//Damn, two DMs posted while I was writing. Can't be bothered editting it for them >_>

We have taken damage, that's for sure. Can't recall anything big and flashy recently, but the settlement beyond the wall certainly has been getting grief. Bloody vampries.

But honestly, look at our strategic position. Our naval strength is decent, certainly enough to defend against straight-forward attacks, the main part of the city is pretty small (Only two areas?) and is completely encompassed by well-manned wall. The city is heavily good-aligned and the security is tight, so things like corruption and crime rates are no major issue that can be easily exploited by outsiders.

Also, look at our position, we are pretty close to Winya, The Ellistraeen Shrine and the Salandran Temple, so possible defensive support is not out of the question. More so, if you want to move a large forces against the Holy City, there are pretty much two obvious ways of going about it, either across the Mimir Bridge, or through the longer route of forest and caverns, both of which give us ample opportunity for us to see you coming.

The only glaring flaw in our defence is the Undead Manor, but then again we are *paladins*.

Kohlingen, our beautiful Holy City, is pretty well defended in most instances. A direct assault on it is pretty much suicidal, especially with an evil aligned force. But, there are ways around it; you just have to think outside the box. As someone who works in its defence, I myself have thought of someways, but no one seems to AIM for them. You cannot go against us in the usual “upfront confrontational way” or you going to getting freaking smited.

Just think of Kohlingen as one of the HARDER shells to crack, it does have a divine militaristic order at its core and the players work pretty damn well together in its defence. Yes, we are RARELY severely damaged, but its not due to DM favouritism, but rather due to astounding efficiency on our part.

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maybe Skeletor has to nuke Kohlingen to make evil people happy.

how many siege weapons would 1400 logs make ; )

I think if they made a real plan they could do massive damage to the city, hell I have a plan to do it and I'm not even evil but sitting in the forest for many hours your mind drifts abit.

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

A direct siege is hopeless. It's too... direct.

Sieges take days, especially against a place like that. Plenty of times for afore mentioned possible allies just to attack you from the rear. On top of that, you need to gather a force strong enough to do it. It needs to be more... subtle. Outside the box man! Outside!

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Historically speaking, in the few times the island's two major powers have been on less than friendly terms - Cordor and Khol - Cordor has never, ever considered or engaged in the idea of a direct siege on Kohl. Because it is a fortress, and it is a good fortress, and it was built specifically to withstand a siege, by land and by sea (but as the Dark Flight proved, not so much by air).

Those olden days of mercantile and land conflict between the North and the South have long since passed, of course...

My experiences of trying to be "intelligent evil" on the surface: When Kohlinghen was closely tied to Amia Forest and the druids, I made two attempts to throw a spanner in the works. My aim was to create conflicts in which the goals of one of these goodly groups would directly contradict the goals of the other.

I tried to buy a plot of forest land somewhere on the island and have a proxy group build a rescue on it, for the widows and orphans of adventurers, who needed some much needed peace. I rped locating a whore to act as my figurehead widow. I put quite a bit into it. I did a large amount of rp in creating a brass owl to act as the go between of some rich eccentric millionaire and the powers that be. But my inquiries just met a brick wall. I was unable to contact anyone able to sell me any forest land anywhere on the island. All that would have been needed was a few building placeables for a few weeks. My character had no intention of completing the build.

I also had an evil druid plant and accelerate the growth of a rare sapling in the middle of the trade road leading to the gates. Without DM support, everyone also ignored my rp of there being a young tree in the middle of the road.

Reasonably intelligent attempt at evil (if building an orphanage isn't thinking outside the box evil, I don't know what is!) - no joy.

On the other hand, I have been around for the sacking and destruction of about a dozen cities and player bases, which have then required a big rebuilding effort.

Contrary to the gist of this post, I've actually found it a lot easier to carry out big, uncomplicated evil than small subtle evil.

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These are Dev issues, not DM issues, and something our hands are tied on. Module changes are always Dev issues.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

siege may take days if you only have a afew but if on the type of seige weapon, and how much it costs to make each one, if it took 25 logs perseige weapon I alone could make 56.

now think if I was evil and had evil friends, I have a area filled with undead two zones away from said city I could use, now think if the seige weapons fired rocks but also maybe traps so I'm healing my undead horde by throwing negative energy traps or acid and fire ones.

but think your city has what two ways in a gate and by boat(inside the city) if they blocked the gate and just tossed crap in your city you cant get out and burning stuff next to the city wall to block your rampart with smoke so you cant attack back would not be hard, and someone taking out the cart to the city would not be hard, like the evil people could use your outter walls and gates to block anyone from attacking them as thier seige weapons take pot shots at your city as the undead pour out from the manor

you also have sewers that could be attacked to make the city cave in on itself

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

The not being able to find anyone prepared to sell me land was a dm issue. I can understand it might have been a bad precedent to set, but I think some arrangement could have been made so that I didnt get to keep the land.

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A siege lasts until one side surrenders, runs out of water or starves. Against a fortress like Kohl, a siege would last months, and if you couldn't block the harbour it would never fall to a siege.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

1. Were *paladins*. We have fought the undead from that manor a couple hundread times. We also have something called "Turn Undead", which can route them on masse. Not to mention, the centre of worship for Tyr, Torm and that other Triad dude is in Kohlingen, so we have a good deal of priests. And you do NOT want to see what priests can do to small fry undead.

2. Traps cannot be fired on cadapults. They're traps. If your going to fire them in like that, they are going to break before they actually do anything.

3. You can make all the siege weapons you want, the huge problem is, you need to get them close to the city without us seeing them and than set them up. Then you need the manpower to operate them and have the military force to protect them if the men of Kohlingen decide to attack them.

4. Now, your under the assumption that your opponent will sit tight and wait to be bomarded and either A) Not fire back from their towers and walls, B) They will not charge out and just attack you and C) You can actually create a scenario for the City to be surrounded and bombarded.

5. The cart system is exactly what it sounds like. A cart system, it is not instant transportation, it a cart that is being dragged by an ox. Supporting armies have legs, they can walk. And the walk is rather short.

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Yurell: I think he's suggesting the type of siege where busting down the walls with siege weapons is an option.

It still wouldn't work, though. You would need a lot of siege weaponry, and a lot of manpower to escort your column to Kohl before unpacking and letting loose. Plenty of time for allies to mobilise and raid or outright attack. Also, a (lot of) wizard(s) can do the same job without the same difficulty. Well, maybe. It would probably still be easier than hauling a load of siege equipment over.

Anyway, I'm sure lots of people would love to discuss the assailability of Kohlingen but perhaps it's a topic for another... topic?

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@Thanatopsis#6293

yes but we must change everything to fit in logic, so IC the siege weapons could fire from about 2-4 zones away from your city, and if you can all run like 10m a sec... siege weapons would fire what 1shot every sec. and they could just do thing so you cant react.

player A goes to location, player portals home, all the seige weapons jump in the portal... fire off afew round, portal back home, person B opens a portal right as soon as they portaled away, and they go in of a diffrent side of your city, they fire off afew around, and they just location hop around your city taking afew shots at a time so you cant catch them befor massive damage is delt.

also I would summon a Quell " A quell can lash out at a divine spellcaster of any deity and prevent him or her from using their power. Several quell can work together to intercede against even high-level clerics. Because of their unique abilities, quell are often used by necromancers to protect themselves from divine powers." your paladins and priests are now useless....

or if we want to throw magic into this and be super lame and just like auto win in 5mins... flying followed by copying the ring curse to make a object have a weight incease if 600x its weight..... followed by droping from 500 feet over your city turning them into RAINING DOOM!!!! (would be Adamantine so they can rip though your building with the massive weight increse.

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

That status quo is annoying as hell for me...

Dynacism, character growth, are my favorite treats.

When you're made to think about something new... about how your character would act, or react.. its great. Especially when put in a position where their back is to the wall, or coerced..into something.. that the character feels is so very antithetical to what they believe themselves to be but they have to do something... Its.. just gold. Manna from Heaven. The struggle; just wrapping the head around how the PC responds that is fun for me.

Selfishness. Self preservation..instincts.. all kinds of drives that are in beings.. exist. There may be things which they may not know they have in them, or skeletons in their closet they thought they had already slain,.more dimensions to explore. I've always prefered my character's psyches..closer to being everymans, even my divine PCs. Flaws are interesting.. its what adds flavor, uniqueness.. Paragons are great for legends, mythos, and tropes..but can be a bit boring for drama.

The story about he who struggles and tries to be good and he does so most of the time, but every once and awhile trips up and someone gets hurt, killed, maimed, or eaten.. and he gets a bit of muck on himself again?.. that is far more interesting than the guy which is always reliable; to me anyway. If only for the fact that the Paragon has a sense of predictability and the other that little inkling that possibility something could go wrong. What will happen if he breaks? Whats the button to push? Whats the limits..

If a character is so good that they have -no limits- to their goodness it seems hollow to me, or doing so is less valuable because it isn't something up for discussion. Its the -struggle- to do whats right that is interesting to me. Or the struggle with an impossible situation, damned if you do, damned if you don't, and both answer causes pain, or there is no good answer. Winning, being good, isn't needed to be fun to me. Sometimes failure is a far more awesome ending to a chapter than success, especially if someone has a conscience and guilt hanging over for something they did.

Maybe liking that stuff is strange, or different.. I dunno. But I do like it none the less!

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Dwagin [Duh-wa-GIN] N. - 1a. Small and cute thingum, particularly fond of four legged scaled creatures of the metalic and chromatic varieties.

-Extraordinarily ordinary in the mostest of ways.

Cory, I'm afraid your response simply doesn't work.



What is your justification for this? How far is one zone? Disco said that Amia is roughly the size of Ireland, and Cordor is ~10 zones apart. If they're at opposite ends of the island, that puts the distance between each zone at ~40km. The fact that we can walk across them in a short amount of time is a gameplay mechanic.
As for siege engines being able to fire one shot a second ... simply no. Perhaps the most advanced I could imagine you building is a trebuchet. Even assuming for one insane moment you have enough crew to man each (or had magiced them to load and fire themselves), they would take at least 30s between shot (source). This means you'd need at least 30 full-scale trebuchets for your one per second, and that's without knowing how thick or strong Kohl's walls are. Furthermore, the record for a modern trebuchet's distance (which is greater than a Medieval afaik) is just over 600m (source), further discrediting your several loading zones idea.
And good luck building those trebuchets:

That's a lot of wood right there. A LOT of wood.



This is ... hilarious to say the least. You know the size of a portal generated by a portal wand, can you imagine this:

'jumping' into a portal? I know I can't ... I can barely make out the people on this scale and I know where they are. You'd quite simply need to dedicate a portal (that is bigger than the one made by your portal wand) to each in order to make it work. You're not going to be jumping around like crazy. And God help you if you teleport onto any soft ground.

Add to this, anyone on the wall has an entire round to react (at least), meaning mages can throw up some sort of defence (or hurl fireballs back at you), cast Gate and harmlessly deflect the rocks to another plane, or any number of useful spells. And all this is before you even know how strong the fortifications at Kohl are - for all you know, the walls are protected from normal weapons, meaning you're going to need to enchant your boulders (an expensive proposition when you consider just how much a +1 sling bullet costs).



Hand on, hang on, how did you go from "Several quell can work together to intercede against even high-level clerics" to a quell being able to stop all of Kohlingen's divine casters (as well as forgetting an arcane mage can cast Banish)? And it is so nice of you to leave out several key facts (I'm sure it was an oversight and not a deliberate attempt at misdirection):
-They're CR 3
-They cannot work in even natural sunlight
-They're undead. Fighting Paladins and Clerics.


So how many hundred Quells did you say you were summoning?




If you can use magic, so can they. Never forget that. I won't even bother to address this point since it is so purposeless and your specific example is hilariously easy to counter.


tl;dr version:
Be more imaginative than direct assault.

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2009's Second Most Overall Contributing Player

يمكنني استخدام مترجم جوجل

We have plants and saboteurs inside their ranks that they don't know about.

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Prescia the Pristine Voice

Faction wars on a server with full-on sieges sound great on paper, but having such a mechanic in the game invites players to bypass roleplaying and skip straight to bombarding the crap out of your enemies. It's NWN you're playing, not Civ.

I have to agree, if i wanna play Civ, I'll play Civ V.

That said, with the right buildup I do think a siege on here could indeed be quite an interesting bit of trouble for the Good aligned, especially if Kohlingen was the target and actually threatened.

*Of course, things as they are, there's more then one way to skin a cat, or take a holy city out of the equation*

It would be a whole lot of fun if pulled off well.

Blockade the roads and port, while laying siege to prevent being flanked from outside help.

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More evil/RP talk! Less seiging plans!

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Dwagin [Duh-wa-GIN] N. - 1a. Small and cute thingum, particularly fond of four legged scaled creatures of the metalic and chromatic varieties.

-Extraordinarily ordinary in the mostest of ways.

Yurell if we go based off books Elminster Aumar would be what 35, Halaster Blackcloak is level 30, Larloch 32. so 90% of PC are ment to be on near level par with them.... I think not

so because we are all 30, thier levels would be increased by about 10+ atleast

or you say about gameplay mechanic... well gameplay mechanic puts the placeable siege weapons as not much bigger then a person.... so they can use portals

"A tile is the smallest building block for an area. A tileset contains a collection of these tiles and it defines a 10x10 meter space within the game world."

and I did not say oppostie ends of the island I said opposite ends from around the city the 2-4 zones from the target.

Quell would be changed to fit the NWN world we live in, people seem to think the books move over 100% fine and thats how they would be in NWN they are wrong.....or if so... I'll take my ring of Universal Energy Immunity and Ironskin ring, or maybe a shield of Great Reflection(spell turning at will) does the books say anything about heal potions, if not maybe we remove them from the game.

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

A siege was done quite well by the good guys, I don't see why the reverse couldn't take place.

I'll tell you what though, we didn't get to skip RP and go straight to bombardment. It tooks us over half a year of planning, rp and collecting resources, as well as making sure the plans weren't found out about IC, to finally put together what was needed to actually enact the siege.

No way in hell did we just get straight to the smashing. It was one of the most tiresome, tedious and long pieces of RP I've ever been apart of creating, and I never want to do it again. Being a faction leader was less tedious then organising that bloody nightmare.

Sieging Kohlingen would require even more preparation. It's much bigger then the Banite keep was.

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I keels u with my axe!

"Do ye know where the Holy-Flamin' Frost-brand Gronk-slayin' Vorpal Hammer o' woundin' an' returnin' an' Shootin'-Lightnin'-out-yer-bum is?"

Tormak - that is a reasonable, well thought out and concise post. You are obviously making a serious effort to address this, and I appreciate that more than I can adequately convey. I mean that in all sincerity.

I remember the coalition to attack Kohl you refer to. The Banites were part of it, and I was leading them at the time. The lack of communication to the DM team was a symptom, not the cause for the collapse. The real reason is, there was a significant effort (and not by me) to have someone other than you and/or Ron running the defense. When it was found out that would not be possible, the leaders of the groups involved lost all faith in the viability of the endeavor. That is why no one (other than the Banites and I think one other group) bothered submitting their plans to Ron.

I promise you I do not say this to attack or embarrass you in any way. I am simply trying to draw attention to what I believe is a large part of the problem, and that is a lack of faith between you and a significant part of the evil playerbase. I am not saying it is universal, and I am not even saying it is deserved. But it definitely exists. It contributes in a very substantial way to the perception of invincibility (which might be argued is invincibility) that surrounds Kohl.

Should we have gone ahead anyway? I believe we should have. In retrospect I think it would have been much better to have tried and failed, even failed unfairly, then to not have tried. So I fully agree with you there. The responsibility was on us to have tried, but I can only take responsibility for my own faction. And there were I think, five other factions involved in that coalition. All of the leaders agreed the attack would be futile, and so it never happened.

Kohl is indeed a mountain, and no one expects it should be easy to assail. Indeed it would be rather ungratifying if that were the case. I single it out because as a faction area (and whatever else it is in the setting, it is that first and foremost) it stands in marked contrast to other faction areas that have been destroyed over the years (you gave some examples yourself). You mention Imperator has limits and weaknesses, but not being a DM I have no idea what those are. How many PC's actually do? I'm guessing the number is very small, and thus the opportunity for a group such as the Banites or drow to learn those weaknesses would be very small. (And don't think I haven't tried. It was one of Gurth's highest priorities.)

How many faction areas would even be allowed to have such a powerful NPC guardian? I recall you being strongly opposed to the NPC army the Shadowflames used to have, and I further recall our Banite NPC's were significantly nerfed (and ironically enough, they played almost no part at all in the siege). Why is it then acceptable for Kohl? You will likely respond that Kohl is a city, not a faction area, but in reality it is both, and its unassailibility (even if that is only perceived) is a major contributing factor to the issue under discussion in this thread.

(I am not forgetting Arcanos by the way, and I think Tarkuul has the same problem.)

I am not attacking the DM's here, not even you. That is at least not my intent. I am being critical, but I am attempting to do so in a constructive way that I hope brings light to a problem that is seen by many. I am not angry about this issue, and I am not even really frustrated over it anymore, now that I have retired Gurth.

I don't think there is a DM conspiracy to enforce stagnation or make sure the good guys always win. I know there are at least a few DM's who agree with me on some of the points I am trying to make, but are stumped as I am in trying to figure out what to do about it. I suppose identifying the problem and acknowledging it is the first step.

You mentioned you play the environment in a manner that is compliant with the world and its lore and its current setting. I agree with that. The point I am trying to make with respect to the DM's is, you establish that setting. If Amia is predominantly good, it is because you collectively made it that way (or allow it to remain so). If evil can only be successful by laying low and plotting and scheming behind closed doors, it is due to that same setting, that you have collective control over. If open evil gets smited to the point where players are discouraged from even attempting anything, it is because of the environment that makes it inevitable that they WILL be smited so.

You, the DM team, have the collective power to determine the environment and the setting. We, the players, can only populate it, and roleplay within the limited roles that we are allowed to have.

Many might believe that environment is fine the way it is. With respect to evil though, it has one major flaw.

Secretive evil by its nature does comparatively little to engender conflict RP. By definition it has to be limited in scope and touch relatively few people. Surely large numbers of people might feel the effects of it, as when the forest was burnt and the Banites took over Wharftown. But as far as the opportunities to get directly involved and affect the outcome, if you are not one of the small number who have access to the focal point being acted upon, you are likely just a spectator, watching how the event plays out, and wishing you could figure out a way to get more involved. And of course, I need not mention how a plot months in the making can be ruined overnight by one metagamer (or even a legit spy with no fear of permadeath).

By contrast, an overt, direct threat energizes the playerbase and creates a more epic conflict that can involve more people. This is what I regret Amia does not truly allow (at least, not for long).

In my heart of hearts I would wish for a major change to the landscape that would allow open evil a chance to truly flourish within the setting. Something that would energize PC's on both sides and allow them to get involved in an epic, LOTR style conflict that would be talked about for ages.

I am not expecting it to happen. But if it did, it would be a major improvement to the setting in my humble opinion.

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Araxus Balmor
Gurth Balmor (retired)

In addition to what 762 has just said, I have always found the DM team to be much more responsive to requests for plots that service large groups of players, rather than a small amount of individuals. Its part of the ethic of Amia (and I'm not saying its a bad one), to please as many people as possible and to show no favouritism. This runs against the desire expressed for evil to be more subtle. Evil cannot both be subtle and involve large amounts of people. So, its a bit of a catch 22.

To get DMs to invest their time, you're better off having an idea that involves a large group of people. But the ideas DMs think should succeed are the subtle ones. But they don't want to run big, server changing plots for individuals, because they'll get accused of favouritism. But if you have lots of players involved, its impossible to maintain any level of secrecy or subtlety for long. But to get DMs to invest their time, you're better off having an idea that involves a large group of....

[edit] I realise that some people will say you -can- involve lots of people and still be subtle. I know you can. But really, whether it works or not is a crap shoot. You hope those involved won't blab all the details on MSN, but whether they do or not is completely unconnected to your ic actions as an organiser.

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To be fair, about a year ago, one faction did have a very well designed and executable plot to attack a city and the response we received was synonymous with.. "no, you can't attack Cordor. It won't work." So, it's really just a matter of being discouraged before given the opportunity to even try. (Which apparently, you keep telling us we need to do.) Kind of circular. It does suck to invest alot of time into something only to have it be just 'not possible.'

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

I think what Evil needs is a big ol' distraction. They won't actually align themselves with the likes of Dr. Chaotica (because he'll take on anyone he considers to be a threat) but so long as he's blasting the good guys with his death ray, might as well take advantage of the situation.

Of course, that's just an example.

@Needled: I've always said we should let Cordor fall at least once, if we want evil to be taken more seriously.

Not through a specifically-organized DM event. But as the result of a well-executed, well-planned collection of efforts from PCs. Just to break up the stagnancy a bit. And it doesn't even need to fall all the way or be completely demolished, just significantly and negatively impacted by PC's. I know I quoted this in the last thread like this, but it bears repeating.

"If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in him. There will be blood in the water. The sharks will come. And all I have to do is sit back and watch as the world consumes you."

Now that's Evil.

If you turn Cordor into so much assorted rubble, who's going to rebuild it this time?

What will you do about all the shops, transport routes and crystal nodes which basically run from there?

Where will newbies start if there isn't any Cordor?

That's just three off the top of my head. As much as your point has the ring of truth, the impracticality of burninating Cordor is an obstacle.

Three possible pathways, possibly four or five if your really cleaver. I won't say what, people can figure out the other three on their own.

I will say however that as Warlord and a Red Knight worshipper Calin has figured out successful stratergies to sieging every city and town on and around the isle of Amia.

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I keels u with my axe!

"Do ye know where the Holy-Flamin' Frost-brand Gronk-slayin' Vorpal Hammer o' woundin' an' returnin' an' Shootin'-Lightnin'-out-yer-bum is?"

what if they are Queen Arachnia and the Spider People they would team up.

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

The lowbies would find other places. I don't have anything against having places for lowbies to start off, I just think it's ridiculous that we feel it has to be static and invunerable to PC's. People start off in Kampo's, Bendir, Wiltun, and Winya just fine.

And besides.


You don't have to completely destroy it. Hell, in the history of Amia, only a handful of settlements have been outright wiped off the map, and even then, it was through DM events. Which is exactly the point. PC's can move what's given to them to move, but few things else.

Bias in what settlements are able to be overrun completely and how hard it is is fine. It's part of the narrative. I wouldn't expect Cordor to be razed in one fell swoop just because of the sheer size of it along with the people attached to it ICly(Millitia, Commoners, NPCs, PCs). But when that bias is to say "Cordor shall never fall/be significantly hurt by PCs", then it becomes a problem, on a RP server at least.

You can't blame people for not picking up a coin on a ground when every time in the past it's been securely glued to the floor. And thus, it becomes stagnant. And I believe that's what we've done to the Evil population of Amia, at least when it comes to negatively affecting certain settlements.

I find it hard to understand why anyone evil would want to raze Cordor. Cordor allows evil folks to come into a 'civilized' area. If you've been banned then fair enough but even then... it'd be like destroying Switizerland. You'd lose great chocolate and banking.

Khol on the otherhand is target number one... but you'd have to weaken the hell out of it before you made a move. I look at Khol as something akin to Minias Tirith... bloody huge and hard to get to. Hell's even Sauron had to bring down the leader before he had a shot at it... and he attacked from land, sea and air. Would have won too if it wasn't for them bloody Hin.

Khol would take a huge effort to bring low but I reckon it could be done. A plague of some kind... taking out their Salandran hospital help... frogs, locasts, first born killing... you'd need the whole nine yards.

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Jess Incognito: F.L.A.G. Inc.
Gharl Killith: Hobgoblin Headhunter
Olaf Grudgebringer: Bad tempered Dwarvern Weaponsmith
"But thats mainly because I'm an Aussie and what you guys call flaming and rudeness I call a normal conversation."

Uhh... Correct me if im wrong, but.... Wasn't the duke brutally murdered, the prison blown to bits and peices as every convict escaped, and the entire city attacked by vampires? And those were just the ones I was online and IG for before my main was even banned from cordor.

However I could somewhat see you point if you were saying these are -all- major events. And meh, I think maybe it coulda impacted Cordor a bit more.

Edit:



Oh and uhh.... That^

And how has Cordor changed since those events happened? Things may happen, buildings may get moved around, but for the most part, it stays exactly the same and only then when it majorly backed by DMs. The whole Duke arc doesn't phase me much at all. "Public Sentiment" towards adventurers changed, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but policy that affects PC's changed little, if at all. PC's are for the most part banished from settlement politics anyway. For the most part.




You shouldn't have to see the reasoning. It should be an option by default. Just because you don't see Evil people hurting Cordor doesn't mean there aren't reasons. Perhaps axiomatic, yes, but personal as well. Last I check Cordor has a significant list of banned persons and organizations. The motives are there, and while the opportunity to act on them remains, the hope of those actions having a significant affect is stunted. Cordor stands and has stood forever while Rome, Camelot, and Jerusalem*fell.

*Dependent on your view of the Crusades

Why does everything have to make sense to everyone before it becomes acceptable? It's a story. What's the point of a story that isn't dynamic.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

Feels like this has gone a bit off topic, as I thought the original point of the thread was an inquiry as to where all the evil chars have gone.

Oh well, I'll give two cents, though it seems like its already been said.

Tags - Are fine if and only if you want to play an open character. I aggree that you generally do not take up a tag unless you plan to play a character who is open with their affiliations to beyond a reasonable doubt. Our Red Wizard Enclave has both memebrs with the tag who are open, as well as covert members without the tag, for that very distinction.

Now, you might ask, "Why bother with the tags at all? Why not make your affiliations with a faction 'entirely' done so through rp and interaction?" I respect that point of view. Though at the same time, I just think those tags are sexy.

I've played both covert evil and open evil, and they both have their pleasures. But, if you plan on the former, you're like a ticking time bomb waiting to be discovered.

If you play the latter, you're gonna get hammered a lot. Just the way it goes.


As for evil struggling to -win-; I feel the need to ask: Since when was evil ever supposed to win? I feel like, to some extent, were all here to tell a really cool story. Us players of evil characters simply help provide villains. But the villains, though they may win battles, are meant to lose wars. Just the way I personally feel about it.

I noticed a lot of comments on how 'awesomely undercover' their evil chars are. Thats great and fun - but danget, there needs to be 'some' kind of ominous open evil Power. It just makes things more fun that way .

Someone pointed out Open Evil struggles b/c we're so bad at working together. Thats part of the point, imho. Our bonds of friendship and loyalty, and hence, how well were unified will NEVER be as tight as those of the goodly factions, nor should it be.

Since when was Forgotten Realms = Power Rangers? Evil sometimes outright wins. The setting goes to show that. Sometimes the knights in shining armor never come. Sometimes it all wasn't a dream. Sometimes the sun never comes out tomorrow.

If you play a villian with the mindset of eventually loosing in the end, I don't pass judgement. I instead applaud your masochism, but find it particuarly unsuited for a dynamic setting. It's one of the few instances I say look to the real world for examples. I won't go into the deadly can of worms that is assigning "good guys" or "bad guys" to any particular leaders, cultures, or countries, but it is a fact of the human condition: no one wins all of the time.

It hasn't been able to affect PCs because things don't affect you unless they're built into the module or scripted into it. I can spool out a million words between the forums and shouts and typing IG and none of it will have as much impact as having a designer make a rather drastic change that I need to have made.

For the past couple of years, we just haven't had that.

But we do now...

And I will please ask you to stop telling players they are banished from settlement politics, especially in Cordor, when I've been practically fucking inviting them to suck bureaucratic cock to earn it and all I keep hearing is, "I thought that wasn't allowed...?"

Players being banished from Settlement politics.. erm.. WHAT?!

I'm sorry I agree with Yoss here, as long as you're willing to take the hard road to get there, you CAN be involved in settlement politics, ESPECIALLY Cordor's where it can potentially be damn interesting to be so.

Addendum:

THe trick to settlement politics, is knowing how to get involved, when to get involved, and finding the right damn oppritunity.

How'd Warrick get involved? Originally, he just saw John Leohnard and Elijah Cromwell outside during a demonstration of a Golem Cordor had developed and they started talking. It went from there, to what became a rather defining aspect of Warrick's character career until he caught himself a case of the deads.

Well this is news to me, Yoss. That's a good thing. But the reason you keep hearing people saying "I thought that wasn't allowed" is the same reason I thought PC's were rather excluded from politics: because that has largely been the case in the past. No one got this notion just out of thing air, it's from experience. And the last time, maybe early this year when politics came up, that was a general consensus on both sides of DM's and players.

If you're changing that, more power to you, and thanks.

I understand now what the problem with evil is:

Lack of module changes.

Am I complaining about it? No.

I just now understand that changing the module comes at a price.

Players complain when you change it. Players complain when you don't.

Between the bug fixes, requests, and all other things the Dev/dm/mods go through....changing the module every other day is simply not doable.

Not to mention along with certain module changes is how the Dms intend to interpret the module changes into a storyline, how the players can be used, and what will be placed upon the forums.

This has been proven easily with the simple balance changes, to which many players whined and complained about it, then complained with the responses to their whining, thus forcing Dev's to fix bugs and retool it, DM's to plot ou a good reason ICly for it, and Mods to mod the forum about it....and that was all for just a couple simple changes.

I think the playerbase should instead, plan out something large, ask the DMs for the OK and approximate time for the change...then simply wait and RP working toward said change.

I put this into he where is evl thread because I myself want little changes....but upon reading one thread about the priority of bug fixes and such, I bit my tongue and even now...I simply wait...and plot.

One of the biggest tools in affecting the world and creating changes: is patience.

AHHAHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry... you such a way with words.

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Jess Incognito: F.L.A.G. Inc.
Gharl Killith: Hobgoblin Headhunter
Olaf Grudgebringer: Bad tempered Dwarvern Weaponsmith
"But thats mainly because I'm an Aussie and what you guys call flaming and rudeness I call a normal conversation."

Why, I'm right here.

I'm just saying it's a lot of zones to change, if it's completely destroyed, if it's occupied and the defenders die or have to flee, or if it's partly occupied and there are barricades set up in the middle of the city. There isn't any getting around that. So whatever happens had better be worth the time spent in toolset before and after.

As much as Evil might need to overrun Cordor to prove a point, it can't just do it just to prove a point. There has to be a story, like for example kidnapping the governing officials and holding them for ransom, which turns out to be a delaying tactic so they can break into the city's vault and steal a magical crystal to power... the death ray! *insert evil laughter here*

And because it's a city, there's going to be a resistance. So for example, when the bad guys reach the other side of the vault, they find that someone's already drilled into it from underneath and swiped the crystal. Darn it, foiled again!

Well, that's all I could come up with on short notice.

Two prefaces:
1. I hardly read this topic. Sorry for repetition.
2. This is not directed specifically at you, 762. Just that attitude in general.


Some people have things that they would count LOTR epic. I know a few of my characters do. It's all a matter of perspective. There are things that have been happening that your character can either believe are epic or not. Most of you choose the latter: "My character doesn't believe That's epic, because My character is epic." -- if that's not the case for you, then I simply DO NOT understand how your characters don't think that...

1. The Duke dying is not a big deal.
2. The forest being burned to the ground is not a big deal.
3. The giant flying skeleton dragon was not a big deal.
4. The Chromatic Flight was not a big deal.
5. Darthion and Bane were not a big deal.


...I've just listed five things that happened mostly within the last year or so. These cannot and will not and should not happen every month. But they do happen, and it's all a matter of whether your character (or you as a player) care enough to invest yourself enough to get RP good enough to make you happy. The DMs can't read your mind. Your exact "epic storyline" is probably not anyone else's. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it doesn't mean that there aren't other epic storylines if you would just involve and invest your characters into them.

Be the change you want to see.

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Dwagin [Duh-wa-GIN] N. - 1a. Small and cute thingum, particularly fond of four legged scaled creatures of the metalic and chromatic varieties.

-Extraordinarily ordinary in the mostest of ways.

Once someone spends the DCs on anything major out of Heroes of Battle, Khol is doomed. Wouldn't even need a 100 man army (assuming no outside help was called in).

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Eli Hodgewall <{/,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~X
Sven <=={o===========>
Qeelak \ | / ,

I vote that people should write shortend versions of everything they said. Most things here are just... tl;dr for me.

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Khaldun Menetnashte Khalfani
Victor Wilkinson

^totally not a lie or anything.

*applies chapstick* Alright, where is it?

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I hated hipsters before hating them was cool.

Having spent 90% of my time on Amia playing the bad guys, I can safely say that it is completely possible to have an effect on Amia as a baddie. When I was leading Tinnerai, we snuck through the gates of Winya, made our way to the temple and then proceeded to lay waste to the place. It was absolutely epic and made for a bunch of good RP. Tinnerai even got a nifty desecrated statue of Corellon to sit in their main chamber to commemorate the event.

The attitude that bugs me is the whole "Evil! Smite it!" attitude that seems to permeate Amia. If Superman killed Lex Luthor after their first fight or Batman killed the Joker after their first fight or take a look at any other captivating narrative series and you see a trend develop. The good guys give the bad guys a slap on the wrist and send them on their way to lick their wounds and regroup to try again.

The prevalent attitude on Amia seems to be more of a smite and then make it as difficult as possible for the person to be raised type thing. If you're character is having to sit sidelined and out of the game for days at a time as they wait for a true rez to take place, it gets really disheartening.

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"I once took the high road and it took me straight to hell and I stood there all by myself." -Hank III

If you think that it isnt possible to have a lasting effect on AMia as a whole for evil...

Try killing a most loved good character that everyone knows, and having them perma-death.

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- "The fiend is less hideous in his own shape....then when he rages in the breast of man"