AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Does it really matter, anyway? I think it's useful enough to just say that its size is somewhere between "bigger than is represented in game" and "not bigger than Amia."

I think it may behoove us to just ask the DMs to pick a size for Amia / Caraigh / Cheeseland et al. Save a lot of headaches!

Amia is the biggest. Ostland is a jarldom on the island of Ruathym and is somewhat expansive. More than twice the size of the Wiltun jarldom. Ruathym island is larger than Amia, but ultimately wih less hospitable landscape, much of it being high mountain. Caraigh is a crummy little island off Ruathym that really only exists as a resource for whatever jarldoms want to plunder it, onetime misguided druids and an aborted attempt at civilization.

Or something like that.

What level of their guards and what are their saves vs different spells? Are they going to be ridiculously powerful like Cordor for some reason?

None are ridiculously powerful, in Cordor or otherwise. Just more powerful than you alone.

That IS ridiculously powerful though. Lvl30 characters are some of the most terrifying beings in DnD

And so many of you on the server are level 30s. If you were real level 30s, you would long ago have overrun the island and all of its inhabitants. In fact, there would be no server at all, because a conglomeration of that many high level PCs would have led to the island's destruction. In an effort to ensure that you still have a server to play on and a world with some degree of normalcy and challenge, we set the scale in such a way that you are not "real" level 30s by PNP standards.

If this makes anyone sad, I can post a picture of a box of tissues with which you can dry your tears.

I agree with Yoss. I'd rather deal with not being 'Truly Level 30' by PnP standards if it means that ROleplay , true roleplay can still govern fates.

Last edited by Palin489 on Thu, Apr 04 2013, 23:06 PM, edited 1 time in total.

All I needed was the clarification that LVL 30 =/= lvl 30.

I'd actually be interested in knowing what percentage of commonly-played characters are *not* level 30. I'm guessing it's <10%.

I know Palin. No slight intended. I even used a smiley. I offered an explanation as to why because in the past the playerbase has made it clear that DM statements sans some explanation are not helpful.

No offense taken at all. I have some issues to bring up with the whole ordeal though.

Adventurers got their power by slaying 239057257 monsters, and they're alive to talk about it, they have the riches (enough to feasibly outright buy nations) to prove it and the effective prowess (In comparison to say a lvl 1 commoner) .

These guards don't make nearly as much money, they haven't had nearly as much experience. The group you are comparing the guards to is a marginally small fraction of the population of Faerun. I'd say the guards should be suitably stronger than your average joe.. Say a lvl 6 fighter guard which is enough to slam face on kobolds and put down any peasant rebellion. But to put them on par with these trained killers is a bit of a stretch, even if you alter the power level of characters.

Yossarin wrote:

None are ridiculously powerful, in Cordor or otherwise. Just more powerful than you alone.

Considering the laws state that Druids will be burned if caught, and it isnt a big secret Druids are sometimes powerful casters that can even shapechange into fire elementals, at least my Druid goes under the assumption that however powerful they are, they are trained and powerful enough that they will not crap their pants if an epic character enters the town with menagerie in toll. He also guesses that since they are so anti-magic, they have nasty surprises, specially for casters.

Guards have access to a few things most PCs probably don't:

1) Backup in no small supply.

2) A CIty and their resources. Sure, they might not get as much pay or as good training (though they could be better trained to fight adventurers than you think) , but they do have access to a city rather than having to get their own gear and the like. How do we know how well they're equipped?

3) X Factors that even I might not be aware of. For all we know, the Guard have been equipped especially to deal with adventurers and similar. Other specific defenses that are had to represent in the actual engine, but should be there and on DM possessed request can be brought to bear could be involved to.

--

I moreso speak of Cordor in the above, I digress.. Ostland, well, who knows what they have up their sleeves?

1) Backup doesn't matter if the guards weren't magically put on par with adventurers (again a big stretch considering the actual powerlevel of them)

2) A commoner (the working force and backbone of a nation) makes such a small fraction of gold that it's safe to assume an adventurer's monetary supply could easily trump that of nation (Your commoner makes 2gp a day, my adventurer makes 500k in ~ 5hrs) This equipment you speak of would be EXPENSIVE, and not only would it be expensive it would be nothing compared to the +5 gear adventurers run around in.

3) Even if we accounted for "unknown factors" guards still shouldn't reasonably be on par with adventurers.

I don't care how powerful an individual is, they cannot stand up to numbers in sheer mass.

Mages, Sorcerors, Clerics and Druids (as well maybe as Bards) might stand a better chance , but without some quick thinking, you're outnumbered and that +5 sword's not gonna look so good compared to the fifty to one hundred Masterwork or +1 swords with a number of missile weapons from multiple angles.

That +5 sword is wielded by someone with 500 HP and 38 STR, that's totally enough to take on 100 lvl 6s. It's like saying a god can't destroy a town because there are just too many of them.

It's just a thing you have to handwave and get over, really. All the stuff you're saying makes sense more or less, Palin, but it if implemented it would result in an unplayable server. If every epic level character is a threat to the very existence of every city and town, then in about three days the whole island would be reduced to ash. Server over, good night.

Just saying we should brush off inconsistencies is irresponsible, if something doesn't make sense we should work to rectify that.

Liz: Trufax. Why, some asshat tried to blow up Kampo's with a hellball just the other night, after all that effort was put in to restore it from the last time some other asshat did the same thing.

Not sure that this is the ideal thread for this discussion. If it does not make sense to the individual, then it is not up to everyone else to make it make sense to that person, but solely up to that person to make sense of it. If I looked to others to justify why the world is the way it is, I would not have nearly as much fun as I do in my everyday life.

If it doesn't make sense for NPC guards to be that strong, we'd better also get started on removing large numbers of levels from all the monsters you hunt. Of course, that'd drop their CR significantly and thus you'd be going from roughly level 22 to 30 at 1xp, but they don't have a logical reason to be that high level.

See where the issue lies? We can't change a perceived inconsistency as you mention and then also leave all the other inconsistencies that allow the server to function. Wouldn't make sense.

Well, we could just make the level cap 10 or so, that would fix the issue nicely

. However I doubt that would meet broad approval. In the mean time though, let's get back to Ostland with this thread.

REJOICE! For the loyal Everwatch are your shield against evil!

edited, wrong forum.

Manarethan wrote:

If it doesn't make sense for NPC guards to be that strong, we'd better also get started on removing large numbers of levels from all the monsters you hunt. Of course, that'd drop their CR significantly and thus you'd be going from roughly level 22 to 30 at 1xp, but they don't have a logical reason to be that high level.

See where the issue lies? We can't change a perceived inconsistency as you mention and then also leave all the other inconsistencies that allow the server to function. Wouldn't make sense.

Time to use those dream coins.

Palin489 wrote:

That +5 sword is wielded by someone with 500 HP and 38 STR, that's totally enough to take on 100 lvl 6s. It's like saying a god can't destroy a town because there are just too many of them.

And then the arcanum missle stormed him a bunch of times. The end. And comparing your PC to a god just because you farmed him to 30 is ignorant.

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

Palin489 wrote:

That +5 sword is wielded by someone with 500 HP and 38 STR, that's totally enough to take on 100 lvl 6s. It's like saying a god can't destroy a town because there are just too many of them.

And then the arcanum missle stormed him a bunch of times. The end. And comparing your PC to a god just because you farmed him to 30 is ignorant.

Except that's how D&D works...

Gods fall under a special subset of D&D rules which no PC on Amia gets to benefit from. Even normal 30th level PCs do not get to benefit from that.

Faiths and Pantheons speaks on it IIRC.

Palin489 wrote:

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

Palin489 wrote:

That +5 sword is wielded by someone with 500 HP and 38 STR, that's totally enough to take on 100 lvl 6s. It's like saying a god can't destroy a town because there are just too many of them.

And then the arcanum missle stormed him a bunch of times. The end. And comparing your PC to a god just because you farmed him to 30 is ignorant.

Except that's how D&D works...

You're probably going to accept that there are practical diviations from 3.5 d&d rules because it doesn't fit the server's format. The guards are not level 6 warriors with masterwork swords. They're peopel from a city state that has far more in the way of resources than you as a single PC do. And if you decide to rampage through Cordor on your level 30 WM, you're going to get missle stormed to death more than likely. You know why? Because an army works like that.

I AM SAD AND I WANT TISSUES THIS IS MY SAD FACE

This really is a matter for another topic, and it's been beaten to death a thousand times. But apart from the scaling down which Yoss described, consider this: it reasonably takes your average Joe, if he's determined, two weeks to grind to 30. Why would the guards, who do it as a full-time job for years and have a structured organization to get backup from, not learn just as easy? If a two-week bootcamp in Brog could bring them on par with the adventurers, what's stopping them?

It used to be assumed that many of the Law Knights are retired adventurers themselves, which explains their power. If they've been around as long as any PC and have the resources to constantly better themselves, why wouldn't they keep one step ahead of most PCs? (I am not sure if they really are retired adventurers as I've never seen it confirmed IC, but that seems highly likely and is such sweet irony.)

D&D was designed to make the players feel like heroes. This is why there aren't really any realistic rules on attrition, rules on overwhelming numbers are dodgy at best and it usually comes down to the DM to reign the "projected power as determined by Rules As Written" in order to enforce a semblance of realism. Internal consistency is more important than sticking to the rules as written (and even then you have to contend with Rule Zero).

Also what Iron said. And I wish this segue was over already.

Very_Svensk wrote:

http://www.amiaworld.net/images/worldmape.jpg

Where, on these maps, would you suggest ostland is located?

Liz wrote:

Xaviera wrote:

As noted, Ostland is on the east coast of the large island of Ruathym, between Amia and the mainland, to the north of the islands of Wiltun and Caraigh, according to this map.

Ostland is approximately the upper half of the east coast of the large island of Ruathym, or ~100 km from north to south (there are at least another two areas north of the Crossroads). By this scale, each tile is the equivalent of about 1.15 km across - if that sounds ridiculous, on the island of Amia it's about 1.85 km/tile or more. (Yes, I know that doesn't make sense, but it's in the same ballpark as every 1 citizen you see is the equivalent of ten and every RL year is some amount of time that may or may not be the same...)

Because of various inconsistencies in published material, I made some unilateral decisions on naming that don't necessarily match other available documents. So the town of Ruathym on the map linked above is more or less where Osthavn lies. Rethgaard in the module is a small island just off the coast of Ostland and not the large one seen on the map linked above.

Gabe and i play by a good set of rules - in amias setting, we assume Eliminister was level 50-60, instead of 20 like he is in the books.
Imagine that and EVERYTHING suddenly makes sense.

For more information on Ruathym in general, see the AmiaWiki and my previous post in this thread.

Not to be a tool or anything but the wiki seems to fail to mention that wiltun controls part of ruathym too. >.>

Unless the DMs changed something while I wasn't looking (which is of course their prerogative), Wiltun has no control over the big island of Ruathym. The jarldom of Wiltun is, I believe, one of the islands in the Ruathym group. The issue of what, exactly, Ruathym is, is one of the reasons I changed the name of the big island's capital from Ruathym (as it's listed in some sources) to Holgerstead. Two levels of geographical features with the same name is confusing enough without making it three.

Wiltun is Ruathym...well, like a fifth of it. Or a fourth. Who is counting? It doesn't exactly have authoritarian control over Ruathym, but it does have a modicum of influence. The Wiltun dynasty has built Ruathym's navy, and Lord Wiltun himself is, in essence, the naval commander. Not that he carries the title of an admiral, or has even ever spent much time on a vessel himself, he is still more or less the ultimate commander of the naval forces.

Wiltun itself though has holdings on Ruathym that are like, directly those of the Jarldom, or so our RP with the DMs has had for a while now. Nothing major, from what I understand mind, nowhere near as big as Ostland or the other Jarldoms, but some holdings nonetheless. This would be more in line I think with what Yoss is saying. I get the impression the Jarldom's holdings on the Ruathym main island aren't like....a regional thing but like he owns this handful of farms here, and this shipyard there, sorta thing.

Ah, okay. Gotcha.

Is there any way we could get a more general definition as to the size of the Rauthym region in general as well as Ostland and the other jarldoms so we know what scale we're working with? I'm not talking people so much as distance.

According to the Standard Faerun map scale, the main island of Ruathym is approximately 120 miles long and 60 miles wide. Ostland makes up the bulk of the eastern half of Ruathym, so about 80 miles long and 20-30 miles deep depending on the area.

Ostland!

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