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Well now ... that just makes things more interesting doesn't it? :twisted:

ainjyll wrote:

Naivatkal wrote:

Dieu_Le_Fera wrote:

The paladin wouldn't know that it was a follower of Bane trying to raise them, only that the person attempting the raise was LN.

Don't the rules state that the person raised gets a glimpse of knowledge about the casters alignment and deity? Not alignment only?

Yeah it's name, alignment, deity. No more, no less, and you forget it after the raise. That's the core rule. Or if it isn't (no time to chekc the SRD!) then it's FR specific. I know I've seen it around.

I'm curious though. If you worship a dead god, so technically faithless but don't consider yourself to be, or not worshipping the god you think you are (eg: that tunnel guy and Shar), what name shows up when you try to res? Is it absolute god-connection or just a mental thing? I'd assume the former...

serbiris wrote:

I'm curious though. If you worship a dead god, so technically faithless but don't consider yourself to be, or not worshipping the god you think you are (eg: that tunnel guy and Shar), what name shows up when you try to res? Is it absolute god-connection or just a mental thing? I'd assume the former...

Most still worshiped dead deities still retain enough of a presence to grant spells (it's hard to kill gods for good) so there's no problem there. You'd probably get the answer of Bhaal, Leira or Auppenser without any "buts." They're not technically faithless, though I'm not sure what happens to them after death. The issue of gods posing as eachother is more problematic, but I'd like to think it's not particularly relevant. If for some off-chance reason you still absolutely have to know, I think the answer would be whatever the god presents him/herself to the cleric as: if Shar can appear as that tunnel guy to his clergy, then she sure can appear so to some dead guy.

I'd imagine she'd just pop up as herself, like "psyche! Oh, you should see the look on your face. Oh, your face is mine now, never mind."

Maybe she'd continue the ruse all the way through. But eventually, you'd notice that your soul is in the Palace of Loss (Shar's Realm) and not Ibrandyllaran (Ibrandul's Realm).

Worshiping a dead deity brings a more troubling situation. You're certainly not faithless. But when you get to the Fugue, there's no one to pick you up. Unless your deity still has some lingering Outsider servants, you're just stuck there. Even then, where would those leftover servants be taking you? For some deities, mostly neutral and good, I could see them taking you to an allied realm. Evils, I think might still take you because a petitioner is a petitioner, but then again, they're under no moral obligation to help you out rather than just let the demons take you.

My thoughts: best case scenario, servants of an allied deity come pick you up; worst case, you end up in the Wall simply because there's no one to take you somewhere else.

Underdark and Master Scout. :?:

Anyone?

Don't see why not. The Underdark has its own wilderness areas, and MS is supposed to be a survivalist-oriented master-of-the-wild.

Are you asking if taking master scout as an underdark drow would be lore breaking? I don't think so. A shame they didn't change it just for drow and gave you all the goodie bonus to the caves but that would be too much I think... I could see a true evil drow master scout as being the guide on those romps to the surface to pick up a sacrifice for the spider queen or two...

like a reverse Shevarash faithful.. you take the war to the surface and because of that you learned how to survive better in the wilds of the surface and grew to understand it? Just one explanation of many.

Well, if I did that, then some people would ask about making Master Scout give you bonuses in cities instead of wilderness as an option, too. It's just, eh... I'd rather keep it simple rather than bog it down with loads of choices. Guess that's just how I prefer to work.

I dont blame you at all.. because then eventually someone will come around and go "well can't the same be done for druids and rangers?" and the floodgates would be opened.

PaladinOfSune wrote:

Well, if I did that, then some people would ask about making Master Scout give you bonuses in cities instead of wilderness as an option, too. It's just, eh... I'd rather keep it simple rather than bog it down with loads of choices. Guess that's just how I prefer to work.

What counts as wilderness? Is the underdark wilderness?

I think wilderness are just any forest/swamp/lake area maps

That's what he's saying. Mechanically a master scout drow will not receive the wilderness bonuses master scouts receive on the surface.
Else you'll have city rangers etc

Good to know it's considered sound for a drow as well.

tormak made a very good post about rangers on a thread not to long ago... its a misnomer on amia it should just be called "hunter" because thats what rangers do since we don't need nature deities to get our spells here... Rangers hunt what they hate and a ranger could be a man hunter and thus be an "urban ranger" who hunts man in his environment.

Just a spin on a class and how it could work on amia but seems backwards to those who never played here and wouldn't know how the classes have changed. I would say be creative with your class choices but just stay in the bounds of the server lore of course.

Yups. I blame Lord of the Rings on "Ranger", but we all like Aragorn so it's okay.

Pfft. Forget Aragorn. Go ranger with Favored Enemy Undead, Aberration, Monstrous Humanoid, Magical Beast, and Shapechanger and play a real man: Van Helsing.

... Or I guess Geralt of Rivia, if you're one of those silly polish people. Point is, "bounty hunter" is a pretty cool archetype for rangers too, besides the woodsy, druid-lite version.

Yep. Rangers are versatile people. They can be hunters, trappers, trackers, guides, guards, assassins, and all kinds of other things in any combination you can dream of.

If urban Druids are valid, urban Rangers are certainly valid.

There's no corellation, one being valid has absolutely no bearing on the other.

Dark Immolation wrote:

Pfft. Forget Aragorn. Go ranger with Favored Enemy Undead, Aberration, Monstrous Humanoid, Magical Beast, and Shapechanger and play a real man: Van Helsing.

... Or I guess Geralt of Rivia, if you're one of those silly polish people. Point is, "bounty hunter" is a pretty cool archetype for rangers too, besides the woodsy, druid-lite version.

Pff, everyone knows Van Helsing was an Archivist anyway...

I've played an archivist, Van Hellsing was not an archivist. The guy with him was an archivist.

...What guy? I can remember exactly two characters in that book: Van Helsing, and Dracula. I think there were some girls. Oh and Renfield.

The monk dude, probably.

The one who gave him all the "state-of-art" medieval technology weapons

The movie doesn't count! :evil:

Dude... it's Hugh Jackman. Of course it counts.

Yes, I was talking about the movie one. If only you could do favored enemy by class type, I would totally play a witch hunter.

Hugh Jackman lore?

How does metamagic come about for clerics and the like? I can see how for arcane casters, they do research, learn metamagic techniques, but divine casters get their spells from praying, there's no 'technique' involved. Does their deity just decide to favor that particular cleric with 'maximize spell'?

Metamagic, for divine casters, I would say represents varying degrees of faith on part of the caster. You believe that your patron will truly, and with maximum effect, smite your foes with the spell you are calling for in desperation. You know in your heart that the spell you are casting will truly last as long as needed for you to survive what is to come ahead, no matter what. So on, and so forth.

Just two examples.

As slotting divine spells correlates to prayers, I'd imagine it being as simple as "Are you there god? It's me, Margaret. Please let your blessing of X be extremely potent/lasting/efficient for me this day."

Nivo's examples work too, as faith has a lot to do with the power of a divine caster's magic.

Your two examples are what I was thinking too, I was just wondering if I'd be laughed out of the room if I that was my basis, but apparently it's just fine. Thanks for the input.

I always envisioned divine metamagics as specific or "more correct" liturgies since so much of divine magic is invocational.

Undeath to Death: "In the name of Kelemvor, I bid thee be at peace!"

Maximized Undeath to Death: "And on the third day the dead rose from their tombs and the Judge uttered the Truth of Death unto the abominations: In Nomine Meo, Requiem in Pace."

I'm gonna put it out there that when you say pretty things sometimes Yoss I have no idea what's going on... but I like the spirit I think you were going for there!

Honestly, I've always RPed it as force of Willpower. They can Will the things to last longer, be more powerful, etc. When my drow does it she's not making a more specific prayer. She's saying, "I'm a baller of Lolth and this spell is gonna last longer 'cause I'm a baller."

Estara wrote:

She's saying, "I'm a baller of Lolth and this spell is gonna last longer 'cause I'm a baller."

That brings so many hilarious images to me mind XD

I also imagine metamagic could work differently, from faith to faith, if you really want to get into the details. As some traditions may place more emphasis on personal faith, and others, Yoss' liturgical invocations.

Or, you could combine the two.

That is the wonder of making up magical stuff. The Maximize Spell feat, for a cleric, could represent their growth in the faith. It is this growth that is necessary for the liturgical invocation to 'work properly.' Thus why any cleric can not simply repeat the same prayer, and have the same effect.

Correct. Divine magic has "paradigms" just like arcane magic does. My case was for faiths that actually have liturgies. Ghaunadaur, for example, has no liturgies, at least not in any language that can be reproduced by human vocal cords. In that instance it is probably primal force of will or, more accurately put for the faith, a "surrender" of the Self to the most basic urge to consume and be consumed.

Just as with Malar it would be a surrender to the lust for blood and predatory dominance.

One key factor both arcane magic and divine magic share is Belief. For divine magic, it is belief not only in the deity but in the deity's presence in your life and the lives of others, directly and indirectly. For arcane magic, it is the belief that all of that Knowledge/Force of Will you direct at a static world WILL cause it to buckle and do what you command/coerce. The minute either kind of caster loses Belief, they lose magic.

This goes into my theory about clerics who Fall. There are instances where clerics can inadvertently Fall themselves. The deity may not be responsible for Falling them for some breach of religious contract, but the cleric's own individual Belief has been violated by some act and he or she believes that he or she should be punished...and thus loses Belief and suffers a Fall until the cleric finds a way to come to terms with it. Clearly this is more prone to happen to clerics with an incomplete or perhaps overzealous view of their faith's dogma (further evidence that clerics are not preternaturally attuned to being little avatars of their deity and their faith and are, in fact, very much still individuals).

Yes, I think far too much about the things game designers never detail or specify.

Herk. Where's that sourcebook. Could've sworn I saw somewhere that Divine Casting comes just as much from the cleric's force of will and belief in the ideal that his patron represents as it does from the deity itself (which is why a Cleric can 'fall' and switch to a relatively similar deity in PnP with a minimal loss of levels, one or two at most), so in that situation, it wouldn't be too great of a stretch of the imagination to picture a cleric willing a little extra potency out when necessary.

Digging for that source. Where'd it go. Augh.

For Arcane Metamagic, at least for Wizards it could come down simply to a subtle reshaping of the exisiting formula, adding to it's complexity but at the same time keeping the same essence.

For Sorcerors, it'd be more a process of trial and error subtly shifting pronounciation in their words or actions.

I admit it's a very short description for what could well be a very complicated process for the actual Magician but for us it's simpler to describe mechanically.

Grymia wrote:

For Sorcerors, it'd be more a process of trial and error subtly shifting pronounciation in their words or actions.

I think it could actually be just as much a matter of will there too. If you're imposing your force on the world, certainly your can think to impose it more.

I know for my sorcerer, it's more of an emotional drive. He first discovered Empowering by conjuring grandiose feelings within himself. Fireball = "My will is that you burn". Empowered Delayed Blast Fireball = "I am Fire made manifest and I will consume you!".

It's possible that when he gives into these emotions, he automatically shifts his motions and words to create the proper metamagic, but I'd like to think a sorcerer's metamagic has a lot more to do with manipulating himself and his creativity than measurably modifying the spell's creation.

Definitely. I really like to view emotion and magic as intertwined when it comes to sorcerers. More than any other casters, really. I see high moments of emotion in a sorcerer's formative years as times when their magic first manifests. Anger may result in an evocation, for example, or fear an abjuration. Metamagic could represent the sorcerers ability to empower their magic with emotion, or more generally, just an imposition of will. It also represents their ability to spontaneously cast metamagic, without preparation. If they can cast fireball, and they are capable of maximize, they can do it as long as they have the spellslots.

Regardless, though, all magic is a matter of will and belief (and understanding, if you are a wizard), as Yoss said. As long as an IC explanation involves these, I'm sure no one will bat an eye. And may actually be impressed that you thought it through to such a detail.

What I would find interesting, is to see an arcane caster who loses belief that his magic can affect the world. There are plenty of examples of clerics falling. With arcane magic, while not technically falling, therein does lie the possibility of losing it.

Now I have ideas.

The reason why I like the emotional idea is that it also partially explains how a sorcerer's ancestors might cast magic. Dragons, Celestials, Demons, Fey of all sorts get innate sorcerer spells and are capable of seeding sorcerous lineages in humanoids. To no surprise, these creatures are often highly driven by ideals and emotions that are inherent to them.

In this theory, the sorcerous abilities these creatures manifest are simply the natural result of their force of personality on reality. Their will to power. An angel's will to see a demon flayed might very well give him the ability to do so. A dragon's want to rule over "lesser" races may give him the Dominate Person ability for no simpler reason than he is such a powerful creative force, reality aligns itself to make his will truth.

A arcane caster falling... Hmm. Anything's possible, I guess. If the caster loses sight of their paradigm or reason for casting in the first place, it might happen.

I could see playing Rebecca Black's "Friday" causing a Bard to Fall. He'd naturally give up any and all hope in music.

Last edited by Estara on Sun, Jan 29 2012, 12:27 PM, edited 1 time in total.

See below! Heheh.

Nivo wrote:

What I would find interesting, is to see an arcane caster who loses belief that his magic can affect the world. There are plenty of examples of clerics falling. With arcane magic, while not technically falling, therein does lie the possibility of losing it.

The concept of 'falling' is something I've been looking into as well. Though it is generally applied to clerics losing their faith, the opportunity it creates is just so interesting that I would like to see it applied on far more than only clerics. While clerics and sorcerors are directly affected by their emotions and to a certain extend wizards as well (I can imagine wizard to psychologically block their arcane abilities), I find it harder to define a certain condition of falling when it comes to monks and weapon masters.

The latter observation I formed because of the fact the monk's and the weapon master's functioning is rather left unexplained in DnD, at least as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong. Currently my weapon master has entered a phase of being 'fallen', hence I'm curious to your opinions on it.

I've been doing online stalking about celestials so my questions changed a bit. Can anyone tell me what the BoED and any others say about trumpet archons, the seventh layer of Celestia and Barachiel? Purty please! Thanks! So far what I know is he's the Messenger of the Hebdomand, the ruler of Lunia (the Seventh Layer) and his archons help lead the dead back to the prime material plane. Do they do anything else? It says trumpet archons are also listed in the Savage Species (2000) for 3rd ed. and Monster Manual (2003) for 3.5 ed. I don't have either of those!

I'm also trying to figure out details about petitioners of the planes in general. Do petitioners retain their memories from the material plane in 3.5 before seeking out Celestia/Elysium/Baator/etc? Is it specified?

Not sure if it's listed above (if so, please ignore), but a cleric can also fall because his/her god is displeased with said cleric's service. In a way, your cleric is 'fired'. Considering all clerics have at one point or another made a concious decision to answer the "calling", falling is likely going to have a profound effect on such a character.
--
As for magic users failing, in extension of what's already written about sorcerers drawing much of their power from emotion it's also an interesting possibility that bards could lose their spellcasting ability if they are no longer able to express themselves artistically - which implies that a bard could lose their spellcasting ability if he/she 'burns out - or restricts him/herself too much eg. becomes lawful.

Estara wrote:

I'm also trying to figure out details about petitioners of the planes in general. Do petitioners retain their memories from the material plane in 3.5 before seeking out Celestia/Elysium/Baator/etc? Is it specified?

I read somewhere that it depends on the petitioner, they're there to serve their deity. If retaining their memories helps accomplish this they might retain their memories. It also depends on how much favour the petitioner has garnered. Some mane's retain some semblance of their memories but this is extremely rare, and the chances of you finding out that Barry the Mane used to be a farmer is slim considering they're mindless.

The only book that I can think of (mind you there could very well be others that I haven't read) that deals with the subject of petitioners is the Manual of the Planes.

Is there anything like gypsies in FR? It stands to reason there are nomadic groups like it, but I can't recall any lore about them.

Also, this wouldn't be about the bedine as they are something else entirely.

Silent2001 wrote:

Estara wrote:

I'm also trying to figure out details about petitioners of the planes in general. Do petitioners retain their memories from the material plane in 3.5 before seeking out Celestia/Elysium/Baator/etc? Is it specified?

I read somewhere that it depends on the petitioner, they're there to serve their deity. If retaining their memories helps accomplish this they might retain their memories. It also depends on how much favour the petitioner has garnered. Some mane's retain some semblance of their memories but this is extremely rare, and the chances of you finding out that Barry the Mane used to be a farmer is slim considering they're mindless.

Petitioners from Baator would have memories of their past life, but they resemble a twisted ragged appearance of their former selves called Soul Shells. But are called Coin by Devils because that's their form of currency. A Soul Shell however is not likely to be seen as they are soon harvested for their divine energy though it is not unheard of for one to slip past those Devils harvesting them. Even then though another Devil that comes across it would snatch it up like finding a 100 dollar bill on the ground and claim it as their own.

Elorathall wrote:

Is there anything like gypsies in FR? It stands to reason there are nomadic groups like it, but I can't recall any lore about them.

Also, this wouldn't be about the bedine as they are something else entirely.

Don't really know the FR books that well or what is considered acceptable canon or what Amia server thinks specifically, but...

Races of Faerun wrote:

The Gurs, also known as “Selûne’s Children” or “the people of the highway,” are the nomads of the Western Heartlands. Most Gurs are members of extended family groups that travel together from settlement to settlement in motley caravans selling cheap cast-offs and working odd jobs. Others have settled in the poorest quarters of cities such as Baldur’s Gate, Elturel, and Irieabor, where they struggle to survive in the face of ancient prejudices. Among those few scholars who have studied their culture, the Gurs are thought to be primarily of Rashemi descent. Although they have certainly intermingled with members of other ethnic groups, they strongly resemble the natives of Rashemen. As fragments of lore dating back to the erection of the Standing Stone refer to the nomadic Gurs, it is thought that they fled their ancient homeland during or immediately after the cataclysmic battle between Raumathar and Narfell.

Speakers of an ancient dialect of Rashemi among themselves, the honor-obsessed Gurs employ the Thorass alphabet and speak Chondathan with non-Gurs. Many of Selûne’s Children are unusually gifted oracles and find employment as soothsayers and diviners. In addition to the goddess of the moon, many prophetically inclined Gurs venerate Savras. Their secretive faith may in large part account for the continued survival of his faith during his many years of imprisonment.

I would also suggest Hin if you are looking for nomadic gypsy sorts. Lightfoot to be exact.

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