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Old 04-15-2022, 07:08 PM   #31
maximara
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Default Re: [DF] Dragonlance

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Lolth as written would be in danger of going down in a single round against a level 10-14 party. You underestimate just how powerful high level AD&D characters were.
I think you over estimate the power of a AD&D1ed 10-14 party. Unless she is played like Skeleton out of the old 1980s He-man cartoon she should not only hold her own but totally wreck the party. Especially given the way that module was set up they would be down on spells.

Deities and Demigods (which came out the same year) added these abilities to her powerset:

Command ("no saving throw vs. this divine ability"): Mind Control [50]
Comprehend languages: Gift of Tongues and Gift of Letters combined (special spell)
Detect alignment: NA in GURPS
Gate: Planar Summons (spell) - limited to mythos
Geas: Great Geas (spell)
Quest (no saving throw): Lesser Geas (spell)
Teleport: Jumper [100] and Warp [100]
True seeing: Aura (spell)

More over in GURPS Lolth would likely become even more ridiculous per Objects of Power - if items made by deities change Sanctity and the deity themselves should on par with running into a Major Object of Power. Kind of hard for your Cleric to do anything in what, for them, is a No Sanctity area.
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Old 04-15-2022, 08:01 PM   #32
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Default Re: [DF] Dragonlance

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y. Unless she is played like Skeleton out of the old 1980s He-man cartoon
That's _Skeletor_. I always thought Hordak was more fun. I have no idea why Skeletor keeps showing up on Facebook but better him than the Joker.
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Old 04-16-2022, 02:57 AM   #33
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Default Re: [DF] Dragonlance

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That's _Skeletor_. I always thought Hordak was more fun. I have no idea why Skeletor keeps showing up on Facebook but better him than the Joker.
I think it is because he is so easy to make a meme out of - supremely powerful but also supremely incompetent. I agree with you with regards to the Joker - he has been over used to the point that it is getting annoying use some of Batman's other villains.

I like the version of Skeletor in the latest He-man cartoon where he actually takes over the planet. Allies that don't have rocks for brains, confident but not to where he makes dumb moves.

Back to the topic. Real old D&D wasn't well balanced and if you translate many things to GURPS their power goes up.

For example, I'm surprised the first official GURPS version of a Lich doesn't have a phylactery. The Dragon #26 article “Blueprint for a Lich” shows that a lich effectively has at least Unkillable 2 and likely Unkillable 3 - as long as you can't find their phylactery. Totally destroy the original body? The Lich just takes over a preprepared corpse near the phylactery and once it fully acclimates to the new body it goes back to what ever it was doing.

And Lolth is more powerful than one of those things as all deities have Unkillable 3 outside of their home plane of existence per Deities and Demigods. The 'Deities get everything from their followers' mechanic in GURPS Religion ups the power — as long as they have worshipers a deity cannot truly be defeated much less killed. ("For King and Country" suggested something like this way back in the 1980s)

Revenge? Unless they are petty, beings with Unkillable 3 will play on people's ignorance. if people think they are destroyed then they will attribute the actions of the being to that of minons or Fanatical followers leaving the being to do what ever it was doing before the party "killed" it.
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Old 04-16-2022, 04:25 AM   #34
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Default Re: [DF] Dragonlance

Point is that A LOT of nonsense in the original D&D has been embedded in RPGs and, when mixed with lazely lifted stereotypes from LOTR you got a pretty good picture of "Standard" Fantasy...

Of which Dragonlance is a clear example (If I remember correctly in one book there is also a mention of Christmas). Just remember that the main character is a "Bad Guy" whose main personality trait is being an insufferable a*hole but which every body is in love with.

D&D power levelling was (at least up to 3.5/Pathfinder, no idea on newer releases) totally bonkers, to the point that "I defeated the Terrasque with only 3 of my 5 rings" was almost a meme.

The only pass I can give to those pesky level/class /allignment rigidity is when those concepts are elevated to Cosmic absolutes... And then you start to get really weird and interesting stuff, like Planescape or Wrath of the Immortals that took all this and pushed it to 11 to say something a bit more meaningful about our daily boring lives.
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Old 04-16-2022, 05:54 AM   #35
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Default Re: [DF] Dragonlance

The power creep is real. 5th edition character are more capable than 3.5, but they have far, far fewer magic items. There's more emphasis on the characters' innate abilities and less on the gear they carry.
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Old 04-16-2022, 10:45 AM   #36
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Alignment can be a great trope, but it needs to be integrated into the setting as in Three Hearts and Three Lions or George and the Dragon (not sure about the Elric books). If its just a vague "goodies or baddies?" plus mechanics which imply it is a cosmic force, it fails.
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Old 04-16-2022, 11:02 AM   #37
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Alignment can be a great trope, but it needs to be integrated into the setting as in Three Hearts and Three Lions or George and the Dragon (not sure about the Elric books). Is.
The conflict between Law and Chaos is very central to the Elric books (though no necessarily everything connected to Moorcock's "Eternal Champion").

Note that like original D&D Elric doesn't "do" Good and Evil where Three Hearts pretty much makes Law and Good and Evil and Chaos the same things. Elric mostly ends up rooting for Balance and is pretty directly responsible for why so many old Greyhawk NPCs were Neutral.
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Old 04-16-2022, 11:19 AM   #38
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Default Re: [DF] Dragonlance

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The power creep is real. 5th edition character are more capable than 3.5, but they have far, far fewer magic items.
5th edition characters are way less capable than 3.5e. Sure, they probably start out better at low levels, but level scaling in 3.5e was crazy.
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Old 04-16-2022, 04:21 PM   #39
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Default Re: [DF] Dragonlance

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Alignment can be a great trope, but it needs to be integrated into the setting as in Three Hearts and Three Lions or George and the Dragon (not sure about the Elric books). If its just a vague "goodies or baddies?" plus mechanics which imply it is a cosmic force, it fails.
The thing is in AD&D1st Alignment, was a cosmic force as each alignment had its own language.

"For King and Country" pointed out that " Each and every intelligent being would be motivated by some absolute cause which would be perceived by all as the same thing. Thus, a paladin not only would believe himself to be good, but would be seen as good even by his enemies."

By AD&D1 standards James Bond would be an evil character (the 00 denotes him as an assassin) but he certainly not see "that woe and suffering are desirable ends in and of themselves." Few evil characters do.

Also many times the official alignments just didn't make sense. Take Tiamat, for example. She is given LE in 1ed MM and yet 1ed Deities and Demigods effectively tells she is the Babylon Tiamat - whose domain was Chaos.

The Greek section is similarly bonkers. Many of the deiteis given "good" alignments were evident Neutral in later editions. Hades got Neutral Evil but that isn't supported in the actual mythology either.
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Old 04-16-2022, 04:36 PM   #40
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The thing is in AD&D1st Alignment, was a cosmic force as each alignment had its own language.

"For King and Country" pointed out that " Each and every intelligent being would be motivated by some absolute cause which would be perceived by all as the same thing. Thus, a paladin not only would believe himself to be good, but would be seen as good even by his enemies."
The problem with 1e through 3e D&D (the editions I know) is that they had concepts like alignment languages, Protection Against Good, and alignment planes which suggest that alignment is built deeply into the world, but they did not have a coherent theory of what alignment is or fit it into the world. Part of this may be that in the early days they were scared of working in explicitly Christian elements and setting off another Satanic Panic, part of it may be the omnium gatherum inspirations they used which included both dualistic alignments and alignments as uncaring forces. This lead to issues like the eternal "is killing orc babies Good?" debate and the "lawful ******* / lawful stupid" paladin.
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