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sno4wy
Senior Scribe

USA
466 Posts

Posted - 16 Sep 2019 :  19:46:42  Show Profile Send sno4wy a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Honestly, it'd be much better for Artemis to die even in that cocoon scenario than for Bob to continue butchering his character. I love Artemis but the thing I want the most for him is for him to be permanently killed so that Bob doesn't ruin him anymore.
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Tanthalas
Senior Scribe

Portugal
508 Posts

Posted - 24 Sep 2019 :  02:11:38  Show Profile Send Tanthalas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Wow, lots of people complaining about the book.

Personally I enjoyed it. If I had to point a flaw it would be that dividing the book between the past and present made it feel like there was little focus in the present storyline. I didn't feel the same with the past storyline because there were less events going on there. In the present he has too many characters needing attention.

Sir Markham pointed out, drinking another brandy. "A chap who can point at you and say 'die' has the distinct advantage".

Edited by - Tanthalas on 24 Sep 2019 02:12:53
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Madpig
Learned Scribe

Finland
148 Posts

Posted - 24 Sep 2019 :  06:53:52  Show Profile Send Madpig a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas

Wow, lots of people complaining about the book.

Personally I enjoyed it. If I had to point a flaw it would be that dividing the book between the past and present made it feel like there was little focus in the present storyline. I didn't feel the same with the past storyline because there were less events going on there. In the present he has too many characters needing attention.



I think that the past events are way more interesting than the current ones. Couple of events I do wait for in past timelines are following:
- Jarlaxles mention in some book about desperate fight with couple of weaponmasteres, where Zak saves the day.
-Mention in Homeland that Zak has killed a demigod. I think that might have been a boast for young Drizzt though.
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jordanz
Senior Scribe

553 Posts

Posted - 30 Sep 2019 :  07:11:38  Show Profile  Visit jordanz's Homepage Send jordanz a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I give Boundless a 3 out of five. It was ok..I thought they spent a bit too much time going retro with Zak.

With all this talk about unwarranted powerups, I think one character that actually needs one is Wulfgar. Once again he goes out like a clown. Despite being boosted by Kimmuriel he couldn't seem o dispatch that lone cambion - instead he misses and gets poisoned.

Meanwhile Arthrogate gets to take down scores of demons and before getting taken down and poisoned. Does R.A. feel that only Dwarves can be bad ass fighters now?

Drizzt is stacking high level monk skills with his Epic level fighting skills...

Catttbrie is now and Arch mage and a high Priest


Breunor can now channel Moradin's Divine power to become a giant and go toe to toe with arch dukes from Hell

Regis can now fight, make various potions, swim like Aquaman, and has cool lethal weapons at his disposal.

Wulfgar? He's still the big guy with the hammer - and - he can bang milfs now..but what else?

Is he a more potent warrior? It doesn't seem so. Not really any more skilled or wiser than before. I think he deserves to approach "epic" levels as well. Not sure what the AD&D rules are but don't high level Barbarians have War Cries that can invoke fear in opponents or was that just in Diablo?

Epic raging, Damage reduction...heck perhaps even make him a chosen of Tempus - and give him a quest to unite all the Northern Barbarian tribes.


Aegis Fang- perhaps it has some untapped abilities? Maybe give it the ability to summon ghost barbarians - like a "Horn of Valhalla" and other stuff...

Give Wulfgar something - it's only fair.

PS I think Artemis needs to be dead, think of the pain and torture he is going through in that cocoon...not just the bites/poison, but the millions of Chasme eggs that are running his veins? Do you really want to see him come back as the shade Demigod of Chasme Demons?

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Drizztsmanchild
Learned Scribe

USA
228 Posts

Posted - 05 Oct 2019 :  04:18:24  Show Profile  Visit Drizztsmanchild's Homepage Send Drizztsmanchild a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Something I noticed on Demogorgon Wiki page. It says he has "unusual retrievers " . If he was the one who sent them could be why they were different than normal retrievers. And so difficult to eliminate. Just a thought.
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Irennan
Great Reader

Italy
3802 Posts

Posted - 05 Oct 2019 :  15:24:08  Show Profile Send Irennan a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The problem is, as said countless times, that the retirevers were stated to be demon-lord levels of power, which is frankly stupid (yes, even for somewhat special retrievers), on top of being outright false, making no sense worldbuidling wise (think about the consequences that the ability to produce armies of demon-lords, near godlike beings, that even Lolth wouldn't face, would have--especially in the hands of beings who only want to destroy everything), and being inconsistent with what we saw in RAS' former books.

For example, if retrievers were *this* powerful, Lolth's plan to take over the Abyss would have been doomed to fail from the get go (I mean, it *did* fail, like most of her plans, but that's another matter). She made all that mess just to get the demon lords out of their homes, but then they had plenty of constructs as powerful as them to guard them? What was even the point, then? Also, the demon lords could have easily summoned these immensely powerful constructs on the prime and level anything on their path during that crisis. We're talking about armies of demon lord-like retrievers, plus the demon lord itself, plus all its demons. Yet none of that happened. Furthermore, if the demon lords could serially produce beings as powerful as themselves, they would have likely taken over the devils in the blood war by now, and would pose a massive threat to the upper planes as well.

Lets face it, Retrievers were portrayed as this powerful by RAS merely because he needed some uber escalation of threat and power. He feel in the trap of ridiculous "ESCALATION!!!1!", and (as usual in the recent books) crapped all over the world he was using to fit his narrative.

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.

Edited by - Irennan on 05 Oct 2019 15:43:22
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Copper Elven Vampire
Master of Realmslore

1078 Posts

Posted - 30 Dec 2019 :  14:58:21  Show Profile Send Copper Elven Vampire a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by CorellonsDevout

I agree with what Irennan said. It isn't about the mechanics of the game. It's about the lore of the setting. Bob can do whatever he wants in Corona, and at his own gaming table. But he is writing in a shared setting--and as the only currently even writing FR novels, he should adhere to canon a little more. But instead, he plays in the sandbox and throws the sand. I doubt he does this in Corona. He gave the world and established history, lore, etc. I am sure he adheres to it. He should do the same with the Realms.

For example, in Boundless, there have been perfect opportunities to bring up Eilistraee or Vhaeraun, with all the talk of goodly drow. As much as Bob deals with dark elves, one would think he would at least acknowledge the rest of the pantheon. But nope! He also (and I noticed this particularly in Boundless) presents characters of faith as somehow ignorant or less intelligent. He doesn't directly say this, of course, but that is how the characters are presented (and I don't just mean Lolthites). Uh...what? I am not a religious person, but in the context of the setting, the gods are very real and active, with most Faerunians being either polytheistic or having a defined patron god (like clerics). But Bob's handling of this is not only insulting to the setting, but to the characters, as well.

Yes, it's a fantasy, but fantasy stories have (or should have) consistency. That is good writing. Look at all the fantasy worlds out there. All of them have an established setting and lore the authors adhere to. Tolkien didn't say, "actually, despite the fact that I have hitherto called it the Grey Havens, it's actually Pinkland, and you get there by going south, not west. Because I can." Fantasy doesn't just allow you to throw everything to the breeze, especially if you are writing in a shared setting.





I agree 100% with you on this. RAS never sticks to FR lore and grotesquely messes up what little he does incorporate.
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Firestorm
Senior Scribe

Canada
826 Posts

Posted - 18 Jan 2020 :  20:32:41  Show Profile Send Firestorm a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan

quote:
Originally posted by Drizztsmanchild

Sadly and its been this way for a while nowfor the novels...there really isn't a shared world anymore. I would love authors like Ed,Elaine, Troy and plenty others to rreturn and write again in this world. But its only Bob for now.
I get the whole pet peeve with Bob not sticking exactly to whatever lore is out there in the campaign books ,monster manuals ,etc... but he has been this way from the start and while I am not certain if it still true,I do recall somewhere that what he writes most of the time becomes lore or canon. Again I could be wrong and its changed. Feel free to correct me if needed. Also has anyone bothered to ask Bob himself about this? I follow him on FB and if you message him he does reply after a bit. As long as it doesn't seem like you're attacking him. He's quite cordial.


Man, it's not "a bit", it's writing total nonsense into the Realms. Shade fell on the Anaruroch? Was he for real? Like, an effing google search would have been enough to realize what an embarrassing error that was. A retriever is as powerful as a demon lord? What even is that? Even setting the lore aside, even assuming that this was his own world, couldn't he see how ridiculous that would be from a worldbuilding persepctive (due to how many retrievers exist, and to how they are in service to various demons), or the problems of internal consistency within the story itself, unrlatedly to the lore. It just screams "I no longer give a f, fans will eat anything anyway".

The fact that the most noticeable character growth is about power ups, rather than developing and overcoming their fatal flaws, is one more sign of this kind of attitude. I don't even know what Drizzt's fatal flaw would be now. And yes, you can write arcs where the character has already overcome the fatal flaw related to the theme of the story, but in those stories, the character actively acts as a catalyst and puts a lot of effort into changing something; in making other characters overcome the fatal flaw. Just to clarify, by theme/premise I mean the "thesis" of the story, a statement around which all the main conflict of the story is built, and that should be a common theme in all the main scenes; the fatal flaw should be something opposed to that statement. To make a ridiculous example, a premise might be "kindness will hurt you", and the protag's fatal flaw to overcome would be being kind. In a catalyst arc, the protag might be kinda an ass (so he has already overcome the fatal flaw of kindness) that comes to a kind community and forces the people there to change their values from "be kind to each other" to "every man for himself". With that said, from what I was told, Drizzt is not a catalyst character; he just does his Drizzt stuff, fighting and so on, rather than, say, actually trying to be a leader to the drow, working to inject new ideas, actively showing them another path, etc (before someone says "but some drow are growing restless becuase of Drizzt's fame", that's not the same, that's a side effect of his adventures that he got for free, not the topic of a storyline--and it doesn't make any sense in FR whatsoever, with two gods actively working to open the drow's eyes, with their followers even infiltrating Lolthite citires). Anyway, back to topic, when the story is not about a catalyst character, like in the latest Drizzt books, the protagonist needs a fatal flaw, otherwise it's hollow; like a movie that focuses only on fights and explosions for the sake of fights and explosions. From the summary of the stories that I've got, Drizzt isn't a catalyst, yet he just doesn't change. I can't see what kind of fatal flaw Drizzt is trying to overcome, how he is changing or what the theme/premise of the story is--it really feels like beating a dead horse at this point (the worst example of this was, IMO, in the Homecoming tirlogy, when RAS tried to create conflict by suddenly making Drizzt doubt everything he's ever believed, and therefore go back to his fatal flaws of old).

Also, no; Shade didn't magically fall on the Anauroch because Bob believes so, that didn't become canon. A retriever is still CR 14, despite what he writes. The only author that has a clause in his cointract saying that his lore, from any source, is canon unless contradicted by WotC, is Ed.

It's still a shared world, it's the world Ed created and that so many others contributed to. Bob didn't create it, but used it to get where he is; this is matter of basic respect, it's not simply an issue of writing quality (and I'm sorry to say this, but it's telling of him as a person).

quote:

Book thought. I wonder why Drizzt didn't go to the astral plane with Guen to avoid the retriever.



Probably for a cheap "oh noes, is he really dead?" effect; the cliffhanger ending to get you to buy the next book. And, ofc, it will be followed by the *shocking* (TM) reveal that Drizzt has managed to "surpass his limits" again, trascending/ascending/becoming a super being aftere mere months of training. 'Cuz he's 'osom like that. So sad to see the FR novels reduced to this.



The honest truth is his editors should catch this stuff but they don't. His editors should be realm savvy but are not.

Killing a lich with electricity in pirate king was comical watching the comments unfold. People were trying to defend it saying it was a way for a low level caster to beat an age old lich since he cast it in water and magnified the effect.

Then someone said "there is that little problem of cliches being immune to electricity and the argument stutterstopped
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CorellonsDevout
Great Reader

USA
2708 Posts

Posted - 18 Jan 2020 :  21:34:10  Show Profile Send CorellonsDevout a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Bob himself should be more Realms savvy, considering he's worked in the Realms for years and is friends with Ed.

Sweet water and light laughter
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Irennan
Great Reader

Italy
3802 Posts

Posted - 18 Jan 2020 :  22:25:39  Show Profile Send Irennan a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Yeah. I mean, yes, the editor should catch a lot of that, but RAS has been working with FR for decades, and he makes mistakes that are trivial to the point that they could be avoided with an effing google search (which raises the question of whether or not they are intentional, because RAS needs something to happen, and he's ready to trump the setting created by others and that carried him to success, rather than attempting to work around it). It's obvious that he just doesn't care and doesn't respect the Realms, nor--at this point--does he seem to respect his own characters. Especially considering the fact that the story has no real reason to go forward without a fatal flaw and premise (see my post quoted above), because there's no arc or change without a fatal flaw and a premise.

At the beginning, Drizzt was this character struggling to fight his upbringing, finding his place in a hostile and alien world, and discovering his identity. Now he basically is a bunch of traits that (according to RAS, btw) should look like moral virtues slapped onto a stick and called a character. The conflict for Drizzt has been exhausted, to the point that RAS had to magic it up in Hero with that very far-fetched, very forced arc of Drizzt's "madness", that had him sort of mimic the kind of develepoment that he had to go through before (or so was the intent, from what I've gathered, since I only know the story from the recount of the events). That tells a lot about the reason why these novels are still being written--not for the story, but because it's easy $$.

Then again, as I said, since I haven't read the books, I might be wrong on this, but the plot that I've been given is the real one, so no matter how amazing your writing style is, if there's a bug in how you structured the plot, and the absence of a fatal flaw/premise, your story goes nowhere meaningful, really.

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.

Edited by - Irennan on 18 Jan 2020 22:57:34
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