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Highs and Lows
#61
(12-10-2012, 07:39 PM)Scow2 Wrote: I am going to strongly disagree with everything you said here. This is Heroic Fantasy. Heroes CAN "brush it off". Did you not see how many arrows Boromir took? And in the book, it was even more. The point you seem to be trying to make sounds like "Every hit should be debilitating"... which I feel is counterproductive to the server because...

I haven't read the books in some time, so you'll forgive me if I stick to the films for now. If you're thinking to yourself that I don't like high fantasy, or heroic fantasy, you're right -- I don't read the Lord of the Rings anymore because I don't enjoy it compared to, say, Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain.

Boromir took three arrows to the chest, which collapsed his lungs. This is evidenced by the way he was laboring for breath, and the blood coming from his mouth. No matter how much of a hero, no matter how heroic the setting, you cannot fight with collapsed lungs, and Boromir conveniently proved this point for me by dying. If he took even more damage before succumbing to his wounds in the books, as you point out, it actually merely reinforces my point that people -- whether humble roleplayers such as us here on CotH, or famous writers of fantasy -- actually have no idea just how little punishment the human body can take before it closes up shop for good. Virtually every hit that is not in some way mitigated by armor unquestionably should be debilitating. A sword was designed for a single purpose: to kill people. And after this many years of constant refinement, it is very good at its job.

(12-10-2012, 07:39 PM)Scow2 Wrote: ...it encourages avoiding blows and contesting ANY attempt to successfully land a blow because of the debilitating effects. You can't get scars without taking injuries, and if every injury taken is debilitating, it's not fun anymore.

Combat should almost certainly be a matter of dodging and deflecting blows, or mitigating their impact via armor or magic where available. If you watch recreations of medieval combat, you will note that almost every fight with more than two combatants is over in a matter of seconds, and duels between two individuals generally last less than a few minutes. With each successive wound that you take, a part of the body becomes less able to do its job, the pain robs you of your ability to make rational decisions, and it becomes more likely that the next wound will be your last until your resurrection by your friendly local church official.

You can still take injuries. You can still earn scars. But remember, while you are earning them, that if a clever rogue slashes at your forearm, it is more than a flesh wound: they just severed the tendon that allows you to make a fist, and when you can't make a fist, you can't grip your sword. I hope you learned to fight hand-to-hand. And take heart: if you get out of the resulting melee alive, you can not only claim to be even more badass ("I couldn't grip my sword, so I beat him to death with my elbows!") but the damage will heal.

(12-10-2012, 07:39 PM)Scow2 Wrote: World of Warcraft is Heroic, not High, Fantasy. High Fantasy is Lord of the Rings. Heroic Fantasy is Conan the Barbarian. In fact, "Heroic Fantasy" is sort of like "Cosmic Horror", except with the subnote that "Yes, there are horrific, ancient things beyond our comprehension. But that doesn't mean we can't kick their asses." Remember - Cthulhu himself was defeated by a guy with a motorboat.

Cthulhu was hit in the face by the bow of a steamship at full speed. To quote my other post, you can't brush it off. ;)
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#62
(12-10-2012, 08:18 PM)Scow2 Wrote:
(12-10-2012, 08:13 PM)c0rzilla Wrote: Lovecraft's "heroes" (they're usually jerks in their own right) in Lovecraft's works, particularly Cthulhu, are not Conan. At all. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, or how it counters my point, but drifting into literary analysis will drag this off topic.
What I'm saying is that Lovecraft and Howard were friends, and Lovecraft would create cosmic horrors that starred in their story, doing Cosmic Horror stuff... then Howard would take that same cosmic horror and write his stories about Conan kicking his ass.

Same horrific, unknowable, horrific villain. But the setting and tone of the story led to different outcomes. In Lovecraft's stories, the Abomination drove everyone insane. That same abomination would get its ass kicked/get sealed back up by Conan the Barbarian.

...I'm not doing a very good job and letting this be, heh. Anyway.

As I said before, the difference between Cosmic Horror and Heroic/Low/Whatever Fantasy encompasses much more than who gets to kill the gross space villain. While I'm not denying that Howard and Lovecraft might have traded ideas, it's the environment that matters. It doesn't even matter that the Entity drove everyone insane.

It is the sheer, utter, dark aloneness that matters. The gray nihilism, the hopelessness, with only the small, insignificant spark of man's (shallow) intellect that is a candle in this darkness. A darkness that ever encroaches, and can never be kept fully at bay. Man's intellect is also a danger, for when one delves too deeply...well.

That is the difference. Again, not who gets to kill what.
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#63
... I just noticed we were saying the same thing.
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#64
I disagree, but there you go. To me, your emphasis is on the end result, the killing.
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#65
*Headscratches*

It probably won't help if I say my character, Michael McGlenn, American Gangster in the 1960s, managed to punch/shoot out more than one cosmic horror, if only because he had balls too large to care.

((Dude always passed willpower rolls. Never got insanity. Even when wrestling a Shaggoth. Go figure.))
Quote:[8:53AM] Cassius: Xigo is the best guy ever. he doesn't afraid of anything.
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#66
What I was saying is that both genres can share similar elements/villains, but in Cosmic Horror, the eldritch abomination's victory is inevitable, depressing, and beyond mortal comprehension (even if it does fall over once or twice), while in Heroic Fantasy, the evil unknowable horror can find itself decisively shut down by a competent hero (or band of heroes once Gygax and Arneson got a hold of the genre)
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#67
Based on a post in the first page, I think I can safely make this comparison having played warcraft 2 and up:

Back in the day of tiny people on your screen, you had your normal units (footmen and grunts) and then you had your hero units (Alleria and Luther.) While the normal units had about 15-30 HP and did about 5-7 damage or so, the hero units had well into the hundreds of HP and did well over 50 damage. I believe deathwing had like 2k HP?

Fast forward to warcraft three, now your heroes can level up, have their own skills, and can be resurrected when they die (Sound familiar so far?) At level 1 or 2, quite frankly they were useless. But you get three of them at level ten, and you can effectively annihilate your enemies base and his units without dying (speaking from experience.)

Now moving onto world of warcraft: These same heroes are elite raid boss levels. It takes a hell of a lot of people to take these guys down. Then you still have the basic footmen of the races. So then where does that put us? We're in the middle. We're more than the average man. We're stronger people who have access to better weapons and armor.

Now, back to the original post. We're "High Fantasy." Low fantasy is something they did back in the dark ages. Nothing wrong with that of course. We have space goats that came onto azeroth on, basically, a space ship! Screw realism! Creativity should never be snubbed as breaking lore so long as it isn't batshit insane, you know? Who's to say that a mage can't figure out he can shoot flames out of his butt? Who's to say an archer isn't capable of tying up some dynamite to an arrow and shooting it out of a crossbow? Who say's Orc's can't fly? Stick em in a flying machine! Just look at the people around us: they are always inventing crazy things. By saying "You can't do that," you might as well be saying "there are no creative people on Azeroth, therefore no one would have thought to do that."

You know at one time we had a half demon half Night Elf running around. But his was really legitimate: Eating the skull of gul'dan would give anyone indigestion, horns, and wings. My idea is if you can explain how you went from a Night Elf to a Night Elf demon thing, in the same way you can explain how the starship enterprise goes forward, then you can be your Elf demon thing. "Okay, I'm a demon and also an Elf." No. "Okay, I used to be a Night Elf, but then I thought of this great idea to use the same weapons and armor as the Burning Legion! What I didn't count on were these things were specially made for Burning Legion minions, so now I hear things in my head, I get strange, irrational urges to hurt those around me, I hallucinate, I haven't dropped this sword in three months, and now I've noticed a tail growing on me, and my fingers and toes end in claws. This took a period of two years. I'm now insane, and I have horns, claws, and a tail, and I haven't taken off this armor to bathe in years because it melded with my skin." Why not!

Plus let's not forget Blizzard likes to take a shit on their own lore...

Bruce lee said "if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life.... There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them."

That just my 2 cents anyways...
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#68
Quote:Who's to say an archer isn't capable of tying up some dynamite to an arrow and shooting it out of a crossbow?

Thanks, now I got another toon alt idea. Some bat-shit insane crazy explosive expert who had too many loud bangs near his/her head. In result, everything he/she uses has a poorly tied stick of dynamite or other explosive to it. I wonder how long he/she'll last before blowing his/herself up.

But yes, I got the point and had a laugh. Couldn't have worded it better myself.
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#69
(12-11-2012, 10:35 PM)alpharius Wrote: Based on a post in the first page, I think I can safely make this comparison having played warcraft 2 and up:

Back in the day of tiny people on your screen, you had your normal units (footmen and grunts) and then you had your hero units (Alleria and Luther.) While the normal units had about 15-30 HP and did about 5-7 damage or so, the hero units had well into the hundreds of HP and did well over 50 damage. I believe deathwing had like 2k HP?

Fast forward to warcraft three, now your heroes can level up, have their own skills, and can be resurrected when they die (Sound familiar so far?) At level 1 or 2, quite frankly they were useless. But you get three of them at level ten, and you can effectively annihilate your enemies base and his units without dying (speaking from experience.)

Now moving onto world of warcraft: These same heroes are elite raid boss levels. It takes a hell of a lot of people to take these guys down. Then you still have the basic footmen of the races. So then where does that put us? We're in the middle. We're more than the average man. We're stronger people who have access to better weapons and armor.

Now, back to the original post. We're "High Fantasy." Low fantasy is something they did back in the dark ages. Nothing wrong with that of course. We have space goats that came onto azeroth on, basically, a space ship! Screw realism! Creativity should never be snubbed as breaking lore so long as it isn't batshit insane, you know? Who's to say that a mage can't figure out he can shoot flames out of his butt? Who's to say an archer isn't capable of tying up some dynamite to an arrow and shooting it out of a crossbow? Who say's Orc's can't fly? Stick em in a flying machine! Just look at the people around us: they are always inventing crazy things. By saying "You can't do that," you might as well be saying "there are no creative people on Azeroth, therefore no one would have thought to do that."

You know at one time we had a half demon half Night Elf running around. But his was really legitimate: Eating the skull of gul'dan would give anyone indigestion, horns, and wings. My idea is if you can explain how you went from a Night Elf to a Night Elf demon thing, in the same way you can explain how the starship enterprise goes forward, then you can be your Elf demon thing. "Okay, I'm a demon and also an Elf." No. "Okay, I used to be a Night Elf, but then I thought of this great idea to use the same weapons and armor as the Burning Legion! What I didn't count on were these things were specially made for Burning Legion minions, so now I hear things in my head, I get strange, irrational urges to hurt those around me, I hallucinate, I haven't dropped this sword in three months, and now I've noticed a tail growing on me, and my fingers and toes end in claws. This took a period of two years. I'm now insane, and I have horns, claws, and a tail, and I haven't taken off this armor to bathe in years because it melded with my skin." Why not!

Plus let's not forget Blizzard likes to take a shit on their own lore...

Bruce lee said "if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life.... There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them."

That just my 2 cents anyways...

I like what you're saying here, but I'm torn on the Demon Night Elf thing... even though I'm trying to make a Demon Tauren thing. Problem is there's too much "Special Snowflake" going on. Unique can be good. But not when it alienates others from wanting to play with you because you're so unique you can't be "Normal".

On the issue of Hero units vs. Common Infantry... I bet that the difference isnt' even that dramatic as the mechanics make them out to be. Yeah, higher level people are capable of surviving more shit than the "Average person"... but I think Hit Points largely represent Narrative Luck and Plot Armor more than actual strength and durability - After all, Sylvannas Windrunner gets killed by a rather minor Gilnean Noble.

Someone mentioned Starcraft, and how Jim Raynor is so much stronger than the "Average Marine"... I suspect that's only true because of the narrative armor/skill. He doesn't have better power armor than any other marine. His gun's not beyond what a rank-and-file soldier can use. This goes doubly so for SC2's Tychus Findley, who's supposed to be nothing more than a Normal Marine who happens to be friends with Jim Raynor.

Some characters, player character or not, ARE supernaturally strong and tough, but all the supernatural strength, expertise, and nigh-invulnerability is meaningless if fortune doesn't favor them.


Grom Hellscream may have been able to take on hordes of enemies in a fight and kill the Pit Lord Mannoroth, but I bet he wasn't beyond losing the occassional barfight.


On another note: I don't think Dragons are all they're chalked up to be. Even the Aspects aren't invincible. Sure, they, like Doomguards, are never supposed to be something that are just brushed off, and certaninly not if they have a name (But ten unnamed dragons, not quite as scary)... but a Wildhammer dwarf armed with a Stormhammer atop his gryphon can match them. Likewise, a hunting party of Dwarven Riflemen can take on a dragon and emerge victorious.

The Aspects and named dragons ARE significant threats, but as Azuregos, Malygos, Neltharian, Nepharian, and Onixia learned (In addition to hundreds of Alextraza's children in the Second war), they are NOT invincible. The only reason we can't give Dragon Flight Aspects a run for their money outside of canon-endorsed events is because WoW's canon has other plans for them. But other dragons are VERY capable of having fatally bad days.

(12-10-2012, 08:21 PM)rentreality Wrote:
(12-10-2012, 07:39 PM)Scow2 Wrote: I am going to strongly disagree with everything you said here. This is Heroic Fantasy. Heroes CAN "brush it off". Did you not see how many arrows Boromir took? And in the book, it was even more. The point you seem to be trying to make sounds like "Every hit should be debilitating"... which I feel is counterproductive to the server because...

I haven't read the books in some time, so you'll forgive me if I stick to the films for now. If you're thinking to yourself that I don't like high fantasy, or heroic fantasy, you're right -- I don't read the Lord of the Rings anymore because I don't enjoy it compared to, say, Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain.

Boromir took three arrows to the chest, which collapsed his lungs. This is evidenced by the way he was laboring for breath, and the blood coming from his mouth. No matter how much of a hero, no matter how heroic the setting, you cannot fight with collapsed lungs, and Boromir conveniently proved this point for me by dying. If he took even more damage before succumbing to his wounds in the books, as you point out, it actually merely reinforces my point that people -- whether humble roleplayers such as us here on CotH, or famous writers of fantasy -- actually have no idea just how little punishment the human body can take before it closes up shop for good. Virtually every hit that is not in some way mitigated by armor unquestionably should be debilitating. A sword was designed for a single purpose: to kill people. And after this many years of constant refinement, it is very good at its job.
Actually, Boromir DID fight on with collapsed lungs, and didn't succumb to his wounds until the Orcs had all died or retreated.

And how much damage the human body can take is almost irrelevant in Fantasy, due to the nature of the genre. Fantasy has a LOT more to it than just the things that are affected by the setting's quantified magic. Fantasy is defined by exemptions from reality's rules, and this extends to biology as well as physics.
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#70
(12-11-2012, 10:35 PM)alpharius Wrote: Now moving onto world of warcraft: These same heroes are elite raid boss levels. It takes a hell of a lot of people to take these guys down. Then you still have the basic footmen of the races. So then where does that put us? We're in the middle. We're more than the average man. We're stronger people who have access to better weapons and armor.

That.. Is indeed a good point. In retail you can pull.. Around two (Dependent on your class) enemies of the same level before your hp starts to dwindle away and you die. And those are none elites. People have ragged on the IG mechanics on how it's not very realistic, but in this sense, doesn't it seem more realistic then even we as rpers use? We can single handedly take down an elite type character with our own characters, but should we try to kill an elite OOCly for moneyz? Half the time we get destroyed.

I don't see the issue of playing the stronger then your average joe, but not strong enough to take down powerful people (Like lore figures. And even elite monsters). Though I think that's how it is right now (Save for the elites). Should you choose to play a basic footman? That's really all they are. They won't stand up well against them better characters, but that's only because he's a basic footman.

(12-11-2012, 10:35 PM)alpharius Wrote: Bruce lee said "if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life.... There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them."

There does have to be a limit, saddly. Gravity puts a limit on how high we can jump, after all. -But.- I do get the message. Realism vs. Fantasy? Find a blend, use it. Cause that's what I enjoy, and I'm sure others would as well.

All in all? BLEND~

Quick edit.
The Demon Night Elf thing, Scrow, I believe that's a reference to Illidan Stormrage.
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#71
(12-12-2012, 08:22 AM)KageAcuma Wrote:
(12-11-2012, 10:35 PM)alpharius Wrote: Bruce lee said "if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life.... There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them."

There does have to be a limit, saddly. Gravity puts a limit on how high we can jump, after all. -But.- I do get the message. Realism vs. Fantasy? Find a blend, use it. Cause that's what I enjoy, and I'm sure others would as well.

All in all? BLEND~
Actually, gravity DOESN'T put a limit on how high you can jump. Theoretically speaking, although it requires more force than a person can realistically apply (Or survive having applied to them), it's possible to jump so high you go into orbit... as long as you jump at an angle.
(12-12-2012, 08:22 AM)KageAcuma Wrote: Quick edit.
The Demon Night Elf thing, Scrow, I believe that's a reference to Illidan Stormrage.

Yes it is, but that's Illidan's unique shtick, and I'm torn on the matter because while it's possible, trying to go about it the same way devalues Illidan. And it's Scow2, not Scrow. No 'r', and the S is mirrored at the end.
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#72
In theory, the human body has no limits to what it can do, some even hypothesize that we could self regenerate from wounds. I'm sure you've all seen the video of that guy pulling a truck with a chain tied to his testicles. Look at the shaolin monks, theres a great example of how far we can push ourselves. They can break metal over their heads, balance themselves on spear points, hold themselves in a noose by their necks, and can even do flips on their finger tips.

Quote: I like what you're saying here, but I'm torn on the Demon Night Elf thing... even though I'm trying to make a Demon Tauren thing. Problem is there's too much "Special Snowflake" going on. Unique can be good. But not when it alienates others from wanting to play with you because you're so unique you can't be "Normal".
Personally I don't like the idea of a half demon anything really, but if it's done in an interesting way then I'll go with it...

Quote: Grom Hellscream may have been able to take on hordes of enemies in a fight and kill the Pit Lord Mannoroth, but I bet he wasn't beyond losing the occassional barfight.

Don't be around when that happened :D

Quote: There does have to be a limit, saddly. Gravity puts a limit on how high we can jump, after all. -But.- I do get the message. Realism vs. Fantasy? Find a blend, use it. Cause that's what I enjoy, and I'm sure others would as well.
that's what plateaus are for. Do you stay there or go beyond it? how rational is it to go beyond that?

Psychyn: that will be interesting to see :D. I got the idea from redneck rampage, real old shooter.
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#73
I hate to throw in my two coppers, since I'm still new... However, I'm going to do it anyways.

I have ALWAYS been a fan of judging my character's power based off of what I can accomplish in game. The only time I step beyond that is if I am STing (or, in this case it would be GMing) an event, and I have created a BIG threat. But overall, character power should always be within the realm of (most) mortals. You are better then the average soldier, and if you are clever, you can beat two in a fight. When you get to three, though, you're probably going to die, though you can try and take them with you.

Now, that being said, there was a post early on about a Doomguard that was roflstomping people. Evil needs to be strong, and sometimes the bad guys need to win... so that when the good guys find a way to defeat him/seal him away, it is all that sweeter. I am all for that one Doomguard taking on all comers (except, perhaps, a skilled Demon Hunter) one on one. That Doomguard, however, should have trouble with 3 or so PCs. My usual rule of thumb is this. PCs are worth at least two average joes, and NPC villians should be about the same jump above.

Now, on to actual combat between two people... I have two things to say here. Actual wounds with weapons should do actual damage. If you rp that someone just cut into your arm... You should have trouble holding a weapon with that arm and swinging it. That being said, if you realize you are going to die (like the Boromir example) and decide to say "Screw it, I'm taking as many of these guys down with me as I can", you can probably fight through the pain and fight "as normal" until your body gives out. But doing so all but guarantees you're going to die since you'll be causing internal injuries to yourself by forcing damaged muscles to work.

As far as why PCs can take on these giant npcs and take these blows and NOT DIE in game mechanics, the reason is twofold: HP is more a representation of how close you are to making that fatal mistake/your stamina then it is a "Oh, I can let this murloc punch me in the face for an hour and be fine". A skilled warrior who has seen the horrors of Northrend can probably block/dodge just about everything a Defias bandit could throw at him, while being hard pressed not to die if he fights an Abomination in Northrend.

And I think that just about covers it. Oh, and I believe WoW is high fantasy, i.e. fantastic stuff happens and is common. But you're ending up fighting various monster that are ALSO capable of fantastic things. So... magic is amazing, but doesn't make you invulnerable.
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#74
Quote: I hate to throw in my two coppers, since I'm still new... However, I'm going to do it anyways.

you know it's okay to have an opinion no matter how new or old you are. Never be afraid to voice what is on your mind. If you have something to say, say it without fear.

ANYWAYS! See me, I like the "if you can do it in real life then you can do it in game." Maybe you yourself can jump around like a kangaroo (volley ball players.) Maybe you can scale buildings and get from point A to point B (free running.) Maybe you can grab a sword with your foot as long as you're wearing heels (metal gear solid 4.) Maybe you can climb on someone that's your exact build and height! (That's krav mag. Seen it in a youtube video. Was crazy.) Or even if you've seen it or heard of it and can explain how it's done.

Now granted, obviously tauren can't be sneaky sneaky due to their size, they can't jump around buildings, but SOMETHING can be pulled off. If space marines in giant armor can be sneaky, it's kind of hard to tell a tauren he can't be sneaky as well. But for the purpose of fair RP and for the purposes of OP, a tauren could pull of camouflage. Anyone can pull off camouflage. Hiding in plain site is... another thing... But good luck convincing someone that tauren want to be sneaky.
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#75
(12-17-2012, 11:50 PM)alpharius Wrote: you know it's okay to have an opinion no matter how new or old you are. Never be afraid to voice what is on your mind. If you have something to say, say it without fear.

Glad to hear it, though I more meant that in a situation as... touchy as this originally was, I didn't want to offend anyone.
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