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Ridiculous D&D contrivances
I know fantasy requires a level of suspension of disbelief, but sometimes D&D just goes too damn far. I was just reading Dungeonscape... sharks bred to swim in acid? Really? It's one of the most preposterous and ostentatious things you could possibly put in a dungeon! As if the lack of flesh searing chemicals wasn't enough! Sharks, really? I mean... unless you plan on doing this.
So, what's your favorite absolutely totally ridiculous thing D&D has ever tried to convince you is a reasonable thing to put in a game?
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
The avatar of Erythnul, God of Slaughter, was a puppy.
A flying puppy.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
The material component for Bless Water (or the other [ALIGNMENT] water spells) is five pounds of powdered silver. A flask of holy water is one pint. There is simply not enough room to mix the two! You can't do that! I'm okay with most magic. I'll accept conjuring fearsome beasts out of thin air, lighting things on fire with your mind, bringing the dead back to life, turning yourself into a strange new form, sending your friend across the globe in the blink of an eye, any of it. But this isn't magic, this is before the magic happens. Ugh. That just bothers me for some reason.
Oh, and the fact that all languages are equally easy to learn and that a mere two skill points (or one, for some classes) is enough to instantly, perfectly, fluently master a new language. I know that PCs are legendary heroes and thus Better Than You, but I cringe a little when I think about how my studies of Japanese (I'm a Japanese Major for crying out loud! I'm graduating next month! I've spent years on this and I'm still nowhere near fluent!) counts for less than two skill points (less because I don't have the perfect fluent understanding that Speak Language gives). Grrr.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
Half-Dragon Celestial Bees. I've actually had one of my characters fight them. The sad part is that Half-Dragon Celestial Bees is a rather tame example of template sillyness.
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Originally Posted by
MCerberus
Half-Dragon Celestial Bees
I know dragons have a totally different mindset than us, but talk about a weird fetish.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
I don't have any more trouble suspending disbelief for any of that stuff than I do for Magic Missile. As a matter of fact, there are things released as April Fool's jokes that I look at and think "You know... The stats actually look balanced to me... I wonder if my players would yell at me if I tossed in a few Flumph Headstabbers..."
So nothing official has looked too crazy to me.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
Thajocoth
I don't have any more trouble suspending disbelief for any of that stuff than I do for Magic Missile. As a matter of fact, there are things released as April Fool's jokes that I look at and think "You know... The stats actually look balanced to me... I wonder if my players would yell at me if I tossed in a few Flumph Headstabbers..."
So nothing official has looked too crazy to me.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm...268_620_65.jpg?
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
Amesoeurs
Ah.
So THAT'S why adventurers are so stab-happy.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
Yeah, but Grells are abberations. They are, by definition, supposed to be a bit weird (to us).
Yeah, but the spell doesn't say you MIX the silver and water. Maybe the silver blackens and turns to dust as holy (or whatever) energy is transferred from it to the water?
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
KazilDarkeye
Yeah, but the spell doesn't say you MIX the silver and water. Maybe the silver blackens and turns to dust as holy (or whatever) energy is transferred from it to the water?
Animate dead, on the other hand...that's a lot of onyx.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
Amesoeurs
I was just reading Dungeonscape... sharks bred to swim in acid? Really? It's one of the most preposterous and ostentatious things you could possibly put in a dungeon! As if the lack of flesh searing chemicals wasn't enough! Sharks, really?
...Our Administrator and Giant wrote that supplement...
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
monty
Animate dead, on the other hand...that's a lot of onyx.
I believe by RAW it reaches a point where animating certain creatures requires more onyx gems than will fit inside their head. Also gives you a really easy way to research hit dice (just put in one gem at a time until the spell works, repeating as necessary and taking as many days as required to get all the necessary spells).
The movement speed always kind of bothered me. I know PCs are above average people, but 30 feet is a lot to move in 6 seconds and still have enough time to cast a spell, attack someone, or do any number of things that are standard actions, or even move actions. And running at 4x speed?
-JM
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by Mando Knight
The Giant
Technically he only co-wrote it. That might mean he had no part of the Acidborn Shark, and is making fun of his co-author for slipping that in there.
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The movement speed always kind of bothered me. I know PCs are above average people, but 30 feet is a lot to move in 6 seconds and still have enough time to cast a spell, attack someone, or do any number of things that are standard actions, or even move actions. And running at 4x speed?
30f.t/6 seconds = 5 feet/sec, which is 1.5 m/s (I think). The usual top running speed is roughly 10 m/sec, so they are actually going pretty slow.
Even at 4x speed, that's only 6m/s
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
monty
Animate dead, on the other hand...that's a lot of onyx.
Not in a world where Onyx creates perpetual motion machines.
Epic level bakers regularly occuring in big cities are one of the things that get me.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
Zaq
The material component for Bless Water (or the other [ALIGNMENT] water spells) is five pounds of powdered silver. A flask of holy water is one pint. There is simply not enough room to mix the two! You can't do that!
On the contrary. Silver is approximately ten times denser than water, so five pounds of silver occupy roughly one half pint of volume.
You'll need a flask that holds more than a pint, yes, but not vastly more.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
Who_Da_Halfling
The movement speed always kind of bothered me. I know PCs are above average people, but 30 feet is a lot to move in 6 seconds and still have enough time to cast a spell, attack someone, or do any number of things that are standard actions, or even move actions. And running at 4x speed?
I think you are overestimating how far 30 feet is, or underestimating how long 6 seconds is. 30 feet per 6 seconds comes out to about 3.4 miles per hour, which is not all that fast.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by Dervag
Water silver thing
And, as I said earlier, you're not necessarily mixing the water and silver.
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Movement speed thing again
As a corrolary, in order to run faster than 10m/s, you'd need to move over 150f.t. per round, and if you're doing that (it is possible), you're probably flying.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
KazilDarkeye
As a corrolary, in order to run faster than 10m/s, you'd need to move over 150f.t. per round, and if you're doing that (it is possible), you're probably flying.
Actually, that wouldn't be too hard. When you run, you move four times your base land speed in one round. A first-level human barbarian could do it.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
I never said it had to be difficult. The 150 feet thing is an underestimate, caused by laziness and/or not using a very accurate conversion value.
Even with a barbarian running, it's still only about 11m/s, which is still somewhat reasonable.
Plus, Barbarians are used to all that stuff. Reading, writing and basic maths, on the other hand...
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
Contrived things in D&D?
What about the very existence of the ubiquitous 'dungeon'?
Or how about even the adventuring profession?
:smalltongue:
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
Lets see...
Human Barbarian 1
Feats:
Run
Dash x3
Flaws:
Murky-eyed
Innatentive
Speed: 30ft + 10ft + 15ft = 55ft
Using a Run Action: 55 x 5 = 275ft/6 seconds
On topic, the templates are kind of messed up...I mean, How the heck are there so many half celestials? And Half Dragons? And Half Fiends? Half-Trolls?
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
Amesoeurs
Hey, I like grells! They're one of the few things in the original Fiend Folio that didn't totally suck.
Case in point, the carbuncle.
http://home.gwi.net/%7Erdorman/frilo.../carbuncle.gif
It's an armadillo with a gem in its forehead and a hard-on for necrophilia. That's right: the carbuncle is so fascinated by death it makes you fight suicidally. And if you attack the carbuncle itself, it dies and the gem rots. Ha ha, no treasure for you, stupid PCs!
There's a reason WotC included this loser in their Fool's Grove adventure. Along with the little bunny with the giant unicorn horn.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
Olo Demonsbane
On topic, the templates are kind of messed up...I mean, How the heck are there so many half celestials? And Half Dragons? And Half Fiends? Half-Trolls?
I don't understand this one. I don't remember any place saying that there's lots of those half-breeds. There's just as many as the DM wills.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
KazilDarkeye
Technically he only co-wrote it. That might mean he had no part of the Acidborn Shark, and is making fun of his co-author for slipping that in there.
That was my assumption. I don't mean Rich any offense, the quality of his Gaming articles is pretty fantastic, and they should have gotten him to work on more books.
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Originally Posted by
Waspinator
Very nice articles. I think Sea Cats are cool though. >_>
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
Some people here just have no concept of how weird nature itself can actually be...
Case in point: This. Just ignore the stupid music.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
The fact that monks can't dual-wield their bare hands.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
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Originally Posted by
Blackbird97
Two words: Pun Pun
I'm sure no official book states that Pun-Pun is a reasonable thing to put in a game.
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Originally Posted by
KazilDarkeye
Technically he only co-wrote it. That might mean he had no part of the Acidborn Shark, and is making fun of his co-author for slipping that in there.
And even if he actually wrote it down - then what? There's nothing bad in making light-hearted, not serious fun of Giant's creations.
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Re: Ridiculous D&D contrivances
How about the fact that with one wish, you can get twenty-five thousand tons of firewood, but could only get fifty pounds of platinum? All for the simple reason that one is perceived as being more valuable than the other?