I seem to remember that in the 2nd ed rules drow armour was worn by spellcasters and did not hinder arcane spellcasting...is this right or am I dreaming it up?
could anyone refresh my mind as to the 2nd edition rules regarding drow weapons and armour. For example i seem to remeber that although drow weapons and armour can give a bonus much like a magic version of its type it is technically not magically therefore unaffected by antimagic. Also the material their weapons and armour are made from...adamantine(?) degrades in sunlight.
if anyone could give me some info on this I'd appreciate it - also maybe people could share their thoughts as to 3.5ed versions of drow equipment.
Also - I see that elven chainmail now has a significant arcane spell failure check when the whole point of it in 2nd edition was that wizards could wear elven chain and still cast spells wasn't it? Any thoughts on this?
You have not lost your mind! The 2e DMG states this:
Elven Chain Mail: This is magical armor so fine and light that it can be worn under normal clothing without revealing its presence. Its lightness and flexibility allow even bards and thieves to use it with few restrictions (see Chapter 3 in the PHB). Elven fighter/mages use it without restriction. However, it is rarely sized to fit anyone other than an elf or a half-elf. Roll percentile dice and consult the following table to ascertain what size character elven chain mail will fit:
D100 Roll Size of Elven Chain Mail
01-10 gnome/halfling (hairfoot)
11-15 dwarf/halfling (Stout or Tallfellow)
16-80 elf/half-elf
81-95 man-sized, normal (up to 6 feet, 200 lbs.)
96-00 man-sized, large (up to 6½ feet, 250 lbs.)
As drow armor is for all intents and purposes considered to be "Elven Chain Mail" it follows the same restrictions, or lack thereof in this case. The 2e source that would have more information on this would be "The Drow of the Underdark". _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Drow clothing is usually black, functional, and often possesses special properties, although it does not radiate magic. For example, drow cloaks and boots act as if they were cloaks of and boots of elvenkind, except that the wearer is only 75% likely to remain undetected in shadows and surprise enemies. The material used to make drow cloaks does not cut easily and is fire resistant, giving the cloaks a +6 bonus to saving throws vs. fire. These cloaks and boots fit and function only for those of elven size and build. A ny attempt to alter a drow cloak has a 75% of unraveling the material, making it useless.
Drow wear finely crafted, non-encumbering, black mesh armor. This extremely strong mail is made with a special alloy of steel containing adamantite. The special alloy, when worked by a drow armorer, yields mail that has the same properties of chain mail +1 to +5, although it does not radiate magic. Even the lowliest drow fighters have, in effect, chain mail +1, while higher level drow have more finely crafted, more powerful, mail.
Drow elves also carry small shields (bucklers) fashioned of adamantite. Like drow armor, these special shields may be +1, +2, or even +3, although only the most important drow fighters have +3 bucklers.
Most drow carry a long dagger and a short sword of adamantite alloy. These daggers and swords can have a +1 to +3 bonus, and drow nobles may have daggers and swords of +4 bonus. Some drow (50%) also carry small crossboys that can be held in one han d and will shoot darts up to 60 yards. The darts only inflict 1-3 points of damage, but dark elves commonly coat them with poison that renders a victim unconscious, unless he rolls a successful saving throw versus poison, with a -4 penalty. The effects last 2d4 hours.
A few drow carry adamantite maces (+1 to +5 bonus) i nstead of blades. Others carry small javelins coated with the same poison as the darts. They have a range of 90 yards with a short range bonus of +3, a +2 at medium, and a + 1 at long.
The drow produce unusual weapons and clothing with quasi-magical properties. Some scribes and researchers suggest that it is the strange radiation around drow cities that make drow crafts special. Others theorize that fine workmanship gives their wonderfully strong metals and superior cloth its unique attributes. Whatever the reason, it is clear that the drow have discovered some way to make their clothing and weapons without the use of magic.
Direct sunlight utterly destroys drow cloth, boots, weapons, and armor. When any item produced by them is exposed to the light of the sun, irreversible decay begins. Within 2d6 days, the items lose their magical properties nad rot, becoming totally worthless. Drow artifacts, protected from sunlight, retain their special properties for 1d20+30 days before becoming normal items. If a drow item is protected from direct sunlight and exposed to the radiations of the drow underworld for one week out of every fourk, it will retain its properties indefinitely.
does anyone know what the reasoning was behind making elven chain have an arcane spell failure chance in 3.5?
Also another question on a drow related vein...
I have seen two versions of the drow racial abilities...one in the Monster Manual I and another in the Forgotten Realms source book...both give an ECL of +2 but the stats in the FR book are tougher...which do you think is most appropriate to the drow of Greyhawk...I'd like to stay as true to the essence of drow as they were seen in Greyhawk.
On another side note related to Sean K Reynolds article - I don't have a problem with drow items degrading in the sunlight...the drow are clearly a powerful race and the fact that they are Chaotic isn't enough of a reason to prevent them from coming to the surface more often...the fact they are vulnerable to sunlight both through light sensitivity and through the weakening of their equipment has fortunately kept them in check...the fact that their weapons are not magical yet give the bonuses of magic weapons is also quite powerful - i think that these items would still function in an antimagic field...this is quite significant at higher levels. The degradation of drow items also encourages the reason they may have to trade with other races despite their dislike and disdain of them.
Blech. Why do the players and their foes even need to have the amount of equipment they possess dictated by their level? That's what sticks in my throat-3E seems too much like a video game, with players levelling up at X time, gaining X amount of treasure for doing so, and there's a specific number of encounters in each adventure, each set to give the players a certain amount of experience and challenge. And worse yet, it's too easy for players to choose their classes and prestige classes based on min/maxing the most lethal combination of abilities possible.
I personally find the "magical" equipment of the drow perfectly acceptable. I think it's patently ridiculous that any culture could mass-produce magic items-rather, it's the "faerzress", that underground radiation that interferes with teleportation magic, that gives drow equipment (and the drow themselves) their strange powers. Faerzress is, to me, the opposite of sunlight, the energy that comes from within the Oerth itself. Hence why weapons immediately disintegrate in the sun.
On a metagame level, it allows drow of 2-5th level to match up against high-level characters who would otherwise have an easier chance of hitting them. What originally started as a deus ex machina excuse to keep players from teleporting back to the surface to replenish their supplies has, IMO, been expanded into an interesting aspect of the world.
And yes, I know the word "faerzress" comes from FR. But I don't recall any GH sources ever bothering to name it, and FR's 'underground radiation' works the same as GH's, so I'm going to use the FR term. So there. _________________ <div align="left">Going to war without Keoland is like going to war without a pipe organ. They both make a lot of noise and they're both a lot of dead weight, so what's the point in taking them along? </div>
I agree regarding the criticism of SKR's reasoning on why the rules were changed. I do not see a problem with drow having their special equipment ONLY in their own environment, mainly for the reason that there is nothing stopping pc's from using most of it while they are in the Underdark themselves. Half of our adventuring party did so while we went through the latter portions of the GDQ series, and the half that didn't use it had equivalent or better equipment anyways so those players didn't feel any loss.
The main thing about the souped-up equipment of the drow is that even the lowliest drow are potentially dangerous to even higher level adventuring parties. That is the whole point of it, which to me is part of the fun of facing them. Just the journey to Erelhei Cinlu was treacherous for us, let alone getting through the city itself.
The one thing about Elven Chain Mail in 2e that I never agreed with was that ONLY elven fighter/magic-users could make use of it properly. I allowed any multi-classed spell-caster to make use of it regardless of race.
As to the 3e equipment-by-level model, it is just that- a model. Remember that good core rulebooks provbide models for people who are new to the game and have no clue what they are doing yet. Such models are good for them. As they gain more experience as dm's, or for those who already have experience from playing for years, dm's can and often will deviate from the model as they will. Remember that drow have a level adjustment of +2 so they are likely to have some good stuff anyways- drow manufactured equiptment just limits them to operating mostly in the Underdark.
As to why there is an arcane spell failure percentage for elven chain mail in 3e+, it is probably due to the designers wanting to create a broader identity and therefore limitation to the classes, particularly as so many facets of 3e+ are interchangeable among the classes, such as feats, skills, etc. That is my guess at any rate. Bards sure do love elven chain mail in 3.5e! _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
In Underdark, the "Drowcraft" weapon and armor enhancement appears.
It gives a +2 luck bonus to attack and damage (for weapons) or AC (for armor) in areas with faeztress, and the item disintegrates in sunlight.
In Underdark, the "Drowcraft" weapon and armor enhancement appears.
It gives a +2 luck bonus to attack and damage (for weapons) or AC (for armor) in areas with faeztress, and the item disintegrates in sunlight.
Yeah, a lot of the rigid rules they put in place in 3.0 were contradicted later on as older designers left the company or drifted into other departments and new designers took their place. I didn't know about the drowcraft enhancement, but I'm not surprised.
That SKR rant, sheesh. Sure it's bad GAME design but its terrible SETTING design to allow Drow equipment in the hands of non-drow. I'm sure the Driz'zt Lobby had something to do with this.
I don't actually mind the idea that some drowish weapons and armor might end up in the outside world. Even given that drow are supposed to be only myth and legend, as long as the equipment doesn't have "dark elf productions, patent pending" stamped on it I don't think it harms the setting.
My major criticism of Sean K. Reynold's rant is that he doesn't seem to have considered the possibility that drow arms and equipment costs exactly the same as equivalent items, or that they could be treated as if they do for the purpose of equiping drow. The "it either costs less or more, and either way unbalances encounters" argument seems dubious.
I thought the whole point of his rant was that the radiation was a simple mechanic for "cheesing" players out of their magic loot.
Perhaps I missed something?
I agree that the leveling and monetary scheme for 3rd edition can be troubling with relation to Greyhawk, especially when you consider every NPC/creature in Dungeon and other official products is constructed with it, but I do think its better than having no scheme at all.
And as other people have stated once you have some experience with 3rd ed. you can start to modify things to fit your idea of what the Greyhawk economy should look like.
Nah, its not designed to cheese the players out of their loot, regardless of what SKR thinks. It was done that way so that lower level drow characters could challenge the party of high level PCs and to explain why the drow stay in the underdark (more recent GH stuff has them merrily tramping about the surface, but back then that was not how it was done).
The alternative would be to not give them fancy gear, but up the class levels on the drow facing the party. That would have a variety of knock on effects, namely more hp and better saves. And, as pointed out, nothing prevents the party from using drow equipment in the underdark.
The whole idea that NPCs have to drop usable loot is inherently bogus. So if I have a group of giants with magical giant sized armor, which no PC is going to be able to wear, that's unfair? Or Oolgrist's troll sized/shaped bone armor in ToEE is illegal? Gimme a break.
SKR hates the mechanics that were used to keep "magical" drow equipment out of the hands of players. So what does he think of the restrictions on Wish spells? Do they even still exist in 3E?
I ask because some of the characters in the 3E FR sourcebook (the Simbul, most notably) abuse the wish spell in a way that no sane DM would allow a player to. The Simbul has used wish spells to increase her number of spell slots per day, and still sometimes uses them to swap around spells in her sorcerer's spell list. So just how many years has she aged, then, if she casts all these wish spells?
Funny thing, then-SKR gets all snippy about keeping players from getting a whole arsenal of magical weapons and armor (which are there so high-level characters can tangle with them without making the drow all 10th and 12th level themselves), but doesn't seem to mind when NPCs abuse wish spells? By his logic, that must mean that players should be able to do the same thing. He co-wrote that FR book, so he must have had at least some part in it.
Does this lead to wish spell abuse?
Oh, joy. _________________ <div align="left">Going to war without Keoland is like going to war without a pipe organ. They both make a lot of noise and they're both a lot of dead weight, so what's the point in taking them along? </div>
In 3e, wishes have an XP cost instead of aging. They have very tight restrictions, detailed here. I don't know who munchkined up the Simbul, but I strongly suspect Ed Greenwood.
I saw the "radiation" of the drow simply as an interesting development to restrict the drow to the underdark.
Not everything has to work in the PCs favor, perhaps that's why PCs confront the drow for the tales of "common magical arms" just because it doesn't turn into an underdark arms store, that doen't mean it is unfair.
Most adventuring hooks shouldn't pan out, instead of stomping their feet screaming "unfair" like a 3yr old hopefully most mature players will take it in stride as part of the exaggrated nature of adventuring.
Quite so. The Simbul would have had a cheesy get-out clause even under the previous mechanic, though; the Chosen of Mystra are immune to aging.
rasgon wrote:
I don't know who munchkined up the Simbul, but I strongly suspect Ed Greenwood.
Sounds very plausible. In fairness, I should note that he seems at some points to have been aware of the perilous precedent involved in having Faerun's archmages chuck around wishes like confetti. The old write-up of Elminster in the (1st ed.?) Hall of Heroes has him claim to have used the spell "occasionally" in his relative youth, but states that at the outset of the Time of Troubles he had not used one in over a century (I think).
Since I am looking for displacement activity, it struck me as a fun enterprise to try to collect all the uses of wish spells attested in published Greyhawk material . So far I have:
* Ferrenan's expenditure of one from a ring to improve defenses against intrusion at Blacksplinter (Ivid the Undying).
* Lakaster's use of one to determine the properties of the Helm and Wand of Lynerden the Spinner. It failed (Ivid the Undying).
* The uses of the spell by Rary and Shemaya to grant themselves inherent stat boosts (Denizens of the Bright Desert in one of the LGJs).
Any others? I will start a new thread if it gets interesting.
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The 2e DMG states this:
