From: Jim Ogle (Ks. Jim) <jogle@aoc.nrao.edu>
Subject: Re: Most Dangerous Highlord
X-Gated-By: The Black Marble Wombat@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
X-Gated-From: torg mailing list
Organization: University of North Texas
X-Gatemail-Version: 1.0b
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 17:30:12 GMT

Smooge writes:

> Ok so once again I have started the THARKHOLD SUCKS/THARKHOLD IS THE
> GREATEST FLAME WAR!!! So sue me... I won't go through the entire

No one was saying Tharkold was the greatest, just that Jez and
Tharkold in general are tough bitches.

> speel about how Tharkhold makes me sick, or how in playtesting a demon
> prince killed jezrael as she is written up as a super highlord in
> four rounds (6 combats... 5 he won... 1 she won). I will just say

Was she drawing on the Darkness Device?  Those extra Possibilities
should help out quite a bit.

> that I put her at the bottom of the list because she is the newest highlord
> (little experience) and no matter how high her stats are she ain't going
> to be as able as Malraux, Mobius, GM, or even Baruuh Kaah. And the stupid

I'll agree with that.

> thing that she comes from a tough cosm... phoooey... BK's cosm is tough
> other than him and maybe a few lieutenants... very few edeinos have 20+
> stats (Instead of a cosm of at least 100 at 20+). The ravagon's cosm
> makes Tharkhold look like cheesecake... and even the twicenamed ones arent
> creatures walking around with 20+ stats... I realize that any cosm can
> be made munchkinish, its just that this cosm started from munchkinism (fan
> boys) and its real hard to make it into anything but ROLLplaying...
> 
> the "I cant f*ck*ng wait until I nuke LA" Smooge

It seems that over time my anti-Tharkold attitude has moved into
Smooge and grown at an exponential rate...while the Thark SB is
gravely lacking in good roleplaying information, the seed of it is
still there...all it takes is a little searching and extrapolation
(since we'll probably never see the material that got cut from the
Tharkold SB, which must have had all the necessary background and feel
of the cosm.)  I doubt that Tharkold was meant to be the munchkin cosm
by its writers but the hack job done to get it to fit into one volume
mutilated it severely.

The problem with ranking the High Lords is that there are several
factors to consider, not just "High Lord X can beat High Lord Y in a
fight" or "High Lord J is a munchkin bitch with no experience so I
don't care how powerful she is, she sucks".  You could rank them in
terms of physical dangerousness, deviousness, experience, raw power,
how well they can handle interference from the other High Lords, etc
etc.  Jezrael will come out well in some areas, poorly in others.  The
same can be said for all the High Lords (except for the GM, who
obviously is going to be #1 on every list, even the physical ones.)

It also depends on what kind of 'dangerous' we're talking about here;
dangerous to Storm Knights, dangerous to Core Earth in general,
dangerous to other High Lords, and so on.  From a Storm Knight's
immediate viewpoint, the most dangerous High Lords are probably Mobius
and Baruk Kaah, simply because they are the type of High Lord you may
actually encounter and have to deal with; all the rest are going to be
pulling strings from their strongholds so you won't encounter them
unless you make a point of seeking them out.  From the lofty position
of GM its easy to see that the Gaunt Man will pose the greatest threat
to Core Earth, but for now he's rather impotent.  Those in Core Earth
who are aware of Nippon Tech probably see 3327 as the most dangerous,
with Mobius a close second.  For a while Baruk Kaah would have been
seen as the most dangerous, since he was successful in bringing the US
to its knees so quickly.  It all depends on how you look at it.

Kansas Jim (jogle@aoc.nrao.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.games.torg