Thread: Dungeons & Dragons

Originally Posted by Hantei16

Magic is the bomb, but my love for magic never stood the test of time, it just gets too kiddie and too commercial nowadays. But still a great game tho, it's just not my cup of tea anymore.

Exactly.
I totally agree with you.
I personally think games are always better before they go mainstream...because commercials start airing and all these people who really only want to play the game because they want to be cool and they ruin the fun of the game because they don't try to play correctly.
It's the same way with music and bands.
Once a band hits it big and goes mainstream big time...it's like they sell their goodness and soul to the satan of media. Then all their music starts to sound the same and all these stupid people start liking the band for only one song and never bother to research any other songs by the band. GAH...it's so annoying!
I mean I am glad the game and the band are making money and all but at least try to stick to your roots.

I started playin D&D about 7-8 years ago. the only group i found in my area had characters all near 100. instead of jump in with a self made character, i took a different approach. I went to my uncle, who has played D&D since 1st edition, and asked him if i could use his old character (he had long since quit)

His character's name?

Fayt Lingod

Fayt was an immortal elvish warlord (lvl 101), he was lvl 20 wizard, fighter, rogue, cleric of chaos, ranger, and a level 1 archmage. as fayt, i played for nearly 2 years, however by that time fayt (now close to lvl 290) had killed 5 gods, seven devil lords, and 6 demon princes while the other party members died and were resurected countless times. needless to say, i was forced to retire him yet again.

Now i play as a DM, Fayt (who traveled to an entirely different multi-verse) is now my "Balance" NPC. when an evil PC, or extremely powerful challenges come, fayt answers the call for help. needless to say, my experience massacring gods and archfiends lead me to create sadistic and torturous dungeons and rediculous chalenges. but its worth it to see the face of a relieved player to konw that the Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon (epic level handbook) was only an illusion.

BTW: Fayt is now (capped) at character class 300, he is immortal (moreso than a god), and loves training new adventurers and sending them to fix the problems he's too lazy to deal with.

Anyway, we usually play at our own custom setting here but sometimes for fun we do use default settings like Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. 'Lance is kinda fun to play and fun to read, i'm not very much into pocketbooks but i have enjoyed some 'Lance novels. Est solarus uth mithas.

I've never tried the default settings, what is it like to play them? I often seen Forgetten Realms books, and Eberron stuff, etc, but have never tried them. Does it help more to know about the setting for those games?

Fayt was an immortal elvish warlord (lvl 101), he was lvl 20 wizard, fighter, rogue, cleric of chaos, ranger, and a level 1 archmage. as fayt, i played for nearly 2 years, however by that time fayt (now close to lvl 290) had killed 5 gods, seven devil lords, and 6 demon princes while the other party members died and were resurected countless times. needless to say, i was forced to retire him yet again.

Over level 100? Tis insanity! The games I've played have never gone over about 25-ish. Darest I ask what kind of damage you guys were slinging around at the demons?

My highest level character was a cleric named Ladras, who started out as a normal goody goody cleric, but after getting heavily addicted to drugs turned into a total jerk, who solved most issues by killing things. I also mass abused Miracle to summon cots to sleep on, and eventually used it to commit genocide against an entire race to prevent an invasion. I lost so many levels for that....

Well for the funny and stupid part, i do know someone who cries over a fallen character. It's quite odd really, that guy even breaks bricks while cryin'...Yeah, literally. Candid moments are common but that's one of the main reasons why this game never gets outdated.

We used to have an item in one of our campaigns that was like that. It basically made you invincible to all attacks, but if you see any sign of suffering you end up almost in the fetal position crying your eyes out.

Truly, there's so much creativity and imagination in D&D.

My character Jo Mage was a 19 lv Fighter, 20 lv Psion, 31 lv Wizard and was immortal too, so a 100th lv character was not unfeasible. But it was much harder ta attain lv 100 in the 2nd edition than it is in the 3rd or higher.

Originally Posted by Luminous

Truly, there's so much creativity and imagination in D&D.

I very much agree.
That is one thing that really got me into D&D was the creative people and minds that I could bond with.
I mean you don't find really creative people everyday...but with D&D it makes it possible to find fun, creative, imaginative people and there are also (sometimes) mature people who could end up being a life long friend.
D&D is over all just a great game, I think.

The experience table in 2nd ed is waaay more broad compared to 3rd ed, and in 2nd ed experience tables and level progressions for each class were diff'rent, unlike in 3rd ed where we only have one table to follow.

"I've never tried the default settings, what is it like to play them? I often seen Forgetten Realms books, and Eberron stuff, etc, but have never tried them. Does it help more to know about the setting for those games?"

-What's it like to play them? Forgotten Realms is kinda basic coz it's the normal default setting for D&D. A long line of video games is also Forgotten Realms including the popular Baldur's Gate games. If it comes to scope, nothing can match the Realms'. 'Lance is more of a romantic setting, if you love Arthurian legends, Don Quixote, and stuff from the Romantic era, then 'Lance is the one for ya. It is set on a struggling world where unlikely nobodies can become legends. If 'Lance is the romantic setting then Ravenloft is the Gothic setting-think Van Hellsing, think Sweeney Todd. For me, Ravenloft is repetitive if you go playin' it full-time or in long runs. It's best when spicing up a campaign where the Ravenloft Mist embraces you to the realm of Ravenloft for a night or two, one or two adventures at best. Greyhawk is a classic and very influential setting, in my opinion among all the other settings, it is the closest to reality but still has strong fantasy that can match that of 'Realms'. If you read the corebooks, you could see Greyhwak's strong influence in D&D tradition. The Pantheon in the 3rd ed player's handbook is Greyhawk-based. If yer wondrin' who's Mordenkainen, Bigby, Melf, Rary, etc.(a set of spells are named after these guys), they're Greyhawk's own.

For a diff'rent take, you could go oriental. The 3rd ed setting of Rokugan follows the same story as the Legend of the Five Rings TCG, a genius story in my opinion. Whether you follow Rokugan setting or not, i highly suggest goin' oriental sometimes.

Does it help more? It depends on the person really...me i like knowing these kind of stuff because i love fantasy and oriental stuff. And at most, D&D was very influential in the progression of my artistic abilities and style. D&D art or should i say it "Fantasy" art is my thing, and D&D beefed up my imaginative prowess. In fact, being a D&D(or somewhere in WOTC) writer or illustrator is a dream job for me.

Originally Posted by Luminous

Over level 100? Tis insanity! The games I've played have never gone over about 25-ish. Darest I ask what kind of damage you guys were slinging around at the demons?

My highest level character was a cleric named Ladras, who started out as a normal goody goody cleric, but after getting heavily addicted to drugs turned into a total jerk, who solved most issues by killing things. I also mass abused Miracle to summon cots to sleep on, and eventually used it to commit genocide against an entire race to prevent an invasion. I lost so many levels for that....
Truly, there's so much creativity and imagination in D&D.

my uncle played for over 20 years as fayt to get to level 100, he had a group of friends that got together 2-3 times a week, every week.

At level 300 fayt (mind you he IS a wizard base) can hit 200-300 on a bad roll, if he uses his epic spells (any of the 32 of them) he can go between 1000-5000 damage on an average roll. he basically has every non-contradictory class in complete mage and complete arcane, and a few from every other book.

we also (me and my DM) modified the archfiends and gods we fought, we had to make them stronger.