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I fail to see why there is any contention over armor dropping that should be a basic staple of any heavy warrior's equipment. It's not any fun to run around as a heavy armor warrior-fighter, paladin, cleric, or whatever-in a rusty chain shirt forever. A ton of potent magical gear dropping is certainly out-of-line with the server's loot theme, but basic equipment-mundane arms and armor of all types-should be fairly readily available. If it's not, it just benefits those builds who stack up their dexterity and tumble and leaves fighters with irritating equipment woes.

[OMG, HI ARMAND WATERS FAN GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

OMG, HI ARMAND WATERS FAN GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Armand Waters FanBoy89

A DM doesn't always know when he's going to run an event. Sometimes he misses what players are doing. The bottom line is that sometimes you miss things that you'd really want to participate in, and sometimes what you're doing can get missed. If a DM wants to pop in and run a spontaneous surprise event for most of the server, I think this is perfectly fine. It's not as if this event had any serious impact on the plot-at-large of the server; like Mort said, there'll be plenty more opportunities for your characters to make good on their promises.

Yes, it'd certainly be nice if you had a telegraph before every big DM event so you could always be in it, but I think you'd do better to just appreciate that a DM ran a server-heavy event, roll with the outcome, and get ready for the next developments in the plot, rather than trying to put unreasonable expectations on him to announce and publicize his events ahead of time.

Scripted grappling hooks sound like an incredibly sweet addition. If only!

The simple fact, my friends, is that courtesy is always appreciated. It may not stop your character from getting killed and it may not place you first on the "IRC Bragging Rights" list, but it will always make your play experience more enjoyable. It won't make those deaths more enjoyable-I doubt anything will. But you'll find the game as a whole is much better for you and those you play with. If someone else is discourteous, I really doubt he's actually having as much fun and deriving as much enjoyment from the game as you might think he is.

It's lame and it's corny, but it really is true.

lol

I find myself forced to disagree in part with the original poster's reasons for this suggestion, because the argument does not proceed far enough. The crux of the argument seems to be that goblins and kobolds are not treated appropriately according to their context within the Forgotten Realms setting by the majority of humanoid characters. This argument holds little-to-no water; making goblins and kobolds application only would affect the players of said monstrous characters; it would not change the way humanoid characters react to them. If you wish to take the opposite side of this argument and state that the players of these monstrous characters are not representing their race's nature appropriately, the same argument could be made for those players who play other humanoid non-human races-elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and half-orcs-and obviously making these races application-only would be an absurd idea to suggest. Mechanically, goblins and kobolds have no special advantages that ECL subraces/races do that should require them to be applied for.

Goblins and kobolds are indeed monsters, however, and this is certainly a valid argument to make for requiring them to be application only. Goblins and kobolds are cowardly, insignificant creatures whose primary threats are in their large numbers and vicious, sneaky "tactics," not in their individual power or in their intellects and prowess. They exist to serve as a challenge for low-level humanoid adventurers. It does make sense to suggest that any monstrous race or subrace-whether it has an ECL or not-should be application only, and this is, again, a valid argument, although it appears to be one the EfU DM team has already considered and dismissed.

I think the real question that needs to be asked, then, is this: what have application-free goblins and kobolds brought to EfU? Have they brought interesting, deep character concepts that influenced the server in a positive manner? Or have they simply served to foment intense PvP conflict? The old setting of Sanctuary was one that was very much rife with PvP, and dominated by the controlling effect of the monsters that, for all intents and purposes, ruled the Underdark. In this PvP-heavy, monster-dominated setting of Sanctuary, goblins and kobolds being application-free certainly seemed to proceed well, especially after the initial balloon of them died down.

Yet now, EfU has a new setting: the archipelago. While this setting still carries with it the feel of desperate survival and over-arching evil, it is also a setting that is (hopefully) less dour and dark than that of Sanctuary. So the question that I think should be asked for the relevance of non-application goblins and kobolds in this new setting is this: do goblins and kobolds, as monstrous races whose very existence is largely to serve as opponents for low-level adventurers, contribute in a meaningful way to the evolution of this new main server setting, or do they instead represent a holdover from the trite PvP conflicts of Sanctuary that were at least one of the reasons the server setting was changed? If the answer is yes, then non-application goblins and kobolds remain legitimate. If the answer is no, then they should probably be made application-only once more, to prevent them from impinging the growth and development of this (effectively) new server.

Goblins and kobolds are fun, I won't deny this. I can see how others find them fun, and want to incorporate them as much as possible into the gameworld. Yet if their only purpose as PCs is to PvP and quest-spam with humanoid PCs, then they fulfill no real purpose in a roleplay-oriented playerworld, and should be relegated to application-only, and only approved when a goblin/kobold concept has some other underlying purpose besides fighting other characters and spamming quests.