Stat him?

Saw it, dismissed it as utter garbage when I saw their implementation, including a reliance on fucking dicerolling.

Don't get me wrong, the miniatures look great, but it's a fucking travesty to waste the Souls license on a generic dungeon crawler.

Large monstrosity, unaligned
Armor Class 13 (natural armor)
Hit Points 59 (7d10 + i 1)
Speed 40ft.
STR 20 (+5) DEX 12 (+1) CON 17 (+3)
INT 3 (- 4) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 7 (-2)
Skills
Perception +3
Senses
darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13
languages -
Challenge 3 (700 XP)
Keen Sight and Smell. The owlbear has advantage on Wisdom
(Perception) checks that rely on sight or smell.
ACTIONS
Multiattack. The owlbear makes two attacks: one with its beak
and one with its claws.
Beak. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft ., one creature.
Hit: 10 (1d10 + 5) piercing damage.
Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) slashing damage.

Was literally going to say that.

Boy, who would have thought that an action game that's main draw is being straight from the 1980s in being deadly but if you can fucking understand tells and have reflexes isn't transferable to table top. Who would have thought. It's like people trying to emulate their favorite stories that rely on clever twists and directed plot have a hard time figuring out how to run a collaborative game where the fan base hates railroading and fucking with people who run the game.

I didn't say it would be impossible for a good system to exist. I just think it's something no RPG I've seen really captures.

The real trick would be focusing on decision making rather than dicerolling. That was always the core part of the Souls experience that I thought should transfer over. When I fuck up, I don't want it to be because I rolled shitty- I want it to be because I fucked up, make the wrong call and suffered for it.

There are ways you could do this, I've been pondering a card based system that I think could capture the essence of it while adapting it to the medium, but that might be more appropriate for a boardgame than a vidya.

It depends on whether you mean Pre-Abyss or Post-Abyss Artorias.

Pre-Abyss, he would be a Beast Conclave Ranger from the UA. Hits hard, uses his beast companion to help kick ass.

Post-Abyss, he would be a Battlemaster Fighter. Hits harder, and more times per round.

Both level 20 of course

Post-abyss Artorias is way, way weaker than pre. The only reason we stood a chance against him was because he was crippled, insane and lacking half his equipment.

Good point. In that case, I'm not sure how to stat him. He IS a figure of legend that's arguably harder to kill than Lords that killed the dragons.

Well, it's worth remembering that the same general principle applies to most things we kill in Dark Souls. We fight them, generally, in their weakest, most diminished form. At the height of their power, the Lords would likely be utterly untouchable.

I was actually talking about this with a group of friends the other day, and we had the amusing idea of From and Platinum collaborating on a spectacle fighter, set in the high Age of Fire, letting us see just how ridiculous shit was before the flame faded.

If you don't mind me asking, where would you go with a Souls board game?
Because I honestly have no clue what would actually work.

> Platinum Dark Souls prequel.

>AGE OF FIIIIIIRE!

My vague idea was that each player, plus the boss/encounter, would have a number of card slots in front of them, six or eight 'Frames' they could plan actions in.

You'd have a small deck of actions to choose from, determined by your equipment plus a few basic actions like dodging.

The boss/enemy (or other player in PvP) would have their actions face down, but some actions might let you look at the cards in a certain slot or force the enemy to truthfully declare what Kind of card was in a certain slot, etc.

Each card would have, in addition to other stats, a timing. For attacks, the timing is how many frames they resolved over. For defences, the timing is how many frames they cover.

So a quick stab might have a two or three frame timing, while a big sweep might have four or five. A dodge might have a 2-3 frame timing, a parry might exist on only one.

You'd resolve each frame in turn, flipping over the cards in every slot and seeing how they interact, defences countering attacks, dealing damage to each other etc. In PvE, knowing the deck of the boss/enemy and the patterns that tend to emerge from it would be key, as well as using your limited information to figure out where their attacks are most likely to be and to place your defences to cover those attacks.

In PvP, meanwhile, it'd be all mindgames. Trying to second guess your opponent, when they were going to attack, defend or parry, the right time to employ spells or more powerful attacks and so on.

Oh, right. Again, this is all thought experimenty stuff I'd need to put a lot of work into to make an actual thing, but I was thinking that if a card Did resolve, it obviated the cards within its timing window, so nothing else you played would actually happen while the 'animation' was playing out. If you couldn't actually play the card or it was stopped somehow, the other actions would go off. You'd also have blank/empty cards to 'feint' with, filling slots to cover your ass.

I gotta admit, it's interesting. (The first thing that comes to mind is Robo Rally, but for all I know there are plenty of other games that use a similar mechanic.) It definitely makes a lot of sense, and highlights the 'tightness' of fight controls that are the actual best thing about DS gameplay-wise.

Most people know that, but Nietzsche doesn't exist in the world of Dark Souls nor the primary settings of DnD.

>You get to play as a lord of Fire, rather than someone trying to link it
>You are a god fighting other gods and dragons
>Late game you fight little guys trying to steal your power
>You get to be the unkillable Dark Souls boss.

Maybe not in YOUR headcanon.

>AND THEY'LL FIGHT TILL THE FLAMES DIE OUT

I wouldn't go with a full on Lord. Maybe the secret/lost to history Fifth Knight of Gwyn? One who was sent on a grim and perilous journey to defeat some impossible foe, knowing that their heroism would be lost to the ages, for they were the Knight of Gwyn's Shadow, their deeds unbecoming of his Lordly Light.

> You play as the Black Knight you find in the Smouldering Lake that's still killing demons.

One who turned against Gwyn and the gods for how they kept the Age of Fire going for far too long, leading to the Abyss to try to forcibly cause the change of Ages?

One who decided to fight his own wars, for a cause of his own choosing?

Remember what kills dragons best? Remember what pic related's name means

Completely off topic but I was thinking. If the Bell of Awakening actually raises the Lords of Cinder from from their grave to once more Link the Flame, that would mean that the Chosen Undead isn't even Frampt's plan. Just a backup plan.

But the Lords of Cinder are not mindless. They are more or less as they were in life. Changed only by the trauma that comes from linking the flame. That means Gwyn wasn't a hollow that blindly tried to kill anything that approached. He was his former self that for some reason decided that linking the fire was a mistake. I wonder if that was real stuff that existed in DS1 because of Miyazaki's fetish for creating story to never tell us or if that was retconed in.

Well, the Lords of Cinder are a unique situation not before seen in Souls games, so it isn't the only reason the Bell of Awakening tolls.

>He was his former self that for some reason decided that linking the fire was a mistake
Given that it directly resulted in the creation of the Abyss, I'm inclined to agree.

In Dark Souls 1, there's still time to link the flame, Frampt is searching for a soul to do so but there's plenty of options and, apparently, a decent amount of time.

In Dark Souls 2 things are a bit more awkward, Vendrick should have linked the flame but backed off, but you arrive in time to complete the cycle.

In Dark Souls 3? Things are royally fucked. Lothric should have linked the fire long, long ago. The remnants of the battle you see in Lothric Castle was the attempt to make him fulfill his duty- And one that fundamentally failed.

This refusal and ardent defence against it was the problem. And it lasted so long that the flame grew so dim that the world itself started coming apart at the seams, as is obvious from the incredibly warped and twisted nature of the world.

The Lords of Cinder rose from history, to add their flames to the tinder for linking the flame, for even Lothrics soul alone would no longer be enough.

Every Dark Souls game is set closer and closer to failure, to the flame being snuffed out. It's why we're going to see the Ringed City, said to exist at the end of the world- Likely only manifesting when space and time is so convoluted, and the flame is so weak, that the oldest and darkest places can become real once more.

I always thought of DS2 as a gaiden game, to be honest, it doesn't quite "fit" with the others, despite the callbacks in 3.

>low
18 is superhuman what the fuck are you talking about?

Unless 5e does something very different, 18 is 'peak human ability'.

Which Artorias has vastly, vastly surpassed.

14-16 is peak human
18+ is superhuman
5egmegaanon.github.io/5etools/bestiary.html#Ogre
Bounded accuracy means you don't think of stat increases as linear but exponential gains.

>Vendrick should have linked the flame but backed off

But that didn't happen at all, faggot

Vendrick is a Gwyn expy, and his kingdom was crushed and crumbled by the queen, a fragment of Manus. It's just a story of another cycle - You slay a dragon, a gravelord, a representation of Chaos, and the collection of Human souls, step into a kiln, and set everything on fire. Or you don't. If you won't, there'll just be a cycle of darkness, then someone will link the flames again.

It's highly implied that the fall of kingdoms and the re-linking of a flame throughout history by a lone undead is endless.

Dude. The health bar literally says "Gwyn, Lord of Cinder."

Lords of Cinder are not unique to Dark Souls 3.

Dark Souls 3 confirms that the Fire CAN fade and that the cycles nonsense was a crock of shit. That was all the pretentious navel gazing of philosophers viewing a series of events where the fire is lit, fades and is rekindled over and over again and falsely assumes that the fire has to be reignited. When in fact, they are just lucky enough to be living in one of the increasingly statistically unlikely worlds where somebody comes along and links the Fire. The Fire fades and that is inevitable. There's nothing inevitable about it springing forth anew.

Vendrick had everything he needed to reach the Throne of Want, and a soul powerful enough to link the fire. But he refused the call. It's blatantly obvious if you pay any attention.

They have an ember of a point; after you let the fire go out, the keeper sees embers in the distance.
Of course, nothing implies they turn into the same world.

The Embers are the other worlds. Dark Souls has always had a many worlds cosmology.

The Ashen One that wakes up in the Cemetery of Ash that goes on to complete Dark Souls 3 isn't even necessarily from the same world as the one he or she chooses the fate of. We see the Cemetery and the Firelink Shrine of that world and they are complete shitshows. Since Iudex Gundyr exists after Champion Gundyr, the Darkened Shrine must exist before the Firelink you awake in. Meaning that you come from a parallel world in a farther point in time and are sent back because of how terminally fucked that one world is.

So when the Firekeeper refers to 'tiny flames' she refers to whole timelines that have kept the flame lit compared to the sheer magnitude of everything that is swallowed up by the Dark.

It doesn't necessarily mean parallel worlds, as such. Space and time are convoluted, as they say, and since the 'parallel' worlds are so closely intertwined I don't think things are as disconnected as you might think.

Many threads, many paths, but only one tapestry.

Explain the baldur's gate intro. Checkmate atheists

Explain the meme please?

God damn time dickery makes Dark Souls lore a pain to properly comprehend.

That is what is known as a 'joke'. In this case, it's a character being presented as doing something completely abhorrent to who the character is, even though they are typically somewhat mischievous. Through this, humour is created.

God is dead, there's your checkmate

dnd-5e-homebrew.tumblr.com/search/Dark Souls

I didn't expect Niche himself to respond

>WITH THEIR SOULS ON THE LINE

>Then again, there isn't really a Good system for Dark Souls

I've wanted to make a DS RPG system for a while now, but the only way I can think of doing that makes sense is to make it diceless, or at the very least minimal dice involvement, and at that point it basically becomes a board game anyway.

On an unrelated topic, do they ever explain the whole Darkness/Humanity connection that's implied in the Oolacie DLC for DS1? Because if Humanity is explicitly linked to the Darkness, why on earth is it the only thing that can be offered up to kindle most bonfires?

Think on Vendrick, that shriveled hollowed thing in DS2 wandering around in circles dragging it's sword behind it that it can barely swing around.

Now recall that it can kill even high HP players in two hits and needs the baleful gaze of four giant's souls upon you to start taking any reasonable amount of damage.

Now imagine what he was like when he was alive.

>souls lore
>blatant

Late thanks, user.

Artorius should probably be Large given he's a God.
It's not just a stylistic thing making all those faceless knights all above seven feet tall, it's supposed to signify that they're Gods or at least have partially divine blood.
"God" in the Souls series seems largely to refer to a species of pre-human being who were taller, stronger, and had more magic the humans did as well as living basically forever unless slain, but otherwise still very much mortal.

Just make him Large. Problem solved there.
Or at least as much as you can solve it using 5e.

Despite this these beings WERE killable.
I mean, they didn't have reality-warping powers beyond your imagination; Gwyn for example basically just didn't use his lightning and that's about it.
Though Artorias NOT having that slight windup for his attacks and the open side where he cradles his broken arm would make him damn near impossible to beat in the original Souls game engine, it's true.

>UNDEAAAAD!

>Which Artorias has vastly, vastly surpassed.
More like "was born better then".
He was impressive but he also was never human; he was a God like all the other 8-foot tall guys you run into.

>taller, stronger, and had more magic the humans did as well as living basically forever unless slain, but otherwise still very much mortal.

That's not too far off how it works in a lot of real world mythologies anyway; a "God" being a truly unstoppable person in control over aspects of reality is basically a Judeo-Christian thing, and many deities in mythology when they go on adventures seem to be relatively not that powerful at all, more like especially powerful examples of mortals.

Then again a "God" is literally anyone who's being worshipped, so even if Gwyn and Company were just tall guys with lighting and shit and that's about it, they qualify as deities if they're worshipped by anyone at all.

>you play as the Nameless King
>first fighting alongside your father and allies
>then you rebel to go be friends with dragons
>towards the end Ornstein shows up at your new pad, you fight him, but don't kill him, he goes off to turn into a dragon
>the game ends with the bell ringing and the storms coalescing on archdragon peak

I spent a while thinking about this, and I actually think drawing an absolute line between the 'races' of Gods and Men is flawed. Gods are larger and stronger than men by default, but we also see a lot of variability in the size and power of individual gods, as well as might men who equal or surpass them.

Looking back to the origin of both 'races', the Lords claiming the souls from the First Flame, I think it makes sense to argue that they were all of the same basic stock, the simple creatures we see in the opening cinematic of DS1.

But while the Gods had their Souls of Light, powerful and incandescent, men had their Souls of Dark, weaker but more numerous and plentiful. The Witches of Izalith (and after them the Demons) likely present another 'Race' with very few to inherit their souls, while Nito is just weird.

But yeah. I think the Souls series makes more sense if size is a function of the power of a Soul rather than anything else, while the protagonist isn't around for long enough to really see the same effect upon themselves.

You have to understand that Light has a lot of connotations in Dark Souls that aren't shared with other fantasy stories. In many ways Light embodies nobility and Dark depravity but they also represent comforting myths and stark truths. By the same vein, Light represents plurality and Dark singularity.

Nobody ever pays attention to the fact that they aren't fucking called Fog Doors in Dark Souls 1. You traverse the white light. Lord Gwyn, who's Lord Soul embodies light, is thus imbued with the power to make those barriers impermeable. Why do you think that time is convoluted in Anor Londo? The power of the light is possibility and many worlds overlap and conjoin with each other. Each time you traverse the white light, you are entering a barrier that separates worlds. Which is why you can summon Solaire. The soapstones reach between worlds! This is a point that Dark Souls 2 never understood with its lack of light doors.

So the world of Dark Souls begins with the Grey Lands, explodes into innumerable threads of light and possibility when the Lord Souls are claimed and slowly start to whittle away to nothing as they are one by one pulled into the Dark. Don't forget that the Dark intersecting with any point of the timeline can potentially cause the whole thing to collapse as though it never were as shown with Oolicile. Every character instance of Dark Souls is canon! All of my characters, all of your character, all of everybody's characters exist on their own small thread of light simultaneously.

I think the bearers of the Lord Souls were all in some way altered by their holding of it, Nito most significantly.
But from DSIII we know that having deific blood DOES change you since you meet several more examples of God-descended individuals and they are all abnormally large in height, though most don't seem bigger then 8 feet at the tallest. As for the Witches...well, we never see any of them before they're turned into giant angry lava-vomiting Satan Trees, so how tall they were is kinda unknown to us.
In addition the Irythillans are supposed to have "the blood old and features of the old Gods", and they are noticeably taller then the other races you can pick to be a member of.

I think that "Gods" were indeed a species (in so far as a race born before the laws of reality took hold could be called such a thing), but that humans could equal or surpass them with struggle and toil, because while only SOME deities had Lord Souls, ALL humans had fragments of their progenitor's Dark Soul and thus it was possible for them to equal or surpass these beings.

But only after a LOT of grinding. Hah.

We do meet a non-demon Daughter of Chaos. In Dark Souls 1. Quelana. She's just hanging out in Blighttown. She's inexplicably invisible as well. The robes obscure what she looks like but she does use a standard character model so they were human sized and shaped.

I always thought the average enemy being tall was simply so you could see them better given the 3rd person perspective.

It's also visually intimidating, which is something Miyazaki clearly aims for.
It's also visually akin to Berserk, which has a LOT of 8-foot tall muscle juggernaughts who tower over the 6'5" protagonist to represent the danger and power they supposedly represent.

But he also takes a lot of care with visual storytelling and not very much that he personally works on visually is an accident; lots of little things tell you lots about the world without saying it aloud.

Humanity is a shard of the dark soul, which is also a lord soul. Lord Souls, dark or light, can all be burned to Kindle a flame, that's why gwyn tries to trick humans into relighting the fire, because it both weakens the human's collective soul and prolongs the age of gods.

Fuck off. Do it yourself.

>and not very much that he personally works on visually is an accident;

I suspect a lot of it is putting purpose to game design decisions though. And I'd give a lot of credit to the team for being able to follow through on making a consistent vision, not just the director. Especially the artists.

Actually here's a question:

Is the flame burning (as in the transformative process of fuel to fire, destroying one to create the other) souls or simply composed of them? Since the original lords took their souls from the flame iirc, is it not simply reintroducing those (and other elements that were taken back into the flame to strengthen it? I feel like I'm probably missing something huge.

One account I heard argued that burning Humanity in the flame perpetuated it because it reduced the amount of Dark in the world, rather than actively creating more Light/Fire.

Why not take it a different angle? Play a daughter of the Witch of Izalith, a Fire-Sorceress and Swordswoman.

Set the first half of the game elsewhere, undertaking a mission for you rmother, with the Gods as somewhat uneasy allies, before returning home too late, witnessing the aftermath of the birth of the Chaos Flame and having to fight for survival amidst the ruins of your now destroyed home.

, As I understood it, before Gwyn's intervention the First Flame was ALWAYS going to die out eventually.
It's creation led to duality and the inevitability of it's own demise simply by creating contrast to it's light; before the First Flame there WAS no Light to contrast against the Dark.
Gwyn linked the Bonfires to the First Flame itself to require Humanity as fuel, allowing him (and later others) to perpetuate the Light indefinitely (in theory), even as the Witches of Izalith searched for a different way and tried to artificially replicate the First Flame, creating the Bed of Chaos and the Flame of Chaos in the attempt.

For them taking the Lord Souls was like taking burning branches out of a Bonfire that you found in the Dark; you carry pieces the fire with you but your taking pieces of it ultimately don't change what is going to happen to the fire eventually. Fire doesn't burn forever. NOTHING lasts forever.

I can see what you mean by that. But man, the amount of mental gymnastics people will do to try and say it isn't canon is impressive.

>Gwyn linked the Bonfires to the First Flame itself to require Humanity as fuel

... So what actually ARE Bonfires anyway?

Also, what is a soul? And why does it differ from a Humanity?