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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Dec 13, 2007 9:17:26 GMT -6
This class was posted over at DF on Thu Feb 27, 2003 by Sieg. Fairy Class for OD&D: Opinions Please!This is the original thread title at DF. I was curious as to what all of you thought about his writeup. I thought it is quite good. I am quoting his statement here but replacing Fairy or Fay with Elven, Elves or Elf. This is pretty close to the way I do elves, I don't have drow, I just have Seelie and Unseelie, Lawful & Chaotic with a few Neutrals. In the below quote my changes are in bold. " Elven society is divided into two camps, the Seelie and Unseelie courts. These courts exist in pocket dimensions that have access to the Prime Material Plane but are not part of it. Elves owing fealty to the Seelie court are mostly Lawful in alignment, while those choosing to be part of the Unseelie court are usually Chaotic. There are Neutral Elves in each court, but they are few as the gnossis of the courts tend to draw most Elves to either Law or Chaos. A very small number of Elves wander the Prime Material Plane, seeking new experiences and comrades in the world." Like I say this is pretty much how I run elves IMC and if I had written down my own defintion, I could not have done it better than this or as good for that matter. I think this is good example of how to apply Law and Chaos to the game and to allow for Elves as PCs while being able to run the darker Chaotic type elves that tend to the common example in folklore. So two questions really, what do you think of his writeup of a Fairy Class and how do you feel about running elves this way (that is by the quoted statement not the fairy writeup)?
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Post by thorswulf on Dec 14, 2007 22:39:50 GMT -6
Hmmm, not sure if I like it or not. I have read a great deal of Celtic fairy stories, and mythic tales. I don't know if any one racial class will ever pigeon hole them right for me. I think most elves as I see them are something far less powerful than from the stories, and certainly not anywhere close to the Sidhe folk. I guess it's all the good professor's fault for the way I see Elves. But even then his elves were taller than OD&D elves!
I see one very fatal flaw in thinking of elves as fey, or fairies. Cold iron will kill them! Your average fighter with a sword could turn into a Quisinart in short order! Of course goblins, Ogres and Trolls might also get bumped into the unseelie court too. I suppose one could run a Bronze Age game with the players playing the Milesians in old Ireland, or Germans in the dark forest of Germania. This way the iron thing isn't much of a problem.
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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Dec 15, 2007 0:00:03 GMT -6
I don't use the cold iron thing for elves IMC since they are a PC race, but I do use if for some other creatures. I think if I were going to use fairies as Sieg wrote them then I would use cold iron for them.
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Post by badger2305 on Dec 15, 2007 13:23:20 GMT -6
You could always include the "cold iron" aspect as taking extra damage from iron (or steel?) weapons. You could make it an extra point of damage per die of damage done, or an extra die of damage in addition to everything else. That would make it noticeable without being killer.
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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Dec 15, 2007 16:02:51 GMT -6
You could always include the "cold iron" aspect as taking extra damage from iron (or steel?) weapons. You could make it an extra point of damage per die of damage done, or an extra die of damage in addition to everything else. That would make it noticeable without being killer. That is an excellent point and I think I will go ahead and immediately implement that IMC. I think I will try an extra die of damage in addition to whatever the damage otherwise would have been. Thank you!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2007 7:00:57 GMT -6
Now that I've had a chance to read his write-up, I think it's great. However, I'll probably never use it or any of the rules from it; I can't find much use for it IMC of decaying cities & demon cults. ;D
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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Dec 22, 2007 8:01:54 GMT -6
Now that I've had a chance to read his write-up, I think it's great. However, I'll probably never use it or any of the rules from it; I can't find much use for it IMC of decaying cities & demon cults. ;D Yeah, I think he did a great job with it. I would like to hear about your campaign down in the "Around the Campfire" Forum if you would care to tell us about it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2007 12:11:08 GMT -6
I'd love too, Crim--it's just gonna take awhile. I still owe thorswulf some info I promised month's ago; now that I've got 4 days off in a row, it might really happen!!!
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serendipity
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Post by serendipity on Dec 23, 2007 9:07:06 GMT -6
You could always include the "cold iron" aspect as taking extra damage from iron (or steel?) weapons. You could make it an extra point of damage per die of damage done, or an extra die of damage in addition to everything else. That would make it noticeable without being killer. If the elves in question are PCs, would the rest of the group be pressured to get weapons which wouldn't have iron in them? Are there blades which are strong without iron? (I just got a mental picture of one of my buddies boasting of a six foot platinum sword.) --Sere
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Post by badger2305 on Dec 23, 2007 14:12:10 GMT -6
You could always include the "cold iron" aspect as taking extra damage from iron (or steel?) weapons. You could make it an extra point of damage per die of damage done, or an extra die of damage in addition to everything else. That would make it noticeable without being killer. If the elves in question are PCs, would the rest of the group be pressured to get weapons which wouldn't have iron in them? Are there blades which are strong without iron? (I just got a mental picture of one of my buddies boasting of a six foot platinum sword.) --Sere Well, actually, well-wrought bronze is better than iron, so that's a possibility. And in some accounts of elves (particularly Poul Anderson's pastiches of sagas and the like), there is "elf-metal" which is some kind of light, strong alloy (but not mithril, which is spelled m-i-t-h-r-i-l, and that last vowel is an "i" and not "a" . Some possibilities -
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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Dec 23, 2007 18:18:56 GMT -6
You could always include the "cold iron" aspect as taking extra damage from iron (or steel?) weapons. You could make it an extra point of damage per die of damage done, or an extra die of damage in addition to everything else. That would make it noticeable without being killer. If the elves in question are PCs, would the rest of the group be pressured to get weapons which wouldn't have iron in them? Are there blades which are strong without iron? (I just got a mental picture of one of my buddies boasting of a six foot platinum sword.) I would say no to your first question and yes to your second question. I will be posting more detail to your second question in the Around the Campfire Forum by and by. --Sere
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