Quote from: talysman;908948...
It had to come from Tolkien, although I can't think of a specific quote where he said "dwarves are anti-magical in nature". But he generally portrayed dwarves as very practical-minded and materialistic. There's some of that in C. S. Lewis's Narnia books, too. In contrast, the elves are naturally magical.

35 years ago or so, I started reading a fantasy series called The Circle of Light. It was very much a LotR knock-off. I was a little annoyed because the dwarf in the series used magic, when I "knew" dwarves couldn't use magic. I had to have gotten that idea from Tolkien, because although I had started playing D&D, I hadn't seen a rulebook yet, just lots of mimeographed reference sheets, and there was nothing about dwarves being anti-magical.

Some likely points might have been that Tolkien's stories feature many dwarves but no dwarven wizards, and the bit about them being able to resist being completely corrupted by the magic rings Sauron arranged for them, and the attention on Gimli like when he faces the at-first-unknown white wizard. Of course even in Tolkien, the real background does have dwarves able to craft some magic, but it just takes more attention to find. Tolkien's wizards seem human even though they aren't really, etc.

Since we played TFT where the racial definitions are much more loose, we had rather different traits for the races in our games. I had quite a few dwarf wizards right from the start, a friend had a game with powerful reptile man wizards, we had relatively civilized human-like orcs, and things got further and further from D&D/Tolkien the more we created new stuff. Eventually we started coming up with quite bizarre and original cultures.

Dwarves in Tolkien use magic. Mostly by making things, because like the dwarves of Norse myth, Tolkien's dwarves are primarily makers.

• The sword Narsil that Elendil carried was forged during the First Age by the famed Dwarven-smith Telchar.

• The Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin that Turin wore was said to bear an enchantment that protected its wearer from wounds and struck fear into the hearts of enemies. It too was forged by Telchar.

• And "The dwarves of yore made mighty spells," quote I gave earlier is from the Hobbit. The rest of the song lists various magical things the dwarves made.

Spoiler

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells. Is a quote from the Hobbit.
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.
For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gloaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.
On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.
Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.
The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches biased with light,
The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.
The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying -fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.
Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To find our long-forgotten gold.

Quote from: Skarg;908956Some likely points might have been that Tolkien's stories feature many dwarves but no dwarven wizards, and the bit about them being able to resist being completely corrupted by the magic rings Sauron arranged for them...

The dwarves were able to resist Sauron's direct control, but were still tainted by the rings. They used their power to acquire vast wealth, but became greedy in the process.

The Elves managed to resist the control of the rings completely.

The Elves made the Three and the hand of Sauron never touched them, thus they remained uncorrupted. If he were to regain the One, however, all their works would be laid bare.

"Made mighty spells", is pretty vague. Especially for a world where woses make animated stone statues, but otherwise don't seem to cast spells.

"And you?" she said, turning to Sam. "For this is what you folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word for the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?"

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908997"Made mighty spells", is pretty vague. Especially for a world where woses make animated stone statues, but otherwise don't seem to cast spells.

They are the lyrics to a song. Of course it's vague.

But lines 9-16 refer to capturing light, dragon-fire, moonlight, and sunlight and placing it in gems and gold wire. Sounds to me like a description of a permanent light spell written by someone more interested in poetry and language than in RPG design. And light spell aside, if you don't consider enchanting magic swords and dragon helms of fear to be casting spells, how is it that some elf bint lending Frodo and Sam her magic skrying bowl for five minutes any more casting a spell.

You have to remember that secrets of the dwarves mostly stayed secret to Hobbits, Men, and Elves and that The Hobbit and its sequel, the LotR were written by elf-loving Hobbits. And those two collaborators had Elvish supervision during the writing. The elves gave Bilbo free room and board for years while he was doing some writing for them. Why those books are Elvish propaganda and puff pieces in the guise of travelers tales.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908903I never did know where the dwarves are inherently anti-magical came from.

Not positive. But theres a few legends of dwarves and/or little people shrugging off/ignoring magic. Maybee it ties into the Vancian magic?

Quote from: cranebump;908910GIMLI: (pause; slow turn)"...Tell me you did not just say that..." :-)

Can't speak from experience about 5E, but I was told there was some Dwarf/X that's an OP combo?  I guess I'm asking if that stick is still dwarf-sized.

Mountain Dwarf wizard. Can wear light and medium armour. Its not OP. But it sure ups their survivability and is one feat away from heavy armour. Got one on the group Im DMing for. The player was previously in a classic "killer DM" group and was hellbent on making his character as death proof as possible. Armouring up was about as far as it went though and overall wasnt disruptive.

Quote from: Omega;909025Maybee it ties into the Vancian magic?

I doubt it. I certainly don't recall any dwarves in the Dying Earth stories.

Quote from: JeremyR;907722I think it really depends on the players. Some, probably most, only like certain aspects of RPGs - combat or social encounters or solving puzzles/whatnot by creative skill use. Trying to make everyone a generalist forces them to do things they probably don't want to, while taking away from the fun stuff they like (and giving that to other people who might not like it much).

Original Traveller would often give you the type of character you didn't want to play. Go into the Army wanting to be a gun bunny, but end up being a mechanic.

I think a better solution, although still not ideal since it can force people into playing styles they don't like, is "troupe" play, where everyone has 3-4 characters and they simply use the one appropriate to the given scenario or situation.

We've always done that, but for other reasons. Sometimes a player just wants to play something else for a session or two.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907899Really?  Then there must not have been a lot of wizard/magic user players then back in your day.  I've found that if you target the magic user first, you tend to turn off players from ever playing one ever again.  After all, what's the point if on a bad initiative, you're down because everything targets you.  ANd back in TSR and 3e D&D there was no mechanism to prevent the usually higher numbered enemies from mobbing the PCs quickly, even with hirelings and henchmen.  When you have monsters numbering between 20-200 or 40-400, that's a lot of potential damage spreading around.  And First Level Wizards, clad in their light clothes/robes would obviously be the first target to savvy goblins and kobolds.

In my travels (I moved a lot when I was a kid, and which again, I will stress, is purely anecdotal) the few games that used to be run with the bad guys being smart enough to target the squishies, tended not to have any in their gaming group, so after a while, a silent 'gentleman's agreement' came up where you took out the fighter types first.

Very MMO like, now that I think about it.

I've never done the "gentleman's agreement" thing, but I have gone easy on first-time players. After that, the gloves come off and stay off.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;907911Seriously.  The correct answer to " the magic users keep dying" is "so learn to protect them, shit-for-brains."

My answer to the problem of mages, illusionists and similar classes being targeted by missile weapons was to make sure my mage wasn't readily identifiable as one: no staff, pointy hat, or robes at low level. He wore a quilted tunic (not padded armor, but something that looked like it) and a helmet (which any class can wear). He looked like a lowly hireling and was seldom the first choice for attackers.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908142But an animal doesn't know a magic user from a fighter.  They don't understand what armor or lack of it means.  Animals attack for food or defense.  If not hungry and not feeling threatened, most animals will decline to attack.  And how does one determine if an animal is hungry or not?  I choose to determine it randomly.

I'm sure most predators (tigers, crocodiles) would go for meat that's not in a can.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;908702I am Spartacus!

I'm Brian and so is my wife!

As far as "niche protection" is concerned, I leave it up to individual players to decide what they're going to play. It's nice to have PCs of different kinds capable of all sorts of skills, but as a DM or player I'm NOT going to browbeat a player into playing something they don't want to play. If the party has no cleric, they have no cleric. If one of the players thinks a cleric is a must, he or she can either roll up one of their own, recruit one as a henchman/hireling, or shut the fuck up.

On the flip side, if my bard is doing a better job with spells than your mage, or is fighting better than your fighter, tough titty. Just as in team sports, if a player is put out of action or is just plain shitting the bed, they can and should make way for someone else, even if the person taking over is "playing out of position". This is true if the one being replaced is doing badly through no fault of their own or if they're being a dumbass. I remember a Twilight:2000 campaign where one of the PCs had maxed out stealth and recon scores. Naturally, this PC was sent to scout ahead. But after the fourth time in a row he completely whiffed on his skill roll and gave away the element of surprise, the group decided to have someone else try it, even though they weren't as skilled. By the way, this anecdote shows why "niche protection" has Jack and Shit to do with class-based game systems.

Quote from: Elfdart;909052My answer to the problem of mages, illusionists and similar classes being targeted by missile weapons was to make sure my mage wasn't readily identifiable as one: no staff, pointy hat, or robes at low level. He wore a quilted tunic (not padded armor, but something that looked like it) and a helmet (which any class can wear). He looked like a lowly hireling and was seldom the first choice for attackers.

I thought the new take on Arthurian legend in the show Merlin was rather clever in embedding Merlin as a lowly servant to Arthur.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908735Okay, this talk about taking conversational hyperbole about the word "every" into specious literalism at 'mathematical proof levels' is just irredeemably stupid.

Either this is 'English as a Second Language' issue, or 'Can't Grasp Human Talk' pixelbitching. Or someone's obviously so sad and boring they think they are tugging everyone's 'chain' and looking really clever in the process.

Sponges are an animal, and they are now officially smarter than this trollbait bullshit.

When anyone wonders why I posted once in a year-and-a-half, re-read this post - Opa nails it.

Over the past three years the level of abject stupid on this site broke whatever gawddamned meter you use to measure abject stupid. Then it rebuilt the meter with chewing gum and packing tape and broke it again, only harder the second time, like dropping a cargo [strike]container[/strike] ship on it, and then nuking the meter and the ship from orbit, 'cause it's the only way to be sure.

See you in the funny pages.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;909133See you in the funny pages.

I'll treasure the memory of the short time we spent together. I'm gonna send a few good, warm thoughts in your direction while watching NSFW sites featuring naked, black-skinned girls, Black Vulva. :cool:

Quote from: Black Vulmea;909133See you in the funny pages.

Don't forget to change your tampon.

Quote from: Elfdart;909052My answer to the problem of mages, illusionists and similar classes being targeted by missile weapons was to make sure my mage wasn't readily identifiable as one: no staff, pointy hat, or robes at low level. He wore a quilted tunic (not padded armor, but something that looked like it) and a helmet (which any class can wear). He looked like a lowly hireling and was seldom the first choice for attackers.

For a while we had our local DM convinced that the prohibition for Mages against armour only applied to casting spells in it. This led to a lot of first and second level wizards walking around in full plate and just taking it off to cast their one spell a day. It doesn't take any training to walk around in a metal suit if that is all you are doing and have someone to help you on and off with it.