The General D&D thread

at some point have it Contemplate Our Navels. Concerning whether or not it exists.

existentialist golems ftw.

edited 26th Feb '11 7:49:55 AM by Dynamod

I remember reading a 4chan thread in which a villain delivered a truly epic Hannibal Lecture to a warforged paladin, telling him that what he was feeling wasn't real, it was just programmed into him by the humans. His reaction was to say "that doesn't matter. Even if my feelings aren't real, I'm going to do this anyway for people who are!" before grabbing the bad guy and leaping over the battlements. (This being 4chan, naturally the next post was "Not another fucking thread about paladins falling.")

! I REMEMBER THAT!

edited 26th Feb '11 1:25:25 PM by Dynamod

Manly tears have been shed.

Golems?

...

Warforged?

Hey... spells that bring back the dead automatically work on willing subjects and fail on unwilling subjects, but what if the subject is neither? What if they're ambivalent, or undecided? Is the spell predictive, such that if a character would ultimately decide one way or the other given the time to weigh the options, the spell automatically treats them as having already made that decision? Or does it count anyone who thinks "the afterlife is great but I guess living is too" as willing and anyone who thinks "I might or might not want to come back, I'm just not sure yet" as unwilling?

Golems are magical robots, basically. Warforged are the Eberron extension of this into a playable race. (Think Data from Star Trek, only magic, and you're about 75% there.)

So she's using Warforged and saying they're just normal golems?

I'm not sure. Could be. Certainly a lot easier to use as a playable race because there's no level adjustment.

No.

I wanted to include regular golems into my story, and was wondering what interesting things people have done with them.

OK. Sorry.

Hmm.

I ramraided this place for ideas once: the Steal This Hook archive. It's a series of Wizards articles offering adventure hooks, and I remember there being something to do with golems in one of them (unfortunately I can't remember which one). The earlier ones are Eberron-centric, but later it drifts from that.

re: raising the dead, I'd count anything except a definite yes as unwilling. In case of "not sure", maintain the status quo (ie, subject remains dead).

re: golems, you can adapt basically any plot around robots or Literal Genies to golems. The vast majority of them are mindless, so they only follow orders. I once had a character who built himself a bunch of golems because they were the most reliable type of servant around. Summoned creatures can be dispelled or simply unavailable if you're out of spells for the day; undead can be turned/rebuked or escape from your control. Golems, though? They're always loyal, aren't vulnerable to dispell or antimagic, and aren't subject to control restrictions like undead. (They do need some DM help to be really viable for P Cs, though; they're horrifically expensive in terms of both gold and XP by RAW.)

According to the RL lore I've come up with, I've houseruled this in;

DC 20 + Golem's total Hit Die + 1/2 Caster Level of the Wizard who made it- Arcane Spellcraft check.

If this check succeeds, you or an ally may write down a command on a piece of paper and attempt a Grapple check. If successful, the paper is placed in the golem's throat, and this new command takes the place of the current command the golem is operating under.

Makes sense according to RL Golem Lore, and it's not like it's exactly easy.

You're going with the actual, pre-Roman Jewish Golems?

Insteresting.

Also, I have a question to everyone:

Maori Dragonborn and Celtic Goblinoids. Y/N?

Yup. Actual golems.

I say yes.

@Diamonnes: YESYESYESYESYES

Speaking of various races, I'm trying to find a way to spice up Goliaths. I like the base concept, but they feel, I don't know, half-finished. Stat-wise they're good, but they don't seem to have a lot of character besides being large humans.

Maori Dragonborn reminds me of (probably NSFW; there's half a nipple) Tiki Warforged.

As for Goliaths—in Dark Sun they're half-giants. Aside from that, they seem to have a mountainous/stone theme going on, so maybe you could run with that, making them earth elemental creatures or even living statues. Maybe the Pygmalion myth on a specieswide scale?

edited 1st Mar '11 5:57:57 PM by Haven

That could work, I suppose.

Also, I would pay money to watch a war between Tikiforged and Maori Dragonborn.

Here's a subject:

Splitting the party. How do you deal with it?

Whatever you do, do it in such an annoying manner that your players will never do that again.

But I liek it when my players split the party

Their tears taste so delicious afterwards

I really don't like how Wizards shoehorned goliaths, dragonborn, and eladrins into Dark Sun. Goliaths especially are nothing like half-giants except in size.

Since I game online, when the party splits I put them into two separate channels and run them simultaneously. It gets a little hairy sometimes trying to juggle them both at once, but it's the best solution I can come up with. The other annoying bit about that is waiting for one half of the party to do something that affects the other half; they tend to get out of sync, which is annoying.

Of course, that doesn't really apply in meatspace games. But my group has a gentleman's agreement not to split the party just to avoid breaking the DM. If someone needs/wants to do a solo sidequest, then you can handle that some time other than the normal session.

shoehorned dragonborn

You mean Dray?

edited 2nd Mar '11 9:51:47 AM by EgregiousEric

That's what I do.

Hmmmm...