Cure of Amii help

Discussion in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' started by younes, May 28, 2007.

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  1. Thurstrum

    Thurstrum Member

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    :shrug:

    I think it's much more interesting to explore the consequences of living in a world of gods and magic, where people can be resurrected and healed at will, than to just kind of lazily (a bit harsh I know) ignore them for plot convenience. If the village has an experienced druid and a cleric capable of curing disease and making scrolls of heal then the village should be healthy for the most part. This also applies to the healing Bing quest. Why won't Terjon help Bing when he has scrolls and potions of heal just sitting there for anyone to take? Is taking the scrolls supposed to be illegal? If it is then why is there no penalty for paladins who take them? If not then there is no reason for Terjon not to have used them, especially if he's interested in converting the leatherworker family.
     
  2. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Fair points, although I think the potion and scroll of Heal were kind of shoehorned in there to allow you to address the Bing thing specifically. Heal would not normally be able to be cast by level 10 characters. I don't know if Terjon and Jaroo, according to the module, would have been of sufficient level to cast/scribe/brew heal spells either.

    Hommlet and much of the game overall are extremely rough around the edges, as evidenced by your examples of scrolls lying around waiting to be stolen without repercussions, class-related and otherwise. Etc. While it would be nice to have all that stuff made more refined, Co8 has generally taken a hands-off approach to it. One player's boon is another player's bane, basically.
     
  3. Thurstrum

    Thurstrum Member

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    How hard would it be to add a diplomacy check to Terjon to gain permission to take the scrolls as part of the help Bing quest and a fallen-paladin check to the bookcase should you take them without permission?

    Just have Terjon say he had hoped to resolve the issue without using the scrolls since they are expensive and the church has a limited supply since they can't produce them themselves. He's LN (?) so this isn't particularly out of character but at the same time it would be reasonable to convince him to allow their use since the church would gain more followers and helping Bing would improve the churches standing in the community.
     
  4. GuardianAngel82

    GuardianAngel82 Senior Member

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    They would be used for healing, as was intended. It is wrong to decide which of the righteous does get healed and and who doesn't.
     
  5. wizgeorge

    wizgeorge Prophet of Wizardy

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    Most of the people in Hommlet are relatively poor. A 1000GP for raise dead or heal is out of bounds for most people. The bookcase scrolls are there to advance the quests and help the party survive. The moathouse would be tougher except you can rest in the spider tower. The scrolls have probably saved a lot of characters over time. Low AC characters take a lot of damage and a party needs all the healing they can get. Hence all the potions from the bugbears.
     
  6. Ausdoerrt

    Ausdoerrt Veteran Member

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    Interestingly, I usually end the game without using any of the church scrolls, and with somewhere around 30-40 potions of light healing if I even bother to pick them up ;)

    Although I agree, that was probably the intention. Still, it's not like you can't go back to the Hommlett inn and "rest until healed". Potions are only really necessary in battle if you run out of healing spells, and it's still not the priority since the AoO damage your fighter would get would be probably greater than what he manages to heal.
     
  7. GuardianAngel82

    GuardianAngel82 Senior Member

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    I use the light heals to have my non-healers stop someone from bleeding to death. The problem is when the character is accidently brought back to consciousness. When their next turn comes, they WILL die for certain.
     
  8. maalri

    maalri Immortal

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    Cure minor would work best for this- only 1hp restored, but stabilizes the injured.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2009
  9. GuardianAngel82

    GuardianAngel82 Senior Member

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    Cure minor does work better.

    I would use a non-healer because they were available, in a good position or the person who was down was going to bleed to death in the next round.
     
  10. maalri

    maalri Immortal

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    I would also like to vote my approval of this challenging Quest line.

    It challenges you with a timeline, for one. It requires a random event, so you can't "Avoid" Encounters simply because you have a high Survival or Listen or Spot score combo. And you DO get to be the Hero on your merits and not an all inclusive spell, regardless of how powerful it is. Sort of like having to Fight the Balor to the end, even thought we wish there was one all inclusive spell that could just wipe him. I mean Disentegrate COULD do it, if it could get through his insanely high SR, and he failed his save, but what are the odds...

    Here is ONE possible answer as to why a Heal spell could not cure little Amii's ailment:

    All Gods have thier specific Areas of Concern, over which they have complete dominion, right? Well, perhaps Vecna (I think Vecna is the god of Disease on Greyhawk) decided there would be at least ONE (non-magical) disease that all the other Gods just couldn't go "Poof" your cured- you don't have to worry aobut Ol' Vecna now, just donate to Us.

    Vecna certainly would be in His right to impose such a restriction on a disease or two, then make it semi-prevalnt to remind the general populace that He is a force to be reckoned with.
     
  11. Thurstrum

    Thurstrum Member

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    I understand the gameplay reasons for having the scrolls and potions there, but I would just prefer if they were also coherent for the game world.

    I remember my first attempt at a play through years ago and I had a paladin in my party. I could never get anywhere in the Bing quest because it never even crossed my mind that I was supposed to just take thousands of gold coins worth of scrolls from the temple. It just doesn't make any sense that the temple wouldn't have used them themself and that they are ok with you just taking them.
     
  12. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Bear in mind that Terjon's supposed to be kind of an a-hole, so he wouldn't likely allow you to use the potion/scroll out of some sense of charity. He'd be more likely to say something like "Yes, I agree that Bing should be healed, and you can help to do this by donating 1000 gp to the temple for use of the necessary potion. Otherwise, sorry, but [insert excuse here]."

    Also, is it clear that the party is really stealing those items? It seems like it to me, but it's not like there's a sign on the bookshelf saying Top secret valuable magic items here - do not touch! It would be kind of crappy, coming from the perspective of a first-time player, to discover the stuff there, have a look to see what it was, and then get smacked with the fallen Paladin hammer. Although there's a difference between looking and taking. But do you really know it's hands-off? The fact that no one objects (as obviously dodgy in implementation that fact is) could be construed as tacit permission. :shrug:
     
  13. Necroticpus

    Necroticpus Cthulhu Ftaghn!

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    Well, consider the huge and opulent cathedral St. Cuthbert of the diamond studded and platinum encrusted Cudgel owns. They don't look like they are hurting, cashflow-wise. I believe you can draw a parallel between Grayhawk and our world in this case. St. Cuthbert is a biggie in Grayhawk much like "God" is here. Terjon is the equivalent of Billy Grahm Sr. They have squillions of worshippers everywhere that donate what they can, sometimes more, and it all gets funnelled to one place, Terjon (Billy Grahm). They accept jewelry, cash, silver/gold fillings and caps and credit cards.

    Hell, he even condescends to give you a break on your healing by only charging you like what, 1800 gold or something, for raising someone who helped him, back from the dead? He don't care about anyone but St. Cuthbert, who apparently needs all these material things because he's a loving God.

    My conscience is clear by taking whatever petty scrolls and potions they have lying around. It's the least they can do. They should consider themselves lucky I don't help myself to the silver candelabras also.

    *edit*
    Actually, after thinking about it, the St. Cuthbert church probably has an obscene building in Grayhawk, the capital, along with a 20-something level high cleric who speaks for Cuthbert. Terjon is just a small fry, skimming his 10% off the top before sending the lion's share onto Grayhawk.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2009
  14. GuardianAngel82

    GuardianAngel82 Senior Member

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    Perhaps we were meant to role-play it. Is there anything in the module about this?
     
  15. wizgeorge

    wizgeorge Prophet of Wizardy

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    The scrolls and other things are in the pnp module, but I discovered them by accident in ToEE. Terjon was a 6th level cleric in pnp but has been massively upgraded in ToEE so he can do heal and raise dead. The whole Terjon, church thing is bogus as hell anyway. A small, remote village like Hommlet wouldn't have a church like that in the first place. Raise dead shouldn't be in the game. Heal is out of place and Bing is a simpleton with no name. The Troika version is dramatically different from the pnp module. What you see is what you get. Try the vanilla original with atari patch 2 and recruit Elmo and see what you get.
     
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