Kaers are the way to go

[Username17]

Does this mean that you advocate the dispatching of of US Special Forces teams to domestic disturbance calls?

There is such a thing as economy of force.

We don't send Special Forces to deal with domestic disturbance calls because they aren't any good at it. We send Sheriff's Office men and women to go in and talk to people, because that's what they are trained for.

If, on the other hand, we had Special Forces who were somehow also better at dealing with domestic disturbance and investigation, then it would be retarded not to send them.

The same, of course, goes for every other alignment. There's always going to be plenty for an adventuring party to do.

If you make this assumption, then there are again no constraints on player action. Whatever you do, the only way the big cheeses of one of the alignments is going to come down on you is if you randomly end up being the latest guy to be scry and died that hour - a decision made by the DM. And also no matter what you do you could end up being that victim if the DM so chooses.

So there's nothing to stop you from doing any thing you particularly want to do, because anything you do or don't do carries the same virtually meaningless chance that you'll win the lottery and be slain in a scry and die crossfire by some high level plot device.

If you posit that people of every team are just running around doing stuff all the time, and giant unstoppable fists descend out of the sky sometimes and remove players from the board - there is absolutely positively no incentive whatsoever to do or not do anything.

So go ahead and rob the commoners, steal from the magic item stores, go nuts. It absolutely doesn't matter, because no matter what you do it carries a virtually equal risk.

---

Welcome to feudalism! A wonderous world in which the entire justification of the government and tax system is based on mafia-style protection. That is, everyone owes allegiance and pays taxes only because it would go worse for them if they didn't. Either because you wouldn't protect them otherwise or because you are going to go mess them up if they don't.

Which means that if you kill the dragon you are by definition the lord of the land. Think about that for a while.

-Username17

[Sma]

Seeing that summoning a Djinni to planeshift a couple of bored Balors in (which are, going by the books, in infinite supply) cost the evil Wizards virtually nothing, all the protectors of the land will be really, really busy.
Well, everyone will be because the big sticks are busy exchanging blows with the other big sticks, and everyone will relegate as much of of the "protecting stuff" work down to his underlings as he deems possible.

Enter the Players. Yes there is no way to force them to be playing by some kind of fair rules. But then no one else will be. Unless of course they want to be part of one of the families, then the´d better abide their rules, and do the jobs assigned to them. They could of course choose to freelance and hope they don´t get crushed in a random encounter or the crossfire between two feuding fiefdoms.

This style of play would be heavy on political maeuvering as you try to reach the top of the heap, and short combat engagements as you and your family try to fend off intruders.
Exploring random dungeons would not come into it. And those marauding monsters probably arent randomly attacking your city, but were charmed or dominated to do so. Which is swell because now that you´ve caught them you´re going to send them right back to deliver that box filled with Explosive Runes your mage just finished, to keep your opposition busy with repairs for a couple of days.

And when you finally do kiill the dragon, you´re just hoping everyone else held the line while you were busy getting his hide for a quick round of fabricate.

Sma

[Username17]

Unless of course they want to be part of one of the families, then the´d better abide their rules, and do the jobs assigned to them.

That makes no sense. There are literally hundreds of teams, and anybody can kill you just as easily as any other. Joining one of the teams increases your survivability in no way whatsoever, and performing assigned tasks is at best going to get someone capable of raising you to agree to do that once in a while. But many of the teams can't even offer that. The Giant King is not going to raise you no matter what you do, for example.

Not being part of any of the groups, not playing by their rules doesn't cost you anything. If you kill the dragon, you are king until someone else kills you. That's how feudalism works, and the D&D world is explicitly feudalist.

Seeing that summoning a Djinni to planeshift a couple of bored Balors in (which are, going by the books, in infinite supply) cost the evil Wizards virtually nothing, all the protectors of the land will be really, really busy.
Well, everyone will be because the big sticks are busy exchanging blows with the other big sticks, and everyone will relegate as much of of the "protecting stuff" work down to his underlings as he deems possible.

I don't think you're quite getting this. The big sticks aren't exchanging blows, they are killing each other dead at a tremendous rate. When Garl Blackcloak the ninth level Wizard chain conjures up bunch of Pit Fiends out of Efreets out of Dao out of Lesser Planar Binding - he frickin kills Alyara the Radiant Priestess. She's dead. Then she gets soul binded and made into a puppet pal in the Fifth Circle of Hell. Garl Blackcloak may get devoured by angry devils, and maybe he doesn't, but when Jacoby the Singing Blade ganks Garl Blackcloak noone sheds any tears.

Got it? The people at the top aren't constantly holding each other in check, they are constantly eliminating each other because none of them can stop each other from doing so. There is no state of equilibrium, there is just a continuous death toll on every side.

The steady state is held, not by power equalities or something dumb like that, but by replacement. There will be new evil wizards and there will be new good wizards. Good and evil wizards do not stare down at each other unwilling to make a move - because unlike modern nuclear hijinks whoever makes a move wins. The first strike is usually successful, and a whole lot safer than waiting around building up power.

And in such an environment there is nothing to be had by playing by any rules. There are no guidelines to your behavior other than your personal preferences. There is absolutely nothing holding you from doing unto your enemies because the reprecussions for not doing so are as bad or worse than the reprecussions of doing anything you can think of.

D&D describes a continuous lava lamp of power shifts, not a cold war.

And when you finally do kiill the dragon, you´re just hoping everyone else held the line while you were busy getting his hide for a quick round of fabricate.

Holding the line for what exactly? If someone else is performing an equal or greater show of force while you are killing the dragon, they are the lord of the land instead of you. Being the government means being more of a badass than any other contender under feudalism, that's it.

If someone blows up the city nearby, then you don't get to be Baron, they do. You'll have to kill them if you want mastery of the land. They'll have to kill you if they don't want that to happen.

That's how William the Conqueror became king of England, only in D&D people show up with that kind of firepower serveral times in every generation. There's no such thing as a dynasty, and I can't for the life of me explain how anyone expects to ever inherit more land than is needed to run a farm or a shop.

-Username17

[Sma]

Either I´m way off, or we´re talking about the same thing in a very convoluted way.

That makes no sense. There are literally hundreds of teams, and anybody can kill you just as easily as any other. Joining one of the teams increases your survivability in no way whatsoever, and performing assigned tasks is at best going to get someone capable of raising you to agree to do that once in a while. But many of the teams can't even offer that. The Giant King is not going to raise you no matter what you do, for example

If the giant king has no means of ressurection his team will be toast sooner or later, sooner probably. So there will be only teams left who have the menas to consistently close their gaps. This could be either accomplished through very fast reproduction, or the rank and file of your trusted neighbourhood priest.
And even if joining a team provides you with no more than a heightened chance at a second life, well thats probably enough. If not, what is anyone doing hanging around on the material plane if he could just as well be prancing through elysium.

Got it? The people at the top aren't constantly holding each other in check, they are constantly eliminating each other because none of them can stop each other from doing so. There is no state of equilibrium, there is just a continuous death toll on every side.

The steady state is held, not by power equalities or something dumb like that, but by replacement. There will be new evil wizards and there will be new good wizards. Good and evil wizards do not stare down at each other unwilling to make a move - because unlike modern nuclear hijinks whoever makes a move wins. The first strike is usually successful, and a whole lot safer than waiting around building up power.

While Garl was busy summoning his very own pet horde of doom Alyra was doing the very same thing, while Golarond the Allmighty is chain true rezzing his fallen comrades.
Why would the mutually assured destruction not work I this setting ?
they would definetly attack each other all the time, but would do so by proxies. Never sending out too many of their forces, always testing the enemy, while trying not to develop a weakness.
If we can´t get it to work that way, all that will be left is a charred land with exactly one person and his horde of summoned monsters left.
Without some measure of equilibrium the replacement theory won´t work, because all those level one guys won't live to see the next day. If even one bored balor gets to have a little fun in the Alyras town unchecked, the town all those prospective replenishments should have come from will be history.
And while it will hurt Alyra to have to fend off the summoned hordes, Garl is leaving himself open to an attack by one of the many others keen on his supply of silver.

So I conclude that there needs to be some sort of equilibrium .
The question is, how to make it happen ?

Sma

[Draco_Argentum]

1086194543[/unixtime]]
We haven't eliminated volcanoes. I figure the Tarrasque is just a natural dissaster that happens to be alive.

Thats its weakness, unless someone is makeing more Tarrasques then they'll be killed. Its not like making things extinct is beyond the capabilities of D&D people.

[Edit]Quote tags. [/Edit]

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I was going to post about the insane level of entropy in Frank's system and a type of mutually-assured destruction not usually thought of because it's not the direct kind that got burned into our minds during the Cold War, but Sma beat me to it. Good show.

-Desdan

(One of these days I'm going to insert an end-quote tag into a thread like this just to see if it corrects the problem )

[Username17]

While Garl was busy summoning his very own pet horde of doom Alyra was doing the very same thing, while Golarond the Allmighty is chain true rezzing his fallen comrades.
Why would the mutually assured destruction not work I this setting ?

Because there's no cost to be the attacker. Instead of having a build-up phase and then a battle and a massive firepower exchange which massively depletes the reserves of both patrticipants - Garl Blackcloak can get up tomorrow and chain conjure his Pit Fiends and kill Alyara. If he doesn't do it today, he can do it tomorrow - unless Alyara does it to him today in which case he'll never get the chance.

Garl doesn't lose anything by whacking Alyara, but he might lose something if he doesn't. Logic dictates that he strikes now, or fakes his own death. Those really are the safest possible outcomes for him.

And while there may well be other enemies intent on whacking Garl tomorrow, they also could be whacking him today, so he'd just better hope that he gets around to them before he gets around to him.

I was going to post about the insane level of entropy in Frank's system...

That's what feudalism is. The only thing that makes things even vaguely stable in historical feudal periods is that it takes a long time to get anywhere and it requires the massing of more people than most people can get organized to take on any opponent.

In D&D, neither are true, so instead you just get a continous warring period with people exploding all the time.

There's a reason that China's period of feudalism was called "the warring states period". Now imagine if nation crushing potential was concentrated in individuals instead of armies of a hundred thousand people.

Feudalism is really really ugly, and involves rapid power shifts to the greatest perceived strength and shockingly large amounts of blood shed. D&D is just like that except that power shifts are faster, assassination is virtually impossible to prevent, and people can cross continents in an instant.

There has never been a situation in human history with an inherent level of anarchy so high. Not the American West, not the Viking conquest of Scandanavia, nothing. Noone has ever had to deal with destabilizing forces this severe. Think of the most chaotic, paranoid, and generally insane periods of human history and multiply them a thousand times. Seriously.

-Username17

[User3]

This is why I think that DnD heroes are superheroes. They hide, conceal their identities, and don't have a little house in the burbs.

The guys that hide grow in power unopposed, while the guy who joins the army and tries to conquer the next city puts a target on his chest for his enemies.

I mean, at low levels, who really knows who battled the Chimera of East Rivertown? By the time the battle is done, the heroes have moved on to the next town.

At a certain level of power, people just can't find you any more, or attack your castle with any success. There are lots of spells that prevent detection or prevent teleportation.

The rulership game seems to get people killed pretty quick, so if want to get to the level of power where what you do matters, you don't rule, and you hide. Actual rulers are low level guys who aren't worth sending demons to eat, because once you take rulership(either as hero or villain) someone comes along and gacks you, andsome other low level guy steps up and takes control in the vacuum.

But really, I think heroes and villains and monsters are far more uncommon than people think. Just by taking the DMG charts for the distribution of power in a city, the number of guys who can make a power play is so small as to be meaningless. Assuming that those adventurers are taking care of an equal amount of monster trouble, and you get a very small number of monsters in the world.

[Username17]

There are lots of spells that prevent detection or prevent teleportation.

There's MindBlank and Forbiddance. That's it. And unless you are a Cleric with the Protection Domain it is entirely impossible for you to have both.

The rulership game seems to get people killed pretty quick, so if want to get to the level of power where what you do matters, you don't rule, and you hide. Actual rulers are low level guys who aren't worth sending demons to eat, because once you take rulership(either as hero or villain) someone comes along and gacks you, andsome other low level guy steps up and takes control in the vacuum.

Problem: people actually want to rule though. While the Lich Calefor can probably have a very long life just by hiding in a cave and never coming out (people can only find you and kill you if they know to look for you), people actually do want to become the government.

The problem is, the government is defined as being the baddest dude in the region. As soon as he dies, his son is not the baddest dude in the region, and the kingdom is no more. Now it's part of another kingdowm. The only reason castles exist at all is that some people can make them in a few days.

With such a high turnover of rulers and national borders, the average commoner probably has no frickin clue who the ruler is or what country they are part of.

I didn't know we had a king, I thought we were an autonomous collective.

Remember, the basis of government is some watery tart throwing swords at people. Whoever picks up Excalibur is rightwise King of England. But since this is D&D, Excalibur can be stolen or simply taken off of Arthur's body by virtually anyone at any time. And that means that the kingship is going to be handed off several times in every generation.

Some low level aristocrat can't be King. It's a definitional thing. You are King when you have the most millitary force, and the most military force is held by dragons and wizards - not by low level commoners. Dragons are going to end up as the lord of the land alot.

-Username17

[User3]

Resurrection is what creates the cold war. Whenever you can resurrect someone, especially without a body, or with a clone, there's very little chance you'll ever get something done.

Because the power structure is so heavily weighted at the top, it becomes pointless to ever attack anyone with resurrection, because its a never ending war. You kill a dragon, his clone activates, and then he comes back and kills you... then your clone activates.

And what's the point? To become king of the land? To be commander of lots of armies and peasant workers? Of course, consider that both of these are totally useless based on the world, and you'll realize that it really isn't worth the risk to become a ruler. You're better off building an adventuring party than some army of 1st level warriors.

[User3]

Ways to foil divination:
Obscure Object/Magic Jar(2/5): Turn yourself into an object with Magic Jar, then cast OO.
Nondetection(2): Cast on yourself, the DC is 15 + you caster level vs d20 plus their caster level, boost your caster level for flavor. Cast on others its only 11 +caster vs them.
Screen/False Vision(8/5) This just makes the place scryed look like something else, making teleport abuse pretty tricky. “So they teleported into the privy?”
Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum(5)
Mind Blank(8)
Sequester(Ok, this one does put you into suspended animation, so its not a great tactic)
Good will save/Spell Resistance: Scry can be foiled with a high will Save and/or Spell Resistance
Spy stuff: The less that people know about you, the harder it is to Scry. So be sneaky.
Detect Scrying(4): This allows for an opposed Scry and Die attempt on the person that scryed you.
Spell Immunity, Greater(8): Works on one spell, which can be Scry or Greater Scry.
Spell Turning(7): Combine with Detect Scry for the counter scry and die.

Non-Core:
Of the top of my head, Psychic Poison is great as an Anti-divination effect, since it juices mental stats of the scrying caster(may not work on undead). I know that several more exist.

Ways to foil a teleport
Forbiddance
Dimensional Lock
Rope Trick(in another plane, but someone who casts Plane Shift w/o a Focus could get in, if they knew about it, or they made a Focus for just that Rope Trick space)
M’s Magnificient Mansion(same as above)
AMF: someone told me that you could teleport into an AMF, but I don’t believe it, since if spell effects cannot enter the AMF, how can a teleport move you into it?
Spy stuff: Have multiple rooms that look very similar, but trapped so that a plain vanilla Teleport might take them into those rooms. Unrealiable yes, but even a 4% chance of my enemies failing is good for me(if layed on other protections).

Ways to make a Teleport difficult.
Keep a “party stone” that stays in a Bag of Holding. It’ll have multiple Symbols(keyed to not activate on party members) cast on it, so that when camped, take it out, and it’ll blast anyone coming near.

Hallow can do a blanket Dimensional Anchor on everyone in the area, meaning that any Scry and die caster may die in any attempt to kill someone, as they cannot escape.

[Essence]

the D&D world is explicitly feudalist

No it's not. It's explicitly up to the DM. That's the entire purpose of the "Types of Government" in the DMG. There's nothing necessarily feudalist about a magiocracy or a monarchy.

In fact, the entire concept of "The D&D World" is rather a flawed one, because there isn't one. There's thousands, and every one is different, even if it's just another iteration of Oerth or Ravenloft. Politics are flavor text, and flavor text changes from game to game.

Predicating your entire argument on something that isn't true is bad. It makes your argument silly.

[Username17]

Resurrection is what creates the cold war.

Then Barghests blow that right open and the nuclear exchange has begun. Unfortunately it seems that evil wins.

In fact, the entire concept of "The D&D World" is rather a flawed one, because there isn't one.

Yes there is, there's Greyhawk. It's in the PHB. You can play the rules set on different worlds, just like you can play Shadowrun in a different world than the Sixth World, but that's an alternate setting. The game still has a default setting, and that's what we are talking about.

Heck, there are games of D&D where teleport and raise dead are banned, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about "The D&D World" as if they were in play. Your world isn't "the D&D World", it's "Essence's World" - the one described in the core books is the D&D World. You don't even need quotation marks on that.

Hallow can do a blanket Dimensional Anchor on everyone in the area, meaning that any Scry and die caster may die in any attempt to kill someone, as they cannot escape.

Sure they can, it's just harder. They teleport in and kill you, then they walk out with Invisibilty. The whole area glows blue when you do this, so it isn't like people are oging to get surprised by this tactic.

someone told me that you could teleport into an AMF, but I don’t believe it, since if spell effects cannot enter the AMF, how can a teleport move you into it?

The Teleport only has a magical effect when it moves you onto or off of the astral plane. AMF can't reach across planar boundaries, so it doesn't affect you until you are on this plane, at which point you are no longer using magic.

Similarly, you can fly into an AMF, and won't fall until you are inside. AMF doesn't stop you from moving in, it stops you from using magic to move out.

Detect Scrying and Nondetection don't work, because their durations are laughable and the assassin can always just try again later. The only meaningful defenses are:

Forbiddance
Screen
Dimensional Lock
Mind Blank

And three of those are 8th level spells - so good luck with that.

-Username17

[User3]

Detect Scrying has a duration of 24 hours. When did that become the defination of "laughable." Nondetection also has the quite reasonable duration of 1 hour per level. Since you are boosting your caster level to get max efficiency out of that, it also has a reasonable duration.

Mordenkainin's private sanctum has a duration of 24 hours, and is only 5th or 6th level.

If you wanted to get really ghetto, a few 1st level wizards could just concentrate on Silent Images to throw off Scry and dies from a single location, allowing commanders and the like to direct battles or wars.

Rope trick is only 2nd level and an almost perfect defense against Teleport-type amubushes.

And as noted, Scry allows a will save and Spell Resistance. AMF fields are also a great Anti-scry defense.

Face it man, your model has holes. Truck-sized, I believe.

[Sma]

Argh, too many different points evolving, I hope this post doesn´t come over as stitched together as it is

Because there's no cost to be the attacker. Instead of having a build-up phase and then a battle and a massive firepower exchange which massively depletes the reserves of both patrticipants - Garl Blackcloak can get up tomorrow and chain conjure his Pit Fiends and kill Alyara. If he doesn't do it today, he can do it tomorrow - unless Alyara does it to him today in which case he'll never get the chance.

But there is a cost. Using your limited number daily summons to attack, means theres none left for defense the very day you hope to vanquish your very foe. So killing one of the upper shmucks will be a sure sign that you are weakened right now. This will invite any number of others to take the cheap shot and grab two fifdoms for the price of one. Not that they´ll be able to hold them all by themselves, mind you.

This would lead to every high level caster sitting in the relative safety of their tower or temple, stacking defense upon defense, but never daring an all out attack, which would be the only thing that could bring that other tower down. They´ll be chain summoning those Balors or Planetars every single day for the rest of their paranoid lives. because if they don´t they´ll be toast.

What´s the profit in offing Alyra when you bite the bullet in turn ?

You´d get MAD not through, "If you attack me I´ll take, you with me.", but rather "If you spend enough of your daily power destroying me, my friends and your ally will be more than happy to spare a minor summon to take you out of the equation." which doesn´t roll of the tongue as well but should work as a deterrent nonetheless.

Feudalism is really really ugly, and involves rapid power shifts to the greatest perceived strength and shockingly large amounts of blood shed. D&D is just like that except that power shifts are faster, assassination is virtually impossible to prevent, and people can cross continents in an instant.

I don´t care if the resulting world is ugly bloody and dangerous. Assassination may have a very high chance of being successful, but then death is only a status effect in D&D.

This is why I think that DnD heroes are superheroes. They hide, conceal their identities, and don't have a little house in the burbs.

Given where were going I´m beginning to see your point

But really, I think heroes and villains and monsters are far more uncommon than people think. Just by taking the DMG charts for the distribution of power in a city, the number of guys who can make a power play is so small as to be meaningless. Assuming that those adventurers are taking care of an equal amount of monster trouble, and you get a very small number of monsters in the world.

Yes the monsters that are dangerous to everyone will long ago have been decimated, and the rest will only live to serve as a pool of charm targets. With the amount of destruction even a 9-11th level caster has at his behest I´m trying to find out how many the world is going to support. Besides raising or lowering the numbers of high level characters when even one is basically strong enough to level the town won´t change much.

Then Barghests blow that right open and the nuclear exchange has begun. Unfortunately it seems that evil wins.

What it also means is that everyone will be out hunting barghests and everything else that can prevent ressurrection. after a while there won´t be many left. You could cage them though and feed your enemies body to them, keeping ressurrection a non issue. The point of MAD still stand though.

Yes there is, there's Greyhawk. It's in the PHB. You can play the rules set on different worlds, just like you can play Shadowrun in a different world than the Sixth World, but that's an alternate setting. The game still has a default setting, and that's what we are talking about.

But we aren´t, are we? I don´t think anyone disagrees, that given the rules, the world of Greyhawk can exist in its proposed form.

I´m still looking for the world that would evolve out of the rules laid down in the various sourcebooks. Nonsensical and holeriddled as they are.

I do agree with the warring states era being a fine comparison, all we need to do is find a way to slow the actual warring down to manageable degree. Slow enough for low level characters to see the light of the next day and actually reach those levels of real absolute power where they are able to never leave home again.

Greetings,
Sma
edit: quote tags

[Username17]

Rope trick is only 2nd level and an almost perfect defense against Teleport-type amubushes.

Only if you are OK with not actually doing anything. Ever. Remember that they don't have to teleport ambush while you are asleep (although that's awesome), they can just jump you at any other time thanks to the nuclear lightning bolt model of buff spells. An Assassin busts in as an invisible Firbolg and you don't even have Fox's Cunning up.

And this doesn't even begin to address the fact that the majority of high level characters aren't even spellcasters - and just go down like chumps.

There aren't holes in this model - D&D is based on a libertarian might makes right morality, and the attacker almost always wins conflicts, and conflicts can begin at any time from anywhere in the world, because almost all locations are coterminus as far as teleport gives a damn.

-Username17

[Username17]

Using your limited number daily summons to attack, means theres none left for defense the very day you hope to vanquish your very foe.

Chain conjuring a pack of pit fiends costs you one fifth level slot. That's a cost which is completely meaningless.

So killing one of the upper shmucks will be a sure sign that you are weakened right now.

No it doesn't. It means you have all your buffs on right now. If somehow they magically know that you just spent all of three minutes chopping Alyara's head off and feeding her to Berghests they also have a pretty good idea that you are currently surrounded by chain conjurations and have all your short duration buffs on. You are at the strongest you are ever going to be right now, and this is literally the last time they want to come after you. Now they want to try to figure out when your buffs are going to be down and attack you then - a state of affairs which might take days to materialize, depending upon the pact you made with the Pit Fiends.

Note however, that relatively few people are actually going to know that Alyara is dead, or that you killed her, for quite a while. Commune takes 10 minutes and only answers yes or no. Contact Other Plane also takes 10 minutes and carries significant enough risks that people are relatively unlikely to gain this information this way.

This would lead to every high level caster sitting in the relative safety of their tower or temple, stacking defense upon defense, but never daring an all out attack, which would be the only thing that could bring that other tower down.

This claim is basically absurd. An all out attack is actually safer than hiding in your sanctum - it means that for a brief period noone knows where you are. And when you are done, there's less people plotting against you. It's totally the win.

Yes the monsters that are dangerous to everyone will long ago have been decimated,

Why? There are real world cities that are right next to swamps which act as reserves of malaria or even sleeping sickness and noone's done anything bout it for a thousand years. Why would a 14th level Wizard draft up some Efreet and kill the Tarrasque when he can just leave? Unlike going after Alyara, going after the Tarrasque doesn't realy get him anything. If it's dangerous to everyone, it's way low on your priorities because there's a whole lot of people out there who dangerous just to you.

Taking out a generally dangerous beast helps you, but it also helps your enemies. Why spend the time when you can just go after your actual enemies.

What it also means is that everyone will be out hunting barghests and everything else that can prevent ressurrection.

Barghests are extraplanar - there is literally no limit to the number of Barghests available. Noone can hunt Barghests to extinction, there is an infinite supply of them and they can be called in at any time for a 5th level spell slot (or less if you happen to be a Cleric of Vecna).

You can't make MAD happen by the rules - the rules are written to support people running into dungeons and killing all the inhabitants, and they do. And that means that there's no MAD policy in place at any level. The winners get raised and the losers don't. And the attackers are almost always the winners.

I do agree with the warring states era being a fine comparison, all we need to do is find a way to slow the actual warring down to manageable degree. Slow enough for low level characters to see the light of the next day and actually reach those levels of real absolute power where they are able to never leave home again.

You could pull a fast one and have the entire world be run by a single Imperium. That way the only people who are coming after any particular ruler are the people who are defined by the rules as taking his place - which would lower the murder rate to something managable.

But you'd totally have to jettison the concept of Kuo-Toan kingdoms. There just can't be separate power structures based on strength at a point - that's just a nuclear holocaust in a box.

-Username17

[Lago_AM3P]

What would the world look like if we nerfed the ever-living SHIT out of teleportation and transportation spells, and made a lot more low-level counters against divination spells?

I'm having a really hard time imagining Frank's world without scry and die.

[User3]

Traps and dungeons favor the defender. Always.

Nobles can afford guards and permanent Alarm spells to alert the above mentioned guards.

Symbols are not fooled by invisibility, nor are Fire Traps, or pressure plate traps, or traps with a magical activation but mundane.

Personally, I'd invite ambushers to my lair. It'd add to the number of Invisible Firbolg statues in my bedroom.

[Username17]

I'm having a really hard time imagining Frank's world without scry and die.

You shouldn't. Consider pre-WWI European methodology, or Afghanistan in the present day. What would happen if you building up made your victory over another warlord guaranteed?

What if that buildup took hours instead of weeks or months?

Now layer chain conjuration onto that, and see where that gets you. It is safer to initiate chain conjuring protocols and smash the nearest power structure than it is to sit around and hope that power structure isn't initiating chain conjuration right now.

Casting spells to boost yourself now is like going into full shift armament production and instituting a full draft - it makes your nation totally hard core. But unlike in the real world this is a decision you make while reading the back of your Cheerios box and then its all over and done with before you even leave the house.

The amount and form of personal power inherent in D&D characters means that the murder rate is simply off the hook.

How many people have been killed by your character, today?

Nobles can afford guards and permanent Alarm spells to alert the above mentioned guards.

Oh man, that's hilarious. First of all, guards don't do shit when you come busting in there with three pit fiends and a barghest. Second, there is no reason for there to be any Nobles. Nobles are defined by their ass kicking, and not by anything else.

If someone is a "Noble" that means that they are a high level character, and their relative amount of "guards" that they can get for "money" is basically meaningless.

-Username17

[Sma]

Chain conjuring a pack of pit fiends costs you one fifth level slot. That's a cost which is completely meaningless.

What I was getting at is that everyone capable of chain summons is doing it. All the time. Its the only way to survive. They are spending all the slots which lake it possible on summons. So both sides will have an about equal amount of Pit fiends/Solars/Balors/whatever.
So the only way the teleport ambush is going to do anything else than strip you of your defenses for the day, is when the attackers buffs > defenders traps, symbols etc.

As I see it the whole argument hinges on the question whether one could build a sufficiently attack-proof shelter. Even if it means spending most of your daily allotment of power on keeping it safe. this would take high level casters mostly out of the picture, but then, thats not neccesarily a bad thing.

If this proves to be impossible there won´t be two opposing high level entities for longer than about a day.

the reuslt coud either be the monolithic Empire, where the king kills every firstborn son or K´s system where you wield power to challenge the gods, but hope noone finds out.

Gotta catch some sleep, more tomorrow,
Sma

[User3]

You know, you really are proving my Mages Are Superheroes argument.

Since people who don't know about you can't scry on you, and people who have only heard about you only give you a +10 to your Save vs Scry(and mages have good Will saves), and the fact that I've shown that wizards can be taken out by peasants, you've neatly added support to my argument.

Mages hide, because the first guy to become the lord of the land with demons gets gacked by heroes/villains/peasants. The same with wizards and armies. War wizards get gacked first to demolish the effectiveness of the enemy's army.

Assasin mages get gacked the first time they attack someone with defenses, and the number of people who are willing to do that kind of stuff drops like a muthaf<edit>er.

Mages really have too much going for them to try and assasinate every powerful person in the world or join the army when they can just retire at 9th level with the extraplanar biatches, or send small swat teams of demons to dig up ruins and the like for magical swag.

[User3]

<Sorry if this is a duplicate message, but the one above looks pretty crappy. dunno what happened.>

You know, you really are proving my Mages Are Superheroes argument.

Since people who don't know about you can't scry on you, and people who have only heard about you only give you a +10 to your Save vs Scry(and mages have good Will saves), and the fact that I've shown that wizards can be taken out by peasants, you've neatly added support to my argument.

Mages hide, because the first guy to become the lord of the land with demons gets gacked by heroes/villains/peasants. The same with wizards and armies. War wizards get gacked first to demolish the effectiveness of the enemy's army.

Assasin mages get gacked the first time they attack someone with defenses, and the number of people who are willing to do that kind of stuff drops like a muthaf<edit>er.

Mages really have too much going for them to try and assasinate every powerful person in the world or join the army when they can just retire at 9th level with the extraplanar biatches, or send small swat teams of demons to dig up ruins and the like for magical swag.

[Username17]

and the fact that I've shown that wizards can be taken out by peasants,

If by "shown" you mean "flung your arms around" sure. The "peasants kill mages!" argument was retarded. The "other mages kill mages" is, however, not.

Having a good Will Save doesn't save you from Scry and Die. Having a +10 on your save doesn't save you from Scry and Die. At mid level, it might take them a couple days to track you down. At high level they just march on in. Please, when you make your save vs. Scry you aren't immune to their scrying, they just have to cast it again. It's no big deal.

This doesn't support your "mages are superheroes" argument at all. What it does support is the existence of a whole lot of people who stay out of politics. As long as you are just aimlessly rampaging against all of the teams or wandering off carrying out your own research or exploration, noone is going to come after you because they have better things to do with their time. That is, unless and until they think you have something they want, or they predict that your rampaging/exploration is going to uncover one of their secret projects or something.

The people who really have the right idea are the druids, who are of course the most powerful characters in the world. They don't have any enemies, not even other druids. The neutral evil Gnoll Druid sits around drinking coffee and the Neutral Good Halfling Druid walks right up to him and says:

"Damnit Grash, why do you have to be so messy? And evil, you planning on being evil all day? That's ridiculous!"

and the evil Druid turns to him and says:

"Pretty much, yeah. I was thinking of blighting some crops and maybe spreading a plague. That's the way of the world, aint it? You wouldn't be planning on curing those sick, would you?"

"As a matter of fact, that was my plan, pretty much. I figured you were up to some evil again, on account of that's what you do. So I was going to undo it, near as I could."

"Hmmm... well that's the way of things I suppose. I guess after the winter I bring a springtime must naturally follow. You want some of this coffee?"

"Sure."

---

And so on. Since high level Druids of various teams are actually willing to put up with the fact that the other side exists (they lose their powers if they don't), they can go ahead and gain power indefinately. Not like wizards and clerics, who are constantly stabbing each other right in the face.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Jeebus Crow, People! Watch yer damned quote tags! Is that so hard?

-Desdan