I've mucked about a tiny bit with test combats between Outsiders and Modern characters, and it seems to me that the Extra-planars need a bit of an overhawl. unless they start the fight in melee range, they often get shot up in a rather alarming fashion. This can usually be fixed by changing the Outsider's tactics, but I think the manufactured-weapon-using creatures could do with re-arming.
Bearded Devils with AK-47s anyone?
seeing as most outsiders have Damage Reduction anyway, I don't think extra DR is needed, although giving them Armour of some sort might be worth while.
And I thought outsiders had organs, coz they breath, and can eat (they don't have to eat, but they can), they're not immune to critical hits, and they have skeletons (as shown by the Tower of Skulls).
also: what gear would celestials, and Neutral-dudes (formians, slaad, etc) carry?
Most outsiders have internal organs. If they didn't, they'd have the No Discernable Anatomy trait like elementals, constructs, and oozes, and thus be immune to critical hits. Since they don't, and they're not, they do indeed have internal organs.
Not to mention that things like fiend or celestial hearts are listed as material components in the Book of Vile Darkness, and Faces of Evil's detailed description of fiendish anatomies. Even modrons have internal organs beneath their metal shells.
There are a few exceptions, of course, like the alkilith and the lantern archon.
I think Outsider DR is sufficient, given how rarely silver, cold iron, or magical bullets are used, and the fact that most of your neat damage-boosting tricks use up more ammo.
That said, I think that the more powerful the Outsider is, the more likely they are to retain their archaic weaponry. Infernal foot soldiers get AK-47s; Balors stick to vorpal longswords and flaming whip. Einheriar have the M16A2; Solars have +5 dancing greatswords.
Maybe powerful Outsiders should be immune to death by massive damage?
In Edward Davis's writeup of the new Arcadia
So even powerful outsiders will change, I guess.
Well, most solars are subject to the whims of a power, so they'd adopt the same stance on weaponry.
Alright, I'll see what I can contribute to this. I'm of the opinion that exemplars shouldn't use modern equipment. They're made of and suffused with magic, and technology is the stuff of mortals. I find the image of a balor or pit fiend slinging an assault rifle rather lame. Here are a few ideas.
1. I and my brother once planned to make a modern angels & devils style setting using Anger of Angels (from Malhavoc) and d20 Modern. Basically, in our cosmology, a handful of planes existed, nested within each other. The outermost ones were Heaven/Hell etc. and the innermost one was the world as we know it. Immortal existence on Earth was tricky, because they actually existed in a parallel plane right next to Earth from which they could interact easily, but they were barred from ever physically existing on Earth. That's not so much the point, though. The point was that physical existence was for Earth and spiritual existence was for the farther-out planes.
Things exist literally for mortals. A gun is a gun and a car is a car. They operate by chemical combustion and a vast system of moving parts. They are bound by the laws of physics. However, for the otherworldly creatures, things exist largely in metaphor. When two of them fight, their spirits try to overwhelm each other, but the physical manifestation is an actual fight with blows traded and swords wielded. That's because swords, armor, magic, fire, flight are all very powerful metaphorically. Guns and cars don't have that same kind of power on the human psyche.
In terms of Planescape, we can use the logic that, at a deep level, the human mind still thinks in terms of those timeless paradigms, symbols, and archetypes. The thoughts of mortals minds (and mortal minds only) create ripples across the planes, eventually giving rise to the planes themselves (but you already know this; the planes are the product of souls, thoughts, and feelings coalesced into supernatural places). The "language" of this, however, is so basic that it takes the form of those same eternal archetypes. Resultantly, there is an overwhelming preference for the archaic among the planeborn exemplar, whose bodies and minds are composed of the things we think and do. They shun technology on instinct, using it only when there is no better solution with magic.
2. Guns are very difficult to enchant, or even impossible. Think about how you enchant a sword: scribing runes, special otherworldly metals, infusing arcane energies, etc. A bow is similar, with really just the shaft and bowstring that affect the performance- enchant these, and you've enchanted the bow. Even the crossbow is relatively simple. With a gun, though, there's so much to enchant that bestowing magical enhancement on any one component really has no effect on the operation of the overall device. A gun with a +1 trigger isn't so fantastic. Individual mechanical parts would require individual magical enchantment and therefore it's effectively impossible to enhance a revolver to a +1.
Very awesome, but not quite what I had in mind...
In fact I have only one arguement: dude, a Bralani with a shotgun is cool
(which isn't even an argument really)
I reckon Outsiders should (maybe) have +1 to their Masive Damage threshold per 2 Hit Dice. That way you can still splatter a Lemur across the landscape with a good pistol shot, but it takes something along the lines of a BuckerBuster missile to do an Instant Kill on a Pit Fiend.
anyhow, any suggestions for Formian and Slaad gear?
also, Planar specific guns would be cool ("Bel & Asmodeus Cult 50")
I too am uncomfortable with the idea of Balors with rocket launchers and Solars with sniper rifles. Now I do like the idea of cyber-demons and modern weapon using monsters (Ala- DOOM I, II or III) but I honestly cant see a Balor who is older than most human civilization, stooping to use some puny mortal made tool. In my opinion, old outsiders should use the old weapons and new ones can use modern weapons. It makes sense to me that a newly ascended balor in the Urban planescape would have nothing in common with one who was around to tempt the first mortals to ruin. So perhaps classic outsiders could be allot more rare now (as well as allot more powerful) and modernized ones could looks so different than the old that we don't get them confused (No "Hey, why is that Pit fiend hitting that tank with a club?"). I guess this could mean we need an Urban Planescape Monstrous Compendium!
My thinking is along the lines of the more powerful the outsider the less his equiptment really matters. But I do like the idea that their are oldschool and newschool outsiders. with "civil war" of sorts inside every plane. Also a Balor wouldn't use a bazooka, more likely it would be some infernal thing patterned off a bazooka which launched small grub like creatures bred from experiments in nega bomb radiation.....
which is better than saying lawful evil Bazooka +5
Um, just a question: what about adamantine bullets?
Since they ignore things with a hardness of 20 or lower, doesnt this mean that they preet must work off touch AC?
Think about it: unless you have one helluvan armor, that bullets going to tear through you like dropping red hot ball bearings onto a block of velveta.
...
Going to have to actually do that some day.
No different than any other adamantine weapons.
Nope. Hardness != armour bonus to AC
I really like both of those points, Rhys. Well put.
Given their nature, I expect planars might abhor modern weapons as unnecessarily complex and contrived. Take those famous Rube Goldberg inventions. They're cool, but we wouldn't actually, seriously, use them when something much simpler is readily available that will do the job more efficiently. I think planars might feel the same way about modern weapons, even the powerful ones. For a planar, arcane and divine magic are far more potent (and elegant) than technology.
Enzo said:
perfect! The sentiment I have been looking for! Wonderful!
However, I think you'd still encounter Barbazu with AK-47's, seeing as they don't have much in the way of spell-loke abilities
The problem is with the d20 Modern rules for weapons.
What I find most interesting is that a 7.62mm round from an AK-47 deals 2d8 damage while a solid hit from a glaive only deals 1d8 damage. I understand that exit wound can be quite devastating, but would it really cause more damage than a blow from a polearm or a two handed sword?
And the damage dealt by improvised weapons is interesting too. Did you notice that you can deal just as much damage with an empty garbage can as an angry dwarf with a heavy pick?
If I was a meta-gaming fiend, I'd go for the AK-47 over the glaive any day of the week.
My answer (though I suspect not WotC's answer) is that damage is done based on genre, and the stopping power is chosen based on plot power.
I'd consider halving the die 'sizes' to bring firearms back into line with melee weapons, while keeping the center-weighted effect of multiple dice.
Well, that or inflate melee weapon damage. That'd help discourage fighting...
Melee fighting is balanced out in d20 Modern in two ways:
1. Strong Hero's Melee Smash talent.
2. Str bonus to damage.
3. Feats. More specifically, the Defensive Martial Arts tree and the Combat Expertise Tree. It gets to the point where if an opponent misses you in melee, you get a free attack (which can be a trip attack), a free trip attack, and a free attack following any successful trips.
The first two means a level 1 Strong Hero can do 2d6+4 damage with a greatsword, assuming Str 15. This is superior to an assualt rifle dealing 2d8, and equivalent to a battle or sniper rifle that deals 2d10.
I don't know, but it seems to me that enchanting firearms isn't necessarily all that more complicated than enchanting archaic weapons. If you're right that you'd have to enchant each mechanical part of a firearm just to make the whole enchanted, then that would mean that the amount of effort and resources depend largely on the complexity of particular weapons. And yet I don't see this in the rules (either 3.0 or 3.5). While a crossbow is certainly a relatively simple device compared to a revolver, it still has more distinct components than a wooden club. Nonetheless, giving a club a +1 enchantment costs exactly the same as giving the same amount to a crossbow (putting aside the cost for the weapons themselves). And no matter what kind of DnD weapon you try to enchant, the rules for calculating XP and gold costs apply universally.
The way I see it, all the inscribing and infusing during the enchanting process that you're talking about goes into the weapon in its integrated whole rather than into its components individually. That would mean that a +1 revolver, for example, functions as a +1 revolver only so long as it remains assembled, and it loses its enchantments whenever it's taken apart for maintenance, storage, or whatever. It's kind of like how we view the enchantment of a suit of full plate in its entirety rather than its individual pieces.
Well put, but i guess this all comes down to how we are going to mix tech and magic. The way we limit their interaction will limit what planars use what. if they cancel out each other, guns and tech won't be common at all, if they can mix a little, the more powerful creatures will prefer magic, if they mix without question, then they will use what works best...
There's been talk of balancing out magic and technology by power and complexity, respectively. This'd mean that:
The good thing about the "Plot" loophole for enchanted tech is that it still allows for really cool toys that don't necessarily cause balance issues. Personally, I like the idea of having an enchanted laptop with infinite hard drive capacity and 100% virus and worm resistance. 
OTOH, I don't like the idea of a gunslinger having to trade in his twin Desert Eagles for an enchanted mace just because a balor's on his tail. Prohibiting tech enchantment completely might unduly burden the modern aspects of the setting to the point where they become just window dressing.
I've always thought "Plot" can be a loophole for anything that does really cool things for the story, even if they're completely useless to the PCs.
Computers are an interesting case, though. Enchant the whole machine, or the components and the peripherals?
Well Persephone, I don't see a problem with either options. The way I view it, a mundane item becomes enchanted because it is what the wizard wanted to enchant. Put another way, the process of enchanting items implies that enchanting wizard first decided on what is the thing in its entirety to be enchanted and then proceeded from there.
So if a wizard tries to enchant, say, a crossbow, then it is the crossbow in its entirety that becomes enchanted. Conceivably, the wizard can enchant the components of the crossbow individually, but that doesn't happen because a) it's a waste of effort and b) the compontents aren't very useful on their own.
OTOH, I suppose a hard drive could be enchanted with infinite capacity and virus protection and retain those enchantments no matter where you install it. And wizards would be willing to do that because unlike the individual components of a crossbow, a hard drive is useful on its own.
well for balancing magic and tech, what if the "tech level" (or even PL from D20 future) could determine max enchantment bonus's Dnd standard tech is PL 3, what if for every PL up you go, the max weapon/armour enchant goes down by one, and the max ability enchant goes down by 2
so you can have a glock +3 but not a +4, you could have a +4 musket though...
also PL 6 and higher items if used would be a) the plot items, or b) there function is both magic and tech based aka the result of intense fusion of force based spells and firearms tech results in the concussion rifle (PL 7 gun that causes knockback - like effect) in game terms it's a magic item that needs a +3 masterwork (D20 rules allow multiple levels of masterwork) assualt rifle combined with the spells, bigby's forceful hand, magic missile, and some creation spell.
just an idea, I will explain if I wasn't clear (as I fear I might be)
I don't know if magic and tech need to be balanced as to each other, since they operate on different levels and can complement rather than compete against each other. For example, a Kalashnikov rifle is a great killing machine that's superior to the longsword because it does more damage at a distance than a longsword does close-up. Nonetheless, it's not going to be much more useful to you than a normal longsword when facing a pit fiend unless it's holy and loaded with silver bullets. Whether you're a medieval adventurer or a modern hero, you're still going to need that extra magic "oomph" to survive the Planes.
Besides, having a fireball spell in your head will almost always be better than having a LAW in your hand. So in some respects, magic is still superior and probably doesn't need any balancing help.
The way I see it, all the inscribing and infusing during the enchanting process that you're talking about goes into the weapon in its integrated whole rather than into its components individually. That would mean that a +1 revolver, for example, functions as a +1 revolver only so long as it remains assembled, and it loses its enchantments whenever it's taken apart for maintenance, storage, or whatever. It's kind of like how we view the enchantment of a suit of full plate in its entirety rather than its individual pieces.
Some DMs (including me) might feel kind of squeamish about giving modern or futuristic firearms the power to kill some of the game's most potent baddies. Even if you turn around and give those same weapons to the fiends, it still has the effect of leveling the playing field. Killing a pit fiend is supposed to be TOUGH!
So for those DMs looking for an excuse not to allow magic or good-aligned firearms, Krypter's explanation could be used. Alternately, a DM could just say that gunpowder is a strange substance that is magically inert and so weapons that use it cannot be enchanted or aligned.
For those DMs willing to allow magical firearms, I say go for it. It's your campaign. In my campaigns, fiends will always look at firearms as if they're molded out of feces. And if some puny human tries to pick off a gelugon with a rifle, all he's gonna do if piss the fiend off.
I agree, I think one could go either way with firearms, though realistically I think Rhys has the right idea and guns logically should be sodding hard to enchant. That said, we're talking about a setting where people walk around on solid belief and knock on the Powers' doors for dinner parties... I don't think logic needs to be a straight-jacket.
The idea that Rhys pust forth about the planeborn working on belief and metaphor is an excellent one that I'd really love to see worked into the setting somehow. However, I liked this thought:
Some DMs (including me) might feel kind of squeamish about giving modern or futuristic firearms the power to kill some of the game's most potent baddies. Even if you turn around and give those same weapons to the fiends, it still has the effect of leveling the playing field. Killing a pit fiend is supposed to be TOUGH!
I think most rather than just some DMs would feel uncomfortable about giving players goodies that can seriously tilt the odds in their favor, unless of course his players somehow earned them. But I don't think that enchanted tech should necessarily be easy to earn, let alone easy to come by. In fact, the occurences of such things should probably be rare in the extreme, and much more so than their archaic counterparts.
There are places in the multiverse where magical daggers are so common that even common merchants can have a few in stock. Aber-Toril comes to mind, for example. But to a large degree it makes sense, since daggers and magic have co-existed in such places thousands of years, and so the numbers of enchanted daggers pile up.
At the same time, modern firearms have only existed for a century or so, with the more modern ones like automatic rifles being around for only a little more than a half century. Add to the fact that this form of technology developed in isolation from the rest of the high-magic multiverse (and only coexisting with a said multiverse for a mere decade), and it's conceivable that even a lowly +1 Kalashnikov could be as rare as a +5 silver flaming dagger of speed!
But even if a lucky planewalker does happen across that enchanted firearm capable of killing whatever BBEG that he's hunting at the moment, so what? If anything, the proliferation of firearms throughout the Planes, even non-enchanted types, would more likely make it harder for that planewalker to "hack-n-slash" his way to victory given the increased lethality of weapons technology. A modernized Pit Fiend with a pair of glock pistols scaled to his size could pick off enemies one by one even before they score their first hits on him. And that's assuming that his enemies somehow got past his contingent of LAW-wielding modernized Abishai to get close enough for a clear shot in the first place. And remember that none of the fiends' hardware even need enchantment to put the serious hurt on PCs.
So enchanted firearms might "level the playing field" to some degree, but probably only in the sense that they compensate for an unbalance likely caused by modernizing the Planes.
Pretty much, though component enchantments probably shouldn't extend to the rest of the machine.
PL is a good abstraction for laying out your setting, but not so much for playing in it. Since it's chronologically based, it's like saying that a particle accelerator is about as complex as my PC, which is a bit unworkable mechanically. The complexity of an item is affected by other factors, too - size is a good example of this, since miniaturising technology tends to make it rather a bit more sensitive and complex.
Except fireballs don't exert any pressure. They can heat stuff up, but they can't blast holes in things.
An appropriate solution (or, at least, one I'd consider using in my games) would be to have 'traditional' exemplars take reduced damage from modern weapons, perhaps depending on age and/or power. It's a fairly elegant way of making sure that firearms kill mortals as well as they're supposed to, but don't carve through milennia-old fiends in seconds.
The implications of this are truly scary, though. Modern and traditional fiends in the Blood War would be rather frightening, to watch an entire brigade of sword-slinging fiends trotting out of a nuclear crater unscathed.
I remember back in high school when we played the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. We all came out of that with plasteel this and power armour that and the campaign took a real nosedive. We all agreed after that, Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch aside, advanced technology didn't belong in D&D. 'Course we took up Gamma World shortly after... Not sure what that means...
That's definitely going too far, since advanced technology in an archaic setting shatters mimesis and verisimilitude into tiny, tiny bits. It's hard to build a good story around "Goblins with shortswords? I shoot them with my laser!"
That actually is somewhat supported by the RAW for d20 Modern, as the FX Items table for Magic Weapons and Magic Armor only goes up to +3 enchantment. Of course, no-one gets magic armour, because you can get a better AC for cheaper by just going Mastercraft.
At the same time, modern firearms have only existed for a century or so, with the more modern ones like automatic rifles being around for only a little more than a half century. Add to the fact that this form of technology developed in isolation from the rest of the high-magic multiverse (and only coexisting with a said multiverse for a mere decade), and it's conceivable that even a lowly +1 Kalashnikov could be as rare as a +5 silver flaming dagger of speed!
Not quite. However, enchanted archaic weapons are much cheaper than the equivalent gun. A +2 dagger (Purchase DC 19) costs less as a normal PSG-1 sniper rifle (DC 21). A +3 Flaming Frost Shock Dagger (DC 34)costs less than a +2 PSG-1 (DC 36), and more than the downpayment on a mansion (DC 33), or the outright purchase of many luxury cars (DC low-mid 30's). A wealthy (Wealth bonus >14) character can buy as many +1 Daggers (DC 14) as he wants, for no loss of wealth. The same goes for some +1 Bullets, depending on calibur.
I think it's right to say that advanced technology and DnD don't mix well. But to me, the very premise of Urban Planscape seems to imply a Planescape setting moved from DnD and into d20 Modern. Of course, I suppose people could incorporate lasers and short sword-wielding goblins into a singly setting to make a kind of d20 Future-Planescape mix, but that's a bit wierd even for my tastes.
I've always seen it more as elements of both, mixed together and shaken well.
(I think there's a chance some of you might've missed my long-ish post at the bottom of the last page)
Except fireballs don't exert any pressure. They can heat stuff up, but they can't blast holes in things.
I remember reading somewhere that if a fireball in 3.0/3.5 does more damage to a barrier (whether it's a door or a wall) than it can absorb, then the barrier would take that damage and be destroyed while the rest of the fireball damage would go through. I'll see if I can find it and post it here.
The "TR" idea would probably resolve balance problems. But it leaves open the question of why nextgen fiends would move up the tech ladder in the first place if the fiend races could do just as well by staying "old school". Innovation needs a raison d'etre.
Except fireballs don't exert any pressure. They can heat stuff up, but they can't blast holes in things.
I remember reading somewhere that if a fireball in 3.0/3.5 does more damage to a barrier (whether it's a door or a wall) than it can absorb, then the barrier would take that damage and be destroyed while the rest of the fireball damage would go through. I'll see if I can find it and post it here.
Both of those statements are true. You have to consider that a Fireball blast is hotter than thermite if the caster is higher than level 6. So a Fireball doesn't blast barriers open, it incinderates and melts them open.
If the fireball can burn through something, then it does (instantly, no less). If it can't, then it'll conform exactly to the containing space without affecting it, and fill a space equal to 4/3*(pi*20^3) cubic feet (approx. 33, 000, or 33 10-foot cubes).
Belief has moved on. The old school has passed the new fiends by, and they have to carve out their own place as best they can - and they decide that their best is by embracing the multiverse's new power and bending it to their will. The older, lower-ranked fiends feel the pull both ways - their very nature means that they depend partly on the new belief, and are more in touch with the new ways. The older, iconic fiends are hobbled by their legendary natures; systems of belief that tie them firmly to what they are but insulate them somewhat from what they're not.
Interesting idea, but then it would appear that the old fiends would have a problem maintaining their power. IIRC, one way fiends fuel their power is through corrupting mortal souls. If the older fiends are insulated from the new realities of the multiverse, then it would seem to me that they'd lose access to souls that are the product of these new realities. And since it's the new mortals that replenish their numbers while the old ones die out, the old school fiends would be more likely to stagnate while their nextgen counterparts increase in numbers and in power. The superior position of the older fiends, under this theory, becomes unsustainable in the long run.
I think I'm missing something here, lol.
I reject your reality and substitute my own. 
Corrupting souls won't be any harder or easier for either group - it's just that they end up going about their business in different ways. The souls themselves haven't really changed - it's just the forms that those souls believe that exemplars can take.
ok, much as this is interesting, we're wandering slightly off-topic. SO I'll bring us back again....
I dunno how you lot are going to handle all this in your games, but this is how I'm going to handle it in my science fiction semi-planescape game...
Outsiders have no more protection from guns than they do against swords and bows. However, many fiends are innately more resistant to the most standard weapon than most mortals...
in my campaign, the most wide-spread weapon is a Pulse Rifle which deals 3d8 damage, half fire, half ballistic. the average damage for the weapon is 13.5, rounded down to 13. Now, see what happens when you fire it at a lemure....
the weapon deals 6 fire damage, which is totally ignored (due to lemures being immune to fire), and 7 ballistic damage, which is reduced by 5 due to the lemure's DR. Total damage = 2. thus it'd take 5 shots for the weapon to kill a lemure.
Against a Barbazu is still does an average of 2 damage per shot, and so it takes a lot of shots to down one (By the way, Barbarzu in my game still use glaives, because they have the Infernal Wound power, and they don't have any trouble getting into melee due to being able to Greater Teleport at will)
as you can see, a shotgun is much better for fiend-hunting. With an average of 11 damage, down to 6 with DR, a shotgun is a lot more deadly. But a Barbarzu can still get into melee in one round...
Also, due to the cost of making a weapon +1 Holy (i.e. +9 to Purchase DC), weapons that can ignore a fiend's DR are rare indeed.
oh, and if you're still worried about fiends not lasting long against modern weapons, give them some armour
Pretty much exactly. I'd imagine tech resistance being effective above a certain level of complexity for each traditional exemplar. The oldest of the old may be protected from even particularly basic technology, while a fiend a few centuries old might be compatible with muskets but resistant to AKs and Google.
apart from game balance, why should fiends be more resistant to bullets?
What is a bullet? a lump of metal traveling a high speed.
What is a arrow? a lump of metal traveling at high speed.
why does the reduction of speed and the stick on the back make the arrow more deadly?
Fiends have been in existance for all eternity, and will be untill the end of time. What is 2000 years if you're immortal? Technology is a stream, there's no specific point where you can say "ah, they're using modern technology". Fiends are resistant to mortal weapons, as represented by their DR. The more deadly a weapon is, the more effect it'll have on a fiend. If mortals suddenly start using more deadly weapons, the fiends won't suddenly become more tough. A gun is creation of mortal minds, so is a sword. Why be more resistant to one than the other?
I haven't been following the entire thread, but I'll jump in here. There are interesting yet conflicting philosophies going on here.
Obviously you have to be careful how the concept is relayed as far as mechanics goes. "Does that mean I can disbelieve a fiend?" No, but your force of character (alignment) can overcome its resistance in some cases, or you might get to do more damage (i.e., smite evil).
Sorry if this has been covered, but how is TR and DR different when it comes to alignment? If I can have a creature that resists something based on the alignment of the wielder, why can't I have it be resistant based on the tech level of an item, or even the wielder?
That last part could be fun. Would a gun in the hands of a person from Faerun do different damage (vs TL) than the same gun in the hands of a "modern"? I guess even non-good creatures can wield holy swords, huh? Still, it makes you (or maybe just me) think.
I'd imagine not, since primes are made out of Stuff™ rather than ideas. That said, they probably wouldn't have a clue about how to use it.
Well said. Adding to this, you're free to take potshots at earth elementals with antitank rockets - after all, the inner planes are the very essence of Stuff™.
As it stands, I think it'll end up with technology not being divided up in broad, weeping terms like 'Archaic' and 'Modern', or by PL (for reasons stated earlier). As such, it'll probably end up being based on the complexity of the item - which will also be a limiting factor for enchantments.
There isn't a point where you can say "Oh, that's modern." There is, however, a fairly clear way of telling what's more complex. An L85A2 is more complex than a musket, RDX is a more complicated explosive than anfo, and a shiny new computer is more complex than a 386.
Another thought occurs to me: Old-school exemplars might even be able to use their TR to hack through things like lexan and kevlar more easily.
Exemplar and technology ("modern" technology being what we've got now) are different for the following reason: the Outer Planes and the creatures that are formed from their essence (exemplar) come from mortal thoughts. They are defined by the mental schemata of mortals. Fiends are as terrifying as they are because they form, in part, from the terror of mortals. But beings made of ideology won't necessarily adapt to match more modern technology. Think about the real world and real-world religions. Do people believe that Lucifer keeps tabs on his temptation victims using a series of computer server databases? How fast is Saint Peter's internet connection? Do the Seraphim patrol Creation with Glocks? They (and their analogs in Planescape) will always, in people's minds, rely on "archaic" (i.e. midieval at best) equipment, even if they understand what modernized technology looks like. Even if Primes carry around AK-47s and drive Porsches, the ideological significance of a knight in armor or a fiery longsword or a bolt of lightning will always be greater than an engine with a lot of CCs. Therefore, exemplar will always remain firmly rooted in archaic standards.
That being said, I can imagine Asmodeus' frustration when he can't resolve the browser incompatability on his big, fancy, unholy vorpal PC of spell storing +3 and has to call in some nerdy Spinagon to upgrade his patches. "Damn it, why do they design these things so that only teenagers know how they work?"
*Snrk* hehe *snort* BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Thats perfect.
Personally, I see exemplars as using modern technology, just a very, very, very sylized version of it. The AK-47 of a Hamitula devil is very remniscient in shape to the glaves they used to wield, with sharp, razor point-slashy bits at appropriate parts. It would look something like a Brute Shot from Halo 2. An Arcanoloth's PDA would have the case constructed of bone and would utilize CD made of the flayed skin of petitioners. CD burning would generate a fairly nasty smell.
I'd say, the more powerful the outsider, the more stylized their equipment. A Solar might still use a bow, but its definately going to be a compound bow with all the accessories (and trust me, one of my friends is into archery. There are a lot of accesories), and the arrows are going to be carbon helicals.
Another thing t consider is the Law vs. Chaos angle. I see no problem with any modron (the analog side versions, not the digital) working with advanced tech, nor with any of the other lawfuls cashing in on the benefits of science. Slaadi on the other hand... Sometimes they would, sometimes they wouldn't. The image of a red slaad going Neo with a pair of SMGs... *Glee*
So, to wrap up a slightly rambling statement: Exemplars would use tech appropraite to them, and the tech used would be stylized to fit.
I'm with deadone all the way, but I still dislike the idea of TR.
And why is enchanting something complex more difficult? polymorphing a human isn't any hrder than polymorphing a sea cucumber.
I don't mind making fiends (and others) more resistant to bullets et al. I just don't like the reasoning behind what you're suggesting.
Mephit James wrote:
Interloper wrote:
Technology is a stream, there's no specific point where you can say "ah, they're using modern technology".
Admittedly, this is where the argument becomes thin. When it comes down to it, TR is a preventative mechanic and not a descriptive one. I'm just offering this as a solution to the "weak fiend" syndrome and asking: What do people think?
why is it harder to adamantly pull a trigger? it depends on your mental outlook, surely?
Now heres a hypothetical situation:
What if the character was born in a world were guns had been part of achient history? Such as a hi-tech world that had fallen from civilised grace, but still had the ability to make AK-47 etc. The legends the PC heard as a child were full of glock-weilding knights slaying bionically-upgraded dragons and demonic machines. How would your explination of TR fit into this setting?
on a different tangent, here are a few ideas to make fiends slightly tougher...
give them a Defence bonus to AC and/or give them armour
neither of those ideas are perfect, because they make it harder to kill fiends using swords and bows.
As I recall, it was decided that balors should be waltzing around with either vorpal chainsaws, or miniguns.
Mariliths, definitely one-handed SMGs(just think of the RPM).
Lemures, meet bomb collars(remotely detonated by smarter fiends).
Also, possibly give them a damage reduction against ballistic damage? After all, the most lethal(as I recall) effect of a firearm is the shockwave damage to your organs. Outsiders don't have organs('cept for the aasimon, but they're of the instrumental variety.).