GM Axolotl |
Braegan is being modest--it's his energy and enthusiasm that dragged me into a million games, and he was a first choice I had when getting this game truly going. That and his characters usually speak in foreign languages, are witty, and sport a few tattoos.
Braegan. |
A million seems excessive. ;P
What's funny about the tattoo thing is this ... if you ever meet me in real life, I'm one of the most buttoned down, clean cut guys you could meet. I just like the idea of tatted up dudes and dudettes. :)
Kittenmancer |
Meow meow meow! Let's get this thing rolling!
Speaking of foreign languages, it seems that you are using Inuit for the Kellid language and Icelandic for the Ulfen language - is that correct? I love mixing words of actual languages in the speech of characters; another witch character I played in a Carrion Crown game used Romani and I use Hindi for spellcasting NPCs in my RotR campaign.
GM Axolotl |
I'm kinda using Old Norse for Skald. Hallit is more up in the air...I guess Chiquq comes from a Northern Kellid tribe, Imendri more southern? :D
Dezső |
That kind of cleverness is a bit beyond me, so it is good for me that Dezső grew up in a University relatively far from the North and largely learned his vocabulary from books...
Kittenmancer |
Heh, Icelandic is pretty much Old Norse. They're very adamant (and proud) about keeping the language pure for the last ~900 years. To the extent where they invent their own words for modern concepts like computer (tölva - a mash of tolun=numbers and völva=seer), television (sjónvarp - a mash of sjón=sight and varp=to throw) and so on. And you have to pick your child's name from a government-approved list. :)
GM Axolotl |
I've heard this stuff about Icelandic. Similar situation in Tibetan. :)
Chiquq |
Yeah, I borrow the occasional loan-word from Inuit tongues (though that's turning out to be a really broad language group, ha, and Inuit is almost a misnomer) for Chiquq here. That's very interesting stuff about the Icelandic language, though! Kitten, do you read Stand Still, Stay Silent?
GM Axolotl |
Please enjoy my home made maps. :D Reign of Winter doesn't contain a map for every section! Google Search is fun, though.
Kittenmancer |
I haven't read SSSS, I took a quick look now and it reminds me of A Redtail's Dream.
Please excuse any strange timing on my posting, time zones are weird. I do try to be awake when most of you are posting, but that may not always be possible.
dien RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16 |
GM Axolotl |
Oh dear, more webcomics? I have been following too many... I started ARTD and then stopped :P And I am 1/4 Finn, so I should be reading it, right? :D
May I recommend Rice Boy if you haven't read it. Immersive, weird, wonderful. I am reading Digger on the side, these days.
GM Axolotl |
Happy Lunar New Year! We're prepping for Tibetan momos over here. I will have two cats milling about.
Imendri tends to have busy weekends and I reckon that Braegan is still swamped or recovering, so it may be a low-post time.
Braegan. |
Should be back to normal posting. Sorry for the friday disappearance. My wife backed into the stabilizing wire coming off a power line pole. It got stuck in the wheel drum. Then, after getting it unstuck, I got pulled over for an out-of-date registration in her car (which, in all fairness would have been up to date had I gotten it inspected in time).
So that turned into a court-house call, then my other car got some seriously squeaky brakes.
... I hate cars.
Dezső |
Kittenmancer |
Chiquq |
Kitttttieeesss. I didn't have the foresight to take a picture of her by SSSS, but here's my fluffy girl.
Aside from that! I'm going to be at Dundracon from Friday to Monday. I will still have net access, buuut I'm also going to be either GMing or playing PFS for 12 hours a day, so don't expect a whole lot from me. IF I'm holding up action, please feel free to bot me.
Kittenmancer |
Please let me know if I'm doing too much roleplaying and not enough metagaming! And this is not sarcastic at all, I'm just trying to find a good balance between being in the character's head and playing her as "realistic" as I can, and being a non-useless entity in the party.
Also, I had indeed forgotten that the armor bonus from Mage Armor does not stack with physical armor, silly me. Thanks for pointing that out, I will remember it in the future (and so will Yrja).
GM Axolotl |
You are welcome to retcon; alternately let's say that you quickly recognize they won't stack (Spellcraft DC 0)--you had never seen armor before.
Braegan. |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I wouldn't call it metagaming (a word that often has negative gaming connotations). If Mahb had been training Yrga, I'd imagine knowing the limitations of spells is part of that training. Basically, if it's in the spell description of a spell you're capable of prepping/casting, I'd suggest your character knows it.
And as far as making sub-optimal choices for role-play purposes ... that's a more difficult topic. I can see the point of making "bad calls" to show your character's inexperience or whatever. And I generally don't like to tell other players how to play their characters.
On the other hand, this is a team game where our PCs survival—these are the PC's we're each invested in—is dependent on everyone else pulling their weight and contributing. As such, I generally see my own character's strengths, weaknesses, and resources as a sort of group survival resource. Mis-spending your own resources may very well impact another PC's chance of survival.
For instance, Yrga only has so many spell slots. Using one now for what is basically an RP opportunity—with exactly zero mechanical benefit to Dez while "costing" our team your standard action this turn as well as your very valuable 1st level spell slot—has a very real impact on how long she can be useful — or at least in what ways she can remain useful— to the team in further encounters before we have to rest. Or, in a worst-case scenario, that spell might have been the AC bump someone needed to survive a tougher encounter.
I was debating with myself regarding this same issue about Braegan's actions earlier this same round. In this situation, Braegan has very little ways of contributing. His ranged options are so limited and unlikely to actually hit that they're basically nonexistent right now. So his other good tactical option is his spell usage. He's used 2 slots keeping people at high HP during this day, so he's down to 2 remaining spell slots. His (possibly useful) spell options are Burning Hands, Bless, or Shield of Faith.
Burning Hands is great in this scenario (hits multiple targets, does't require an attack roll, and is potentially really useful if they're vulnerable to Fire damage) but unusable right now due to range and difficult terrain. Dez could benefit from Shield of Faith, but given that he's already out of the fight, I'm gambling that the little buggers won't target him for a bit as they have more threatening opponents to deal with. Which leaves Bless. Possibly very useful, but we're not producing that many attacks per round (even less with Dez down), and I doubt we'll need a save versus fear. So burning half my remaining spell slots is quite a gamble ... especially when I consider that I'm trading out one of my possible uses of Burning Hands, which is what I really want to find a way to bring to bear on these little bastards.
So I ended up trying to move into position, instead. Gambling a bit on Dez's safety (sorry Dez) for the potential to possibly catch a couple of these little punks in some fiery goodness in further rounds.
I think this is the best way to help us all stay alive and conserve party resources for the rest of the day.
Any of that make any sense? I don't want everyone thinking I expect them to be thinking of this as a tactical war game, but at the same time, I hope we can find a good balance between RP'ing and making smart tactical/group success decisions. :)
GM Axolotl |
Nice post, Braegan. Team, I will leave your team tactics and strategy to you. I'll just say that this scenario a) isn't easy b) will indeed require resource management but also c) downed characters will rarely if ever be attacked by opponents--kind of an unwritten GM rule, and I will follow it.
Yrja |
I should probably start posting as Yrja to avoid confusion.
Thank you very much for the feedback, Braegan. If GM agrees, I will retcon my previous action (actually waiting until the two fey before Yrja have taken their turn) and then try to hit them with a Slumber hex.
I apologise for a) making a silly mistake and forgetting the non-stacking thing (it's not in the spell description, but it's in the general rules) and b) putting my character's interesting RP over the wellbeing of the group. Will not happen again.
Braegan. |
No need to apologize. There's like a million rules in the system. We're going to forget/overlook them sometimes. :)
And I'm all about people RP'ing. I've enjoyed everyone's involvement so far. I say keep it up.
GM Axolotl |
Yes, happy with a retcon. Please don't apologize--I have made the same mistake myself. ...more than once.
Dezső |
I'll add that color spray is not such an exotic spell, so most of the spellcasters probably know he is just unconscious. Yrja may end up with a high spellcraft skill based on her INT, so you may think about how to RP that. It may be she has great intuition about magic, even if you think she wasn't trained carefully.
GM Axolotl |
I don't bother hiding what spell is being used (I believe there's a Spellcraft check to identify it) for the spellcasters. Yrja should know what it is. Unless one has a sneaky spellcaster. Spellcraft is still needed for Counterspell and the like.
dien RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16 |
I've always felt there's a bit of a false dichotomy between playing well, tactically, and also playing good RP. So often I see a lot of people thinking the two are exclusive, like counterweights that you have to try and balance. I personally think the fun of RP can come in in figuring out how to best justify good party contribution with whatever RP backstory you've given your character.
Like, Yrja's inexperience and social ignorance of others is definitely a powerful part of her character. It's also entirely feasible she feels a strong attachment to Dezso because he's the first of her own kind she's ever seen, and watching him fall could easily result in a moment of panic or an otherwise strong reaction.
But at that point you have the choice to be like 'okay, am I going to let her emotional reaction depict her making a mistake in the use of a spell, when her training could certainly provide her the opportunity to know the spell in that fashion... or am I going to use it as a moment where Yrja has to recognize her panic, and then her intellect and training kicks in and she goes, 'no, that won't really help! Oh gosh, what can I do instead!' etc.
The latter also has a lot of RP value, I think. As a sort-of example: Chiquq didn't initially trust Dezso at all, because tieflings are strange and horrific to her. And I wouldn't say she's all the way yet in his corner, but she's more charitably inclined to him than she was at first. ;)
When Dezso got hurt a few pages back, I had a choice to make in the development of their RP, and Chiquq's attitude. I could have run with "RP that is detrimental to the party" and have her be like, "well, obviously you deserved that, you devil-man" and have her not heal him, or I could choose to have her feel guilty over not having spotted the trap, and to reluctantly start mentally accepting Dez as part of her allies, and therefore to heal him. They're both roleplay moments, and both could have been in-character for Chiquq if I'd wanted to go down their respective roads, but one of them hurts the party, and one helps.
:) Anyway, I'm sure we'll find a happy medium for all!
Dezső |
Awesome reflections, dien. It is fun to be in a campaign with people who are being so thoughtful about the roleplaying.
GM Axolotl |
Love it, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the thoughtful conversation.
I'm holding actions at Round 1 until Yrja retcons, and then on to Round 2: The Fey Strike Back (or, get flamed to bits).
Chiquq |
I think the issue is that your retcon was stated here, and not in the actual gameplay thread-- Axolotl may have been expecting your retconned action of slumber to be officially announced in gameplay, as we were still kinda discussing it. But I could be wrong. Never let me speak for the GM! ;)
(Aw, thanks Dez!)
GM Axolotl |
Try Digger or Rice Boy? Or just read Mistborn novels until you puke...
Yrja |
Oh, I'm not short on books to read, my to-read list on Good Reads is about 240 titles long at the moment. I just really liked SSSS and wanted more webcomics like that.
Already read most of the Mistborn novels, I'm on a sci-fi bender at the moment, reading the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey.
GM Axolotl |
May tiny cherubs shoot you with non numbing arrows of love today!
GM Axolotl |
Only cat pics. :( :P I don't want to bot just yet, as it's a holiday here in the U.S.
Yrja |
dien RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16 |
Dezső |
I'm just a spectator right now... Thought I'd drop a line to ask Yrja whether she had looked into the cackle hex. It is very effective for extending the duration of slumber and misfortune for the cost of a move action.
GM Axolotl |
It does not extend Slumber, only Misfortune. and Evil Eye and a few others.
dien RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16 |