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Daydream's Dragon Hoard of Half-Baked Setting/Character Ideas: Borrow These!

   
#15: The Extraction Expedition or, Destination Excavation
Campaign concept, probably 3.5/Pathfinder.

So a couple of days ago I was reading about extractive industries, which translates to mining companies, and I got to wondering, what if some PCs went on a mining adventure?

Not a case of exploring a lost mine this time, though, oh no. You're looking for something extremely valuable under the ground, that's been thoroughly buried, in the middle of nowhere.

Some ideas for what it could be:
-Ancient history in the area speaks of a falling star, which fell from the sky and burned its way deep underground. Your king's astronomers believe that this 'falling star' was in fact a large meteor significantly consisting of Stellarium, a strange magical metal with incredible ability to absorb and store energy.
-An ancient divine artifact, a magical chalice that transforms any liquid that passes into it into a powerful all-healing elixir, is buried deep below the ground in the area. Once belonging to an ancient king who was blessed by the gods for his kindness, it was lost after a massive siege by undead hordes; now your party seeks to unearth it, whether to cure a supernatural curse on their homeland or merely to gain favour with the god who created it.
-A powerful immortal demon, imprisoned long ago when trying to kill it proved fruitless, is sending nightmares and curses and summoned monsters to torment innocents from afar. Seeing as the bindings that should prevent it from doing so have apparently weakened, the party is sent out to locate and excavate the source of its immortality, whether it be a phylactery or anchor or who knows what, and destroy it so that the demon can finally be killed.


Now, the question is, how does a group of PCs find something buried deep underground?
I looked through the usual divination spells on the Pathfinder SRD, I don't think any of them (even the high level ones) are suited to finding deep-underground artifacts...maybe that's why pirates buried their treasure, huh?
So, with no spell to divine the location of the treasure...the PCs will have to research one! Either develop an ultra-long range Locate Object/Commune With Nature spell that doesn't require you to be right on top of your target, or create a specialised Divination or Find the Path that isn't so affected by time/space constraints, or who-knows-what.

Then after that, there's actually excavating the way to the treasure.
This might be easily done if the PCs can acquire a delver (or a xorn), but without one of those, you'll need aggressive use of Move Earth, Stone Shape, Soften Earth & Stone...and an awful lot of shovels.



Actually, this could be a twist on a kingdom-building game.
Starting with your wagon train of a hundred people or so, you could recruit from surrounding villages and/or tribes, build forts to counteract invaders like gnoll bands and orc hordes, gather materials for arcane research, employ magical dowsing rods to try and narrow down a location, create massive dwarven machines to drill into the ground...
You know, new twist on the same old.

#16: Gression, or, Magical Ancient Egyptians vs Space Demons
Setting and adventure for Mutants & Masterminds 3e

(I've rambled on this idea before: https://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=350112 )

The minotaur, clad in only a simple white loincloth, whistles cheerfully as he climbs down the ladder, the last basket of fruit he needed to pick today balanced comfortably on his back.
Stepping around a root poking out of the ground, confident that the trees will have regrown their fruits by this time tomorrow, he finds the little stone path and makes his way out of the orchard, ducking to avoid catching his horns on a low-hanging branch as he always does.

The minotaur opens the gate and slips out of his orchard of assorted fruit trees, before looking around for his friend.
...There he is; the big blue dragon is resting on his paws in the shade, eyelids half-shut in a way that suggests he's browsing or talking to someone over the telepathic internet.

A few miles away, a pack of giant wolves, and one muscular lizardman, are dragging massive blocks of stone across the sand.
At their destination, not too far away, gangs of minotaurs are working together to lift and place the stones, arranging them to build the walls of a massive castle.
Scattered around the building site are several more creatures, from dragons to wolves to lizardfolk to centaurs to elves and humans and oh my, all doing stuff like handing out water and sweet fruits, telepathically checking plans, running restaurants, healing sprains & bruises, giving tours to intrigued visitors, or just browsing comics on the internet.



It may surprise you that this multiracial, ancient/classical, magic-using civilization, is actually on Earth in the distant future!

Way back in history, just a few decades after our present day, what was known as the 'quark intelligence' was created; an artificial intelligence that, atom for atom, had the maximum amount of memory, processing power, and philosophical ability theoretically and practically possible.
This didn't go horribly wrong, in fact, it went perfectly right; first acting in concert with humans, but then being given the authority to act on their own, these super-AIs entered all areas of government and industry, creating a safe and prosperous world for all mankind.

Centuries onward, these AIs, now de-facto in charge of humanity, finally complete their testing of medical nanobots, releasing them into the environment for humankind's benefit.
This didn't go horribly wrong, in fact, it went perfectly right too! These 'artificial bacteria' integrated themselves into peoples biology and helped protect them against all kinds of diseases and injuries!
Every subsequent iteration of nanobots over the next few millennia went just as planned too; giving everybody telepathic access to the internet, uplifting various animals to make them more intelligent, making crops and wild plants more fruitful, culminating in shapechanging technology allowing humans to turn into all kinds of mythical creatures!


What happened next? Well, think about it; if you live in a world where all of your food, medicine and shelter needs are taken care of, you know exactly where to find your loved ones, you have access to a completely free and open internet, whatever toys you want, et-cetera, no matter where you go...why do you need to live in a normal house anymore?

In a massive sweeping societal change, lots of humans packed up and left, becoming nomads out to see a whole new world; the few that remained in one spot ended up turning their homes into things of wonder, or into luxurious locales, and the like.

And that...was the end of civilization as we knew it; with the various cities and towns of civilization (you know, urban centres) no longer needed, they're allowed to be reclaimed by plant life; with all of their necessities and comforts provided by nanotech, people simply didn't need material possessions any longer. Over the course of the next few millennia, civilization just...gradually disappeared, leaving humankind (et al) living in a utopian, fantastical stone age.


A long, long time later...civilization begins again; stone-age people relearn art, how to paint and arrange blocks, how to make houses, then castles, then entire villages, to plant and cultivate their own fruits, make their own clothes...
The super AIs (having been manipulating things behind the scenes to prevent problems the last few millennia) re-reveal themselves; since nobody in this time has any idea of what a computer is, they masquerade as gods instead, teaching people about morals and ethics and responsibility and also about their far distant past (Super Mario adjusted for their audience, of course).

By chance (or not), the new civilizations that crop up on earth, are just like the ones that came before; from Ancient Egypt to Classical Greece and Aztecs and Incas and Chinese, and all the tons of different American and Australian tribes and clans, complete with civilization-relevant gods (Ra for Egypt, Quetzalcoatl for the Aztecs, etc) (and remember, the gods are secretly super AIs working through avatars) to help keep them morally upright (which means nobody's committing blood sacrifices or anything).



But wait, there's more! For you see, this utopian archaic civilization, comes under attack! By aliens, from outer space! Who for whatever reason think it's a good idea to invade and conquer Earth!

The 'gods' are used to working their will via nanotechnology, but the invaders shields and armor make it hard to neutralise them that way.
So, they need humanoid champions! People who can be gifted power, superpowers, to repel the invaders, board their spaceships and bring them down, in order to restore peace to the solar system!



So yeah; fluff aside, this is a concept for a morally black-and-white, beat-up-the-bad-guys focused, Mutants & Masterminds 3e game.

Gameplay would be fairly action-y and mission-based; board a battleship above earth, track down and capture the captain of that ship, or destroy whatever weapon's onboard, or et-cetera.

Character-wise, you'd have a lot of physical flexibility; thanks to nanotechnology (which, if you were from Earth, you'd probably believe was magic) there's a practically unlimited number of fantasy species running around, from practically any kind of historical Earth culture adjusted for magic.
You could also play as someone from Mars or Venus (because, you know, humans likely terraformed those or altered themselves for those locations), if you want to be from a culture you made up yourself, or you could be from one of the space turtles (you know, giant starships) floating around the solar system, or you could even be an alien; one from a friendly species that made contact with humankind before the invasion, or one of the invaders who's switched sides due to not agreeing with invading planets.

Backstory and personality wise, though, your characters would be a bit more limited; with Earth being utopian (even with the alien invasion posing a serious threat), morbid depressing 'my parents are deeaaaad!' backstories and gritty grim anti-heroes just wouldn't really exist. You could probably get a little bit of doom and gloom into a backstory if you had an alien defector for a character, but that's about it.



If I were running this, I'd probably set it at about PL 10. The baseline 'human' (what you get without spending any points) would be a lot stronger, though; by default PCs (and everyone else on Earth) would have telepathic internet and email, low-strength telekinesis (so feel free to play a creature without hands), little benefits like insulating fur or being amphibious or et-cetera. I'd probably also let everyone have some extra free power points, to put into 'spells' they're familiar with and skill points.
...Oh, and everyone would probably have the 'nanotech' power source (rather than 'magic', since it's not literally supernatural) for all the fancy stuff they do. Although some characters with alien technology might have different keywords for their powers instead.

#17: What magic items?
D&D 3.5 & Pathfinder adventure concept

So, let me bounce this idea off you all; in character creation, give the PCs:
  • +15 to all ability scores, on top of rolls/point-buy/etc.
  • +8 to all attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, & skill checks.
  • +12 natural armor bonus to AC.
On top of that, instead of giving PCs GP to buy +2 flaming longswords, +3 breastplates, boots of teleportation and belts of strength or whatnot, give them an equivalent number of whatchamacallit points to let them buy the +2 attack, +1d6 fire damage to their melee attacks, +3 AC, 3/day Teleport as a spell-like ability, +2 Strength, et-cetera, as bonuses intrinsic to their character.

What's the point? Well, for one, giving the PCs the effects of their magic items as intrinsic abilities, at least aesthetically, helps to reduce the 'magic item christmas tree' effect...which, at this time of year, isn't necessarily what you might want to be doing, but oh well!

*makes a mental note to think about a Christmas Adventure with PCs giving away magic items instead of taking them from monsters*

Another goal is trying to make more martial classes, fighters, rogues, etc, more 'super'; heightened skill checks, damage, HP, etc, can help them keep up with spellcasters with all their game-changing spells...although my mental image of this idea is more lower level so they won't have too much break-the-game spellcasting yet, just lots of bonus spell slots.

On top of that, a third goal is to...let players play decidedly un-standard races, basically. Felines, canines, giant snakes...Red XIII, Amaterasu, or Wolf Link, anyone?

A fourth goal is, those big bonuses above? Would let PCs steamroll through most opponents with similar HD to theirs, and only be held up by the really strong ones. I've been replaying Hyrule Warriors a lot and I like the idea of cleaving through hordes of mooks on the way to take on captains.


Regarding these ideas, I had the beginning of an idea of a plot; something something world in trouble, some primal spirits physically manifest (and no guarantee that they do so as standard bipeds when there's a bunch of other perfectly good creatures they can incarnate as), they do good to garner praise and adoration from mortals while plowing through hordes of lesser monsters to get to their various sources.
So, basically, Okami for D&D/Pathfinder. Would it be fun to play a game with high-powered PCs and little-to-no reliance on items?

#18: Mini-idea; sandstorm-flavoured Storm Clerics
D&D 5e, fluff for Storm domain clerics.

So I have this character, not on Myth-Weavers; a dragonborn cleric from a village in the desert, one day the magical fountain at his home dried up; in order to restore said waters of life, the dragonborn's set out to find quicksilver, which, if he can find a philosopher's stone and extract the quicksilver from it, restore the fountain to full functionality and make the village vibrant again.

Now, mechanically, this dragonborn is a Storm domain cleric, but fluff-wise, he wields the power of sandstorms.
This really doesn't have much in the way of descriptive differences; thunder damage comes from howling winds as normal, with lightning damage being powerful static discharges from stray clouds of sand.
Nevertheless, it's a fluff possibility worth considering the next time you build a Storm domain cleric.

If you go with this particular fluff, keep in mind the domain spells can be easily reflavoured to fit a 'desert sandstorm' theme instead of 'tropical storm'.
Fog Cloud is simple, have it be floating dust rather than normal fog.
Sleet Storm describes freezing rain and sleet normally, but you can have it be a massive, howling whirlwind of dust and swirling sands that has the same effect.
Ice Storm? Try the Trifold Curse of the Desert; furious winds (bludgeoning damage), freezing night (cold damage), and miring quicksand (difficult terrain).
I haven't gotten high-enough level with my dragonborn cleric to get Insect Plague yet, but that's easily refluffed as a windstorm of grit and glass, as well.


...As a side note, blue dragons, the lightning-using chromatic dragons, tend to dwell in deserts.
That's why I don't mind a blue-scaled dragonborn using lightning damage and calling it sandstorm-themed.

#19: The Great Dragon Scavenger Hunt
D&D/Pathfinder campaign concept

You know, I keep trying to assemble fully-baked ideas? This is supposed to be half-baked...

So anyway, my idea this time; you know how dragons come in all ages and sizes? The older a dragon gets, the stronger it gets? Whose idea was it to add newly hatched wyrmlings to said tables?
And, you know how classically, ever since Smaug (and since before him), dragons hoarded treasure, and lots of it? The bigger the dragon, the more treasure?

Suppose the following change; dragons don't grow with ages (which might take centuries), or at least, not beyond Young (Medium or Large) size; instead, to make themselves bigger, dragons have to collect treasure, and sleep on it. Preferably rare metals (gold, platinum, adamantine, cold iron, mithral, high value per pound and durable).

Or, to make it a bit more fancy:

#19a: Regna Resonare
Gratuitous faux-latin

A magic spell, or phenomena, intrinsic to dragons, but learn-able and usable by most all intelligent creatures; by meditating (or sleeping) on wealth, one can invoke the literal power of treasure, physically, mentally and spiritually augmenting themselves.
What type of treasure doesn't matter, only that it's valuable; there's the classic hoard of coins, but there's also grand ancient monuments and temples, druidic gardens of rare and precious herbs, massive libraries filled with endless tomes...if someone has enough slaves, soldiers, minions, or otherwise devoted/fearful followers, that too is a usable 'treasure'.
It's common for nobles, wizards, adventurers and other well-off people to go on pilgrimages for this reason, seeing the sights of the world and meditating on them, and many kings and rulers will aim to establish themselves as pharaohs/god-kings to boost their power to the point of literally being able to perform miracles for their community.
'Regna sites' are preyed upon by the evils of the world for this reason; people who use Regna Resonare retain their power so long as their link to the treasure (hospitality at the site, belief of their followers, etc) still stands.
Should an evildoer seize a site and deny access to it, everyone who has meditated upon that site would feel a hollow gap where their 'treasure power' relating to that site once was, until the site is reclaimed from those profaning it.


In a nutshell; visit tourist destinations and get treasure, gain hit dice; guard your territories to protect those hit dice.


Now, that's a plot idea I came up with, spur of the moment, but what I actually wanted to talk about was:

#19b: The Scavenger Hunt

So, suppose that in this world where having treasure literally makes you more powerful, you are a dragon. Just a little one, you don't have much treasure to your name yet.

But, you want to be the biggest bestest dragon ever! There might be a group of you who think the same way.
Getting to be the biggest bestest dragons ever shouldn't be too tricky, you just need to gather a whole ton of treasure.

Here, I made a list for you:
  1. Lots of money, of course! Big pools of gold and silver (and possibly rarer stuff like mithral) that you can snooze on!
  2. A lair, like a really big cave or a castle or a repurposed tomb. Must be resilient against invaders.
  3. Minions! They might be kobolds or goblins or humans or elves or who knows what, just so long as they're faithful.
  4. A magic fountain! Or a wishing well. I've been playing Might & Magic VI again recently and stat-boosting fountains are the best thing ever.
  5. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, a scrying thing's the coolest of all. So get one of those too (crystal ball optional).
  6. A nice fertile garden where you can grow those really precious one-of-a-kind mushrooms and herbs would be nice!
  7. Books! Books and scrolls and maybe a few wands, full of arcane and esoteric knowledge!
  8. A town, or maybe just a village, full of peasants to revere (or fear) you. And possibly pay tributes.
  9. A spoony bard! Preferably a whole cutlery drawer of bards! To tell tales of your glory far and wide!
  10. And last but not least, every dragon needs a captive princess! Or a prince. Maybe a duke or duchess?

Some of these might be a bit tricky, mind; you might have to craft the scrying stuff or fountain yourself if you can't find/steal an existing one, you might need to build an entire fortress once you get enough minions...
And of course, you have a few rivals, who could be friends or enemies; Keli'l the kobold hero, who wants to capture a dragon to bless his tribe, Grimhilde the elven queen, who seeks to be the fairest of all, Salomo the dwarven knight, who seeks the safety of his treasure-laden caverns, Elana the halfling druid, who wants her life-giving crops to spread far and wide...and many more, of course.

But if you can befriend (or defeat) all of these noteworthy others, and gather all of the treasures you need, then you may just become the biggest and bestest of dragons.

#20: Falling paladins, rising paladins...
Campaign concept or character concept, D&D/Pathfinder

The life of a true paladin is demanding work. You have to smite evil, protect the innocent, lead a good and just life, rule by example, risk your life to protect others...but most importantly, you can't give up, you have to keep at it whenever the opportunity arises, travelling from town to town, continent to continent even, to promote good and destroy evil.

It's like being a superhero, 24-7, no secret identity whatsoever. You'd get burned out. Paladins do burn out.

Which brings me to the plot; maybe the stress of constant battle or wandering everywhere got to you and you decided to settle down someplace peaceful. You might have aged a few years and think it's time for someone else to take up the mantle. You might have used your lands and treasure recovered from monsters to sponsor some economic development, or maybe you've decided to delve into academia, or maybe you found new faith in the natural world.
Maybe you remain Lawful Good, a just and fair governor of your lands, or perhaps you changed to Neutral Good or Chaotic Good, indulging in benevolent acts, charity and creative works, or maybe Lawful Neutral, letting altruism give way to a benign self-interest.

Whatever the case, you are an ex-paladin! You didn't fall like a ton of bricks, more like a pillow. Or a feather. You haven't suffered for it; though you can no longer smite evil, the divine power you were endowed with changed to reflect your new interests, be it healing and protection, constructive strength, or innate wisdom and intellect.

Welcome to the peaceful town of Dunmoore, also nicknamed Dunquestin by its many inhabitants. It's a green, grassy place by the riverside, beautiful to look at at all times of the year, traders love to stop by, either to hawk their wares or refill their travelling supplies for cheap. It's also a popular place for those on a pilgrimage, due to the presence of the Kirin at the aptly-named Kirin Shrine nearby.
Dunmoore is full of ex-paladins, mostly thanks to the aforementioned Kirin, who's quite knowledgeable and adept at guiding former holy warriors in channelling their divine power towards more relaxing pursuits. The place is full to the brim with healers, loremasters, master smiths, a great number of whom were once paladins.

Now I need to ask you a question. We all know what can make a paladin fall like a sack of bricks; acts of cruelty and malice, cheating and stealing and torturing others for their own gain.
The question is, what about the reverse? When you have a good and kind man (or woman), who's filled with a calm sea of divine power...what kind of acts will stir that power and raise them (back) up to paladinhood?

...I wonder if you could run this like a regular game, except with paladin powers (bonuses to attack power, saving throws, celestial allies, bonus spells, etc) in place of treasure? Gained directly by fighting evil and saving the innocent, not just looting afterwards?

#21: Group of Weirdos
High-fantasy campaign concept? Any system, really, but possibly best suited to D&D/Pathfinder or other systems with level-up.

Somewhat inspired by the ongoing discussion about a Monstrous Races game in Pathfinder...and also the Zelda fanfiction series Group of Weirdos.

So, it happened; like one of those old-fashioned dungeon crawling games, some amazing sorcerer has risen and laid a curse upon the land, sealing himself as king for eternity.
Endowed with an infernal blessing, the only hope to defeat him is if the prophesied hero and the prophesied hero only, takes up the sacred sword of legend with which to strike down the dark lord.
But the sacred sword has been shattered into several pieces, which have been given to the dark lord's fell minions to guard, necessitating that the hero goes about and gathers the shards so the sacred sword can be reforged...

But hold the phone, say that again; the dark lord's fell minions? Where did that come from? Why should you be a minion for this stuck-up mortal? You were happy in your little netherworld rift or as the leader of your monster tribe or ruling over your little domain and snacking on crystals, who does this dark lord think he is, muscling in and telling you to guard a shard of some holy artifact.
Is he offering some high-up place in his new order? Lots and lots of moolah? Ha ha, no, he's a bad guy, he's offering an incinerating if you don't do a good job.
Well, screw that git! That's slavery, it is, and you aren't going to stand for it! You've half a mind to give this wannabe evil overlord a taste of what it's like to have his casting hand shoved up his own backside!

...Oh, wait, there is that invincibility thing. Hmm. It looks like you'll need that hero, or you know, that Hero, capital H and everything.
Nevermind, he shouldn't be too hard to find. Try that guy, the one wandering into the first dungeon.

...Is this our hero? Really, guys? He can't beat the dark lord, he's like, just a kid with a stick! Where's the pizzazz, the pow, the sword-swishing and light magic and stuff?
...Oh, no, do we have to train him? Escort him through dungeon after dungeon to get all the sacred sword bits and make him stronger?...Well, if it gets rid of that stupid dark lord...



So, the concept here is as follows:
  1. One player creates a goof of a low-level hero, though with preferably high charisma and low intelligence.
  2. Everyone else creates unique and powerful boss monsters at a high level.
  3. Everyone designs their 'home dungeon' (or in the case of the hero, home village).
And then the high-level boss monsters escort the (to start off) low-level hero from place to place, taking care of levelling him up so that he can slaughter that pest of a dark lord for them. Wacky hijinks shall ensue.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avaday Daydream View Post
Idea #6a: Mizuchi
I have something like this for my setting. They're an entire type of creature called 'thaumivores' and like to feed on large pools of magical energy (as the name implies). Some are small, gnat-like things that buzz around and reduce the general effectiveness of magic in a region. Others are barnacle-like things that have a fondness for latching on to abandoned magic items, or the sites of Old Magic which were already stripped dry by larger creatures.

The most powerful are massive dragon-like beasts that will assault a mage's college and eat not only the magic, but the mages themselves.

... The idea of some being particularly benevolent creatures that feed as a method of cultivation is an interesting one... I'm going to have to steal it... A magic-immune friendly monster would make for an amazing local deity.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Avaday Daydream View Post
#21: Group of Weirdos
And this... is almost a plot of mine for a story. Though it's a bit different because there's no Evil Wizard to slay. The motivation is something more dire, as the setting's magical balance was destroyed millennia before this particular plot begins. Anyhow, the characters in the background are essentially trying to groom a new god, so that balance can finally be restored.

... Because there isn't any "chosen one" plot. There are a few people born every generation who could potentially make the leap... but they all end up destroyed in the process of "evolving" to the necessary level of strength. The thing is... they're running out of time, and Reality Itself is falling to pieces around them.

And, by necessity, not everyone involved in this process is a good person. In fact, some of the actions required to force a new god's birth are morally reprehensible (amongst other things, it takes a lot of desperation, suffering and near-death experiences to force someone's spiritual power to awaken to that extreme). Amongst other things, you can't tell the potential nascent godlings what you're doing... if they think there's something protect them, they'll never feel the desperation and loss of home necessary. Also... especially as the godling starts to grow in power, there's a real chance you're going to die by the hand of the thing you're creating. Its power will exceed yours, eventually, and you were part of the conspiracy which spent the last few years making.

But when the world is decades away from ripping itself apart on the most fundamental levels, there is no room for a soft heart.

#22: Can you say 'flock of wolves'?
3.5 D&D party theme and campaign concept

(One and a half years ago I thought of a Rakshasa party based around infiltration and disguise: https://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=369130 )

This is only the fledgling beginnings of an idea more than a complete idea, but...has anyone noticed just how many creatures in the core rules alone can disguise themselves as a small or medium humanoid?
You've got the doppelganger, of course, but you also have angels, couatls, efreeti, ogre mages, night hags, rakshasas, succubi, and titans.

Now, if you could balance them a little bit to put them on par with each other...are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Glamered armor, some portable holes to hide other equipment in, a king or warlord who needs taking down a few pegs...nobody suspects the beggars/slaves/minions.

#23: Too many hit points.
A playing-with-different-rules thing for 3.5/Pathfinder.

How do you win a combat encounter? By making it so that all enemies are unable (or unwilling) to effectively fight.
Traditionally, the way to do this is to hit them with a big stick until they run out of hit points, but, I was thinking, what other ways are there?

Well, if an enemy is tied up after a successful grapple, or paralysed by a hold monster spell, or put to sleep/unconsciousness by who-knows what, or even petrified, they can't fight.
If they're stunned, or dazed, or nauseated, or panicked, that stops them from taking actions (aside from running around like headless chickens, in some cases) for a short while.
And, if a warrior's been disarmed, tripped up, slowed, had their fancy items stolen, blinded, entangled, cursed, etc, then that'll make it very hard for them to win a fight. For magic users, being entangled, grappled, cursed, or just being bludgeoned makes it pretty hard for them to concentrate on their magic.

Now...what if we gave everyone more hit points? Like, say, ten times more? For whatever reason, everyone in the world has much more life-force, to the point that your common kobold can withstand being impaled by a greatsword.
How would that affect matters, when it takes an order of magnitude longer to kill someone with physical damage alone? Gangs of weaker creatures (city guards, goblins, etc) could gang up, working in concert to debilitate much more powerful foes without being torn apart by the first attack. Titans and giant monsters might become notorious threats, when 'crush your foe in a single blow' becomes a much bigger boast. Traditional high-damage dealers (barbarian, rogue, evoker) might benefit more from destroying whatever traps and hazards their foes lay, sundering their foes weapons, or trading their damage potential for manoeuvrability. Many monsters might escape to fight another day, or be captured and cursed to keep them under control. Areas might be a little more resistant to famine (that is, starvation-induced HP loss), too...what else, I wonder?

In any case, such a setting, with everyone having ten times more HP, fights would be a lot less lethal on both sides, and be much more rewarding to characters who specialise in weakening opponent attacks. Maybe it'd be worth a shot?




 

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