NobodysHome's Silly Serpent's Skull Moments [***Spoilers***]


Serpent's Skull

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Drejk wrote:
I guess you left channel <1-29 level> then...

LOL. If you leave public chat enabled on ANY MMORPG, it's your own fault.


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NobodysHome wrote:
Drejk wrote:
I guess you left channel <1-29 level> then...
LOL. If you leave public chat enabled on ANY MMORPG, it's your own fault.

Nah, most of the time I have the chat set to Party tab, or Crap (which shows me loot, achievements, (PA)XP, skill gains and such kind of things. I only actively left 1-29 on one of three characters... I think.

Also, I have quite fond memories of public chat in Lord Of The Rings Online for the first few years after they went F2P. The community was actually helpful and nice. It might have something to do that I picked a RP server and LOTRO had unorthodox approach to PvP. And then they had to introduce global world chat that replaced advice, trade, and ooc :(

Though honestly, the community quality slowly degraded before that...


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Terrible, terrible news, everyone!

Germany has withdrawn!

OK. It was just too fun to say.

But Mr. Stereotype and his father didn't get home from dinner 'til after midnight, and don't have the intestinal fortitude or to either skip sleep for an evening to try to "make do" on 3 hours' sleep, so tonight we're either doing a short short-handed session, or no session at all, depending on what everyone votes for.

So far Impus Major wants to postpone, Impus Minor is ambivalent, and we haven't heard from Talky, Bacon Boy, or Deady yet...


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Oh, and in Rift news, I was practicing being a tank in Hammerknell last night. It was hilarious! I had an experienced tank on Skype with me, and as we were dealing with a particularly nasty boss who required some expertise on the tank's part he kept saying, "OK, now pull her over to that rock. OK. Turn her around. No! No! Keep her there! Don't let her get away!"

The entire time, 15 other raid members were shooting her, taunting her, and otherwise making her run amok. Their pets were herding her all over the place. We had two near-TPKs. I died twice.

And I kept telling the experienced tank, "I'm TRYING! I can't get these idiots to stop shooting for a minute so I can get her in position!"

And he responded. "Yep. That's the hardest part of being a tank. The other players..."

I've always respected tanks. Now I respect 'em even more...


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NobodysHome wrote:
Oh, and in Rift news, I was practicing being a tank in Hammerknell last night. It was hilarious! I had an experienced tank on Skype with me, and as we were dealing with a particularly nasty boss who required some expertise on the tank's part he kept saying, "OK, now pull her over to that rock. OK. Turn her around. No! No! Keep her there! Don't let her get away!"

*giggles*

Yesterday I started my tanking in RIFT when my fighter warrior passed level 40, and I made myself a basic paladin build (and crafted a shield after getting a nice, great looking nightmare one-handed sword from Mind Of Madness IA)... For a moment I had a "whaaa" moment when reading this, then it occurred to me that while I was in Hammerknell IA yesterday, I don't think I tanked there.

Quote:
And he responded. "Yep. That's the hardest part of being a tank. The other players..."

Ohhh, boy, so much that. I tanked before in other games and the experience is... Very mixed. With decent group that it's quite good. With rowdy, unruly bunch... Uh. Owie, owie, owie...

I prefer to heal myself, though. As a healer I only need to keep the party moderately alive to be successful, not having to bother with insane racing against other dpsers and their need to stroke their e-peen...

Spoiler:

Mage: Pyromancer for solo with occasional switch to Necromancer for elites. Chloromancer for IAs and sometimes for event bosses if I have time to switch, which usually is not the case because folks are killing them so fast that I barely can reach them in time to get a hit...

Cleric: Justicar for solo content. Don't look at me like that. I know it's a tanking soul, but somehow after short time playing Druid I switched to Justicar and stayed. I like the general idea of druid in Rift (for those who don't play Rift: a mostly melee class with a fey pet selected from Satyr defender, melee dps satyr destroyer, faerie healer, and ranged dps faerie seer, with lots of buffs and an array of special attacks) but I couldn't really get into it. Too many buttons to manage. For group content I go with Warden: a water-based group healer. Swoosh! And another wave of healing waters goes over all the party. Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Crap, mana is ending. Gulp, energy-restoring power is on. Though I started to thinking about getting some sort of healing mod so I could use single target healing by clicking on raid frames instead of having to target intended recipients first...

Rogue Bladedancer for solo and Bard for groups. Only a little healing there, though, the actual healing soul requires DLC that is on a list of things that I might acquire later.

And finally the latest to the party, Warrior. I level as Warlord, and only got to make Paladin build after a bugged undermanned Lady Justice fight. I managed the dark genesis area, followed by the fight with Vis and Mis. No major casualties, except me running into a beam from Vis... And using taunt on the boss a second later while being down to less than 10% of my health... *splat* Still better than melee dps in group. And yes, once I got a healing soul I will try healing here as well.

Funnily enough, I enjoyed melee combat on the Bladedancer more than on the Warlord, though it might change later when I get all the warlordish skills...


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NobodysHome wrote:

The entire time, 15 other raid members were shooting her, taunting her, and otherwise making her run amok. Their pets were herding her all over the place. We had two near-TPKs. I died twice.

And I kept telling the experienced tank, "I'm TRYING! I can't get these idiots to stop shooting for a minute so I can get her in position!"

For a moment I was wondering how it is even remotely possible to constantly take the aggro off the tank, then I remembered "raid-grade dps", not that namby-pamby dps of us, IA bunch scaled up to level 65. As a group of 10 or 15 or so such folks we managed to fail to kill Lady Envy before the timer run out. According to a guy running a dps meter we were doing a total of 130k damage per second.

(for non-Rift folks) In comparison, a single level 65 raid-grade damage-dealer is supposed to do something between 30 to 60k dps on its own, depending on equipment and skill.

BTW: What class and soul were you using for tanking?


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More RIFT:
Samekh, the boss of The Shadow From Beyond chronicle keeps dropping Pillar of Cosmos , a mage tanking staff... Is that a suggestion?


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Since we have no game to talk about at the moment, Rift seems the topic du jour:

My Builds:

  • My main is a cleric:
    Solo/DPS is Inquisitor 61/Purifyer 8/Justicar 7. Your DPS numbers are a bit off; she can maintain 50k+ DPS, and she's only mid-level in terms of DPS. Our rogue can maintain 70k, and when we're hitting a Tarken Glacier or Planetouched Wilds boss we see 2-3 people maintaining 130k.

    Instance/Single-Target Healing is Purifyer 61/Oracle 12/Sentinel 3. And let me tell you, nobody dies in THAT instance! It's a ludicrous-good single-target heal build.

    AE Healing is just like yours: Warden 61/Oracle 12/Sentinel 3

    I'm also playing around with a Defiler build (Defiler 61/Inquisitor 8/Shaman 7), but while her DPS is good for a healer (20-30k maintained), her heals are too slow to be useful. She can EITHER heal OR do damage; doing both at once is HARD.

    I have a tank build for her, but it stinks.

  • My "little mage" is just melee DPS, and I don't enjoy playing her:
    Harbinger 61/Chloromancer 8/Elementalist 7. Just not a fun build, and everyone else does all the other mage stuff (pyromancer, necromancer, tank, etc.).

  • I'm having fun with my fighter/warrior/whatever:
    Void Knight 61/Paladin 15/Tempest 0.
    It gives her FIVE taunts, good single-target and AE attacks, but... no charge?!?!?

    I'm seriously missing having a charge. Otherwise, she's ridiculously tough and even puts out decent DPS.



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    And now I just dropped a sash for my mage with dodge bonus on it... It starts to feel like pressure to get the soul pack with Arbiter soul...

    Purifier (a cleric healer that uses power of elemental fire to heal and shield) is interesting concept but I haven't went into that. Yet. Maybe in the future.


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    And my interest in Rift just got a solid kick in the gut.

    Spoiler:
    New expansion seems to be locking the incoming content behind a paywall. No hint of possibility of getting through it with credits, only hard cash. I get that Trion needs to make money from this enterprise, but they already flatly refused to accept my dollars when I wanted to spend them (and had spare cash). Anyway, I don't have that kind of spare cash currently and nothing indicates I will be able to afford expenditure of that degree on gaming anytime soon.

    Side effect of this is that the predicted inability to explore the new regions means I will have less incentive to spend time in game, getting new souls, new equipment, new collections, and new planar experience...

    A lot will depend if Trion will introduce ability to unlock the new content with credits. Or if it will be revealed that the description of pre-order is misleading with its "access to Starfall Prophecy content"...

    *sigh* Ah, well. I should spend less time playing Rift anyway...


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    Drejk wrote:

    And my interest in Rift just got a solid kick in the gut.

    ** spoiler omitted **

    *sigh* Ah, well. I should spend less time playing Rift anyway...

    Ever since the new producer came in, Rift has been one big money-grabbing machine: Pay-to-play minion quests, drop boxes that can *only* be opened with hard currency, etc.

    It's definitely had the opposite-than-intended effect on me: I am VERY hesitant to spend even another dime on the money-grubbers.

    Just goes to show: Provide free content with purchasable "perks", and everyone flocks to you (the Patron perks are still well worth it). Try to squeeze every last freaking dime out of your players with EVERYTHING being a little microtransaction, and people leave.

    Why is it SO hard for executives to understand this paltry little truism?


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    Totally random dropboxes that require purchasing a key to open them don't bother me... I just ignore them, keeping only the best for eventual random drop of a key (I think I got two keys in daily presents or something). Except when my regular Hammerknell IA reward box is replaced with one (happened to me twice, they still lie somewhere in my vault), that was annoying.

    Paid minion missions are a bit more annoying but whatever, they are non-essential to me so I just shuffle them.

    I had three days of patron pass that was given to everyone recently, and while the bonuses were nice, I don't really felt they were actually worth paying (I am not sure if I even used patron teleport ability... maybe once if at all). Extra currency gains and experience bonus? Nice but it only shortens my grind anyway. Accumulating chronicle bonus? I noticed it only after the patron pass expired, I don't do chronicles a lot. The best part was artifact tracking ability. Still, I am not paying $ for getting ten times as much artifacts as usually... I would get bored with artifacts fast.

    I approve providing people with ways to fund the game, and I understand going toward the Buy To Play model (Guild Wars 2 uses it as well, purchase expansion to play the expansion) but no option to buy the expansion with credits is screwing the people who purchased credits/REX by diminishing credit/REX value.

    On the other hand, I already saw some guy riding the drake that is an extra for preorder of the deluxe edition. It's nice, though it reminds me of lovely ugly drakes from World Of Warcraft Northrend and Cataclysm...


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    You are playing the game this week, right? *eyes Nobody in particular suspiciously*


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    Drejk wrote:
    You are playing the game this week, right? *eyes Nobody in particular suspiciously*

    Hey now, hey now! While the cancellation on the 18th was my fault, the cancellation on the 25th was the players'. (Not any one in particular; Germany canceled, then both Talky and Bacon Boy said they were exhausted, so a good night not to campaign.)

    So yes, tonight we're scheduled for a game. Next week I'll be in the Sequoias with the imps, and Sequoia National Forest is not known for its internet connectivity...


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    Malek Finds True Love... or True Fear
    So last night's session was remarkably straightforward, with the only amusement provided by my choice of "gift" for Malek.

    It had been a few weeks between sessions, so it took the kids a little while to remember what they were doing, but they finally realized that their primary goal was to track the serpentfolk undead back to their lair. My favorite moment of the night was right after they'd concluded they were just going to go back to the Pathfinder camp and do research, and I got to roleplay a sputtering, furious Juliver who cried out, "I just TOLD you there are massive serpentfolk armies awakening across the world, and you're going to go study walls?!?!?!?"
    They pointed out that such research might point then in the direction of the vaults, but in the face of her ire they acquiesced and decided to start searching for the vault.

    Unfortunately, Hooken's die wasn't cooperating with him, and he couldn't hit the necessary 31 for a while, leading the party near the edge of the lake in Boggard territory. Hooken spotted something enormous in the lake, following them from under the water (they were specifically staying at least 100 feet from the water for fear of Yog'Oltha). After a bit, they determined it was not Yog'Oltha, but the same ginormous blob they'd seen slaughtering charou'ka a while back. They moved closer to the water's edge. (I forget their explanation, but somewhere in there they went from 100' to 40'. I know this because of what happened next.) Now that they were close, they identified the creature as a froghemoth. They decided that leaving it alone was the best course of action. The froghemoth disagreed. The moment they began moving away it charged forth from the lake with its mighty 20' speed, used its 30' tongue to hit Malek, and rolled a natural 1 on its grapple, the *only* way it could have failed. But Malek did get a nice bit of froggy tongue, considering it was at least as large as he was.

    Being a sensible party, Voren cast Haste and they fled, seeing no strong reason to battle the froghemoth. Unfortunately for them, I rolled its Survival check, and a natural 18 meant it was going to happily follow them along. Hooken finally found the trail of the undead serpentfolk, still in the Artisan District, but also noticed they were being followed by a rather large admirer.

    Queue the standard, "We lead it around in circles while Kwai Chang runs off to get the Muse's help," reaction. Imagine my delight in the Muse's reaction as Kwai Chang asked an azata to slaughter an "innocent" creature merely for the party's convenience. She was incensed, but Kwai Chang managed to talk her down to the point that she was at least willing to have words with the froghemoth and find out what it wanted with the party. It wasn't hard to find the group in its infinite circle with the froghemoth, so the Muse spoke with it. As they spoke, for the first time in all the time they'd known her, the Muse laughed aloud.

    "Well, it is all very simple," she explained. "Apparently, part of the makeup of a froghemoth is grippli. She tasted you, and recognized a male. And she is... lonely."
    Malek didn't miss a beat. "Oh. OK. Hey, babe!"
    As the Muse reassured Malek that he could approach her, the rest of the party declared her Malek's wife. He replied, "I am remarkably OK with that."

    The Muse went on to describe the froghemoth's mind to the party: She was as smart as a dog or wolf, but did not have a good notion of "pack", so while she and Malek were perfectly safe in her vicinity, she wasn't sure about the rest of the party, and especially their mounts, or people who weren't here when she introduced the froghemoth to them. The party would probably be fine... today...
    As they spoke, Malek approached the froghemoth. She gingerly wrapped a tentacle around him, lifted him up onto her back, then settled in to the dirt, content. The party was at a complete loss as to what to do about her. Hooken finally piped up: "Well, I think we can take her with us, and if she causes trouble I have an aberration slaying arrow."
    "Oh, no, dear," the Muse replied. "That would only irritate her."

    Having no idea what to do with their new "party member", the group tracked the undead serpentfolk. The froghemoth, curious, followed them, with Malek on her back, for all intents and purposes trapped there for eternity. They found an entrance to an underground passage, blocked by a slightly-ajar stone door and guarded by a lone kech archer. Cue more hilarity as they realized none of them spoke Kech, nor had Comprehend Languages or Tongues, so off Kwai Chang ran back to the Free Captains to spend 750 g.p. on a potion of Tongues. (If you ever wonder why I don't give them more cash, it's the whole, "We send Kwai Chang to buy exactly what we need a the spur of the moment," approach that doesn't make me feel bad that they're always short on cash.)
    One potion of Tongues later, Templari approached the kech. And it started slowly, methodically shooting her. It took them a couple of rounds to realize it was a zombie. A tough zombie. But not THAT tough. It needed a natural 19 to hit Templari, so she just beat it to death.

    The party buffed up, opened the door, and fought... 6 more kech zombies!

    The only two truly curious aspects of the fight were:
    (1) Kwai Chang went in to engage them hand-to-hand. With a low AC (22?) and an even lower damage output (1d8+5 with his sword), they tore him up something awful.
    (2) Malek never got off the froghemoth. He just watched the whole fight from a distance.

    Oh, and not quite "curious" but more "sad" was Athelya using Detect Magic, learning that they all had auras from the Transformation school of magic, and then asking me what spell it was.
    "OK. Roll Knowledge: Arcana." (Identify a spell effect that is in place: DC 20 + spell level)
    "...I don't have any."
    "Well, then it was rather silly to spend 3 rounds studying them, wasn't it?"

    Sometimes, I'm just evil. But it was a pointless fight. And it's not the first time Athelya's been bitten by that particular loophole (magic items = Spellcraft. Spells in place = Knowledge: Arcana), so I was less-than-regretful.

    At the end of the fight, the froghemoth walked up and ate most of the bodies. Hooken dragged one away, so she only ate 6 of the 7 bodies. At which point they learned that the zombies were carrying 2 alchemist's fires and 4 doses of bloodroot poison... EACH!

    Poor Bara (Malek had named her at this point, though he was also calling her his "Wifu") was poisoned, and made a few sad croaky noises. In my favorite use of Lay on Hands so far this campaign, Templari used her Poison mercy. Unfortunately, she rolled terribly and didn't do anything other than make Bara feel better. Bara then rolled a stuperific Fortitude save and purged all the poison from her body. Froghemoth. Fortitude. Go figure.

    So the party is outside a cave full of kech zombies, accompanied by a somewhat-nauseous-and-gassy froghemoth.

    What could possibly go wrong?


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    And Impus Major's direct quote: "Malek has never met anything that frightened him before. And now he has. And it's his wife."

    Dark Archive

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    Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

    Well, girls are scary. Girls that are also froghemoths doubly so.

    Dark Archive

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    Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

    To be honest, having CR 10+ creature for spouse isn't worst possible thing xP As long you know how to treat your spouse right of course

    (seriously though, it'd probably help if they had spell awaken or some other spell that increases intelligence if they want to avoid being eaten :'D Though that could of course lead to them being eaten by intelligent tentacle frog, but eh details)


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    CorvusMask wrote:

    To be honest, having CR 10+ creature for spouse isn't worst possible thing xP As long you know how to treat your spouse right of course

    (seriously though, it'd probably help if they had spell awaken or some other spell that increases intelligence if they want to avoid being eaten :'D Though that could of course lead to them being eaten by intelligent tentacle frog, but eh details)

    It's... AWESOME!

    Froghemoths are aberrations, hence can't be Awoken. Instead, the party is pooling their money so Voren can craft a neck slot Necklace of Vast Intelligence so get its INT up to 4...

    Dark Archive

    Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

    Huh. And of course Awoken spell doesn't have more powerful variant that ignores creature type?

    Typical xD


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    Could always research a variant for animal intelligence aberrations. ;)

    Or discover one somewhere in the vast ruins of the ancient metropolis, etched on cyclopean stones of semi-non-Euclidean geometry encoded in Aklo.


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    Bad news, folks! First week of school has arrived, and Mr. Stereotype and his dad aren't getting in 'til late Monday night, so no game on Monday, and no chance for a make-up session later in the week.

    Thus, next session is scheduled for Monday, August 29.


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    RL trumps games :)


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    We still have two weeks until school starts. :-)


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    NobodysHome wrote:

    Bad news, folks! First week of school has arrived, and Mr. Stereotype and his dad aren't getting in 'til late Monday night, so no game on Monday, and no chance for a make-up session later in the week.

    Thus, next session is scheduled for Monday, August 29.

    NOOOOOO!


    GALT!!!!!!!!


    I'm with the elder red wyrm! :(


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    Tac's Guide (with GM's permission) to Making a Better Wifu:

    (In Three Easy Steps!)

    ((Mostly!))

    (((Again: really work with your GM/run it by him, first; do your spell research first, too.)))

    Step 1: bestow curse on <target>
    1) 50% failure to take action when attempting to harm <party> (otherwise it takes no action)
    2) -4 to all atk/saves/checks/skills/etc. v. party
    3) -6 Sense Motive checks v. Malek (does not stack with the above)
    4) roll twice to all atk/saves/checks/skills/etc. v. party
    Final) <target> is fully susceptible to all effects that affect an animal
    NOTE: <target> is ["the Green God", aka "Bara" Malak's "Wifu" the Froghemoth Aberration]
    - this is probably best accomplished as multiple curses, and multiple specific instances
    - the "final" one is the "key" to progressing further: the others are not strictly necessary, but are there for the express purpose of ensuring survival in case of opposition from <target>

    Step 2: use charm animal and dominate animal on the <target>

    Step 3: use a maximized awaken effect on the <target>
    (If you can somehow finagle that to a maximized and empowered awaken, go for it, but that would not only be rare and expensive as all get-out, it'd also likely get the nuh-uh GM-ban in substantial advance; I can perceive few GMs willing to permit INT 27 sagacious froghemoths suddenly attaining enlightenment beyond mortslkind, as awesome as that would be; similarly, if you could somehow snag mythic empower and mythic maximize you could get +75 and 150 for a total of 225% or an INT of 40 and a CHA of 17 - and standard froghemoth wisdom of 13, I guess.)

    And there you have it! You're guide to making the ultimate Wifu!

    Remember: these tricks absolutely cannot work without the approval and assistance of the GM. Attempting to go and do them behind the GM's back and circumvent his authority are destined to fail... so don't! Instead, see if it can work, and do your research, both in- and out-of-game. This is important!

    Work together and see what you can do!


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    Also, yes: step one of making a better wife is cursing her so she can't defend against you very well, and so she believe the lies she tells you. I didn't say that this plan wasn't evil...
    And/or I recognized the unfortunate implications later...


    Tacticslion wrote:

    Also, yes: step one of making a better wife is cursing her so she can't defend against you very well, and so she believe the lies she tells you. I didn't say that this plan wasn't evil...

    And/or I recognized the unfortunate implications later...

    In my defense, you can always just let the curse go later. The point is only so that she doesn't, you know, drown you all/murder you all while you try to bring her to universal harmony and enlightenment-cum-eternal harmony with the universe. 'Cause that's a real possibility, otherwise.

    Also, I'm presupposing some really old 3.X rules are still in circulation regarding an extraneous use of the Bluff skill, re: Malak and the penalty v. Sense Motive. That, uh... that might not hold true, though, so... uh... maybe nevermind that one? Maybe that could be re-done as being "more vulnerable to charisma-based checks" or something? I dunno - work with your GM! As I said! :D


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    There is a session today? Right?


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    Drejk wrote:
    There is a session today? Right?

    Yes, though it will hardly be silly at all (I think).

    They're just exploring the first vault. Lots of carnage, all kinds of ways to die, very few of them silly.

    Guess we have to cross our fingers and hope for something along the lines of, "I go scout ahead all alone," or, "The fumble card says WHAT!?!?!?!?!"


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    We Can Do This Dungeon With One Hand Tied Behind Our Back
    Did I say that last night's session wouldn't be silly? I underestimated my esteemed team...

  • On noticing the fine black powder coating everything in the vault, the group spent a good 30 minutes of real time discussing it, wondering about it, poking it, prodding it, considering burning it, considering having Malek smoke it, and other such nonsense. They finally, after much discussion and debate, decided to ignore it. And thus went the first 30 minutes of the game.
  • Moving down the hallway to the next room, with Kwai Chang scouting ahead, they encountered another group of kech zombies. This should have been a walkover fight... except they were bound and determined to convince Malek's new wife to do the fighting for them, so they spent a huge amount of time trying to avoid being crushed by her as they tried to convince her to squeeze herself down the passage to the embattled kech. So Templari simply engaged the kech and stood among them, channeling energy. Kwai Chang spent quite a bit of time darting about, trying for some unknown reason to get behind them. His player and I had quite the argument about his attempt to use his Boots of Levitation to essentially fly over the group, with his argument that he could levitate to the ceiling, use his Climb skill to pull himself along the ceiling at full movement speed, then lower himself back down to the floor, all in a single round, and without provoking attacks of opportunity from all the kech adjacent to him. I disagreed with this analysis. Hooken was bored and didn't engage. Voren and Athelya stayed outside of Bara's projected movement path. So, in spite of there being 6 players at the table, only one of them was fully engaged with the kech, a second was trying to do... something, and the other 4 were just standing around. My absolute favorite moment was when Malek finally got down the passage out of Bara's reach, then called to her, rolling a 21 on his Handle Animal to get her to come. So she squoze into the passage until she was within tentacle reach of him, then grabbed him (a natural 20 on her Grab roll) and put him back on her back, pulling him back out of the fight.
    Finally Athelya got bored and Fireballed the kech, with Templari among them. After Templari's pair of channels, this was enough to drop them. But it took over an hour of game time to drop what was essentially a "resource drain" pointless mook fight.
  • Giving up on the idea that Bara would be of any use to them in the narrow hallways of the vault (FINALLY!), they left her behind and moved into the next room. Athelya peeked around a corner... and they were in another fight with a group of zombie sabosan (bat men). I swear, in any "normal" dungeon where the guards come a-runnin' once the alarm goes off, this dungeon would have been a massacre. Yet again Hooken chose not to participate, Malek spent most of the fight placating his wifu (even though she was well away from the action), Templari took a lot of hits from the sabosan (the dice were suddenly on fire, rolling oodles of 19's and 20's) and ate another of Athelya's Fireballs, and suddenly I had the 115-hit-point paladin down to only 11 hit points... with nothing but garbage troops that should have been a walkover. The most hilarious part was when Voren finally started participating, and was sitting there waiting for Templari to get healed enough that HE could hit her with splash damage from HIS bombs.
    Burning Templari... it's apparently what the party loves most.
    Malek finally decided to show up and participate, but by then it was already just mop-up duty.
  • In a bit of sad 'the die just hates me' moments, Kwai Chang used not one but two of his special shadow shuriken to try to penetrate the zombies' DR. He missed with both, much to the player's frustration.

  • Anyway, because of the lack of participation from the main fighters, those two fights took up the rest of the evening, and we had to stop at that point.


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    Levitation:
    My reading is: a standard action to activate boots. A move action to levitate up to 20 feet, probably provoking attacks of opportunity. Another move action to move along the ceiling (stated in description of the spell to be done at half speed, which should not be a serious problem for a monk, though) and another move action to levitate down or a standard action to dismiss the effect and drop down.

    It might be possible to make the initial upward move as a part of the standard action used to activate the item/cast a spell, I am not sure about that one, but it's still at least one move action not enough...

    If the ceiling is higher than 20 feet, add two move actions per 20 feet or one move action per 20 feet if dropping down by dismissing the effect.

    Add more actions to move longer distance along the ceiling.


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    Black dust: Put a piece of irrelevant physical description and the players will spend a lot of time examining the described element. Much much more than in case of description of important thing.


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    Drejk wrote:
    ** spoiler omitted **

    Your reading matches mine, though he keeps them pretty much always on. (It's an at-will power that lasts 3 minutes at a time, so I just don't have an issue.)

    So it's
    - Move action with attacks of opportunity to get to the ceiling
    - Move action at half speed to move along the ceiling
    - Move action with attacks of opportunity to get back to the floor (he doesn't need to turn it off)

    I sent him an e-mail to this effect, so I think we're good.


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    Turning off is just an alternate way to get down that can be advantageous if you are high enough that levitating down would take multiple actions and can handle the falling damage.

    How high was the ceiling? Could the zombies possibly reach him there making multiple attacks of opportunity?


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    Drejk wrote:

    Turning off is just an alternate way to get down that can be advantageous if you are high enough that levitating down would take multiple actions and can handle the falling damage.

    How high was the ceiling? Could the zombies possibly reach him there making multiple attacks of opportunity?

    Nah; down wasn't an issue. It was only a 15' ceiling.


    I am both thrilled and terrified for the future of your young proteges.

    I fear for their survival.


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    Well, I just asked the group, "Guys, are you really interested in playing this any more?"

    A couple of answers came back positive, a couple negative, with the negatives basically being, "We don't like sandboxes! Gives us a thread to follow!"

    Which is kind of funny, considering when I tried to run more railroady stuff for the (much smaller) group in the past, it was a disaster of running off the rails to the point of no recovery.

    Anyway, I opened the discussion for the group, and we'll see where they go with it...


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    My kids are loving Hell's Rebels, if you're looking for ideas. :-)

    Pea Bear really wants to play Strange Aeons actually, which obviously can't include Tiny T-Rex. So I'm going to try (yet again) to get her uncles involved.


    Okay! Okay!

    NH! I've got a whole new character!

    Look, I'll even come in at four levels lower than the rest of the party, and with a heavy dose of randomization!

    And now...

    ... a (mostly) random character build~!

    Character Build:

    Race
    Race: 1d10 ⇒ 6
    1-4) Core, 5-7) Feature, 8-9) Uncommon, 10) Other
    -> Follow-up Roll Featured Race: 1d16 ⇒ 2
    - - > Catfolk!

    Gender
    Gender: 1d2 ⇒ 1
    1) Female, 2) Male
    -> Female!

    Class
    1) Core, 2) Base, 3) Alternate, 4) Hybrid, 5) Occult, 6) Prestige
    Category: 1d6 ⇒ 2
    Minimum Number of Levels in That: 1d20 ⇒ 6
    -> Class: 1d9 ⇒ 4
    - - 1) Alchemist 2) Cavalier 3) Gunslinger 4) Inquisitor 5) Magus 6) Oracle 7) Summoner 8) Vigilante 9) Witch
    - -> Inquisitor! from the church of... Category: 1d8 ⇒ 1; 1d3 ⇒ 3, 1d3 ⇒ 2
    1) Major, 2) Minor, 3) Non-Human, 4) Demi-, 5) Dead, 6) Spirits, 7) Other, 8) Philosophies
    - - > 1) law, 2) neutral, 3) chaos
    - - > 1) good, 2) neutral, 3) evil
    ==> Calistria!

    Feat
    1) Combat, 2) General, 3) Item, 4) Metamagic, 5) Other
    01) A
    02) B
    03) C
    04) D
    05) E
    06) F
    07) G
    08) H
    09) I
    10) J
    11) K
    12) L
    13) M
    14) N
    15) O
    16) P
    17) Q
    18) R
    19) S
    20) T
    21) U
    22) V
    23) W
    24) X
    25) Y
    26) Z

    Feat by Level
    Methodology: category chosen first, then first letter; followed by selecting from those I qualify for at that level, if any; if none, then strike-through and re-roll. There is potential for modification, if so desired, to "make things work" if aberrant situations arise (if nothing actually exists in a category, I might choose the 'closest fit' or similar; or something makes an interesting story, but lacks important prerequisites, choosing prerequisites might occur at that time; and so on).
    b?) Feat Category: 1d5 ⇒ 3 Starts with Letter: 1d26 ⇒ 25 no bonus feat; she's a Catfolk!
    01) Feat Category: 1d5 ⇒ 3 Starts with Letter: 1d26 ⇒ 13 -> there is no "M" - and I only qualify for Scribe Scroll in this category, so I suppose that one?
    03) Feat Category: 1d5 ⇒ 4 Starts with Letter: 1d26 ⇒ 12 - lingering or logical spell?
    05) Feat Category: 1d5 ⇒ 1 Starts with Letter: 1d26 ⇒ 12 - large target (the only feat I qualify for, in this category with this letter)
    07) Feat Category: 1d5 ⇒ 4 Starts with Letter: 1d26 ⇒ 11 - no 'k' feat, but 'l' is close - I'll default to the other 'l' feat from before?
    09) Feat Category: 1d5 ⇒ 1 Starts with Letter: 1d26 ⇒ 2 - barroom brawler, blades above and below, blind fight, bloody vengeance, or bludgeoner
    11) Feat Category: 1d5 ⇒ 3 Starts with Letter: 1d26 ⇒ 23 there is no "W" feat in "item" feats - there is "craft Wondrous", but I don't know if the GM counts that for this purpose. The closest I don't already have, alphabetically, is Inscribe Rune.
    13) Feat Category: 1d5 ⇒ 5 Starts with Letter: 1d26 ⇒ 21
    - - > Which Other?: 1d15 ⇒ 6 1) Achievement, 2) Betrayal, 3) Caravan, 4) Damnation, 5) Familiar, 6) Grit, 7) Local, 8) Monster, 9) Panache, 10) Performance, 11) Racial, 12) Stare, 13) Story, 14) Style, 15) Teamwork
    I can't actually qualify for any of the Grit feats... but by taking Amateur Gunslinger, I can. So I will at this level. I've had the thing, naturally, for the longest time - I've just not done anything with it. It's a sopping piece of junk! I only just recently figured it out... not that I'd ever admit it.

    (Levels projected forward to the point of eventually getting there.)

    Skill
    Methodology: a given skill is presumed to be taken at maximum ranks; hence repeated skill choices are ignored and strike-through/re-rolled, until all slots are filled; it is unknown how many skills the character will have; if somehow exceeding ten (unlikely), they will be chosen manually. This really doesn't matter, though, as this is kind of a joke character.
    1st) Skills: 1d34 ⇒ 18 -> Knowledge (local)
    2nd) Skills: 1d34 ⇒ 7 -> Disable Device
    3rd) Skills: 1d34 ⇒ 9 -> Escape Artist
    4th) Skills: 1d34 ⇒ 14 -> Knowledge (Arcana)
    5th) Skills: 1d34 ⇒ 12 -> Heal
    6th) Skills: 1d34 ⇒ 15 -> Knowledge (Engineering)
    7th) Skills: 1d34 ⇒ 17 -> Knowledge (History)
    8th) Skills: 1d34 ⇒ 34 -> Use Device
    9th) Skills: 1d34 ⇒ 10 -> Fly
    10th) Skills: 1d34 ⇒ 4 -> Climb

    Skill List
    01) Acrobatics
    02) Appraise
    03) Bluff
    04) Climb
    05) Craft
    06) Diplomacy
    07) Disable Device
    08) Disguise
    09) Escape Artist
    10) Fly
    11) Handle Animal
    12) Heal
    13) Intimidate
    14) Knowledge (arcana)
    15) Knowledge (engineering)
    16) Knowledge (geography)
    17) Knowledge (history)
    18) Knowledge (local)
    19) Knowledge (nature)
    20) Knowledge (nobility)
    21) Knowledge (planes)
    22) Knowledge (religion)
    23) Linguistics
    24) Perception
    25) Perform
    26) Profession
    27) Ride
    28) Sense Motive
    29) Sleight of Hand
    30) Spellcraft
    31) Stealth
    32) Survival
    33) Swim
    34) Use Device

    Template (the second one)
    Starting Equipment

    ... and now, a preview to see what kind of a hot mess I have to work with!

    ... aaaaaaaaaaactually that's... pretty daggum awesome. Hm.

    I'll get back to on the story!

    Hint - it has to do with deals with the devil gone wrong, Leng and how even the devils have nightmares (heh, it's a pun), letting sleeping dragons lie (heh), Mwangi, lllllooooootttss of death, enslavement, freedom, and a kitteh who was too curious for her own good. Also how Calistria (and her chicanery) is basically the bestest. At least, that's the story formulating at present.


    NobodysHome wrote:

    Well, I just asked the group, "Guys, are you really interested in playing this any more?"

    A couple of answers came back positive, a couple negative, with the negatives basically being, "We don't like sandboxes! Gives us a thread to follow!"

    Which is kind of funny, considering when I tried to run more railroady stuff for the (much smaller) group in the past, it was a disaster of running off the rails to the point of no recovery.

    Anyway, I opened the discussion for the group, and we'll see where they go with it...

    Have you considered telling them, "GET TO BOOK FOUR-AND-A-HALF, DURN IT."

    (Because then you're pretty well set.)


    Well, maybe all the way to book five, but, look: point is, there's a tipping point at which they kind of have to go all-in to survive. And that point is pretty near to "now" in the things that your kids are playing.

    (I do think your kids are also suffering from something that I, too, suffered from, when school started back: time-lag fatigue. The enforced "space" - both temporal and mental - between game sessions has made it less engaging between sessions. It's harder to maintain interest in the face of homework and school and time and effort and interest and life and so on. Also, their characters are complex. All that is... tough.)

    Let me know if you need a fellow GM to talk to about either re-sparking interest, focusing on more of a rail-road, or similar! I'll be happy to help! :D

    (Loose the PMs, if desired! But don't feel pressured; I'm pretty sure you can handle this, I'm just offering to help a friend who sounded frustrated over the 'net.)

    EDIT: to make a message sound clear, compared to its garbled meaning the first time 'round.


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    Well ... if your your players like their characters and you don't mind some handwavium, perhaps their Serpent's Skull characters get mind-swapped by Yithians for 5 years and wind up gibbering and gearless in an asylum to kick off Strange Aeons?


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    Well, we've got yet another down week for the holiday, so they have plenty of time to discuss things among themselves, and we'll run a couple more sessions and they can give me a final decision come October.

    Great thing about long-running games, "Wait a month to make a decision" is a viable option!


    1 person marked this as a favorite.
    NobodysHome wrote:

    Well, I just asked the group, "Guys, are you really interested in playing this any more?"

    A couple of answers came back positive, a couple negative, with the negatives basically being, "We don't like sandboxes! Gives us a thread to follow!"

    From here on out the campaign is much more linear. I could go into more detail, but I'm trying to avoid spoilers.

    Liberty's Edge

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    Yeah, I think CoSS is the last big sandbox adventure. Book 5 has NPCs providing guidance most of the way, I think?

    But from what I've read in this subforum Book 4 is the least-enjoyed adventure of the set. If they want to stick with SS, it might be worth editing Book 4 heavily, or else just subbing in a few adventures from around the region. Maybe the Pathfinder Society asks to take over investigating the Vaults, and sends the PCs on some missions. Or maybe they go on sidequests involving each of the castaways they befriended on Smuggler's Shiv? Could be a good change of pace from exploring Azlanti ruins as well.


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    Gark the Goblin wrote:

    Yeah, I think CoSS is the last big sandbox adventure. Book 5 has NPCs providing guidance most of the way, I think?

    But from what I've read in this subforum Book 4 is the least-enjoyed adventure of the set. If they want to stick with SS, it might be worth editing Book 4 heavily, or else just subbing in a few adventures from around the region. Maybe the Pathfinder Society asks to take over investigating the Vaults, and sends the PCs on some missions. Or maybe they go on sidequests involving each of the castaways they befriended on Smuggler's Shiv? Could be a good change of pace from exploring Azlanti ruins as well.

    Too bad they've killed every single NPC they've ever traveled with!!!

    They're pretty amazing about that.

    Is it any wonder that when I suspected the Muse would be working with them I buffed her with a few levels and a Mythic tier? I figured I needed to keep her alive as a resource for them...


    4 people marked this as a favorite.

    Ouch sorry to hear about the possibility of a burnout. If it helps you feel any better about the situation I had my group (family members as well) burn out just before the end of curse of the crimson throne and by that I mean we had got a chapter in to book 6.

    also just want to say thank you for all the hours of joy I've spent this past month reading up and catching up to the adventure journals you have written over the course of the last 2 months.

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