villain that also targets lesser population centers, including ones too small to have permanent magical protections. We can hope that lich wizard20s have better thing to do than identify 100 villages he doesn't like, get an unlimited-use teleportation item, and one night spectre-bomb them all, and repeat, but if our lich chooses to do this and be smart about it, it's nigh-impossibly difficult to find and stop him.
High-level characters in a vacuum: False. I deny your assertion that most external conditions could stop a dedicated high-level nihilist from destroying everything.
No effective action can be taken: True. I've yet to see numbers explaining how cities not magically protected out the wazoo can expect to survive spectre-bombing.
As I have argued before, spectre-bombing is not as quick and easy as you make it out to be. It can be interrupted, slowed, down, and stopped when it occurs outside of a vacuum.
If indeed a spectre cannot be managed by mid-level and high-level characters, then your real problem is not with high-level characaters, but with the spectre. If a CR 7 spectre is the deadly threat to population centers that you make it out to be, then the spectre's CR or spawn ability needs to be rewritten. The only thing you seem to be proving so far is that spectres are difficult to stop.
A: As said, I do not assume the divinity rules as default, because if I did, then it would be gods with 20 levels of wizard pulling these stunts, not liches.
That doesn't make a difference. Gods will balance each other in the same way that high-level characters do.
B: Mind Blank is perfectly effective against using Commune or Contact Other Plane to gather information. It's not at all useful against a divinity shouting down/up "Yo, the guy you're looking for is in the Castle of Ruin just north of Meducala, and he's got a Mind Blank up! Happy hunting!", of course, but if you have gods willing to interfere in the PMP to that regard, then Nerull should have already killed enough Pelor-worshippers to promote him to highest-DvR-divinity with Life and Death, and then finished the job himself.
Gods for the most part interfere when their clerics cast spells that cause them to interfere, e.g. miracle and commune. Unless you can convince your deity to come through a gate, for the most part they won't be smiting anybody (except indirectly when you miracle for an offensive spell).
Note: In the post I am replying to, you have several quotes labeled as being posted by me, but they are not. They were posted by castlemike. Please recheck your posts so as to avoid mischaracterizing my arguments.
Well, the basic social contract of feudalism was "you farm for me, I fight for you." Which worked great in our world: a guy in heavy armour riding a horse was a force to be reckoned with, and bandits and neighboring lords could be prevented from stomping all over the peasants' crops. A win-win situation.
In D&D world, however, it's not bandits you have to worry about, it's marauding Orcs, and Drow, and Beholders. And a hereditary nobleman, even one born and raised in a warrior culture, just isn't going to be able to stand up to that. What you actually need is a powerful spellcaster.
Of course the other branch of the feudal power structure was the clergy, the nobles fought, the peasants worked, and the clergy looked after everybody's spiritual wellbeing. However in D&D world the clergy would also fight better than the nobles, and for that matter could feed the peasants in hard times with low-level "create food" type spells. And when the bugbears come calling the local bishop can ride down and knock them flat with a Holy Word.
So really, virtually all D&D societies should be Theocracies, or Mageocracies, or overrun by monsters. And that's not even beginning to think about how a whole distinct "adventurer" class would upset the medieval worldview.
As I have argued before, spectre-bombing is not as quick and easy as you make it out to be. It can be interrupted, slowed, down, and stopped when it occurs outside of a vacuum.
What exactly do you mean by a vacuum? I agree that it is logical, in a world with spectres and murderous L20 liches, that every city that isn't already destroyed must be fantastically protected. But, going by published materials, the vast majority of cities aren't, let along small towns. Moreover, you have yet to explain how one can deal with an exponentially-growing number of spectres within a city. If care is taken to drop Spectre-0 into a high-density, low-adventurer population center, then there are soon massive numbers of spectres, and any plan to kill them must find and kill them all.
If indeed a spectre cannot be managed by mid-level and high-level characters, then your real problem is not with high-level characaters, but with the spectre. If a CR 7 spectre is the deadly threat to population centers that you make it out to be, then the spectre's CR or spawn ability needs to be rewritten. The only thing you seem to be proving so far is that spectres are difficult to stop.
If not spectres, than summoned monsters. If not summoned monsters, than Earthquakes. If not Earthquakes, then Gates. If not Gates, than Firestorm/Fireball/Flame Strike/Raging Flame + Control Weather to ensure a dry season. If not fire, than Control Weather and Control Water for a catastrophic flood. If not flood, than Contagion plus the repeated summoning of storms. If not plague, than Fabricate and conjuration spells to undercut vital sections of the city's economy. If not economics, than the creation of a massive army of Planar-Bound outsiders and undead (and possibly the undead of the remains of any outsiders that didn't go along with Planar Binding) for old-fashioned conquering.
The true joy of spectres is that it costs no permanent expendable resources. You magically compel Spectre-0 (or become him yourself with Shapechange), have him make spawn and give a recursive order, collect him, and move onto the next target. But even if you decide that incorporeal undead don't exist, there are still a multitude of options to allow a high-level character and a caster especially to bring forth utter ruin.
That doesn't make a difference. Gods will balance each other in the same way that high-level characters do.
MAD-style balance requires that no side is able to destroy the other without being similarly destroyed. In D&D, there is no MAD between two gods of different divine rank; the greater can easily repair the damage the lesser causes, and the lesser cannot stop the greater from simply slaying all of the lesser's worshippers.
Gods for the most part interfere when their clerics cast spells that cause them to interfere, e.g. miracle and commune. Unless you can convince your deity to come through a gate, for the most part they won't be smiting anybody (except indirectly when you miracle for an offensive spell).
A: Not when miracle and commune are used to gather information on someone with Mind Blank, they don't.
B: Again, you keep making these assertions. Why not with the smiting? If the gods of undeath can massacre all living beings and spend eternity giggling over it, why don't they?
Note: In the post I am replying to, you have several quotes labeled as being posted by me, but they are not. They were posted by castlemike. Please recheck your posts so as to avoid mischaracterizing my arguments.
My apologies; no mischaracterization was intended. I accidentally C/**** from the wrong Quote tag.
What exactly do you mean by a vacuum? I agree that it is logical, in a world with spectres and murderous L20 liches, that every city that isn't already destroyed must be fantastically protected. But, going by published materials, the vast majority of cities aren't, let along small towns. Moreover, you have yet to explain how one can deal with an exponentially-growing number of spectres within a city. If care is taken to drop Spectre-0 into a high-density, low-adventurer population center, then there are soon massive numbers of spectres, and any plan to kill them must find and kill them all.
What I mean is that interference will happen. When the spectre-bombing is discovered (and it will be, because as the number of spectres grow so does the chance of detection), it will be dealt with.
If not spectres, than summoned monsters. If not summoned monsters, than Earthquakes. If not Earthquakes, then Gates. If not Gates, than Firestorm/Fireball/Flame Strike/Raging Flame + Control Weather to ensure a dry season. If not fire, than Control Weather and Control Water for a catastrophic flood. If not flood, than Contagion plus the repeated summoning of storms. If not plague, than Fabricate and conjuration spells to undercut vital sections of the city's economy. If not economics, than the creation of a massive army of Planar-Bound outsiders and undead (and possibly the undead of the remains of any outsiders that didn't go along with Planar Binding) for old-fashioned conquering.
Any damage you can do, someone else can undo somehow (although it may be more expensive). However, no one will abide an attack without retaliation, and no being (excepting over-deities) is invulnerable.
The true joy of spectres is that it costs no permanent expendable resources. You magically compel Spectre-0 (or become him yourself with Shapechange), have him make spawn and give a recursive order, collect him, and move onto the next target. But even if you decide that incorporeal undead don't exist, there are still a multitude of options to allow a high-level character and a caster especially to bring forth utter ruin.
As I have argued, spectres don't necessarily spread as quickly as you feel that they do. They aren't guaranteed to get kills every time, and failure will result in some sort of response by authorities. I would not decide that incorporeal undead do not exist, rather, I would probably change the time it takes for a person to become a spectre because, as you have shown, a CR 7 spectre left alone long enough can become a much bigger threat.
MAD-style balance requires that no side is able to destroy the other without being similarly destroyed. In D&D, there is no MAD between two gods of different divine rank; the greater can easily repair the damage the lesser causes, and the lesser cannot stop the greater from simply slaying all of the lesser's worshippers.
There is such a MAD-style balance, because gods do not operate alone. Deities form pantheons and alliances. Wiping out a deity will incur the wrath of their allies. An attempt by evil to destroy good and disrupt the balance will bring in the intervention of the deities of neutrality.
A: Not when miracle and commune are used to gather information on someone with Mind Blank, they don't.
Yes they do. Miracle and commune are not targeting the person protected by mind blank. Instead, they are asking for the intervention of a deity, whose divine senses will suffice.
B: Again, you keep making these assertions. Why not with the smiting? If the gods of undeath can massacre all living beings and spend eternity giggling over it, why don't they?
Because the gods of good and neutrality will gang up on them and wipe the floor. For every power of good, there is an equal power of evil, so the powers of neutrality will determine the outcome (and I get the feeling that they will not enjoy the massacre of all living beings).
In systems with over-deities, interference in the event of massive disruption can also be expected.
Neverwrong: My point is that it isn't painfully obvious, to a lot of players and DMs both. You would be surprised as to how many DMs like to throw plot devices like torch-and-pitchfork mobs and nonmagical officers of the law at parties, and get upset when the rules show that mobs, towns, and nations fall down and go boom when under the assault of intelligent high-level characters.
That's just lazy (dare I say bad?) DMing.
That's just lazy (dare I say bad?) DMing.
I agree. I'd cheerfully let the PCs go ahead and make that PCs life miserable, or even kill them. Heck, go ahead and raze the town. They're only digging their own graves one shovel-full at a time.
What I mean is that interference will happen. When the spectre-bombing is discovered (and it will be, because as the number of spectres grow so does the chance of detection), it will be dealt with.
OK. Let's say that after an arbitrary number of civvie-kills, our city gets the Adventuring Quartet on the horn and our heroes show up post-haste to deal with incorporealness.
A: How do our fearless adventurers track down and destroy every spectre in the city? Keep in mind that this assault is probably happening at night, so the spectres can rabbit to the countryside and hide in the turf or in any outlying villages; the spectre-nova is not necessarily contained in the city.
B: What's the plan for recovering from N civilian deaths?
C: How long does it take the Adventuring Quartet to enact their plan to stomp all of the spectres? How long can they keep doing it?
Any damage you can do, someone else can undo somehow (although it may be more expensive). However, no one will abide an attack without retaliation, and no being (excepting over-deities) is invulnerable.
If our lich is killing people faster than they're breeding, and he's not stopped, he will win. If he's destroying kingdom resources faster than they can afford to have it repaired, he'll win.
True, this is exactly the kind of situation that attracts high-level adventurers. But there is a hard limit of spectre-swarm-capable adventuring teams available to be tapped as resources, and unless our kingdom can pull in enough resources to protect their entire population, they're going to start having massive death.
On that note: I'm still waiting as to how this retaliation is going to happen. Most adventurers have enough trouble finding and catching liches who can't random-walk across entire planes, let alone one who can.
As I have argued, spectres don't necessarily spread as quickly as you feel that they do. They aren't guaranteed to get kills every time, and failure will result in some sort of response by authorities. I would not decide that incorporeal undead do not exist, rather, I would probably change the time it takes for a person to become a spectre because, as you have shown, a CR 7 spectre left alone long enough can become a much bigger threat.
A: The laws of exponential growth do not lie. Spectres are completely silent, often attacking in complete darkness, will be spending no more than a few rounds going from victim to victim, and can very well start by going after the low-hanging fruit. They'll kill a lot of people, very quickly.
Civilian, non-adventuring authorities cannot respond to the threats of spectres unless they have a lot of very specific magic, period. What response did you have in mind? Rousting the Cleric12 from his bed to deal with the situation is great, if you have one in your city. If you're a small village, you are somewhat deficient in the high-level adventurer department.
Moreover, for as long as our evil-lich cares to maintain Shapechange, he can always pop back in, create another Spectre-0, and start the cycle again, for no expended resources. What happens after Death Ward starts to expire on the far spectre-hunting teams, and wave 2 of spectre-death appears?
Cutting down on spawn time is a good start. You still need to beware the lich slowly building up a horde of spectres and overrunning cities with them, however.
There is such a MAD-style balance, because gods do not operate alone. Deities form pantheons and alliances. Wiping out a deity will incur the wrath of their allies. An attempt by evil to destroy good and disrupt the balance will bring in the intervention of the deities of neutrality.
Which, specifically? To my knowledge (which is admittedly limited), if Pelor bites it, Nerull at DvR 19 is the top of the divine heap, and the other gods can't stop him or prevent him from doing that mass-worshipper-slaughter thing. Conversely, he can slowly but surely restore to life arbitrary numbers of his own worshippers.
Yes they do. Miracle and commune are not targeting the person protected by mind blank. Instead, they are asking for the intervention of a deity, whose divine senses will suffice.
And Mind Blank stops them from working. The rules are quite clear on this point.
Because the gods of good and neutrality will gang up on them and wipe the floor. For every power of good, there is an equal power of evil, so the powers of neutrality will determine the outcome (and I get the feeling that they will not enjoy the massacre of all living beings).
In systems with over-deities, interference in the event of massive disruption can also be expected.
Again, how? Once Nerull (or any other evil god that manages to reduce his counterpart to less DvR than he has) can kill with impunity and raise his own followers, what's stopping him from having the hypothetical evil genocidal lich from pasting the rest of the Prime? The other gods can start splattering Nerull's worshippers, but Nerull can raise them again. This cannot be said for the followers of other gods that Nerull deathifies. How can this end in anything other than all of the other gods losing their worshipper base and dying?
As for your contention that overdeities prevent disruption--In three words or less: Time of Troubles. When the highest-level character in the universe decides to screw with it, the universe is screwed, whether you be level 10, 15, 20, or epic, god, or Dicefreaks.
darkeness: Would you like to clarify your statement? Is it bad DMing to expect D&D to work anything like our world in terms of the value of numerical superiority and entrenched defenses, or bad to point it out?
I don't think that it's necessarily bad DMing to run a classical high-fantasy game, with wizards safely ensconced in towers and not putting the miners and drovers out of business and without the Church of Pelor single-handedly wiping out disease with custom magic items. However, it requires an agreement between players and DM to respect genre conventions. If anyone, PC or NPC, starts trying to seriously use the power the rules say they have, then genre conventions explode messily. Attempting to assume that the rules enforce the genre conventions when they clearly do not is bad DMing, IMO.
OK. Let's say that after an arbitrary number of civvie-kills, our city gets the Adventuring Quartet on the horn and our heroes show up post-haste to deal with incorporealness.
The number is not arbitrary. The number is absolutely critical, as an infestation caught early is easily managed.
A: How do our fearless adventurers track down and destroy every spectre in the city? Keep in mind that this assault is probably happening at night, so the spectres can rabbit to the countryside and hide in the turf or in any outlying villages; the spectre-nova is not necessarily contained in the city.
There are divinations and such to locate the undead. There is also no reason to believe that the spectres are acting in concert through some sort of psychic link; only the spectres that come in contact with PCs or NPC authorities are going to be fleeing (if they manage to escape).
B: What's the plan for recovering from N civilian deaths?
Ressurrect the important people and ignore the rest. If you examine history, people prior to modern times die quite often of things that clerics and adepts can prevent (a simple infection, for instance). Deaths from instances like this only stand in for deaths that are prevented due to the prevalance of magic.
C: How long does it take the Adventuring Quartet to enact their plan to stomp all of the spectres? How long can they keep doing it?
If our lich is killing people faster than they're breeding, and he's not stopped, he will win. If he's destroying kingdom resources faster than they can afford to have it repaired, he'll win.
True, this is exactly the kind of situation that attracts high-level adventurers. But there is a hard limit of spectre-swarm-capable adventuring teams available to be tapped as resources, and unless our kingdom can pull in enough resources to protect their entire population, they're going to start having massive death.
There is a limit to liches stupid enough to go around spectre-bombing.
On that note: I'm still waiting as to how this retaliation is going to happen. Most adventurers have enough trouble finding and catching liches who can't random-walk across entire planes, let alone one who can.
That's part of the argument below.
A: The laws of exponential growth do not lie. Spectres are completely silent, often attacking in complete darkness, will be spending no more than a few rounds going from victim to victim, and can very well start by going after the low-hanging fruit. They'll kill a lot of people, very quickly.
The laws of exponential growth require one victim, every round for every spectre to get the numbers you have claimed. It is quite likely that this will not be the case, because people are not just stacked on top of each other waiting to be killed.
Civilian, non-adventuring authorities cannot respond to the threats of spectres unless they have a lot of very specific magic, period. What response did you have in mind? Rousting the Cleric12 from his bed to deal with the situation is great, if you have one in your city. If you're a small village, you are somewhat deficient in the high-level adventurer department.
A small village will be destroyed, I don't doubt it. But a lich doesn't need to spectre-bomb to do that.
However, a destroyed village is precisely the kind of plot hook that gets PCs involved.
Moreover, for as long as our evil-lich cares to maintain Shapechange, he can always pop back in, create another Spectre-0, and start the cycle again, for no expended resources. What happens after Death Ward starts to expire on the far spectre-hunting teams, and wave 2 of spectre-death appears? [/Qupte]
Such an evil lich is at least CR 19, which means that his opponents can be anticipated to be around there. An ECL 19 party isn't bothered by spectres in the slightest; their only issue is how many spectres they can kill per round.Which, specifically? To my knowledge (which is admittedly limited), if Pelor bites it, Nerull at DvR 19 is the top of the divine heap, and the other gods can't stop him or prevent him from doing that mass-worshipper-slaughter thing. Conversely, he can slowly but surely restore to life arbitrary numbers of his own worshippers.
Admittedly, my knowledge on the Greyhawk pantheon in particular is limited. Corellon Larethian, however, comes to mind, as he is DvR 20.
Note also that the if Pelor is that near to the top of the divine, then he won't be easy to kill in the first place.And Mind Blank stops them from working. The rules are quite clear on this point.
Again, you are incorrect. Mind blank protects against divinations used to gather information about the subject.
It does not, however, protect against a caster divining the location of an object the lich may be carrying, nor does it protect against a caster asking a deity or other powerful being to use divine sensing or an epic divination.Again, how? Once Nerull (or any other evil god that manages to reduce his counterpart to less DvR than he has) can kill with impunity and raise his own followers, what's stopping him from having the hypothetical evil genocidal lich from pasting the rest of the Prime? The other gods can start splattering Nerull's worshippers, but Nerull can raise them again. This cannot be said for the followers of other gods that Nerull deathifies. How can this end in anything other than all of the other gods losing their worshipper base and dying?
Weeks before Nerull begins to commit genocide against a greater deity's followers, that deity will become aware of it due to their portfolio sense extending to the future. It is at this point that a Nerull-hunting party composed of good deities, neutral deities, and Nerull's evil rivals will begin forming.As for your contention that overdeities prevent disruption--In three words or less: Time of Troubles. When the highest-level character in the universe decides to screw with it, the universe is screwed, whether you be level 10, 15, 20, or epic, god, or Dicefreaks.
The most powerful being of a sphere more or less has hegemony (and can thus do whatever they want), but as such also provides hegemonic stability. If liches really do start spectre-bombing successfully, this would be where Ao undoes the damage and rewrites the fabric of reality so that spectres spawn more slowly.
So yes, I would agree with your assessment that the most powerful being can disrupt the world. Not so with other beings, who have rivals and superior beings to contend with.
I do however wish to make three points regarding tangents/associated arguments.
1) On gods: I think the point made as to why Nerull doesn't play worshipper kill wars is that the gods will opose him *directly* i.e. not kill Nerull worshippers, but attack Nerull in person using their ridiculous weapons/abilities etc. Unless gods get abilities which give immunity to lower DvR god hits, or kill lower DvR gods (which they might, I don't generally play with statted gods), then the normal D+D rule that a CR 35 will fall to an overwhelming number of CR 30-34 critters comes into play. Nerull simply can't fight all the gods of neutrality and good directly at once, and they know the only way they can stop his worshipper-weakening crusade is to attack him directly. After all, he has to leave his home-plane advantage behind if he is to start slaying material plane worshippers.
I also seem to remember that worshipper numbers having *any* effect on the power of the god is only one option in the various books, so the gods could simply outlast the worshipper-killing and create/import new life onto the plane while Nerull is on the next one. Assuming a large or infinite number of planes, this while take long enough that you could even put this series of apocalypses and new life generations into the history of your material plane - maybe the next one is coming soon...
Nerull either has to sit on one undead-plane to stop the gods fixing it (I know, lets call it his home plane!), or he can leave nothing behind that can stop gods while he is on his next plane.
2) By RAW, miracle can find out about a mind-blanked person, as mind blank prevents all *divinations* which gather information about the character, and miracle is an evocation (it may mimic a divination to find the info, but that doesn't make it a divination). Commune can't, however.
Also, using plane shift to go to the god's plane and ask the god about the character directly isn't using a divination to find out, and the god has abilities which get round mind blank.
3) I find the best way to 'fix' spectre-bombing (and yes, this is a house rule suggestion, not an attempt to say that its impossible under RAW) is simply to say there is a generational maximum (like some viruses have). Yes, the monster manual says that a unaltered spectre is spawned under the control of the original, because that is what happens up to a point, and beyond that point is something spectres avoid and few PCs have ever seen. It does not say that after 3 generations the control fails, and after 5 generations the spawning stops. It makes IC sense due to the whole thing running from one finite load of energy (the original spell which made the first spectre, or the original link to the negative energy plane when it formed spontaneously) which is getting more and more diffuse.
I find that this practice (assuming there may be more complexities to certain obscure rules-uses which the designers didn't want to double the monster manual's size by listing) helps deal with many abusive things, including Pun-Pun (the Saruhk ability on which the kobold depends was clearly written as 'this ability can be used for plot, and I'm not going to bore you with fifteen pages of clarification and limits to make it PC-playable, when I can just say it does almost anything). Consider the monster manual or its IC equivalent as textbook, limited in what it says either due to limits of Ic knowledge, or just to avoid confusing all the newbie adventurers (the same way you learn in degree-level physics that half of what you learned in A-level physics is oversimplified or wrong).
They are an arbitrary game mechanic that has no apparent relationship with the game world that the core D&D rules seem to support.
I think it can be easily agreed that a level 20 wizard is a ridiculously dangerous threat, regardless of their opposition. A similar level of other classes are equally potent in their own way. Sure, a Level 20 warrior might have difficulty causing the same type of meta-damage that a mass destruction wizard can… but he can’t be killed. He can take on literally endless amounts of low level opponents.
So the question becomes “What does a level actually mean?”
What does it mean to be a Level 20 wizard? What does it mean to be a Level 10 wizard?
Now one might assume that being a higher level simply indicates additional training, which is true, it does, it gives you more abilities/spells/shinies/whatevers. That makes one think that people who are high level are just better trained or more skilled then their lower level counterparts.
That’s an easy assumption to make if you ignore the most important thing you get from gaining levels. It’s not skillpoints, spells, or feats… it’s Hit-Dice.
Hit-Dice, and by extension hitpoints, are the most telling thing you gain by going up levels.
If you assume that most people in D&D have 10 Constitution, and are level 1-2 Commoners, the average person in the game-world has between 2 and 8 hitpoints, averaging around 4 hitpoints. That means they can be reduced to “nearly dead” with a single successful swing of a shortsword. That makes sense… sharp bits of metal kill people with relative ease.
What about your level 12 barbarian with a 20 Constitution who has 150 hitpoints. He can be hit with shortswords ‘till the cows come home and he can still kick your ass with one hand. That’s because he has 12 hit-dice, and hit-dice measure how important you are to the story of the world.
Consider that many spells have hit-dice dependant effects. Things that would immediately kill lower-hit-dice opponents have lesser (or no) effect on high hit-dice characters. That’s because when you advance in hit-dice you become more cinematically relevant.
Cloudkill doesn’t kill THE HERO because he’s a Hero. He coughs and gags a bit, but his enormous personal relevance stops him from being randomly killed. He’s too important to be killed by normal sharp bits of metal. To kill HIM you’d need MAGIC sharp bits of metal, wielded by supernatural zombie ninja.
Law of Heroics #23 – The more people a something kills, the less likely it is to affect the Hero.
The classic D&D storyline has a group of random misfits entering an unknown small village and getting a job killing goblins while drinking heavily at the local tavern. That’s the primordial D&D storyline, and most of us who have been playing the game for a while have experienced that adventure more than once. But what does it mean to be higher level?
This is my take on the level structure. It’s arbitrary, and most people will completely disagree with it, but it’s how I picture this system working from a story perspective.
Level 1: You are a relatively normal person. You might have some training and some small experience. You might be a journeyman. If you are a spell-caster your abilities are impressive from the perspective of the mundane (“You can create light with but a wave of your hand!”), but lack wide applicability. Martially inclined characters are foolish youths who believe that bravery is a good substitute for actual experience. The (few) weapons and armor you own are probably inherited from a relative or stolen from someone. You might have an old school-yard rival from your home town. Most people are this level and few rise beyond it. It means that to the world as a whole, you’re a face in the crowd.
Level 2-3: You’re an experienced person. You have done a few things of relevance in your life and you’ve survived to tell about it. A spellcaster of this level has learned enough spells to be a little more impressive, and if inclined you can create small trinkets that might help others in small ways. As a martial combatant of this level you have a few notches on your belt; you’re the guy people call to break up a bar-fight because you have a scar from killing that half-orc bandit a few months ago. Your weapons and armor are serviceable and you might have a trinket or charm or two made by the local wise-woman. You’re known, if not respected, in a local region (if rural) or a small subculture (if urban). You may have ****** of the local bandit leader. Skilled people reach this power-level. From the perspective of a story, if a Hero passed through your town you might get mentioned by name… if you talked to him. You’d be “Steve the hunter” rather than, “a random hunter.”
Level 4-6: You’ve done some fairly impressive things. You went into the Crypt and dealt with dark things that dwelt in there. You and your friends have seen things that most people will never see. You’ve probably left your home area behind you, as it no longer holds any challenges for you. A spell-caster of this level has started to come into his own. Spell selection is still a problem but you’ve probably learned enough spells to be able to overcome simple physical challenges given enough planning. You can recognize real magic, and are the first person consulted if something weird starts happening. Your most powerful spells can kill sizable numbers of people at once. You are given a wide-berth by the mundane population. A martial character of this level is a dangerous person. You are capable of fighting professional soldiers and coming out alive. Your deeds are mentioned in a relatively large radius, but it’s unlikely that people will recognize you on sight. You’ve had your weapons blessed by a cleric or enchanted by a wandering wizard and you carry a number of useful trinkets. You are probably important enough to have a supernatural nemesis such as a ghoul who wants to eat your heart. At this level you’re starting to matter. You have enough hitpoints that you start to have cinematic damage. Getting stabbed can be laughed off as “A flesh wound.” Even so, if you come up against a Hero you’re still just “A city guard.”
Level 7-8: You are starting to become a force to be reckoned with in your region. At this point you have done some things worthy of stories being told about. You are likely involved in events that affect a fairly sizable area, possibly a large city or small country. Spell-casters of this level start diverging from mundane society entirely. What does it matter if the crops are having trouble when you can conjure food from the ether? Who cares about bandits stopping people on the road if you have mastered Flight? You can now cast enough spells to be always ready for most common situations. Martial characters of this level are capable of taking on multiple opponents simultaneously with little difficulty. You have fought frequently, and ferociously enough, that little in a normal scuffle fazes you. Fighters of this level are considered seasoned veterans. Important people still don’t know who you are, but you’ll be recognized more and more frequently. Your weaponry is impressive, and is probably named. You carry a few powerful objects not directly related to keeping you alive. You have a fairly sizable number of enemies who sometimes send assassins against you. At this level you are actually starting to be important to the story. You’re unlikely to get killed by things that kill large numbers of people. If the castle burns you won’t be randomly caught in the blaze.
Level 9-10: You are a force in the politics of your nation. At this point, the important people of your area begin to take notice of you. They start having to factor in your goals and movements into their plans as you are personally powerful enough to significantly disrupt your environment. You have done feats that are frequently disbelieved by common people. Spell-casters of this power level become “wizards” in their own right. You gaze into unknown realms, can bend space and time, and if you are in any sort of organization or guild you are probably recognized as a full member. Martial characters are considered weapons-masters. If in an army or organization you are probably the highest rank your social status will permit. You are seldom troubled by normal opponents, except in great numbers, and defeating monsters is something you do with relative ease. Your weapons and armor are famous in their own right. You have enough magical gear that you now have to choose what you wear for any given situation. Your direct enemies own castles and have armies. At this level you start getting into minor Hero level. You are important enough that things that happening –because- of you… not just too you.
Level 11-14: You are a consideration in international politics. Power-players, both in and out of the country you are in, must take your movements and goals into consideration as things that get in your way tend to get flattened. You have done things that most people have heard of only in bed-time stories. Spell-casters start building towers that they populate with supernatural guards and servants. You now have sufficient power to deal with pretty much anything that comes your way. You have dealings with creatures from beyond the world. Martial characters are engines of destruction, capable of slaying all but the most potent of foes with ease. In a wartime situation, normal soldiers are of little concern, and you concentrate on slaying the enemy’s monsters and lieutenants. Your gear is coated in powerful magic’s and likely has a long and storied history. Your sword you had forged from the horn of the demon Balthazar, your shield is made from fragments of the Rock of Ages. You are a Hero, you’re life is inherently more important than those of everyone around you and the world respects this. You are never killed by things that target “normal” people.
Level 15-16: Your name is known globally within a certain culture. You are powerful enough to directly influence the fate of nations. Throwing your weight behind a goal is incredibly significant to the political structure of the world. Spell-casters of this level are capable of truly implausible feats. You powers can affect large areas of the world, and with planning you can destroy entire cities. Martial characters can beat young dragons to death with a rock. Normal humans are chaff under your blade. Your gear is powerful enough to be recognized by your opponents. Your gear may be sentient, is probably ancient, and has many powers. Your enemies are powerful and deadly, they may use entire nations as pawns in an attempt to destroy you.
Level 17-18: Your name is a household word across the globe. You probably have an impressive and descriptive title like “Deathbringer” or “Prince of Dragons”. Countries try not to get involved in your affairs as that typically leads to an inconveniently massive amount of death and destruction. Spell-casters at this power level are approaching ridiculous. You can surf the planes of infinity, you can create your own realities, and you can totally ruin someone’s day. Martial characters of this level are entirely unfair to anyone or anything fighting them. You have fought so often and so long that you know how to kill pretty much anything. You can fight armies… and win. You wield the most powerful weapons of their world. You have made enemies of creatures who lie beyond the walls of reality.
Level 19-20: You are one of the most powerful creatures in the world. You don’t need a title, everyone knows who you are. Spell-casters of this level are ridiculous. They can cast vast numbers of spells and the power of those spells can shatter mountains. Martial characters can casually commit genocide. The gear you carry burns with powers capable of destroying nearby buildings simply because they were within the vicinity when you unleashed your might. Your enemies are gods.
---
So do high-leveled characters break the world? Yes. They definitely do. They influence the fate of nations every time they get up in the morning. They accidentally unleash Urglu, Demon of Ten Thousand Faces and the Devourer of Cities. They never pay their bloody taxes.
But they suffer from the problems that such creatures run into. They might be ludicrously powerful, but they have made ludicrously powerful enemies. Even if they haven’t, they suffer from Convergence. Their power attracts those things that are attracted to power: enemies, allies, responsibilities, and of course more power.
So yes, definitely, if a level 20 wizard moved into some random city he can do pretty much whatever the heck he wants… but a character of that level doesn’t just show up somewhere.
Because of their power 20+Level characters are institutions in their own right. Having one walk into your city is like having an army suddenly park in your back yard. It has repercussions on a global scale. The other, few creatures in the world that can actually challenge you will hear about it and will respond if it suits their personality and temperament.
Psychically sensitive people across the city would have visions of your arrival, possibly months or years before it happens. Priests would be warned by divine messengers to expect your coming. Children would be born with birthmarks of your personal sigil. Birds would fly backwards. Strange astrological events would take place…. Just because you, one of the Great Powers, are coming by.
They break the world, yes, but they don’t necessarily break the game.
The number is not arbitrary. The number is absolutely critical, as an infestation caught early is easily managed.
You keep making this assertion. I would really like to see how you see the average urban area managing an infestation of spectres.
There are divinations and such to locate the undead. There is also no reason to believe that the spectres are acting in concert through some sort of psychic link; only the spectres that come in contact with PCs or NPC authorities are going to be fleeing (if they manage to escape).
A divination costs time and a spell-slot. Both are expendable resources. Moreover, while perfect synchronicity is certainly an unreasonable expectation, spectres are very bright critters (Int 14, Wis 14), and can be assumed to figure out on their own the quickest and easiest way to spawn more spectres, whether it is to pop into a crowd and start swinging, or to slip into houses and pick off sleeping people, or so on.
Resurrect the important people and ignore the rest. If you examine history, people prior to modern times die quite often of things that clerics and adepts can prevent (a simple infection, for instance). Deaths from instances like this only stand in for deaths that are prevented due to the prevalance of magic.
Here is the point which I was making; there is nothing stopping the spectre-bombing from happening again. Even if each spectre-bombing only kills unimportant people, if it happens enough, then there won't be enough unimportant people to have a city.
There is a limit to liches stupid enough to go around spectre-bombing.
All it takes is one.
The laws of exponential growth require one victim, every round for every spectre to get the numbers you have claimed. It is quite likely that this will not be the case, because people are not just stacked on top of each other waiting to be killed.
Very well. Let's assume that it takes one minute for a spectre to find a helpless (asleep) victim, approach silently without being detected, and make a successful Coup de Grace attack. One minute after Spectre-0 hits the city, we have two spectres. Two minutes later, we have four. Then eight, then sixteen. Within ten minutes, we have over a thousand spectres, and within 20, the city is completely overrun.
A small village will be destroyed, I don't doubt it. But a lich doesn't need to spectre-bomb to do that.
However, a destroyed village is precisely the kind of plot hook that gets PCs involved.
The beauty of the spectre-bomb is that all the lich has to do is Shapechange into an archon, Greater Teleport into the village, Shapechange into a spectre, touch someone, and move on. Aside from the initial Shapechange casting, the lich isn't expending resources other than at most two minutes of time.
Such an evil lich is at least CR 19, which means that his opponents can be anticipated to be around there. An ECL 19 party isn't bothered by spectres in the slightest; their only issue is how many spectres they can kill per round.
Again these strange assertions. While it is certainly to be expected that an ECL 19 party has the resources to deal with one spectre, expecting them to deal with dozens or hundreds of spectres (some of which may notice their bretheren being cut down with Ghost Touch swords and hide until the adventurers go away, then resume killing) slightly strains credibility. By what mechanism do you expect your ECL 19 party to handle thousands of spectres, and do so not only faster than the spectres can find victims, but fast enough to then jump to the next town our lich has spectre-bombed?
Admittedly, my knowledge on the Greyhawk pantheon in particular is limited. Corellon Larethian, however, comes to mind, as he is DvR 20.
Note also that the if Pelor is that near to the top of the divine, then he won't be easy to kill in the first place.
A: Duly noted: any campaign world with no highest-DvR gods with Rejuvenation or Mass Life and Death is much less problematic.
Gordian fallacy: just because a solution to a problem is obvious doesn't mean it will fail. The issue here is that it's much easier to massacre worshippers than it is to keep them alive, so that if you put equal resources into both tasks, you'll get a lot of dead worshippers.
Again, you are incorrect. Mind blank protects against divinations used to gather information about the subject.
It does not, however, protect against a caster divining the location of an object the lich may be carrying, nor does it protect against a caster asking a deity or other powerful being to use divine sensing or an epic divination.
Both are correct. However, divinations take time and are prone to failure, and require you to know of an object that the lich is carrying to try to find, and any additional ruleset (D&Dg or Epic) that can be used to find our spectre-bomber can also be used by him to inflict slaughter that much more easily. Also, FTR, you can't easily ressurect Spectre-fied folk; they become incorporeal upon being spawned, and thereby leave behind no remains to be ressurected.
Weeks before Nerull begins to commit genocide against a greater deity's followers, that deity will become aware of it due to their portfolio sense extending to the future. It is at this point that a Nerull-hunting party composed of good deities, neutral deities, and Nerull's evil rivals will begin forming.
I should point out that Remote Sensing necessarily implies that the event will come to pass; otherwise the sensing of it could not occur. Ergo, the gods may well know of Nerull's plan to massacre the Prime, but because they have sensed it, it now must happen, according to the rules of D&D. I'll leave it an exercise for the reader to come up with tricks involving flowing-time planes to further befuddle Portfolio Sense. As it is, I'm more than happy to concede that involving gods-as-statted-in-D&Dg will prevent most deities from being able to destroy the world without silliness like Simulacram-DvR-stacking.
However, let's turn this around; if D&Dg is accurate, why haven't Moradin and Corellon Larethian taken down the Evil gods one by one? According to D&Dg, they are the trump cards of the core multiverse, after all.
The most powerful being of a sphere more or less has hegemony (and can thus do whatever they want), but as such also provides hegemonic stability. If liches really do start spectre-bombing successfully, this would be where Ao undoes the damage and rewrites the fabric of reality so that spectres spawn more slowly.
So yes, I would agree with your assessment that the most powerful being can disrupt the world. Not so with other beings, who have rivals and superior beings to contend with.
Then we are in agreement in spirit, regardless of specific rules debates. *bows*
1) On gods: I think the point made as to why Nerull doesn't play worshipper kill wars is that the gods will opose him *directly* i.e. not kill Nerull worshippers, but attack Nerull in person using their ridiculous weapons/abilities etc. Unless gods get abilities which give immunity to lower DvR god hits, or kill lower DvR gods (which they might, I don't generally play with statted gods), then the normal D+D rule that a CR 35 will fall to an overwhelming number of CR 30-34 critters comes into play. Nerull simply can't fight all the gods of neutrality and good directly at once, and they know the only way they can stop his worshipper-weakening crusade is to attack him directly. After all, he has to leave his home-plane advantage behind if he is to start slaying material plane worshippers.
I also seem to remember that worshiper numbers having *any* effect on the power of the god is only one option in the various books, so the gods could simply outlast the worshiper-killing and create/import new life onto the plane while Nerull is on the next one. Assuming a large or infinite number of planes, this while take long enough that you could even put this series of apocalypses and new life generations into the history of your material plane - maybe the next one is coming soon...
Nerull either has to sit on one undead-plane to stop the gods fixing it (I know, lets call it his home plane!), or he can leave nothing behind that can stop gods while he is on his next plane.
Both are valid points (if you are allowing alternate Primes accessable by deities). However, CR rules don't apply particularly well to one high-DvR god with Rejuvenation facing a horde of lesser-DvR gods, as the high-god will survive, and the lesser gods won't. Now, Nerull has turned out to be a bad example for this exercise (in that he'll need to do a whole lot of quasi-ruled organization to touch off an apocalypse and evading portfolio sense), but the same question applies; what happens when the DvR 19 gods of elf- and dwarfness decide to give Gruumsh a good kicking into oblivion? If it is possible for gods to directly wage war on each other successfully, why isn't it being done all the time?
2) By RAW, miracle can find out about a mind-blanked person, as mind blank prevents all *divinations* which gather information about the character, and miracle is an evocation (it may mimic a divination to find the info, but that doesn't make it a divination). Commune can't, however.
Also, using plane shift to go to the god's plane and ask the god about the character directly isn't using a divination to find out, and the god has abilities which get round mind blank.
Mind blank even foils limited wish, miracle, and wish spells when they are used in such a way as to affect the subject’s mind or to gain information about it.
It is very true that you can ask gods for information, however. The trick then is to make sure that the information is useless. For example, the lich might be hanging out in a flowing-time plane where the 20 weeks until his slaughter are passing in a fraction of a round, and that any attempt to actually go to the lich's plane and stop him will fail, on the grounds that by the time the magic taking the party to the plane has finished, 20 weeks will have passed on the Prime and the lich will have returned.
Plus, as I mentioned, in a world with gods being treated as NPCs, a lich Transmuter20 is not a high-level character.
3) I find the best way to 'fix' spectre-bombing (and yes, this is a house rule suggestion, not an attempt to say that its impossible under RAW) is simply to say there is a generational maximum (like some viruses have). Yes, the monster manual says that a unaltered spectre is spawned under the control of the original, because that is what happens up to a point, and beyond that point is something spectres avoid and few PCs have ever seen. It does not say that after 3 generations the control fails, and after 5 generations the spawning stops. It makes IC sense due to the whole thing running from one finite load of energy (the original spell which made the first spectre, or the original link to the negative energy plane when it formed spontaneously) which is getting more and more diffuse.
I find that this practice (assuming there may be more complexities to certain obscure rules-uses which the designers didn't want to double the monster manual's size by listing) helps deal with many abusive things, including Pun-Pun (the Saruhk ability on which the kobold depends was clearly written as 'this ability can be used for plot, and I'm not going to bore you with fifteen pages of clarification and limits to make it PC-playable, when I can just say it does almost anything). Consider the monster manual or its IC equivalent as textbook, limited in what it says either due to limits of Ic knowledge, or just to avoid confusing all the newbie adventurers (the same way you learn in degree-level physics that half of what you learned in A-level physics is oversimplified or wrong).
The problem with this line of reasoning is that you need to go through every single item, material, monster, spell, and effect the PCs might encounter, and errata them. Otherwise, you might end up in the unfortunate situation of having to explain why an effect that used to work in one manner now works in a different manner, just because the PCs found out they could turn the effect up to 11 and break the world. There are no meta-rules of magic that suggest that it has inherent limits; spells like Permanency can keep things going forever. I personally find that if you choose to go that route, rather than attempt to vet every game book for possible deadly interactions with a world, that it's easier to simply say "You can't do that, because it would make the game not fun." There is no in-game implication that spectre-bombs wouldn't work; attempting to graft one on simply invites the players to find a way around it, or choose another method to inflict mass destruction. Simply disallowing certain tactics (for both PCs and NPCs) provides the same effect, but with much more honesty.
I have always limited high level characters to 9th "Name level", and on up through 15th level, at which point they die of old age or retire.
I've never had any of the problems associated in this thread.
I wonder where the story is in all of this. If your PC is 20th level, they should have challenges commensurate to their ability, and lording it over a town of commoners has a dramatic challenge of zero, as far as I can see.
Powerful liches of evil ilk, and such, that's what avatars of the gods are for.
If you have your characters fighting gods, and the gods are losing, you missed something the first time around, when 1e solved these problems by advising "Limit your game, lest it grow too fast."
It's not a function of the rules, as far as I can see, but bad DMing, in that you're telling the wrong story.
If the survivors of so called "spectre-bombing" whatever see a world in which spectres rule, then certainly, paladins will be drafting any able bodied gent able to handle a sword. If those are killed off, then you have a world full of spectres, ruins, and nothing else. ta da, so what. It's unplayable.
I mean, you can play a superheroic-comic book style James Bond / Spycraft style D&D game, but I 'm not signing on for it, personally, unless it is played solely for the sake of "The golden age of the past, when gods walked the earth."
Otherwise, it's tedious...
"What did you do this afternoon?"
"I slew armies of dragons."
Such characters need to ascend / descend, and gain followers of their own, and be NPC'd.
In a campaign I played in a few years ago, the party managed to find an ancient Netherese ruin and explore it despite the best efforts of the priests of Talos (looking for something to blow up) and Shar (linked to the City of Shade) on our trail. In the end we killed an ancient lich and found all sorts of treasure that included a page or two of the Nether Scrolls. My dark elf wizard/loremaster eagerly claimed those, and that's no lie. But when she retired, she moved into Waterdeep, set up a small portable residence on the side of Mount Waterdeep, and then promptly joined the Watchful Order and the City Watch as a Watch-Wizard. Why? Legitimacy, the need for a base of operations, and interest in studying humans (she was a follower of Oghma). Joining civic organizations reduced the amount of trouble she'd face from the locals, who had seen few drow who weren't killing people, gave her easy access to spell components and fellow researchers, and as a Watch-Wizard the respect of the people (she became known as the Night-Mage of Waterdeep, assigned commonly to Dock Ward but borrowed for special occasions in Castle or North Ward). She chose to become part of the community, because in the Underdark you're usually a monster snack really fast if you aren't. That's just simple background and character background.
As another example, I've played off and on an alu-fiend since 1st edition. She's retired now, but she's wandered the planes for centuries as a powerful mage and settled in the Dales. Why? She honestly prefers a peaceful small town away from the intrigue of big cities. Of course, she's got lots of enemies, such as the Zhentarim just up the road. But the townfolk don't worry about such things, since many of her enemies are theirs too. At times she's trained Harper mages, taken on Harper missions, and so on. But she's retired from a lot of that to raise her daughter in peace. And you know what? Babies need more than just milk, especially when they get old enough for solid foods. So the town gets a powerful protector, and she has access to useful resources (including a babysitter if trouble requires her to go wandering).
In conclusion, yes, high-level characters can do ridiculous amounts of damage. But there are many checks and balances to them, including divinities, artifacts, other high-level characters, and institutions. Perhaps most important of all, they are still living people with the same needs, wants, and motivations as those 1st level commoners they could kill with a still, silent circle of death by the droves.
), except you rather miss the point of my houserule idea.The problem with this line of reasoning is that you need to go through every single item, material, monster, spell, and effect the PCs might encounter, and errata them.
Nope, the entire beauty of this idea is you do nothing until and unless your PCs try to break the world (or ask why the evil liche didn't do so and so to break the world himself) and then consider what inherent limit the 'oversimplified' version in the book might have missed out. If your players are like mine, you rarely or never have to bother at all.
Banning stuff, on the other hand, *does* require you to go through everything and check it, in order to see if you want to ban it or not.
Otherwise, you might end up in the unfortunate situation of having to explain why an effect that used to work in one manner now works in a different manner, just because the PCs found out they could turn the effect up to 11 and break the world.
Well, what is supposed to happen is they say 'we order our spectre to infect everyone in this town and set it loose', at which point you consider this obvious game-breaky situation and work out a limit (like the one I thought of in literally two minutes, and posted up earlier). The PCS discover this limit in play, which they did not know about, and so assumed (not 'knew') spectre generations were infinite.
Admittedly you can walk into this sort of problem by accident (or with players who are refusing to tell you their aims until they have the metaphorical nuke fully assembled), and then you have the problem you described.
But consider, if you take the ban approach you have the exact same problem, where the Pcs use something you did not expect and break the game. If you ban it, you are explaining why an effect that worked before now no longer exists at all! The problem is inherent with either approach, and with the banning you have wasted longer trying to work out what to ban in advance.
There are no meta-rules of magic that suggest that it has inherent limits
Yes there are, they are called maximum range, maxed out caster level etc. But from an IC perspective, those limits are the only ones known (because they commonly come up or can be experimented in), not the only ones that exists. From an OOC perspective you call it a house rule (because it is), and can point out that if such things were put into RAW, we would all need ten times as many books (to counter any argument of 'if it was broken, they would errata it themselves').
spells like Permanency can keep things going forever.
Yes, permenancy can keep one spell going forever. But we are talking about spawning spectres. That is the equivalent of permenancy keeping one spell going forever, then two spells going forever, then four, then eight.... then thousands, all from one casting. For your one control or raising spell is designed to control or raise on spectre, and is now maintaining thousands. I don't see how it is illogical to say something snaps (and I never claimed it was RAW).
I personally find that if you choose to go that route, rather than attempt to vet every game book for possible deadly interactions with a world, that it's easier to simply say "You can't do that, because it would make the game not fun."
That is what I am doing (see below). But if the PC is halfway through a plan, does the *character* hear the mystic voice of GM and abandon the plan? Does it make sense for him to suddenly give up for no IC reason?
No, he continues it to completion and finds out it has limits or problems.
There is no in-game implication that spectre-bombs wouldn't work
Yes there is, the fact the DMG does not describe a world peopled only by spectres (and thus no-one has done it yet). Thats a pretty damn big implication. You have in fact spent the last five pages arguing why any possible other reason for this state of affairs (like sopectre-bomb being reversible, or not done due to stalemate, mutually assured destruction, lack of motive, unwritten social contracts etc.) is wrong. The only remaining option is that it doesn't work, or that the DMG world is wrong (and thus we are both contradicting the main books in our own way).
Simply disallowing certain tactics (for both PCs and NPCs) provides the same effect, but with much more honesty.
But I'm being honest. I tell my players at the start of the game, the OOC gamebooks represent the limits of your IC knowledge (due to lack of knowledge schools, Pcs generally know much less, but the books are the maximum). There may be more outside, be it a custom spell, or a petering out of undead spawn after multiple generations. you will only find this out in-game, as it is a secret, lost or unknown information.
I would certainly not advocate telling my players that there is a RAW limit of spectre generations, or that rules as intended are definately against spectre-bombs (although background as intended certainly is - see above). They know it is a house rule, but it is one that encourages them to think creatively rather than stick within mundane limits so as not to hit a game-break curve and upset me. Their PCs make more sense because there is an IC rationale behind their actions. I have previously hated 'pretending' IC that a suddenly banned spell never existed, or having no IC explanation why I gave up on something (because OOC the GM banned it or agreed with me it was broken). With my houseruled 'extras limits' option, this need never happen. Your mileage may vary.
I think the inherent basis of this argument is the question of “What do levels mean?”
They are an arbitrary game mechanic that has no apparent relationship with the game world that the core D&D rules seem to support.
....
The classic D&D storyline has a group of random misfits entering an unknown small village and getting a job killing goblins while drinking heavily at the local tavern. That’s the primordial D&D storyline, and most of us who have been playing the game for a while have experienced that adventure more than once. But what does it mean to be higher level?
I would like to make one minor point of order; characters of high level are not just arbitrarily important to the story. It is the power inherent in those hit dice that let the character affect the game world, and thus become important. Now, as a DM and a storyteller, you can assign equal amounts of importance to a Ftr20 as a Wz20, and indeed, both are equally legendary by the measure of the world, but at the end of the day, the wizard can effect global change on a scale that the fighter, for all his prowess on the battlefield, cannot.
This is my take on the level structure. It’s arbitrary, and most people will completely disagree with it, but it’s how I picture this system working from a story perspective.
...
I like this. I like this a lot. In fact, I would recommend to DMs that they set what kinds of power they want the PCs to have at various levels, and balance based on that. "10th level PCs shouldn't be able to destory the world." is a much stronger statement than "PCs shouldn't be able to destroy the world." It also neatly codifies threats; by sitting down and determining at what level you should be able to destroy (or threaten) the world, you've set a bar on global-level CRs. Likewise, if you don't want PCs to be influencing things at the global level below a certain level, then you can ban certain spells and effects that will allow them to do so (Plane Shift, Teleport, etc.)
So do high-leveled characters break the world? Yes. They definitely do. They influence the fate of nations every time they get up in the morning. They accidentally unleash Urglu, Demon of Ten Thousand Faces and the Devourer of Cities. They never pay their bloody taxes.
But they suffer from the problems that such creatures run into. They might be ludicrously powerful, but they have made ludicrously powerful enemies. Even if they haven’t, they suffer from Convergence. Their power attracts those things that are attracted to power: enemies, allies, responsibilities, and of course more power.
So yes, definitely, if a level 20 wizard moved into some random city he can do pretty much whatever the heck he wants… but a character of that level doesn’t just show up somewhere.
Because of their power 20+Level characters are institutions in their own right. Having one walk into your city is like having an army suddenly park in your back yard. It has repercussions on a global scale. The other, few creatures in the world that can actually challenge you will hear about it and will respond if it suits their personality and temperament.
Psychically sensitive people across the city would have visions of your arrival, possibly months or years before it happens. Priests would be warned by divine messengers to expect your coming. Children would be born with birthmarks of your personal sigil. Birds would fly backwards. Strange astrological events would take place…. Just because you, one of the Great Powers, are coming by.
They break the world, yes, but they don’t necessarily break the game.
This is the core of my point, right here. By about level 10 PCs are already characters out of myth and legend. By level 20, they are (depending on mythology) anywhere from demi- to full-blown gods. They can, on a whim, completely change the workings of the world, and the story should reflect that.
Take the tax question: Our HLC is the beneficiary of those taxes. If he is not the Monarch, he nevertheless has an arrangement with the Monarch that in exchange for a share in the tax-base, he will help secure the safety and productivity of the nation's tax-payers. In this scenario the Monarch is the person who has negotiated the most acceptable division of wealth among the powerful. Her high Diplomacy and Sense Motive skills, and impeccable Profession(Bureaucrat) skill, has served them all in good stead. Tax collectors indeed come knocking at the HLC's door... but with his cut of the national bounty.
As for what he can and can't get away with: Is it really so unrealistic that the powerful do as they will, while the poor must abide by the law? In fact the laws are largely constructed as an arrangement between the powerful and the poor, whereby the poor are provided a tolerable structure for servitude. If our HLC happens to take the life of a commoner, the judicial system steps up quickly to convey him to an acquittal. He is likely tried by a jury of peers, who find themselves frankly suspicious of the confused evidence presented by common eye-witnesses, and won over by the forthright rhetoric of the HLC's representative (Profession(Law), Bluff, Diplomacy).
If our HLC is a Wizard, then that is the reason he is content to allow an Aristocrat to run the country. The Queen ensures that he has a fine supply of luxuries, papyrus, and spell components. It suits him to see the people of the city toiling away without disruption. Only should the Queen fail in her obligations toward him will he wish to depose her.
He has no desire to feel threatened and harrassed as he travels about the Realm, and much desire to arrive at the end of his journeys at an inn offering suitable comforts, with good wines from far off places, and oranges out of season. For all that to exist there must be security. He has a severe disincentive in interfering with the authorities, and indeed both reason, and most likely obligation, to support them.
I feel this offers a reasonable route for any DM. Take the elite few percent of the population, and simply assume the rest are there for their benefit.
-vonklaude
...including the printed rules for salient divine abilities in D&D is an action of unparalleled silliness.
You can't be arguing that on the one hand the D&D rules necessarily lead to situation X (your argument) but on the other hand you wish to exclude some specific rules that are discommodious, can you?
...Plus, all you need to do is kill enough of Pelor's followers to drop his divine rank below Nerull's, and Nerull can do the rest Himself.
Or vice-versa: doesn't this line best support the Balance of Power argument?
...I'm going to assume that GM is a Faerunian spell ("New, from the same campaign setting that brought you Venomfire and druids in metal armor!"). If so, it is not of great utility outside of Faerun.
So excluding Faerun and (presumably) Eberron, where were we talking about again?
...In any case, unless this is one of the listed effects of Greater Miracle, I'm going to have to point out that if you can arbitrarily destroy items remotely with a Wish or Greater Miracle, then the world's fragility is even greater than I had expected..
Something of a canard, since you seem to be arguing that the world is frail indeed.
But before you take any offense, please let me clarify: I just felt that - as a matter of rhetorical form - this was going a touch off course. Your original points were certainly interesting
-vonklaude
...then you have a world full of spectres, ruins, and nothing else. ta da, so what. It's unplayable.
Agreed, and I kind of feel that this thread has moved away from the original and interesting question to a debate about whether the D&D rules are robust enough to be used to build a real working universe or not. The answer is no; how could they? So where does that go?
Isn't it more productive to come up with reasonable answers to the original problem that maintain the necessary suspension of disbelief for our players, rather than stubbornly stamp our feet and somehow 'prove' that parts of the rules are unrealistic?
Of course it is unrealistic. It is a game.
Characters can't always get away with things because other characters will stop them. This all disappears once the PCs entire a backwater villiage, but any sizable town will have multiple mid level characters. Heck, the PHB even tells you the levels of the wizards you can expect to find based on town size.
First of all, there's portfolio sense. Any god affected by the portfolio sense is going to have an idea that the 'spectre bombing' is going to happen literally WEEKS before it occurs. Plenty of time to arrange for a wandering band of appropriate adventurers to be directly in the right area to nip it in the bud. Then, they know the identity of the creating party, and word spreads fast at high levels at what the lich is trying to do.
In no time, he's toast.
So he pops to a fast time dimension. Assuming he's Epic level and can do this, one of his Epic enemies, or maybe just the gods, then discreetly remove his way out. And now he's stuck there. Crumbling at hundreds of times faster then normal speed. In a real year, he's probably dust, and won't even get the chance to be a demi-lich. Really, did he think it was going to be that easy?
Spectres and most incorporeal dead are also tied to the place of their deaths, so they won't be wandering all that much. If their controller is slain, they go back to the place where their remains are, until slain.
Next, the body doesn't neccessarily vanish when the spectre is created. The spectre is more spirit then matter. There is nothing I can see in the SRD that their body simply goes away. I always assumed the spectre rose out of the dead body.
Kindly note that something as simple as every single dog and cat in the neighborhood is going to go freaking bonkers as soon as the first spectre comes floating by (unnatural prescence). It may seem funny, but spectres can't see in the dark any better then people can, either!
Portfolio sense is a marvelous way of the gods knowing whats about to happen, and to take steps to make sure it doesn't. A lich going to use Fabricate to undermine the economy? Merchant adventurers stumble upon his scheme and, outraged, kill him...or report it to the local king/guild who hires fellows to stop him. Ravaging the countryside? Miraculously, his opposition is ALREADY THERE as he begins his vengeance on the living...moved into place by gods of agriculture and protection who sensed the threat forming if not exactly who was behind it. We call this "DM's making an adventure." They call it "all in a day's work for a God."
The whole Nerull/Pelor argument is silly, also. A deity has to expend power to do the stuff he does. Two deities of lesser rank can completely occupy Nerull's time and energy and more, particularly if they are willing to sacrifice hoarded power in tandem to truly punish him...and good deities have always worked better together then evil ones. While Nerull is out killing their followers...they are killing his. When he starts raising his people because he can't kill as fast as two deities, they are STILL killing his...faster then he can raise them (more actions!). At some point, he loses his superior divine rank, and now they can raise their own dead and trade off, one killing his, the other raising their servants. Nerull has gained nothing and now he has to either sue for truce or by your own mechanics be annihilated.
The world exists the way it does because the Divine want it to work. On the other hand, some things, like a real economy, only exist because its a game, and we want to play fast and loose and not worry about uber realism of a magical economy...such things are the realms of authors and novels, not a game. A game is about having fun playing. Authors are about making us think how things should work.
The uber trouble maker who wants to upset the applecart is going to find a big strong hand just happening to wander by and steady the cart. Instead of taking everyone by suprise, Pelor notes that this is the 12,653rd lich that thought that spectre bombing was unstoppable, crosses his name off of the Book of Life's problem list as he watches the adventurers he brought to power possibly years ahead of time crush this tired plot before it ever begins...again. He may not know absolutely who is responsible...but this plot has all the earmarks of Lich 12653's tactics, whom Pelor knows an awful lot about because said lich has not had Mind Blank running his whole life, and a deity can make inferences and educated guesses that we could call 'certainty' with very little problem.
This whole scenario is assuming that the gods are stupid, that they don't work in subtle ways to foil things that upset the status quo too much, and only truly strange and possibly Epic events are going to do so...and that's what heroes are for. If the heroes are unable to do anything...then that's when you have an Apocalypse of worlds. And there's far too many gods interested in that not happening for anything as utterly simplistic as 'spectre bombing' to actually work. Said lich would just get his plot into motion and likely find itself dead.
===Aelryinth
it is also worth to note, that the psionic power Metafaculty is able to penetrate a Mind blank, making it possible to actually find that damn lich without divine help.
I find much of the spectre bombing simply to be unrealistic within the context of the game.
First of all, there's portfolio sense. Any god affected by the portfolio sense is going to have an idea that the 'spectre bombing' is going to happen literally WEEKS before it occurs. Plenty of time to arrange for a wandering band of appropriate adventurers to be directly in the right area to nip it in the bud. Then, they know the identity of the creating party, and word spreads fast at high levels at what the lich is trying to do.
In no time, he's toast.
Yes, but the great part about Portfolio sense is that in order for it to be triggered, the event actually has to happen. Portfolio sense is not triggered whenever an event affecting the deity's domains might happen, after all. Ergo, our god could take great and painful revenge via proxy adventurers, but he needs to be able to handle the spectre-swarm first.
Plus, if our lich's plan is to simply start hitting urban centers above a certain size and without certain protections in random order, then knowing that he is going to do so is not going to be a source of help for our deity.
So he pops to a fast time dimension. Assuming he's Epic level and can do this, one of his Epic enemies, or maybe just the gods, then discreetly remove his way out. And now he's stuck there. Crumbling at hundreds of times faster then normal speed. In a real year, he's probably dust, and won't even get the chance to be a demi-lich. Really, did he think it was going to be that easy?
Well, if our lich is epic, he might well research Origin of the Species, populate his demi-plane with enough horiffic monsters to form their own ecology, kill and farm them for XP, and when he gets high enough into Epic, kick his own way back into the Prime, leading an army of monsters with him.
So, a two-step process, then.
Spectres and most incorporeal dead are also tied to the place of their deaths, so they won't be wandering all that much. If their controller is slain, they go back to the place where their remains are, until slain.
I hadn't seen it mentioned that incorporeal undead couldn't choose to go wherever they wanted. Could you provide a citation for this rule, please?
Next, the body doesn't neccessarily vanish when the spectre is created. The spectre is more spirit then matter. There is nothing I can see in the SRD that their body simply goes away. I always assumed the spectre rose out of the dead body.
Dead is a condition that can apply to creatures. A body is technically a Dead creature. Since the creature is what becomes the spectre, it ceases to be Dead and becomes undead.
Kindly note that something as simple as every single dog and cat in the neighborhood is going to go freaking bonkers as soon as the first spectre comes floating by (unnatural prescence). It may seem funny, but spectres can't see in the dark any better then people can, either!
This is very true; if your world has a history of spectre-bombing, then this sort of thing might well be a cue to call for help.
However, one would expect a minimum of domesticated animals in the poorest, most densely-populated alleyways which would be the original target of the spectre-bomb, and one would likewise assume that the domesticated-alarm-system would not kick in until the spectre-swarm had moved into the slightly-more-affluent areas, at which point any kind of warning is useless.
Portfolio sense is a marvelous way of the gods knowing whats about to happen, and to take steps to make sure it doesn't. A lich going to use Fabricate to undermine the economy? Merchant adventurers stumble upon his scheme and, outraged, kill him...or report it to the local king/guild who hires fellows to stop him. Ravaging the countryside? Miraculously, his opposition is ALREADY THERE as he begins his vengeance on the living...moved into place by gods of agriculture and protection who sensed the threat forming if not exactly who was behind it. We call this "DM's making an adventure." They call it "all in a day's work for a God."
Again: If it doesn't happen, then Portfolio Sense can't be used to ensure it doesn't happen. Also: the real damage of spectre-bombing (henceforth referred to as SB-ing) is that if our lich sees that he has inadvertently chosen the patch of earth that the Druidic Order of the Enduring Oak has claimed and will fight for, he can hop seven leagues west and attack there, instead. Unless the good gods can put opposition everywhere, our lich will begin his reaping.
The whole Nerull/Pelor argument is silly, also. A deity has to expend power to do the stuff he does. Two deities of lesser rank can completely occupy Nerull's time and energy and more, particularly if they are willing to sacrifice hoarded power in tandem to truly punish him...and good deities have always worked better together then evil ones. While Nerull is out killing their followers...they are killing his. When he starts raising his people because he can't kill as fast as two deities, they are STILL killing his...faster then he can raise them (more actions!). At some point, he loses his superior divine rank, and now they can raise their own dead and trade off, one killing his, the other raising their servants. Nerull has gained nothing and now he has to either sue for truce or by your own mechanics be annihilated.
An interesting corellary of this is that it would make sense for the evil gods, in preparation for a war-of-attrition, to secrete away as many rampaging monsters as possible, so that they could, with as little personal intervention as possible, acheive the highest body count. Heironeus probably has some sort of objection to Divine-Blasting a city that's only 1/3 given over to Nerull; I sincerely doubt that the Reaper will have similar qualms.
The world exists the way it does because the Divine want it to work. On the other hand, some things, like a real economy, only exist because its a game, and we want to play fast and loose and not worry about uber realism of a magical economy...such things are the realms of authors and novels, not a game. A game is about having fun playing. Authors are about making us think how things should work.
The uber trouble maker who wants to upset the applecart is going to find a big strong hand just happening to wander by and steady the cart. Instead of taking everyone by suprise, Pelor notes that this is the 12,653rd lich that thought that spectre bombing was unstoppable, crosses his name off of the Book of Life's problem list as he watches the adventurers he brought to power possibly years ahead of time crush this tired plot before it ever begins...again. He may not know absolutely who is responsible...but this plot has all the earmarks of Lich 12653's tactics, whom Pelor knows an awful lot about because said lich has not had Mind Blank running his whole life, and a deity can make inferences and educated guesses that we could call 'certainty' with very little problem.
And now we run into issue. You see, if the gods were remote, and distant, and mysterious, then it would make perfect sense to use them as they are treated as you describe (and indeed, as they are in most settings) as subtle enforcers of the game-world being fun. But they're not. Nerull's motivations are not mysterious; he wants to kill everyone. He should not be acting to promote stability; he should be acting to cause the most death.
D&Dg was published, it turned the gods into NPCs. Clerics above level 9 can cast Plane Shift and go have tea and biscuits with their god, if they so choose; they can even try to attack said gods (if they really hate their own existence, for example). "If it has stats, we can kill it!" isn't just a truism; it is actually true. If you wrap enough rules around something to give it conditions to stop existing, then other characters might well be able to cause such non-existence. Moreover, the D&D system is composed of so many variables and so many poorly-defined exceptions that there is always a risk of an unforseen rules interaction causing the world to act in a way that is not expected.
This whole scenario is assuming that the gods are stupid, that they don't work in subtle ways to foil things that upset the status quo too much, and only truly strange and possibly Epic events are going to do so...and that's what heroes are for. If the heroes are unable to do anything...then that's when you have an Apocalypse of worlds. And there's far too many gods interested in that not happening for anything as utterly simplistic as 'spectre bombing' to actually work. Said lich would just get his plot into motion and likely find itself dead.
===Aelryinth
Yes. In a world where the gods are active NPCs, non-divine characters will be very hard-pressed to work against them in any meaningful way. This is because high-level characters can shape the world as they see fit. And if you as DM have decided that you're going to be controlling all of the really high-level characters for yourself, and cheerfully disregard their stated motivations whenever it would be convenient for your plot and current-setting-state, then, yes, your world will undergo minimal disruption.
But the moment you let someone with those abilities start banging away at the keyboard of reality, the stability of your world fall down go boom.
lord_khaine: One needs to have seen the lich before to Metafaculty it. In order to see the lich, one needs to catch it undefended. In order to catch it undefended, one needs to know where it is. In order to know where it is, so one can catch a glimpse of it, one needs to use Metafaculty.
If we posit that our lich has the initative in its planar genocide campaign, then Metafaculty becomes problematic; people need to identify the lich in order to strike at him, and by the time this is possible, the lich has struck.
As a final aside: to those of you (including Aelryinth) who argue that what I am saying means that D&D worlds are all on a swift, inexorable plunge towards Armegeddon, you are correct. As DMs, we can either ad-hoc reasons why it hasn't happened yet, or we can carefully vet every monster, every class, and every ability we allow into our campaign world, looking for anything that could cause or accelerate events we don't want to happen. I think we should do the second option, just because allowing everything and then trying to limit it ex post facto will result in a high-level character twigging to a combo you hadn't considered, and disrupting the world.
Yes, but the great part about Portfolio sense is that in order for it to be triggered, the event actually has to happen. Portfolio sense is not triggered whenever an event affecting the deity's domains might happen, after all. Ergo, our god could take great and painful revenge via proxy adventurers, but he needs to be able to handle the spectre-swarm first.
There's no way you can run the argument you want to run here. The deity senses his guys beating on that lich before the lich released his swarm.
Plus, if our lich's plan is to simply start hitting urban centers above a certain size and without certain protections in random order, then knowing that he is going to do so is not going to be a source of help for our deity.
A random roll does not feel particularly random when you know in advance it will roll a 5.
Well, if our lich is epic, he might well research Origin of the Species, populate his demi-plane with enough horiffic monsters to form their own ecology, kill and farm them for XP, and when he gets high enough into Epic, kick his own way back into the Prime, leading an army of monsters with him.
That particular lich died just before he conceived that plan. Look, you simply cannot make the argument you want to make. Your OP had a useful value, why on Earth do you want to somehow prove this silly spectre-bomb thing can happen?
Again: If it doesn't happen, then Portfolio Sense can't be used to ensure it doesn't happen. Also: the real damage of spectre-bombing (henceforth referred to as SB-ing) is that if our lich sees that he has inadvertently chosen the patch of earth that the Druidic Order of the Enduring Oak has claimed and will fight for, he can hop seven leagues west and attack there, instead. Unless the good gods can put opposition everywhere, our lich will begin his reaping..
You must take into account the deity's supernal intelligence and wisdom, and I'll say again, it does not matter at what point in time or space you position your awareness. The awareness of stopping the spectre-bombing is enough for the god to act on, or even just the immediate understanding that the thoughful look on lich12392's face means they are thinking of spectre-bombing.
An interesting corellary of this is that it would make sense for the evil gods, in preparation for a war-of-attrition, to secrete away as many rampaging monsters as possible, so that they could, with as little personal intervention as possible, acheive the highest body count. Heironeus probably has some sort of objection to Divine-Blasting a city that's only 1/3 given over to Nerull; I sincerely doubt that the Reaper will have similar qualms. ...Nerull's motivations are not mysterious; he wants to kill everyone. He should not be acting to promote stability; he should be acting to cause the most death.
A very uninteresting corollary. It is worth noting (again) that power from worshippers is an option not a rule, and (again) that Nerull gets his kicks from things dying. Once everything is dead, he loses. His best gameplan is to balance death vs procreation. In fact, his absolutely best gameplan is to let the procreating get well underway before doing anything at all, and ensure it never dips below a satisfactory level.
Moreover, the D&D system is composed of so many variables and so many poorly-defined exceptions that there is always a risk of an unforseen rules interaction causing the world to act in a way that is not expected..
Do the words 'arbitrated non-zero-sum' mean anything to you?
One needs to have seen the lich before to Metafaculty it. In order to see the lich, one needs to catch it undefended. In order to catch it undefended, one needs to know where it is. In order to know where it is, so one can catch a glimpse of it, one needs to use Metafaculty.
If we posit that our lich has the initative in its planar genocide campaign, then Metafaculty becomes problematic; people need to identify the lich in order to strike at him, and by the time this is possible, the lich has struck. ..
One merely needs portfolio sense and supernal foresight. And I will reiterate just to somehow drive this home: seeing the lich failing is just as good a trigger for the god as seeing the lich succeeding. In fact, seeing the lich when he was a little boy first studying magic is enough for a god.
But this is a pointless argument. All it really proves is that the DM has a useful deus ex machina whenever comes up with . The other thing it proves is that the guys who wrote Deities and Demigods were quite thoughtful designers. My respect goes out to them.
As DMs, we can either ad-hoc reasons why it hasn't happened yet, or we can carefully vet every monster, every class, and every ability we allow into our campaign world, looking for anything that could cause or accelerate events we don't want to happen. I think we should do the second option, just because allowing everything and then trying to limit it ex post facto will result in a high-level character twigging to a combo you hadn't considered, and disrupting the world.
Setting aside that it is not 'ad-hoc' to use the RAW in Deities & Demigods we at last see a glimmer of light. Yes, it would be useful as others have said to fix things we find broken, like maybe spectres. If only to save ourselves arguments of this kind. We do not need to fix everything. We cannot fix things we are not yet aware of because no one has yet noticed them. 4E may want to look at a few open-ended monster abilities, or it may be perfectly happy with the current backstops in place.
Finally, your game is your game. In my world, the gods don't need to stop spectre-bombing because my liches consider evil to be more along the lines of causing suffering, than simple carnage. And some of them become liches out of a desire to live forever, rather than engage with the mundane world. My Lvl20 mages don't raze cities because they are the guys benefiting from an endless supply of nubile slave-girls and boys. Why would they mess with that? The last time one of them had to exert himself so far as to cantrip up a cup of tea was years ago. Other mages still are ascetics; devoted to mystical pursuits or knowlege.
And so it goes. YMMV.
As a final aside: to those of you (including Aelryinth) who argue that what I am saying means that D&D worlds are all on a swift, inexorable plunge towards Armegeddon, you are correct. As DMs, we can either ad-hoc reasons why it hasn't happened yet, or we can carefully vet every monster, every class, and every ability we allow into our campaign world, looking for anything that could cause or accelerate events we don't want to happen. I think we should do the second option, just because allowing everything and then trying to limit it ex post facto will result in a high-level character twigging to a combo you hadn't considered, and disrupting the world.
Is this last paragraph directed at me? You have made no other answer to my suggestion since I explained it.
Because you are still rather missing the point. Let me break it down in points.
we can carefully vet every monster, every class, and every ability we allow into our campaign world, looking for anything that could cause or accelerate events we don't want to happen.
And if you are infallible (i.e can think of every single thing a PC might do) and have a ridiculous amount of time, this works. It also means you miss out on some perfectly good spells, classes etc. which are enormous fun to play, and which your players were never going to break in the way you thought of.
If you are not infallible, then this happens:
a high-level character twigging to a combo you hadn't considered, and disrupting the world
At this point you have to ban said combo after the fact, which leads to al the problems you associated with my idea (see my previous post).
Get it? This is not a problem with my idea, it is a problem with your 'solution' of pre-emptive banning.
Alternatively, there is:
allowing everything and then trying to limit it ex post facto
I am assuming this refers to my idea, since it does involve allowing everything and then limiting it *when it becomes a problem* (or better still, before it becomes a problem, when you see it coming). Ex post facto means 'after the fact' as far as I am aware (Latin is not my strong point), and that's where I wonder if you misunderstood what I was saying, or if the paragraph is talking about something other than my idea.
The intent of my idea is to add a limit to something it at or just before the point it is abused, rather than unecessarily miles ahead. The intent is *not* to assign a limit to a spell after it has already been used to break the game.
In the spectre-bomb example, the PCs find out that spectres can only spawn for five generations *when they try it*, because the GM invented that limit at the point the PCs came up with their spectre-spawning plan (or the point the PCs wondered why the liche evil guy hasn't spectre-bombed the kingdom to ashes). If you can't think on your feet that fast, ask the players for some time - its not a competition. Generally however, plans take a while to create and put into action (and if you just want to explain why the liche hasn't done it, smile enigmatically at the Players as they wonder, and make up the limit later when they actually have a chance of finding out).
It is perfectly possible to in fact vet everything ahead of time and see problems coming, then assign limits right then then rather than banning the stuff. However, as the limits are only there for combo purposes (i.e the generation limit on spectres stops spectre bombing - it has no effect on normal use of summon undead spells or even on spawning yourself a small retinue of spectres to guard yourself. It only matters when the PCs try to break the game with spectre bombing), then the limits may well never come up, so you may be wasting time. However this idea of limits at the extremes ahead of time (as opposed to banning it because it can be abused ahead of time) still lets you use the cool bits of D+D as they are meant to be used in normal play, rather than them not existing, thus reducing the fun of the majority of players, just to stop the world-breaking minority (or to satisfy your GM sense of 'but why didn't the bad guy do this').
I hope I have given you a better idea about what I am talking about. The point is that most of the game-breaking comboes and methods in the game are really easy to stop from happening without banning or altering the various spells and classes. A combination of looking at the combo cynically (the world is not overrun with spectres, a sarruhk would have made itself a pun-pun overgod if that were possible) and common sense (diseases spawn expnentially, diseases do not wipe out the world, this is because they peter out after a number of generations. RAW says nothing about spectres petering out, *but also says nothing about them going on forever*) and there you are.
Its really as simple as 'if I assume the spell/monster description is a simplified summary, how would the full version deal with this combo'? I am good at answering that question. If you aren't, or don't like it, that's fine. But my approach doesn't have the problems you are trying to assign to it.
Yes, but the great part about Portfolio sense is that in order for it to be triggered, the event actually has to happen. Portfolio sense is not triggered whenever an event affecting the deity's domains might happen, after all. Ergo, our god could take great and painful revenge via proxy adventurers, but he needs to be able to handle the spectre-swarm first.
Portfolio sense happens many weeks in advance for greater deities, giving them ample time to react.
Well, if our lich is epic, he might well research Origin of the Species, populate his demi-plane with enough horiffic monsters to form their own ecology, kill and farm them for XP, and when he gets high enough into Epic, kick his own way back into the Prime, leading an army of monsters with him.
Except that xp is not awared for kills, it is awared for overcoming difficult challenges. Farming implies a degree of superiority with no degree of risk.
However, one would expect a minimum of domesticated animals in the poorest, most densely-populated alleyways which would be the original target of the spectre-bomb, and one would likewise assume that the domesticated-alarm-system would not kick in until the spectre-swarm had moved into the slightly-more-affluent areas, at which point any kind of warning is useless.
There is actually going to be very little difference in numbers of domesticated animals, only what types of animals they are. The affluent parts of a city are likely to have horses and such, but any beggar can keep a dog.
An interesting corellary of this is that it would make sense for the evil gods, in preparation for a war-of-attrition, to secrete away as many rampaging monsters as possible, so that they could, with as little personal intervention as possible, acheive the highest body count. Heironeus probably has some sort of objection to Divine-Blasting a city that's only 1/3 given over to Nerull; I sincerely doubt that the Reaper will have similar qualms.
The gods of neutrality, on the other hand, ever the pragmatists, are not afraid to blast innocents when necessary. In a war of attrition, all of the gods of good and neutrality combined are going to have more bodies to throw, especially because neutrality is the most common.
And now we run into issue. You see, if the gods were remote, and distant, and mysterious, then it would make perfect sense to use them as they are treated as you describe (and indeed, as they are in most settings) as subtle enforcers of the game-world being fun. But they're not. Nerull's motivations are not mysterious; he wants to kill everyone. He should not be acting to promote stability; he should be acting to cause the most death.
I agree that Nerull should not be acting to promote stability. However, he also cares about his own survival above all else, and being the incredibly intelligent being he is, he's not going to screw around with certain death (as that is exactly what a sufficient uproar among the deities of neutrality will cause).
Yes. In a world where the gods are active NPCs, non-divine characters will be very hard-pressed to work against them in any meaningful way. This is because high-level characters can shape the world as they see fit. And if you as DM have decided that you're going to be controlling all of the really high-level characters for yourself, and cheerfully disregard their stated motivations whenever it would be convenient for your plot and current-setting-state, then, yes, your world will undergo minimal disruption.
That's part of the game. 5th-level party wants to "disrupt" the world? Too bad, they can't. Anyone who doesn't realize this doesn't understand what the gods are. And yes, deities are a normal part of most campaign settings, so yes, mid-level characters are not going to be shaking the world because some DM lets them get away with everything they want because otherwise he would be "controlling all of the really high-evel characters".
But the moment you let someone with those abilities start banging away at the keyboard of reality, the stability of your world fall down go boom.
Only when they stand unopposed. And in D&D, few beings have attained that status (and those that have seem to tend towards being neutral overdeities).
As a final aside: to those of you (including Aelryinth) who argue that what I am saying means that D&D worlds are all on a swift, inexorable plunge towards Armegeddon, you are correct. As DMs, we can either ad-hoc reasons why it hasn't happened yet, or we can carefully vet every monster, every class, and every ability we allow into our campaign world, looking for anything that could cause or accelerate events we don't want to happen. I think we should do the second option, just because allowing everything and then trying to limit it ex post facto will result in a high-level character twigging to a combo you hadn't considered, and disrupting the world.
Wrong. There are not actually that many problems, and all of them can be solved. The crux of your argument has been that spectre-bombing means the end of the world.
So what? By the RAW, a 5th-level kobold named Pun-Pun can do that too. So you're saying, that rather than look out for the problem mechanics that result in Pun-Pun, we should just give up playing above 4th level?
Yes, but the great part about Portfolio sense is that in order for it to be triggered, the event actually has to happen. Portfolio sense is not triggered whenever an event affecting the deity's domains might happen, after all. Ergo, our god could take great and painful revenge via proxy adventurers, but he needs to be able to handle the spectre-swarm first.
This is not true. The event only has to begin to happen, and the alarms go off. So really, only one person has to die, Pelor sees the spectre bombing event coming, and snips it.
Plus, if our lich's plan is to simply start hitting urban centers above a certain size and without certain protections in random order, then knowing that he is going to do so is not going to be a source of help for our deity.
So, the god knows exactly where and when the lich is going to strike, since 'random' doesn't apply to perfect foreknowledge, and this isn't a help?
Well, if our lich is epic, he might well research Origin of the Species, populate his demi-plane with enough horiffic monsters to form their own ecology, kill and farm them for XP, and when he gets high enough into Epic, kick his own way back into the Prime, leading an army of monsters with him.
He'd get no xp for making them, his demi plane is going to be quite small since it's growth rate is based on external time, not internal, and he can't get out. Casting Epic spells also costs XP he can't get back, and how's he going to do the research for the spell? he can't spend the money anywhere to get it done.
So, a two-step process, then.
He's stuck, he can't get out, he can't make xp, and he can't spend the money to research Epic Spells. Yeah, he's double stuck all right.
I hadn't seen it mentioned that incorporeal undead couldn't choose to go wherever they wanted. Could you provide a citation for this rule, please?
Standard play of most undead creatures is that they are generally bound to the area of their death. Citation? No...but then, you don't see roaming shadows all over the landscape, so it's a tradition that's pretty much a rule.
Dead is a condition that can apply to creatures. A body is technically a Dead creature. Since the creature is what becomes the spectre, it ceases to be Dead and becomes undead.
Uh...no. Spectres are actually formed from the spirit of the slain creature. I see nothing in the description that actually says the body transforms. This was substantiated in the older versions as to why Raise Dead destroyed them if cast on their remains...and even now, you can find citations where the remains of spectres are scattered, need to be reformed, etc.
This is very true; if your world has a history of spectre-bombing, then this sort of thing might well be a cue to call for help.
The simplest and easiest, yes.
However, one would expect a minimum of domesticated animals in the poorest, most densely-populated alleyways which would be the original target of the spectre-bomb, and one would likewise assume that the domesticated-alarm-system would not kick in until the spectre-swarm had moved into the slightly-more-affluent areas, at which point any kind of warning is useless.
Stray cats and dogs are everywhere, and pet dogs and cats are everywhere. Pretty easy to assume that the churches of the Good gods keep an ear out for the kind of wild ruckus wandering spectres would cause. It's also safe to assume that this 'undead sense' is one more reason that people would KEEP pets. And don't forget horses are animals too.
Again: If it doesn't happen, then Portfolio Sense can't be used to ensure it doesn't happen. Also: the real damage of spectre-bombing (henceforth referred to as SB-ing) is that if our lich sees that he has inadvertently chosen the patch of earth that the Druidic Order of the Enduring Oak has claimed and will fight for, he can hop seven leagues west and attack there, instead. Unless the good gods can put opposition everywhere, our lich will begin his reaping.
Again, it only has to start to happen. If the lich sees that something is going wrong, it's probably entirely too late for him and his spectres. The PC's are going to take down his mind blank, track him, and butcher him. Or maybe just stop him from porting, and butcher him.
An interesting corellary of this is that it would make sense for the evil gods, in preparation for a war-of-attrition, to secrete away as many rampaging monsters as possible, so that they could, with as little personal intervention as possible, acheive the highest body count. Heironeus probably has some sort of objection to Divine-Blasting a city that's only 1/3 given over to Nerull; I sincerely doubt that the Reaper will have similar qualms.
Who says Heironeous is going to do this? At the same time, if killing 1/3 of a city saves two cities, he might well do it, especially if the other 2/3 of the worshippers are also evil. And who says he can't slay who he wishes?
And now we run into issue. You see, if the gods were remote, and distant, and mysterious, then it would make perfect sense to use them as they are treated as you describe (and indeed, as they are in most settings) as subtle enforcers of the game-world being fun. But they're not. Nerull's motivations are not mysterious; he wants to kill everyone. He should not be acting to promote stability; he should be acting to cause the most death.
No, he should be acting to cause people to worship him, and Death is his portfolio. If he starts actually causing more death and undeath, he's basically shafting himself by decreasing the number of people who worship him. There's nothing that says the other gods can't start backing some other god of Just DEath and rip away his portfolio, which is where the REAL threat to a god is...no portfolio, no worshippers, no power. Nerull has a real and needed part in society which is where the majority of his power comes from...the nasty things are just to keep him in mind and make sure the people never take him for granted.
D&Dg was published, it turned the gods into NPCs. Clerics above level 9 can cast Plane Shift and go have tea and biscuits with their god, if they so choose; they can even try to attack said gods (if they really hate their own existence, for example). "If it has stats, we can kill it!" isn't just a truism; it is actually true. If you wrap enough rules around something to give it conditions to stop existing, then other characters might well be able to cause such non-existence. Moreover, the D&D system is composed of so many variables and so many poorly-defined exceptions that there is always a risk of an unforseen rules interaction causing the world to act in a way that is not expected.
Happily, the only thing they can do now is try to beat up Avatars.
Yes. In a world where the gods are active NPCs, non-divine characters will be very hard-pressed to work against them in any meaningful way. This is because high-level characters can shape the world as they see fit. And if you as DM have decided that you're going to be controlling all of the really high-level characters for yourself, and cheerfully disregard their stated motivations whenever it would be convenient for your plot and current-setting-state, then, yes, your world will undergo minimal disruption.
Or maybe all the high level types are scared of making moves that will cause the others to annihilate them. We call this a "Cold War", and the high level countries lived it for many years, and still do today. Threat of mutually assured destruction is a strong incentive to let things develop without interfering, and taking conflicts off the plane.
But the moment you let someone with those abilities start banging away at the keyboard of reality, the stability of your world fall down go boom.
If they are all alone and have no one to counter them...well, absolute power and all that.
lord_khaine: One needs to have seen the lich before to Metafaculty it. In order to see the lich, one needs to catch it undefended. In order to catch it undefended, one needs to know where it is. In order to know where it is, so one can catch a glimpse of it, one needs to use Metafaculty.
No, one needs to have a god put the character in the right place and time to catch a glimpse of the lich...which can be done by any number of means. Heck, a divine agent could provide an image of the lich from back when he was still level 14...that qualifies. Screwed by the level 1 MU's home cast illusion...take that, lich!
If we posit that our lich has the initative in its planar genocide campaign, then Metafaculty becomes problematic; people need to identify the lich in order to strike at him, and by the time this is possible, the lich has struck.
Happily, with divine agents around, he never has the initiative. His enemies are poised to stop him before he even really gets started, unbenowst to anyone but the gods.
As a final aside: to those of you (including Aelryinth) who argue that what I am saying means that D&D worlds are all on a swift, inexorable plunge towards Armegeddon, you are correct. As DMs, we can either ad-hoc reasons why it hasn't happened yet, or we can carefully vet every monster, every class, and every ability we allow into our campaign world, looking for anything that could cause or accelerate events we don't want to happen. I think we should do the second option, just because allowing everything and then trying to limit it ex post facto will result in a high-level character twigging to a combo you hadn't considered, and disrupting the world.
Rule 0 ftw?
===Aelryinth
It may seem funny, but spectres can't see in the dark any better then people can, either!
Actually, they can, although this is not explicitly mentioned in the entry for spectres. Instead, it is a general undead trait:
Traits: An undead creature possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).
...
—Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Indeed, the only two creature types that have neither darkvision nor low-light vision as a standard trait are humanoids and oozes, the latter of which has blindsight.
There's no way you can run the argument you want to run here. The deity senses his guys beating on that lich before the lich released his swarm.
Look, either the future is fixed, or it isn't. If the future is fixed, then portfolio sense is useless as a preventative measure; the event perceived is definitely going to happen. Severe pain may happen onto he or she who brought it forth, yes, but that hasn't stopped any other villain in the history of D&D.
If the future isn't fixed, and the deity is changing the future by looking at it, than it is, for lack of a better term, useless. If you can stop what you see from coming true, then it might not have come true, and you are not seeing the future; you are seeing possibilities.
A random roll does not feel particularly random when you know in advance it will roll a 5.
Yes, but there is no way for you as a DM to know that. You can, of course, see where the player decides to go, rewind time several weeks from that point, and re-play out the game world, but with the relavent greater gods now having the knowledge of note. Given the overlapping nature of portfolios and actions, this essentially makes play impossible.
That particular lich died just before he conceived that plan. Look, you simply cannot make the argument you want to make. Your OP had a useful value, why on Earth do you want to somehow prove this silly spectre-bomb thing can happen?
And Nerull knew about that before it happened, and popped in to give the lich some advice, then, or simply use an SDA to take him over and burn his battle-plan into the lich's consciousness. Whoever said that the ability to predict the future only belonged to nice people?
You must take into account the deity's supernal intelligence and wisdom, and I'll say again, it does not matter at what point in time or space you position your awareness. The awareness of stopping the spectre-bombing is enough for the god to act on, or even just the immediate understanding that the thoughful look on lich12392's face means they are thinking of spectre-bombing.
I'm getting confused here. Question: does portfolio sense, know death, etc. mean that the future is fixed, or not?
A very uninteresting corollary. It is worth noting (again) that power from worshippers is an option not a rule, and (again) that Nerull gets his kicks from things dying. Once everything is dead, he loses. His best gameplan is to balance death vs procreation. In fact, his absolutely best gameplan is to let the procreating get well underway before doing anything at all, and ensure it never dips below a satisfactory level.
"...every living thing is an affont to the Reaper, and every death brings a dark spark of joy to his long-dead heart."
Sorry, were you saying something?
Do the words 'arbitrated non-zero-sum' mean anything to you?
Yes, but not as it applies to what's under discussion. Can you elaborate, please?
One merely needs portfolio sense and supernal foresight. And I will reiterate just to somehow drive this home: seeing the lich failing is just as good a trigger for the god as seeing the lich succeeding. In fact, seeing the lich when he was a little boy first studying magic is enough for a god.
But this is a pointless argument. All it really proves is that the DM has a useful deus ex machina whenever comes up with . The other thing it proves is that the guys who wrote Deities and Demigods were quite thoughtful designers. My respect goes out to them.
The problem with the D&Dg rules is that they were designed pretty much entirely to rein in problematic players. They are very, very poorly suited to explaining why Nerull doesn't take over Vecna, drag him to Nerull's plane, crank it to flowing-time, spend a decade (52,596,000 local years) cranking out world-shaking magic items, then use them all at once, giving the local denziens of the world less than half a year at most to prepare.
As I said before, D&D made setting mechanics into NPCs. "The gods say you can't do that," only works if you're willing to explain why PCs should adventure at all, and not leave everything in the hands of the gods.
Setting aside that it is not 'ad-hoc' to use the RAW in Deities & Demigods we at last see a glimmer of light. Yes, it would be useful as others have said to fix things we find broken, like maybe spectres. If only to save ourselves arguments of this kind. We do not need to fix everything. We cannot fix things we are not yet aware of because no one has yet noticed them. 4E may want to look at a few open-ended monster abilities, or it may be perfectly happy with the current backstops in place.
I personally think that there needs to be a strong examination of, whenever anything is used as a balancing factor, whether or not it can be circumvented. Take for instance Archon teleportation. They have greater teleport at will. A wizard that acquires a lantern archon familiar now has unlimited use of a 7th-level spell. Now, there exists the limiting factor that Archon teleportation only works on the archon and 50 lbs worth of equipment maximum. But, extradimensional spaces let you pack the party into a backpack, have the archon teleport it, and then bring the party back out. Moreover, as D&D is a living, growing rules system, with new capacities being added with every book, it's extremely important to consider each element you bring into your world not from the point of view of its limitations, but of what happens when its expected use is circumvented.
Finally, your game is your game. In my world, the gods don't need to stop spectre-bombing because my liches consider evil to be more along the lines of causing suffering, than simple carnage. And some of them become liches out of a desire to live forever, rather than engage with the mundane world. My Lvl20 mages don't raze cities because they are the guys benefiting from an endless supply of nubile slave-girls and boys. Why would they mess with that? The last time one of them had to exert himself so far as to cantrip up a cup of tea was years ago. Other mages still are ascetics; devoted to mystical pursuits or knowlege.
And so it goes. YMMV.
Even so, you must concede that your corps of level 20 arcanists could (in the absence of literal divine intervention) get on a whole lot of razing if they so chose. Essentially, by including these characters, you are making a bet that not one of them will decide to alter the world. Given that the vast, vast majority of campaign worlds include high-level foes that (putatively) want to rule (or destroy) the world, this does not strike me as a winning bet. After all, if one of the arcanists decides to start splattering parts of the world not paying tribute and slave-girls to arcanists, would the other arcanists care?
And if you are infallible (i.e can think of every single thing a PC might do) and have a ridiculous amount of time, this works. It also means you miss out on some perfectly good spells, classes etc. which are enormous fun to play, and which your players were never going to break in the way you thought of.
Infallibility is not necessary (but it would help.) If you break down every effect or ability into its component parts, and maintain a mental database of what is (or should be) possible in your game world, then you can avoid a lot of problems. One I cite earlier is the conjunction of free teleportation (with the restriction of only use on a single creature and 50 lbs. of items) and extradimensional storage (which lets you fit a lot of creatures and objects into 50 lbs.).
I am assuming this refers to my idea, since it does involve allowing everything and then limiting it *when it becomes a problem* (or better still, before it becomes a problem, when you see it coming). Ex post facto means 'after the fact' as far as I am aware (Latin is not my strong point), and that's where I wonder if you misunderstood what I was saying, or if the paragraph is talking about something other than my idea.
The intent of my idea is to add a limit to something it at or just before the point it is abused, rather than unnecessarily miles ahead. The intent is *not* to assign a limit to a spell after it has already been used to break the game.
In the spectre-bomb example, the PCs find out that spectres can only spawn for five generations *when they try it*, because the GM invented that limit at the point the PCs came up with their spectre-spawning plan (or the point the PCs wondered why the liche evil guy hasn't spectre-bombed the kingdom to ashes). If you can't think on your feet that fast, ask the players for some time - its not a competition. Generally however, plans take a while to create and put into action (and if you just want to explain why the liche hasn't done it, smile enigmatically at the Players as they wonder, and make up the limit later when they actually have a chance of finding out).
Let's say you do that. What happens when your players point out that the city is still being torn apart by spectres, and that they can import more spectre-0s at minimal cost? Let's say that instead of one spectre-0, your players use 100. (After all, it's not that hard to round up 100 goblins, spectre-ize them, and order the assault.) Now it might take hours instead of minutes to destroy the city, but it will still happen.
Let's say that you rule that there's a finite amount of negative energy available to spawn undead from, and that in addition to gen-5 spectres not being able to spawn, that there is a finite amount of spectres that can be created in a given area. Your players now teleport to a fresh area, spawn some spectres there, and teleport them back in waves.
OK, maybe there's a problem in teleporting mass quantities of incorporeal creatures. But wait; we've established that we can teleport a finite quantity of them already. We can just find the maximal amount of incorporeal undead we can move at a pop, and not exceed our max incorporeal load.
That's the wrong way to patch the rules problem. The right way is to say "The fact that the rules allow you to set off spectre-bombs/charge for thousands of damage/become Pun-Pun is silly, and I'm not allowing it. Feel free to make up your own reasons for it if you like, but you cannot achieve these results, and neither can your foes, regardless of what the rules say."
If you're going to change the rules for such an objective, you need to be honest about it.
It is perfectly possible to in fact vet everything ahead of time and see problems coming, then assign limits right then then rather than banning the stuff. However, as the limits are only there for combo purposes (i.e the generation limit on spectres stops spectre bombing - it has no effect on normal use of summon undead spells or even on spawning yourself a small retinue of spectres to guard yourself. It only matters when the PCs try to break the game with spectre bombing), then the limits may well never come up, so you may be wasting time. However this idea of limits at the extremes ahead of time (as opposed to banning it because it can be abused ahead of time) still lets you use the cool bits of D+D as they are meant to be used in normal play, rather than them not existing, thus reducing the fun of the majority of players, just to stop the world-breaking minority (or to satisfy your GM sense of 'but why didn't the bad guy do this').
Problems then arise when there are differences of opinion as to what is extreme. For instance, you can still raise an arbitrarily large army of spectres with the generation limit; you just need to have spectre-0 do them all himself. Moreover, by establishing that the reason that exponential spectre-bombing doesn't take place is the generation limit, you are hereby opening yourself up to players attempting to work around the generation limit.
I hope I have given you a better idea about what I am talking about. The point is that most of the game-breaking comboes and methods in the game are really easy to stop from happening without banning or altering the various spells and classes. A combination of looking at the combo cynically (the world is not overrun with spectres, a sarruhk would have made itself a pun-pun overgod if that were possible) and common sense (diseases spawn exponentially, diseases do not wipe out the world, this is because they peter out after a number of generations. RAW says nothing about spectres petering out, *but also says nothing about them going on forever*) and there you are.
This is referred to as the Air Bud defense. The rules do not say that dogs cannot fly. True, there is absolutely nothing in the rules to imply that dogs can fly, and in every other case in which the designers intended a creature to fly, they mentioned it, but I think that it's uncool for dogs to be unable to fly. Ergo, they can fly.
Now, obviously, I don't actually think the preceding. However, if there is disagreement between DM and players as to what is cool, or appropriate use of a resource or tactic, then simply adding or subtracting rules willy-nilly can create more problems than it solves.
Its really as simple as 'if I assume the spell/monster description is a simplified summary, how would the full version deal with this combo'? I am good at answering that question. If you aren't, or don't like it, that's fine. But my approach doesn't have the problems you are trying to assign to it.
I am personally skeptical that the solution to a poorly designed, exploit-laden system of rules is creating and implementing rules on the fly. If you have the mental processor power to consider every implication of a 5-generation limit for spectres, I'd assume that you could do so for the original rules already. And if you don't want to deal with every issue that arises when players try to pin down exactly why certain effects happen one way in neutral circumstances, but a completely different way in advantageous circumstances, why not just skip right to 'You can't do that.'?
Do high level characters really disrupt local communities that much? You have to figure that if someone went out adventuring having most everyone you come across trying to kill you would you really try to create the same problem when you retire? I say no. Most adventurers that survive long enough to retire do so for the quiet life, which any character that has lawful and/or good in their alignment would include working with the local laws of the land so they don't stand out. Now all this about they can choose which laws they want to follow and don't is nice, but you also have to figure that they don't want to face down another army, got tired of it.
Another thing to consider is the adventurer moved there because he or she knows that town has problems and has offered to aid local law enforcement in dealing with that problem.
It's something to think about.
Look, either the future is fixed, or it isn't.
The difficulty you are encountering is that you are considering the time-dimension to be strictly linear, as in a book. In a game, as in the real-world, the time-dimension is not linear, nor are all points-of-reference equal. It is therefore irrelevant to discuss it as fixed or not fixed.
Yes, but there is no way for you as a DM to know that.
A player cannot 'secretly' spectre-bomb. For their intention to be enacted they must communicate it to their DM for arbitration. It would be a peculiarly slow and unimaginative DM who was not able to stage a prompt recovery should they so desire. 'Hmm, so one of my players in my game world, whom I allowed to become a Lich, is now creating spectres in this town... I wonder what I should do?' I see that as an easy problem, not a hard one, but YMMV.
I'm getting confused here.
Yes, I can see that.
Sorry, were you saying something?.
This is where the words 'arbitrated non-zero sum' are helpful. We as DMs are obliged to arbitrate Nerull's motivations and actions. I as DM am entitled to suppose that Nerull gets more joy from a mortal dying than he feels affront at their living. Indeed, I may choose to notice that 'affront' is not the same as 'pain': no amount of affront need cause Nerull any real discomfort, only a lot of beating his chest and casting his arm over his eyes while flouncing about sulkily. Conversely, joy means something he delights in. In my world Nerull puts up with the affront for the sake of the joy. In yours, he does not. That is fine: we both arbitrate Nerull's actions in our world.
Non-zero sum means that we can add things into the world pretty much unlimitedly. All participants can come out ahead. I could if I wanted spawn Nerull an unlimited number of mortals for his pleasure in snuffing them out, but that would be a game only in my head. The real experiencers of my game world are my players. For their sake, I arbitrate that Nerull doesn't harrass them, and I unlimitedly create weal as rewards for overcoming enjoyable challenges. Were Nerull a player, he would have to work for his mortal deaths
The problem with the D&Dg rules is that they were designed pretty much entirely to rein in problematic players. They are very, very poorly suited to explaining why Nerull doesn't...
Well, I rather thought the D&D rules were designed to allow us to experience a shared fantastical drama. Hence all the magic swords, elves, and dragons, and such-like. Again I refer back to 'arbitrated': you are entitled to arbitrate a world where silly things happen (that's unfair of course, I'm sure you don't think them silly). Your world doesn't affect mine in the slightest. Were you writing for D&D, I suppose I should have to give up buying the books, but that's about it.
I personally think that there needs to be a strong examination of, whenever anything is used as a balancing factor, whether or not it can be circumvented. ...
Your fears are relevant in computer games, but irrelevant in pencil-and-paper games. When we make computer games everyone is forced to experience the same absolute arbitrary conditions (until they hack the code). When we write pencil-and-paper games we take advantage of the power of the DM's brain to work with us to make the game fun. That allows a lot of shortcuts and a wider range of outcomes than presently available in pre-programmed computer games (it would be an act of rhetorical desperation to try to include tools like Fantasy Grounds among the 'computer games' I am so clearly referring to here, so please don't). If we did not rely on using the DMs brain, then we'd have much longer books that were far more expensive and rules that were far more difficult to comprehend.
I Even so, you must concede that your corps of level 20 arcanists could (in the absence of literal divine intervention) get on a whole lot of razing if they so chose. Essentially, by including these characters, you are making a bet that not one of them will decide to alter the world. Given that the vast, vast majority of campaign worlds include high-level foes that (putatively) want to rule (or destroy) the world, this does not strike me as a winning bet
Or I could ask you concede that my corpse of level 20 arcanists run into no such difficulty. I need take no bet on what may or may not be happening elsewhere, on account of that whole arbitrated thing I referred to earlier.
It would be rather interesting to know, wouldn't it, if the majority of DMs find their worlds imploding due to the unexpected antics of their high-level foes. I'm developing quite a fond mental picture:
DM (setting up his dice, screen, pad, etc) 'Last week you had just wandered into Waterdee... zounds, a Lich has destroyed the entire city while we weren't playing! Sorry guys, we'll have to break while I make a new world...'
I will compromise with you. If you will rein in on this spectre-bombing thing then I will admit that it is useful to have rules that are not annoyingly broken, and that indeed a bit of clarity on some points would be helpful, but I will never, ever, fear what high-level NPCs might be doing in my game world.
Further, I would encourage threads of this sort to spend less time in rhetoric (much as I enjoy it) and more time providing DMs and players with ideas how to get the most out of the system. Since you raise what you think is an unresolvable issue, here is your challenge: resolve it in the easiest and nicest way possible, that is most useful to the majority of players.
And that's just for the wizards who are public in their personas. Even if the bards sing of your legendary deeds, that doesn't mean you can't skip town and assume a new identity if it suits your purpose. All it takes is a Hat of Disguise and an Amulet of Nondetection and you're good to go. When my high level illusionist got too well known to be able to practice his chosen trade in his public persona, he grabbed a bearskin cloak and a cheap axe and assumed a new identity as an incompetent 1st level barbarian.
And just because the bards sing songs about someone's legendary deeds doesn't mean that the right person gets the credit. There are plenty of adventurers who'd rather remain anonymous, and it's not impossible for this to happen.
The difficulty you are encountering is that you are considering the time-dimension to be strictly linear, as in a book. In a game, as in the real-world, the time-dimension is not linear, nor are all points-of-reference equal. It is therefore irrelevant to discuss it as fixed or not fixed.
A player cannot 'secretly' spectre-bomb. For their intention to be enacted they must communicate it to their DM for arbitration. It would be a peculiarly slow and unimaginative DM who was not able to stage a prompt recovery should they so desire. 'Hmm, so one of my players in my game world, whom I allowed to become a Lich, is now creating spectres in this town... I wonder what I should do?' I see that as an easy problem, not a hard one, but YMMV.
Yes, I can see that.
This is where the words 'arbitrated non-zero sum' are helpful. We as DMs are obliged to arbitrate Nerull's motivations and actions. I as DM am entitled to suppose that Nerull gets more joy from a mortal dying than he feels affront at their living. Indeed, I may choose to notice that 'affront' is not the same as 'pain': no amount of affront need cause Nerull any real discomfort, only a lot of beating his chest and casting his arm over his eyes while flouncing about sulkily. Conversely, joy means something he delights in. In my world Nerull puts up with the affront for the sake of the joy. In yours, he does not. That is fine: we both arbitrate Nerull's actions in our world.
Non-zero sum means that we can add things into the world pretty much unlimitedly. All participants can come out ahead. I could if I wanted spawn Nerull an unlimited number of mortals for his pleasure in snuffing them out, but that would be a game only in my head. The real experiencers of my game world are my players. For their sake, I arbitrate that Nerull doesn't harrass them, and I unlimitedly create weal as rewards for overcoming enjoyable challenges. Were Nerull a player, he would have to work for his mortal deaths
Well, I rather thought the D&D rules were designed to allow us to experience a shared fantastical drama. Hence all the magic swords, elves, and dragons, and such-like. Again I refer back to 'arbitrated': you are entitled to arbitrate a world where silly things happen (that's unfair of course, I'm sure you don't think them silly). Your world doesn't affect mine in the slightest. Were you writing for D&D, I suppose I should have to give up buying the books, but that's about it.
Your fears are relevant in computer games, but irrelevant in pencil-and-paper games. When we make computer games everyone is forced to experience the same absolute arbitrary conditions (until they hack the code). When we write pencil-and-paper games we take advantage of the power of the DM's brain to work with us to make the game fun. That allows a lot of shortcuts and a wider range of outcomes than presently available in pre-programmed computer games (it would be an act of rhetorical desperation to try to include tools like Fantasy Grounds among the 'computer games' I am so clearly referring to here, so please don't). If we did not rely on using the DMs brain, then we'd have much longer books that were far more expensive and rules that were far more difficult to comprehend.
Or I could ask you concede that my corpse of level 20 arcanists run into no such difficulty. I need take no bet on what may or may not be happening elsewhere, on account of that whole arbitrated thing I referred to earlier.
It would be rather interesting to know, wouldn't it, if the majority of DMs find their worlds imploding due to the unexpected antics of their high-level foes. I'm developing quite a fond mental picture:
DM (setting up his dice, screen, pad, etc) 'Last week you had just wandered into Waterdee... zounds, a Lich has destroyed the entire city while we weren't playing! Sorry guys, we'll have to break while I make a new world...'
I will compromise with you. If you will rein in on this spectre-bombing thing then I will admit that it is useful to have rules that are not annoyingly broken, and that indeed a bit of clarity on some points would be helpful, but I will never, ever, fear what high-level NPCs might be doing in my game world.
Further, I would encourage threads of this sort to spend less time in rhetoric (much as I enjoy it) and more time providing DMs and players with ideas how to get the most out of the system. Since you raise what you think is an unresolvable issue, here is your challenge: resolve it in the easiest and nicest way possible, that is most useful to the majority of players.
Vonklaude, that has to be one of the most even tempered and thoughtful rebuttals I've ever seen, complete with excellent explanation and interpretation of game mechanics and the DM's role in the process.
Two thumbs up!
==Aelryinth
The OP is clearly arguing for a destructive game if the DM chooses to run the game that way. In no way can this be generalized to the rest of high-level D&D games because a competent DM can prevent these from occurring.
The OP chooses to use rules that are disruptive to the game (spectre-bombing) and refuses to use rules that enhance stability (divine rules).
It is not improbable, then, that in doing so the OP creates a self-destructive game, but this does not have to be the case for other players, nor is it the case in the existing D&D literature.
The argument that this is the result of high-level character rules is unsustainable. A DM who does want to wreck their world can do so with Pun-Pun at 5th-level. In no way does this mean that all D&D players should just quit playing above 4th.
The difficulty you are encountering is that you are considering the time-dimension to be strictly linear, as in a book. In a game, as in the real-world, the time-dimension is not linear, nor are all points-of-reference equal. It is therefore irrelevant to discuss it as fixed or not fixed.
That is a beautiful paragraph, full of lovely words and metaphors, but I'm afraid I'm finding it a little light on the content. Perhaps you'd like to explain your revolutionary solving of the problem of determinism vs. free will in a little more detail than 'nonlinear'?
A player cannot 'secretly' spectre-bomb. For their intention to be enacted they must communicate it to their DM for arbitration. It would be a peculiarly slow and unimaginative DM who was not able to stage a prompt recovery should they so desire. 'Hmm, so one of my players in my game world, whom I allowed to become a Lich, is now creating spectres in this town... I wonder what I should do?' I see that as an easy problem, not a hard one, but YMMV.
Well, "You can't do that, despite what the rules say." is a good answer. "The rules say you can't do that." is a bad answer, as is "These random NPCs decide to try to stop you from doing that."
Again, the point is not how as DM you recover the situation, but that every NPC in the world past a certain level needs a set of outside-the-game restrictions placed on them, or the world explodes, because the set of rules inside the game world are not equal to the task (if you let NPCs act like NPCs).
Yes, I can see that.
Please allow me to restate my position less ambiguous terms:
The fact that Nerull has Know Death means that he can, at a certain moment in time, walk through a city and know how every mortal inhabitant of the city will die, far in the future. (Or very soon in the future. The Reaper is within visual inspection range, after all.)
If it is possible for Nerull to look at a person who is destined to die on his scythe, and kill him with a spell, instead, then methods of seeing the future are worthless. If Nerull is not capable of changing the future once he's seen it, then everything forseen is inherently fixed.
This is what's called a bifurcation, or a fork between two and only two options. There is no third (or zeroth) option; one and only one of N (he can violate what he sees with Know Death) or not-N (he can't) is true. One means that the gods can't actually use portfolio sense to presage spectre-bombing; the other means that meaningful gameplay is impossible.
Please feel free to explain how N and not-N are both true, if you like.
This is where the words 'arbitrated non-zero sum' are helpful. We as DMs are obliged to arbitrate Nerull's motivations and actions. I as DM am entitled to suppose that Nerull gets more joy from a mortal dying than he feels affront at their living. Indeed, I may choose to notice that 'affront' is not the same as 'pain': no amount of affront need cause Nerull any real discomfort, only a lot of beating his chest and casting his arm over his eyes while flouncing about sulkily. Conversely, joy means something he delights in. In my world Nerull puts up with the affront for the sake of the joy. In yours, he does not. That is fine: we both arbitrate Nerull's actions in our world.
Your arbitration fails to explain why Nerull doesn't, in my previous example, simply Gate in his own population of breeding slaughter-stock and proceed with the genocide (typeocide?) of those not under his control. "He doesn't want to." works, yes, but it's an amazingly unsatisfying explanation for people who expect such things as rationality and foresight from Int-35 entities.
Now, "The game would suck if this happened." is a valid answer, as I keep saying, but it doesn't explain Nerull's actions from within the game world. My claim is that you can't do so meaningfully from within the world. Nerull can, if he so chooses, enact such mass slaughter as the Prime has never seen and (assuming a finite amount of planar real estate) could never recover from.
Non-zero sum means that we can add things into the world pretty much unlimitedly. All participants can come out ahead. I could if I wanted spawn Nerull an unlimited number of mortals for his pleasure in snuffing them out, but that would be a game only in my head. The real experiencers of my game world are my players. For their sake, I arbitrate that Nerull doesn't harrass them, and I unlimitedly create weal as rewards for overcoming enjoyable challenges. Were Nerull a player, he would have to work for his mortal deaths
Nerull isn't a player, but he is (if you use D&Dg) a character. Now, as a DM, you're not supposed to treat all characters equally, but if you want to maintain any kind of verisimilitude, you need to have a good in-game reason to explain why the characters with the means, motive, and opportunity to ruin the game-world don't. Given that there are established, built-in characters with both motive and opportunity to do so, the only way to preserve the game world and keep a semblance of reality is to limit the means.
Well, I rather thought the D&D rules were designed to allow us to experience a shared fantastical drama. Hence all the magic swords, elves, and dragons, and such-like. Again I refer back to 'arbitrated': you are entitled to arbitrate a world where silly things happen (that's unfair of course, I'm sure you don't think them silly). Your world doesn't affect mine in the slightest. Were you writing for D&D, I suppose I should have to give up buying the books, but that's about it.
D&Dg, or Deities and Demigods. I made no claim on the D&D rules as a whole; I shall do so now.
The rules exist for two reasons; to give our imaginations a starting point, and to keep our imaginings within a collective plane. If the rules were only to allow for a shared fantastical drama, then they wouldn't be rules; they'd be story hooks.
Rules that say "There exist entites that know everything the PCs can do, far in advance, have every reason to try to stop them, and can stop them without any chance of failure or hope of the PCs doing anything about it." are silly. This applies just as much to D&Dg as it does to spectre-bombing.
I don't like spectre-bombing. I think it sucks. I think that every game designer who decides to include a virally-spawning monster in his game world and doesn't expect the game world to end up looking like the end of Matrix Revolutions needs to have exponential growth explained to him with a lesson of X^n beatings. The fact that a PC, using a PC's expected resources, can touch off such equations of death means that there are bad rules in D&D.
But, I can't simply say "The rules don't work like they say they work." and expect to still end up sharing any meaning of the term D&D when I use it. That is the frustrating thing to me; that the only way to make D&D work as it is intended is to either communicate to the players explicitly out-of-game "Certain results cannot be made to happen.", or rely on increasingly more brittle layers of rules on top of an inherently instable system
Your fears are relevant in computer games, but irrelevant in pencil-and-paper games. When we make computer games everyone is forced to experience the same absolute arbitrary conditions (until they hack the code). When we write pencil-and-paper games we take advantage of the power of the DM's brain to work with us to make the game fun. That allows a lot of shortcuts and a wider range of outcomes than presently available in pre-programmed computer games (it would be an act of rhetorical desperation to try to include tools like Fantasy Grounds among the 'computer games' I am so clearly referring to here, so please don't). If we did not rely on using the DMs brain, then we'd have much longer books that were far more expensive and rules that were far more difficult to comprehend.
Why have rules at all, then? Why not simply set down a set of shared expectations as to how the story will go and how the cast of characters will interact, and sit down for a collective improv storytelling session?
I've actually done that more than a few times, as a character-building exercise. It's a lot of fun. But it's not D&D.
Or I could ask you concede that my corpse of level 20 arcanists run into no such difficulty. I need take no bet on what may or may not be happening elsewhere, on account of that whole arbitrated thing I referred to earlier.
You appear to be having extraordinary difficulty understanding the concept of free will. Your putative arcanist's corps, in the absence of other in-game powers, can change, alter, or destroy the world at their pleasure. The fact that you, as DM, have decided that they won't does not change the fact that, according to the rules, they can, and that once a PC joins their ranks, he can, too.
It would be rather interesting to know, wouldn't it, if the majority of DMs find their worlds imploding due to the unexpected antics of their high-level foes. I'm developing quite a fond mental picture:
DM (setting up his dice, screen, pad, etc) 'Last week you had just wandered into Waterdee... zounds, a Lich has destroyed the entire city while we weren't playing! Sorry guys, we'll have to break while I make a new world...'
I would imagine (well, I'd hope, at least) that the majority of DMs look at things like incorporeal undead, Greater Teleport + extradimensional storage, Rope Trick, Shapechange, Gate, dragons with Wraithstrike, anything from Serpent Kindgoms, divine metamagic, and the like, and simply pull them from their games entirely, at least as the rules currently describe them. It is bad game design and bad world design to allow for certain things to happen, and to describe them in rules. Viral-spawning, precognition/time travel, and the unqualified gaining of abilities (as with Shapechange) are all rules-items that are inherently bad and broken. Either you need to explain why the lich that can destroy the world overnight without any notable ritual or preparation hasn't yet...or you change the existing rules, so that the lich can't destroy the world overnight.
I will compromise with you. If you will rein in on this spectre-bombing thing then I will admit that it is useful to have rules that are not annoyingly broken, and that indeed a bit of clarity on some points would be helpful, but I will never, ever, fear what high-level NPCs might be doing in my game world.
Further, I would encourage threads of this sort to spend less time in rhetoric (much as I enjoy it) and more time providing DMs and players with ideas how to get the most out of the system. Since you raise what you think is an unresolvable issue, here is your challenge: resolve it in the easiest and nicest way possible, that is most useful to the majority of players.
Happily agreed.
My personal preference would simply be to gut a lot of the legacy rules from older versions of D&D. I do not believe that having the current rules for incorporeal undead, for Shapechange, for Gate, for Astral Projection, for Polymorph Any Object, and Wish add value to the game, compared to the problems they cause. The purpose of rules is, as you say, to enable a shared fantastical drama. Rules that get in the way of this are bad rules.
Here's the problem, though; past certain levels of power, certain conventions cease to add meaningful levels of drama. It is not reasonable to expect a locked door to stymie a character at 7th level, nor a wall to greatly hinder them at 11th, nor a dungeon at 15th. As characters grow more and more powerful, the nature of what can be expected to challenge, threaten, and inconvenience them changes. By the time a spellcaster reaches the high teens in level, another spellcaster (preferably with a party) is needed to seriously challenge them.
As long as one set of the gaming world population can create walls of force, fly, teleport, scry, and become invisible, but the rest cannot, this power imbalance will exist. And as long as this imbalance exists, high-level casters will be able to disrupt the world.
So, either have explicit out-of-game agreements with your party casters about no working widespread economic and political change with their magic, or expect the world to work nothing like ours in any dimension that could be affected by magic.
Except that XP is not an award for kills, it is an award for overcoming difficult challenges. Farming implies a degree of superiority with no degree of risk.
That is a more recent aspect of xp in D&D. Somewhere I have an old AD&D book of wondrous inventions that actually featured an XP generating machine. The machine worked by having a skeleton that automatically would be regenerated after each time it got destroyed. The player would drop in 25 gp (or a gem of similar value), which would reset the machine. The player would then press a button, which dropped a large stone, which would land on the skeleton's head, crushing it dead. The player would then get the XP for killing the skeleton because he/she actually carried out the killing blow. Granted, it is not the same as killing a great wyrm XP-wise, but if you had a lot of time and money....
Tax evasion for high level wizards is no further away than Leomund's Secret Chest. All they can tax you on is a 50 GP snuffbox. Of course, the simpler form of tax evasion is simply Teleport. Rulers with taxes unfriendly to spellcasters will simply have them move away to some principality or elsewhere that offers tax breaks for wealthy individuals.
A lawful good or lawful neutral character, no matter how powerful, is still going to pay their taxes to legitimate authority. A neutral good or true neutral character will more likely than not going to do the same. A lawful evil character, if not in a ruling position, will probably pay their taxes to keep up appearances. A chaotic good character may choose to pay taxes or simply spend the same money benefiting society on their own.
While tax evasion is certainly possible for powerful characters, sometimes paying your taxes is preferred, especially when the less tangible benefits outweigh the easily replaced gold.
Want a grand title like Duke or Baron and the legitimate authority (and servants) that come with it? Pay your taxes. Want to keep a post as Supreme Commander of the Grand Army? Pay your taxes. Want merchants to trust you enough to do business with you (because if you ditch town when tax collectors come, who says you won't break a deal)? Pay your taxes.
High level characters disrupt the ordinary workings of the world around them simply by the fact of their existence. Let us assume we play in some flavor of medieval fantasy, with walled cities, castles, kings, knights, and so on and that we're not playing in an Eberron-esque world.
You neglect to mention that there are virtually no characters in Eberron of 15th level or higher. In fact, counting only humanoids with many class levels, there probably aren't enough of levels fifteen through twenty in Khorvaire to fill a small town.
But yes, the fact of the matter is that no world can even remotely resemble real life when magic is involved; largely because MAGIC IS NOT REAL. Important point, that.
And epic-level characters are even more troublesome. With the Ignore Material Components feat (much less Epic Spellcasting), coupled with a 23rd-level cleric, the oldest method for gaining political, economic or military power (killing those who have it and taking theirs) disappears, because the only methods that will work either require you to in effect be a high level character yourself or waiting for him to die of old age (and there are ways pre-epic to easily achieve immortality, such as through the use of the spells steal life and greater restoration in scroll form, combined with a darkskull and a feat, skill, or wondrous item that lets you make Use Magic Device checks untrained)
A lawful good or lawful neutral character, no matter how powerful, is still going to pay their taxes to legitimate authority. A neutral good or true neutral character will more likely than not going to do the same. A lawful evil character, if not in a ruling position, will probably pay their taxes to keep up appearances. A chaotic good character may choose to pay taxes or simply spend the same money benefiting society on their own.
While tax evasion is certainly possible for powerful characters, sometimes paying your taxes is preferred, especially when the less tangible benefits outweigh the easily replaced gold.
What on earth is a "legitimate authority," pray tell? The first-born male-line descendant of the Imperial Dragon who boinked a shepherdess a couple thousand years back? The Golden Child of Pelor, said to be the reincarnation of the late High Priestess Mumat, as agreed upon by 3 out of 5 Popes of Pelor? The winner of annual pie-eating contest, now a populist figure among the newly enfranchised goblins?
The "legitimacy" of any and all of these figures is not only laughable but secondary to their ability to administrate some variety of taxation system with equitably established benefits relative to the cost of taxation. Both the arch-wizard and the goat herd know this, and will choose between the empire, the theocracy and the democracy depending on who is offering the nicest place to live for the most reasonable cost relative to the expense and trouble of moving. And discoveries that the imperial line of succession is incorrect, a pope was bribed, and someone spiked a few pies in the pie-eating contest will not be appreciated if the government established despite this is managing to work out despite this illegitimacy.
That is a more recent aspect of xp in D&D. Somewhere I have an old AD&D book of wondrous inventions that actually featured an XP generating machine. The machine worked by having a skeleton that automatically would be regenerated after each time it got destroyed. The player would drop in 25 gp (or a gem of similar value), which would reset the machine. The player would then press a button, which dropped a large stone, which would land on the skeleton's head, crushing it dead. The player would then get the XP for killing the skeleton because he/she actually carried out the killing blow. Granted, it is not the same as killing a great wyrm XP-wise, but if you had a lot of time and money....
Such ideas/illustrations are completely humorous. Without risk, no reward, and killing the helpless grants no xp even in old systems, although the literal truth of shove sword into box and collect xp could make it seem that way.
====Aelryinth
Most of the argument that high-level characters are disruptive are based on the idea that in DnD, offensive spells are overwhlemingly stronger than defensive measures. This is true at all levels - there is no area-of-effect protection from fire to match a fireball (at those levels). Therefore, the argument goes, naval warfare will be quick and bloody, as each hires fireball-wielding wizards to blow up the enemy fleets. The "specter-bomb" is the "proof" of disruptability cited repeatedly in this thread.
However, in the real world no disruptive technology ruled the battlefield for very long. With the advent of the cnnon came new methods of fortification. For every advance in the tank came an advance in anti-tank tactics. For a brief time a techology may be disruptive, but never for very long.
So too in DnD. As a DM, any truly disruptive offensive power should be assumed to have a counter. And if it isn't RAW - well, the rules have always been focused on what is most useful for adventurers, and there will be many omissions. So DMs should assume that fleets have defenses against fireballs - perhaps the wood is treated with a flame retardant, or the ornate prows are repositories of various counterspells. The DM should match the specifics to the flavor of his campaign.
The specter bomb is particularly laughable. The idea rests on the assumption that specters actually *want* to make more specters. To defuse the bomb, all the DM has to say is that a specter left to himself will wander back to his favorite haunting place. (Undead are kind of like that, you know.) Thus the bomber must stay with the specters and constantly command them. Yeah, he can do a lot of damage and kill a lot of peasants, but he could do as much with a lot of other spells, and it certainly isn't very disruptive to the society as a whole.
And if necessary, somewhere out there is an ancient artifact that counters Mind Blank, a rare monster that can sniff out non-dimensional spaces, and whatever else is necessary to defeat the schemes of the ultra-paranoid nihilist. Perhaps they'll be published in the next splat book.
Ultimately, it is merely up to the DM to realize that just because the books don't provide a specific solution to every problem doesn't mean a solution doesn't exist. The DM should be ready and willing to create spells and effects to defend against any truly disruptive attack form, or rule in ways that limit the overall devastation. This is not being arbitrary - this is merely recognizing that the game designers couldn't think of everything, or fit it all into the books.
Obviously, that's not the case. And the penalties from Divine opposition and failing are every bit as dire as they are for mortals trying and failing to upstage their enemies.
So you have a c/23. So what? Do you seriously think he exists just to keep raising someone who gets killed over and over? That he doesn't have level 23 things to be about and doing? sure, he could walk over and stomp on lower level characters. And while he's distracted bopping gillikins, his real foes are left free to do what they really want to do. Everything that high level guy can do his high level opposition can do...and time is something you cannot afford to waste.
The recent Dragon, or was it online? had a nice idea about Villians coming to play when the Party is Out of Town. Sure, they could do something if they were around...but they go out to clear out the dungeon/address some minor matter, come back, and the king is dead, the prince is on the Throne, and suddenly everything is changed.
or maybe their HQ is sacked, loyal vassals are missing/slain, their treasures gone, property destroyed. Lord knows, it doesn't take long.
Time becomes a precious commodity, and paranoia a watchword. And you are constantly saying that there's no one out there to provide any opposition. This is [email]D@D...ther[/email]e's always a bigger monster over the hill for PC's, and there's always someone willing to cut down the mightiest for a share at their power. Even the gods know this, and Nerull going on a slaughter rampage will likely unleash a hurtfest on himself that it will take centuries to recover from. He's just not going to DO it.
===Aelryinth
The OP chooses to use rules that are disruptive to the game (spectre-bombing) and refuses to use rules that enhance stability (divine rules).
WHOA!
The whole Gods thing is supposed to INCREASE stability? whoa. Not something you hear everyday now, ladies and gents.
Robert, while no one else seems to want to respond to your completely accurate description of how that future-sense garbage works, I am completely 100% on your side. The event will either happen and thousands upon thousands will die, regardless of what the god does (since he sees it as it will happen, no matter how much intervention takes place. He's seeing it as it would happen assuming that he's taken action against it), or he won't even get a warning because someone is going to disrupt it (yeah, good luck with that. Specters are a nightmare to deal with, since my DM doesn't like giving up enchanted weapons without a massive bloodbath first, and as if I'm going to waste a modifier on my weapon just to add "ghost-touch." yeah right.)
not counting his most recent post, the blue mage has totally avoided or failed to answer, in a satisfactory manner, any question that robert has fired off. You are answering all the wrong things. Every time Robert posted something worth answering, or asked a tricky question, you totally went the other way on it and decided not to touch it with a 15-foot pole. I have still not seen a legitimate answer to specter-bombing. And guys, not just lich can do this, though lich are more likely to do it than the average PC (lame fighters and their no spells-per-day...).
Man, does nobody else understand what Robert is saying? High-level guys are just armageddon waiting to happen, and unless you use the divine people regularly, and you force them to act, out of character may I add, to suit YOUR needs frequently, the world is totally done for. the whole "the gods step in and smash face" answer that's been tossed out, your so-called solution to specter-geddon, is a fallacy. God 1 steps in, but God 2 says no, so God 3 says yes, but, surprise surprise, God 4 says no, and by that time the good gods are down an entire rank or two just from loss-of-followers. Oh, and btw, followers are the ONLY way to actually gain divine ranks, other than assimilating weaker gods and taking their portfolios.
sorry that I don't have more quotes in here, but I'm not terribly good with that whole quoting thing.
The Gods all cancel each other out in most scenarios, but Nerull always has trump card. He's the only guy that can make sure you go down and stay there. Well, him and Wee-Jas. but nobody pays that little wretch any mind. lol. specters suck.
High level character disrupt the world only as much as the DM allows - whether by inexperience, ignorance, laziness, or indulgence.
Most of the argument that high-level characters are disruptive are based on the idea that in DnD, offensive spells are overwhelmingly stronger than defensive measures. This is true at all levels - there is no area-of-effect protection from fire to match a fireball (at those levels). Therefore, the argument goes, naval warfare will be quick and bloody, as each hires fireball-wielding wizards to blow up the enemy fleets. The "specter-bomb" is the "proof" of disruptability cited repeatedly in this thread.
However, in the real world no disruptive technology ruled the battlefield for very long. With the advent of the canon came new methods of fortification. For every advance in the tank came an advance in anti-tank tactics. For a brief time a technology may be disruptive, but never for very long.
So too in DnD. As a DM, any truly disruptive offensive power should be assumed to have a counter. And if it isn't RAW - well, the rules have always been focused on what is most useful for adventurers, and there will be many omissions. So DMs should assume that fleets have defenses against fireballs - perhaps the wood is treated with a flame retardant, or the ornate prows are repositories of various counterspells. The DM should match the specifics to the flavor of his campaign.
A: Sigh. Atomic weapons. We've had 'em for 60-ish years now, and we're no closer to a Protection from Fallout effect than we were before. We can't deal with mass biological or chemical attacks, either. Masses of people are vulnerable. Nations are vulnerable. Individuals loaded with magical protections and with the personal destructive power of nations available as a standard action? Not so vulnerable.
B: Counter-countermeasures exist. They're often a lot simpler than the original countermeasures. Simply setting fire to the rigging and sails of the ship works quite well, as does going under the ship and knocking holes in the hull. Moreover, any widespread countermeasures will be inherently well-known (and if they're not, even casual espionage will reveal them), and creative players will simply adjust their spell selection to take into account a scenario you didn't come up with, and then sell the enchanted wreckage for much gold. Plus, you as DM will have to explain who's doing all of the enchanting of these ships, and why the players don't just rob them instead of doing this tedious naval warfare nonsense.
The specter bomb is particularly laughable. The idea rests on the assumption that specters actually *want* to make more specters. To defuse the bomb, all the DM has to say is that a specter left to himself will wander back to his favorite haunting place. (Undead are kind of like that, you know.) Thus the bomber must stay with the specters and constantly command them. Yeah, he can do a lot of damage and kill a lot of peasants, but he could do as much with a lot of other spells, and it certainly isn't very disruptive to the society as a whole.
You used Shapechange to become a spectre. S-0 is under your control. He's not allowed to decide not to start killing and pass on your recursive order. His child-spectres are forced to obey him (and his recursive order), and therefore kill the next generation of spectres, and pass on the order. And so on, and so forth. Sorry, did you have any valid objections to the spectre-bomb?
And if necessary, somewhere out there is an ancient artifact that counters Mind Blank, a rare monster that can sniff out non-dimensional spaces, and whatever else is necessary to defeat the schemes of the ultra-paranoid nihilist. Perhaps they'll be published in the next splat book.
Ultimately, it is merely up to the DM to realize that just because the books don't provide a specific solution to every problem doesn't mean a solution doesn't exist. The DM should be ready and willing to create spells and effects to defend against any truly disruptive attack form, or rule in ways that limit the overall devastation. This is not being arbitrary - this is merely recognizing that the game designers couldn't think of everything, or fit it all into the books.
Either you've sat down and published said material in advance (at which point, I salute you), or you have to rely on ad-hoc retroactive rules changes to the world. That's bad from the start. It gets worse when you consider that the odds are good clever players will remember ad-hoc-effect C and use it in conjunction with ad-hoc-effect Q eight sessions later, requiring ad-hoc-rules R through X, and providing loopholes for ad-hoc-rules A, B, and F. Repeat as necessary, or until your characters get bored with a universe that is actively changing its own rules and history to thwart them and start attacking their foes with hummus.
Being a high-level character is a disruptive attack form. You know that piddly tribe of goblins that the level 3 adventurers struggle against, but defeat handily, and the level 6 adventurers waltz through on their way to the bottom level of the monster-infested mines? That's the entire non-high-leveled world, to high-level casters. The fact that there exist threats in the world that can threaten high-level casters can in no way stop said casters from exploding cities like they were full of 1-HD non-elite goblinoids.
You, as DM, can do so by altering the rules and content of the game world on the fly, but odds are if your players are expecting any sort of verisimilitude, they'll get far more upset with arbitrary declarations of previously-tested effects suddenly not working than "Well, yes, you could sink the battle fleet from 400' in the air, but that would really put a crimp in my adventure plans. Here's a Hero point that can be redeemed by any party member to re-roll a die, and why don't you, as your character, come up with a reason why you can't invent aerial bombardment."
If you're going to accept that the rules are incomplete, accept that the rules are incomplete. Don't just throw more rules onto the existing greased foundations and expect the resulting heap to be noticeably more stable.
Ligouri, you are again completely ignoring balancing elements. You seem to think that Nerull exists in a vacuum, that he could get away with whatever he wanted to do and nothing could prevent it.
Obviously, that's not the case. And the penalties from Divine opposition and failing are every bit as dire as they are for mortals trying and failing to upstage their enemies.
I'm feeling a bit like the teenage son from Little Miss Sunshine here. All together now: Nerull wants to kill everyone. Mortals? He wants them dead. Immortals? He wants them dead. Other gods? Dead. Himself? Also dead. (Possibly having undead traits means that he qualifies. I sincerely doubt he would take his forcible revivification lying down, in any case.)
Furthermore, the rules are quite clear for divine characters; the first god to get a few bright ideas and having the desire to extinguish civilization on the PMP can do so, trivially. All said god needs to do is get a head-start on cranking up his planar-realm's time trait to the max, then start using his 5,000,000 to 1 time advantage over the other gods. It is expected that 20 equally-powered gods, given 20 weeks to prepare, could fight off 400 weeks worth of Nerull's beasties. Thousands of millenia worth of said beasties, however, will be much more problematic. The fact that Nerull would pay heavily for his loss is balanced by the fact that A) he's already fighting the other gods, and B) he can't lose. You will pardon me for assuming that the Reaper would show as much moxie and bravery as an orc chieftain raiding an elven nursery. He is immune to fear effects, after all.
So you have a c/23. So what? Do you seriously think he exists just to keep raising someone who gets killed over and over? That he doesn't have level 23 things to be about and doing? sure, he could walk over and stomp on lower level characters. And while he's distracted bopping gillikins, his real foes are left free to do what they really want to do. Everything that high level guy can do his high level opposition can do...and time is something you cannot afford to waste.
The beauty of spectre-bombing is that you expend no non-renewable resources. There is no reason for a lich-20 preparing to get in his 8 hours of pre-memorization meditation not to use it to wipe out civilization before his naptime. It costs him nothing, and costs his foolish mortal foes everything.
The recent Dragon, or was it online? had a nice idea about Villians coming to play when the Party is Out of Town. Sure, they could do something if they were around...but they go out to clear out the dungeon/address some minor matter, come back, and the king is dead, the prince is on the Throne, and suddenly everything is changed.
or maybe their HQ is sacked, loyal vassals are missing/slain, their treasures gone, property destroyed. Lord knows, it doesn't take long.
Time becomes a precious commodity, and paranoia a watchword. And you are constantly saying that there's no one out there to provide any opposition. This is [email]D@D...ther[/email]e's always a bigger monster over the hill for PC's, and there's always someone willing to cut down the mightiest for a share at their power. Even the gods know this, and Nerull going on a slaughter rampage will likely unleash a hurtfest on himself that it will take centuries to recover from. He's just not going to DO it.
It doesn't take long to spectre-bomb. You shapeshift into a Nightmare, hop to the Ethereal plane, turn into an archon, teleport to the chunk of ethereal that corresponds to your target population center, Specterize, find your first chunk of targets, dismiss Etherealness, go to town with your energy drain, give the recursive order, then hop back to the ethereal and repeat. There's no reason you can't hit a city every 5 minutes at least. Moreover, at high levels, you can carry all of your important worldly possessions in extradimensional spaces; assaulting your stronghold for the hour it takes you to wreck a nation will not noticably deter you.
You used Shapechange to become a spectre. S-0 is under your control. He's not allowed to decide not to start killing and pass on your recursive order. His child-spectres are forced to obey him (and his recursive order), and therefore kill the next generation of spectres, and pass on the order. And so on, and so forth. Sorry, did you have any valid objections to the spectre-bomb?
Either you've sat down and published said material in advance (at which point, I salute you), or you have to rely on ad-hoc retroactive rules changes to the world. That's bad from the start. It gets worse when you consider that the odds are good clever players will remember ad-hoc-effect C and use it in conjunction with ad-hoc-effect Q eight sessions later, requiring ad-hoc-rules R through X, and providing loopholes for ad-hoc-rules A, B, and F. Repeat as necessary, or until your characters get bored with a universe that is actively changing its own rules and history to thwart them and start attacking their foes with hummus.
I don't know about hummus, but there an easy weapon even low level adventurers have against a spectre-bomb: chickens.
Make an elementary Bardic Lore role and you will turn up a dozen stories where, when the undead were getting particularly unpleasant, a rooster crowed and called up the dawn. Repeat: a rooster crowed and called up the dawn. Not "dawn was approaching and a rooster crowed for foreshadowing and incidental dramatic effect" but the rooster called up the dawn. There's even one where the priest specifically calls to the rooster to ask it to do this. Presumably he was using a Speak with Animals spell or something similar.
Now, everyone who worships the RAW as a graven image will be going "Where in the RAW does it say that roosters can call up the dawn?" The counter example: Where in the RAW does it say that they can't? The only mention in the RAW of roosters is a correlary anyway: PHB p. 112, table 7-3, item 2: Chicken 2cp.
It is up to the DM to interpret that "chicken" refers to both hens and roosters, but even the most idolatrous RAW worshipper will probably concede that D&D chickens must follow the same regular sexual biology as both real world and fairytale chickens and so we have roosters in D&D.
The question then becomes, are D&D roosters real world roosters or fairytale roosters? If you look under "Speak with Animals," you have to conclude we're dealing with fairytale roosters, because the text there says that while animals are stupid, people magically able to talk to them can get occasionally useful answers, whereas if you talked to a real world animal behaviorist, they'd tell you about all sorts of things that chickens notice and would talk about if they could talk, very little of which would be useful to an adventurer, and since Speak with Animals has stayed in the RAW as a common spell, we have to assume that we're dealing with fairytale chickens who might conceivably speak about things adventurers would want to know. Adding to the evidence of fairytale chickens, the fact that the core RAW contains the cockatrice, and while there is no mention of the creature's biology, another elementary Bardic Lore roll will tell you that a cockatrice hatches from an egg laid by a rooster which has been incubated in a dungheap by a toad. And wizards can take toads as familiars, so since we have fairytale toads, you can say with very strong certainty that we also must be dealing with fairytale roosters.
If you check the RAW, you'll note the spectres, in addition to being able to Create Spawn for a spectre bomb, also have the problem of "Sunlight Powerlessness," and mentions that this has to be real sunlight, not just a Daylight spell, which has to come from the real sun. But since it banishes spectres, we have to conclude that the D&D sun is a fairytale sun and obeys fairytale physic, unbound by post-Copernican astrophysics (since Copernicus is nowhere mentioned in the RAW) and a fairytale sun should rise when a fairytale rooster crows, assuming the sun god is okay with that.
Now, since we're talking gods, and we're talking Nerull, then we also logically have to be talking Pelor, the sun god, right? And since we're talking roosters, possibly Obad-Hai, the god of nature, who's in charge of chickens, unless it's Yondalla, since it's a domestic animal? Would they support post-Copernican astrophysics, or fairytale physics? Would it be convenient for Pelor, Obad-Hai and/or Yondalla for the sun to come up whenever a rooster crowed? Presumably it would, though they'd probably tell the roosters to do it for a good reason, such as, for example, someone unleashing a spectre bomb.
Nerull can gnash his dentures all he wants, but since neither the sun nor poultry is part of his portfolio, the most he can do is curse the dawn-summoning cockerel to occasionally lay an egg which hatches a cockatrice and thereby causes a bit more death, thereby balancing its spectre-bomb stopping power and keeping the bards employed as they tell about the pluses and minuses of having fairytale roosters.
I'm feeling a bit like the teenage son from Little Miss Sunshine here. All together now: Nerull wants to kill everyone. Mortals? He wants them dead. Immortals? He wants them dead. Other gods? Dead. Himself? Also dead. (Possibly having undead traits means that he qualifies. I sincerely doubt he would take his forcible revivification lying down, in any case.)
Furthermore, the rules are quite clear for divine characters; the first god to get a few bright ideas and having the desire to extinguish civilization on the PMP can do so, trivially. All said god needs to do is get a head-start on cranking up his planar-realm's time trait to the max, then start using his 5,000,000 to 1 time advantage over the other gods. It is expected that 20 equally-powered gods, given 20 weeks to prepare, could fight off 400 weeks worth of Nerull's beasties. Thousands of millenia worth of said beasties, however, will be much more problematic. The fact that Nerull would pay heavily for his loss is balanced by the fact that A) he's already fighting the other gods, and B) he can't lose. You will pardon me for assuming that the Reaper would show as much moxie and bravery as an orc chieftain raiding an elven nursery. He is immune to fear effects, after all.
The beauty of spectre-bombing is that you expend no non-renewable resources. There is no reason for a lich-20 preparing to get in his 8 hours of pre-memorization meditation not to use it to wipe out civilization before his naptime. It costs him nothing, and costs his foolish mortal foes everything.
It doesn't take long to spectre-bomb. You shapeshift into a Nightmare, hop to the Ethereal plane, turn into an archon, teleport to the chunk of ethereal that corresponds to your target population center, Specterize, find your first chunk of targets, dismiss Etherealness, go to town with your energy drain, give the recursive order, then hop back to the ethereal and repeat. There's no reason you can't hit a city every 5 minutes at least. Moreover, at high levels, you can carry all of your important worldly possessions in extradimensional spaces; assaulting your stronghold for the hour it takes you to wreck a nation will not noticably deter you.
Again, you are assuming Nerull works ina vaccuum. As soon as he starts mucking about with the time stream, every other god out there is going to sit up, take notice, and then the GOD of TIME could do something trivial...like, oh, invert the results. Nerull looks up...and suddenly he's LOST millions of years on the other gods, all his worshippers are gone from lack of hearing them, and he's powerless and dies.
Serves him right for mucking with other deities' portfolio powers. And you know what? The other gods are probably ITCHING for him to step out of line and do just that so they can stomp on them and get rid of them.
And it takes no time at all to kill someone planning to start specter-bombing. The right people happen to be in the right time and the right place when the idiiot lich pops up to do his 'can't fail to wipe out all mortals scheme', and he dies in one round of ambush. Then they track down his phylactery, crush that before he can grow a new body, and his plans are done.
Really, what part of 'the story of life' and "DM adjucation" don't you get? It applies on both sides of the equation.
====Aelryinth
The whole Gods thing is supposed to INCREASE stability? whoa. Not something you hear everyday now, ladies and gents.
Is that supposed to be some kind of argument, because I don't see one in there.
The event will either happen and thousands upon thousands will die, regardless of what the god does (since he sees it as it will happen, no matter how much intervention takes place. He's seeing it as it would happen assuming that he's taken action against it), or he won't even get a warning because someone is going to disrupt it (yeah, good luck with that.
That's not how precognition and the future work in D&D.
If that were true, then every single divination or psionic precognition spell is worthless. How does augury work, if it can't possibly reveal woe since woe would never occur unless you're foolish enough to follow it anyway? How does foresight work, when it can only prevent an attack that would have missed anyway (thus granting no bonus)? How can even basic powers like defensive precognition work if the future can't be changed?
In D&D, the future as shown by abilities which allow precogntion is the one that will result if the precognition, and any actions that result from it, do not take place. However, once you see something, you can begin to change it, and that is precisely what deities will do with their future Portfolio Sense.
the blue mage has totally avoided or failed to answer, in a satisfactory manner, any question that robert has fired off. You are answering all the wrong things. Every time Robert posted something worth answering, or asked a tricky question, you totally went the other way on it and decided not to touch it with a 15-foot pole. I have still not seen a legitimate answer to specter-bombing.
Care to give an example? I've answered repeatedly why it doesn't work as well as Robert thinks it does, and I've explained repeatedly that if the ability of a CR 7 monster is really that powerful, than it needs a rewrite. Arguing with broken abilities is meaningless because if the DM allows spectre-bombing, why not allow Pun-Pun too?
Man, does nobody else understand what Robert is saying?
We understand exactly what he's saying, and we disagree. Just because you are blinded by your inability to understand the arguments of anyone but your idol Robert doesn't mean everyone else is.
High-level guys are just armageddon waiting to happen, and unless you use the divine people regularly, and you force them to act, out of character may I add, to suit YOUR needs frequently, the world is totally done for.
High-level characters are not armageddon waiting to happen because they do not exist by themselves. Whether it is because of deities, or simply other equally or more powerful beings, a high-level character is not going to wipe out the world unless the DM allows it. And if he does, then, well, get a new DM.
the whole "the gods step in and smash face" answer that's been tossed out, your so-called solution to specter-geddon, is a fallacy. God 1 steps in, but God 2 says no, so God 3 says yes, but, surprise surprise, God 4 says no, and by that time the good gods are down an entire rank or two just from loss-of-followers. Oh, and btw, followers are the ONLY way to actually gain divine ranks, other than assimilating weaker gods and taking their portfolios.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
There is no fallacy in the argument using gods, because more gods want the world in one piece than want it destroyed. For every evil deity in the world, there is one good god and one neutral deity. Therefore, the evil deities will fail to destroy the world.
Secondly, you clearly need to read Deities and Demigods. There are a variety of ways to gain and lose divine ranks, and all of them depend on the campaign setting in question. In the Forgotten Realms, for example, you can gain or lose 20 divine ranks simply because Ao wills it. In other worlds, followers provide no benefit until their souls are consumed. It all depends, so don't try to extend your argument to D&D as a whole.
The Gods all cancel each other out in most scenarios, but Nerull always has trump card. He's the only guy that can make sure you go down and stay there. Well, him and Wee-Jas. but nobody pays that little wretch any mind. lol. specters suck.
The good gods cancel out the evil gods, but the neutral gods decide what happen, because there's no one to cancel them out. And they would prefer that neither good nor evil triumph.
Nerull has no trump card. Just because you choose to disregard inconvenient facts like other deities of death does not make you right.
You used Shapechange to become a spectre. S-0 is under your control. He's not allowed to decide not to start killing and pass on your recursive order. His child-spectres are forced to obey him (and his recursive order), and therefore kill the next generation of spectres, and pass on the order. And so on, and so forth. Sorry, did you have any valid objections to the spectre-bomb?
I agree that spectre-bombing is very difficult to stop. Don't you think it's a little too difficult to stop?
CR 7 creatures are not supposed to wipe out the world. Undead spawn rates were intended as a way to increase the challenge of a monster in an adventure scenario, not in an undefended city. Given that you agree how overpowered spectre-bombing, don't you feel it can be avoided with a simple rewrite?
Being a high-level character is a disruptive attack form. You know that piddly tribe of goblins that the level 3 adventurers struggle against, but defeat handily, and the level 6 adventurers waltz through on their way to the bottom level of the monster-infested mines? That's the entire non-high-leveled world, to high-level casters. The fact that there exist threats in the world that can threaten high-level casters can in no way stop said casters from exploding cities like they were full of 1-HD non-elite goblinoids.
I don't think you've successfully made the argument that a high-level character is a disruptive attack form. I think you've made the argument that powerful spellcasters using as many problematic rules as possible is a disruptive attack form.
I think your article is a very great way to show the problems of rules not designed for higher-level play, and that these rules should be fixed. I do not agree , however, that high-level play in general is truly disruptive, not when that disruption relies on very specific problems.
If you're going to accept that the rules are incomplete, accept that the rules are incomplete. Don't just throw more rules onto the existing greased foundations and expect the resulting heap to be noticeably more stable.
The rules aren't incomplete. They include problematic rules that should be excised, after which everything else can run smoothly.
I don't know about hummus, but there an easy weapon even low level adventurers have against a spectre-bomb: chickens.
Make an elementary Bardic Lore role and you will turn up a dozen stories where, when the undead were getting particularly unpleasant, a rooster crowed and called up the dawn. Repeat: a rooster crowed and called up the dawn. Not "dawn was approaching and a rooster crowed for foreshadowing and incidental dramatic effect" but the rooster called up the dawn. There's even one where the priest specifically calls to the rooster to ask it to do this. Presumably he was using a Speak with Animals spell or something similar.
Now, everyone who worships the RAW as a graven image will be going "Where in the RAW does it say that roosters can call up the dawn?" The counter example: Where in the RAW does it say that they can't? The only mention in the RAW of roosters is a correlary anyway: PHB p. 112, table 7-3, item 2: Chicken 2cp.
It is up to the DM to interpret that "chicken" refers to both hens and roosters, but even the most idolatrous RAW worshipper will probably concede that D&D chickens must follow the same regular sexual biology as both real world and fairytale chickens and so we have roosters in D&D.
The question then becomes, are D&D roosters real world roosters or fairytale roosters? If you look under "Speak with Animals," you have to conclude we're dealing with fairytale roosters, because the text there says that while animals are stupid, people magically able to talk to them can get occasionally useful answers, whereas if you talked to a real world animal behaviorist, they'd tell you about all sorts of things that chickens notice and would talk about if they could talk, very little of which would be useful to an adventurer, and since Speak with Animals has stayed in the RAW as a common spell, we have to assume that we're dealing with fairytale chickens who might conceivably speak about things adventurers would want to know. Adding to the evidence of fairytale chickens, the fact that the core RAW contains the cockatrice, and while there is no mention of the creature's biology, another elementary Bardic Lore roll will tell you that a cockatrice hatches from an egg laid by a rooster which has been incubated in a dungheap by a toad. And wizards can take toads as familiars, so since we have fairytale toads, you can say with very strong certainty that we also must be dealing with fairytale roosters.
If you check the RAW, you'll note the spectres, in addition to being able to Create Spawn for a spectre bomb, also have the problem of "Sunlight Powerlessness," and mentions that this has to be real sunlight, not just a Daylight spell, which has to come from the real sun. But since it banishes spectres, we have to conclude that the D&D sun is a fairytale sun and obeys fairytale physic, unbound by post-Copernican astrophysics (since Copernicus is nowhere mentioned in the RAW) and a fairytale sun should rise when a fairytale rooster crows, assuming the sun god is okay with that.
Now, since we're talking gods, and we're talking Nerull, then we also logically have to be talking Pelor, the sun god, right? And since we're talking roosters, possibly Obad-Hai, the god of nature, who's in charge of chickens, unless it's Yondalla, since it's a domestic animal? Would they support post-Copernican astrophysics, or fairytale physics? Would it be convenient for Pelor, Obad-Hai and/or Yondalla for the sun to come up whenever a rooster crowed? Presumably it would, though they'd probably tell the roosters to do it for a good reason, such as, for example, someone unleashing a spectre bomb.
Nerull can gnash his dentures all he wants, but since neither the sun nor poultry is part of his portfolio, the most he can do is curse the dawn-summoning cockerel to occasionally lay an egg which hatches a cockatrice and thereby causes a bit more death, thereby balancing its spectre-bomb stopping power and keeping the bards employed as they tell about the pluses and minuses of having fairytale roosters.
What the...what...the...what...the........what?
If the sun came up everytime a rooster crowed, then it would not take a single night to reduce the world to an undead-ruled-wasteland. It would take ten minutes, and a sack of chickens. You make one crow. The sun rises. You make another crow. The sun rises again. There are now two suns in the sky. You repeat the process until you've reached enough suns to bake the Prime into a cinder; this will not take long.
Moreover, any universe in which the sun rises whenever the rooster crows in contravention of astrophysics deserves its fate.
Amazingly, as I predicted, making up rules does not increase the stability of the universe.
The difficulty you are encountering is that you are considering the time-dimension to be strictly linear, as in a book. In a game, as in the real-world, the time-dimension is not linear, nor are all points-of-reference equal. It is therefore irrelevant to discuss it as fixed or not fixed.
That is a beautiful paragraph, full of lovely words and metaphors...
Thank you
...but I'm afraid I'm finding it a little light on the content. Perhaps you'd like to explain your revolutionary solving of the problem of determinism vs. free will in a little more detail than 'nonlinear'?
This may be a little OT (uninterested readers should skip to next post), or at least deals with a very narrow part of the overall debate, but it's a rainy morning in London, and it's such an interesting question, so let's explore it.
Firstly to remove your words from my mouth. I did not claim to have a solution. Rather, I pointed out that you have inadequately described the problem, and therefore a conclusion which you accept as inevitable is irrelevant. You ask me to explain how 'N and not-N are both true'. However, there is no burden upon me to supply such explanation. The only burden on me is to show that your explanatory model is either inadequate or no better than another model. Once I show that, your conclusion, as I expressed above, will be revealed to be irrelevant, and the burden will be back upon you to defend your model. Demolishing my model will not help you, because that will not show that your model is adequate.
The model you appear to be using is that time is linear, which means that we observe a linear chain of events. D follows C follows B follows A. This works fine in written narratives (e.g. books), but it does not represent current understanding of time. We must consider relativity, quantum mechanics, and non-linear-system dynamics.
Relativity tells us to consider the time-space continuum as analogous to a surface. Instead of D following C following B following A, we must place those events on the surface. SD is down there, SC is over in that corner, SB is at the top, SA is somewhere in the middle. These positions are relative to our position as an observer.
When we move our motion deforms the surface, changing the relationships of things around us. Since everything is moving continuously, the surface is continuously deforming. Were we able to magically reposition ourselves, we could arrive at event-points that had formerly been in our 'past' or 'future'.
This model of time has been available to philosophy for decades, so at the very least we can argue that any model paying it no heed can reasonably be questioned.
Quantum mechanics tells us to remember that when we look at very fine events, e.g. the motion of particles, we find it hard to have certain information about all features of them at once. We could say that particles are probably at one place or another, but Feynman showed that are more accurate picture is to treat particles as being everywhere at once, probabilistically. These probability fields can be very accurate and stable, so we are not in the situation of simply knowing or not knowing where something will be next, but rather of knowing where we are more or less certain to find it. Physics seems to 'care' about this probablisitic behaviour in a very real way: among other phenomena the waves can interfere with each other.
Since quantum mechanics has been found to be the most reliable model for predicting what the universe is like, any model paying it no heed can reasonably be questioned.
Non-linear-system dynamics finds that some kinds of transformations, e.g a mapping between A and next-A, are very difficult to make an explanatory model of that is less complex than the model that they exist in. At a certain point it appears possible that a distant enough next-A could not be predicted even using a computer built of every available atom in our universe. In considering free will vs. determinism, some philosophers (e.g. Dennett) use the game of 'Life' to show that it is possible to have systems which are certainly deterministic, but equally where choice is exercised, at least in the sense that no agent in the system, nor even god-like observers (researchers running the 'life' model) knew what the choice would be before it was made. There seems to be an epistemological relationship between non-linear-systems theory, also known as chaos theory, and this curious collusion between choice and determinism. Recognisable shapes emerge, of course, such as 'glider-guns', such that some behavioural predictions can be made.
Note that the game of Life does inhabit a world where time is forced to be linear. We must acknowledge that in a model, such as your personal D&D game, you can make the physics run how you like. It can even bunny-hop forward in 6-second steps if you like ;) I've brushed against some mathematical observations that to me are suggestive that you will find only certain rules and rule-dimensionalities will work consistently to produce a stable world, but you will not usually run the world forward enough steps to encounter any difficulties.
Since we can find some models that point toward collusion between determinism and agent free will, we can say that a model that ignores that possibility is not the only or best model to use to build explanations upon.
At the top I said I don't have a solution to these problems, but I can proffer a model that I feel would be useful in D&D and not so thoroughly inadequate. Let's first look at what your model bought you:
Please allow me to restate my position less ambiguous terms:
The fact that Nerull has Know Death means that he can, at a certain moment in time, walk through a city and know how every mortal inhabitant of the city will die, far in the future. (Or very soon in the future. The Reaper is within visual inspection range, after all.)
If it is possible for Nerull to look at a person who is destined to die on his scythe, and kill him with a spell, instead, then methods of seeing the future are worthless. If Nerull is not capable of changing the future once he's seen it, then everything forseen is inherently fixed.
This is what's called a bifurcation, or a fork between two and only two options. There is no third (or zeroth) option; one and only one of N (he can violate what he sees with Know Death) or not-N (he can't) is true. One means that the gods can't actually use portfolio sense to presage spectre-bombing; the other means that meaningful gameplay is impossible.
Please feel free to explain how N and not-N are both true, if you like..
Indeed: you have made a terrible problem for yourself. You must choose between N and not-N, but there seems little reason to prefer one over the other, except as you find most common-sensical or workable for your game. Common-sense is fine for quickly choosing between things we are familiar with, but it has proven extremely fallible for approaching subjects of the kind to hand.
Here is an alternative:
The fact that Nerull has Know Death means that he can, at a certain moment in time, walk through a city and see probablisitic waves of events describing how every mortal inhabitant of the city could die, clear and sharp in his close personal 'future', but becoming unusably vague beyond his sense limit per D&Dg.
He could not have this wave inside his brain - it is far too much information to represent - except that his brain is made of magicum. He 'sees' this wave using a sense a lot like our visual perception. In the same way that our brain helps us effortlessly gradate colours, notice edges, discern that these little shapes are letters, and those are ants, and identify patterns, Nerull effortlessly distinguishes things that are important to him. He can notice that some events probabilistically interfere with other events, so that neither occur, but the wave can never collapse to a single event due to relativity. Some observer is always in position to act 'before' or at other times than Nerull.
It is possible for Nerull to look at a person who is very likely to die on his scythe, and for his own reasons kill him with a spell, instead, so methods of seeing the future are useful.
How can anyone do justice to these things in one page! Yet unlike the linear model it does not back you into a corner. It allows gods to have useful information about things that are likely to happen. Notice in particular that interference occurs. Annoyingly recursive 'you do X, but then I do Y, so you do Z, so I do Q, so you do X' chains can be treated as erasing themselves from the picture.
The biggest flaw with my version is that many DMs might find it hard to visualise. Frank Herbert described the imagined experience of foretelling quite well: Muad Dib saw the future as a flag or cloth undulating in the distance; but then he spent the rest of his trilogy trying to explain how being able to predict the future didn't make you always win! To my mind the keyword is 'sense'. The gods have a sense about these things that they use to navigate by. None of us are so smart as they are, so we cannot imagine exactly how this works for them, yet we can say 'It all balances out'. An argument many people already proffered.
Finally, I'm not an expert in these subjects: You may find it helpful to read books written for a general audience such as Greene's Elegant Universe, Dennett's Freedom Evolves and Stewart's Does God Play Dice. In any case, we are far from knowing the answers, but I believe we can feel sure that a linear model is not the best one for us to work with.
Again, you are assuming Nerull works ina vaccuum. As soon as he starts mucking about with the time stream, every other god out there is going to sit up, take notice, and then the GOD of TIME could do something trivial...like, oh, invert the results. Nerull looks up...and suddenly he's LOST millions of years on the other gods, all his worshipers are gone from lack of hearing them, and he's powerless and dies.
Serves him right for mucking with other deities' portfolio powers. And you know what? The other gods are probably ITCHING for him to step out of line and do just that so they can stomp on them and get rid of them.
Sigh. Which god of time would that be, again?
Now, there might well be a god of time that you spontaneously create to solve this problem. Or there might be a god of killing-the-god-of-time that exists to solve the problem of the god of time.
Keep in mind this putative god of time would have to be a greater god of rank 17+; these gods don't generally just spring into existence from nothing (at least in the D&D cosmology). If the default D&D setting included a god of time, this would be an argument, albeit one which would destabilize the world even worse then Nerull could ("Holy crap! The greater god of time just ate Nerull and became the classical Reaper, with scythe and hourglass, he's coming for us al-"*slice*). As it is, well, Nerull would simply nullify this god's powers with his legion of singing undead potatoes.
And it takes no time at all to kill someone planning to start specter-bombing. The right people happen to be in the right time and the right place when the idiot lich pops up to do his 'can't fail to wipe out all mortals scheme', and he dies in one round of ambush. Then they track down his phylactery, crush that before he can grow a new body, and his plans are done.
And the lich happens to have the right counter-spell prepared. Or has a nice Contingency up. Or makes a habit of dragging a skeleton in a circlet and a robe along with him, and lets the adventurers destroy that.
Or, for that matter, keeps his phylactery in Nerull's time-accelerated demiplane, reconstitutes in a week maximally (a tenth of a second on the Prime), spends another leisurely fiftieth of a second tracking down the PCs families, kills them, Gates their bodies into his demiplane, animates them into undead horrors, and sends them after the PCs, all before the PCs have finished the first syllable of their victory cheer.
Or maybe, Nerull steps on that lich's phylactery himself in a fit of pique, and instead orders his other millions of liches to descend on that city and reduce it to ruin.
I really do need to start using more precise language. When I say 'valid objections', I mean 'objections within the confines of the game universe'. Arbitrarily making up entities isn't valid. Declaring rules not to work (or to work for only one side in a conflict) is isn't valid. Declaring that one side has magical plot-power putting them where they need to be with what they need and that the other side doesn't, and that the other side's quite-obvious counters to this arbitrarily don't work isn't valid.
At this point, you are ceasing to play the game of D&D, and are using it as a storytelling framework. Again, this isn't a bad thing. But it's not a terribly useful thing to people who don't share your expectations of what should happen. My personal dramatic expectations are that, as mentioned earlier, if someone has the means, motive, and opportunity to commit a crime, they can, and if they have a stated goal or deep abiding desire to do so, they will.
Really, what part of 'the story of life' and "DM adjudication" don't you get? It applies on both sides of the equation.
====Aelryinth
As you say, both sides are allowed to use DM adjudication. It nullifies out, and you're left with looking at what the rules actually say. Otherwise, the singing undead potatoes operatically warn the lich of the PC's ambush, and the lich adjusts his plans accordingly.
That's not how precognition and the future work in D&D.
If that were true, then every single divination or psionic precognition spell is worthless. How does augury work, if it can't possibly reveal woe since woe would never occur unless you're foolish enough to follow it anyway? How does foresight work, when it can only prevent an attack that would have missed anyway (thus granting no bonus)? How can even basic powers like defensive precognition work if the future can't be changed?
In D&D, the future as shown by abilities which allow precognition is the one that will result if the precognition, and any actions that result from it, do not take place. However, once you see something, you can begin to change it, and that is precisely what deities will do with their future Portfolio Sense.
Precognition can't see things that haven't been chosen yet. Foresight and the psionic insight buffs rely on "There is a sword/mace/spell/arrow whistling towards my tender bits. If I move here..."
Moreover, such things are probabilistic, vague, and open to misinterpretation. Augury cannot predict that the players will suddenly decide, for no reason, to commit mass suicide as soon as they set foot in the abandoned cave.
In a world with players, divination doesn't work. In a world with free will, divination can't work. Does this mean that foretelling is useless? Pretty much: you can as DM handwave that "He knew you would decide that.", but if the characters have been keeping an eye on him, then your ability as DM to make this ret-con happen is limited.
When the person you're trying to handwave away can Know Death, then your game world just kind of explodes into static. When it comes to mass slaughter, Nerull knows all. If the other gods know that Nerull is going to do a mass slaughter and start to act to intervene, he instantly knows, and he will similarly instantly know the moment he decides on a plan that will re-trigger the slaughter. That's the great thing about mass slaughter; you can't cover any mass events of note from Portfolio sense, no matter what your divine rank is, because you're still capped on the number of locations/events you can block at once.
Care to give an example? I've answered repeatedly why it doesn't work as well as Robert thinks it does, and I've explained repeatedly that if the ability of a CR 7 monster is really that powerful, than it needs a rewrite. Arguing with broken abilities is meaningless because if the DM allows spectre-bombing, why not allow Pun-Pun too?
In short? Spectre-bombing is Core. Pun-Pun requires setting-specific materials. It is my default assumption that when people sit down to play D&D, the rules as presented in the core books are generally followed. Doing so can produce spectre-bombing. Adding to core can get you the Hulking Hurler, the Word, and all of those similar builds
We understand exactly what he's saying, and we disagree. Just because you are blinded by your inability to understand the arguments of anyone but your idol Robert doesn't mean everyone else is.
I'm making a compound statement, here. "Because the rules are X, and because of implicit observations Y about the way the world works, we can expect effect Z." is the gist of it.
I've seen a lot of "Z sucks, therefore we're adding Q." statements. I agree with many of them. But I'm not arguing whether or not the rules should describe a world about as stable as a fire-elemental-staffed fireworks factory, I'm simply pointing out that they do.
High-level characters are not Armageddon waiting to happen because they do not exist by themselves. Whether it is because of deities, or simply other equally or more powerful beings, a high-level character is not going to wipe out the world unless the DM allows it. And if he does, then, well, get a new DM.
Stalemates based on power equality presume a universe of two actors, and that every action has a counter-action that will restore the balance. If you have two Cleric20s, one dedicated to killing and the other dedicating to protecting, the killer will win, because it's much harder to restore someone to life than it is to kill him.
Likewise, having a gun to someone's head is only a threat if they don't want to be shot in the head. If someone is already risking death and dissolution by the mere fact of their existence, claiming that they'll not be evil lest they be hunted down neglects the fact that they're already being hunted down.
You approach a solution in your final statements; the DM needs to intervene. But intervening moment-by-moment within the game world is a really bad solution; what you need to do is fix the rules.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
There is no fallacy in the argument using gods, because more gods want the world in one piece than want it destroyed. For every evil deity in the world, there is one good god and one neutral deity. Therefore, the evil deities will fail to destroy the world.
Guess what? If you have ten nations with massive nuclear arsenals, and one of them wants to destroy everything, then there is going to be a massive nuclear war. The ability to do does not imply the ability to undo; unless the good gods can make people as fast as Nerull can unmake them (hint: they can't), then numbers or even relative power levels mean nothing.
Secondly, you clearly need to read Deities and Demigods. There are a variety of ways to gain and lose divine ranks, and all of them depend on the campaign setting in question. In the Forgotten Realms, for example, you can gain or lose 20 divine ranks simply because Ao wills it. In other worlds, followers provide no benefit until their souls are consumed. It all depends, so don't try to extend your argument to D&D as a whole.
As always, individual campaign setting can alter rules. We are, generally, arguing about the setting-independent rules unless specifically specified.
Also, as mentioned previously, Ao is a living, prime example of my very point; He can (and does) cause massive disruption in the world, and when he chooses to do so, no other character can stop him. Continued play depends on the high-level characters (in Forgotten Realms, the singularity of Ao and Pun-Pun) not disrupting the world.
The good gods cancel out the evil gods, but the neutral gods decide what happen, because there's no one to cancel them out. And they would prefer that neither good nor evil triumph.
Another example: You have a man on top of a mountain, with a lot of rocks. You have three men at the bottom of the mountain, with a lot of rocks. The man at the top wants all rocks at the bottom. The men at the bottom want all rocks at the top.
The fact that there are three men at the bottom of the mountain does not mean that one of them will cancel out the man at the top, because the nature of the universe is such that it's much, much easier to make rocks go down than up.
Nerull has no trump card. Just because you choose to disregard inconvenient facts like other deities of death does not make you right.
Which other deities of death? Wee Jass? Not a greater god; therefore not a threat. Are you also speculating that random gods would start incarnating? If so, one Gate to the Far Realms spells the end of that world.
Look, so far you have utterly failed to demonstrate that within the context of the existing rules, the world is even vaguely stable. Your answer to spectre-bombing is to change spectres. This is certainly a good idea, but it's also a flat admission that the current rules are insufficient.
Tell me, is the listed problem you have with spectre-bombing spectres?
OK, we'll become a Dread Wraith instead.
It's a problem with Shapechange?
Now we have to expend actual spell slots to teleport (or use alternate movement), and we need to actually make our undead creature. Thankfully, we can do that.
We don't like Create Greater Undead? Well, darn, then. We'll just have to scare one up. Gate will work for that, if nothing else will.
What? All incorporeal undead don't exist? Well, drat. Now we'll have to make our own army. Thankfully, this isn't difficult; we have Planar Binding and a veritable host of outsiders. And if any of them give us any lip, well, that's what Animate Dead is for. In addition, we can also go the indirect, patient route, poisoning water supplies, suborning key officials, assassinating high-level defenders, burning crops, and the like. By banning high-level casters and monsters, we've gotten to the point where a motivated individual can't automatically destroy the world. This is exactly what it will take.
Ultimately, it's a matter of military theory; attackers can press the offensive where the defense is weakest. Unless you can put a high-level party on every street corner (or at least in every village), your enemies can just attack where you didn't defend (assuming that defenses aren't extremely well-hidden). Moreover, offense can concentrate their forces to wipe out well-defended strongholds; Teleport and portable holes mean that it's extremely easy to note what defenders are weak against and bring a lot of it to bear against them. Magical defenses can be suborned or dispelled; guardians can be eliminated one by one, and dispersed populations can be attacked ecologically or simply killed the slow way.
The bad thing is that evil is supposed to be doing all of this; it makes no thematic sense to claim that evil can't summon demons or animate undead creatures. The problem is that the existing rules for this enable it on a scale that means whoever does it first destroys all mundane opposition. High-level characters who decide to disrupt the world disrupt the world.
Now we all have to not be angry. Logic is far removed in D&D, unfortunately, for all of us who kinda follow time streams and whatnot. I may have made an error in thinking D&D to be the average fictional world. I apologize for that. But gods are ridiculous to use as balancing tools against powerful PCs. If a divine, mostly-immortal being has to come down and beat on a middle-aged human wizard in a bathrobe, then the characters really do screw with stuff.
What the...what...the...what...the........what?
If the sun came up everytime a rooster crowed, then it would not take a single night to reduce the world to an undead-ruled-wasteland. It would take ten minutes, and a sack of chickens. You make one crow. The sun rises. You make another crow. The sun rises again. There are now two suns in the sky. You repeat the process until you've reached enough suns to bake the Prime into a cinder; this will not take long.
Moreover, any universe in which the sun rises whenever the rooster crows in contravention of astrophysics deserves its fate.
Amazingly, as I predicted, making up rules does not increase the stability of the universe.
Actually, I'm talking the world of the fairytales where there's only one sun, and when he's not shining in the sky, he lives in a house somewhere near the house of north wind. Really you can look it up. Try "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" as a google search.
There's also only one moon, and she has a dark mantle which she sometimes covers up with, though the last time she stepped down to earth in that outfit, some goblins caught her and buried her in a marsh so she had to be rescued by some adventurers. Again, standard Bardic lore check. Google "The Moon in the Marsh" if you want to read it.
Anyway, what I said is, when a rooster crows, the sun rises. Not "a sun" but "the sun." There's only one, so there's no trouble with extra crispefaction of the Prime Material.
What the...what...the...what...the........what?
If the sun came up everytime a rooster crowed, then it would not take a single night to reduce the world to an undead-ruled-wasteland. It would take ten minutes, and a sack of chickens. You make one crow. The sun rises. You make another crow. The sun rises again. There are now two suns in the sky. You repeat the process until you've reached enough suns to bake the Prime into a cinder; this will not take long.
Moreover, any universe in which the sun rises whenever the rooster crows in contravention of astrophysics deserves its fate.
Amazingly, as I predicted, making up rules does not increase the stability of the universe.
I LOVE the rooster sun-raising counter to spectre-bombing. It is beautiful and impeccable. Furthermore, your counter-argument thus far is flawed.
There are two ways to look at it. One way is that we have one sun (nothing tells us we should have multiple) and it rises each time a rooster crows. So we don't get additional suns, just the same one going back to bed and rising again.
The other way to look at it is that roosters won't crow when the sun is out. I'm pretty sure fairytale roosters know what they're about. Sure you could Wild Empathy them, but what is a Druid doing messing with nature that much? And even if you did, then see above for the result.
The rooster argument is simply wonderful
and exactly on the level of response spectre-bombing demands.-vk
At this point, you are ceasing to play the game of D&D, and are using it as a storytelling framework. Again, this isn't a bad thing. But it's not a terribly useful thing to people who don't share your expectations of what should happen. My personal dramatic expectations are that, as mentioned earlier, if someone has the means, motive, and opportunity to commit a crime, they can, and if they have a stated goal or deep abiding desire to do so, they will.
As you say, both sides are allowed to use DM adjudication. It nullifies out, and you're left with looking at what the rules actually say. Otherwise, the singing undead potatoes operatically warn the lich of the PC's ambush, and the lich adjusts his plans accordingly.
As soon as we remove the power of the DM to supply her game with balance, we are ceasing to play D&D. D&D is cogitated upon the notion of an arbiter.
As for saying use of arbitration nullifies out, it does not. My arbitrations cannot alter yours unless you allow them to, and even then our arbitrations are limited to our groups and our game worlds. The final judge will be our players. If your players are happy to go along with a world where singing undead potatoes spectre-bomb them, then overcoming my frank astonishment at their unusual sense of fun, good luck to them. I suspect that you will find more players will prefer a non-spectre-bombed world, than a spectre-bombed one. More players will prefer a world where Nerull behaves in an interestingly, yet not overwhelmingly, evil manner, than the alternative.
You really have to question just who you want to convince? Yourself? That's fair enough. You seem convinced. It's your world, turn everyone into fish and remove all the water.
In RL there are more pages on Law than we have (or would care to read) in D&D. To understand law requires years of study. To arbitrate it, years of study and practice. And those laws still fail to cover every case, there are still holes in them.
For my part, I don't have years to put into studying the most complete and water-tight set of rules that could be envisioned for this game. I put to you that it is epistemologically not possible to produce a set of fully coherent rules, even using every atom in our universe to make the paper and ink; and if such a set were produced our brains could not contain it. If you ever read Borges you'll remember the story where a man has a window on the entire universe. As a thought experiment that is fine, but in practice no human can fit in their brain that much visual data, nor even near it.
Hell. I'm having fun with all this. Onward! Where next shall our sallies take us?
-vk
Any deity who is unilaterally threatened by the actions of another (say, Wee Jas by Nerull) is going to instantly make the case to all the other Intermediate Gods that they are in the exact same boat, and if Nerull is allowed to get away with wiping her out, he'll immediately proceed to the next, the next, and the next, until no one is left to defy him.
What is going to happen is that Nerull is going to start his purge of all these lesser gods who can't do anything to him...and then he's going to get assaulted on all sides by other deities who know that they're next.
Likewise, Nerull has divine enemies who are simply not going to let him have things his way, and are going to do unto him as he does unto others.
Nerull doesn't exist in a vacuum. Neither does Mr. Spectre-bomb. They start trying things, the enemies they've made or people with things to protect start going after him. Sure, a high level person can make hash out of any low level defenses...but there's also no way he can withstand the hurt coming his way, so any victories he claims are going to be post-mortem...and then the victors can address the stuff he's done and fix it.
In essence, spectre-bombing is absolute suicide, because the people it won't effect will be coming for you, and once you are dead, they can address what you've done, fix it, and the world goes on.
Nerull isn't going to pick on some lower power, because that immediately opens him up for massive, punitive retaliation to discourage just that kind of activity. A wizard who can spectre-bomb isn't going to do so unless he wants to commit suicide...and both will, in the end, find what they wanted to accomplish undone.
===Aelryinth
Precognition can't see things that haven't been chosen yet. Foresight and the psionic insight buffs rely on "There is a sword/mace/spell/arrow whistling towards my tender bits. If I move here..."
Moreover, such things are probabilistic, vague, and open to misinterpretation. Augury cannot predict that the players will suddenly decide, for no reason, to commit mass suicide as soon as they set foot in the abandoned cave.
In a world with players, divination doesn't work. In a world with free will, divination can't work. Does this mean that foretelling is useless? Pretty much: you can as DM handwave that "He knew you would decide that.", but if the characters have been keeping an eye on him, then your ability as DM to make this ret-con happen is limited.
I beg to differ:
Clairsentience powers enable you to learn secrets long forgotten, to glimpse the immediate future and predict the far future, to find hidden objects, and to know what is normally unknowable.
I also disagree with your decision that divination doesn't work because of free will. Based on the existing D&D literature (from FR and Dragonlance in particular) on viewing the future and traveling to the future, divination is quite possible. The future shown is the future that would have resulted had the divination or time travel not taken place, and this provides substantial information.
In short? Spectre-bombing is Core. Pun-Pun requires setting-specific materials. It is my default assumption that when people sit down to play D&D, the rules as presented in the core books are generally followed. Doing so can produce spectre-bombing. Adding to core can get you the Hulking Hurler, the Word, and all of those similar builds
You haven't addressed my point, which is that if a DM decides that he wants to break his game, he can, and that if a DM has half a brain, he can simply swap out the "rises as a spectre in 1d4 rounds" to "rises as a spectre in 1d4 hours).
There are many, many ways to break the game by the raw, and if the game becomes more breakable at higher levels, this is only because the range of options increases as builds become more complex and available wealth and accesible spells goes up.
I've seen a lot of "Z sucks, therefore we're adding Q." statements. I agree with many of them. But I'm not arguing whether or not the rules should describe a world about as stable as a fire-elemental-staffed fireworks factory, I'm simply pointing out that they do.
I agree, to an extent. Some of the rules describe the world as unstable, but many of them do not. The logical solution is to fix those problems, rather than throwing away the entire system and banning high-level characters as you have decided to.
Stalemates based on power equality presume a universe of two actors, and that every action has a counter-action that will restore the balance. If you have two Cleric20s, one dedicated to killing and the other dedicating to protecting, the killer will win, because it's much harder to restore someone to life than it is to kill him.
The point that you don't seem to understand is that it is never a matter of two clerics; there's always three. The forces of neutrality are responsible for maintaining the status quo, and if Evil is wiping out the world, both Good and Neutrality will combat Evil.
Likewise, for all your examples of Nerull, you fail to take into account the entire system. If Nerull starts wiping out all life, he's going to face not only the deities of good, but also the deities of neutrality and any evil deities that don't like him. As such he is bound to fail. The same applies should a deity of good attempt to tip the cosmic scales the other way; the deities of neutrality will work with the deities of evil to prevent it.
You approach a solution in your final statements; the DM needs to intervene. But intervening moment-by-moment within the game world is a really bad solution; what you need to do is fix the rules.
I have suggested a fix of the rules, just on a much smaller scale than that you seem to be advocating.
Guess what? If you have ten nations with massive nuclear arsenals, and one of them wants to destroy everything, then there is going to be a massive nuclear war. The ability to do does not imply the ability to undo; unless the good gods can make people as fast as Nerull can unmake them (hint: they can't), then numbers or even relative power levels mean nothing.
The deities of good and neutrality can unite to kill Nerull. Then they can undo any damage that he has done.
Also, as mentioned previously, Ao is a living, prime example of my very point; He can (and does) cause massive disruption in the world, and when he chooses to do so, no other character can stop him. Continued play depends on the high-level characters (in Forgotten Realms, the singularity of Ao and Pun-Pun) not disrupting the world.
Ao is a bad example of your point. I have never disagreed that an unopposed being stronger than everyone else can do as he pleases.
However, this applies only to overdeities (who happen to have an interest in preserving the worlds they made anyway). All other beings are balanced by opposing forces and superior beings.
In fact, Ao is a perfect rationale (although a bit of a cop-out if he is the only reason) for the existing balance. Since he likes the world he has made, nobody can disrupt it. A silly lich is not going to be able to do anything that Ao cannot handle.
Look, so far you have utterly failed to demonstrate that within the context of the existing rules, the world is even vaguely stable. Your answer to spectre-bombing is to change spectres. This is certainly a good idea, but it's also a flat admission that the current rules are insufficient.
I've never said that the current rules are perfect. I just completely disagree with your assertion that the entire rules system needs to be scrapped.
What? All incorporeal undead don't exist? Well, drat. Now we'll have to make our own army. Thankfully, this isn't difficult; we have Planar Binding and a veritable host of outsiders. And if any of them give us any lip, well, that's what Animate Dead is for. In addition, we can also go the indirect, patient route, poisoning water supplies, suborning key officials, assassinating high-level defenders, burning crops, and the like. By banning high-level casters and monsters, we've gotten to the point where a motivated individual can't automatically destroy the world. This is exactly what it will take.
This is precisely what I disagree with. Why do you think that banning high-level characters and monsters is the only solution for a stable world? It's only possible to come up with a handful of ways in which instability can be introduced (and most of them involve very specific spells). Clearly it would be more effective to fix those problems rather than banning everything.
Ultimately, it's a matter of military theory; attackers can press the offensive where the defense is weakest. Unless you can put a high-level party on every street corner (or at least in every village), your enemies can just attack where you didn't defend (assuming that defenses aren't extremely well-hidden). Moreover, offense can concentrate their forces to wipe out well-defended strongholds; Teleport and portable holes mean that it's extremely easy to note what defenders are weak against and bring a lot of it to bear against them. Magical defenses can be suborned or dispelled; guardians can be eliminated one by one, and dispersed populations can be attacked ecologically or simply killed the slow way.
The bad thing is that evil is supposed to be doing all of this; it makes no thematic sense to claim that evil can't summon demons or animate undead creatures. The problem is that the existing rules for this enable it on a scale that means whoever does it first destroys all mundane opposition. High-level characters who decide to disrupt the world disrupt the world.
Ultimately, you overlook the fact that anytime evil tries to disrupt the world, both good and neutrality will oppose it, and wipe out any foolish offenders before restoring the world.
You neglect the Rule of Three, and that anyone who tries to disrupt the status quo will be facing a 2:1 battle.
You mistakenly assume that good and neutrality will be on the defensive, when the ability to perceive the future (either directly, or indirectly though the guidance of patron deities) means that good and neutrality will be hunting down and wiping out problematic beings before they begin causing problems.
The worst part of everything you advocate, though, is that you cannot reason out the logical solution to the problems you have spotted. Rather than fixing the problems, you run away from it by banning all of high-level games. Instead of treating an infection with antibiotics, you amputate the entire arm.
I LOVE the rooster sun-raising counter to spectre-bombing. It is beautiful and impeccable. Furthermore, your counter-argument thus far is flawed.
There are two ways to look at it. One way is that we have one sun (nothing tells us we should have multiple) and it rises each time a rooster crows. So we don't get additional suns, just the same one going back to bed and rising again.
The other way to look at it is that roosters won't crow when the sun is out. I'm pretty sure fairytale roosters know what they're about. Sure you could Wild Empathy them, but what is a Druid doing messing with nature that much? And even if you did, then see above for the result.
The rooster argument is simply wonderful
-vk
If there is one sun that rises every time a rooster crows, then...then...you know what? I am getting the distinct impression that you are not arguing in good faith here. You know that I can fairly easily show that rooster crows -> sun rises will destroy the world quite easily, and I know that you can just as easily make up a reason why it wouldn't work. I could give you a complicated discussion of astrophysics and what sunrise and sunset on a planar world would entail, but I'm quite sure that you will cheerily ignore the implied rules of physics as easily as the explicit rules of the game.
However, I will instead rebut the rooster argument, with the level of response it deserves:
Incorrect; nowhere in the game rules is it either stated or implied that there is any correlation between rooster-crowing and sunrise.
As soon as we remove the power of the DM to supply her game with balance, we are ceasing to play D&D. D&D is cogitated upon the notion of an arbiter.
As for saying use of arbitration nullifies out, it does not. My arbitrations cannot alter yours unless you allow them to, and even then our arbitrations are limited to our groups and our game worlds. The final judge will be our players. If your players are happy to go along with a world where singing undead potatoes spectre-bomb them, then overcoming my frank astonishment at their unusual sense of fun, good luck to them. I suspect that you will find more players will prefer a non-spectre-bombed world, than a spectre-bombed one. More players will prefer a world where Nerull behaves in an interestingly, yet not overwhelmingly, evil manner, than the alternative.
You really have to question just who you want to convince? Yourself? That's fair enough. You seem convinced. It's your world, turn everyone into fish and remove all the water.
You won't find too many interested players when it becomes clear that the rules are arbitrarily changed to make sure evil almost but never actually triumphs. D&D is a game. In order for it to be a game, there need to be rules. The current set of rules are bad rules.
In RL there are more pages on Law than we have (or would care to read) in D&D. To understand law requires years of study. To arbitrate it, years of study and practice. And those laws still fail to cover every case, there are still holes in them.
For my part, I don't have years to put into studying the most complete and water-tight set of rules that could be envisioned for this game. I put to you that it is epistemologically not possible to produce a set of fully coherent rules, even using every atom in our universe to make the paper and ink; and if such a set were produced our brains could not contain it. If you ever read Borges you'll remember the story where a man has a window on the entire universe. As a thought experiment that is fine, but in practice no human can fit in their brain that much visual data, nor even near it.
Hell. I'm having fun with all this. Onward! Where next shall our sallies take us?
-vk
Given the open-ended nature of D&D, it's not possible to enumerate every outcome, of course. However, it is possible to note that certain rules, powers, and abilities make the world explode, some make the world explode in combination, and some simply overwhelm what is generally expected to be the flavor of the game.
Magic (especially arcane magic), as long as it follows the footsteps laid for it in 2nd Edition, will inherently be one of these forces at high levels. The only way you can maintain a stable world full of high-level characters is to alter the rules repeatedly and blatantly. To cheat, in other words. Either you can abandon the idea of individuals who can cast mid-to-high-level spells and want to alter the world, or you can abandon the idea of a world that resembles anything like standard high-fantasy.
More 'exists in a vacuum' foolishness, to the point of saying intermediate gods are not a threat to greater gods.
Any deity who is unilaterally threatened by the actions of another (say, Wee Jas by Nerull) is going to instantly make the case to all the other Intermediate Gods that they are in the exact same boat, and if Nerull is allowed to get away with wiping her out, he'll immediately proceed to the next, the next, and the next, until no one is left to defy him.
What is going to happen is that Nerull is going to start his purge of all these lesser gods who can't do anything to him...and then he's going to get assaulted on all sides by other deities who know that they're next.
Certainly. As Nerull is statted, this is already happening. Nerull is trying to kill all of the other deities, and they are trying to stop him.
Moreover, you are showing a rather disturbing unfamiliarity with the actual D&D rules. How, pray tell, would you pit the collective will of the non-Greater gods against Nerull?
Likewise, Nerull has divine enemies who are simply not going to let him have things his way, and are going to do unto him as he does unto others.
Man. Top of mountain. Pile of rocks. Other men. Bottom of mountain. Pile of rocks. Man on top wins. Nature of universe is such that ease of dropping rocks off mountain counters numerical advantage.
Nerull doesn't exist in a vacuum. Neither does Mr. Spectre-bomb. They start trying things, the enemies they've made or people with things to protect start going after him. Sure, a high level person can make hash out of any low level defenses...but there's also no way he can withstand the hurt coming his way, so any victories he claims are going to be post-mortem...and then the victors can address the stuff he's done and fix it.
Mind Blank, Superior Invisibility, and never wandering into True Seeing means you can't be magically found. If you can't be found, you can't be stopped.
In essence, spectre-bombing is absolute suicide, because the people it won't effect will be coming for you, and once you are dead, they can address what you've done, fix it, and the world goes on.
Nerull isn't going to pick on some lower power, because that immediately opens him up for massive, punitive retaliation to discourage just that kind of activity. A wizard who can spectre-bomb isn't going to do so unless he wants to commit suicide...and both will, in the end, find what they wanted to accomplish undone.
===Aelryinth
Really, I am getting the distinct impression you're not actually reading the source materials here. D&D is stocked with any number of NPCs and factions that want to destroy everything in the world, themselves included. You can't threaten them with punitive action; they're already doing their worst.
Next, the entire basis of your argument appears to be that eight is a larger number than one. This is certainly true, but not terribly relevant if the question is one of value between one ounce of gold and eight ounces of iron. There is no neat symmetry between 'kill everyone' and 'stop everyone from being killed'; you need to apply a heck of a lot more effort to turn the ratchet one way versus the other.
Incidentally, if you can come up with an actual plan of attack for the Intermediate-and-lower divine crowd to take down Nerull as statted, without neglecting any of Nerull's abilities or capacities, I would be very interested in hearing it; as it looks to me, Nerull actually can simply hop from lesser god to lesser god and savage them with Annihilating Strike while they fail to Spot him.
Quoted:
Clairsentience powers enable you to learn secrets long forgotten, to glimpse the immediate future and predict the far future, to find hidden objects, and to know what is normally unknowable.
A: To predict doesn't mean to know.
B: Rules text trumps flavor text; precognition-as-described doesn't work in a universe with uncertainty. D&D universes have uncertainty.
I also disagree with your decision that divination doesn't work because of free will. Based on the existing D&D literature (from FR and Dragonlance in particular) on viewing the future and traveling to the future, divination is quite possible. The future shown is the future that would have resulted had the divination or time travel not taken place, and this provides substantial information.
How so is substantial information provided? Greater gods are continually looking for portfolio-related events; the visions thereof couldn't not have happened (barring Block Sensing). Moreover, the sensing is happening continually; if the same event falls within two deities' Portfolio Sense window, then each will know if the other manages to set up a chain of events that will stop / enable the event.
In addition, this doesn't get around the fact that you still need to predict, e.g., every dice roll that will happen in the next half-year of game time, as well as the reactions of every NPC in the game world, for portfolio sense to work.
You haven't addressed my point, which is that if a DM decides that he wants to break his game, he can, and that if a DM has half a brain, he can simply swap out the "rises as a spectre in 1d4 rounds" to "rises as a spectre in 1d4 hours).
There are many, many ways to break the game by the raw, and if the game becomes more breakable at higher levels, this is only because the range of options increases as builds become more complex and available wealth and accessible spells goes up.
My point is not that the DM can break the game via fiat; it's that the DM needs to fiat to avoid game-breakage, and that this is a sign of bad rules.
Incidentally, you've turned it from destroying the world in an evening to destroying the world in a month; you can still round up thousands of humanoids easily and without being noticed (consider the body counts adventurers rack up clearing out orc forts and goblin mines), have Spectre-0 convert them all and force them to follow your orders, and then send in your undead strike force to the first city of your choice. In 2.5 hours, send strike forces 2 through 93 to the next 92 cities you want to explode. Repeat.
Sorry, were you saying something amusing about how easy it was to modify the rules to disable easy breakage?
I agree, to an extent. Some of the rules describe the world as unstable, but many of them do not. The logical solution is to fix those problems, rather than throwing away the entire system and banning high-level characters as you have decided to.
Ban them? I just assume that in any world with high-level arcanists, every non-intrinsically-magical institution exists at their sufferance.
The point that you don't seem to understand is that it is never a matter of two clerics; there's always three. The forces of neutrality are responsible for maintaining the status quo, and if Evil is wiping out the world, both Good and Neutrality will combat Evil.
Yes, that is nice to say and all, but if evil only confronts Good and Neutrality in arenas where superior numbers don't count (killing Prime citizens faster than they can breed or be resurrected being an excellent example thereof), then evil has the advantage.
Likewise, for all your examples of Nerull, you fail to take into account the entire system. If Nerull starts wiping out all life, he's going to face not only the deities of good, but also the deities of neutrality and any evil deities that don't like him. As such he is bound to fail. The same applies should a deity of good attempt to tip the cosmic scales the other way; the deities of neutrality will work with the deities of evil to prevent it.
It is slightly more appropriate in a deific conflict to leave "Step 2: A miracle occurs." in place, but still not that good. What, exactly, is your detailed plan for stopping Nerull if he can get a head-start in the divine-domain-time-shifting deal and therefore gain a five-million-to-one on the rest of you?
Come to that, how do you find him in the first place?
The deities of good and neutrality can unite to kill Nerull. Then they can undo any damage that he has done.
"So, my assembled divine brethren, do any of you have a Spot modifier in the high nineties? Anyone? ....Well, Us damn it, then."
Ao is a bad example of your point. I have never disagreed that an unopposed being stronger than everyone else can do as he pleases.
However, this applies only to overdeities (who happen to have an interest in preserving the worlds they made anyway). All other beings are balanced by opposing forces and superior beings.
Equal opposing forces only balance if it's just as easy for one alternative to happen as another. If you have two people in a city with nukes, and one wants to destroy the city and the other doesn't, they're equal in power, but the one who wants to destroy the city is going to get his desire regardless.
In fact, Ao is a perfect rationale (although a bit of a cop-out if he is the only reason) for the existing balance. Since he likes the world he has made, nobody can disrupt it. A silly lich is not going to be able to do anything that Ao cannot handle.
I agree, as I've said earlier; in a universe with overdeities, there is one high-level character (or two, if you count Pun-Pun), and if either of them decide that there's going to be a Time of Troubles, then they get their way.
If it's just gods, and one god decides to start killing people, then he's going to kill a lot of people, because it's easier to kill people than it is to revive them.
If it's just high-level characters, then, well, if not spectre-bombs, then simply Gating to a pool of lava on the Elemental Plane of Fire while flying over a city you don't like.
Honestly, none of these are really involved, Char-Opt-worthy tactics here.
This is precisely what I disagree with. Why do you think that banning high-level characters and monsters is the only solution for a stable world? It's only possible to come up with a handful of ways in which instability can be introduced (and most of them involve very specific spells). Clearly it would be more effective to fix those problems rather than banning everything.
It's possible to come up with a handful of ways in which a high-level wizard can destroy a city in an afternoon, but when two sides fight, the side that has the greatest capacity to ignore the constraints of reality generally wins. If you give a wizard a day to destroy a city, will you posit that a high-level wizard can do so, with little effort and risk?
Yes, said wizard might get hunted down for his pains. But it's a bit tricky to catch people with Mind Blank, Teleport, Contingency, Plane Shift, and the like. Cities, conversely, are notoriously easy to catch.
Plus, a lot of the instability is inherent. How can you have a functioning economy when you have Fabricate and Wall of Iron? How can you have castles when low-level wizards can Dimension Leap right through the walls, or just fly over them?
Ultimately, you overlook the fact that anytime evil tries to disrupt the world, both good and neutrality will oppose it, and wipe out any foolish offenders before restoring the world.
You neglect the Rule of Three, and that anyone who tries to disrupt the status quo will be facing a 2:1 battle.
And you keep assuming that it's just as easy to de-kill (or prevent the killing) of people as it is to kill them. It is infinitely easier to break the world than it is to preserve it, as the rules are currently written; if you'd like to address this point and explain how it is you actually expect to recover from mass slaughter without actual divine intervention, please feel free to do so.
You mistakenly assume that good and neutrality will be on the defensive, when the ability to perceive the future (either directly, or indirectly though the guidance of patron deities) means that good and neutrality will be hunting down and wiping out problematic beings before they begin causing problems.
Wonderful. You get right on that hunting for the Superior Invisible, Mind-Blanked lich. Good luck with that; given the lich's possible spell selections, you'll be searching the entire planar multiverse (with the possible exception of the area right around the Spire, and probably the Good planes).
Ready, go.
....
Too late! The destruction has started!
As for the divine patrons, well, evil has divine patrons, too, and they will know that Good has interfered (which causes Good to know that Evil knows, which causes Evil to know that Good knows that Evil knows, and so on ad infinitum).
Good and Evil (or preservation and destruction) aren't equally balanced; with the same power level, it's easier to cause one than the other.
The worst part of everything you advocate, though, is that you cannot reason out the logical solution to the problems you have spotted. Rather than fixing the problems, you run away from it by banning all of high-level games. Instead of treating an infection with antibiotics, you amputate the entire arm.
You've got an...interesting definition of logic. "Two is more than one, therefore two Paladin3s will triumph over one nightwalker." is not an example thereof, as I use the word. If you're playing in a world in which every street corner has Forbiddance and Hallow up, in which every town can call in Greater-Teleporting cavalry at a moment's notice, in which towns are protected against flying wizards dropping nastiness on them from above or sending burrowing death from below, then yes, your world is reasonably secure from wizard20s deciding to re-draw the map.
However, any area that isn't protected by a high-level character (in the sense of a high-level character personally watching over the area) is pretty darn vulnerable to the assault of another high-level character. If you have a Paladin5/Cleric10 of St. Cuthbert on every street corner, you're in reasonably good shape. (Reasonably.)
But declaring that Good can auto-magically locate, track down, and destroy Evil in absence of even the vaguest whiff of rule-support thereof isn't logic, and if Evil can go where Good isn't right at the moment, then Evil can do a lot of damage.
The writers of D&D already planned for characters abusing their power. Inevitables were made to address issues that could develop. For example, characters who do large-scale reanimations or slaughters of innocent people will get inevitables sicced on them. If one fails, more will come their way. The same holds for characters who manipulate diplomacy/contracts continuously, screw around with the flow of time, and so on.
I extend this concept to address other things.
Spectre infestation wiping out major towns? A few inevitables from Mechanus will plane shift to deal with this.
Insane 100-beholder-large cult disintegrating its way to the Earth's core one 100x100x10 square at a time? There is a special legion of inevitables just to deal with that. "Sir, another one of them's at it again. Send out the Olykharuts." (Courtesy of a player in one of my campaigns)
Wizard plane shifting to the 4872934198347th layer of the abyss, which happens to be populated entirely by high-powered, nonsentient laser guns which disintegrate anything they hit in one shot? When he gets back to his home plane, he will run into a squad of golden celestials, who will mercilessly torture him to death for his actions.
Maybe it's time in your campaign to get the inevitables involved?
Certainly. As Nerull is statted, this is already happening. Nerull is trying to kill all of the other deities, and they are trying to stop him.
Moreover, you are showing a rather disturbing unfamiliarity with the actual D&D rules. How, pray tell, would you pit the collective will of the non-Greater gods against Nerull?
I'm what? I'm playing the gods with a modicum of intelligence and seeking to survive? You sure are treating them stupid. If it's a choice between being picked off by Nerull and joining forces, gods will join forces like any rational being.
Quit being insulted...this is the wrong board for that.
Man. Top of mountain. Pile of rocks. Other men. Bottom of mountain. Pile of rocks. Man on top wins. Nature of universe is such that ease of dropping rocks off mountain counters numerical advantage.
Man, top of Mountain, has nowhere to hide. Gets picked off by the first archer down below. Nature of the universe is that when the big nail sticks it's head up, it gets nailed down the hardest.
Mind Blank, Superior Invisibility, and never wandering into True Seeing means you can't be magically found. If you can't be found, you can't be stopped.
Except for the fact you can wander into another deity's home plane and suddenly your spells don't work there because the deity said they don't. And it's their home plane you can't counteract them without showing yourself. And merely mortal magic is not guaranteed to stop divine powers, especially since there are deities with true seeing to the limit of their vision.
Also, those other deities are doing the same to you...how on Eternity are you going to FIND them?
Really, I am getting the distinct impression you're not actually reading the source materials here. D&D is stocked with any number of NPCs and factions that want to destroy everything in the world, themselves included. You can't threaten them with punitive action; they're already doing their worst.
I'm getting the feeling you have absolutely no imagination. D@D actually has very few factions that want to annihilate everything....they have a lot of factions that want to take over/rule everything, but the number of nihilists is quite low. And the problem with being a nihilist is EVERYONE wants to stop you, use you, and then have no reluctance at all in killing you.
Seriously. Nerull's priests are all over Greyhawk, and they aren't nihilists. Vecna's cults are nihilists...and quite tellingly, they have no divine allies whatsoever, including Nerull.
Next, the entire basis of your argument appears to be that eight is a larger number than one. This is certainly true, but not terribly relevant if the question is one of value between one ounce of gold and eight ounces of iron. There is no neat symmetry between 'kill everyone' and 'stop everyone from being killed'; you need to apply a heck of a lot more effort to turn the ratchet one way versus the other.
I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about here. I think what you are saying is that Eight Deities of lower power can't kill a deity of higher power. To which I'm just going to laugh and laugh and laugh. If mortals can kill gods, gods can, have and will kill more powerful gods. The whole Olympian Pantheon is based on this.
Incidentally, if you can come up with an actual plan of attack for the Intermediate-and-lower divine crowd to take down Nerull as statted, without neglecting any of Nerull's abilities or capacities, I would be very interested in hearing it; as it looks to me, Nerull actually can simply hop from lesser god to lesser god and savage them with Annihilating Strike while they fail to Spot him.
Except he can't Spot them either...especially in their home planes, they can simply say his Annihilating Strike doesn't work. Or they can see right through his invisibility. Or his Greater Deity prescience simply blows away his attempts to conceal himself as he launches his first strike...and it misses. And then Pelor comes up behind him and owns his bony butt after a nice call from his pantheonic ally, and proceeds to obliterate Nerull's avatar, cost him a significant amount of power, and while Nerull is scrambling to reform, two dozen gods proceed to wipe the floor with his worshipers throughout the dimensions, reducing his status to intermediate god and now making him horribly vulnerable not only to all the gods he just wanted to snuff, but to all the Evil gods who want the power he gave up...and to any Greater Power that decides to reach over and snuff him.
Anything he does can be countered/exceeded with enough divine resistance and gods willing to make sure he doesn't get his way. And if he pushes the point to much, he's going to get crushed from all sides. Thus, he may WANT to kill everyone...but if he tries, he's going to accomplish nothing but getting himself obliterated if he acts in as overt a manner as you claim he will. Nerull hasn't gotten where he is by acting so stupid. In the interest of his own long term survival (which is why Nerull is not a nihilist...he's a murderer), he's not going to do this, because doing so would get HIM dead...and killing himself just isn't part of his game.
===Aelryinth
A: To predict doesn't mean to know.
B: Rules text trumps flavor text; precognition-as-described doesn't work in a universe with uncertainty. D&D universes have uncertainty.
Uncertainty does exist, but that does not mean that there is already a future that will occur if nothing prevents it.
How so is substantial information provided? Greater gods are continually looking for portfolio-related events; the visions thereof couldn't not have happened (barring Block Sensing). Moreover, the sensing is happening continually; if the same event falls within two deities' Portfolio Sense window, then each will know if the other manages to set up a chain of events that will stop / enable the event.
A greater deity will always get advance notice if their death is imminent. In general, if you know an attack is coming, it will be easy to prevent or escape it in some way. Thus the rules point towards universal inaction.
In addition, this doesn't get around the fact that you still need to predict, e.g., every dice roll that will happen in the next half-year of game time, as well as the reactions of every NPC in the game world, for portfolio sense to work.
No you don't. The DM can determine what will happen in their game without the need for dice rolls, the same way that dice rolls aren't necessary to determine which plot hook the DM plans to use to lead the party into an adventure.
Incidentally, you've turned it from destroying the world in an evening to destroying the world in a month; you can still round up thousands of humanoids easily and without being noticed (consider the body counts adventurers rack up clearing out orc forts and goblin mines), have Spectre-0 convert them all and force them to follow your orders, and then send in your undead strike force to the first city of your choice. In 2.5 hours, send strike forces 2 through 93 to the next 92 cities you want to explode. Repeat.
Sorry, were you saying something amusing about how easy it was to modify the rules to disable easy breakage?
By slowing it down from an evening to a month, a substantial amount of time is created for detection to occur and for someone to actually do something about it. A thousand undead will eventually attract notice from someone.
A horde of CR 7 spectres moving towards a city . . . is frankly not that impressive, when the real threats in a D&D world may involve a flight of dragons.
Yes, that is nice to say and all, but if evil only confronts Good and Neutrality in arenas where superior numbers don't count (killing Prime citizens faster than they can breed or be resurrected being an excellent example thereof), then evil has the advantage.
You are picking the arena to suit your argument. Who is to say that the Good and Neutral powers won't simply hunt down and exterminae the renegade evil deity? And are you really trying to tell me that Nerull is more powerful than every deity of Good and Neutrality combined??!!!
IncidentallyIt is slightly more appropriate in a deific conflict to leave "Step 2: A miracle occurs." in place, but still not that good. What, exactly, is your detailed plan for stopping Nerull if he can get a head-start in the divine-domain-time-shifting deal and therefore gain a five-million-to-one on the rest of you?
Simple. Divine-domain-time-shifting deals, if they work, can be utilized by everyone else. Alternatively, ban such time-shifting-deals.
IncidentallyCome to that, how do you find him in the first place?
Portfolio sensing where he will attack, or simply walking into his divine realm (these are, after all, a legion of Good and Neutral deities who can easily, easily take Nerull, even at home) and wiping out the seat of his power and divvying up his artifacts.
IncidentallyEqual opposing forces only balance if it's just as easy for one alternative to happen as another. If you have two people in a city with nukes, and one wants to destroy the city and the other doesn't, they're equal in power, but the one who wants to destroy the city is going to get his desire regardless.
You overlook the direct route of simply killing Nerull.
IncidentallyI agree, as I've said earlier; in a universe with overdeities, there is one high-level character (or two, if you count Pun-Pun), and if either of them decide that there's going to be a Time of Troubles, then they get their way.
And fortunately, that's not a problem. Pun-pun doesn't exist in any reasonable game (rules loopholes simply don't exist in D&D literature, because that would be foolish), and overdeities protect their creations.
IncidentallyIf it's just gods, and one god decides to start killing people, then he's going to kill a lot of people, because it's easier to kill people than it is to revive them.
If it's just high-level characters, then, well, if not spectre-bombs, then simply Gating to a pool of lava on the Elemental Plane of Fire while flying over a city you don't like.
There are a limited number of deities and other high-level beings who are willing to attempt to destroy the world. The ones dumb enough to try will be brutally exterminated, because they are not the majority. With the exception of flaws in the rules, the system is set up so that if there are 3 beings of equal ECL, and two of them try to kill the remaining one, the two will succeed. That's the definition of ECL and CR.
IncidentallyIt's possible to come up with a handful of ways in which a high-level wizard can destroy a city in an afternoon, but when two sides fight, the side that has the greatest capacity to ignore the constraints of reality generally wins. If you give a wizard a day to destroy a city, will you posit that a high-level wizard can do so, with little effort and risk?
I don't deny that a high-level character can level a city. I deny that such a character can do so and manage to survive the retaliation, and because high-level characters are generally survivors and often intelligent beings, most will not try.
IncidentallyYes, said wizard might get hunted down for his pains. But it's a bit tricky to catch people with Mind Blank, Teleport, Contingency, Plane Shift, and the like. Cities, conversely, are notoriously easy to catch.
We've covered this over and over. Catching him is possible with divinations that ask for a deity to intercede with Divine Sensing.
I find it odd that you can ignore the Divine Sensing rules and call them stupid, when you yourself choose to use the most treacherous loopholes you can find.
IncidentallyPlus, a lot of the instability is inherent. How can you have a functioning economy when you have Fabricate and Wall of Iron?
I agree with you, you cannot. That's a problem with the rules that does need to be dealt with, and currently the only solution is to invoke the wrath of a deity of commerce upon someone who tries.
How can you have castles when low-level wizards can Dimension Leap right through the walls, or just fly over them?
Simple. The vast majority of all beings are low-level, and a castle is still good against them. A castle doesn't protect you from everything, but if it keeps grunts from simply charging at you, then it has served a purpose as a defensive fortification.
All fortifications can be beaten, and it doesn't even take a wizard. A simple catapult will do. However, by forcing the enemy to resort to using a catapult or a wizard, an advanatage has already been gained.
And you keep assuming that it's just as easy to de-kill (or prevent the killing) of people as it is to kill them. It is infinitely easier to break the world than it is to preserve it, as the rules are currently written; if you'd like to address this point and explain how it is you actually expect to recover from mass slaughter without actual divine intervention, please feel free to do so.
You have a dichotomy here. On the one hand, you assert that it's easy to kill people, and on the other, you assert that it's nearly impossible to kill this murderer.
Killing is easy in D&D. Fortunately, this goes both ways, and as I have argued, a killer can himself be killed.
QUOTE=robertliguori;12867029]Wonderful. You get right on that hunting for the Superior Invisible, Mind-Blanked lich. Good luck with that; given the lich's possible spell selections, you'll be searching the entire planar multiverse (with the possible exception of the area right around the Spire, and probably the Good planes).
Ready, go.
Sure:
1. I cast Divination, and ask my deity where the lich is. My deity uses his sensing abilities, and answers.
2. I cast miracle to do the above (which is probably more fair, since miracle is a 9th-level spell, which would more appropriately beat the 8th-level mind blank).
3. I cast an epic spell designed to get past mind blank.
4. I find someone who can do one of the above.
See? We can play this all day. Every spell and tactic has a counter.
QUOTE=robertliguori;12867029]As for the divine patrons, well, evil has divine patrons, too, and they will know that Good has interfered (which causes Good to know that Evil knows, which causes Evil to know that Good knows that Evil knows, and so on ad infinitum).
Good and Evil (or preservation and destruction) aren't equally balanced; with the same power level, it's easier to cause one than the other.
It is easier to cause destruction than to undo it. Thankfully, that's what Neutrality is there for, to preserve the status quo. Twice the divine firepower, twice the actions, twice the servants, twice the same broken spells, etc.
Good and Evil (or preservation and destruction) aren't equally balanced; with the same power level, it's easier to cause one than the other.You've got an...interesting definition of logic. "Two is more than one, therefore two Paladin3s will triumph over one nightwalker." is not an example thereof, as I use the word. If you're playing in a world in which every street corner has Forbiddance and Hallow up, in which every town can call in Greater-Teleporting cavalry at a moment's notice, in which towns are protected against flying wizards dropping nastiness on them from above or sending burrowing death from below, then yes, your world is reasonably secure from wizard20s deciding to re-draw the map.
Please don't resort to straw man arguments.
You know as well as I do that the forces of Good and Neutrality are not pathetically weak.
Maybe in your world, where the deities of Evil are all overdeities, and the deities of Good and Neutrality are level 1 commoners, this might be true. This doesn't hold for the rest of us however.
In terms of power, Good, Neutrality, and Evil are all equal. Thus, Good + Neutrality > Evil. I don't see how my logic can be more clear.
Unless of course, you are insisting that 1 > 1 +
However, any area that isn't protected by a high-level character (in the sense of a high-level character personally watching over the area) is pretty darn vulnerable to the assault of another high-level character. If you have a Paladin5/Cleric10 of St. Cuthbert on every street corner, you're in reasonably good shape. (Reasonably.)
That's not necessary. The evil character will undoubtedly destroy a city. Then he will die.But declaring that Good can auto-magically locate, track down, and destroy Evil in absence of even the vaguest whiff of rule-support thereof isn't logic, and if Evil can go where Good isn't right at the moment, then Evil can do a lot of damage.
I've shown you plenty of ways that an evil being that chooses to announce its presences by destroying a city can be tracked down.
Is your argument that high level characters automatically disrupt the world or that the rules are inherently broken or both?
Honestly, to play D&D, you need a DM. That's there in the RAW, and it's the place of the DM to be the judge and arbiter not only of what the players want to do within the rules but of what happens in the rest of the world. And the judge is needed because like any complex set of rules, the were cobbled together from multiple writers with various different assumptions of the way the universe works and what's going on.
As DM, you are perfectly welcome to say, "By the RAW or RAI, Nerull ate the sun last Tuesday and the entire prime material is a blasted wasteland of wandering spectres and molten lava pouring in through a gate from the Elemental Plane of Fire." That might be an interesting game, but it's not the one most people want to play.
The usual interpretation that DMs take with the world is that the Gods, while having strong objectives, are also immortal and have the personality of immortals, making plans that take eons to bring to fruition, rather than acting like a bunch of insane three-year-olds wanting to eat all the candy now with no concept of "delayed gratification." I can say with perfect reasonableness as a DM that Nerull, as lord of death and decay, really doesn't want to skip the decay so he can have his death right now. Destroying the world with a spectre bomb is putting ten million souls in a beer luge and guzzling them at once and he's already done that with previous universes and now he wishes to savor the slow exquisite death of Alhandra rather than be a pig about things.
Similarly, I can say that all high level NPCs have developed hobbies. Being able to level the city is a fact of life for the archmage but what he wants right now is to go to the fish market and pick up a nice fish for dinner, or maybe to polymorph into a riding dog, because he's never polymorphed a fish into a riding dog before, and wouldn't it be funny if sometime some halfling riding along on his riding dog runs into a paladin with a holy avenger who dispels magic and suddenly the dog turns into a large fish?
And as for worshippers of Nerull, well, when the high level evil priest communes with his god, Nerull tells him he's not into the beer luge of souls this week so hold off on the spectre bomb. What he'd really like is for the priest to arrange for Alhandra to lose her paladinhood so she can catch something nasty and then Nerull can savor her slow and protracted death to leprosy or whatever the D&D equivalent is.
As for the archmage who decides he wants to rule the universe, that's when he suddenly starts running into all the other archmages who've been hanging out and they tell him to chill out, pick up a hobby and don't mess with other people's arcane experiments. Bobby the sorcerer over there has been doing genetic experiments on this town for five generations, and if you blow it up, you'll completely mess up the experiment and he'll be ******.
And before you say that's not in the RAW, the RAW says I get to interpret the rules however I like and have the NPCs do whatever I want. I can pull arcane conspiracies out of the woodwork, or just say that the Arcane Order from Complete Arcane has a whole bureaucracy to deal with this exact sort of trouble and will deal with anyone who doesn't get with the program.
One word: Inevitables.
The writers of D&D already planned for characters abusing their power. Inevitables were made to address issues that could develop. For example, characters who do large-scale reanimations or slaughters of innocent people will get inevitables sicced on them. If one fails, more will come their way. The same holds for characters who manipulate diplomacy/contracts continuously, screw around with the flow of time, and so on.
I extend this concept to address other things.
Spectre infestation wiping out major towns? A few inevitables from Mechanus will plane shift to deal with this.
Insane 100-beholder-large cult disintegrating its way to the Earth's core one 100x100x10 square at a time? There is a special legion of inevitables just to deal with that. "Sir, another one of them's at it again. Send out the Olykharuts." (Courtesy of a player in one of my campaigns)
Wizard plane shifting to the 4872934198347th layer of the abyss, which happens to be populated entirely by high-powered, nonsentient laser guns which disintegrate anything they hit in one shot? When he gets back to his home plane, he will run into a squad of golden celestials, who will mercilessly torture him to death for his actions.
Maybe it's time in your campaign to get the inevitables involved?
Inevitables can't Teleport or Greater Plane Shift. They need hours to get from their Prime landing point to the city in question at least; if they land on the other side of a mountain range, they could need much more.
Spectre-bombs, if you're willing to abandon stealth and jump right to the mob stage, grow damn fast. Assuming 1d4 rounds to find a victim (sometimes the spectre's within charging range, sometimes they need to hunt around a bit), you have a 5-round delay on average between generation S(n) and S(n+1).
Let's assume that a Marut shows up just as the spectre-bomb begins. Let's give him absolutely ideal conditions, and that he plane-shifts the minimal 5 miles outside the city, and that he's got a straight run along a road to get there. Moving at twelve miles an hour, he will show up in 25 minutes.
Let's say that our spectre-bomber feels the need to get a bite to eat and use the restroom before he demolishes the city. Let's say that he takes an entirely excessive ten minutes before setting S(0) on the city. That leaves 15 minutes of growth. After the first 5 minutes, there are more than a thousand spectres. 5 minutes after that, each spectre can generate another 1024 spectres. The city belongs to the dead long before the Marut reaches the front gates. Of course, once the marut gets there, he has one Chain Lightning and one Forcecage; nothing else will be remotely useful.
And the greatest thing is that because the spectre-bomb is the natural consequence of the rules of how spectres work, the Marut won't be showing up in the first place. The rules of reality state that if you put a spectre in a city, you get a city full of spectres right damn quickly, and in so doing, you greatly decrease the average amount of chaos in the world.
So, inevitables not only can't do anything about spectre-bombing (assuming they lack the ability to cover every single Prime population center), but they have no reason to, either. In fact, one would really expect the inevitables to be on the side of people following the rules, such as dying when confronted with a spectre. If anything, the inevitables are going to be on the spectre-bomber's side. How, then, would getting them involved solve the problem.
Also, as a general comment: many of the responses I've gotten have been narrative responses, of the vein that Person or Faction X would get involve and handle the problem. However, they have been extremely short on actually explaining how, within the confines of the rules, P/F X will accomplish this task. Inevitables, as statted, lack the capacity to innately recognize that a spectre-bombing is happening, to get to the location of the spectre-bomb in time to disrupt it, and the ability to actually disrupt it once it's started happening. Why, then, should we assume that their influence would be significant?
Man. Top of mountain. Pile of rocks. Other men. Bottom of mountain. Pile of rocks. Man on top wins. Nature of universe is such that ease of dropping rocks off mountain counters numerical advantage.
Asymmetry between attacks and defenses in pencil-and-paper RPG arises due to design-inevitabilities of the genre. They are not available for designing out: the game will be less playable, not more, if we try and do so.
The principle issue is the desire for resolution. If defenses were equal to or more effective than attacks, resolution would not occur or would occur in far too protracted a fashion for enjoyable play over sessions of reasonable length. (That includes the situation where roshambo-like elaborations permit intricately structured attacks to succeed. While pleasant as a veneer, if laid on thickly these become unwieldy for players.)
In the end, inevitably, it is when attacks are superior to defenses that our game comes to life. The game is exciting. We get resolutions within a session.
For that reason, it is an error to try and design out the advantage to attackers. If we do so, we are making a game for an idealized audience and not for the real people who are our players.
Guess what? If you have ten nations with massive nuclear arsenals, and one of them wants to destroy everything, then there is going to be a massive nuclear war. The ability to do does not imply the ability to undo; unless the good gods can make people as fast as Nerull can unmake them (hint: they can't), then numbers or even relative power levels mean nothing...
Ultimately, it's a matter of military theory; attackers can press the offensive where the defense is weakest.
Real world examples avail us little here. One, because in the real world attacks are weaker than defenses, as a matter of military theory. The average ratio cited by expert analysts such as James F Dunnigan, (who is also a boardgames maker and a war games maker for the US military) being that defenses are 3:1x more effective than attacks. The military theory (of local superiority) that you are referring to arises because of this difficulty rather than in evidence of the superiority of belligerence. Many wars have been extremely costly for their initiators.
So in the real world, the proffered argument does not hold up, or it holds up in only a subset of cases and may not be used to form a general basis for conclusion. The reason all our cities are not radioactive slag is that, however easy it may be to imagine two people with nuclear weapons sitting in New York, the reality has failed to be so readily achievable.
Intuition-pumps of the kind you wish to use rely on being set out so as to ignore complicating factors in order to place the burden upon the other party to remember to re-inject them. If the other party fails to do so, then un-surprisingly they leap us to the wrong conclusion. I don't mean here to suggest you are not arguing in good faith, but only to critique a rhetorical gambit.
But secondly they don't avail us because this is an arbitrary and intentionally fantastical system - a game - so we can ignore the real world. In which case refer to my argument at top.
BTW I was eagerly awaiting rebuttal on models of foretelling, and am anguished not to see one ;)
Also, as a general comment: many of the responses I've gotten have been narrative responses, of the vein that Person or Faction X would get involve and handle the problem. However, they have been extremely short on actually explaining how, within the confines of the rules, P/F X will accomplish this task.
As a general comment, those responses have been the ones you spend most time responding to because they suit your line of rhetoric.
You have failed to rebut at any point the simple argument summarized by the words 'arbitrated non-zero-sum', as expounded most recently by Kevin Andrew Murphy. In fact your first comment on those words, when I raised them, is that you had no idea what they meant.
You want to say RAW is broken, without acknowledging the involvement of the DM in giving RAW effect. In my game Nerull takes his pleasure in the precise details of death. He savors the lingering illness of a loved single daughter as a banquet. He has no interest in spectre-bombing. He may even feel it was time to visit a little permanent death on any lich who chose to do so in his name without asking his permission. In your game Nerull has already killed all of your players.
Umm, okay... is that working for you?
I'm what? I'm playing the gods with a modicum of intelligence and seeking to survive? You sure are treating them stupid. If it's a choice between being picked off by Nerull and joining forces, gods will join forces like any rational being.
Quit being insulted...this is the wrong board for that.
The point which I am making is that the gods don't get a choice; there's nothing they can do to actually stop Nerull, team-up or not.
Man, top of Mountain, has nowhere to hide. Gets picked off by the first archer down below. Nature of the universe is that when the big nail sticks it's head up, it gets nailed down the hardest.
Said man is order-of 3,000 feet away from said archers. I wouldn't worry overmuch myself, especially when you consider that it's a lot easier to keep cover while pushing rocks over a cliff then hauling them back up.
Plus, you have completely failed to address the actual point of my example; do you concede that not all tasks are neatly reversible, and that you can sometimes get much greater effect in a system by applying a little force in one direction versus a lot of force in an opposing direction?
Except for the fact you can wander into another deity's home plane and suddenly your spells don't work there because the deity said they don't. And it's their home plane you can't counteract them without showing yourself. And merely mortal magic is not guaranteed to stop divine powers, especially since there are deities with true seeing to the limit of their vision.
Also, those other deities are doing the same to you...how on Eternity are you going to FIND them?
There are two scales going on here. On the mortal scale, said spells are an excellent defense. On a divine scale, they're not, but on a divine scale, you don't need to hide; you can simply blitz the Prime with incorporeal undead.
I'm getting the feeling you have absolutely no imagination. D@D actually has very few factions that want to annihilate everything....they have a lot of factions that want to take over/rule everything, but the number of nihilists is quite low. And the problem with being a nihilist is EVERYONE wants to stop you, use you, and then have no reluctance at all in killing you.
Seriously. Nerull's priests are all over Greyhawk, and they aren't nihilists. Vecna's cults are nihilists...and quite tellingly, they have no divine allies whatsoever, including Nerull.
I'm assuming you are using a heretofore-unprecedented definition of 'has no imagination' which actually means 'reads and understands the rules'. If this is the case, then yes, I most definitely have no imagination. D&D has the yugoloths, the tanar'ri and other chaotic evil outsiders (see FCI and II respectively for said nihilism), the text for Nerull himself and a an entire host of undead creatures.
I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about here. I think what you are saying is that Eight Deities of lower power can't kill a deity of higher power. To which I'm just going to laugh and laugh and laugh. If mortals can kill gods, gods can, have and will kill more powerful gods. The whole Olympian Pantheon is based on this.
That's pretty much exactly what I'm saying. When you're done laughing, I'd like to see an actual write up of which gods would be using what abilities to find and engage Nerull. Please keep Nerull's Hide modifier and other salient abilities in mind when you perform the write-up; I would be geninuely interested in what you think the rules say the Intermediates-and-under can do.
Except he can't Spot them either...especially in their home planes, they can simply say his Annihilating Strike doesn't work. Or they can see right through his invisibility. Or his Greater Deity prescience simply blows away his attempts to conceal himself as he launches his first strike...and it misses. And then Pelor comes up behind him and owns his bony butt after a nice call from his pantheonic ally, and proceeds to obliterate Nerull's avatar, cost him a significant amount of power, and while Nerull is scrambling to reform, two dozen gods proceed to wipe the floor with his worshipers throughout the dimensions, reducing his status to intermediate god and now making him horribly vulnerable not only to all the gods he just wanted to snuff, but to all the Evil gods who want the power he gave up...and to any Greater Power that decides to reach over and snuff him.
You do realize that your plan is predicated on a Nerull, who always rolls virtual 20s, missing an attack roll against a flat-footed foe of lesser CR? Do you have any actual idea how this might happen within the context of the rules?
Also, all of your points about it being hard to assault a deity in their home plane apply equally to actually getting to Nerull. Again, really would like to see a write-up with some numbers before you start proclaiming that the lesser gods would defeat Nerull because there are more of them.
Anything he does can be countered/exceeded with enough divine resistance and gods willing to make sure he doesn't get his way. And if he pushes the point to much, he's going to get crushed from all sides. Thus, he may WANT to kill everyone...but if he tries, he's going to accomplish nothing but getting himself obliterated if he acts in as overt a manner as you claim he will. Nerull hasn't gotten where he is by acting so stupid. In the interest of his own long term survival (which is why Nerull is not a nihilist...he's a murderer), he's not going to do this, because doing so would get HIM dead...and killing himself just isn't part of his game.
===Aelryinth
Thankfully, Nerull has his reliable chorus of singing undead potatoes to counteract the unspecified 'divine resistance' of the other gods.
Seriously. You wanna tell me how this is actually going to happen? It's not hard to do write-ups for god-on-god matches; you don't even have to roll for the greater gods. Given two scenarios, one in which Nerull holes up in his home plane and spams the Prime with deadly undead and one in which he actively goes god-hunting, what rules, stats, abilities, and powers do you foresee as being relevant and in need of comparison? Does it bother you in the slightest to know that none of the intermediate gods have Spot modifers that are capable of locating Nerull?
Uncertainty does exist, but that does not mean that there is already a future that will occur if nothing prevents it.
Uh, yes, uncertainty means exactly that. You can't have a mortal destined to save vs. a Finger of Death and then actually roll the dice. Moreover, since the future from that point depends on whether or not that mortal lives or dies, you can't meaningfully predict the future past a single dice roll.
A greater deity will always get advance notice if their death is imminent. In general, if you know an attack is coming, it will be easy to prevent or escape it in some way. Thus the rules point towards universal inaction.
However, the attacking deity also gets similar advance notice, and can adjust their own plans to compensate. This leads to an infinitely looping set of causality that not only renders play impossible but couldn't exist in the first place due to free will.
No you don't. The DM can determine what will happen in their game without the need for dice rolls, the same way that dice rolls aren't necessary to determine which plot hook the DM plans to use to lead the party into an adventure.
Now you're not playing D&D, you're writing a story. The DM is necessary to arbitrate the rules, yes, but it is not his job to replace them with his moment-by-moment whims.
By slowing it down from an evening to a month, a substantial amount of time is created for detection to occur and for someone to actually do something about it. A thousand undead will eventually attract notice from someone.
Well, when they attack, yes. What kind of notice were you expecting them to give before that?
A horde of CR 7 spectres moving towards a city . . . is frankly not that impressive, when the real threats in a D&D world may involve a flight of dragons.
I would truly love to see some justification for this statement.
You are picking the arena to suit your argument. Who is to say that the Good and Neutral powers won't simply hunt down and exterminate the renegade evil deity? And are you really trying to tell me that Nerull is more powerful than every deity of Good and Neutrality combined??!!!
The inability of Good and Neutral to hunt down Evil doesn't mean that Evil is stronger, it means that it's easier for a lone individual to keep on the run than it is to catch him. Not to mention, Nerull can always hole up in any number of time-shifted planes where he can dump millions of years worth of accumulated evil on the Prime in a few weeks their time.
Simple. Divine-domain-time-shifting deals, if they work, can be utilized by everyone else. Alternatively, ban such time-shifting-deals.
The second answer is good. The rules for gods are bad, and should be changed. The first still exposes the core problem; evil can mass-produce evil champions much more easily than good can mass-produce Good champions. Given a thousand years prep-time starting from scratch, Nerull can farm a population of fast-growing humanoids and turn each and every single one into a heavy-hitting undead upon their death. Good, conversely, has to do things the hard way.
Portfolio sensing where he will attack, or simply walking into his divine realm (these are, after all, a legion of Good and Neutral deities who can easily, easily take Nerull, even at home) and wiping out the seat of his power and divvying up his artifacts.
Nerull can portfolio-sense that they've sensed it and attack elsewhere. Repeat until universe implodes from failed chain of causality. Barring that, he Hides. Nerull has a starting +90 on Hide checks. Call me back when you've got a god lined up who can Spot that, given that Nerull is on his home turf.
And fortunately, that's not a problem. Pun-pun doesn't exist in any reasonable game (rules loopholes simply don't exist in D&D literature, because that would be foolish), and overdeities protect their creations.
The history of Faerun strongly suggests that they don't, and certainly aren't averse to mucking around with their creations themselves. Again, the Time of Troubles was not an action taken by an overdeity with any concern for the stability of his creation.
There are a limited number of deities and other high-level beings who are willing to attempt to destroy the world. The ones dumb enough to try will be brutally exterminated, because they are not the majority. With the exception of flaws in the rules, the system is set up so that if there are 3 beings of equal ECL, and two of them try to kill the remaining one, the two will succeed. That's the definition of ECL and CR.
Uh, no, not really. You're not going to kill a lot of goblins with Shrieker mushrooms. You're also not going to kill many flying creatures with earthbound monstrous animals or vermin. You aren't going to ever kill an incorporeal creature without magic, full stop. CR measures how challenging creatures are in a straight-up fight vs. an average party of PCs; nothing more or less.
Plus, as mentioned, it's not even a contest of god vs. god in a fight. It's a question of god trying to destroy everything (easy) vs. gods trying to find and stop other god (hard).
I don't deny that a high-level character can level a city. I deny that such a character can do so and manage to survive the retaliation, and because high-level characters are generally survivors and often intelligent beings, most will not try.
OK, now you need to look at the time it takes to notice the destruction, put together a team of agents, identify the perp, find him, reach him, and neutralize him. Balance that against the time it takes to destroy a city.
That's a lot of dead cities. Now, start sweeping up the non-urban population that no one much cares about, and you've got a lot of dead people.
We've covered this over and over. Catching him is possible with divinations that ask for a deity to intercede with Divine Sensing.
Not against a Mind-Blanked target, you can't. You can holler your God's title and ask him to give you information on a Mind-Blanked target, sure, but you can't use divinations to do so. That's what the rules say.
I find it odd that you can ignore the Divine Sensing rules and call them stupid, when you yourself choose to use the most treacherous loopholes you can find.
Divine Sensing renders the game unplayable, in the sense of "No actions can be taken." rather than "This world sucks." It flatly denies how the D&D world must be given that it's a universe with embedded uncertainty, and provides no actual provisions for the free will of any characters.
I agree with you, you cannot. That's a problem with the rules that does need to be dealt with, and currently the only solution is to invoke the wrath of a deity of commerce upon someone who tries.
Still doesn't deal with the problem of the god of commerce deciding to do it, though. Like I said, as long as you have powerful agents, you will have an unstable world.
Simple. The vast majority of all beings are low-level, and a castle is still good against them. A castle doesn't protect you from everything, but if it keeps grunts from simply charging at you, then it has served a purpose as a defensive fortification.
All fortifications can be beaten, and it doesn't even take a wizard. A simple catapult will do. However, by forcing the enemy to resort to using a catapult or a wizard, an advanatage has already been gained.
Indeed, you have limited the people who can attack your castle to those who can breach your walls and defenses. However, depending on the relative rarity of wizards (or of wizards that want to breach your castle), why would you build a castle in the first place, instead of just getting yourself trained to be a wizard yourself?
You have a dichotomy here. On the one hand, you assert that it's easy to kill people, and on the other, you assert that it's nearly impossible to kill this murderer.
It is unbelievably easy to kill loads of commoners. It's much more difficult to kill high-level characters.
Killing is easy in D&D. Fortunately, this goes both ways, and as I have argued, a killer can himself be killed.
It's unbelievably easy to find a mass of low-level characters. It's much more difficult to find a high-level character that doesn't want to be found.
Sure:
1. I cast Divination, and ask my deity where the lich is. My deity uses his sensing abilities, and answers.
2. I cast miracle to do the above (which is probably more fair, since miracle is a 9th-level spell, which would more appropriately beat the 8th-level mind blank).
3. I cast an epic spell designed to get past mind blank.
4. I find someone who can do one of the above.
See? We can play this all day. Every spell and tactic has a counter.
1 and 2: Fail. Read the rules.
The intent of 1 and 2 can be done with flat deific intervention, of course, but if the god are involved, finding the lich won't help, as Nerull's horde of spectre-generating undead casters will descend on the world momentarily and stopping any one or any thousand of them won't really help.
3: The lich can have an Epic ward up, then.
4: The lich can also have flunkies.
Not only do counter-tactics also have counters, it's usually simpler to do so (or to simply match them) than it is the original tactic.
It is easier to cause destruction than to undo it. Thankfully, that's what Neutrality is there for, to preserve the status quo. Twice the divine firepower, twice the actions, twice the servants, twice the same broken spells, etc.
This is certainly true, but it's more than twice as hard to turn a lump of meat into a person than it is a person into a lump of meat.
Please don't resort to straw man arguments.
You know as well as I do that the forces of Good and Neutrality are not pathetically weak.
Maybe in your world, where the deities of Evil are all overdeities, and the deities of Good and Neutrality are level 1 commoners, this might be true. This doesn't hold for the rest of us however.
In terms of power, Good, Neutrality, and Evil are all equal. Thus, Good + Neutrality > Evil. I don't see how my logic can be more clear.
Unless of course, you are insisting that 1 > 1 +
Because I'm not measuring the electric charge potential of cosmic forces. I'm measuring what you can do with them. The fact that the combined forces of Good can beat up Nerull does not mean that the combined forces of Good can find individual hidden Evil agents or undo their damage before the Prime is pretty much sterilized.
It's the terrorist equation. The U.S. army can take all comers in a straight-up fight, but they have only a fraction of their effectiveness against an enemy that doesn't actually fight them straight-up.
That's not necessary. The evil character will undoubtedly destroy a city. Then he will die.
Now the questions become: What is the ratio of evil characters to urban centers? How many evil characters are willing to risk death to achieve infamy, and have everyone in the world know their name as the one who leveled Waterdeep?
I've shown you plenty of ways that an evil being that chooses to announce its presences by destroying a city can be tracked down.
Haven't seen a one that didn't involve Epic or D&D (both of which make destroying the world that much easier). Could you please re-summarize, noting when you're invoking one of those two books?
Robert--
Is your argument that high level characters automatically disrupt the world or that the rules are inherently broken or both?
Honestly, to play D&D, you need a DM. That's there in the RAW, and it's the place of the DM to be the judge and arbiter not only of what the players want to do within the rules but of what happens in the rest of the world. And the judge is needed because like any complex set of rules, the were cobbled together from multiple writers with various different assumptions of the way the universe works and what's going on.
As DM, you are perfectly welcome to say, "By the RAW or RAI, Nerull ate the sun last Tuesday and the entire prime material is a blasted wasteland of wandering spectres and molten lava pouring in through a gate from the Elemental Plane of Fire." That might be an interesting game, but it's not the one most people want to play.
Indeed, my entire point is that RAW and RAI diverge wildly. 20th level liches should pose a drastic and dire threat to the entire Prime, if they so choose, but it should be the kind of threat that can be countered by other 20th level characters. There needs to be a limit on the amount of damage a single high-level character can wreak in a given span of time for this to work; due to the way certain spells and effects work, there really isn't.
Now, you can simply use RAW as a rough guide to RAI, and end up with magic-resistant ship hulls, undead that stop spawning at generation S6, and the like, and if you're quick enough on the draw and your players don't mind the odd inconsistency, you can run a perfectly serviceable game of D&D. But as soon as you try to discuss what's going on with someone who isn't playing under your adapted rule set, you lose a portion of what the common expectation of what D&D is.
I, personally, would much prefer if D&D would take into account the sum total of idiot-rule bug-fixes that almost all DMs implement and give it official or semi-official standing.
The usual interpretation that DMs take with the world is that the Gods, while having strong objectives, are also immortal and have the personality of immortals, making plans that take eons to bring to fruition, rather than acting like a bunch of insane three-year-olds wanting to eat all the candy now with no concept of "delayed gratification." I can say with perfect reasonableness as a DM that Nerull, as lord of death and decay, really doesn't want to skip the decay so he can have his death right now. Destroying the world with a spectre bomb is putting ten million souls in a beer luge and guzzling them at once and he's already done that with previous universes and now he wishes to savor the slow exquisite death of Alhandra rather than be a pig about things.
The issue I have with this philosophy is that Nerull still can destroy the world if he so chooses; he's just chosen not to today. If he decides to do so tomorrow, then world fall down go boom. What happens if Nerull changes his mind?
Yes, as DM, you can adjudicate that he never does, but what happens when enough of his small-scale games get frustrated? Isn't, in this world, the good thing to do to ensure that Nerull and the other dark gods remain sated, so they don't decide to destroy everything? Isn't Alhandra pushing Nerull to be that much more likely to let loose the spectres of war if she resists his dark will? This type of game doesn't appeal to me much more than the post-apocalyptic game; Nerull should be trying but currently unable to destroy the world.
Similarly, I can say that all high level NPCs have developed hobbies. Being able to level the city is a fact of life for the archmage but what he wants right now is to go to the fish market and pick up a nice fish for dinner, or maybe to polymorph into a riding dog, because he's never polymorphed a fish into a riding dog before, and wouldn't it be funny if sometime some halfling riding along on his riding dog runs into a paladin with a holy avenger who dispels magic and suddenly the dog turns into a large fish?
And as for worshipers of Nerull, well, when the high level evil priest communes with his god, Nerull tells him he's not into the beer luge of souls this week so hold off on the spectre bomb. What he'd really like is for the priest to arrange for Alhandra to lose her paladinhood so she can catch something nasty and then Nerull can savor her slow and protracted death to leprosy or whatever the D&D equivalent is.
As for the archmage who decides he wants to rule the universe, that's when he suddenly starts running into all the other archmages who've been hanging out and they tell him to chill out, pick up a hobby and don't mess with other people's arcane experiments. Bobby the sorcerer over there has been doing genetic experiments on this town for five generations, and if you blow it up, you'll completely mess up the experiment and he'll be ******.
There are still a finite number of high-level characters to take personal interest in any area. Now, if the actual number is high enough, then you can get a well-defended area, proof against random intrusion from moderately-leveled foes, but you should also get noticeable signs of the high-level guardianship. Notably, there should be not even a vestige of the feudal system around, if everyone knows that wizards trump knights 99 times out of 100. Again, it works perfectly well, but you also need to take into account that such a world will pull away from D&D's pseudo-medieval feel very very quickly.
And before you say that's not in the RAW, the RAW says I get to interpret the rules however I like and have the NPCs do whatever I want. I can pull arcane conspiracies out of the woodwork, or just say that the Arcane Order from Complete Arcane has a whole bureaucracy to deal with this exact sort of trouble and will deal with anyone who doesn't get with the program.
What happens if a character manages to assume Regent status and ends up gutting the Arcane Order from within? As I said previously, the world is as stable as its most powerful guardians can enforce. An international confederation of mages can provide extremely rapid and effective response to almost any threat. However, the fact that they exist and are capable of doing so will obsolete other types of threats (like the aforementioned random hordes of goblinoids and orcs). If the DM is willing to actually look at what a confederation could and would do to the development of a world, you will get an extremely interesting game, but not one that bears a great resemblance to classic D&D.
Asymmetry between attacks and defenses in pencil-and-paper RPG arises due to design-inevitabilities of the genre. They are not available for designing out: the game will be less playable, not more, if we try and do so.
The principle issue is the desire for resolution. If defenses were equal to or more effective than attacks, resolution would not occur or would occur in far too protracted a fashion for enjoyable play over sessions of reasonable length. (That includes the situation where roshambo-like elaborations permit intricately structured attacks to succeed. While pleasant as a veneer, if laid on thickly these become unwieldy for players.)
In the end, inevitably, it is when attacks are superior to defenses that our game comes to life. The game is exciting. We get resolutions within a session.
For that reason, it is an error to try and design out the advantage to attackers. If we do so, we are making a game for an idealized audience and not for the real people who are our players.
I certainly agree with this point, but the statement I was making above wasn't specifically dealing with attack vs. defense. It was pointing out that in any universe with even a superficial resemblance to our own, these sort of inequalities will exist, and will need to be taken into account before you can estimate which of two competing sides is more likely to win.
Real world examples avail us little here. One, because in the real world attacks are weaker than defenses, as a matter of military theory. The average ratio cited by expert analysts such as James F Dunnigan, (who is also a boardgames maker and a war games maker for the US military) being that defenses are 3:1x more effective than attacks. The military theory (of local superiority) that you are referring to arises because of this difficulty rather than in evidence of the superiority of belligerence. Many wars have been extremely costly for their initiators.
So in the real world, the proffered argument does not hold up, or it holds up in only a subset of cases and may not be used to form a general basis for conclusion. The reason all our cities are not radioactive slag is that, however easy it may be to imagine two people with nuclear weapons sitting in New York, the reality has failed to be so readily achievable.
Intuition-pumps of the kind you wish to use rely on being set out so as to ignore complicating factors in order to place the burden upon the other party to remember to re-inject them. If the other party fails to do so, then un-surprisingly they leap us to the wrong conclusion. I don't mean here to suggest you are not arguing in good faith, but only to critique a rhetorical gambit.
But secondly they don't avail us because this is an arbitrary and intentionally fantastical system - a game - so we can ignore the real world. In which case refer to my argument at top.
Again, I agree with what you are saying, but I'm referring to what actually happens when you work with the existing D&D rules than when you try to graft existing military theory onto them. When I talk about a lone spectre being able to destroy a city, it's because I've looked at what a spectre can do, what a city (absent a large amount of specific anti-spectre prep) can do, and come out with one solution. It's certainly not perfect; luck and high-level characters in the right place can help tremendously. However, for the vast majority of cities as written in D&D, under the standard rules of D&D, if a spectre starts spawning, the city dies.
BTW I was eagerly awaiting rebuttal on models of foretelling, and am anguished not to see one ;)
First: Quantum effects do not apply on a macro level. Subatomic particles can be either collapsed or not; cats are either alive or dead.
Next: Time in D&D is explicitly linear, with one 6-second round following the next. This is the really big problem for precognition; if a character is watching a precog for the weeks leading up to their decision to make an action, then the DM can't invoke "He saw you were going to do that and countered it.", because you saw the precog's actions. Absent that, the DM himself actually needs to be precognitive; barring this, there's no way for any feature of the universe to predict either die rolls or player decisions, and hence, no method in the D&D-verse for accurate divination.
Finally: I cheerfully admit that your method of determination may well be the best method of modeling divination. However, since the nature of the D&D-verse is that as the universe progresses, extra possible quantum states are added that could not be perceived before, divination becomes a best-guess tool only. If there exists an equal probability of Nerull striking at any city, then a quantum sense to detect where he will strike before he actually does will not be useful. Moreover, since there is no way for the universe to predict that Nerull might decide to engage in a bit of spectre-bombing on a moment's notice, the quantum state of "Everyone is eaten by incorporeal undead" won't leap out at any quantum observers as probable until it's actually happening.
Now, once it is actually happening, it's quantum signature becomes 1.000: a certainty. But until then, foresight fails to notice it.
I will point out that this model is functionally equivalent to "Precognition doesn't exist.", and that I do like it this way.
Indeed, my entire point is that RAW and RAI diverge wildly. 20th level liches should pose a drastic and dire threat to the entire Prime, if they so choose, but it should be the kind of threat that can be countered by other 20th level characters. There needs to be a limit on the amount of damage a single high-level character can wreak in a given span of time for this to work; due to the way certain spells and effects work, there really isn't.
I think the operative term is "if they so chose." A 20th level lich is an epic character anyway, due to the +4 lich template, so you're talking a 16th level mage with a lich template all things being equal.
I think we're also diverging with the RAI on "should pose a drastic and dire threat to the entire Prime."
As I see it (and there's a whole pile of the RAW to back this up) the main wickedness your average lich is guilty of is giving Death and all the other assorted gods and powers the finger and instead of going to their eternal reward or punishment, just sitting pretty as an undead spellcaster and going about whatever arcane business it is they considered more important.
The goals of "Living Forever" and "Blowing up the World" are honestly a bit at cross purposes. If you're a doomsday cultist, why bother to become a lich unless you need to buy yourself extra time to get to 20th level? One would think that the living spellcasters would pose more of a threat.
Now, you can simply use RAW as a rough guide to RAI, and end up with magic-resistant ship hulls, undead that stop spawning at generation S6, and the like, and if you're quick enough on the draw and your players don't mind the odd inconsistency, you can run a perfectly serviceable game of D&D. But as soon as you try to discuss what's going on with someone who isn't playing under your adapted rule set, you lose a portion of what the common expectation of what D&D is.
D&D requires a ridiculous degree of suspension of disbelief anyway; a little bit more won't hurt anyone.
As players in my game have found out, non-magic resistant ship hulls can be a problem, but Shape Wood is your friend.
I, personally, would much prefer if D&D would take into account the sum total of idiot-rule bug-fixes that almost all DMs implement and give it official or semi-official standing.
It's not going to happen because D&D attempts to market itself as all things to all players and thereby skips all the hard-and-fast rulings that would favor one style of play or world building over another.
Look at the rules like an extremely diverse salad bar: If you heap everything on your plate, you're going to have an unappetizing mess, but if you pick and chose, you should be able to find something that suits you and your players should be able to do the same.
The issue I have with this philosophy is that Nerull still can destroy the world if he so chooses; he's just chosen not to today. If he decides to do so tomorrow, then world fall down go boom. What happens if Nerull changes his mind?
Why would he? Nerull, if you play him by the book, is the god of Death, Evil and Trickery. The beer-luge of souls of a spectre bomb may serve the Death portion of the equation (for some version of "serve," since it does bugger all to destroy plants, including sentient plants), but Evil? Well, they're all undead, so if you've decided that undead=evil, then that might satisfy (though if you go with the business of "free will," it again fails, since most of your spectres didn't chose this and therefore their damnation is at most a technicality, and once they're destroyed, you don't get their souls, so you lose). But Trickery? A spectre bomb might qualify you to be god of Annoying Twinkery or Rules Wanking, but Trickery? No, no prize there.
If you play Nerull as a three-year-old who kicks over the chessboard and runs around yelling "I the winner! I win! Pbbllt!" that's fine, but it's hardly in the RAW and certainly not in my RAI.
Yes, as DM, you can adjudicate that he never does, but what happens when enough of his small-scale games get frustrated? Isn't, in this world, the good thing to do to ensure that Nerull and the other dark gods remain sated, so they don't decide to destroy everything? Isn't Alhandra pushing Nerull to be that much more likely to let loose the spectres of war if she resists his dark will? This type of game doesn't appeal to me much more than the post-apocalyptic game; Nerull should be trying but currently unable to destroy the world.
Actually, no. As god of Death, Evil & Trickery, Nerull's objectives should be as follows:
1. Destroy the world (and that means everyone, not just the humanoids).
2. Damn every soul in the world (and we're talking proper damnation, where folk choose evil over good, not just second-rate stealing and/or destruction of souls).
3. Accomplish the above goals with enough style and panache and unexpected brilliance that even the gods of Life and Good are going "Wow, I didn't see that one coming, Nerull. Well played!" Trickery explicitly does not mean acting like a three-year-old cheating at Old Maid.
There are still a finite number of high-level characters to take personal interest in any area. Now, if the actual number is high enough, then you can get a well-defended area, proof against random intrusion from moderately-leveled foes, but you should also get noticeable signs of the high-level guardianship. Notably, there should be not even a vestige of the feudal system around, if everyone knows that wizards trump knights 99 times out of 100. Again, it works perfectly well, but you also need to take into account that such a world will pull away from D&D's pseudo-medieval feel very very quickly.
D&D has already pulled away from D&D's psuedo-medieval feel. Anyone notice that Alhandra is a woman? Hennet wears modern fetish wear? There are whole prestige classes for 18th century-flavored pirates?
If high level wizards are running the world, the feudal system is still around because it amuses one of them. Ditto pirates and everything else.
Or you can take the approach that most high level wizards don't want to run the world, merely take care of whatever it is they like and most people have sense not to rock the boat. This includes liches, who are high level wizards first and foremost and undead second.
What happens if a character manages to assume Regent status and ends up gutting the Arcane Order from within? As I said previously, the world is as stable as its most powerful guardians can enforce. An international confederation of mages can provide extremely rapid and effective response to almost any threat. However, the fact that they exist and are capable of doing so will obsolete other types of threats (like the aforementioned random hordes of goblinoids and orcs). If the DM is willing to actually look at what a confederation could and would do to the development of a world, you will get an extremely interesting game, but not one that bears a great resemblance to classic D&D.
What on earth is "classic D&D" at this point? 1st edition? I started with that and happily tossed whole chunks of the rules out the window when it suited me. So did every other DM I knew.
So now we have 3.5. We're still salad-barring the rules to our liking. Yes, there are patches that can be applied and then there are whole blanket schools-of-interpretation for DMs.
The school of interpretation I've always subscribed to is "folklore trumps everything." I've come to game with a stack books of folktales alongside my DMG & MM. My specters may have the stats and power of the MM, but they have the motivations and personalities found in any of a hundred ghost stories, and since there are none of those that I've found yet where they've been even the slightest bit interested in specter bombing, it doesn't happen.
Yes, you can say "Those books of folklore are not the RAW!" but honestly, the RAW can't cover anything, and the reason they call a certain sort of undead a specter rather than a mumufarfingagle is because the name is used as shorthand for the DM so he knows how the monster is supposed to be played. I knew what a specter was before I ever saw a D&D book and I know how to roleplay one. I haven't the faintest idea what a mumufarfingagle is, but if someone says it's in the MMV and you can set off a mumufarfingagle bomb and destroy the universe, I say "Not in my game you don't" and redline this monster from my game.
I think the whole question is whether you play your liches as powergaming twinks looking for rules loopholes to explode the universe or as mad and malevolent geniuses planning to destroy the world via some Infernal Device and thereby getting style points and bragging rights with their fellow liches. Following literature as much as I do folklore, I chose the latter.
Uh, yes, uncertainty means exactly that. You can't have a mortal destined to save vs. a Finger of Death and then actually roll the dice. Moreover, since the future from that point depends on whether or not that mortal lives or dies, you can't meaningfully predict the future past a single dice roll.
Sure, but if a human divines whether or not he will die to a finger of death, the DM can simply roll ahead of time, and record the result for whenever it will come up. Surely you are more creative than you seem.
However, the attacking deity also gets similar advance notice, and can adjust their own plans to compensate. This leads to an infinitely looping set of causality that not only renders play impossible but couldn't exist in the first place due to free will.
Not necessarily. If the conditions are such that a deity is doomed no matter what they do (i.e. completely outmatched), then they will die, because even considering all possible paths of action does them no good.
Well, when they attack, yes. What kind of notice were you expecting them to give before that?
How about random people stumbling upon them and escaping to tell the tale? Or some priests randomly divining the next great danger to their city?
I would truly love to see some justification for this statement.
Sure.
1. No amount of CR 7s is an appropriately challenging encounter for an ECL 15 party.
2. 8 CR 15 adult red dragons is an appropriate challenge for an ECL 21 party.
Therefore, spectres are not as dangerous as a flight of dragons.
The inability of Good and Neutral to hunt down Evil doesn't mean that Evil is stronger, it means that it's easier for a lone individual to keep on the run than it is to catch him. Not to mention, Nerull can always hole up in any number of time-shifted planes where he can dump millions of years worth of accumulated evil on the Prime in a few weeks their time.
My point is that it is not easier to keep on the run. I've explained why it is possible to track down anyone.
Time-shifted planes is a useless argument. If Nerull holes up in one, so can a deity of good, to prepare to dump a million years worth of accumulated good. In the meantime, a deity of neutrality reinforces the balance while both gods are absent.
The second answer is good. The rules for gods are bad, and should be changed. The first still exposes the core problem; evil can mass-produce evil champions much more easily than good can mass-produce Good champions. Given a thousand years prep-time starting from scratch, Nerull can farm a population of fast-growing humanoids and turn each and every single one into a heavy-hitting undead upon their death. Good, conversely, has to do things the hard way.
Good can produe champions of their own. Deathless is the obvious match to undead, but raising an army of outsiders and mortals with artificially extended lifespans is probably more threatening than undead.
Nerull can portfolio-sense that they've sensed it and attack elsewhere. Repeat until universe implodes from failed chain of causality. Barring that, he Hides. Nerull has a starting +90 on Hide checks. Call me back when you've got a god lined up who can Spot that, given that Nerull is on his home turf.
The chain, however, reinforces stalemate. No matter where Nerull selects to attack, he will be detected. If he changes his mind, he will be detected. Even if he knows that he will be detected, he can't do anything about it. Thus his attack will never go unnoticed when he finally picks a location.
I would argue that somewhere in the roster of gods of good and neutrality lined up to kill him, somebody has killing undead on their portfolio and can use that to portfolio sense his location.
The history of Faerun strongly suggests that they don't, and certainly aren't averse to mucking around with their creations themselves. Again, the Time of Troubles was not an action taken by an overdeity with any concern for the stability of his creation.
The Time of Troubles suggest that Ao was protecting himself from the actions of Bane, Bhaal, and Murkyl. Although he destabilized the world initially, I doubt anyone can argue that he meant to destroy it, and at the end, he appointed new deities to maintain the balance.
Uh, no, not really. You're not going to kill a lot of goblins with Shrieker mushrooms. You're also not going to kill many flying creatures with earthbound monstrous animals or vermin. You aren't going to ever kill an incorporeal creature without magic, full stop. CR measures how challenging creatures are in a straight-up fight vs. an average party of PCs; nothing more or less.
Another straw man. The statement is meant generally, and everyone knows that two deities against one deity is not the same as two ground creatures against a flyer. No deity is simply immune to the attacks of other deities.
Plus, as mentioned, it's not even a contest of god vs. god in a fight. It's a question of god trying to destroy everything (easy) vs. gods trying to find and stop other god (hard).
This is, of course, the central question.
As I've mentioned, however, it is not easy to destroy anything when portfolio sense exists. Stalemate is universally reinforced when attacking is always going to be detected. If you have ever played real-time strategy games, you might notice that when perfect information is available, attacking becomes more dangerous.
OK, now you need to look at the time it takes to notice the destruction, put together a team of agents, identify the perp, find him, reach him, and neutralize him. Balance that against the time it takes to destroy a city.
It would indeed take some time. Still, the net result is one less powerful evil character, and many fewer weak innocents. The cosmic balance is maintained.
Not against a Mind-Blanked target, you can't. You can holler your God's title and ask him to give you information on a Mind-Blanked target, sure, but you can't use divinations to do so. That's what the rules say.
Nope. When using commune or contact other plane, you are not targeting anyone with a divination. Rather, you are asking a deity to give you information that he already knows (in which case he tells you), or to find out (in which case he uses Divine Sensing, in which case mind blank doesn't apply)
Divine Sensing renders the game unplayable, in the sense of "No actions can be taken." rather than "This world sucks." It flatly denies how the D&D world must be given that it's a universe with embedded uncertainty, and provides no actual provisions for the free will of any characters.
I assume you're referring to portfolio sense. I deny that it provides no uncertainty or free will. You can simply ask or figure out how players would act if exposed to a given situation (stipulating that their decisions are binding) and making the appropriate rolls. This is constraining until a decision allowed by the divination is changed as a result of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (the observation of the future is a probabalistic one, but merely observing it means that it can be changed by the observation).
Still doesn't deal with the problem of the god of commerce deciding to do it, though. Like I said, as long as you have powerful agents, you will have an unstable world.
Nope. As long as you have unstable rules such as those that allow you to create infinite wealth arbitrarily, there will be an unstable world. Take those rules away, and powerful agents cannot destabilize anything.
Indeed, you have limited the people who can attack your castle to those who can breach your walls and defenses. However, depending on the relative rarity of wizards (or of wizards that want to breach your castle), why would you build a castle in the first place, instead of just getting yourself trained to be a wizard yourself?
Who says you aren't a wizard? A castle still accomplishes the same purpose whether you are a wizard or not. In fact, a castle is more important if you are a wizard, because an army of weaklings might get lucky with a wave of missiles if you are exposed, and you lack the hp to survive.
1 and 2: Fail. Read the rules.
The intent of 1 and 2 can be done with flat deific intervention, of course, but if the god are involved, finding the lich won't help, as Nerull's horde of spectre-generating undead casters will descend on the world momentarily and stopping any one or any thousand of them won't really help.
As I've said, you are mistaken. Mind blank stops you from being targeted by a divination. Asking your deity a question is not targeting someone with a divination.
It's just like spell reflection has no effect in protecting you from someone who destroys the ceiling to bury you.
Nerull's horde of spectre-generating undead casters are matched by a good deity's hordes of deathless-generating saints, and are defeated by a neutral deity's hordes of elemental-generating outsiders.
3: The lich can have an Epic ward up, then.
Learn epic before making this argument. It's not possible to ward against epic spells, because you would have to ward against specific epic spells and every epic spell is unique.
4: The lich can also have flunkies.
My point with #4 is that it isn't necessary for a character to have the capacity for divination themselves.
Because I'm not measuring the electric charge potential of cosmic forces. I'm measuring what you can do with them. The fact that the combined forces of Good can beat up Nerull does not mean that the combined forces of Good can find individual hidden Evil agents or undo their damage before the Prime is pretty much sterilized.
The fact that divine senses makes everything a perfect information game, however, means that Nerull can't do anything of the sort at all.
It's the terrorist equation. The U.S. army can take all comers in a straight-up fight, but they have only a fraction of their effectiveness against an enemy that doesn't actually fight them straight-up.
I agree that your analysis would apply to the real world. However, magic doesn't exist in the real world, and that's what makes D&D a wee bit different.
Now the questions become: What is the ratio of evil characters to urban centers? How many evil characters are willing to risk death to achieve infamy, and have everyone in the world know their name as the one who leveled Waterdeep?
How much good can be achieved by the high-level good and neutral character that survive, now that a primary foe is out of the equation?
Who cares if great destruction occurs? A powerful BBEG is now out of the way, opening up the opportunity for happiness and prosperity.
Haven't seen a one that didn't involve Epic or D&D (both of which make destroying the world that much easier). Could you please re-summarize, noting when you're invoking one of those two books?
Sure. We should actually both resummarize our main arguments, because it's getting a bit scattered. Here goes mine:
The rules are not meant to promote instability. Some rules still do inherently produce instability, and need to be fixed.
The instability does not exist because high-level characters exist. The instability exists because of certain rules, and high-level characters are merely able to take greater advantage of them. Abilities and spells available to high-level characters are also more likely to be broken because they see less play and are less easy to discern.
The logical solution is to fix the rules that are broken, rather than banning all high-level characters.
For example, gate is commonly cited as a broken spell (and I agree). Banning or fixing that spell makes more sense than banning characters above 17th level.
Declaring that high-level characters are disruptive is partially correct, but it does not consider the actual problem. It amounts to a cop-out, a lazy person's way out of the solution without addressing the real rules.
Therefore, I deny your central argument that high-level characters are disruptive. Certain rules, many of the high-level abilities and spells, are disruptive. That is why your argument has consistently revolved around a few specific problems (typically involving high-level arcane casters), rather than generically applying across the board (try an argument for how a high-level fighter or rogue can be disruptive, for instance).
First: Quantum effects do not apply on a macro level. Subatomic particles can be either collapsed or not; cats are either alive or dead.
That's an incomplete statement of current knowledge. Quantum effects do apply, but no one is quite sure just how
Carefully isolated macro-systems are found to be subject to quantum uncertainty.Next: Time in D&D is explicitly linear, with one 6-second round following the next.
This is a thought trap. The RAW tells us to trigger 6-second steps when combat arises, and to go out of them when not. I may have argued insouciantly, but the fact is you can't use the argument you want, because it can't explain the out-of-combat time.
since the nature of the D&D-verse is that as the universe progresses, extra possible quantum states are added that could not be perceived before, divination becomes a best-guess tool only.
Mistaken. Useful information can be obtained. A person going into a forest may not see every helpful or harmful plant, but if they are a Ranger they will notice that a lion came this way recently, and be duly cautious. Analogously, Gods with their supernal intelligences can make much of their vision of possible futures. Especially since those futures are under a curve indicating which are more or less likely, with interference for those that cancel.
What I sense here is a reasonable man troubled by unreasonable rules. The rules are unreasonable, so certainly small fixes would be helpful. D&D has gotten unreasonably baroque, and I personally look forward to 4th because at that point I intend to confine my game to the core three and never look beyond them. (Yes, I know spectres are core three. I'm just hoping they'll be fixed in them!)
Pun-pun, beautifully designed by Khan, tells us that whatever we want to argue won't hold. Why? Because no one can write rules that are fun, short (finite volumes instead of libraries of arbitrary size), and detail a possible universe to play in. Every city, person, child, and troll, should obviously be making a small tithe to Pun-Pun so his abilities will automatically destroy anyone who messes with them
I'd advocate a detailed and short list of recommendations to the editor of 4th. Seek player approval for them and then repost the top ones.
That might be effective.
But look, you know we can't write robust rules: what do you hope for?
BTW I can get rolls to turn out how I want. What I do is control modifiers and also the rolls taken. I don't need to control the die rolls themselves. If you fail, I glibly come up with another chance to roll.
'Oh, you failed the climb? Well, look, your friend is boosting you, right, so I'll give her a roll vs. STR +2 (situational) to get you up.'
GM is physics.
Real World: Military Special Forces with weaponry to match, tanks, warships, cannons, bombs, etc
Fantasy World: 20th level Monks
Real World: Martial Artist Masters
Fantasy World: 20th level Priests
Real World: Medical technology, Physicians
Fantasy World: 20th level Bards
Real World: Entertainers who charm the masses (Comedians, Musicians, Actors, etc...using mass media technology)
Fantasy World: 20th level Illusionists
Real World: Movie and TV industry; Special Effects, again using mass media technology
Fantasy World: 20th level Thieves and Rogues
Real World: Expert Thieves with Technological Support; various Mafias, Street Gangs
Fanatasy World: 20th level Assassins
Real World: Intelligence Agencies (CIA, Mossad, etc); Various Mafias; Hitmen; bombs, poisons, guns, etc
Fantasy World: 20th level Wizards
Real World: Nuclear weaponry, Military Weaponry, Flame-throweres, Helicopters, Computers, Space Tech, Telescopes, etc, etc, etc
And let's not forget the high tech stuff out there regarding spying, recording, listening, seeing; then there's stun guns, foam weapons, rubber bullets, etc
Now, what would be more sinister? For a weaponsmaking corporation to take the State/Country head on, in terms of battle? Or, for that same entity to manipulate the State in order to achieve one's nefarious goals? Same goes with the Powerful characters. One powerful character by her/himself does not win the ultimate battle of an entire Kingdom, with all of its resources at it's disposal. Instead, the Wizard who is at odds with the Country will manipulate it from within, or flee and attempt to raise an army to defeat it. The Wizard may even attempt an assassination or two.
The point here is this: there is not one, sole individual who can take on another country, or for that matter, another city-state. A small thorpe or village---sure. But beware, oh self-prescribed almighty characters, that small village just might be under the protectorate of a larger, more ominous being and/or nation-state itself.
With that said, there really should not be many high level npcs. Most never make it to that level (just like real life). They get injured, lose interest, want to settle down, or simply are killed.
And with the very few npcs that are diabolically evil and want to destroy everything around them, there are many more who are good, or at least have attachments to the geographical area they are from, have developed relationships, have intimate bonds with people, etc, etc...and are willing to defend what they hold dear to them---at all costs, and by any means necessary.
So, retain a level of temperance, intertwine the real human world, its interwoven political, social, and ecological complexities, and have fun with the low and mid level pcs just as much (or in my case, more so), as the high level ones.
Sure, but if a human divines whether or not he will die to a finger of death, the DM can simply roll ahead of time, and record the result for whenever it will come up. Surely you are more creative than you seem.
Since we don't know the save DC for the Finger of Death, nor the state of the diviner's hit points or fort save, nor who is doing the casting and what additional factors might be in play, we can't make the save in advance. We can say that if the diviner is a lich, that it is extraordinarily unlikely that he will fall victim to the spell, but hey, he might get True Resurrected between now and then. We don't know the future.
Not necessarily. If the conditions are such that a deity is doomed no matter what they do (i.e. completely outmatched), then they will die, because even considering all possible paths of action does them no good.
All they need is enough to prevent a stable future from happening. If God X and God Z both can predict the future with equal accuracy, and God X goes where God Z is at the same time God Z goes where God X won't be, where will they go? X goes to Z; Z is forewarned and goes to a new location. X is forewarned of this and moves to Z's new location; Z is similarly forewarned and moves somewhere else.
How about random people stumbling upon them and escaping to tell the tale? Or some priests randomly divining the next great danger to their city?
It's fairly easy to do the army-amassing deep underground in a sealed cavern, where there will be few passers-by. As for the second, well, it depends on the specific divinations being run.
Sure.
1. No amount of CR 7s is an appropriately challenging encounter for an ECL 15 party.
2. 8 CR 15 adult red dragons is an appropriate challenge for an ECL 21 party.
Therefore, spectres are not as dangerous as a flight of dragons.
"Not an appropriate challenge for" is not a statement as to the relative threat posed by two encounters. 8 adult red dragons are scary as hell, most certainly, but you don't get thousands of additional dragons out of the city minutes after their initial assault.
My point is that it is not easier to keep on the run. I've explained why it is possible to track down anyone.
Yes, by using D&Dg or Epic. With D&Dg, you don't need to hide; you can just be an evil god, fortify your domain, and spam the Prime with mass-produced evil. Epic is even easier; just come up with a custom Epic spell do to N, where N makes the world go boom.
Time-shifted planes is a useless argument. If Nerull holes up in one, so can a deity of good, to prepare to dump a million years worth of accumulated good. In the meantime, a deity of neutrality reinforces the balance while both gods are absent.
Good can produce champions of their own. Deathless is the obvious match to undead, but raising an army of outsiders and mortals with artificially extended lifespans is probably more threatening than undead.
A brilliant plan, hampered only by the fact that you can mass-produce Evil much more easily than you can Good. Deathless are a good counter, but you can't get spawning Deathless the way you can spawning undead.
Given resources N on both sides, Evil will spend fewer resources turning a tribe of goblins into a fantastic amount of spectres than Good will have to spend turning a tribe of goblins into a counter-spectre team.
The chain, however, reinforces stalemate. No matter where Nerull selects to attack, he will be detected. If he changes his mind, he will be detected. Even if he knows that he will be detected, he can't do anything about it. Thus his attack will never go unnoticed when he finally picks a location.
I would argue that somewhere in the roster of gods of good and neutrality lined up to kill him, somebody has killing undead on their portfolio and can use that to portfolio sense his location.
A: Likewise, the counter-preparations of the Good gods will never go un-noticed, and Nerull's strike will be met with no opposition. Precognition bites both ways.
B: Which god, specifically? Yes, an anti-Nerull god could exist, but it we're making up gods, I can make an uncounterable one right easily.
The Time of Troubles suggest that Ao was protecting himself from the actions of Bane, Bhaal, and Murkyl. Although he destabilized the world initially, I doubt anyone can argue that he meant to destroy it, and at the end, he appointed new deities to maintain the balance.
Given the power Ao has demonstrated, if he wanted to handle the threat posed by Bane, Bhaal, and Murkyl, he could have done so directly. The Time of Troubles was an end, not a means; Ao could have done things another way, and the fact that he didn't shows that what he wanted to happen happened.
Another straw man. The statement is meant generally, and everyone knows that two deities against one deity is not the same as two ground creatures against a flyer. No deity is simply immune to the attacks of other deities.
One is if you can't locate him or target him. Again, about the finding of Nerull; what was your plan again?
This is, of course, the central question.
As I've mentioned, however, it is not easy to destroy anything when portfolio sense exists. Stalemate is universally reinforced when attacking is always going to be detected. If you have ever played real-time strategy games, you might notice that when perfect information is available, attacking becomes more dangerous.
Precognition is greater-than-perfect information. In addition, "I'll defend wherever he's attacking" can be countered by "I'll attack wherever he's not defending", assuming that defenses aren't evenly spread.
It would indeed take some time. Still, the net result is one less powerful evil character, and many fewer weak innocents. The cosmic balance is maintained.
I wouldn't mind hearing some estimates for how many is many innocents, given a level-20 caster.
Nope. When using commune or contact other plane, you are not targeting anyone with a divination. Rather, you are asking a deity to give you information that he already knows (in which case he tells you), or to find out (in which case he uses Divine Sensing, in which case mind blank doesn't apply)
You are using a divination spell to do so. Mind Blank prevents others from using a divination spell to do so. Please read the spell description. Again, as I mention, if you're using D&Dg, not an issue; you can simply petition your god directly. Of course, if you're using D&Dg, then concealed Gates opening near every metropolis and legions of spectres pouring out of them is the kind of threat we're talking about, so finding out "Nerull did it, he's probably holed up in his realm, and we can't stop him or get to him until he reconfigures the planar openings" is not helpful information.
I assume you're referring to portfolio sense. I deny that it provides no uncertainty or free will. You can simply ask or figure out how players would act if exposed to a given situation (stipulating that their decisions are binding) and making the appropriate rolls. This is constraining until a decision allowed by the divination is changed as a result of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (the observation of the future is a probable one, but merely observing it means that it can be changed by the observation).
This limits Portfolio Sense to what the DM can imagine; this does mean that the first evil god to come up with a way of destroying the universe that wasn't previously considered will pull it off. Say, by exploiting the existing very-stupid rules concerning the generation of incorporeal undead.
Nope. As long as you have unstable rules such as those that allow you to create infinite wealth arbitrarily, there will be an unstable world. Take those rules away, and powerful agents cannot destabilize anything.
Agreed; this is my thesis, in fact (along with the understanding that in D&D, being high-level means having access to said rules).
Who says you aren't a wizard? A castle still accomplishes the same purpose whether you are a wizard or not. In fact, a castle is more important if you are a wizard, because an army of weaklings might get lucky with a wave of missiles if you are exposed, and you lack the hp to survive.
If you're willing to spend hundreds of thousands of gp on defense, then you could do much better than a (nonmagical) castle. It is an interesting design challenge to come up with what kind of fortress a wizard would design, given the staggering variety of possible assaults.
As I've said, you are mistaken. Mind blank stops you from being targeted by a divination. Asking your deity a question is not targeting someone with a divination.
It's just like spell reflection has no effect in protecting you from someone who destroys the ceiling to bury you.
*coughs politely*
The subject is protected from all devices and spells that detect, influence, or read emotions or thoughts. This spell protects against all mind-affecting spells and effects as well as information gathering by divination spells or effects. Mind blank even foils limited wish, miracle, and wish spells when they are used in such a way as to affect the subject’s mind or to gain information about it.
Consider spell or effect X.
Is spell or effect X mind-effecting?
Is spell or effect X used to gather information against the target of Mind Blank?
If one or more of the above statements are true (and X is not Metafaculty under certain conditions), then X fails. Hollering up to someone who knows about a Mind Blanked person isn't protected against; casting Commune is.
Nerull's horde of spectre-generating undead casters are matched by a good deity's hordes of deathless-generating saints, and are defeated by a neutral deity's hordes of elemental-generating outsiders.
Deathless? Either we're in Eberron (and the point is moot, as the gods aren't helping), or we've moved into BoXD territory.
BoVD has Apocalypse from the Sky.
You don't want to see what an artifact-creating entity that wants to make boom happen can do with Apocalypse from the Sky.
Plus, how were you planning on mass-producing outsiders? If it takes effort on your (as a deity's) part, or if you can't do it as fast as humanoids reproduce, then the undead-making will out-compete it fairly quickly. The end result may be much more impressive (Ascendant Councilor >>> Spectre), but there will be exponentially more undead. Plus, you'll still have to station the forces of Good everywhere; it's not hard to simply order spectres to go after villages and hamlets rather than cities until you've got an even larger numeric advantage.
Learn epic before making this argument. It's not possible to ward against epic spells, because you would have to ward against specific epic spells and every epic spell is unique.
The conceal seed can also be used to block divination spells, spell-like effects, and epic spells developed using the reveal seed; this increases the Spellcraft DC by +6. In all cases where divination magic of any level, including epic level, is employed against the subject of a spell using the conceal seed for this purpose, an opposed caster level check determines which spell works.
It's not perfect, of course, but then again, in Epic, you can simply create a race of self-replicating Umbral Blots to destroy the world for you.
The fact that divine senses makes everything a perfect information game, however, means that Nerull can't do anything of the sort at all.
Technically, yes; it means that no one anywhere can take any action. Having the multiverse be eternally paused as Nerull's attacking and Pelor's defending forces remain frozen in quantum transit is not, IMHO, an acceptable way to run a world. Nerull's actions are known, yes, but so are actions that would counter them, and so on ad infinitum.
I agree that your analysis would apply to the real world. However, magic doesn't exist in the real world, and that's what makes D&D a wee bit different.
What specifically about magic makes you think that D&D would trend towards armies and less towards terrorist-type actions? To me, magic just makes the equation even more unbalanced on the side of the terrorists.
How much good can be achieved by the high-level good and neutral character that survive, now that a primary foe is out of the equation?
Who cares if great destruction occurs? A powerful BBEG is now out of the way, opening up the opportunity for happiness and prosperity.
Even assuming that you find and catch the BBEG, you now have to find and catch each spectre from city-zero; any one of them can continue the cycle. Roving hordes of spectres are a change to the world itself that will need to be counteracted before any rebuilding is possible. It's doable (tricky, given their number, their growth rate, and their ability to hide in solid objects), but it won't be easy; you will need a very, very high ratio of heroes to villians to make it work.
When you combine this with the fact that you can get similar but less-efficient effect with most level 9 or less casters (with Summon Undead V to get a shadow), I question the ability of Good to deal with the spawning incorporeals faster than Evil can remake them.
This is assuming a normal world, of course; I cheerfully concede that the Earthdawn/Fallout solution of pulling everyone into magically-reinforced strongholds will put defense and offence at least playing the same game again.
Sure. We should actually both resummarize our main arguments, because it's getting a bit scattered. Here goes mine:
The rules are not meant to promote instability. Some rules still do inherently produce instability, and need to be fixed.
The instability does not exist because high-level characters exist. The instability exists because of certain rules, and high-level characters are merely able to take greater advantage of them. Abilities and spells available to high-level characters are also more likely to be broken because they see less play and are less easy to discern.
The logical solution is to fix the rules that are broken, rather than banning all high-level characters.
For example, gate is commonly cited as a broken spell (and I agree). Banning or fixing that spell makes more sense than banning characters above 17th level.
Declaring that high-level characters are disruptive is partially correct, but it does not consider the actual problem. It amounts to a cop-out, a lazy person's way out of the solution without addressing the real rules.
Therefore, I deny your central argument that high-level characters are disruptive. Certain rules, many of the high-level abilities and spells, are disruptive. That is why your argument has consistently revolved around a few specific problems (typically involving high-level arcane casters), rather than generically applying across the board (try an argument for how a high-level fighter or rogue can be disruptive, for instance).
I must say that I agree with all of this. However, it is certainly possible for a level 20 rogue to disrupt a level 5 world (or higher, if the world is low-magic), by the simple expedient of having a high enough Hide modifer to randomly assassinate people and never get caught. A properly-equipped fighter20 can probably take a nonmagical fantasy army with only minor magical support.
However, as you astutely point out, the single biggest problem is that of the spellcasters. I would have no problem weakening my previous statement to "High-level casters (mystery-users, invokers, SLA-users, etc.) can disrupt the world at their whim."
Gate is a problem, yes. So is Astral Projection. So is Shapechange. Prismatic Sphere is a problem in the case of Reverse Gravity. Time Stop is not terribly harmful in and of itself, unless combined with spells like Delayed-Blast Fireball. Dominate Monster, combined with low-Will-save monsters, can be extremely problematic ("Dungeon-delve? Hah. My squadron of purple worms will just cave the place in.")
My view is that one cannot both have certain types of monsters, characters capable of fighting said types of monsters, and a stable world as we understand it. If balors exist, then reasonably-durable means of magical flight need to exist for the balor-hunters. If the balor-hunters can fly and fight balors, they can fly and drop rocks on opposing cities. I maintain that you can't have the capacity to fight certain threats and not be able to crush other types of opposition without trying.
The problem I see is that certain abilities (flight, invisibility, summoning/controlling monsters), as well as certain abilities that can be achieved by making the world (and monsters in it) do what you want them to reliably are both expected and traditional-world-breaking. I, for one, can't think of a good way to challenge a level-20 party with a nonmagical army; this, to me, says that level-20 parties should be able to destroy armies, and that any entity in the world who is reliant on armies should sit down and bluster not at all when the big boys are in town.
What specifically about magic makes you think that D&D would trend towards armies and less towards terrorist-type actions? To me, magic just makes the equation even more unbalanced on the side of the terrorists.
I think you mean guerilla, not terrorist. Or something like a modern platoon.
Please do not use terrorism in your examples. I don't think Admin will allow a post going into factual detail (quite fairly), but military history demonstrates that so-called 'terrorists' are simply politicized forces so outmatched by their adversaries that conventional means have already failed them, and therefore unconventional means - largely unsuccessful - are all that remain.
When you say 'even more unbalanced' that grossly misrepresents the case. Terrorism does not arise except where the converse is true.
This isn't a political forum, and thus I feel justified to beg others to avoid bringing assumptions of contemporary political relevance into it.
-vk
I agree with what most have said so far in that high level characters are far from invulnerable. They (not all of course) still have to eat, sleep, and have resources to accomplish their extraordinary feats. No one is an island, and the desire for friendship and community is likewise a necessity for any who aren't two-dimensional cardboard characters.
The general rule is that there is always something more potent and influential than yourself. The ability to level mountains and lay waste to whole armies is obviously great power, but not all things can be coerced through such threats of force.
People who attain great knowledge, ability, and renown in our own world are often very specialized and capable people, conscious of their reputations and their legacy, and wholly devoted to their arts. Take Olympic athletes, great generals and soldiers, and Nobel prize-winners. To apply the psychology of the lowest-common denominator is not appropriate.
Look at Hitler or Saddam Hussein. Not difficult to defeat in personal combat, but extremely powerful because of the masses at their command.
And those masses should never be weaklings. A professional soldier should be at least Level 10 by d20 standards. For proof, attempt to create a Spec Ops equivalent using d20 Modern Rules. What would a 'Magical Police Officer" represent? Even an epic level character has something to fear from 6th or 7th level magic.
I do believe the world should make sense, even if it must be changed from the 'medieval' concept somewhat. A magical world is not like our own.
And let's not forget the game is not attempting to create our reality, but a different one.
Since we don't know the save DC for the Finger of Death, nor the state of the diviner's hit points or fort save, nor who is doing the casting and what additional factors might be in play, we can't make the save in advance. We can say that if the diviner is a lich, that it is extraordinarily unlikely that he will fall victim to the spell, but hey, he might get True Resurrected between now and then. We don't know the future.
We don't know the future precisely. But the DM will make a reasonable guess based on his knowledge (which does usually entail a great amount more knowledge than that of the players). And this applies for all divinations.
If you consider that insufficient, then you can ban all divinations in your game, but I doubt most players will agree.
All they need is enough to prevent a stable future from happening. If God X and God Z both can predict the future with equal accuracy, and God X goes where God Z is at the same time God Z goes where God X won't be, where will they go? X goes to Z; Z is forewarned and goes to a new location. X is forewarned of this and moves to Z's new location; Z is similarly forewarned and moves somewhere else.
In other words, they do nothing unless one party is so powerful that they aren't concerned about stealth. The status quo is reinforced.
It's fairly easy to do the army-amassing deep underground in a sealed cavern, where there will be few passers-by. As for the second, well, it depends on the specific divinations being run.
Isn't it awesome, then, that D&D worlds are full of adventurers doing annoying things like checking sealed caverns?
"Not an appropriate challenge for" is not a statement as to the relative threat posed by two encounters. 8 adult red dragons are scary as hell, most certainly, but you don't get thousands of additional dragons out of the city minutes after their initial assault.
And yet, the dragons are still supposed to be a greater relative threat. If that is not true, then the ECL of the dragons is too low, or the ECL of the spectres is too high.
Going with the latter, this would mean that the spectres are in need of a fix (most likely to nerf the ability rather than upping their ECL to ridiculous amounts).
Yes, by using D&Dg or Epic. With D&Dg, you don't need to hide; you can just be an evil god, fortify your domain, and spam the Prime with mass-produced evil. Epic is even easier; just come up with a custom Epic spell do to N, where N makes the world go boom.
Again, anything Evil can do, Good and Neutrality together can do better. Good and Neutrality can mass-produce warriors faster.
And yet again, you demonstrate no knowledge of epic. Making the world go boom is impossible for any spellcaster that is not an overdeity, in which case, the spell would not be necessary.
A brilliant plan, hampered only by the fact that you can mass-produce Evil much more easily than you can Good. Deathless are a good counter, but you can't get spawning Deathless the way you can spawning undead.
If you can accept the fact that a sufficiently high-level fighter can defeat an unlimited number of 1st-level fighters, than you would have to accept the fact low-level undead mean nothing when deities are engaged in combat. It might take a few actions for high-level champions of Good and Neutrality to wipe out an uncountable number of undead.
Given resources N on both sides, Evil will spend fewer resources turning a tribe of goblins into a fantastic amount of spectres than Good will have to spend turning a tribe of goblins into a counter-spectre team.
Again, a fantastic amount of spectres is not going to be relevant when there are serious high-level combatants fighting. Evil can produce champions no more quickly than Good and Neutrality can, and certainly Nerull cannot produce champions faster than all of Good, all of Neutrality, and much of Evil.
A: Likewise, the counter-preparations of the Good gods will never go un-noticed, and Nerull's strike will be met with no opposition. Precognition bites both ways.
Precognition bites both ways, meaning that the gods are aware of each other's actions. They can still choose to take the same actions, knowing that they will be detected. The vast number of deities arrayed against Nerull, they have fear of Nerull discovering the exact details of their plan to kill him, as he will be unable to prevent it.
B: Which god, specifically? Yes, an anti-Nerull god could exist, but it we're making up gods, I can make an uncounterable one right easily.
Depends on the world. Off the top of my head I can come up with Lathander, Pelor, and St. Cuthbert.
Given the power Ao has demonstrated, if he wanted to handle the threat posed by Bane, Bhaal, and Murkyl, he could have done so directly. The Time of Troubles was an end, not a means; Ao could have done things another way, and the fact that he didn't shows that what he wanted to happen happened.
That's not true. If he had the capacity to take back the Tablets, he would have done so.
One is if you can't locate him or target him. Again, about the finding of Nerull; what was your plan again?
Portfolio sense. If necessary, one greater deity can block Nerull's sensing of another's greater deity's sensing, so that Nerull can be detected. Numbers help in this regard, as a large number of deities can detect and block detection more effectively than one deity can.
Precognition is greater-than-perfect information. In addition, "I'll defend wherever he's attacking" can be countered by "I'll attack wherever he's not defending", assuming that defenses aren't evenly spread.
Which means that no information revealed is useful. However, when Nerull actually does decide to go through with an attack, he will meet with resistance. IF he doesn't ever finally commit, then I guess he'll never attack.
I wouldn't mind hearing some estimates for how many is many innocents, given a level-20 caster.
Around a thousand, perhaps? I'm just guessing here.
You are using a divination spell to do so. Mind Blank prevents others from using a divination spell to do so. Please read the spell description. Again, as I mention, if you're using D&Dg, not an issue; you can simply petition your god directly.
I don't think you understand what I am saying.
The act of casting divination is the act of petitioning the god for information, after which the god gives it.
Of course, if you're using D&Dg, then concealed Gates opening near every metropolis and legions of spectres pouring out of them is the kind of threat we're talking about, so finding out "Nerull did it, he's probably holed up in his realm, and we can't stop him or get to him until he reconfigures the planar openings" is not helpful information.
Read above. To petition a god for a miracle, you do not simply ask. You cast the miracle spell. To petition a god for information, you cast divination. To petition a god for gates, you cast gate multiple times.
This limits Portfolio Sense to what the DM can imagine; this does mean that the first evil god to come up with a way of destroying the universe that wasn't previously considered will pull it off. Say, by exploiting the existing very-stupid rules concerning the generation of incorporeal undead.
Indeed. The solution is to fix the very-stupid rules you speak of.
Consider spell or effect X.
Is spell or effect X mind-effecting?
Is spell or effect X used to gather information against the target of Mind Blank?
If one or more of the above statements are true (and X is not Metafaculty under certain conditions), then X fails. Hollering up to someone who knows about a Mind Blanked person isn't protected against; casting Commune is.
Divination is the act of hollering up to a deity who knows. It does not target the foe.
In other words, the answer to this question:
"Is spell or effect X used to gather information against the target of Mind Blank?"
is NO.
Divination does not gather any information on its own. It merely opens up a link to your deity so that you can ask questions of that deity. Anything after that is not a direct product of the spell itself.
Just like when checking for whether SR applies, it doesn't matter if a spell summons a monster to attack. The spell itself does none of the damage, so SR does not apply.
Plus, how were you planning on mass-producing outsiders? If it takes effort on your (as a deity's) part, or if you can't do it as fast as humanoids reproduce, then the undead-making will out-compete it fairly quickly. The end result may be much more impressive (Ascendant Councilor >>> Spectre), but there will be exponentially more undead. Plus, you'll still have to station the forces of Good everywhere; it's not hard to simply order spectres to go after villages and hamlets rather than cities until you've got an even larger numeric advantage.
See above. Mass-producing spectres is a wasted effort. It's the champions that will matter.
It's not perfect, of course, but then again, in Epic, you can simply create a race of self-replicating Umbral Blots to destroy the world for you.
It's not perfect, unlike the ward seed, which means that it will be inadequate as a caster of equal level will eventually break through.
And don't always assume that simply because epic spells can do anything that all actions are within the reach of actual existing beings.
Technically, yes; it means that no one anywhere can take any action. Having the multiverse be eternally paused as Nerull's attacking and Pelor's defending forces remain frozen in quantum transit is not, IMHO, an acceptable way to run a world. Nerull's actions are known, yes, but so are actions that would counter them, and so on ad infinitum.
The multiverse won't pause. Either Nerull will commit to an attack, knowing full well that he will be detected, or he will let the round slip past without doing anything.
What specifically about magic makes you think that D&D would trend towards armies and less towards terrorist-type actions? To me, magic just makes the equation even more unbalanced on the side of the terrorists.
Magic makes it possible that a straight-up fight can be forced upon an enemy even if they do not wish it. "Scry-and-die" would be the term for this.
Even assuming that you find and catch the BBEG, you now have to find and catch each spectre from city-zero; any one of them can continue the cycle. Roving hordes of spectres are a change to the world itself that will need to be counteracted before any rebuilding is possible. It's doable (tricky, given their number, their growth rate, and their ability to hide in solid objects), but it won't be easy; you will need a very, very high ratio of heroes to villians to make it work.
The effort required to create the initial number of spectres means that the forces of Good, Neutrality, and other evil will be stronger than the non-spectre forces of Nerull.
And it's not a ratio of heroes to villains. It's a ratio of everyone (heroes and villains) who doesn't want the world to get run over of spectres vs. everyone who does. Yes, I do believe that there will be a sufficiently large ratio in favor of destroying the spectres.
When you combine this with the fact that you can get similar but less-efficient effect with most level 9 or less casters (with Summon Undead V to get a shadow), I question the ability of Good to deal with the spawning incorporeals faster than Evil can remake them.
Fortunately we do have plenty of high-level champions of Good, Neutrality, and Evil who will kill such weak undead without expending any resources.
I must say that I agree with all of this. However, it is certainly possible for a level 20 rogue to disrupt a level 5 world (or higher, if the world is low-magic), by the simple expedient of having a high enough Hide modifer to randomly assassinate people and never get caught. A properly-equipped fighter20 can probably take a nonmagical fantasy army with only minor magical support.
My point is that D&D almost never entails this scenario.
You are making a ridiculous argument. The statement "High-level characters disrupt the world" in this context would imply the D&D world, not a non-fantasy medieval world.
A rogue 20 should not exist in a level 5 world. Your problem there is not that "high-level characters are disruptive" but that "low-level worlds with no magic can be disrupted by high-level characters".
Is your argument reduced to "High-level characters disrupt the world . . . when the world is pathetically weak, that is"?
The problem I see is that certain abilities (flight, invisibility, summoning/controlling monsters), as well as certain abilities that can be achieved by making the world (and monsters in it) do what you want them to reliably are both expected and traditional-world-breaking. I, for one, can't think of a good way to challenge a level-20 party with a nonmagical army; this, to me, says that level-20 parties should be able to destroy armies, and that any entity in the world who is reliant on armies should sit down and bluster not at all when the big boys are in town.
Except that in D&D worlds, 20th-level parties are not the most powerful. Thus the world will not be disrupted.
Ultimately, high-level characters only disrupt the D&D world when there are flawed high-level rules.
1. If you're good, you're usually supposed to be a hero. You've toppled overwhelming odds, worked alongside and against the gods themselves. You've seen many lands, monsters, lifestyles, and have many stories to entice people with. The concept of overpowered characters makes DnD interesting and fun. If everyone was the same power, or the side everyone was playing is too powerful, it will quickly make the game boring. Nothing has to be realistic.
2. Evil seeks to make themselves known throughout the world; to be terrified by all, rule with an iron fist, or take over the world itself. If the campaign players are all /Evil, they are usually faced with an overwhelmingly powerful good side, and thus, a challenge is presented. If it were that simple, where you cast a few spells, hack a few people, drink a potion and everyone's at full health, etc, the game would not be as popular as it is now.
I, for one, appreciate the fact that when I go dungeoneering, I have to actually think about my moves in battle. Spells with will-saves are usually affecting a persons' mind or spirit, which is why if you make your willsave, you are unaffected, or affected to a lesser degree. Think of it. Someone casts phantasmal killer on you. You hallucinate that you see the creature of your absolute and utmost fears, and if you believe it is real, it will become real and kill you. If you are scared and actually are able to come to some conclusion that the beast isn't real, (thus succeeding the will save) the beast and the caster have both failed in their attempts.
And mass-producing more evil than good or vice versa is entirely the DM's discretion. If he wants a temple of Paladins and a monastery of Monks to attack a city dedicated to evil, he'll make a darn good reason for it to happen, and maybe the mere visage of an approaching army of good could sway some evil/semi evil followers. Those goblins for instance are tricky little buggers personality-wise. If they see overwhelming odds that they KNOW will annihilate them, they will most likely sway to the side of good to stay alive, if even only for that one battle. However, like I said, everything is to the discretion of the DM. The players have moderate influence, and after campaigning usually for weeks, months, or even years (My fighter is already a veteran of three years in the same campaign.) you can bet that if you beat Koopa, save the princess, and liberate the mushroom kingdom from tyrannical rule, you will want MORE than a little slip of paper that says "Congratulations. You are the winner." People will want to be awarded with kingdoms, riches, power, etc.
Let's not compare the real-world with DnD. While they might have similarities and differences, they will never be one entity.
We don't know the future precisely. But the DM will make a reasonable guess based on his knowledge (which does usually entail a great amount more knowledge than that of the players). And this applies for all divinations.
If you consider that insufficient, then you can ban all divinations in your game, but I doubt most players will agree.
Just so we're clear: If you the DM have no idea that a spectre-bomb is about to occur, then it doesn't show up in divination or Portfolio Sense, then?
Well, OK. That solves any questions about Portfolio Sense being useful.
In other words, they do nothing unless one party is so powerful that they aren't concerned about stealth. The status quo is reinforced.
No.
Aggressor acts, going to where defender has no defense.
Defender acts in preemptive response, moving defenders to place where attacker was attacking.
Aggressor acts in preemptive pre-response, choosing new target for attack.
Defender acts in preemptive pre-pre-response, allocating defense to new new target.
Aggressor chooses new target, etc.
Plus, these are gods we're talking about. Nerull can simply stockpile Gate-items, force a bunch of fast-breeding humanoids into Spectrehood, and hit every major urban center and several wilderness locations at once. As I said before, it takes no resources beyond the initial investment and a humanoid farm to make spectres. Making spectre-killers takes effort.
Isn't it awesome, then, that D&D worlds are full of adventurers doing annoying things like checking sealed caverns?
Shockingly, the books and supplements I've read are slightly low on adventurers tunneling or ethereally-traversing hundreds of feet of bedrock in hopes of finding a cavern someone's hollowed out there. Moreover, there simply aren't enough adventurers to look through every gigantic sheet of rock to see if a lich is raising an army there.
And yet, the dragons are still supposed to be a greater relative threat. If that is not true, then the ECL of the dragons is too low, or the ECL of the spectres is too high.
Going with the latter, this would mean that the spectres are in need of a fix (most likely to nerf the ability rather than upping their ECL to ridiculous amounts).
Spectres have an ECL -. Possibly you mean CR? If so, remember that CR judges monster's threat relative to an adventuring party, not relative to a game world, or each other.
Again, anything Evil can do, Good and Neutrality together can do better. Good and Neutrality can mass-produce warriors faster.
Really? Well, yes, I suppose that if it came to that, Good and Neutrality can do what Evil is trying to do (slaughter commoners) better than evil could. This means nothing about their respective ability to stop evil from slaughtering commoners. How do you intend to mass-produce spectre-killers?
And yet again, you demonstrate no knowledge of epic. Making the world go boom is impossible for any spellcaster that is not an overdeity, in which case, the spell would not be necessary.
In five words or less:
Origin of the Species: Sarrukh.
For creativity value, you could make Black-Pudding / Tarrasque hybrids, that have natural weapons, Combat Reflexes, massive regeneration, Split, and require a Wish each to actually kill, and have them continually attack each other each round, and also happen to eat through everything not stone.
If you can accept the fact that a sufficiently high-level fighter can defeat an unlimited number of 1st-level fighters, than you would have to accept the fact low-level undead mean nothing when deities are engaged in combat. It might take a few actions for high-level champions of Good and Neutrality to wipe out an uncountable number of undead.
Hmm. Unlimited, with items, sure. However, if you allow the low-level fighters enough time to craft ballistas while their bretheren are being great-cloven and have an arbitrary number of 3d8 (19-20/x2) attacks going the fighter's way, short of truly fantastic defensive measures, then the fighter will be going down.
This does require some really horrific numbers of fighters, but if we have a planetary population to play with, we can do things like this.
Plus, change that to 1st-level mages and it's not even a contest (again, assuming a lack of magic items, Spell Mantle, etc.). Although the analogy is flawed, spectres are much closer to mages. Each spectre that manages to tag a commoner is not just a win for Team Evil, it's a chance for Team Evil to win again.
Finally, as I keep saying, the power of Team Don't Kill The World needs to be actively applied against the spectres. Please explain to me (with numbers) how you can produce spectre-killers in quantities equal to the amount Nerull can throw out Gates and spectre-hordes. I'd also like you to take into account the fact that rounds after the spectre-horde hits their target, there will be more spectres. Also keep into account that the limiting factor on the number of spectres coming through the gate per round is a matter of the spectre's speed, and not much else.
Again, a fantastic amount of spectres is not going to be relevant when there are serious high-level combatants fighting. Evil can produce champions no more quickly than Good and Neutrality can, and certainly Nerull cannot produce champions faster than all of Good, all of Neutrality, and much of Evil.
They're going to be relavent if they can kill commoners and regenerate faster than they can be killed themselves. Please, explain to me how these champions are going to deal with a thousand spectres a round per gate (three thousand, if mob rules are used).
Precognition bites both ways, meaning that the gods are aware of each other's actions. They can still choose to take the same actions, knowing that they will be detected. The vast number of deities arrayed against Nerull, they have fear of Nerull discovering the exact details of their plan to kill him, as he will be unable to prevent it.
Could you name such a plan, please?
Depends on the world. Off the top of my head I can come up with Lathander, Pelor, and St. Cuthbert.
St. Cuthbert is gimped in the Divine Sensing department, Lathander is Pun-pun's flashlight on account of existing in FR, and Pelor doesn't actually have a portfolio sense that can detect Nerull flat-out.
That's not true. If he had the capacity to take back the Tablets, he would have done so.
That may be the case; I am working from the description of overdeities in the FR books. By that, the Time of Troubles shouldn't have happened as it is.
Portfolio sense. If necessary, one greater deity can block Nerull's sensing of another's greater deity's sensing, so that Nerull can be detected. Numbers help in this regard, as a large number of deities can detect and block detection more effectively than one deity can.
Which portfolio sense? Which god of greater-DvR-than-Nerull has "Gods of undeath lurking while setting up plans to kill off the Prime" as a listed item on their portfolio sense?
Which means that no information revealed is useful. However, when Nerull actually does decide to go through with an attack, he will meet with resistance. IF he doesn't ever finally commit, then I guess he'll never attack.
*sigh*
Nerull commits attackers.
Pelor commits defenders in response.
Nerull re-commits attackers in response to defense.
Pelor re-re-commits defenders in response to response.
Repeat, quite literally, ad infinitum.
Around a thousand, perhaps? I'm just guessing here.
Seriously? Tell me, have you played with high-level characters before? Have you seen what Storm of Vengeance can do to a city, even before metamagic feats? How about Control Weather or Control Winds? How about Planar-Binding Glabrezu and making them grant a Wish for great suffering and evil in the case of high body counts?
Unless you can immediately get adventurers on the scene, and sometimes not even then, a high-level caster can wreack enormous devestation before they're caught. And even if they are caught, rebuilding the damage will be a much more difficult chore than causing it.
I don't think you understand what I am saying.
The act of casting divination is the act of petitioning the god for information, after which the god gives it.
Read above. To petition a god for a miracle, you do not simply ask. You cast the miracle spell. To petition a god for information, you cast divination. To petition a god for gates, you cast gate
multiple times.
Divination is the act of hollering up to a deity who knows. It does not target the foe.
In other words, the answer to this question:
"Is spell or effect X used to gather information against the target of Mind Blank?"
is NO.
Divination does not gather any information on its own. It merely opens up a link to your deity so that you can ask questions of that deity. Anything after that is not a direct product of the spell itself.
Just like when checking for whether SR applies, it doesn't matter if a spell summons a monster to attack. The spell itself does none of the damage, so SR does not apply.
You know what? Let's agree to disagree on this point. For one; while I could have a great deal of fun tying you in rhetorical knots about whether or not Divination is being used to gather information, it doesn't matter. As I mentioned, if we're allowing D&Dg, then our definition of high-level character is Nerull, who doesn't need to hide from Divination because he can attack every significant Prime target at once.
See above. Mass-producing spectres is a wasted effort. It's the champions that will matter.
Please detail these putative champions for me. I am skeptical that you can get a champion that can defeat legions of spectres as easily as you can get the spectres.
I am also skeptical that you can get enough champions to guard the entire Prime; if you have any plans for this, please let me know of them.
It's not perfect, unlike the ward seed, which means that it will be inadequate as a caster of equal level will eventually break through.
And don't always assume that simply because epic spells can do anything that all actions are within the reach of actual existing beings.
Certainly not perfect; on the other hand, you can also simply make the information useless trivially. As mentioned, hanging out in the Far Realm makes finding you pretty much impossible; they can't know exactly where you are because that's not meaningful information on a plane without fixed location or dimension.
Of course, the Far Realm is not anyone's choice of long-term hideout; it will get you far more surely than adventurers.
As to the second: OotS:S.
All things are in the reach of epic scalykind casters.
The multiverse won't pause. Either Nerull will commit to an attack, knowing full well that he will be detected, or he will let the round slip past without doing anything.
And then when action is taken after Nerull is detected, Nerull detects it and re-commits his forces. Repeat forever, as above.
Magic makes it possible that a straight-up fight can be forced upon an enemy even if they do not wish it. "Scry-and-die" would be the term for this.
"Contingent teleport" would be the response, as would pointing out that killing Nerull doesn't bring back the world from the taken-over-by-undead-place it's become. Plus, you still need to Spot him; he does have a nice hefty hide modifier.
The effort required to create the initial number of spectres means that the forces of Good, Neutrality, and other evil will be stronger than the non-spectre forces of Nerull.
The effort it takes to create the spectres is one time-shifted plane that can support a population, and one Create Greater Undead spell-like ability. The Gates are a little trickier, but thankfully, Nerull can use his SDAs to snap up Vecna and turn him into a crafting gnome.
And it's not a ratio of heroes to villains. It's a ratio of everyone (heroes and villains) who doesn't want the world to get run over of spectres vs. everyone who does. Yes, I do believe that there will be a sufficiently large ratio in favor of destroying the spectres.
There are many powerful characters who don't want this, certainly. How you'd coordinate them and use them effectively, I've no idea, nor how you'd maintain readiness indefinitely. I'd like to see some numbers for this, please, as well as for how quickly various types of characters can kill spectres in an urban environment.
Fortunately we do have plenty of high-level champions of Good, Neutrality, and Evil who will kill such weak undead without expending any resources.
Who? How? Numbers again, please.
My point is that D&D almost never entails this scenario.
You are making a ridiculous argument. The statement "High-level characters disrupt the world" in this context would imply the D&D world, not a non-fantasy medieval world.
A rogue 20 should not exist in a level 5 world. Your problem there is not that "high-level characters are disruptive" but that "low-level worlds with no magic can be disrupted by high-level characters".
Is your argument reduced to "High-level characters disrupt the world . . . when the world is pathetically weak, that is"?
Well, yes. What did you think 'high-level' means? 'High-level' is a meaningful term only in context to the world itself, and the world's characters and challenges. Being high-level means that you can disrupt the world, because you both have a plethora of options, and because the world is full of things less powerful than you for you to disrupt.
Except that in D&D worlds, 20th-level parties are not the most powerful. Thus the world will not be disrupted.
Ultimately, high-level characters only disrupt the D&D world when there are flawed high-level rules.
Yes, no, and yes.
In D&D worlds with D&Dg, 20th level characters are not the most powerful. They are not high-level characters.
Worlds will be disrupted if you actually tried to run the cast of D&Dg in a game, as NPCs, as written.
And yes. However, the set of flawed rules to which I refer has been D&D's rules. Since I am, in fact, referring to the game D&D, I have no problem conceding this fact.
Not to mention that a well placed spell or two from the king's wizard can stop the most potent character. Think about Antimagic Shell. That spell, in and of itself, will put the brakes on most characters because 99% of those high level characters rely on their magic gear to make them better. If the high level character has enough time to cast divination magics over every square foot of the city (which would mean he is god-like to begin with) to detect that Antimagic area, then several of the king's wizards casting Greater Dispels followed by a battalion of mid level foot soldiers with siege engines would give that same high level wizard a run for his money. It would only take a couple of natural 20's for that high level wizard to realize that he cannot stand up against superior numbers for long. Other spells come to mind for putting the brakes on said wizard - Dimensional Anchor, any spell that uses a Fortitude save like Disintegrate, Wall of Force, Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Wish, Alter Reality, Teleport Other, etc, etc, etc.
Now, about the populace and diseases. I believe that you are assuming that every outlying village has a priest high enough to cast healing spells and cure disease. While most villages have some type of religious leader, that person could be just a 3rd level priest who gives the weekly sermon and presides over marriages. An outbreak of disease would most likely have run its course before the message is sent for a higher level cleric to respond and help. In the event that a high enough level cleric just happens to be nearby and starts casting cure disease, that does not mean that the locals are immune forever. While Farmer A is cured today and goes back to his farm where Wife B is still sick, Farmer A gets reinfected. Also think that most outlying villages and towns might be fearful of strangers coming into town and casting spells on them even if they are priests.
High level characters can be handled with relative ease if you just think a little outside the box. While it has been said before, good and evil balance each other. While that high level wizard, fighter, or rogue may inflict a great amount of damage initially, the response sent by the king or local ruler should be sufficient to stop that SINGLE bad guy (a couple of assassins or a battalion of troops). Now, my perspective has always been that most bad guys WANT to live by themselves so that no one knows what evil deeds they are doing and alerting the good guys. In the event that said bad guy still wants to live in town and dominate the locals, then the good guys (aka the characters) would want to put this evil down for the sake of good. Thus, adventures are born. Now if the characters are too weak to put down the evil at the present time, then use the bad guy as a recurring villain to torment the characters until they have risen high enough in levels to challenge the bad guy. That's why the bards sing of epic battles and heroic feats.
And if push comes to shove and the bad guy is just too tough to defeat, then a divine intervention might be in order. If that wizard is blasting the locals left and right without any consequences, then Mystra might just decide to restrict his ability to use magic. Look at the story of Karsis when he decided to use epic level magic to become a god. Whole bunch of devastation there and look where it got him.
And you are comparing apples and oranges when you try to relate D&D with the real world. Your example of a bank robber ripping open a bank vault and killing 40 cops just for the experience would be like bringing an M1 Abrams into the D&D world and making it immune to magic and rust besides giving it unlimited ammo and gas. Who's gonna stop it?
Don't restrict yourself to thinking that high level characters are invulnerable. I have epic level characters in my game and they get their butts handed to them every once in a while. And yes, they can do some amazing things, but they know that one well placed spell or melee attack can make them humble again (think about effects that don't offer saving throws).
Meh. I'm a level 13 fighter, so my opinion won't matter. Here goes anyways. Good and evil can be balanced, but the standard rule of most DM's is to make the opposing side stronger (depending if it's an evil campaign or good campaign) because of these factors:
1. If you're good, you're usually supposed to be a hero. You've toppled overwhelming odds, worked alongside and against the gods themselves. You've seen many lands, monsters, lifestyles, and have many stories to entice people with. The concept of overpowered characters makes DnD interesting and fun. If everyone was the same power, or the side everyone was playing is too powerful, it will quickly make the game boring. Nothing has to be realistic.
Point of order: the rules are the rules. A universe with magic and monsters will be unrealistic, but we expect it to follow the rules as laid out.
2. Evil seeks to make themselves known throughout the world; to be terrified by all, rule with an iron fist, or take over the world itself. If the campaign players are all /Evil, they are usually faced with an overwhelmingly powerful good side, and thus, a challenge is presented. If it were that simple, where you cast a few spells, hack a few people, drink a potion and everyone's at full health, etc, the game would not be as popular as it is now.
This is certainly generally true, but not all evil wants to conquer the world.
And mass-producing more evil than good or vice versa is entirely the DM's discretion. If he wants a temple of Paladins and a monastery of Monks to attack a city dedicated to evil, he'll make a darn good reason for it to happen, and maybe the mere visage of an approaching army of good could sway some evil/semi evil followers. Those goblins for instance are tricky little buggers personality-wise. If they see overwhelming odds that they KNOW will annihilate them, they will most likely sway to the side of good to stay alive, if even only for that one battle. However, like I said, everything is to the discretion of the DM. The players have moderate influence, and after campaigning usually for weeks, months, or even years (My fighter is already a veteran of three years in the same campaign.) you can bet that if you beat Koopa, save the princess, and liberate the mushroom kingdom from tyrannical rule, you will want MORE than a little slip of paper that says "Congratulations. You are the winner." People will want to be awarded with kingdoms, riches, power, etc.
Let's not compare the real-world with DnD. While they might have similarities and differences, they will never be one entity.
I am assuming a roughly-equal distribution of resources, yes; if we are dealing with a campaign world in which Good can afford to put ten times the rapid-response resources at an incursion than Evil can muster, than Evil loses. However, in the absence of knowledge that the universe is so unbalanced, I make no such assumptions. I will point out that the really, really, really evil thing about the spectre-bomb is that it is doesn't even require extant spectres in the universe; if in response to the threat, every spectre is genocided, the next caster to Create Greater Undead can start things again. This is inequality-weighted-towards-evil embedded in the nature of the rules themselves, and not in the campaign world.
I believe that the reason you think high level characters are god-like is because you are looking at them with low level eyes. Any high level character has their respective weaknesses.
While a 20th+ level wizard can cast powerful spells, their Fortitude score sucks. If said wizard set up residence in a nearby city and started acting against the king's wishes, a mid level assassin would be able to take him out with relative ease.
If said wizard were an idiot, yes.
And yes, the wizard may have magical protections to warn him of intruders, but a poisoned crossbow bolt through the window, a drop or two in his drink, disguising himself as the butler and poisoning his meal, etc are effective ways of dealing with self righteous high level characters.
Delay Poison can be up continually, as can magical items. Plus, you need Black Lotus extract or something similar to have any chance of actually killing the wizard.
And unless you can disguise yourself as an Unseen Servant (you can't), then trying to be the butler of a wizard is a failure right from the start.
And that crossbow from the rooftops might just, if you're lucky and magical, scrape through the metamagic'd False Life the wizard will surely have up at all times.
The same thing can be said of the local economy. That same wizard still needs to eat, buy clothes and other essentials, hire the help, etc.
Fabricate. Summoned/called creatures if assistance is absolutely needed.
If that wizards starts bullying the locals, the shop owners will boycott him and refuse to sell him the goods and services that he needs to run his tower. And yes, the wizard could just take the items by force, but if the store owner doesn't make any money because the wizard just keeps taking his products, that store owner will not be able to pay for the products to be shipped to him from wherever they are made. So the well will run dry eventually. The rich will leave first for fear of having their valuables taken away, then the middle class will leave because they're going or have gone out of business and pretty soon, even the poor will leave because no one will want to live around the wizard.
This is actually a concern; however, given that the wizard can teleport, moving away is not the greatest of schemes to evade him.
Not to mention that a well placed spell or two from the king's wizard can stop the most potent character. Think about Antimagic Shell. That spell, in and of itself, will put the brakes on most characters because 99% of those high level characters rely on their magic gear to make them better. If the high level character has enough time to cast divination magics over every square foot of the city (which would mean he is god-like to begin with) to detect that Antimagic area, then several of the king's wizards casting Greater Dispels followed by a battalion of mid level foot soldiers with siege engines would give that same high level wizard a run for his money. It would only take a couple of natural 20's for that high level wizard to realize that he cannot stand up against superior numbers for long. Other spells come to mind for putting the brakes on said wizard - Dimensional Anchor, any spell that uses a Fortitude save like Disintegrate, Wall of Force, Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Wish, Alter Reality, Teleport Other, etc, etc, etc.
A: Antimagic field requires a high-level caster to pull off, and has a range that is measured in feet. Said evil wizard can simply move out of range, teleport away, and resume the pain-bringing.
B: Divination over the entire city isn't necessary; all you need is a permanent Arcane Sight.
C: Contingency remains your friend; just specify a teleport out in case of about-to-be-antimagic'd.
D: Clone. Congrats, you've killed the wizard. Now he's back, and he's ******.
Now, about the populace and diseases. I believe that you are assuming that every outlying village has a priest high enough to cast healing spells and cure disease. While most villages have some type of religious leader, that person could be just a 3rd level priest who gives the weekly sermon and presides over marriages. An outbreak of disease would most likely have run its course before the message is sent for a higher level cleric to respond and help. In the event that a high enough level cleric just happens to be nearby and starts casting cure disease, that does not mean that the locals are immune forever. While Farmer A is cured today and goes back to his farm where Wife B is still sick, Farmer A gets reinfected. Also think that most outlying villages and towns might be fearful of strangers coming into town and casting spells on them even if they are priests.
Remember, the influence of high-level casters is magnified, not only can they cast more, they can also move faster, divine better, and bring along loads of other casters who would have otherwise not been able to make it in time to stop the disease. It's not perfect, and you really need permanent magic items to do a proper job, but since you'd expect high-level casters to have such items, then it works well.
Also, running from the caster who probably still has Wind Walk up isn't going to get you not casted-at.
High level characters can be handled with relative ease if you just think a little outside the box. While it has been said before, good and evil balance each other. While that high level wizard, fighter, or rogue may inflict a great amount of damage initially, the response sent by the king or local ruler should be sufficient to stop that SINGLE bad guy (a couple of assassins or a battalion of troops). Now, my perspective has always been that most bad guys WANT to live by themselves so that no one knows what evil deeds they are doing and alerting the good guys. In the event that said bad guy still wants to live in town and dominate the locals, then the good guys (aka the characters) would want to put this evil down for the sake of good. Thus, adventures are born. Now if the characters are too weak to put down the evil at the present time, then use the bad guy as a recurring villain to torment the characters until they have risen high enough in levels to challenge the bad guy. That's why the bards sing of epic battles and heroic feats.
Oddly enough, you assume that these out-of-the-box solutions will all happen to the wizard threatening the realm, and that it won't be him dropping them on the realm's defenders preemptively (because they are public figures, and he isn't). And yes, I am quite comfortable saying that the wizard can deal with the response sent by the king, because the king is also just one person. In particular, the king is one person who can catch a Dominate Person and then no longer be a threat to the wizard at all. The king's court wizard will notice, you say? What if it's the court wizard doing the Dominating?
And if push comes to shove and the bad guy is just too tough to defeat, then a divine intervention might be in order. If that wizard is blasting the locals left and right without any consequences, then Mystra might just decide to restrict his ability to use magic. Look at the story of Karsis when he decided to use epic level magic to become a god. Whole bunch of devastation there and look where it got him.
Thankfully, the core setting has no Mystra. (Also, if we're in FR, it might just as likely be that Pun-Pun approves of the wizard's actions, and restores the wizard's power with a +2 on all his save DCs, just because he's Pun-Pun, and he can do that.)
Finally, remember that Karsus is currently hanging with the Vestiges, and is re-possessing a breed of humanoid and re-inserting himself into the universe. That's an acceptable fate.
And you are comparing apples and oranges when you try to relate D&D with the real world. Your example of a bank robber ripping open a bank vault and killing 40 cops just for the experience would be like bringing an M1 Abrams into the D&D world and making it immune to magic and rust besides giving it unlimited ammo and gas. Who's gonna stop it?
Um. Well. D&D has things like that, for one thing. They're called golems. Wizards make them. It's kind of my point, in fact; reality has balancing factors (like the need for logistics) that magic doesn't. Logistics will limit the amount of harm one person can cause with a tank, even if it's the only tank. These logistics do not hamper magic at all. Heck, magic could simply enchant the tank with an Arsenal of Anariel and magical rust-proofing, and then Animate it.
Don't restrict yourself to thinking that high level characters are invulnerable. I have epic level characters in my game and they get their butts handed to them every once in a while. And yes, they can do some amazing things, but they know that one well placed spell or melee attack can make them humble again (think about effects that don't offer saving throws).
Your high-level characters are optimized. My demilich, with his private planes and spell immunity, laughs at them.
Finally, apropos of previous comments, I'd like to answer the question of "How much damage can a high-level character wreak?" with a link to a particular post in Sepulchrave's Story Hour, detailing one druid going up against an army. The answer, in case there is any doubt, is a lot.
Plus, these are gods we're talking about. Nerull can simply stockpile Gate-items, force a bunch of fast-breeding humanoids into Spectrehood, and hit every major urban center and several wilderness locations at once. As I said before, it takes no resources beyond the initial investment and a humanoid farm to make spectres. Making spectre-killers takes effort.
This item's angle is interesting. So far as I can tell a major impediment to Nerull's hiding or doing efforts is that the other gods are entitled to produce items at a rate he can't match.
When I say that I'm aware that one infinite set (i.e. one Nerull making infinite items) can contain another infinite set (i.e. N other gods making infinite items), but once you start dealing with infinities you have to consider the problem that Nerull has an infinitely small chance of picking the plane your game is set on to mess with. Since there are infinite planes, and your plane is not yet messed with, ergo Nerull did not pick it. Should Nerull want to pick your plane (once we start introducing infinities) he will have an impossible time of it. No matter how many he consumes there are still infinitely more nearly identical (one of which your game is run on) to go. Even if he can consume planes infinitely fast he still has this problem, since an infinite set is always bigger than another infinite set.
Anyway, back to the point. Since they all have access to the same time-shenanigans once one big god makes the little gods items for doing it, it seems to me the fairest thing is to assume parity god-level for god-level. I certainly feel that's what the system intends.
So:
Nerull hard to find? No problem. Use Pelor's patented Nerull finder.
Nerull makes Nerull's patented Pelor's Nerull Finder Thwarter? No problem, use Pelor's patented Finder Of Any Nerull Pelor's Nerull Finder Can't Find.
And so on, except there are more other gods than there are Nerulls.
Your call. Go to infinities, and good luck destroying an infinite planes, each nearly identical. Or go to finities, and good luck with the one manufacturer vs. dozens of others race.
Not, as you know, that I give credence to anything that leaves behind a DMs actual control of Nerull in his actual game world. When I need to know what Nerull is about to do next, such that portfolio sense will work, I simply decide. I love your version. Hmm, what will my NPC do next? Gahhh!! That!?!
How could I ever guess he would turn himself into a goldfish?
-VK
Just so we're clear: If you the DM have no idea that a spectre-bomb is about to occur, then it doesn't show up in divination or Portfolio Sense, then?
Well, OK. That solves any questions about Portfolio Sense being useful.
How can the DM be completely unaware of what the NPCs in his own campaign will do? Do these imaginary entities come up with their own actions?
No.
Aggressor acts, going to where defender has no defense.
Defender acts in preemptive response, moving defenders to place where attacker was attacking.
Aggressor acts in preemptive pre-response, choosing new target for attack.
Defender acts in preemptive pre-pre-response, allocating defense to new new target.
Aggressor chooses new target, etc.
Nope.
The aggressor can choose a new target all they want. When they finally decide to commit to a target (after standing around doing nothing but changing targets), their decision will be known to all. If the aggressor does not settle upon a target, then they do nothing.
All players have unlimited information, creating a perfect information game. This does not mean that the players are unable to act. This just means that they will be watched as they do it.
Plus, these are gods we're talking about. Nerull can simply stockpile Gate-items, force a bunch of fast-breeding humanoids into Spectrehood, and hit every major urban center and several wilderness locations at once. As I said before, it takes no resources beyond the initial investment and a humanoid farm to make spectres. Making spectre-killers takes effort.
And spectres are not a threat to the ECL 20 agents of a deity. Making spectres will ultimately still take actions and time, which can be used by other deities to create magic items of mass undead killing.
Shockingly, the books and supplements I've read are slightly low on adventurers tunneling or ethereally-traversing hundreds of feet of bedrock in hopes of finding a cavern someone's hollowed out there. Moreover, there simply aren't enough adventurers to look through every gigantic sheet of rock to see if a lich is raising an army there.
Shockingly, adventurers don't tunnel randomly, but gather information before ever considering a shovel.
Spectres have an ECL -. Possibly you mean CR? If so, remember that CR judges monster's threat relative to an adventuring party, not relative to a game world, or each other.
It does not change the fact that spectres are too powerful for their CR if you use their RAW statblock.
Really? Well, yes, I suppose that if it came to that, Good and Neutrality can do what Evil is trying to do (slaughter commoners) better than evil could. This means nothing about their respective ability to stop evil from slaughtering commoners. How do you intend to mass-produce spectre-killers?
You don't need to mass-produce spectre-killers. A much smaller number of epic champions (and divine servants like solars or even quasi-deities) can take on a nearly unlimited number of spectres. No number of spectres will matter in the equation when nearly every deity in existence and all their champions are fighting them.
In five words or less:
Origin of the Species: Sarrukh.
Right. So you resort to an infinite loop? Again, you are demonstrating that certain rules are flawed, not the system of high-level characters in general.
For creativity value, you could make Black-Pudding / Tarrasque hybrids, that have natural weapons, Combat Reflexes, massive regeneration, Split, and require a Wish each to actually kill, and have them continually attack each other each round, and also happen to eat through everything not stone.
You are aware that the necessary DC is again beyond the reach of any but overdeities?
Hmm. Unlimited, with items, sure. However, if you allow the low-level fighters enough time to craft ballistae while their brethren are being great-cloven and have an arbitrary number of 3d8 (19-20/x2) attacks going the fighter's way, short of truly fantastic defensive measures, then the fighter will be going down.
You do realize that a fighter can retreat, or have magic items that provide damage reduction or fast healing?
Not to mention that the fighter will have significant cover against most attacks unless these ballistae also fly?
This does require some really horrific numbers of fighters, but if we have a planetary population to play with, we can do things like this.
Plus, change that to 1st-level mages and it's not even a contest (again, assuming a lack of magic items, Spell Mantle, etc.). Although the analogy is flawed, spectres are much closer to mages. Each spectre that manages to tag a commoner is not just a win for Team Evil, it's a chance for Team Evil to win again.
Assuming a fighter has no magic items is flawed. Characters are expected to have a certain amount of wealth, depending on level, that is spent freely on gear and such.
Finally, as I keep saying, the power of Team Don't Kill The World needs to be actively applied against the spectres. Please explain to me (with numbers) how you can produce spectre-killers in quantities equal to the amount Nerull can throw out Gates and spectre-hordes. I'd also like you to take into account the fact that rounds after the spectre-horde hits their target, there will be more spectres. Also keep into account that the limiting factor on the number of spectres coming through the gate per round is a matter of the spectre's speed, and not much else.
Simple. You need a billion times fewer deities than spectres.
They're going to be relevant if they can kill commoners and regenerate faster than they can be killed themselves. Please, explain to me how these champions are going to deal with a thousand spectres a round per gate (three thousand, if mob rules are used).
You really don't think the epic and divine servants of nearly all deities in existence can hold off mere spectres in the time it takes for their gods to kill Nerull?
And besides, Nerull has to actually spend actions to make gates, limiting the amount that actually arrive, and those gates can be dispelled.
Not to mention that if Nerull happens to build a truly threatening force, deities can intercede when they are half complete?
Could you name such a plan, please?
Already done.
St. Cuthbert is gimped in the Divine Sensing department, Lathander is Pun-pun's flashlight on account of existing in FR, and Pelor doesn't actually have a portfolio sense that can detect Nerull flat-out.
All deities can detect a threat to themselves, if nothing else, as that would threaten their portfolio. As Nerull seems to be a threat to all creation, I would assume every deity's senses are triggered.
That may be the case; I am working from the description of overdeities in the FR books. By that, the Time of Troubles shouldn't have happened as it is.
Why not?
Which portfolio sense? Which god of greater-DvR-than-Nerull has "Gods of undeath lurking while setting up plans to kill off the Prime" as a listed item on their portfolio sense?
You are restricting portfolio sense to far too narrow limits.
*sigh*
Nerull commits attackers.
Pelor commits defenders in response.
Nerull re-commits attackers in response to defense.
Pelor re-re-commits defenders in response to response.
Repeat, quite literally, ad infinitum.
Meaning that no attack takes place. And the definition of committing means not changing your mind afterward.
Seriously? Tell me, have you played with high-level characters before? Have you seen what Storm of Vengeance can do to a city, even before metamagic feats? How about Control Weather or Control Winds? How about Planar-Binding Glabrezu and making them grant a Wish for great suffering and evil in the case of high body counts?
I have played and do continue to play with epic characters. Again, storm of vengeance might do a huge amount of damage to a city, but someone might kill you for it.
Please detail these putative champions for me. I am skeptical that you can get a champion that can defeat legions of spectres as easily as you can get the spectres.
You're kidding, right?
How about the avatars of every deity that has the Avatar SDA?
How about characters given items (or using their own powers) to cast [i]sunburst[/]? Prismatic wall?
I am also skeptical that you can get enough champions to guard the entire Prime; if you have any plans for this, please let me know of them.
Each of hundreds of deities have dozens of champions and thousands of divine servants.
Certainly not perfect; on the other hand, you can also simply make the information useless trivially. As mentioned, hanging out in the Far Realm makes finding you pretty much impossible; they can't know exactly where you are because that's not meaningful information on a plane without fixed location or dimension.
That doesn't stop magic or Divine Sensing from locating where you are, and teleportation magic from reaching you.
All things are in the reach of epic scalykind casters.
Nobody cares. If Pun-Pun actually existed, then Nerull isn't the real issue. A moronic DM that allows everything is.
And then when action is taken after Nerull is detected, Nerull detects it and re-commits his forces. Repeat forever, as above.
As above, read the definition of "commit".
"Contingent teleport" would be the response, as would pointing out that killing Nerull doesn't bring back the world from the taken-over-by-undead-place it's become. Plus, you still need to Spot him; he does have a nice hefty hide modifier.
The champions (and probably a significant number of deities, as you don't really need hundreds to kill Nerull) have been smashing spectres and gates.
The effort it takes to create the spectres is one time-shifted plane that can support a population, and one Create Greater Undead spell-like ability. The Gates are a little trickier, but thankfully, Nerull can use his SDAs to snap up Vecna and turn him into a crafting gnome.
The effort for a dozen deities to defeat an unlimited number of spectres is even less.
There are many powerful characters who don't want this, certainly. How you'd coordinate them and use them effectively, I've no idea, nor how you'd maintain readiness indefinitely. I'd like to see some numbers for this, please, as well as for how quickly various types of characters can kill spectres in an urban environment.
You do not need to maintain readiness indefinitely. When Nerull decides to attack, everyone will know it and inform their subordinates.
Who? How? Numbers again, please.
How about nearly all published NPCs and deities for the relevant setting?
Well, yes. What did you think 'high-level' means? 'High-level' is a meaningful term only in context to the world itself, and the world's characters and challenges. Being high-level means that you can disrupt the world, because you both have a plethora of options, and because the world is full of things less powerful than you for you to disrupt.
High-level is not a relative term in the sense that I am using it. I am using the term as WotC does, referring to characters of beyond 9th-level or so.
Yes, no, and yes.
In D&D worlds with D&Dg, 20th level characters are not the most powerful. They are not high-level characters.
Wrong.
The most powerful characters are the highest-level characters.
That doesn't mean that other characters are not high-level.
Are you changing your argument to "The highest-level characters can disrupt the world?" Because in that case I am in a fair amount of agreement, because I am sure overdeities can do exactly such a thing.
And yes. However, the set of flawed rules to which I refer has been D&D's rules. Since I am, in fact, referring to the game D&D, I have no problem conceding this fact.
You are intentionally broadening your scope to a level that is ridiculous.
The fact that specific rules have a problem does not mean that the entire game does.
So, I ask again:
Please detail these putative champions. Please provide the number of specters they can kill per round, as well as the necessary conditions for killing the spectres. (If you need line of effect, for instance, you're boned; there will be large chunks of city between you and most of the spectres.)
Also, methods of defending large numbers of civilians are helpful; if you can lock every single humanoid in a city in their own private Resilient Sphere, you can kill the spectres sent to that city in your leisure. Likewise, killing off humanoids before they get spectre-munched also helps slow the exponential growth equation. However, this is probably a tactic reserved for the evil gods.
But I want numbers. I want effects used, and the number of times they can be used per day, and how well they work in the average case.
Even Pelor resplendent cannot simply wave his hand and purge a city of spectres; he needs to use his written powers to do so. Spamming Nonlethal-Substituted Sunbursts sounds like a good starting tactic, but Sunburst costs spell slots. (Yes, unlimited use items of it can be made. So can artifacts that have the special property of a metamagic'd Apocalypse From The Sky, with the artifact itself as the focus.)
You give a starting number of a billion spectres per deity. I question this number; I claim that with a mere fifty gates (7650 gp per) and thousand spectres per gate, even a greater god would not be able to kill spectres fast enough. Keep in mind that gates can be opened underground, and other areas hard to reach, and that gate opening can be staggered. Spectres are vulnerable when they pop out to start feasting on humanoid, but so are the humanoids they are feasting upon.
Also, don't forget that there are other ways to get Spectres to the prime; Gate is just a good way to do so with accuracy and for mass transport. However, I think I'll start here: For about 8000 gp worth of magical item cost, you can get 1,000 spectres onto the Prime per round, in any location you desire, for 17 rounds. (If you use the DMGII mob rules, this goes up to 3000 per round.) Assuming that you don't have line of effect to the gate (it was opened underground, say) and that the spectres are scattering directly into the city in question, how do you kill them all? Can you do so for less than 8,000 gp worth of resources?
Gods hopping from city to city wiping out spectres is a very good plan, yes. But there are many, many more cities than there are gods capable of sterilizing a city of undead, and every city left unattended for minutes is now another howling horde of undead.
Also, just as an aside: What happens when Asmodeus and the Nine Hells get involved, as the forcible coercion of so many souls to LE alignment is right up his alley? What happens when the lords of the Abyss decide that, rather than concede so many souls to the devils, that it's time to move the hordes of the abyss onto the Prime and get in on the wreaking action? The yugoloths would certainly be down with this plan; destroying the cosmos is right up their alley. The celestials will object, of course. Now, how do you deal with the fact that everyone is trying to kill everyone else?
You know, maybe there's a very good reason so many religions preface their apocalypses with the return of the dead.
[b]Vonklaude[b]:
To the first: If there are an infinity of planes, then the gods don't exist on infinitely many of them. Plus, you still need to demonstrate that there are infinite primes.
Now, if you're claiming that shortly after Nerull gets his ghost on, the world ends, and play picks up on an alternate universe Nerull never got around to making that decision on, then you've devised an elegant if disturbingly quantum solution to the problem. I'll also point out that it's not just the finding Nerull that's the problem; you still need to get to him, sense him, and kill him before he gets away.
(Also remember he can become a fiendlich. You know, doing so, setting his plane to be exit-only, and leading the slaughter himself, secure in the knowledge that absolutely nothing can reach his phylactery safe in his realm, would really be the capstone on sadistic evil plans. If he time-accelerates his plane first, anyone on the Prime won't even have a swift action before he's back again.)
Finally, remember that Nerull can blanket his home plane in Remote Sensing Block, and only the three racial deities have a chance of seeing through it. Plus, if he's really afraid of that, he can always order Vecna to declare three proxies, and then order those three proxies to declare Nerull their proxy. Nerull is now DvR 20, and the highest divinity around. When Nerull's assault happens, there won't be specific preparations for it. There will be the existing massed forces of Leave The World As It Is, mobilized as fast as possible, but when you're dealing of thousands of spectres per gate per round, as fast as possible isn't good enough if there is any delay whatsoever.
As to your last question: First, I am having Nerull simply act as is in his written nature. Yes, he might decide not to kill everyone at once; if he does (and he might well, given his description), the world is doomed.
Next: Well, to put it bluntly, yes, there may well be a circumstance in which an NPC turns himself into a goldfish. Leaving aside Xactosects and the like, it may well be that the NPC is about to be eaten by a rampaging dragon, and needs to Polymorph himself into something inconspicuous to get away. Unless I can predict the actions of every actor in the universe, I can't meaningfully predict the future, and if I can't meaningfully predict the future, then long-term divination doesn't exist.
Thankfully I have also been there for properly mitigated low/mid/high magic settings. One of the first things you will see appear is a "wizards council" of epic arcanists and demi-gods dedicated to policing their own. "Elminsters" and local High Clerics capable of performing the necessary lockdowns on baddies is you second line of defense. Worse are the towns that are in fact controlled by the one really powerful wizard that no one can argue with. Mafioso anyone?
What are these super muckity mucks doing? Well they are casting the occasional miracle. Treating plagues (a common pastime amongst actual mid-evil monastic orders). Repairing the occasional bridge with a snap of the fingers.. but mostly? They are waiting and preparing for the possible arrival of a super monster/bad guy. They can't waste all their wish spells making buildings. They can't busy themselves with crafting.. they must maintain constant vigilance in case someone that only they can defeat appears.
In original DragonLance the gods came and pulled you out of the world and into the heavens if you breached 18th level. The cities of DarkSun are controlled by demi-gods. DL is mid magical, DS high.. but in a low magic game.. your not offering much of a solution (always an important part of such a "recriminating" article).
If you are playing a 15th level wizard in a low magic campaign setting then yeah.. your a "god" by most commoner opinions. I'm certain that if you settled in a town the 15th level Aristocrat in charge of the place is gonna lick your boots and send a small party of low level characters off the the mountains of Meru to request the Elder Dragon awaken and take care of you. Simple.
Epic Spellcasting?
Nuke entire city w/ ritual made w/ heal seed...that should do some freakin damage....and healing...
however aside from that you can just stack levels if you want till you get a divine characters or
wiz 3/ master spec 6/ fate spinner 2/ Io7FV 7/ divine oracle 2 / so he could always react (wiz alt class feature for immediate action dim doors) init will be over a + 20 and you will have immediate warding for the masses, you just need to avoid stupid stuff like death attack/ low fort saves (easily fixable) and have a cohort who gets you food (any low level cleric with create good berries + water) just cast detect poison before each food
that is simply NON epic wizards... we don't even talk about clerics.... leave them out of this, and shadow casters..... (shivers) epic shadow casters simply scare me I don't even want to think of epic mysteries.
Bluemage: You appear to be not responding to my questions. It doesn't matter that any one avatar can wipe out an arbitrary number of spectres; what matters is that said avatar needs to wipe out an arbitrary number of spectres that have infested a city, and he needs to do so in minutes. Moreover, he needs to keep doing it; Nerull can simply attack in two stages. That's the great thing about spectres, like I keep saying: if you have a supply of humanoids, they're free. He can attack every major city, then when the forces of Having a World send their champions, he can send the rest of his force.
It's not an arbitrary number of spectres. It's a large amount of spectres that keep coming until Nerull dies. Nerull dies quickly, so the champions only need to stall for perhaps a few minutes. Any remaining damage can be repaired by the deities that will still remain.
Please detail these putative champions. Please provide the number of specters they can kill per round, as well as the necessary conditions for killing the spectres. (If you need line of effect, for instance, you're boned; there will be large chunks of city between you and most of the spectres.)
I do not plan to detail every avatar and high-level character in existence. If you're going to be using Greyhawk (which is to be expected, as you're using Nerull), then you can simply look up all the high-level characters of Greyhawk as well as the avatars of every deity with the Avatar SDA.
Furthermore, take a look at every alignment exemplar (angels, archons, eladrins, rilmani, inevitables, devils, etc.), and expect potentially millions upon millions of each if they are needed (they probably won't be). A huge number of gates with spectres pouring out won't be as impressive as a larger number of gates (remember, the other deities can collectively make gates far faster than the lone Nerull can) with astral devas, hound archons, ice devils, formian queens, and the like pouring out.
All it comes down to is this: no matter how many spectres Nerull can come up with, other deities can bring forth a greater number of servants. Many of these servants are powerful outsiders. And worse for Nerull, those forces can be deployed faster (as there are many more deities to the single Nerull) and can create their own reinforcements (outsiders often can summon help, etc.). These forces are lead by high-level characters, avatars, and even deities (since not every deity will be needed to kill Nerull), and these leaders can close/destroy gates faster than Nerull can open them, not to mention cut wide swaths through the spectres with abilities such as Turn Undead, undeath to death, sunburst, Divine Radiance, Energy Storm (positive), Undead Mastery, etc.
I'm not going to give you all the numbers, because simple common sense alone should explain to you that the vast number of beings who prefer that the world remain intact can stop spectres for a few minutes (if it even takes that long to jump Nerull).
And to top it all off, any damage caused by Nerull's foolish attack can be repaired. These are all the deities of the world we're talking about here.
[Even Pelor resplendent cannot simply wave his hand and purge a city of spectres; he needs to use his written powers to do so. Spamming Nonlethal-Substituted Sunbursts sounds like a good starting tactic, but Sunburst costs spell slots. (Yes, unlimited use items of it can be made. So can artifacts that have the special property of a metamagic'd Apocalypse From The Sky, with the artifact itself as the focus.)
Pelor has millions upon millions of servants that he can call upon to do the work for him. Pelor himself will be killing Nerull.
You give a starting number of a billion spectres per deity. I question this number; I claim that with a mere fifty gates (7650 gp per) and thousand spectres per gate, even a greater god would not be able to kill spectres fast enough. Keep in mind that gates can be opened underground, and other areas hard to reach, and that gate opening can be staggered. Spectres are vulnerable when they pop out to start feasting on humanoid, but so are the humanoids they are feasting upon.
A gate can be shut down with a single action by a single powerful being, whereas Nerull can only make so many per round (and once he is attacked, he will probably want to spend his actions defending himself).
[For about 8000 gp worth of magical item cost, you can get 1,000 spectres onto the Prime per round, in any location you desire, for 17 rounds. (If you use the DMGII mob rules, this goes up to 3000 per round.) Assuming that you don't have line of effect to the gate (it was opened underground, say) and that the spectres are scattering directly into the city in question, how do you kill them all? Can you do so for less than 8,000 gp worth of resources?
For one scroll of mage's disjunction, you can blow up a gate.
Also, just as an aside: What happens when Asmodeus and the Nine Hells get involved, as the forcible coercion of so many souls to LE alignment is right up his alley? What happens when the lords of the Abyss decide that, rather than concede so many souls to the devils, that it's time to move the hordes of the abyss onto the Prime and get in on the wreaking action? The yugoloths would certainly be down with this plan; destroying the cosmos is right up their alley. The celestials will object, of course. Now, how do you deal with the fact that everyone is trying to kill everyone else?
Asmodeus might ally with Nerull. I find that doubtful, as he would most likely want the souls to go to himself rather than Nerull. Even if he does, all the other planes will side against the destruction of the world in question. Even the yugoloths and demons would prefer if Asmodeus not win out.
First, divorce yourself from the concept of "This is like medieval Europe, only with magic." Countries are rare and not that strong. There's no such thing as a "France" sized nation. This is kind of like the early Medieval period, right after the Romans pulled out of Europe, when all you had was a thousand lordlings trying to control their little scrap of turf.
Remember, there's not just magic and high level characters in the world. There's monsters, and I mean EVERYWHERE.
The world is darkness with points of light, little clusters of civilization living in a world full of monsters that live just beyond the borders. A king's army can (and is needed to) keep the peace within a few tens of miles of the castle, but there are no true nations. Nobody travels very far other than adventurers, because do you really want to go meet trolls over the next ridge?
Even merchants would stick to well-known routes, which may be patrolled and otherwise kept safe, but even that could be dangerous when a powerful monster decides to move in. A dragon's lair or a forest of ettercaps is as great a barrier to trade and travel as the swiftest river or the deepest chasm.
Most civilization will be within a day's travel of some central power, like the aforementioned lordling (who doubtless calls himself King) with an army. A few large cities may exist, but true metropolises will be virtually impossible without the means to transport large amounts of food into them at all times. Remember, any farmland that the army can't reach in a few days is going to be totally on its own.
And people WILL stake claims out there, when they find a nice place that's mostly monster-free. Rangers may help keep the place free of nastiness, but if anything really bad happens -- they have to pray some heroes show up to fix it, or they'll all die. Adventurers are, in this system, a basic and critical part of society... though most of those townies and city dwellers probably consider adventurers unstable adrenaline junkies at best, and utterly insane at worst.
This system also helps to explain other issues.
Why can't we use hirelings to do work in dungeons? Because they simply won't do it. You're a crazy adventurer, I'm sure you're just FINE with strolling in and offing some trogs -- but I'm a dock worker with a girlfriend and two old parents depending on me; I can't afford to get myself killed for you.
Why does the king not just send in the army to root out monsters, depending on the 20s-always-hit to kill them? Because he can't afford to send his army away and leave the lands open to predation by anything else that comes by, not to mention the risk of losing a significant portion of the army and being perhaps unable to deal with the next threat.
Moving on a bit -- considering this, why SHOULD a powerful spellcaster pay taxes or whatnot? In fact, there's every reason why that spellcaster should be his own king. A traditional wizard's tower becomes one of two things -- either the center of a civilized area, under the wizard's powerful protection, or a retreat in the wilderness from whence he can smite any fools who come to see him. It depends on the wizard's feelings on the matter. And if the wizard has the wandering feet that keep him away from home too often to become a center of protection, why should he be bothered about taxes anyway?
It's not high-level PCs that 'disrupt' the world -- High-level PCs build the world!
These exploits are just that, exploits. They aren't fun, they aren't clever, they're immature and stupid. And interventionist deities, likewise, just aren't fun.
However, I do think you all seriously overestimate the power of high level characters. Sure, they can mess things up if the world consists entirely of 1st level commoners and a handful of higher levels, but as for a spellcaster being able to 'level a city in a day'? Let's examine that claim, starting with the pride of a spellcaster's arsenal, the 9th level spells.
Sorcerors/Wizards
Epic is even easier; just come up with a custom Epic spell do to N, where N makes the world go boom.
You do realize that Epic spells are dependent on power, right? By the time you'd be high enough level to do this, it'd be much, much easier to simply steal the Death Star. (I.E., you'd need to be in the high thousands.)
I suppose it really depends on what level of optimization you want your campaign to have... normal, medium, high, silly, or Pun-Pun.
Apocalypse From The Sky isn't as scary as Pulse, anyways.
I've created a campaign world of my own, and I think it's pretty 'stable' (that is, not about to explode). One of the key points is that not everyone is a freakin' level one commoner zomg. It's actually a 'modern' campaign, and while spellcasters aren't exactly common, they're probably as common as in 'standard' D&D. They aren't, however, the end-all be-all (admittedly, I'm not a great 'optimizer' so my casters might not be the demigods they reputedly can become.)
However, this world does have a lot of high level individuals - at 20th level, you're hardly a legend in your own time, you're just noteworthy. (Epic is maybe 1-5000, not 1 in several million). And people of 20th, 30th, 40th, or even 50th level who think that the nation-state model should apply to them can rely upon the United States government to swiftly disabuse them of that notion.
So no, it looks nothing like conventional D&D (but frankly, I don't think anyone plays 'conventional' D&D). Modern technology, in this case, has magic outpaced by light years, especially when it comes to the ability to smash things. A feisty high level mage is way to much for ordinary police to handle, but that's why there are other agencies... or armored vehicles, or artillery (there's even a special kind of shell, which combines an antimagic field with a fuel air bomb. Complete with an inward facing forcefield for extra ownage.)
Vonklaude:
To the first: If there are an infinity of planes, then the gods don't exist on infinitely many of them. Plus, you still need to demonstrate that there are infinite primes.
I was endeavoring to rule out appeals to infinities, because:
Now, if you're claiming that shortly after Nerull gets his ghost on, the world ends, and play picks up on an alternate universe Nerull never got around to making that decision on, then you've devised an elegant if disturbingly quantum solution to the problem.
Thank you and well (re)put. One way or another (as I suspect you can accept without us going through the torturous logic of it
appeals to infinity lead to the above sort of argument. My intuition is that we need to steer clear of arbitrary sub-planes giving infinite (or even very-large) amounts of time to do stuff, because once we get into that its tough to argue anything meaningful.I'll also point out that it's not just the finding Nerull that's the problem; you still need to get to him, sense him, and kill him before he gets away.
I guess I was looking foremost at the find problem, because it at first looked insoluble; but the magic item creation rules make it easily soluble for gods. And I was saying: let's not get into infinities. That is, let's stop looping at 1, because nothing meaningful can be argued beyond that point.
However, the magic item creation rules, as wielded by gods, so far as I can tell, give them instant answers to any problem. Weird. One-shot-Nerull-like-targets-only-find-and-imprison-cubes etc. Not really a problem. Tough for Nerull to avoid because numbers of crafters does count on any time loop (and let's settle on all having the same amount of relative time, else there's no point continuing this because we'll hit an epistemological wall that won't support any position.
For which reason I'd ask we drop the following:
(Also remember he can become a fiendlich. You know, doing so, setting his plane to be exit-only, and leading the slaughter himself, secure in the knowledge that absolutely nothing can reach his phylactery safe in his realm, would really be the capstone on sadistic evil plans. If he time-accelerates his plane first, anyone on the Prime won't even have a swift action before he's back again.)
Anyone of our supernally foresightful gods can appeal to the time trick. In fact, since they are supernally foresightful they can do the Dune trick (later books) and know where someone is by figuring out where they aren't. Faster than instantly.
Finally, remember that Nerull can blanket his home plane in Remote Sensing Block, and only the three racial deities have a chance of seeing through it. Plus, if he's really afraid of that, he can always order Vecna to declare three proxies, and then order those three proxies to declare Nerull their proxy. Nerull is now DvR 20, and the highest divinity around. When Nerull's assault happens, there won't be specific preparations for it. There will be the existing massed forces of Leave The World As It Is, mobilized as fast as possible, but when you're dealing of thousands of spectres per gate per round, as fast as possible isn't good enough if there is any delay whatsoever.
Once we introduce sub-planes with time passing at arbitrary rates, Nerull can't pull this off. Also, it's wrong to suppose the only way of finding Nerull is, err, finding him ;)
As to your last question: First, I am having Nerull simply act as is in his written nature. Yes, he might decide not to kill everyone at once; if he does (and he might well, given his description), the world is doomed.
Next: Well, to put it bluntly, yes, there may well be a circumstance in which an NPC turns himself into a goldfish. Leaving aside Xactosects and the like, it may well be that the NPC is about to be eaten by a rampaging dragon, and needs to Polymorph himself into something inconspicuous to get away. Unless I can predict the actions of every actor in the universe, I can't meaningfully predict the future, and if I can't meaningfully predict the future, then long-term divination doesn't exist.
I wasn't really trying to show that turning into a goldfish was likely, unlikely, or even dumb. The point really is that no fictional character, of whatever powers, in an arbitrated game (an RPG) can do anything that can come as a surprise to the arbiter. Indeed, the arbiter determines their actions. I'm pretty sure you concede that, right? Even though I recognise your argument explores what they could and should reasonably enough do or be able to do, we have to come back to what the DM has them actually do.
I can construct a rules system making it tough for the DM to tell the near future, if I want. For example, a simple table where 1-3 they do X, 4-6 they do Y. Yet the DM is within her remit to choose an outcome from that table if they wish. So until I abolish Rule 0, and at the same time build such a table, then it isn't a problem. Nerull does only, and predictably, what I have him do. There's unlikely to be value in running a game where Nerull has already spectre-bombed the campaign setting! I mean, we both accept that doesn't work for our players, right?
So while I accept your arguments with regard to the absolute question of what H-L entities like Nerull might reasonably enough do, I deplore it to the extent it excludes the DM's arbitration. Further, I proffer item creation as a possible solution for those who are bugged by the feeling of illogic of super-evil H-L entities failing to destroy the world.
-vk
It's not an arbitrary number of spectres. It's a large amount of spectres that keep coming until Nerull dies. Nerull dies quickly, so the champions only need to stall for perhaps a few minutes. Any remaining damage can be repaired by the deities that will still remain.
Still waiting on how you expect this to happen, by the way. Nerull can lock himself up right tightly in his home plane and let the carnage proceed, as well as simply random-walking every turn to wherever other gods aren't and won't be.
I do not plan to detail every avatar and high-level character in existence. If you're going to be using Greyhawk (which is to be expected, as you're using Nerull), then you can simply look up all the high-level characters of Greyhawk as well as the avatars of every deity with the Avatar SDA.
...
Okay! I've done so. They lose. Bummer for your side.
Unless perhaps you'd like to actually argue your point? Seriously, though; if you want to argue that it makes no thematic sense for specters to be able to destroy the world when you have Solars and avatars running around, I will heartily agree, but I will still point out that they can.
Furthermore, take a look at every alignment exemplar (angels, archons, eladrins, rilmani, inevitables, devils, etc.), and expect potentially millions upon millions of each if they are needed (they probably won't be). A huge number of gates with spectres pouring out won't be as impressive as a larger number of gates (remember, the other deities can collectively make gates far faster than the lone Nerull can) with astral devas, hound archons, ice devils, formian queens, and the like pouring out.
Well, that's great, but you will notice that none of the above-listed outsiders have the ability to chase a horde of spectres through a city and destroy them without also destroying city and occupants. Moreover, many of them cheerfully would destroy city and occupants, and all of them would just as cheerfully murder a good portion of their co-exemplars (and exterminate civvies to do so) rather than spectre-hunt.
Again, plans that involve pulling the collective might of the Planes onto the Prime are very, very, very rarely win conditions for the Primers.
All it comes down to is this: no matter how many spectres Nerull can come up with, other deities can bring forth a greater number of servants. Many of these servants are powerful outsiders. And worse for Nerull, those forces can be deployed faster (as there are many more deities to the single Nerull) and can create their own reinforcements (outsiders often can summon help, etc.). These forces are lead by high-level characters, avatars, and even deities (since not every deity will be needed to kill Nerull), and these leaders can close/destroy gates faster than Nerull can open them, not to mention cut wide swaths through the spectres with abilities such as Turn Undead, undeath to death, sunburst, Divine Radiance, Energy Storm (positive), Undead Mastery, etc.
Really?
Because powerful outsiders don't increase their population exponentially. They need to work for it. Spectres can increase their population as quickly as humanoids can be bred.
Moreover, destroying Gates requires locating them. Again, this is a non-trivial task, and every round before a Gate is destroyed means thousands more spectres to handle.
Also, as noted above, you need line of effect to use the non-Divine abilities; in addition, many of them will also have negative effects on the very city you're trying to save. If you can push a sufficiently powerful field of positive energy through an area without regard to line of effect, then you can street-sweep spectres. I do not see such an ability listed or statted out. If you know of one, I'd like to hear of it.
I'm not going to give you all the numbers, because simple common sense alone should explain to you that the vast number of beings who prefer that the world remain intact can stop spectres for a few minutes (if it even takes that long to jump Nerull).
Simple common sense says otherwise to me. Spectres can run through walls and floors; special tactics are needed to even see them to target them, let alone actually damage them. Moreover, almost every ability that can be used to target them has limits on its use; given the wholly unreasonable number of specters that can be made to exist, there's no reason that (if given his own private planes to breed humanoids and enough prep time) Nerull could not run every single outsider on a given finite set of planes out of spell-like abilities.
And to top it all off, any damage caused by Nerull's foolish attack can be repaired. These are all the deities of the world we're talking about here.
Indeed they could; the gods can throw up a new breeding population right quickly.
The question is, would they? If given a chance to do the world up right (as they see fit), why would the collective will of the gods resemble anything familiar to the previous deceased occupants of the world?
Pelor has millions upon millions of servants that he can call upon to do the work for him. Pelor himself will be killing Nerull.
Again, good luck with that. Pelor is incapable of seeing Nerull. Plus, Nerull can be chilling on his home plane, where Pelor's magic can be made to be not. A coalition of warrior deities that won't be as badly affected by Nerull cutting off their magic would have much better luck (if they could find him). However, he can simply set his home-plane to have no astral links, meaning that nothing and no one can get to him.
A gate can be shut down with a single action by a single powerful being, whereas Nerull can only make so many per round (and once he is attacked, he will probably want to spend his actions defending himself).
By 'Powerful Being', you do mean someone with Disjunction or something similar as a SLA or spell, I assume? Because those critters are fairly rare. Moreover, Gate items (not scrolls, thankfully) exist by default; disjunction items require either a caster (if Scroll) or will be of questionable effect (Rods, which may well simply pass through the Gate to the other side).
Plus, you need to get this being with the capacity to de-Gate a Gate within striking range, give them line of effect, and keep them alive in the wake of whatever percentage of 1000 1d8 incorporeal touch attacks (and 2000 negative levels) actually connect. If the Gate is underground in rock, then very, very little will be able to detect it, get to it, and shut it down in any reasonable time, and damn near nothing will be able to do so repeatedly.
Common sense dictates that if there is a being with the means and motive to destroy the world, that either there exists a default counter, explicit or implicit.
Common sense also dictates that if someone attacks you with a ball of sulfurous guano, you are facing a loony and not an actual threat. Common sense is therefore not the yardstick for determining the truth of outcomes in D&D that it is in reality.
Okay, Mr. Ligouri, you've proved that exploits are bad. Anything else? It would seem an obvious conclusion to me that if a rule results in an illogical result (I.e. spectre bombing is not only possible, but, as you have... thoroughly proven... unstoppable.), then the rule should be changed, rather than simply saying that the world can't work the way it does.
These exploits are just that, exploits. They aren't fun, they aren't clever, they're immature and stupid. And interventionist deities, likewise, just aren't fun.
What is an exploit, please? Is a Greater Shadow spring-attacking in and out of walls an exploit? Is an assassin waiting until the party is asleep and Coup de Gracing them? How about a flying creature never landing and never letting a landbound, low-range party ever attack them (or optionally just targeting ranged weapons first)?
All of these tactics are written up as encouraged for various encounters, and all of them have the strong possibility of TPKing a party without a counter for them. What makes these good tactics, a werewolf lord striking a deal with a Giant army and turning some of them into elite lycanthrope shock troops an adventure seed, and spectres an exploit?
However, I do think you all seriously overestimate the power of high level characters. Sure, they can mess things up if the world consists entirely of 1st level commoners and a handful of higher levels, but as for a spellcaster being able to 'level a city in a day'? Let's examine that claim, starting with the pride of a spellcaster's arsenal, the 9th level spells.
Sorcerors/Wizards
I cannot help but mention that you have failed to mention Shapechange. I also cannot help but notice that you don't appear to be noting what you can do with the eighth-level spells, such as Greater Planar Binding, Polymorph Any Object, Incendiary Cloud, or that crowd-pleaser Create Greater Undead. The ninth-level spells aren't meant for city destruction; that doesn't mean you can't cause sufficient havoc with the other eight levels.
You do realize that Epic spells are dependent on power, right? By the time you'd be high enough level to do this, it'd be much, much easier to simply steal the Death Star. (I.E., you'd need to be in the high thousands.)
I suppose it really depends on what level of optimization you want your campaign to have... normal, medium, high, silly, or Pun-Pun.
Apocalypse From The Sky isn't as scary as Pulse, anyways.
It does, I suppose. It depends on what after-rules restrictions there are on developing epic spells. If there aren't (that is, the assumption is that the rules are the rules as written), then a 21st-level caster that takes Leadership and develops epic spells with her followers contributing spell slots asplodes the world. If you're slightly more stringent, there are still plenty of ways to buff yourself to ridiculous levels without even performing out-of-flavor actions.
I've created a campaign world of my own, and I think it's pretty 'stable' (that is, not about to explode). One of the key points is that not everyone is a freakin' level one commoner zomg. It's actually a 'modern' campaign, and while spellcasters aren't exactly common, they're probably as common as in 'standard' D&D. They aren't, however, the end-all be-all (admittedly, I'm not a great 'optimizer' so my casters might not be the demigods they reputedly can become.)
However, this world does have a lot of high level individuals - at 20th level, you're hardly a legend in your own time, you're just noteworthy. (Epic is maybe 1-5000, not 1 in several million). And people of 20th, 30th, 40th, or even 50th level who think that the nation-state model should apply to them can rely upon the United States government to swiftly disabuse them of that notion.
So no, it looks nothing like conventional D&D (but frankly, I don't think anyone plays 'conventional' D&D). Modern technology, in this case, has magic outpaced by light years, especially when it comes to the ability to smash things. A feisty high level mage is way to much for ordinary police to handle, but that's why there are other agencies... or armored vehicles, or artillery (there's even a special kind of shell, which combines an antimagic field with a fuel air bomb. Complete with an inward facing forcefield for extra ownage.)
Minor question: What is stopping a level 50 anarchist from fabricating his own magic FAEs, handing them to Greater-Planar-Bound nasty outsiders, and ordering each outsider to teleport above a major metropolitan center, activate the bomb, and start blowing up survivors? How does the ability to make boom help when you can't find or target the person you need to make boom, and said person can simply steal your tech and use it against you? Do you really want that level 50 anarchist to make his way onto a military base and start casting Animate Object on the artillery?
If you include special adaptive rules that predict what your players are going to do and counter it, then yes, you can make such a world work. Otherwise, with the power levels involved, the first crack in such a world's defenses will let in an all-consuming torrent of destruction.
(Also, I have a deep and abiding desire to come up with the most horrible creature I can create with a 50th-level caster and Origin of the Species, and see how your world would handle it.)
Infallibility is not necessary (but it would help.) If you break down every effect or ability into its component parts, and maintain a mental database of what is (or should be) possible in your game world, then you can avoid a lot of problems.
I'm guessing you've finally stopped arguing that my method requires infallibility and tons of work, then. My method is no harder (in fact, much easier), than what you describe. It is also not infallible, but avoids a lot of problems.
Let's say you do that. What happens when your players point out that the city is still being torn apart by spectres, and that they can import more spectre-0s at minimal cost? Let's say that instead of one spectre-0, your players use 100. (After all, it's not that hard to round up 100 goblins, spectre-ize them, and order the assault.
Order the assault? How do you control 100 spectres (who are not spawn of each other, i.e. spectre-0)? There are limits to the number you can control, remember. Even with items, I don't think you can control all 100. Admittedly they hate the living so will attack when in the city, but how do you get them there?
Your arguments below seem to assume you spectre-ise the goblins once you are within the city. We shall also assume you are the aforementioned lich, so the spectres will not attack you.
Ok, so you acquire 100 goblins, teleport them into ye olde abandoned warehouse in stages, make sure they do not get discovered or escape before you have them all. That's relatively easy.
Then, you kill and spectre-ise them. One spectre can be created per round (maybe 2 or 3 if you have multiple high-level casters or UMD monkeys with scrolls). Each spectre appears with a murderous hatred of the living, and uncontrolled. It is surrounded by practically helpless living goblins, which it wants to kill and spawn from without a care for your advanced plan of 100 spectre-0s. So I'm guessing bob the evil nihilist cleric controls it. Animals nearby go nuts, which might raise the alarm. Sooner or later the number of spectres exceeds your control threshold. Each excess spectre has no reason not to attack the remaining helpless goblins and spawn from them rather than let you continue your work (they hate the living - monster manual entry, spectres). If the goblins are inaccessible to them (hide from undead on all the goblins?) then they will wander of in search of the living. The alarm is then raised, and you have to hope you can finish your work before you are interrupted by heroes, militia captains etc. Furthermore, your uncontrolled spectres are not carrying out your battle plan, as "they haunt the places where they died" (monster manual - spectre entry). You could try to argue that this encompasses the whole city rather than just their warehouse, but the GM is the one who decides if that argument is valid, RAW does not provide a definition.
Still, a number of controlled spectres and their x5 spawn do a lot of damage, plus you can gain control of new uncontrolled spectres as your first wave of controlled ones die. The spectre attack may or may not be defeated, but vast damage will be done, and an area in the city (around your warehouse) infested with spectres and extremely hard to reclaim.
But, we are also talking serious resources here. You aren't going to have 100 level 8 spell slots, so you need a lot of expensive (and slow to make) scrolls or pearls of power (wands not having level 8 capacity). You also need 7x50gp black onyx gems PER spectre, i.e. 700 onyx gems (35,000gp, should you be able to buy that many) if you do manage to raise all 100 spectres. All this buying or stealing of stuff (or components) means more chances for heroes or authorities to notice the rash of suspicious thefts/purchases and track you or your plans down.
Suddenly you are no longer expending almost no resources to destroy a city (or its economy). This has because expensive in time, money and personal risk (if you attack more cities, they will likely now be panicking and taking what precautions they can. A quick sending when the first spectre is seen, and tooled up adventurers/elite guards can teleport in and search for you at the heart of spectre central)
Now it might take hours instead of minutes to destroy the city, but it will still happen.
I disagree. A maximum of 500 spectres, if all goes right. NPCs exist who can walk through spectres, after all they do rubbish damage and have crap to hit, so death ward and powerful force AC and you can pretty much beat them to death. So the city might lose its population, but its goods and wealth can be recovered before you can easily destroy or steal them all. Furthermore, that pesky 'haunts the places where it died' line means that the city defenders had far fewer spectres to handle, and the non-lurking spectres would lack the overwhelming numbers to prevent much of the population fleeing the city.
Let's say that you rule that there's a finite amount of negative energy available to spawn undead from, and that in addition to gen-5 spectres not being able to spawn, that there is a finite amount of spectres that can be created in a given area.
Unnecessary as outlined above, but I will answer the other possibility - spectrization outside the city, at this point.
Your players now teleport to a fresh area, spawn some spectres there, and teleport them back in waves.
OK, so once more you raise more spectres than you can control. They must be willing or controlled to be teleported. They want to 'haunt the area where they died' and thus do not wish to teleport, no matter how much you try and argue them round with logic (again, this is a reasonable but biased interpretation by GM on RAW ruling, without it there are still issues, see below). Furthermore you can only transport 6 creatures other than yourself per casting of teleport, presuming a level 20 caster (and spectres are creatures). You are back to so many spell slots you need expensive scrolls and/or pearls of power. Furthermore if you don't want the cost and reduced slots of level 7 greater teleport, there is the chance of popping up with a team of spectres somewhere else in the city, from an off-course teleport. That would really tip your hand and spoil your attack momentum. Getting back requires its own teleports, which can also be off course (or must be greater). Incidentally, we are also now talking about Bob the nihilist cleric lich AND Bill the high-level wizard, or once more involving UMD and vast numbers of scroll purchases, which can lead others to track you down in the planning stage.
Wish, incidentally, can only transport 1 being per caster level ('transport travellers') with each unwilling spectre getting a Will Save (albeit a difficult one). And it costs 5000 XP a pop.
Maybe you could get away with miracle, but you are either burning level 9 spell slots just to replicate greater teleport, or you are spending 5000 XP to transport all the spectres - once more these are resources you cannot idly use to attack a great many cities.
You see, the point here is not that players can't manage a spectre-bomb, its that it isn't easy. All the problems I've outlined above can be overcome, but they are not me making up rules, they are simply what the PCs run into as they attempt the plan (and are really easy for me to think of, plus the PCs will probably raise them for you as they make their plans). They could find a way to circumvent them all, but this requires a lot of time and effort. More likely that they will miss one of the problems until they actually begin implementation, and get in a heap of trouble.
More importantly, if the PCs pull off a spectre bomb under generational limit despite all the problems that entails - GREAT! The PCs have worked out a new and formidable tactic. However the problems which exist provide a simple reason why bob the nihilist lich hasn't already destroyed the world. Either it was too pricey, too much trouble, or he attempted it having missed an issue, and paid the price for his failure (or wrote the tactic off as a bad thing).
To use crime as an analogy, this complex and pricey spectre-bomb is similar to the great train robbery, or the Italian job. It takes a special team of people with a lot of planning to think of it and pull it off, and this doesn't mean it can be easily repeated.
Problems then arise when there are differences of opinion as to what is extreme. For instance, you can still raise an arbitrarily large army of spectres with the generation limit; you just need to have spectre-0 do them all himself
No, my generational limit is intended as an addition to the spectre MM entry, not the create greater undead spell. The connection to the negative energy plane from one spectre can only 'dilute' so far, no matter how the spectre was created.
Moreover, by establishing that the reason that exponential spectre-bombing doesn't take place is the generation limit, you are hereby opening yourself up to players attempting to work around the generation limit.
And this is not a bad thing - see above. I do not want to cut off options for my PCs, just make such options not automatically an easy triumph (or so easy that bob the nihilist lich cleric should have already done it)
I am personally skeptical that the solution to a poorly designed, exploit-laden system of rules is creating and implementing rules on the fly. If you have the mental processor power to consider every implication of a 5-generation limit for spectres, I'd assume that you could do so for the original rules already.
I see no issues with my generational limit. What exactly does adding it do to damage the game world? The only 'implications' I see are ways players could get around it. I have discussed those above and I do not see them as problems.
Divine sensing from the D20 SRD:
Portfolio Sense
Demigods have a limited ability to sense events involving their portfolios. They automatically sense any event that involves one thousand or more people. The ability is limited to the present. Lesser deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios and affects five hundred or more people. Intermediate deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios, regardless of the number of people involved. In addition, their senses extend one week into the past for every divine rank they have.
***Greater deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios, regardless of the number of people involved. In addition, their senses extend one week into the past and one week into the future for every divine rank they have. When a deity senses an event, it merely knows that the event is occurring and where it is. The deity receives no sensory information about the event. Once a deity notices an event, it can use its remote sensing power to perceive the event.
Automatic Actions
When performing an action within its portfolio, a deity can perform any action as a free action, as long as the check DC is equal to or less than the number on the table below. The number of free actions a deity can perform each round is also determined by the deity’s divine rank.
Automatic Actions Divine
Rank Maximum DC for
Automatic Action Free Actions
per Round
1-5 15 2
6-10 20 5
11-15 25 10
16-20 30 20
***Block Sensing
As a standard action, a deity of rank 1 or higher can block the sensing ability of other deities of its rank or lower. This power extends for a radius of one mile per rank of the deity, or within the same distance around a temple or other locale sacred to the deity, or the same distance around a portfolio-related event. The deity can block two remote locations at once, plus the area within one mile of itself. The blockage lasts 1 hour per divine rank.
The Spectre Bomb
The problem with the whole spectre bomb idea is that is assumes the following things are the case.
A) That the ordinary people (commoners) are standing around immobile and not fleeing as fast as they can from the spectres, forcing the spectres to give chase while not giving them any additional numbers.
B) That a cleric isn't available that is of sufficiently high level to turn every single spectre and send them running in the opposite direction is not available.
C) That an adventuring party capable of killing enough spectres to send the kill/procreate ratio into reverse.
Massed armies of raised undead, as every arrogant evil necromancer thinks should be able to take over the world. But they soon find that any half-decent cleric can send those undead scattering or even turning them to dust.
A lich might be able to spectre bomb a small village, but the larger the settlement he tries to bomb, the more likely he will run across a cleric capable of turning his minions. They will not be a massive horde too quickly, since people run away rather than die.
The only people that will end up being raised are those that stand and fight and a few stragglers among the commoners. Not a good idea.
The all-powerful Level 20 characters
This whole problem is very silly, since Level 20 characters are simply more powerful versions of level 19 characters and so on.
The fact remains, that while a Level 20 character might be able to destroy a town, before long he will find himself fighting others of his kind. The odds that a Level 20 character will go rampage for no reason are very slim, unless there are a lot of other Level 20 characters around who can stop him.
The other thing that needs to be taken into account, is that Level 20 characters can probably train lower-level characters that are nevertheless of high enough level to hurt Level 20 characters with the advantage of numbers.
Our Level 20 character may go on a rampage and kill a whole town, but now what? He has no friends, no allies, no anything. And everyone else will go to any means to defeat him.
Yes, they could send a level 20 character to face the other level 20 character in combat, but they could do something else.
Knowing that they can quickly evacuate any area that the Level 20 character enters of people, they can now get to work at a secret location on something else.
TRAINING MID-LEVEL CHARACTERS WITH THE Level 20 character. Indeed, a High-Level character, can potentially train about 20-30 level 10 characters.
So even assuming that we are dealing with equal forces here, the rogue Level 20 character still loses.
What happens when our Level 20 character turns up with 20 of his acolytes and the army of an entire nation. The rogue character is slain, overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.
And we are not talking about equal forces, most Evil beings do not go on mad rampages, precisely because they stand to gain "nothing" from such a course of action. Without gain an evil being will not act.
Raise Dead, Cure Disease etc
Assuming the natural world is a sort of balance between rival deities, then it is pretty clear precisely why people still die of old age and infectious diseases, cleric or no cleric.
Because if someone gets ill or dies of natural causes, then the balance is maintained, Cure Disease and Raise Dead only work to re-establish the balance.
Cure Disease only works on those who catch diseases of magical origin and Raise Dead only works on those who are killed, not those that die of natural.
For any God's followers to start curing all diseases, would disrupt the order of the universe, so as to attract an equal and opposite reaction, establishing all the diseases that the God is trying to cure.
The ultimate outcome is an Equilibrium, where there isn't universal disease or universal health, that is the natural world.
Any Magical or Divine Intervention causing Disease, disrupts the balance of the universe, so to correct this is possible without attracting an "Equal and Opposite Reaction". The Curing of the disease is the Reaction.
There is a balance of powers, no one power can act without there being an equal and opposite reaction. The moment a God cures the world another God makes the world sick.
It is wrong to assume that a 17th level fighter will not have huge amounts of property, political influence, and command of followers if that's what he wants. He is a very famous and powerful person in a world of 1st level commoners. The town will not tax him. If you followed a medieval model he will already have been knighted for deeds in service to the country, will have a title, lands, serfs, and influence at court. If you followed a sword and sorcery model, he will be an influential hero that's the stuff of stories and legends, with grateful villagers throwing a party when he comes by. Even in modern society the wealthy and popular don't pay for anything, even though they can most easily afford it. Celebrities eat for free, get free admission to events, etc. because everyone wants to be around them and be seen with them.
I fail to see the problem with this. The entire world revolves around the PCs anyways from level 1, and exists to provide a stage for their actions, so how is it any different at high levels?