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Originally posted by Penknight

There is something else besides Sarya and the Radiant Heart that I would like to ask you about. I know that many people on other boards (as well as my own gaming group) have asked this many times: Are there any plans on a revision (again) of the bladesinger PrC, or are the versions from Races of Faerun and Complete Warrior the only versions that we will have to choose from? Thank you for your time yet again, Mr. Baker. I truly do appreciate it.

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Originally posted by Wandering_mage

Hey Rich, great job on the Dummies Guide to DM'ing. It has truly increased the enjoyment of my gaming sessions. I would suggest every DM get this book for the great advice in this book.

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Originally posted by Besshalar

Greetings Mr. Baker First let me tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed The Last Mythal trilogy (although I did feel that the last book seemed a bit rushed ). Now on to business The Nightlords of Moil I would be very grateful for any and all lore you might be able to give me . I know about their (or was it just the pocketplane of Moil?) first (and last?) appearance in the return to the tomb of horrors but would love to get as much up on them as possible even though I fear that i will receive a NDA reply to my query.

Edit: The reason I'm asking you is because there was a feat referring to them in a book which only has your name on the cover and I don't have a way of contacting Gygax who I believe was originally responsible for these guys..

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Originally posted by Penknight

Fey'ri gaming question... in 2nd Edition there was a fey'ri bladesinger that had scales that covered his body from the neck down that looked like an incredibly fine mesh chainmail armor that gave him a base AC of 0. Is there a web update or anything that you could recommend as a game designer that would help to show this in 3.5? The fey'ri that I am making reference to is (my personal favorite fey'ri) Lord-Consort Myrlaer Eaoleth from Cloak & Dagger (page 94). Another reason that I am asking is the tanarukk gain a natural armor of +4 along with several other benefits, yet their LA is just a +3, much like a fey'ri if you chose enervation or dimension door as one of your abilities.

Thank you again for your time, Mr. Baker. I realize that you must be a busy person, and I just wanted to assure you that I greatly appreciate your taking time to answer my questions.

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Originally posted by RichardBaker

Well, it seems reasonable to me that you could add "+2 natural armor" to that laundry list of optional fey'ri abilities... maybe even +3 or +4, but in that case, it would certainly get the asterisk as an ability you can only have one of. I sure wouldn't go with "+10 natural armor" as the 2E character suggests, that's waaaaay too good for the level adjustment.

The fey'ri at +3 is probably suffering a bit. We've learned that level adjustment is not very good "game tech" and often leads to characters that just can't be played as PCs (or that compare badly against other critters of similar LA). If you're talking about a NPC, well, it's not important. But if you want to play this guy as a PC, then I think I wouldn't give away more than a couple of points of natural armor. (And how do you balance it against DR 10, anyway? How much natural armor is worth -10 damage per hit?)

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Originally posted by RichardBaker

The fey'ri at +3 is probably suffering a bit. We've learned that level adjustment is not very good "game tech" and often leads to characters that just can't be played as PCs (or that compare badly against other critters of similar LA). If you're talking about a NPC, well, it's not important. But if you want to play this guy as a PC, then I think I wouldn't give away more than a couple of points of natural armor. (And how do you balance it against DR 10, anyway? How much natural armor is worth -10 damage per hit?)

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Originally posted by KnightErrantJR

Rich, I know that this question came up on WOTC's site, so I thought I would throw this out there, but according to Sage Advice in Dragon Magazine #352, Aasimaar, Tiefling, and Genasi do get proficiency in martial weapons according to their "outsider" type.

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Originally posted by Purple Dragon Knight

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Originally posted by RichardBaker

The fey'ri at +3 is probably suffering a bit. We've learned that level adjustment is not very good "game tech" and often leads to characters that just can't be played as PCs (or that compare badly against other critters of similar LA). If you're talking about a NPC, well, it's not important. But if you want to play this guy as a PC, then I think I wouldn't give away more than a couple of points of natural armor. (And how do you balance it against DR 10, anyway? How much natural armor is worth -10 damage per hit?)

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Hi Rich, thanks for your input here.

The more I compare LA +X races to regular races in terms of playability, the more I agree with you. I have 'subconsciously' moved away from LA races when I am lucky enough to find the time to be a player on someone else's campaign (I can't stand the class level loss, especially if I play a spellcaster).

I've been thinkering with a few housespun fixes for LA +X races:

1. if you keep the LA system as is, treat the Level Adjustment as Hit Dice for feats or PrCs that say, lets you improve caster level by a certain amount 'up to your HD' (i.e. practiced spellcaster feat would now become very useful to drow and feyri; Abjurant Champion PrC makes your caster level equal to your BAB... just treat each LA pluses as a 'virtual' BAB+1...)

2. instead of a LA, the player can opt for an XP penalty (i.e. LA+1 = 10% XP penaly; +2 = 20%; +3 = 30%). This gives a good fighting chance to a low level party, and when the LA+3 guy trails two or three levels behind, the XP calculation method takes care of 'bringing that guy back into the fold' by dishing more XP to him compared to the rest of the party (i.e. if you're using the correct way to calculate XP, which calculate the total XP for ALL critters encountered for EACH PC's level - if they vary - then divide by the number of PCs)

3. develop a feat called 'Buy Back LA' with Special: this feat can be taken more than once; each time you take it your Level Adjustment is reduced by 1.

Option 3 is most likely the most balanced of all options I've come up with, as a feat is probably equivalent to an ability granting you a LA +1.

Thoughts?

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Originally posted by KnightErrantJR

Rich, I know that this question came up on WOTC's site, so I thought I would throw this out there, but according to Sage Advice in Dragon Magazine #352, Aasimaar, Tiefling, and Genasi do get proficiency in martial weapons according to their "outsider" type.

With that out of the way, I have a more subjective question to ask, about one of your characters. It has to do with how Araevin would react to another Realms character. How would Araevin react to Galaeron Nimhedu arriving in Myth Drannor offering to help rebuild the city and the mythal? I don't know that he would, but given that Galaeron helped repair Evereska's Mythal, I just wondered what would happen and how Araevin would react to him.

Thanks Rich.

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Originally posted by koz

Greetings Mr. Baker
I read City of Ravens several years ago and was blown away. I loved the character of Jack Ravenswild. The story and plot were outstanding. To this day this novel remains my favorite Forgotten Realms novel and one of my favorite novels in general. I recommend it to everyone who loves a good character driven story. Congratulations on your continued success.

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Originally posted by RichardBaker

Oh, I know what the type description in the Monster Manual says. But I don't think it's the *right* answer. Aasimar, etc., type-based martial weapon proficiency is an unintended consequence of the rule. I know that when we wrote those type descriptions we weren't looking to give aasimar clerics longswords. We were looking to give hezrous and planetars battle axes, if the DM wanted to kit up a unique baddy for his game.

So why did the Sage make that call, when it wasn't what we intended? In general, we don't admit minor stuff like this is wrong and designate it as errata. After all, your aasimar cleric could have easily spent a feat or picked the right domain or multiclassed to get his longsword proficiency, and all it does is add about 0.22 points of damage per round to his melee attacks. So, rather than go to the trouble of calling the type description wrong, the Sage chose not to suggest unnecessary errata.

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Originally posted by Archwizard

Hello Mr. Baker,

I grew curious about the amount of communications between the design staffs of the different settings of D&D (Core, FR, and Eberron) in regards to book formats and cross setting content. For example, if the regional adventure format of Mysteries of the Moonsea performed well in sales, would the Eberron staff consider using that format? If a sub-system like Psionics does well in the core, is there pressure to include it in FR or Eberron books? Or is this mostly up to the setting designers themselves on whether they want to adopt certain formats or content?

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Originally posted by RichardBaker

Well, we pretty much are a single pool of designers these days -- no one is specifically dedicated to FR, or Eberron, or Core D&D. We try to take lessons from all of our lines and spread 'em around. For example, the new FR adventures coming out this year make use of the adventure format of "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft."

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Originally posted by RichardBaker

Well, we pretty much are a single pool of designers these days -- no one is specifically dedicated to FR, or Eberron, or Core D&D. We try to take lessons from all of our lines and spread 'em around. For example, the new FR adventures coming out this year make use of the adventure format of "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft."

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Originally posted by RichardBaker

I created the Pale Sybil for the story; she isn't mentioned anywhere else. However, a couple of the key components behind the Sybil appear in the FR sourcebook "Underdark," which I worked on extensively. For example, the abyss known as Lorosfyr is a place I created for that book. Bruce Cordell invented the Deep Imaskari, and I riffed on that by positing that a Deep Imaskari "sister city" might have been the cause of the mysterious ruins and terrible stairs found in the abyss.

When working on that part of Final Gate, I decided to put on my "A. Merritt" hat. Merritt wrote a number of stories about people going into fantastic hidden lands and worlds and confronting horrendous, inhuman evil; for example, "The Moon Pool," "The Metal Monster," "Dwellers in the Mirage," or "The People of the Pit." I like to pay homage to the Golden Age masters when I can. Lorosfyr and the Pale Sybil didn't fall far from the tree.

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Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen

Well met, Goodsir! I recently made a ruling in my campaign that wizards who use the Shadow Weave cannot learn spells from the spellbooks of Weave users, and vice versa. The question particularly concerned someone who started as a Weave user and then turned to the Shadow Weave.

Ed having declared you the ultimate authority on Shadow Weavery, Mr. Baker, I ask your opinion: can Weave and Shadow Weave users learn spells from the other's spellbooks? I know it's my campaign and all that, but I have promised my players that I will always seek out the opinions of the authors and designers when I have a doubt about something. Your answer, therefore, will be taken strongly into consideration.

I thank you for all of your wonderful contributtions to the game, and to the Realms in particular.

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