Apolyton D&D: SF's PBEM.

[SnowFire]

Urban Ranger: Well, everything in the PHB of 1st and 2nd level will be in the open areas of the royal library. I'll send you a list of the few exceptions. They mostly have to do with things getting around what I said about alignment detection being hard and undead being rare.

So some spells you don't have, 1st & 2nd level:
Disrupt Undead
Protection from [Alignment]
Detect Undead

Also of note: Detect Thoughts is pretty much a crime if ever cast. That said, you guys would have that requirement waived... in theory, at least.

As for Cleric spells, which almost certainly for a character like yours would be learned from books & stuff as well:
Detect [Alignment]
Detect Undead
Protection from [Alignment]

Also of note, summoning spells are all well & good, but I'd ask that you lay it easy on them, being that I don't own a Monstrous Manual, and casting those spells requires looking up a bunch of stats from it generally.

Speaking of which, I haven't seen any emails lately, and I've actually had time for some computer access. Telnet doesn't seem to be working for some odd reason, but I can still access my other AT&T email, but I haven't seen anything new pop in there.

[Jon Miller]

neither have I

so it is a lack of action, not email screwing up

Jon Miller

[Skanky Burns]

As best I can tell:
The party went to Avitex (big town, hour and a half ride).
They got a room, Dorlin and Kory had some drinks while Menchi bought a disguise.
Menchi is disguised as a human girl, goes back to Hern's mansion in an attempt to investigate the place. After circling for a while, she moves towards the stables and is hoping to gain entry via that door.
Dorlin and Kory leave the inn later, head towards Ulfus's until they are out of sight of the town, then double-back towards Hern's. They are going to stop around 10-minutes from Hern's manor, close enough to help rescue Menchi, far enough to not have much chance of being seen.

Considering Kory and Dorlin's moves are planned out until something else happens, it seems that just Wraith's email is needed.

[Wraith]

Did my last one not get out or something? I sent one with her trying to sneak by the sleepy peasant by the door. I've been waiting to see if she made it inside or not ^_^

(This was the revised plan, since Korendil seems determined to ruin her fun)

Wraith
"I love you cold, unfeeling robot arm."
-- Zim ("Invader Zim")

[Urban Ranger]

Snowy,

Thanks. A quick question about the protection spells. While detection of alignment is rare, I could gauge that from a person's actions, or just go by a wild hunch. Besides, Protection from Evil is always a nice spell to cast when in doubt.

Sure, I can use it to find out if somebody is evil ("Ah ha, he is having problems coming close!") but that's not too much of a giveaway, yes?

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Wraith
Did my last one not get out or something? I sent one with her trying to sneak by the sleepy peasant by the door. I've been waiting to see if she made it inside or not ^_^

(This was the revised plan, since Korendil seems determined to ruin her fun)

Wraith
"I love you cold, unfeeling robot arm."
-- Zim ("Invader Zim")

The last one I saw from you involved "My mom's going to
kill me for staying out this late!" (bluff: 14).

SF's reply was

As for the stable hand, moving closer, you can confirm that he's sleepy, not
asleep.  You've found a pretty good hiding place involving some hay; you can
wait it out if you'd like and see if he goes the whole way.  You don't see a
key rack, but then again, you aren't sure if the door is locked.  It's hard
to tell from this distance whether the stable hand has a key on him.

You can, of course, also simply try and sneak past him.  He's not directly
in front of the door.  It's more like he's about 25 feet or so in front of
it, being that the door is a bit recessed in the stables area.  It might be
possible to hug the wall and sneak around his field of view, but animal pens
& such also hug the wall.  Presumably distrubing one of those might cause a
problem, but it doesn't seem too likely.

and I think thats where he is waiting for your "even more revised" decision.

[Wraith]

Guess it didn't get out for some reason, then. Okay, I've resent it.

Wraith
Vuja De': the strange feeling you get that nothing has happened before

[SnowFire]

While detection of alignment is rare, I could gauge that from a person's actions,

Aha. Bingo. Congratulations.

In any case, I consider alignment more a tool to help describe a character. Making spells based off it and making it a known quantity of the universe can severely weird things. Take Osama Bin Laden, for instance. In his mind, he's Lawful Good, worshipping a Lawful Good god. Don't tell me that smart wizards wouldn't promptly start using protection spells exactly like detect alignment spells, with a bit of creativity. Heck, in the case I gave, all that's important is finding out and confirming your own alignment. What would it mean to Osama if it returned Neutral Evil? (or, worse, what if it returned Lawful Good, meaning all alignment is is what the person thinks it is?)

It's hard enough to make a consistent setting with certain magical effects being too common. What does it mean when anybody can be raised from the dead easily? Don't bother assassinating the king or anyone remotely important, they'll just come back. Same with interesting, smart villains when they have access to some of the things high-level characters have... lots of instantly kill my enemies stuff.

Anyway, hopefully, can you have a character background written up by the time I get back? Even if your stats aren't ready yet, the background will probably be more important. Just have fun & send it to me, and I'll be sure to tell you my comments afterwards.

Wraith: You mean MY fun. I think an appropriate quote of yours here is "When the DM smiles, it's already too late." In all seriousness, if the die gods hate you, the stable hand will have a very interesting tale to tell, and even if there's no direct evidence you did it, out here in the boonies, there's lots of indirect evidence that you were the only ones who could possibly have wanted to and done it.

[Urban Ranger]

Character background done and sent. The character is mostly done, just need to tie up some loose ends.

One thing about AD&D is magic is extremely powerful, so that spellcasters easily eclipse other characters at high levels. Even though one reason for this is because the game is high fantasy (instead of nitty-gritty fantasy), other systems are not so lopsided.

[Skanky Burns]

Erm, when do we get to see your character's background?

[Urban Ranger]

The character is well done [] and sent to Snowy. I am now waiting for comments and approval.

Speaking of AD&D, do you think wizards are now stronger or weaker than before (i.e. first edition)? They now have fewer spells to cast each day, but IIRC, they now need less experience to progress.

[Urban Ranger]

Hm, what happened to SnowFire?

[SnowFire]

SnowFire is still going over your character sheet, having just gotten back recently.

Hmm, Wizards as compared to before... well, first of all, EVERYONE is stronger in 3rd than before. That said, are Wizards relatively stronger? And at what levels? The main changes...

-HP. In 2nd, HP totals started to stagnate around 9th-10th level. However, the power of that Cone of Cold kept on going up, doing another 1d4+1 damage with every level. Delayed Blast Fireball (1d6+1/lev) or Abu Dazim's Horrid Wilting (1d8/lev) were just death machines against packs of opposing wizards or rouges. Think of it this way. If you got d4 HP every level with no Con bonuses, then a 15th level wizard firing off a Delayed Blast Fireball would kill you a little less than half the time, if you make your save (being that d4 gives you 2.5 HP per level; 1d6+1 (simplified to 1d8 in 3rd, same average) does 4.5 damage on average with failed save, or 2.25 damage per level. So you just get murdered if you fail the save, but have a slight edge if you make it. But you have to remember that after 10th level, you aren't getting 2.5 HP anymore per level, but 1 HP. So instead of having 2.5*15=38 HP average, you had 10*2.5+5=30 HP average. And 2.25*15 will still do 34 HP damage. And of course, these spells hit EVERYONE. Rogues have it slightly better, with d6 HP for awhile and 2 HP after 10th, but their saves are worse.
However, in 3rd, your HP just keeps on going up. So this strengthening of wizards at high levels is gone.
Advantage: 2nd.
-Saves. Especially with some of the feats from other books, saves can be made quite nasty in 3rd. I seem to recall Szass Tam, from the Forgotten Realms handbook, forcing something like a DC 30 Fortitude save vs. his Energy Drains. Even at high levels, the only person who'd have something resembling a chance is a Paladin. However, in 2nd, saves just got really good at high levels. So on one hand, at low levels, Wizards have an advantage in that everybody's failing their saves left and right in 2nd; but they have a disadvantage in that they're making them all the time at high levels. In 3rd, saves tend to be close and interesting at every level, although again, with the right set of feats, you can run away with things. Also high Int helps here, which it didn't in 2nd.
Advantage: 2nd at low levels, but 3rd by a lot at high levels.
-XP balance. In 2nd, Wizards inexplicably advanced faster than everyone else at levels 6-9, then slowed way down. Also, they had a "gap" where they were stuck on 5th level spells for 3 levels, before learning 6th level spells at 12th (eliminated in 3rd). So being that everyone advances at the same rate now, low-level and high-level Wizards have an advantage in 3rd, and mid-level ones in 2nd.
-Specialization. Specialization is a lot easier in 3rd, and hence more customizable being that you choose what spells to lose. There's rarely a reason not to specialize.
Advantage: 3rd.
-Combat. Wizards aren't completely helpless to hit things anymore. They advance at +1 Atk. Bonus /2 levels, instead of 3 levels (or +2 / 5 levels in 1st); more importantly, stats are more important. In 2nd edition, Gram the Paladin was rapidly a better archer than the thief-wizard, despite having 7 Dex himself (not enough for a penalty) and the other having 18 Dex (granting a measly +2, IIRC). In 3rd, Gram might tie the thief-wizard's ranged attack bonus around 15th level or so.
Advantage: 3rd.
-Multiclassing. Wizards don't multiclass so well. While "splashing" a level of Wizard is often useful for some minor spellcasting ability (like Kory does), and Wizards can often splash a level of something else too for some more flexibility (like Rogue for skills or Barbarian for HP), a strict half & half multiclass kind of sucks in 3rd, while it would be pretty good in 2nd, often with each class only being a level or two behind.
Advantage: 2nd.
-Dual-classing. This unholy cheapness doesn't exist in 3rd, thank goodness. No more starting as a Fighter or Cleric & dualling to Wizard almost pain-free to get tons of extra HP.
Advantage: 2nd.
-Haste, Other options. Metamagic feats didn't exist in 2nd. Being able to silence spells for stealth or still spells for fighter-mages who want to wear armor can be pretty useful. However, at high levels, in straight-up combat there now exist two awesome things that 2nd edition wizards couldn't do. One is Haste. Haste was actually errated in 3.5 to be strictly a fighter-buffing spell, more like 2nd (where it was uncastable thanks to aging your party a year), but in true 3rd, Haste is how you have one awesome wizard badass take on an army. You get an extra Partial action every turn. Read: You now cast two spells a turn, or cast one spell then reactivate invisibility/go etheral/generally hide. Plus, there's the rather pricy Quicken Spell feat, which allows you at high levels to toss off some low-level spells as a free action. In any case, being able to go Chain Lightning, Chain Lightning, Quickened Magic Missile at anyone still standing is rather ridiculous.
Advantage: 3rd by a mile.

Edit: Side comment, that's part of the reason why in my custom campaign setting 12th level is "high level" and really rare, because that sequence of spells only requires you to be 11th level. When you hit 17th level, you have the "Teleport in invisibly, Maze both people on watch (no save), Meteor Swarm & DB Fireball the entire campsite slaying your sleeping party" if any archmage gets angry at you.

2nd Edit: And my stupid mailer was slow on emailing out the latest turn. Drat, I sent that around 6:00 PM, and it actually left around 3:30 AM thanks to it getting stalled.

[Skanky Burns]

Considering Mission 1 mark-2 has already started, would we be able to read the character descriptions soon?

[SnowFire]

Sure, now that I've look 'em over, the others are more than free to post what they want... hint hint hint. Edited for public consumption as usual, of course.