I would tend to counter argue that, very few divine caster who they themselves don't engage in melee combat at early levels tend to find it difficult to make a large impact.
The inverse of this of course is that you reach soaring heights of power, while the martial classes stay relatively the same.
I had a sorcerer I played about a year ago. You know what he did at low level? He used grease and grappled things, that was the extend of his usefulness.
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I understand this perfectly, hince why I will be using Enlarge Person and such until I get to higher levels where I can do more damage as a caster. My main point is that each one of us casters is basically defenseless, I can bump my AC quite a bit, but just one lucky roll and all of that is for naught. We have wimpy HP and while staying in the back is the safest option, it isn't always full-proof. If I had gotten hit by the Whiptail I would be straight-up dead, not unconscious, dead, unless I was lucky, in which case I still would've died after maybe 2 failed stabilization checks.
The only real issue I see is the amount of damage these critters are doing. We don't have much HP at all, and I don't believe any of us focused on Con, so we don't have very much leeway as for negative hit points. If you want to add DR, resistances, and such that is fine. Though the centipede was a bad example as he basically countered our team - None of us have magic weapons, and The evoker of the party is Fire-based, not entirely fair, but you may have meant for that encounter to be a warning idk, if so, message received we are getting the f*** outa there, and I believe I speak for the entire party in that aspect.
As for the warnings against dangerous areas, its simpler than you may think, give each area some sort of legend or rumor and have townsfolk advise against us travelling there, giving us warnings like, "It is a dark and foreboding place, none should ever step foot lest they seek their own demise!" from the town's oracle/sage/elder or something of the sort.
Slight correction, even if the centipede hit you for max damage, which was 23, you still wouldn't be dead.
Also, what little people I have currently for the party to interact with, I've tried to give advise with. Trent did mention most things the party should steer clear of.
It's true he didn't mention the temple, because I had decided he didn't know about it, given the nature that it is indeed hidden and not something you'd normally find unless you went exploring, which he really isn't in the business of doing.
As the party develops their city this is certainly a route I could take. More people will keep arriving in the Greenbelt, so yes, I cam go with this route. But I feel like, for the most part, I have been.
Been out and about today, which has limited my participation.
Please forgive the subsequent Wall of Text.
In terms of dramaturgical structure -- in cinema, literature, theater, comics, whatever -- character death is common. It's all over the place. Generally, though, character death means one of two things:
1. A secondary character has died, because that character was not central to the story (and possibly has served a needed purpose to drive the primary character or characters).
2. A primary character has died, because that character's story arc has completed.
So Luke Skywalker's aunt and uncle die because Luke needs to have no attachments left on Tattooine to prevent him from going into space to become a starfighter pilot and later a space-wizard. Bruce Wayne's mother and father die to give him strong character motivations. Red Shirt #4 dies to show how dangerous the monster is so that we know that Kirk and Spock are in Serious Danger.
Similarly, Obi-Wan Kenobi dies because he has set Luke upon his necessary first steps and now provides strong incentive for Luke to really want to see the Empire fall -- thus paving the way for a confrontation with Darth Vader. (Plus now he can give Luke space-wizard advice anywhere, anytime, without having to drag the old coot around physically.) Sturm Brightblade dies because he is living up to a lost ideal, and he has played out his role and his death will inspire others and also underscore the turn of Kitiara to the forces of evil.
When a character dies randomly in an RPG, this is essentially signaling that either the character's story has completed its arc and the character's death is now appropriate, or the character was a secondary character whose participation in the story really didn't matter because the story is about someone else. If the dice kill off a player's character and that character has not played out a central story arc, this is essentially telling the player "your character, whom you spent all this time developing, is a secondary character. You weren't really important to the story, and your participation doesn't really matter." Most (not all, but most) players come to the table to play a principal character, to play a role that is important and meaningful, one that will see the character through development, through trials, and through growth and loss. So what is this saying to the player of the sorcerer who gets killed by a raging barbarian in a single shot? The paladin's character development is important, but yours isn't? The dice have arbitrarily reduced you, as a player, to playing a secondary character, while the paladin's player is more important because (s)he was lucky?
(Some players do like playing supporting roles. Some games like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG or Ars Magica specifically have supporting character roles built in. I myself played in a D&D game where my friend played a 10th-level fighter and I played his 5th-level archivist sidekick; we had a strong character relationship dynamic and roles to fill and neither of us was bored or unhappy.)
Now, Mileage May Vary, of course. For some players, RPGs are strongly numeric: You are, basically, pushing a token around on a board. You make selections of features and options in an attempt to optimize outcomes so that you "win" by collecting things that are considered good (experience points, levels, money, magic items, miscellaneous ancillary benefits) and minimize things that are bad (hit point loss, negative levels, character death, hazardous conditions that impair or limit your ability to make choices or to succeed in challenges). If you make the "right" selections you can reduce the uncertainty involved in various challenges and gain a greater degree of guarantee of success. The more highly optimized you make your token, the more the GM has to create tougher challenges, and since RPGs are generally a multi-participant affair, this just means that everyone else winds up behind the curve and relegated to being secondary characters.
There's an (in)famous quote attributed to Mike Mearls, possibly apocryphal, stating that "role-playing is just making suboptimal choices." This is based on the notion I mentioned earlier of having good/bad choices -- choices between something good and something bad. Feats are an excellent example of this. If you have a choice between a feat that gives you bonus damage at a cost to your hit rate (Power Attack) vs. a feat that gives you a small conditional bonus to two different situations and a small amount of damage to a tiny subset of foes when you are taking a very specific kind of damage, the choice is an obvious good/bad one; you only take the latter choice if you have some compelling character reason to do so, i.e. "role-playing as a suboptimal choice." But role-playing also involves good/good choices (would you like to be friend of the elves for life, or learn several new spells?) and bad/bad choices (let the demon escape, or kill it but not until after it kills your one true love?).
Player preferences run across a spectrum, and it's not simply a one-dimensional spectrum, either. Some players really like drama and characterization, some like numbers and gamey choices, some like both in varying degrees. (Players who don't like either generally quit playing RPGs.)
Now, I'll re-iterate that I don't especially care if my character dies. I'm not the kind of player who takes it personally or just gets frustrated and quits playing. It does, however, mean that I will make replacement characters until I run out of interesting ideas, at which point I will come up with a character that is boring and not really fun to play. Since I feel some responsibility for the enjoyment of the entire group I will continue to participate, but at that point I've essentially abdicated any hope of personal satisfaction.
At the moment I have ~3 interesting possible back-up builds if Donovan should bite it. (This is assuming that in such a scenario I continue to need to fill the role of primary healer.) If I run through all of them and don't come up with additional interesting character concepts, then I wind up playing a stock cleric who is basically a healbot with no personality. This is not especially satisfying to me, but I can certainly make something that will excel at keeping the group well-healed.
This also raises the question: What is so important that this many people died? In the Real World (TM), since that spectre was raised earlier in the conversation, lots of people die horribly for no good reason all the time. But this isn't the Real World, or even an especially resilient simulation thereof; this is a dramatic interpretation of a specific kind of tale, the Bildungsroman-like tale of explorers trying to settle a dangerous land and their rise to positions of leadership in a young kingdom. To me as a player, the interesting questions raised here are in what makes this kind of activity worth the risk, why they decided to become involved in this, how they interact with the other people they joined in this endeavor, and what price they pay to try to create a kingdom that matches their hopes and dreams for the future.
Right now there's kind of a sense that we have some character motivation and some role-playing that has given party members chances to explore their budding relationships to one another, but our primary focus has been on fighting some rather tense battles while we feel like our various resources are really unsuited for these tasks unless our resources specifically boil down to "hit things hard and often." Kingmaker has some stock challenges that are straight-up beatfests, no doubt, but it also has a lot of room to create nuanced things that relate to the goals and motivations of the characters as individuals. (Jade Regent does this in a great way by having connections with important NPCs matter, and by specifically scaling early encounters so that the GM has wide latitude to determine pacing on the basis of how well or how poorly the party is doing.)
Also, I think everyone knows that CR is total guesswork. ;)
correction CR is educated guesswork.
the big issue with the centipede is the narrow space we ran into it in
Correction, the big issue with the centipede is the party's inability to bypass DR. Most people would have chose to do what they did regardless.
Also do you want me starting off with exp as a level 2 character or with whatever exp the rest of thw party had?
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You'll level whenever they do.
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ya tuyena here just tells us when we level, we dont track our own xp really, easyer that way i think
Would still like to hear back you Durielle if you get a chance.
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I have sent you a note. :-)
That is too public, smiley faces are offensive to me. Dangit I am most perturbed.
Clearly.
On a serious note, how close was Durielle examining Sugua?
I am picturing her as leaning over wherever she is "working" and then looking up, so I would imagine she is pretty close and, well, staring while her mind is lost in thought. Her silver eyes and the odd light that lives in them would have been pretty much in Sugua's face. It would have been pretty obvious to Sugua and Alphonse if he's there helping.
Hrmm alright then. Thanks for the visualization. This changes his reaction somewhat and since she and Alphonse were helping I can explain some stuff.
Khargol and Durielle you both have messages in your inbox. Let me hear back from you.
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Boom the post is real, you hit a Sugua point of interest.
I'm not sure if there is some kind of Knowledge check appropriate for the tattoos assuming there is some kind of organizational or regional significance.
Hopefully you don't mind my playing with the possible future stuff. One of these days, I hope I can actually have that stuff be legitimately a part of the game. Go, go Seer Oracle!
I suppose local would be one. Its his Sacred Tattoo.. the red one. The other one is something different. I suppose Religion would be another one. Also Sugua is getting ... uncomfortable.
Maybe religion for the sacred tattoo and local for the other? No idea of what type of DC to assign though...
Damnit. How many time do I have to tell you, you are a slayer not a ninja! ;)
One does not necessarily stop the other.
Sacred tattoo is pretty common that would be a 10
This other is a story thing so that would be a 20
Ok I tweaked the final encounter in the mite den to be less Dark Souls, more Diablo. Tell me how you feel about it once you're done with it.
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I'll give you an opinion but can compare it to neither Diablo nor Dark Souls, as I haven't played either of them. Yeah, yeah...I know. What kind of nerd am I, never playing Diablo?
I'll give you an opinion but can compare it to neither Diablo nor Dark Souls, as I haven't played either of them. Yeah, yeah...I know. What kind of nerd am I, never playing Diablo?
You marr your nerd heritage.
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I don't believe my question was ever answered: Would you allow me to get proficiency with the Sword Cane? It fits him very well and he doesn't get very many feats.
I could have sworn I answered that. For now at least don't plan on it, but I might change my mind down the road.
Side note, Pillars of Eternity comes out tomorrow, hype is real.
By the by...yes, that's what Khargol was saying. He's saying that mastery of a discipline transcends mere proficiency in it.
I assumed though as of right now there isnt really much of a difference at least when Sugua or any martial kinda uses it with great results.
Its at higher mastery that the difference becomes noticeable. Though to be fair, Sugua is mastering the Greatsword... for his god, but generally he doesnt focus on any one weapon.
Which now brings the question, is everyone somewhat ready for the night shifts and next day? Are we going back to finish the job or back to Olegs? Or are we doing something else?
I'm ready for night shifts. As far as where to go, it would seem odd after resting and getting refreshed to leave without first trying to finish the mite's den.
Im for the Mite den too.
We need to get healed up though, how much do we have left?
I still have two channels left, and potentially three castings of cure light wounds, before we hit the sack.
Split up as necessary.
So 7 more to everyone with a split of 4, 9, and 6 healing,
7 brings Sugua to 11 so 9 will be good enough as that will bring him to 20 and sleep brings him to 22.
Khargol should take the 10 and 7 to put him at full too.
So we are good.
Mite's den sounds good to me too.
Say whenever you like for morning to come.
I ready whenever once people are done. Unless someone wants to speak to Sugua during the watch or wake him up while he is napping. Im assuming nothing dangerous happened at night then?
HA! You wanted me to be a blaster...now we need an archer. This is a perfect time for this, I am thinking I will make Gonzo evolve into an Arcane Archer. Fireball arrows FYEAH!
Anybody like the idea? DMT?
Hrm we didnt say that. You can if you want it wouldnt change the fact we would want one then the other. The group changed, so far until Vlad actually turns on the only Melee damage is Sugua and Khargol. If you change someone else will have to change and Arcane Archer requires ALOT of feats to be good not to mention a certain stat allocation and currently it seems Khargol is changing to be Bowquistor. If you want an Opinion on it basically you would have to change your feats/focus again. Someone will have to pick up the slack somewhere and the Delay could mean a difference for other characters.
HA! You wanted me to be a blaster...now we need an archer. This is a perfect time for this, I am thinking I will make Gonzo evolve into an Arcane Archer. Fireball arrows FYEAH!
Anybody like the idea? DMT?
Not personally a fan of the idea.
Not unnecessary and its in Ooc which is one of its functions. Right now Im simply waiting.. I wont be posting for a while because of work but I rather correct the post while the person still has the time to fix sad post. Which ofcourse if we are deleting things it would start with your own Durielle.
Actually, it should start with yours, as that would signal you had seen mine and acknowledged Clousuk's correction. :D
I already planned to delete mine before 60 minutes have passed, so it would have been up to you and Clousuk as it is.
I really do prefer [ooc] chatter to be within a real post and have pure [ooc] stuff posted here. Just how I feel, of course.
If everyone is able to delete their posts that's fine, but if not, no big deal.
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Either way it doesnt matter much and as you have said that is a personal thing. As such unless you push it, it may no come to pass. [ooc] For me is things like that, minor mistakes, questions to the GM or other players, asides with another post any flavor you choose. Now the discussion is for longer posts that have little to do with in character issues, meta-knowledge, all sorts of things that will generally be like a paragraph or so.
I'll humor you this time however but will state it won't exactly end. I saw nothing to add to the post outside of that as currently Sugua is napping.
It wasn't that big a deal. Because god forbid if one of us weren't around to delete our respective post. The others would have been stuck on there with zero context, and few things on this board are more annoying than a lack of context.
All in all, I only ended up commenting as this was the first time even the [ooc] chat would have been head-scratch inducing for anyone else as once corrected the context is lost. The other such examples in the thread were legitimate questions and comments that stand on their own right. Since yours had been rendered now simply confusing to the "new" reader, I just suggested its removal.
Also, because I had already notified Clousuk via another medium seconds before your post hit the board. If you had been just a tad slower to read, you wouldn't have even known the slip happened. ;-)
Edit: Kobold ninja!
Will be unavailable for most of the day on account of a work field trip. Woohoo.
Duly noted. You likely will not be needed unless something happens today.
Noting that i am patiently waiting for the morning or anything of note to happen.
I can advance us whenever were ready.
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I think that all of us are ready whenever you would like.
By the way, thank you for the time for a bit of character development roleplay.
I second Vlad's comment and also add that I'm ready to continue, as well.