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4 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2009 - 7:09PM
#11
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Ugly and monstrous-looking dragonborn are a PHB1 race.
Not everyone thinks Dragonborn are ugly :P
D&D 4E Herald and M:tG Rules Advisor I expect posters to follow the Code of Conduct, use Basic Etiquette, and avoid Poor Logic. If you don't follow these guidelines, I consider you to be disrespectful to everyone on these forums. If you respond to me without following these guidelines, I consider it a personal attack. I grew up in a bilingual household, which means I am familiar with the difficulties in adopting a different vocabulary and grammar. That doesn't bother me. Persistent use of bad capitalization, affirming the consequent, and flaming bother me a great deal. Rule that I would change: 204.1b
Show
204.1b Some effects change an object’s card type, supertype, or subtype but specify that the object retains a prior card type, supertype, or subtype. In such cases, all the object’s prior card types, supertypes, and subtypes are retained. This rule applies to effects that use the phrase “in addition to its types” or that state that something is “still a [card type].” Some effects state that an object becomes an “artifact creature”; these effects also allow the object to retain all of its prior card types and subtypes.
"Eight Edition Rules Update"
We eventually decided not to change this template, because players are used to “becomes an artifact creature,” and like it much better. Players were used to Combat on the Stack, but you got rid of that because it was unintuitive. The only phrase needed is "in addition to its types"; the others are misleading and unintuitive.
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4 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2009 - 7:32PM
#12
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Date Joined:
Jan 28, 2007
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4 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2009 - 7:36PM
#13
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Date Joined:
Jun 30, 2008
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ITS A TRAP! Don't click on those link or your loose HOURS navigating TVTropes!! ARG!
Not everyone thinks Dragonborn are ugly :P
It really depends on who draws them for me :p
I love Horseshoecrabfolk.
What I love most about them is that they seem to be the one thing that we all can agree on.
See for yourself, click here!
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4 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2009 - 9:22PM
#14
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Date Joined:
Jun 10, 2008
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4 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2009 - 9:52PM
#15
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Date Joined:
Apr 20, 2007
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I'm reminded of something that was said in Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes, by a drow adventurer to one of the goblins. It was something along the lines of:
"You were put on this earth for only one reason. To provide XP and treasure for us adventurers!"
I haven't read Rich Burlew's book "Start of Darkness" but this same concept is the reason Redcloak's god, the Dark One, exists, since when he ascended he learned that that's why the gods created the "monster" races.
What makes a person a person? The answer is simple. Is your race in the Player's Handbook? Then you are a person. If your race is in the Monster Manual, you are only a thing to be killed by adventurers, who will then take your stuff.
It's not a politically correct system, but it is how the sourcebooks, throughout D&D history, seem to have set it up.
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4 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2009 - 10:07PM
#16
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Date Joined:
May 31, 2008
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Really no one can give you a definite answer because it depends upon your DM, campaign, and group sensibilities.
It is entirely possible to play a game of D&D where the "monsterous" races (orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc...) are just another intelligent culture. In these games, they act much like the "bad guy" aliens in Star Trek. They are usually antagonistic and often up to no good - the players may have to fight and kill them to save lives. However, they are persons and must be treated as such. Non-combatants can't be killed and when they are not acting out and out agressive they might be infiltrated or even bargained with. Eberron is a great example and treats many goblinoids in this manner.
It is also possible to play a game of D&D where the monsterous creatures are literal incarnations of evil. It is a common theme in fantasy and mythology for intangible concepts to be given tangible forms: a potion might be literally made of bottled courage, love, or luck or a creature be the essence of fire, beauty, winter, or fear. After all magic is all about doing the impossible and even the illogical. In these settings it is certainly believable for a creature to be an embodiment of something very negative like hatred, destruction, or death (is this any stranger then a potion of luck or courage?). In these games an orc (just a hypothetical example) might be a living embodiment of destruction; though it seems capable of using intelligent tactics but it is not a person and has no capacity for love, friendship, or benevolence. In this type of setting it is probably acceptable to actively hunt down and destroy these monsters (there are no civilians).
Usually my settings tend to towards the first type, I just can't help but bring along sympathetic orcs, goblins, kobalds, etc.... (Though I tend to treat more supernatural creatures like undead, dragons, etc... more like the second type). However, it is really up to the world you want to create.
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4 years ago ::
Mar 08, 2009 - 10:41PM
#17
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What makes a person a person? The answer is simple. Is your race in the Player's Handbook? Then you are a person. If your race is in the Monster Manual, you are only a thing to be killed by adventurers, who will then take your stuff.
Are you just trying to be inflammatory?
While this may be an attitude that many gamers have historically adopted, I don't believe it was ever encouraged by RAW (even back in first edition, I distinctly recall the published adventures giving the PC's option to parlay with many intelligent monsters rather than necessarily having to fight them). You are taking the ideas of one school of gamer thought and trying to pass it off as Word of God, when in reality the publishers have never explicitly advocated it.
In fact, I'm tempted to say that the game designers officially REJECTED this paradigm from 3.5e onward, when they started including PC writeups for any intelligent creature that could be considered even remotely playable. In 4e, the downplaying of alignment only furthers this trend.
In short, I hope you're just trolling.
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4 years ago ::
Mar 09, 2009 - 2:58AM
#18
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Date Joined:
Oct 11, 2007
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Enhh??? I'm not at all familiar with this ecology... Drow have always been shown as dark-skinned elves from everything I've seen. Like in the d20 srd: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_ … _PG103.jpg
OK, I didn't mean literally sharks with pointed ears. Just socially. According to the article, Drow society is extremely cut-throat and full of backstabbing. Most Drow don't make it to adulthood. Lethal combats to advance to the next position are common. There is very little familial loyalty, and what there is is based on fear. In the rare case that a drow becomes pregnant with twins, so filled with hatred etc. are they that one of the fetuses will kill the other.
In order to maintain population, they must breed like orcs.
So rather than being the dark side of elves, as in everything written previously, they are something rather less interesting.
I've always thought of drow as being very much like elves, except twisted. They are into the arts, except theirs involve inflicting pain. They are very loyal to their families, so much so that they will practice evil acts on other families. They have an innate sense of superiority, so much so that they enslave other races. That sort of thing. The characture presented in that particular ecology article was so extreme that, even by D&D standards, it couldn't be taken seriously.
Oh yeah, they seem to shop at Frederick's of Mordor.
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4 years ago ::
Mar 09, 2009 - 3:01AM
#19
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Date Joined:
Oct 11, 2007
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Really no one can give you a definite answer because it depends upon your DM, campaign, and group sensibilities.
It is entirely possible to play a game of D&D where the "monsterous" races (orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc...) are just another intelligent culture. In these games, they act much like the "bad guy" aliens in Star Trek. They are usually antagonistic and often up to no good - the players may have to fight and kill them to save lives. However, they are persons and must be treated as such. Non-combatants can't be killed and when they are not acting out and out agressive they might be infiltrated or even bargained with. Eberron is a great example and treats many goblinoids in this manner.
It is also possible to play a game of D&D where the monsterous creatures are literal incarnations of evil. It is a common theme in fantasy and mythology for intangible concepts to be given tangible forms: a potion might be literally made of bottled courage, love, or luck or a creature be the essence of fire, beauty, winter, or fear. After all magic is all about doing the impossible and even the illogical. In these settings it is certainly believable for a creature to be an embodiment of something very negative like hatred, destruction, or death (is this any stranger then a potion of luck or courage?). In these games an orc (just a hypothetical example) might be a living embodiment of destruction; though it seems capable of using intelligent tactics but it is not a person and has no capacity for love, friendship, or benevolence. In this type of setting it is probably acceptable to actively hunt down and destroy these monsters (there are no civilians).
Usually my settings tend to towards the first type, I just can't help but bring along sympathetic orcs, goblins, kobalds, etc.... (Though I tend to treat more supernatural creatures like undead, dragons, etc... more like the second type). However, it is really up to the world you want to create.
Very well put. This is always one of the questions we ask toward a DM when we start playing a game -- what is the general belief about whether evil races (especially humanoid ones) are intrinsically evil or not. An unwillingness to commit to an answer raises some red flags, role-playing wise. (I'm not insisting that the DM tell us the true answer, just what our characters are likely to believe.)
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4 years ago ::
Mar 09, 2009 - 5:22AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Oct 24, 2001
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Are you just trying to be inflammatory?
Do you really think Zousha_Omenohu's comment was inflammatory and trolling? Methinks thou has read far too much into Z-O's post.
Here are the PHB essentia, in my opinion: - Three Basic Rules (p 11)
- Power Types and Usage (p 54)
- Skills (p178-179)
- Feats (p 192)
- Rest and Recovery (p 263)
- All of Chapter 9 [Combat] (p 264-295)
A player needs to read the sections for building his or her character -- race, class, powers, feats, equipment, etc. But those are PC-specific. The above list is for everyone, regardless of the race or class or build or concept they are playing.
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