wade@nmtvax.UUCP (10/03/84)
Experience G.P. Point Value Sale Value Potion of Nauseous Form --- 100 Potion of Nauseous Form This potion is alot of fun to give to some paladin or such that gets a little too cocky. Anyone of a class that requires a decent charisma is fair game for this potion. When this potion is quaffed, the users charisma is permanently dropped to 1. No one, not even the players best friends, will be able to stand the presence of the person after that, and the person will be outcast. This will wipe out paladins, making them straight fighters, and will have similar effects on other classes requiring charisma. When the player encounters anyone, monster, player, or otherwise, the creature encountered will either (50%) attack to wipe this horrendous thing off the face of the earth or (50%) run away gagging with revulsion. The player under the influence of this potion obviously will not be able to deal with anyone. Only a restoration spell will give the character back his original charisma. If the person is killed and resurrected, the effects remain. If the person is killed and reincarnated, a new charisma is rolled. Level Recommendation It doesn't matter, use it on anyone you want to be cruel to. Richard Wade nmtvax!wade
mr-frog@sdamos.UUCP (Dave Pare) (10/08/84)
: I find it hard to believe that so many items can be generated with no other goal in mind save injuring player characters. Only a DM who has a persecution complex and fears that his players get away with too much would find these items useful. Basically, a DM who uses such items frequently is using his superior position to punish particular players by placing them in situations where a given player's instinct works against him. With these items, once a player commits himself to a given action regarding any of them, that magic item kills or permanently maims said character. I for one wonder how the creator explains how the items managed to get enchanted in the first place. I'd be *most* interested in seeing the creator of these "items" give some info on enchantment times. Remember, none of these items have any saving throws! Thats a pretty tough magic item if it was working in FAVOR of a given PC. Does that somehow indicate that items that are bad for PCs are easier to make? You may get the idea I'm not wholly behind the use of these past series of items from nmtvax!wade... Dave Pare 1104-w: Ominous Sarcasm, with Hint of Impending Reprimand, Written (Keith Laumer)
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Zonker T. Chuqui) (10/09/84)
> I find it hard to believe that so many items can be generated > with no other goal in mind save injuring player characters. > Only a DM who has a persecution complex and fears that his players > get away with too much would find these items useful. > > Basically, a DM who uses such items frequently is using his superior... I think the key word here is frequently. I can see many situations where an item like those that have been posted recently come in VERY handy. paladins with an ego problem is one that comes to mind immediately. I don't think that the person who developed these had it in mind to spread them around indiscriminately, I think the point is that every so often it is useful to put in a real ugly ringer to force your players to think about what they are doing. It's too easy for players to hack and burn their way through dungeons relying on reincarnations, wishes, and whathaveyou to back out of most ugly situations... In the dungeon I'm somewhat working on now, I'm trying to develop situations that will force people to think their way through and remember that the characters they play can DIE if they aren't careful... Too many dungeons aren't terribly willing to kill off characters (probably because many DM's remember the pain of losing a 7th level magic user that has been built over a period of months). The problem is, though, that they tend to overreact and characters that SHOULD have died because of the situation they got themselves into (or how they reacted to it) don't, and that creates a new set of problems... chuq -- From the Department of Bistromatics: Chuq Von Rospach {amd,decwrl,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA How about 'reason for living?'
rick@uwmacc.UUCP (Captain Calvert) (10/11/84)
[ save at +2 vs. line eater bugs] There has been some debate of late concerning deadly magic items. The ones posted were recommended for obnoxious paladins, overly powerful magic users, etc. I would say that these "lethal to user" items are a very bad idea in general, for the following reasons and with the following exceptions: (1) Why is this PC so obnoxious? Either you, the DM, let him/her get the goodies in the first place that have made them too powerful; or else you didn't screen the work of other DMs enough in letting the PC into your game. Power levels of games differ a lot. Locally, I have seen games where everyone walks around with pet dragons, unicorns, powerful MU buddies who teleport in to save them, etc. Everyone in the game is having a good time; who am I to say that they can't play that way? But if one of those characters gets into MY campaign, then my players and I have to live with my decision. The owner of the PC shouldn't be penalized for the DM's inability to judge what is acceptable power. (2) Who wastes their time building these useless items? In most FRP systems, an item is an investment of someone's time. Finding these deathtrap things tends to destroy one's ability to suspend disbelief. (Some deathtraps are ok: an evil mage might very well have a booby-trapped copy of his spellbook as a trap to discourage thieves. But many such items have no visible function except to be bad news). (3) A reasonable exception is for campaigns and/or scenarios where the player has been warned that the danger rate will be noticeably higher than whatever the local standard is. (I.e., I once played in a game where in 4 hours, the DM killed permanently 20 out of 30 PCs (I lost all 3 of mine) but no one minded because we knew the game would be the "big shootout" of the campaign.). A final note: there seems to be a subcurrent of feeling that PCs are only behaving "believably" when ultra-cautious. Most of my D&D characters behave like cowardly psychopaths, favoring the quick shot from behind on unsuspecting & unarmed foes. So, when I play my Paladin, I play a character who has no conception of the meaning of the word fear (he's not even sure how to spell it....). If he charges a group of 100 goblin warriors, it is because I think my Paladin does brave/stupid things like that. (I thought the rest of the party would take advantage of the diversion and run away -- for some reason they followed me & we managed to win! But this was a side effect of experimental combat tables which heavily favored plate armor, missile fire, and quick infliction of casualties to breaking the morale of one's opponents.) Just some thoughts. -- "Democracy means that some people rise to the top, and other people rise to the bottom." -- Unknown Philosophy 103 student, Fall 1975, UofI Rick Keir -- MicroComputer Information Center, MACC 1210 West Dayton St/U Wisconsin Madison/Mad WI 53706 {allegra, ihnp4, seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!rick