Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site frog.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!think!mit-eddie!cybvax0!frog!john
From: john@frog.UUCP (John Woods)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: command spell
Message-ID: <238@frog.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Jul-85 14:45:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: frog.238
Posted: Wed Jul 24 14:45:02 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 08:36:45 EDT
References: <3059@pur-ee.UUCP> <15300003@convexs> <464@busch.UUCP>
Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA
Lines: 95

Welcome to Not Necessarily	H O G W A S H
> 
> 
> 	The world of AD&D is a nasty one folks.  Sit down and let me
> explain it to you.  You are a pc, you are out of the ordinary, you
> have the adventuring spirit whether it be through holiness, the sword
> or the various facets of the Art, be it nature, illusion or the arcane.
> 
Quite, but your examples (while examples only) are not entirely unassailable.
> 
> 	I am the Grandfather Assasin.  I fight dirty and I command the
> most dedicated deadly horde on this Plane/world/whatever. Now I decide Joe
> Cleric Psionic is a pain.  I take my ultra-super-expialadoshus poison and I
> hit him with it. ...  Gosh, I forgot! Clerics have good saving throws versus
> poison- and he was wearing his +5 cloak, his talisman vs. poison, his +3
> ring and he saved on a -3 or above! Sorry folks, no way, NO WAY!

Let's explore this general topic a moment.  First, we are dealing in a
universe that provides for the ability to take massive damage (a lance
sticking out of your chest?  "Give me a break!"  However, read Le Chancon de
Rolan (The Song of Roland) sometime--this kind of thing is taken for granted
in fantasy) and ``saving throws''.  Some of this Saving Throw business is
blamed on skill at evasion, but let's assume that Ol' Gramps here abandoned
subtlety for once, ties Joe P. to an altar, and runs him through with a
claymore laced with this super toxin.  Dead, obviously.  BUT:  (1)  This is a
cleric, apparently an important one, of a god whose power in the world is
manifest and obvious.  What chance is there that a god, whose interest is
aroused, would find a problem like his poor servant being packed full of
poison even remotely trying.  Yawn!  Can't people think of INTERESTING
miracles anymore?  (2) You have postulated a huge amount of magic on this
character.  Again, the power of magic is indisputable in the universe in
question.  Hence, if the magic works, the invincible poison is either
neutralized or spirited away (perhaps dumped into the heart of the sun, atom
by atom, in 14 nanoseconds, by a friendly and helpful Maxwell's Demon bound
to the +3 Backscratcher you forgot to take away).  Saving throws border on
the supernatural, and you are trying to argue that a standardnatural force
is more important.

And if you must find an excuse for a first-level fighter's .06% saving throw
working despite obvious impossibility, well, perhaps Grampa forgot his coffee
this morning and picked up the wrong beaker.  "Impossible"?  Would you be
willing to grant 6 in 10000?  Real life is like that--the most certain things
go wrong (even my C code has bugs, and we ALL know that I'm perfect!-).

> 
> Number three:
> 
> 	We once ran a high level campaign for the real helluva it no
> matter how improbable the characters were.  I was a mage naturally.
> interfering.  I cast a time stop and tell the dm that I will extend it's
> time limit as long as neccesary with lim. wish or wish etc. but that I'm
> going to strangle this fucker.)  Now it happened that Justice was with me
> so I rolled a 15 on the assasination chart, but in all seriousness folks,
> the Druid was dead, period, no saving throw.
> 
You're lucky I wasn't the DM:  strangle that poor servant of Nature from now
until Eternity (as it were) but as soon as you let Time roll on in that area,
that Druid is going to START BREATHING with an Awfully sore throat!!!!!  Bad
planning, I'd call that.  Now, if you'd offered to break his neck, I'd be a
little happier, or if you had chopped him into tiny pieces, boiled the pieces
in acid for a virtual week, burned them, and then sunk into the swamp,  I'd
say you would have rendered the Druid a solved case, and not even Magic would
work (note, however, that however skillful you are with Time magic, the gods
can run rings around you -- but in this case, I'd require a Divine
Intervention rather than a Saving-Throw-Dispatch-A-Minor-Angel type thing.
And, Druids, not serving an interfering god, would be out of luck).

Just because something doesn't work in our world of F=dp/dt and conservation
of energy, has no implications for a world of Summonings and Wishes.

On the other hand, my favorite No Saving Throw magick is to teleport a few
tons of rock just above the head of the Bad Nasty (or Good Nasty, depending).
This is NOT invincible, of course, but it is pretty close--no time to jump,
no time to utter a spell, and even a magick which need by triggered only by
a gesture or a thought isn't likely to be triggered by the thought:  "OH,
SHIT!"...

Just to ramble a bit more:  on the matter of the Druid above, let us return
to the Time Stop and replace the almighty Druid with a first level fighter
who can just barely look at you without injury.  No chance for him, right?
Well, you poise your Sword of Incredibly Painful Death for the killing blow,
when a Type VIII Demon appears in front of you, who politely says "Fred's
friend, the ArchMage of Time, was terribly broken up by your killing poor
Fred here, so he blew three Full Wishes and a case of Old Coke for this.
Please don't struggle while I take you to Hell, I'm not being paid hourly,
and I want to get this done quickly..."

Not likely?  Never say never............

After all, anything can happen in Chaos.


--
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA