Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.
The undead ponies poured through the hole in the wall, unleashing pandemonium as they flooded the restaurant.
Snarling and howling in hunger, they lashed out at everyone indiscriminately. Three of them immediately flung themselves into the air, rotting wings stretching out as they attempted to bring down the blurred monster hovering in place. Four headed straight for the pudgy fish-creature, and an equal number charged the sahuagin warrior. Two more, seeing that every other available target was taken, charged towards Lex.
Attempting to duck under a rotting hoof failed, but his defensive spells and items caused it to scrape harmlessly over his flank without breaking the skin. Another one leaned in to bite at him, but Lex batted it away with a growl, moving back to buy himself some breathing room. The two undead ponies advanced on him, seeing that he was moving into a corner of the room and thinking him trapped. But their vicious grins vanished a moment later as he dissolved into shadow, and the pair shrieked in frustration as they rushed at him, their teeth and hooves passing through his insubstantial body uselessly.
Lex, for his part, had ceased to worry about his now-powerless assailants, and instead turned his attention to the rest of the brawl. Although he hadn't held much hope that the undead horde – which he had found lurking around the edges of the vicinity, drawn to the sounds of the conflict just like he’d thought they’d be – would be able to bring down the aquatic monsters, he had thought that they’d at least be able to slow them down. But it was rapidly becoming obvious that the unliving creatures weren’t much of a threat at all.
Even as Lex watched, the sahuagin with the large trident – apparently unharmed so far – speared one of the undead ponies through its head, lifting it off the ground and letting it wriggle for a few seconds before it went still, tossing it away with a flick of the weapon a moment later. He didn’t stop there, his lower arms lashing out to tear most of the flesh from another undead pony’s skull, though its reaction was simply to sneer and attempt to bite at him. Its reward for its efforts was that the sahuagin skewered with its trident it just like he had the other one. The remaining two were undaunted, but their strikes just seemed to bounce off the creature’s scales.
The pudgy fish-monster was faring even better. Despite the four undead ponies surrounding it, it was dodging or blocking every attack they made. One leaned in to bite at it, but was repelled by a finned limb catching it by the forehead and shoving it back. The recoil of pushing its opponent away moved the ichthyoid backward just far enough to avoid another pony’s hoof. Continuing with the motion, it bent its body backwards at the knees to avoid a third undead pony’s bite, and for a moment looked like it would fall over. But a single upper limb reached the ground first, catching its fall before it collapsed, even as the other swatted aside another hoof-strike.
Its position left it vulnerable, its back barely off the ground and its belly bared, ready to be torn apart…or at least that’s how it looked to Lex. But rather than trying to right itself, the creature flipped its back legs upward, pushing itself into a headstand, and kicked out. Each leg went in a different direction, striking an undead pony’s head hard enough that Lex could hear the crunch over the din of battle. Wounded, the two undead ponies fell back, which gave the pudgy fish-thing enough room to flip itself back onto its webbed feet and follow up its earlier attacks, one arm hitting an undead pony’s neck in a chop so strong that it tore the thing’s head clean off.
Only the flying creature seemed to be having trouble. Although its blurring magic hid any wounds it might have taken, the three undead pegasi on it were steadily pushing it back into a corner, much as Lex had been. More than that, the two undead ponies that had been on him were headed towards it now, having spotted more tangible prey. Although they weren’t able to fly, the ceiling was low enough that they were just barely able to reach it with their hooves as they jumped.
Lex couldn’t make out its sibilant voice over the noise, but the creature must have cast a spell, because a moment later it was wrapped in flames, a wispy coat of violet fire surrounding it. For a moment Lex thought it had miscast whatever spell it was attempting, but a moment later one of the unloving pegasi tried to bite the creature, apparently undaunted by its burning shield. Its jaws seemed to catch on something, but it instantly drew back, shrieking horribly as its head caught fire. Batting at the flames with its hooves uselessly, it began to careen around the room before crashing to the ground, still burning.
The sight seemed to be the last straw for the undead ponies. Although the conflict had lasted barely more than ten seconds, it was enough to firmly drive home just how outmatched they were. Acting on some unspoken signal, they turned and ran as one, the bulk of them heading for the hole in the wall that Lex had conjured, while others scrambled to reach the doors and windows.
Cursing at how easily they’d been routed, Lex cast another spell, knowing that it was all he had time for before there was nothing left to distract the aquatic trio. He needed to do something to take at least one of them out of the fight; not necessarily kill it, but isolate it so that he wouldn’t have to deal with it before finishing the others off. Making a quick decision, Lex focused on the floating creature, still hovering near the ceiling, and chanted a spell. It seemed to recognize what he was trying to do, because it began to dart away, but it hadn’t moved more than a foot before a spherical force field sprung up around it, just barely large enough to contain its bulk. It thrashed, and Lex could hear it hissing curses, but it was contained, and would be so long as the spell lasted; while it might have countermeasures, such as another dispelling spell, that was an unavoidable risk.
And then there was no more time to worry about the captured thing, as its companions were on him.
A trident flew at him, and Lex barely managed to twist to the side, letting it embed itself in the wall next to him. But immediately, the pudgy fish-thing was there, having covered the distance between itself and Lex – almost twenty feet! – in a single leap. A punch tore through his shadowy form, and although there was no physical impact Lex still couldn’t hold back a grunt of pain, trying to move backwards through the wall and escape.
But Monitor had no intention of letting its prey get away a second time. It let the momentum of its leap carrying it past the kill-now enemy and, rather than falling, reached out to grab the trident that was jutting out from the wall. Taking hold of the shaft, it swung itself back up and perched on it, directly in the path of its enemy’s intended escape route.
Lex immediately came to a stop as the thing interposed itself between him and the wall, narrowing his eyes. The thing wanted to have a showdown? Fine. It took only a moment to cast a spell, one that – as with the dragon – would seal the creature within a prison of ice. But in the split-second between when the last syllable of the spell left Lex’s immaterial lips and the first patch of frost began to spread, the creature dodged out of the way. It shouldn’t have been possible; there was no ray or beam for it to avoid. But somehow it did it anyway, tumbling down and yanking the trident out of the wall, tossing it back over to the sahuagin, who caught it easily.
Worse, at that moment Lex heard the flying creature he’d sealed hiss the words to a spell – that same dispelling spell that he’d half-expected. Luckily his force field spell held, but if that thing could keep attempting to bring it down then there was a real chance it would succeed before it ran out of spells. Which meant, Lex realized, that he needed to take these other two down before their spellcasting ally rejoined the fray.
As he glared down at the remaining pair of enemies, Lex couldn’t help but wish for the thousandth time that he could use the area-effect destructive spells that were so common on Everglow. If he could have, he’d have gladly rained fireballs and lightning bolts down on the pair until they were charred beyond recognition. But that option wasn’t available to him; he had decided, back when he had developed his thaumaturgy, that learning magic that allowed for such a high degree of collateral damage was the height of irresponsibility. So instead, when learning to shape his thoughts so as to be able to contain magical energy, he had deliberately excluded any concept of destructive magic that wasn’t individually-targeted from his mindset. The result was that such magic was quite literally unthinkable for him now.
It was, he’d come to realize later, a decision made purely because he hadn’t been able to conceive of living in a land that wasn’t as peaceful as Equestria. The idea that he’d one day find himself in a world teeming with dangerous monsters and ruthless people, a world where survival was an open question and so would require commensurately dangerous magic, had simply been beyond his imagination. But for all that he’d come to rue his decision, it was too late to change it now; the new thought-patterns had been thoroughly written into his brain by then, and changing them simply wasn’t possible, not without inflicting catastrophic damage to his mind.
And then there was no more time to curse his shortsightedness, as the two monsters rushed at him again.
Cozy groaned, holding her breath and keeping a hoof over her nose until Drafty and Cloudbank settled down, having blown the horrific stench away with their wings. “Thanks, girls,” she coughed, gulping down a lungful of fresh air.
“That wa-, ack! Aw-awful!” gagged Aisle, still looking a sickly green.
“I think it means we’re getting close,” replied Cloudbank. “This is probably another one of the defensive spells Lex put up around the shelter.”
An amused snort came from Drafty. “It’s kinda funny though, isn’t it? I mean, he’s a big powerful wizard and all, so I thought he’d use walls of fire or summoned demons or something to protect this place. Not a rotten egg smell.”
“That was not a rotten egg smell,” moaned Aisle. “I’ve smelled rotten eggs before, in my job at the market. Whatever that was just now was ten times worse.”
“Then we should get moving, just in case it starts to come back,” said Cozy, shaking off the last of her nausea.
“I agree,” nodded Cloudbank. “I think we should try going this way,” she pointed off to the right.
“How come?” asked Drafty, cocking her head to the side.
In response, Cloudbank picked up a pair of loose nails that were on the ground. “Listen to this,” she instructed the others, before tossing one straight forward. Although it was immediately lost to sight thanks to the swirly mist around them, they could still hear the faint clinking as it struck the ground.
“Okay, so?” asked Aisle. Cloudbank gestured for him to wait, then tossed the second nail off to the right, in the direction she’d previously indicated. The group kept their ears perked, but there was no sound to be heard, as though the mist had swallowed the nail utterly before it could hit the ground.
“Huh. That’s weird,” admitted Drafty.
“I heard it – or rather I didn’t hear anything – when we were blowing that bad smell away just now,” explained Cloudbank. “The wind from our wings was sending debris in every direction, but I couldn’t hear anything from over there.”
“Works for me,” said Cozy with a shrug. Behind her, Aisle nodded.
“Alright, let’s see if we can finally get where we’re going!” Drafty smiled, and her obvious attempt to be enthusiastic made Cloudbank chuckle.
Deciding to copy her friend’s attitude, Cloudbank pointed a hoof towards the area of soundlessness. “Alright, everypony follow me. Shelter ho!”
She just hoped that she was right about that being their destination, and not some new disaster.
Lex's plan doesn't yield the results he'd hoped for. Is going on the attack the right move to make?
Meanwhile, Cloudbank and company are still trying to find the shelter. Are they there yet?
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Lex is getting into deep doo doo with having three expert combatants to his barely mediochre one. About the only way of geting Area Of Effects, is to work ut and quickly which one point spells he can use on his enviroment in order to turn It against his enemies. If they end up assisting him, through illusion, confusion, ego etc, then all the better.
He couldnt run with the undead distraction, even with few actions it was, because the three can move so quickly and track him?
Watch, Lex is gonna finish the fight, get into the shelter and then freak out because the ponies he saved apparently never made it there
The Monitor is one deadly creature, if Lex had not been in his shadow form, he might have been taken out right there and then, or at least severely wounded. And it seems Lex is regretting his refusal to learn Area Effect spells now...shame he can't learn them now. Oh well, live and learn...though Lex will have to do the first part before he can learn from it.
Looks like the other party is slowly figuring out how to navigate Lex's wards. Wonder how long before they find the shelter and Sonata rushes out to 'save' Lex with Severance behind her. Though I'm still hoping that Lex will come back and find them still wandering around.
Low on a magic.
Have 2 enermy groups attack one another.
Dosn't use the chance to escape.
Please let a character comment on this in a comming chapter.
7987793
You're quite insightful to note that Lex could turn his attention to altering his environment in order to achieve greater effects. In fact, that's the first step towards "battlefield control," which is where full-progression arcane spellcasters are typically held to shine the most. Being a "blaster" is actually one of the lesser paths to mastery for such characters.
It wasn't that he couldn't run; it was that he didn't want to.
7987808 Heh, well, they do seem to be getting closer. Maybe they're closing in on it?
7987867 I'm glad that Monitor is coming off the way I intended him. Despite what a lot of people think, I've found monks to be very capable anti-wizard characters unless the wizard is already making use of some of the best options for avoiding a direct conflict. Which, to be fair, is what Lex is trying to do here with regards to moving through solid objects to grant him cover. However, his enemies are quickly trying to bring up countermeasures to that.
As for the "lost four," they have some difficulties ahead of them, if you recall the particular warding spells Lex put up...
7988950 Hm, two comments on this make me wonder if I did a bad job making Lex's thinking as self-evident as I wanted.
Lex brought the undead horde to his other enemies not so that he could get cover to escape - he'd already escaped when he'd went to go find the ghouls - but to give him some breathing room to launch counterattacks against his enemies. He'd used a few spells already, but he's not quite at the point where I'd call him "low on magic," at least not yet.
In other words, Lex isn't interested in escaping; he's interested in winning, which means killing these monsters in front of him. Retreating would just let them reorganize and regroup, and leave him stuck playing defense (which he mentioned previously was frustrating him) while they got ready to launch another assault, one which might hurt the ponies he brought with him or even other survivors. Lex knows that you can't win by playing defense; you need to go on the attack. The only reason he'd have to retreat is to retrieve Severance, and he mentioned previously that he didn't want to do that, since they could track him right back to the shelter, which he wants to keep them away from.
He's in a bad position right now, but not an unwinnable one...at least to his thinking.
7989351
It wasn't my intention to say that I didnt follow his way of thinking (cause I do).
My intent was that when later he returns to the shelter and retell the event to sonata... that she might get a little angry with him for taking such dangerous risks, when he made the promise to return, and he had the opportunity to return.
7989417 Ah, I misunderstood you then. Mea culpa, there.
7989324
But Generalists don't really seem to have a role, or at least lack the focus to have one beyond what their class normally can do. In 3.5, they would need to invest different feats in different chains, which means they do neither of the two things very well.
I think every class is meant to specialize one way or the other. Even if you say "well, a Bard can do many things", he's still an inferior spellcaster to a lot of other classes, meaning he cannot, by your definition, "meaningfully" contribute due to other spellcasters, right? As such, he'd concentrate on Bardic Music (probably Dragonfire-Inspiration) and would be shut down when entering a silence-spell.
I'm not sure it's too different, it's just that we've exchanged Antimagic-Field with Immunity to Fire. Point being, should you have enemies that know your abilities, you are (kinda) done for. As a matter of fact, barring specific weapon enchantments (like Stalactite), a high-level enemy could have enough Autohypnosis (and a continious item of "Delay Death") to simply not care about any sort of hit point damage.
What is this "Font of Inspiration" you speak of?
I think that means we agree on generalists not being too valid in 3.5^^
That's true. Eclipse provides multiple abilities you can dabble in without having to expend a lot of CP.
Yet, I still think that, when it comes to full roles, it's a higher-level thing to do. If you want to turn undead, you'll have to invest into Magnitude, Intensity and Uses (at least, if you wat to be as good as a "specialist" in it). Buying every available upgrade to these (effectively becoming equal to a "specialist" in that area) AND squeezing in the 4 levels of psion-manifesting to become a "specialist" in that is rather hard on a first level character.
It's not that I'm saying you can't dabble, it's that I'm saying you can't be an entire party's worth of abilities by your own without some questionable choices.
Regarding the other points, I believe what you mean is abilities that have no "higher" version of them, like many Witchcraft abilities. In that case it's true that not specializing in these abilities doesn't hinder your use of them. However, that only counts for those abilities. Abilities that DO have higher versions or stack with themselves (like caster progressions, Warcraft, Shapeshifting or the baseline Channeling ability ála Turn, Rebuke, Bolster, Command and Destroy) still follow the rule of "more investment = more impact".
7989623
It's not so much feat chains in 3.5 as it was class abilities, at least as I see it; most feats simply weren't powerful enough to make that much of a difference, even if they had a chain. Feat chains were important for fighters simply because they got so many of them (and had virtually nothing else), but even then it was a poor substitute. There's a reason why an Ubercharger can't just be a single-classed fighter that's taken the right feats.
As far as generalists go, the problem that 3.5 had wasn't so much with generalists per se, as it was that the entire idea of why you'd become a generalist in the first place - i.e. that you'd be able to cover for what the specialists couldn't do, allowing you to meaningfully contribute in a diverse set of areas that were otherwise being ignored - was overshadowed by the fact that specialists either tended to be so extremely good at what they did that they did that they blotted out the need for anything that was remotely related (e.g. your bard took some feats related to fighting with reach weapons, but that wasn't really needed when the Ubercharger was rushing at enemies and killing them quickly anyway), or the specialist's abilities were so variable that they could be a specialist in whatever was required at any given time (e.g. full-progression spellcasters).
In other words, there weren't enough options going around to let generalists broaden their scope. The result was that they tended to be mid-BAB, half-progression spellcasters with sorta-okay skill points. Sure, they had some unique abilities, but for the most part those tended to get overshadowed just as easily in terms of their applicability. Being able to meaningfully contribute is a two-part system (e.g. being meaningful, and being a contribution) that falls apart if you don't have both aspects of it.
It's not that bards can't meaningfully contribute; rather, it's more of an issue of, if they do, it tends to be by accident. In a party with a fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard, the bard is quite clearly the proverbial Fifth Beatle outside of some very specific circumstances. It's largely going to depend on something like the fighter going down and the cleric running out of buffs, or a particular spell being needed that the wizard won't have (and can't prep right now, and has no scroll of, etc.) but the bard does, etc. Bardic music can provide some nice buffs, but the cleric can do that better most of the time (though the fact that most of the bonus types won't be the same, and so stack, help to ameliorate this). They can countersong, but that comes up once in a blue moon anyway.
I don't think that bards, as a class, were "meant" to specialize; rather, I think that everyone realized later on - after it was too late to rewrite the class - that every class needed to specialize, because that was how the system had shaped up. But by that point you already had a class that was written as a generalist, and there was nothing to be done about it but try and support it enough to convince people that it was still relevant. And it could very well be, but only if everyone else's choices left that option open, rather than anything inherent in what the bard could do. If the rest of the party consisted of two fighters, a rogue, and a barbarian, your bard can cover a lot of roles in terms of what magic they bring to the table...but only if something like that is your party composition.
I see it as different because (full-progression (arcane)) spellcasting is a multi-specialty, where you can be a specialist of whatever you want depending on a given day's spell selection. Shutting down all spellcasting is therefore a multi-specialty negation, which is why it tends to be so incredibly rare (and so irritating to spellcasters when it happens). That's far different from something that negates only a singular specialty, the way an immunity to fire does. When that happens, you fall back on your non-fire spells; when in an antimagic field, you basically either try to get away or kiss your butt goodbye.
Also, Autohypnosis will either let you take an action at 0 hit points without losing a further hit point, or will let you stabilize yourself when below 0 hit points. I'm not sure how it would let you "not care" about hit point damage.
Yeah; we've mostly been going on about why that is.
Well, I did grant that the basic stuff (i.e. Hit Dice, BAB, etc.) and some abilities such as spellcasting (and, as you noted, basic channeling) do require a continual investment to keep up their relevance. But those tend to be the exception in Eclipse, rather than the rule as they were in 3.5. Obviously, trying to invest in more than one of those simultaneously is very expensive (which is why "Basic Abilities," in most builds, tend to eat up such a huge chunk of a character's CPs).
That said, there's no particularly compelling reason to do this at 1st-level anyway. The whole point of Eclipse's allowing for greater diversification is that it lowers the degree to which specialization is necessary, because there are now so many possibilities that covering more of them becomes a lot more important than mastering just one (unless it's something that allows for extreme versatility, the way full-progression arcane spellcasting does, but even then it's stretched much thinner, because they have a lot more to potentially deal with). "Generalists" now become "semi-specialists in several different areas" rather than "trying to cover everything - where 'everything' consists of just having moderate BAB, spellcasting, and skill points with a couple of abilities on top - equally blandly."
At that point, you might not be as good at one single thing as a specialist is, but then you can still meaningfully contribute by virtue of the fact that there's almost certainly going to be some other area where the rest of the party doesn't have anyone covering, except you. But yeah, you probably won't be able to fulfill an entire party's worth of roles all by yourself...but then, that was always a misunderstanding of what a "generalist" should be, as I see it.
Yes, but as I mentioned, those tend to be the exception, rather than the rule. With the possible exception of Warcraft - since proficiencies, Hit Dice, saves, BAB, and skill points are the proverbial "spine" of a character (e.g. it's the backbone upon which the rest of the character's abilities are made...alongside ability scores, but outside of Self-Development (and some other abilities) you don't buy those) - you don't need to take any of those to be relevant. You can meaningfully contribute while taking just non-progressive abilities, which is a far cry from most of 3.5.
7992209 At this point I believe we do mostly agree on everything. A generalist in Eclipse would be a character that focuses on taking over niches and that takes abilities that do not possess a progression in order to utilize multiple (specific) abilities at full power.
That's Pathfinder's "Willpower". 3.5 has that too, but I was talking about 3.5s "Stabilize Self", which allows you to make a check everytime you are reduced to a negative hit point value and let's you take normal actions until you bleed out. Most people prefer Diehard or Beastland Ferocity, but both spells are a bit sketchy...
7992485
Yeah, that does seem to about sum it up.
Okay, this took me a bit to puzzle out: you're talking about one of the epic uses of Autohypnosis. The reason that was so confusing is that that particular ability (the DC 30 check result) isn't actually referred to as "stabilize self" in the SRD text. That appears to be a moniker applied by the fan community (unless it was used in the Epic Level Handbook but not the SRD for some reason).
7994622
This confused me too when I clicked on the link, but yes, the Epic Level Handbook refers to this skill check (and the one that grants DR) as a "Stabilize Self" check.
7994954
Okay, that discrepancy was bothering me, so I did some checking.
As it turns out, Stabilize Self was its own skill in the 3.0 Psionics Handbook; it was completely separate from Autohypnosis. Since the Epic Level Handbook was also 3.0, it likewise listed the epic uses of Stabilize Self separately. When the 3.5 Expanded Psionics Handbook came out, Autohypnosis absorbed all of Stabilize Self, and although the official 3.5 update booklet didn't say so, the 3.5 SRD likewise folded the epic functions of Stabilize Self under Autohypnosis' functions.
7995100 ...So does this mean that Autohypnosis and Stabilize Self are the same skill in 3.5 or am I still missing something? This is complicated :/
7995172 Yes, in 3.5 they are; it folded Stabilize Self into Autohypnosis completely.
Typos! Destroy indiscriminately! For the emperor! I mean... If that's okay with you...
Although he had had little hope? Is that really necessary?
Well, only one typo this time. I will get them! I swear by ice and fire, earth and air, that I. Will. Find them!
8191993 Oh, you can call me Emperor as much as you like.
Well undoing the contraction just makes it sound awkward.
Fixed.
Don't forget to swear by Grabthar's Hammer and the sons of Warvan!
8192393
You? Emperor? Please... No way. You are godlike for writing something like this.
8193081 Thanks for saying so. I certainly think so too!
All joking aside, feedback is what keeps me doing this, and I deeply appreciate each and every comment that I receive.