QUICK UPDATE: SERIOUS GEEKING OUT

Hello everyone! Sorry it's been a while since my last update, but work's been kind of crazy...so crazy that I STILL haven't continued my challenge against the internet! Then again, I'm also waiting for Pat, Steve and Amber to send me the DREADED FANFICS! Will they go for quality? Will they go for sheer pain? Well, Amber will certainly, but what of the others? We must see!

Still, I wouldn't want to leave you with nothing, so here's a letter I'm sending to Wizards of the Coast, to reinstate my status as a full fledged card carrying geek (it was briefly suspended for not picking up on a literary reference to '1984').

Enjoy! (Or shake your head with pity...or both, your choice ^_^)

On April 1st, in the spirit of April Fool's day, Wizards of the Coast printing some 'impossible to answer' questions. This was my response.


Dear Sages,

Hello, my name is Robert Freeman, and I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons, and running my own campaigns, for over 10 years now, and I'd first like to say that I love what Wizards of the Coast has done for the game. Back in the days of second edition, I didn't have a single clue what was going on, and now, thanks to the new edition rules, I know how everything works.

Over the years I've even become that 'guy' who everyone calls to ask questions about the game and how to min/max their characters. Because of these years of gameplay (and I am not necessarily proud of this, mind you) I think I have the answers to all the impossible questions listed on April 1st.

Yes, I know the whole thing was just in good fun and not to be answered, but as a Dungeon Master I've been pelted by equally insane questions on a more or less weekly basis, forcing me to actually come up with reasonable answers for completely unreasonable questions.

Thus, I'm giving this a shot, paraphrasing for space, and skipping the beginning questions which were more a matter of opinion or silliness (although I love the idea of lopping off monk limbs to get their attack damage...now there'd be a dancing weapon worth having).

Q. If a creature has more than one head, shouldn't gaze attacks be more effective against them?

A. Should they? Probably, but in the same sense, any creature that has more than two eyes should be more effected, and any creature with a single eye should be less effected, but the rules would get REALLY tedious if you worked out the math for every monster in the book. I'd draw the line at multiple eyes, but there's no reason an Ettin shouldn't be forced to make two checks. They are two independent minds after all.


Q. What should the CR adjustment be if the characters don't have their equipment?

A. That depends on if their class abilities rely on their equipment. From experience, if you take away a cleric's holy symbol, a wizard's spellbook, a bard's instrument or a fighter's weapons, they probably aren't going to have much luck fighting anything with a challenge rating more than their level minus 2. If they don't depend too much on equipment (like a monk, barbarian, rogue or sorcerer), or if their high level characters are being forced to use mundane equipment, then a challenge rating one less than their level should be fine. Personally, if I were running the game, I wouldn't lower the CR any. Making sure you're not separated from your equipment is all part of the game.


Q. Can an illusion help flank an opponent?

A. If you go strictly by the rules, then no, because an illusion can't threaten a square. However, if the target is reacting to the illusion as if it were a threat, then I'd probably allow it, as it makes sense. You could, of course, just as easily summon a monster to the same effect, and get actual real attacks against the target as well. If, however, the wizard made Conjuration one of their prohibited schools...what the hell's wrong with them?! It's the most useful school in the game! Still, if they felt they had to, they can use Shadow Conjuration to the same effect.


Q. What's the effect of flour on invisibility?

A. Far less than you'd expect. The flour that lands on the invisible creature becomes invisible as well, just as any unattended item picked up by an invisible creature does (if items upon the character didn't disappear, they'd have to run around naked in order to be invisible). True, if there was flour in the air you might be able to see him, but the flour would have to literally fill the air, and even then it'd be difficult to see the hole in drifting flour for the same reason it's difficult to see through fog. Your vision is partially blocked by the flour itself. Instead, I'd either dump paint in the area, and look for the footprints, or if you want something re-usable, have someone turn on a decanter of endless water (which is useful on its own anyway) and look for the splashes and empty spaces on the floor.


Q. Can lycanthropsy if transmitted through kisses?

A. Lycanthropsy is a curse, not a disease. You can only get the curse of lycanthropsy through a bite. Kissing that were-rat probably will get you filth fever though.


Q. What happens when a mule is bitten by a lycanthrope?

A. Nothing, lycanthropsy only affects humanoids and giants.


Q. Do owlbears excrete like owls or like bears?

A. That's a tricky one, but I'd say that owlbears are far more similar to bears than owls, especially the part of their body that houses their digestive system, so I'd say they excrete like a bear. If you want more proof, we can look at the world's only real life bird/mammal hybrid, the duck billed platypus, and they excrete like mammals, not birds.


Q. Can you drown in a vat filled with healing potion?

A. Who the hell keeps vats full of healing potions? Anyway, you most certainly can. Drowning is an effect that replaces your hit points, regardless of any healing or modifiers (such as rage or aid), so healing potions won't help. Say your hit points are at 0, you get healed and they're above 0, but next round, regardless of what your hit points are, your new hit point total is -1, and the even if you heal that, next round you're dead. Healing does not interrupt or reset the three round drowning process, which is 0, -1, and then dead.


Q. Can invisible stalkers see each other?

A. No, I guess they can't. They certainly would need a special ability to be able to do so. The hilarious possibilities are endless! Just imagine a group of player characters summoning two invisible stalkers to defend them from monsters. They come into existence, win initiative, and then suddenly a loud thud and crash erupts in the center of the dungeon, as the two stalkers run into each other and topple to the floor. That's enough to scar a player for life.


Q. If a character dies while wearing a ring of invisibility, are they invisible forever?

A. Who said that wearing a ring of invisibility makes you permanently invisible? A ring of invisibility has to be activated in order to gain the benefits from it, and then you receive the benefits as per the spell, which is 1 minute of invisibility per level of the caster, which is 3rd, so activating a ring of invisibility only makes you invisible for 3 minutes. Afterwards, you'd have to activate the ring again. If you read the description of magic rings, all magic rings are either use activated or continuous, not both. It becomes a little uncertain as to whether the invisibility stops immediately upon death or if it lasts the full 3 minutes, but I'd say it stops immediately. Even though objects, like dead bodies, can be effected by the spell invisibility, the ring only works for its 'wearer' and a corpse, from a technical standpoint, can't wear anything, so the effect ceases as soon as the dead body stops 'wearing' the object. If you continued to gain the effect of invisibility even after the ring was taken off, then you could split a single ring between an entire group, or use the ring, take it off and replace it with another one and still get the benefit of invisibility for three minutes. The game would be imbalanced if you could gain the benefit of a use activated magic ring without actually wearing it.


Q. If you completely surround a vampire with water elementals, are they trapped, since they can't pass through running water?

A. Yes, but not because they count as running water. Vampires can't pass through water elementals because nothing can normally pass through a water elemental. They're solid. If a water elemental wasn't a solid, cohesive object, then you wouldn't be able to hurt them with weapons, and they'd immediately fall apart and die. Elementals are made from the elements, but that doesn't mean they aren't solid, in their own fashion. This is all magic, of course, so it's not entirely going to make sense, but think of it this way: human beings are about 98% water. Can we be used to put fires out? Would a vampire be stopped by a running group of people (who are essentially made of water)? Of course not. Just because a water elemental is created from water, doesn't mean it's the same thing as water.


Q. If you polymorph cows into stone, build them into a castle, and then dispel the spell, turning them back into cows, what damage would they do when they land on the people inside the castle?

A. The only way you could change cows into stone is either through the spell flesh to stone, or polymorph any object. Flesh to stone can't be dispelled, as it's an instantaneous effect, so those cows would have to be turned back one at a time with the stone to flesh spell, giving everyone plenty of time to escape. Going by the chart in the book, if you use polymorph any object, then they'd only be turned into rocks for 20 minutes, nowhere long enough to build them into a castle. Isn't there an easier way to kill these guys? Couldn't you just like, poison them or something? If you must, what I'd do is use polymorph any object to change giant round boulders into perfectly square boulders, so when they're dispelled, they'll all slip off each other and crash down on everyone inside. If your heart is set on using cows, then I'd make a variation on the theme and polymorph the cows into mice/cats/rabbits/birds or a similar tiny animal (you can even use baleful polymorph for that) lure your enemies into the room, shut the door behind them and then cast dispel through a small opening in the the door. The resulting cow expansion should be more than enough to do in the troublesome party. As for damage, I'm either calculate it by weight, listed through the telekinesis spell, or consider it the equivalent of a giant falling block trap, 20d6.


Q. Can you have lich phylacteries inside golems?

A. Of course! I've even had lich phylacteries hidden inside the bodies of living bodyguards of the lich. If you want to be mean, you could even hide it deep inside the body of a helpless good person or creature (like a small gold dragon) and then set them loose. The heroes want to destroy the phylactery? They're going to have to cut open that good person/creature to get it.


Q. What would an appropriate mount be for an Illithid Paladin of Tyranny?

A. Mind flayers enslave just about everything, so the sky's pretty much the limit, but if you wanted something appropriate to the underdark, then giant lizards are usually the mount of choice down there.


Q. If a unicorn gains levels in paladin, what would the mount they summoned be?

A. Unicorns usually don't progress in class level, but in Hit dice instead. Still, if a unicorn did manage to progress in the class of paladin, I'd imagine they'd summon a standard warhorse (or its equivalent for the environment that the unicorn is in), but that mount is going to be really confused when they arrive. There's no chance of the unicorn riding it, but it would be a devoted companion to the unicorn, much like a cohort. In fact, it'd be a mount in all regards except for the fact that the unicorn wouldn't be riding it.


Q. Could an intelligent animal be made into a familiar?

A. There are no intelligent animals. By definition, an animal cannot have an intelligence above 2, is not capable of language, reasoning, morality or complex thought. By becoming intelligent, they no longer qualify as animals. Even if they somehow could, only unmodified animals can become familiars.


Q. If a druid restricts themselves to only ape forms, and they get a special ability that gives their alternate forms flight, what shape can they use and still be restricted to ape forms?

A. Flying monkeys. It's a fantasy world, make it up.


Q. If a person transforms into an ooze in a way that they attain all the special qualities/abilities of the form, and they're split in two by a slashing weapon, what happens?

A. Well, either they split or they don't. If the DM decides they can't split, because that'd be forcing their mind to be in two places at once, then that's the end of that. If they do, then I'd assume it falls under the characteristics of the spell 'Polymorph Any Object' which states that damage taken by the new form that can result in injury, or change through physical force, can result in injury or death of the polymorphed creature. So if their body is split in two while in that alternate form, then their normal body is split in two as well. An ooze can survive while split in two. A person cannot. They're dead.

(My sister, Amber, would like to offer her counter idea, where the transformed person becomes two smaller people, each with half of the original person's mass and experience. And that's where halflings came from. That cracked me up.)


Q. Can centaurs climb walls and sheer cliffs?

A. Centaurs don't make much sense in general, I'm afraid. They're large, but their human half is medium sized. They have incredible strength, but logically that strength is in the horse half, that isn't used for swinging weapons. I prefer to imagine centaurs as they were in...ahem, well that story about the kid who goes to the wizard school. Those centaurs had proportionally larger human halves, which are closer to the size of ogres. That makes a lot more sense. Going back to the question, there's no reason they couldn't climb up a sheer wall or cliff, it'd just be very very hard. They probably could use their front legs to help them climb, as if they were normal human legs (if a satyr can do it, a centaur should be able to as well), but the rear half of their body would simply hang off, pulling them downwards. Personally, I'd take their weight, subtract the average human weight for their relative height/gender, and force them to consider themselves encumbered with that much extra weight upon themselves. It might be difficult, but if a man with no legs can climb, then an incredibly strong centaur should be able to as well.


Q. If Demogorgon and Asmodeus had an all out fight, who would win?

A. Every good aligned plane.


Q. Is dragon meat edible?

A. Humans eat everything they possibly can in order to survive, so since they don't (as it isn't listed in any of the rules), then they can't. It's not poisonous or else it'd be listed as a poison. More likely, it's just indigestible, like mud. Of course white chocolate is indigestible and people eat that, so it's probably both inedible and revolting to boot. (Let's face it, you don't see many real world recipes for cooking lizard)


Q. Could you store a hundred 1st level wizards in bags of holding, with bottles of air, to help you cast epic spells?

A. Possibly, but how would you ever convince them to go along with it? This goes far beyond the normal call of spell fees and I could see them each charging at least 50-100 gold for every day carted around like that. Even then, the cost of all the bags of holding and bottles of air would be tremendous, and even if ALL that worked, how are you going to keep them alive? 1st level characters tend not to last long in epic situations. Still, it's most likely possible, just not practical.


Q. What is the break DC of the planet?

A. The planet is not an object that can be targeted, but even if you managed to shatter it, it would just pull back into the same place because of the sun's gravitational pull. If you were large and powerful enough to circumvent gravity and treat the earth as a single object...then that would require an entirely new rule system to facilitate.


Q. If you moved the Tarrasque back in time to fight itself, what would happen?

A. Time travel isn't possible in D&D. Even spells like Time Stop merely slow down time to the point that it appears that time isn't moving. I imagine if it were possible, there would be a LOT of the traditional time travel problems (killing your ancient ancestors, spreading diseases, becoming your own grandparent, stepping on butterflies, etc, etc). In a best case scenario, I think the two Tarrasques would just beat each other until they got bored, or until one fell unconscious and the other left.


Q. Could you use a ring of 3 wishes to give the Tarrasque a gender, create a second Tarrasque of the opposite gender and then use the third wish to get them to mate?

A. Wishes are mostly up to the discretion of the DM, but let's face it, if you could wish a Tarrasque into existence, then every epic wizard would have a Tarrasque army following them! I doubt that even the spell wish could permanently change the Tarrasque, but it isn't completely unreasonable to assume you could use a wish to give the Tarrasque a gender and get it to mate, but to create a copy of a legendary monster out of thin air with a single wish is just ridiculous. Besides, if you could create a Tarrasque out of thin air with a wish, you wouldn't need to get them to mate. You'd just need wishes.


Q. Could you use the Rod of Rulership to force the Tarrasque to eat a thousand Icy scroll sheets at once, doing 6d6 damage apiece?

A. The rod of rulership doesn't give you complete control of the target, it just makes them completely devoted to you, unless you give them a command that is contrary to their nature. The Tarrasque's nature is to kill everything around it. The first time you order it not to kill you, the spell will be broken. It might be possible to direct its killing with a rod of rulership (kill them first, then get to me later), but if you want to drop it with icy sheets (which is a very good idea), I'd instead have all the icy sheets carried by a target (an animal, or a brave adventurer who's been promised a resurrection) and trick the Tarrasque into swallowing that target whole. That'd do it.


Q. Would suffocation, starvation, orb of annihilation, etc. harm the Tarrasque?

A. The Tarrasque, by the words in the monster manual, is immune to all death effects and permanent injuries. Although it doesn't list every single thing it's immune to, it's quite clear that it's immune to effects that immediately cause death, or permanent injuries. The monster manual makes it very clear that the Tarrasque cannot be killed or permanently altered in any way, save for a wish spell when it's driven into unconsciousness. This means that the Tarrasque is immune to all effects that cause instant death, including orb of annihilation, suffocation and starvation. If that isn't enough to satisfy you, then face facts: if any of those things could have killed the Tarrasque, then they would have done so already. The Tarrasque is a legendary unkillable monster, fought throughout time, and there are relatively low level spells, and much easier monsters, that cause suffocation upon targets. If suffocation could drop the Tarrasque to unconsciousness then it would have done so, and the same goes for starvation, and even powerful magic effects. The Tarrasque is immune to all death effects, and anything that causes death for any reason besides damage is a death effect. Still, the Tarrasque isn't immune to teleportation or mind control, so what I'd do is cast polymorph any object on him to turn him into a small rock or something (it'll take several tries and only last 20 minutes, but it'll be worth it), put the rock in a bag of holding, and then stab the bag. The bag will be destroyed, but all the contents will be lost forever (as per the item description). Goodbye Tarrasque. Or better yet, gate or plane shift with the small rock to the plane you like least, drop it on the ground and plane shift back/gate back. That plane will officially have a new hobby in about twenty minutes or so.


Q. The Tarrasque is a woman, right?

A. The Tarrasque has no gender. In fact, it fits under absolutely no other category than Tarrasque.


Q. In the second edition monster's manual, it states under the description of the Tarrasque that creatures with a negative Thaco can only be hit by rolling a 1. What does that mean?

A. You got me. I never understood second edition.


Well, thank you for taking the time to read this, and again, thank you for producing an update to Dungeons and Dragons. We, who spend far too much time thinking about it, thank you.

Take care,

Robert Freeman
robertmfreeman@hotmail.com
http://maxandotherstrangeness.blogspot.com