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I dare say we need a Malek and Bara short story, maybe a full length novel!
MOST. AMUSING. GRIPPLI. EVER!
(don't worry Ulysses you are still top frog in Pirat...err I Mean Privateer Game!)
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Bara loves Malek.
Froghemoth eats all faces.
Malek knows chagrin.
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Bara! Bara! Give me your answer true!
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Hooken Finally Gets his Bow
So, speaking of sessions that weren't even remotely silly...
...well, that's not quite true; if the party hadn't been underwater, Malek would have been causing great mayhem. As it was, it was only half great mayhem, and that's just "hem".
We resumed with the party desperately battling the gray nists in the Flooded Vault. Unfortunately, once Hooken realized that all he had to do was get within 10 feet of them and use his bow at only -4 to attack and no penalty to damage (seriously, Paizo? Have you ever tried shooting a bow underwater?), he started laying waste to them. Fortunately, while Irwin's Confusion was out-and-out boring ("Act Normally"? What kind of confusion is that?), Malek rolled a pleasant 87 for the first round and, surrounded by three friends and a foe, chose to start pounding on Irwin. Cutting the 67 points of damage in half was depressing, but hey, rules are rules. Athelya hit Irwin with a Heal, removing both his Confusion and his paranoia (curse you, Athelya), Kwai Chang helped a little with mop-up, and Narlock proved that going into an underwater cavern with a -3 to your Swim skill greatly amuses the GM, but does little else. Voren, having missed last session, never quite made it in on time. And poor Bara couldn't fit, so she could only watch and cheer as Malek subdued his friends.
Irwin tried to swim away from Malek, so Malek took his attack of opportunity and rolled a natural 20 with his earthbreaker. I was greatly cheered. He followed up with a 1. I was greatly saddened.
Athelya next hit Malek with a Heal, and the fun was over... almost.
The party proceeded to NOT search the room, but instead follow the narrow corridor for 45 minutes before coming out at the bottom of the central lake of the city before deciding that maybe, just maybe, they might have left something behind. 45 more minutes later all their buffs except their Life Bubbles had worn out, but two natural 20s on their search of the room revealed some random trinkets, a Ring of Protection +3, and the necessary crystals they were seeking.
Back to the Pathfinder camp forthwith to rest for the night, and in the morning Osund was there to lead Hooken to the Muse. I was hoping to make it this big formal ceremony, but Impus Minor was too excited and too "gimme gimme gimme", and the rest of the group was too disinterested, so I just handed over Stoneslayer, a +2 Adaptive Seeking Flaming Holy composite longbow that can petrify one foe a day. Hooken plotzed. And the really sad part? That bow hardly affects his damage output at all! An extra 11.5 points per hit just doesn't mean all that much in Hookenville.
Their next stop was the abandoned temple in boggard lands. Once again, it could have been incredibly fun to play, but the party buffed themselves to the nines, walked up to the bottle, identified the Planar Binding, and while deciding what to do, Irwin started asking important questions: "How old are you? How did you get in there? What was the name of the guy that did it?"
Yeah, I didn't get to do much of anything before the hezrou demon was free, had Irwin in his clutches, and was carrying him towards the lake. Even nauseated, between heaves Irwin was asking, "When's your birthday? What's your favorite color?" as he cheerfully headed to 0 hit points.
Unfortunately, even with the advanced simple template and max hit points, a demon facing a fully-buffed Hooken is nothing more than a speed bump on the path to glory.
The demon died before it made it to the water, Irwin's burning questions were left unanswered, and we ended for the night...
EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot. The kids absolutely insisted that I mention that after seeing the demon's picture, they dubbed him "Obese Maurice". It was apparently very clever. (Well, let's be honest. It had ALL of the kids just giggling like crazy, so it was definitely their kind of humor, and I really shouldn't disparage it. But I think part of my job description is, "Be mean," so I think I'm obligated...)
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Hey, where did we go, days when the rains came
Down in the vault, playin' a new game
Laughing and a hoppin hey, hey
Skipping and a jumping in the misty morning fog
With our hearts a thumpin'
And you, my frog eyed girl, you my frog eyed girl
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Is that a 30 mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon on your arm, or are you just happy to see me?
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I have, over the last few days, read this thread from top to bottom. You, sir, have my deepest admiration, and your silly players as well.
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It's always a pleasure to read, and gives me goofy grins at work.
Naughty Nobodys
Hooken plotzed
Is... this a good thing?
(Dictionary.com indicates it might be a good thing, but the other Google entry lists purely negative emotions.)
Apologies - I'm just... not getting the context. XD
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Use the Urban Dictionary.
Though I was surprised; I've never heard "plotz" used negatively before...
Okay, yay!
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Ugh. Just spent 40 minutes writing up the whole post, and got the classic Paizo, "Oops! Lost your post!"
Don't have time to rewrite it now, so maybe tonight...
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We're All Buffed Up... Let's Try... Diplomacy!
So, this session was remarkably short, marred by a cranky GM and distracted players, so not much got accomplished.
Although everyone arrived at 6:30 pm, there was a lot of conversation about current events, politics, and "13 Reasons Why". We didn't start until around 6:55 pm. Almost immediately, Voren's player set me off.
Most of you know that I expressed my frustration to all of my players (in all 4 of my games) with the constant arguments and rules lawyering I was facing in several of my games. "But Mage Hand specifically says it has no save and no spell resistance! So I can use it to hold a bowl of mud in my enemy's face, and he's blinded and silenced with no save." "So, my 'one command' to my Prying Eyes is, 'Wait for me to provide a complex series of gestures telling you what to do,' letting me send out each eye individually. And no, that's not additional commands. They're gestures, not commands."
So even jokingly rules lawyering with me is Not Wise.
So as we started the session and the party was deciding how to go about searching the temple where they'd just slain the hezrou demon, Voren's player said, "I have Detect Secret Doors prepared today. Are there any secret doors?"
"No."
"Oh, good thing I didn't waste my time casting the spell, then."
For the third or fourth time in the last few weeks.
So yeah, I lost my temper, and declared that if that was the way Voren's player was going to play, it was the way I was going to play: For the rest of the evening, unless a player explicitly stated that they were doing something and marked off the resource, then my assumption would be that they weren't doing it.
After more discussion, the party realized they had no way to breathe water, so they let Hooken cast Animal Aspect on himself, swim down, and listen. He heard nothing and they didn't want to split the party, so he came back up, they returned to the Pathfinder camp, and assisted the Pathfinders in performing research on the Artisan District for the rest of the day. In perhaps the most delightful moment of the night, they rolled a 5, and learned that the active effect of the Artisan District's spire was to reduce crafting time by 20%. Considering the amount of time the Muse had been working on the bow, Hooken could have had it at least a week earlier, if someone wearing the Ring of Seven Virtues had bothered to tell him that. Hooken spent some time eyeing Athelya, wondering just how much damage he could do to her without killing her...
The next morning the party set off to annihilate Akarundo in the Government District. They arrived at the shore and had an amazingly long discussion on tactics, at the end of which they decided on the "same old same old": Athelya would Fireball the city, and they would slaughter all the serpentfolk as they came out. (Why is it that my group of teenage boys treats every encounter with an enemy tribe like a trip to an anthill? Hmm...)
So they spent another huge amount of time buffing themselves to the nines, meticulously writing everything down and marking off resources, and Athelya finally declared, "I Fireball the city."
"You can't."
"Why not?"
"Look at the map. As we mentioned at the start of your planning, those squares are 750 feet each. The bridge is about 1200 feet long. Your Fireball has a range of 880 feet. You can't reach the city with it."
Annoyed, the party started trudging across the bridge, buffs-a-burnin'. As they got a couple hundred feet out, a Dancing Lights spell went off ahead of them, sending a clear signal to anyone who might be looking. Undaunted, the party moved forward to the first break in the bridge. They flew, climbed, or jumped over the gap, and Kwai Chang finally said, "OK, I make a Perception roll to see whether there's anyone ahead of us."
"There's no one ahead of you, but you just passed a couple of serpentfolk who were in the gap you just crossed."
"WHAT?!?!? Why didn't you say something?!?!?"
"No one said they were making Perception checks, so none of you were. Blame Voren's player."
Immediate grumbling and annoyance ensued, but they turned around and looked down. Two serpentfolk soldiers looked up at them and gave some odd kind of salute. Narlock knew they were telepathic, but for reasons beyond me, she cast Tongues anyway. The soldiers were terse and impolite, but indicated that Akarundo was willing to entertain their plea. They were allowed one envoy and one guard. Narlock and Hooken went to meet with him. Akarundo was lounging on a couch in his lair, and asked what they wanted. They wanted access to the vault and the return of Ugimmo the bogling. He responded that this was acceptable... for the paltry fee of 100 virgins or 10,000 gold. He would also need a non-aggression promise from a Lawful party member. Off went Narlock and Hooken, returning with Narlock and Kwai Chang. There was a bit more negotiation: No, the party could not explore the ziggurat. No, the Pathfinders could not explore the island; Akarundo did not want vermin on his island. No, the Pathfinders could not come along with the party to the vault. More comments about vermin. Kwai Chang finally got him to agree not to attack any vermin who did not set foot on his island. With negotiations complete, Kwai Chang noticed that Akarundo was lying on a strange red necklace. Discussing it with Narlock once they were back at the bridge, they determined that Akarundo had been lying on a Necklace of Fireballs the entire time. A fight would have been... ouchy.
The party returned to the Pathfinders, spent another day researching (just information about day-to-day life in the Artisan District, which, unsurprisingly, had not changed much in the last 10,000 years), and went on to the next vault.
At that point it was 8:48 pm, and we always stop at 9 sharp, so we called it quits for the evening.
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He was lying on a n-o-f?!
With Atheyla, it would have been owchie... for him! XD
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Sounds like a fun adventure even if not quite as silly as in olden days ;)
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Sounds like a fun adventure even if not quite as silly as in olden days ;)
I think Impus Major is saving his silliness for the family Strange Aeons game, wherein last session his tengu necromancer tried to Sleight of Hand a hand.
Yep. No matter how many times I post it, it still makes me smile...
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Too bad about the metagaming argument.
I might read your Strange Aeons game eventually, but I want to play or run that one someday so I'm going to avoid the spoilers.
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I'm the same way, Supperman!
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Hooken spent some time eyeing Athelya, wondering just how much damage he could do to her without killing her...
Now I try to imagine "warning shot" from Hooken. The closest thing I get are "warnings" issues in Steven Brust's Dragaera series...
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Hooken spent some time eyeing Athelya, wondering just how much damage he could do to her without killing her...Now I try to imagine "warning shot" from Hooken. The closest thing I get are "warnings" issues in Steven Brust's Dragaera series...
** spoiler omitted **
Yep; we've got Impus Major hooked on Steven Brust. He's finished Jhereg and Yendi, and, at the author's suggestion as to chronological order, moved on to Dragon...
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I'd love to have more than the first four books I got on a random visit to cheap bookstore.
I may have to read that, now... or, well, sometime during the next few decades when I [s]have time[/i] torture reality until it bends far enough to grant me extra time to do that arcane and beautiful thing, called "reading"...
He was lying on a n-o-f?!
Man, those unintentional puns...
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On the silly and amusing notes for my tabletop game... well, after a talk with my friend and his realization his son wasn't into the game but rather was into doing stuff with his dad (and honestly seemed bored at the game) we no longer have a young teenage boy in the game and I don't need to... edit out certain content.
Enter Shayliss.
Things went a tad differently this time. First, rather than have her approach her selected target this was more of a spontaneous whim sort of thing - as in my friend went into a store to buy a couple bags of marshmallows (his weapon of choice for fighting goblins) and encountered a certain voluptuous redhead who all wide-eyed was "well we have marshmallows but they're in the cellar and there are rats down there could you go with me?"
The (female) bard meanwhile looked in, saw the gorgeous ginger leading the naive and innocent *snerks* well, at least the player is playing him that way - booksmart but not aware of some things! I mean, it wasn't magic after all! - 19-year-old wizard to his doom and followed. And she followed down the stairs only to see Shayliss pull a two-second striptease and toss the wizard onto the cot... not realizing the wizard had heard her follow.
Said wizard rolled well with his perception though and was already tossing Shayliss off of him when Papa Vinder started down the steps only to stop by the bard who was all blushing and stammering about needing something in the basement and being lost and fortunately Shayliss seems apt at RE-dressing fairly quickly (and the wizard most apt at hiding).
Shay proceeded to start flirting with the bard and hinted at threesomes. Meanwhile I can barely keep it together from laughing so hard, especially once the wizard got out of the store (without marshmallows), dragged the NPC dwarf (who remained outside of the store) and the still-blushing Bard out of town and then stopped, just over the bridge, and said "Wait a minute, I think she was trying to seduce me!"
I swear. I need to write up stats on Shay now. ;)
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Use the Urban Dictionary.
Though I was surprised; I've never heard "plotz" used negatively before...
It can be either. Like, when I'm exhausted after a rough day at work and someone calls to invite me out: "I can't. After the day I've had, I'd just plotz!"
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And finals are already beginning to rear their ugly heads.
I was hoping to do an air-clearing session tomorrow to assure Voren's player that it's all good, but Impus Major just called to let me know he's in choir rehearsal 'til 6 pm both today and tomorrow. Add a massive history project and catch-up in English, and I need the time after 6 to get him all caught up.
Stupid school, getting in the way of our gaming!
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I DON"T NEED TO LEARN STUFF!! WAIT, WHAT IS THAT WORD....
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Ah, the wonders of parent-child communication:
And the sad thing is, that's pretty much par for the course.
So, unfortunately:
June 7: No game, as Mr. Stereotype and his father aren't available
June 14: No game, as no one is available
So there's a hiatus until June 21. Welcome to finals!
>:(
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I need my FIX!!!!
Bara baby, where o' where have you gone...
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I think it's time to go full nuclear on California's education system...
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Well, once we're back it should be... interesting...
I told Impus Major to take a look at Bara's spell list, including "Unbreakable Heart".
Looks like Malek is finally going to have Bara start buffing him, which will be... epic...
...when we ever get to play again...
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*super ribbit* unbreakable heart ... oh myyyyy
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@ Drejk
I bet ya $20 that Malek (if he were you know, in a physical form and not a mental construct of Impus Major LOL) could go full nuclear on the education system of CA, all while licking his left eye and croaking out a love song to Bara!
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No bet. I agree that it would be so. Though I have certain doubts about quality of the song...
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Well, I for one am looking forward to seeing them wrap up the vaults and move on to Book 5.
*I* really liked the sandbox of Book 3, but it ended up being TOO disorganized for the kids. "Here's a giant city! Go explore!" seems like every gamer's dream, but the kids wanted more direction than that.
Book 4 is just a bunch of separate vaults, like a series of dungeon crawls. The kids like them because they can do them in (almost) any order and they're getting decent loot, but for me they're just kind of "meh" because they're fundamentally disjoint, non-story-related dungeons.
Book 5 they finally get back to the overarching story and more focused exploration, so we should all be happier...
...if we ever get there...
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I'm interested in seeing 5-6 as well.
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Likewise.
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::sings:: We need our Malek fix, we need our Hooken kicks, this waiting is un-BARA-ble...just ever so un-BARA-ble...
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LOL. One more week, my friends, one... more... week...
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We're the 21.
Rejoice.
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HUZZAH!!!!
Don't worry Bara, I can croak with the best of 'em baby!
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Man, the pressure is on the kids to be entertaining tonight. You may as well start putting this on video and turning them into minor YouTube stars. Or, you know, not.
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LOL. I was thinking the exact opposite: With all the anticipation going around, I figure the kids are going to forget to show. Not sick, not school, but just, "Oops! Were we supposed to be gaming tonight?"
If I can, I'll make 'em do the Gorilla King stuff tonight, just because that part's going to be too epically funny!
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Double points if somehow you work a bi-plane into that encounter!
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The machine guns are already statted up. Perhaps a way to introduce any replacement PCs? Maybe the new PC is a Russian that hitched a ride in the wake of RoW and wound up over the jungles, the first clear spot he sees has a giant ape clinging to a ziggurat ... Gunslinger 7/Trench Figher # with a disposable airplane and 2 machine guns that are about to run out of ammo, plus his regular gear. The magical environment of not-on-Earth results in his numerous tattoos bestowing assorted goodies, i.e., are his initial magical items. His mundane/masterwork gear is on him. Hopefully a +2 INT headband-tattoo provides Craft (alchemy) among other fun goodies. At x2 gp cost, the starting gear allowance evaporates in a hurry.
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Why did it have to be... mud?!?!?
The kids have really glommed on to the whole, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" paradigm, so they started the evening (after a bit of technical work, as Mr. Stereotype is back in Germany for the summer) buffing the living daylights out of themselves.
Then it was time for the usual: Kwai Chang and Irwin scouting ahead, Malek and Hooken providing cover, and everyone else pretty much there just to put more buffs on Hooken as needed.
As they stepped into the first chamber of the second-to-last vault, my giant fly trap had every edge: Two PCs in range, an utterly-insane 33 initiative, and enough attacks to ensure it got them both. It missed Kwai Chang in the surprise round, but went ahead and grabbed Irwin as regular rounds started, then its next 3 attacks were enough for it to grab Kwai Chang as well. Everybody did a few meaningless things until Hooken shot it for 213 points of damage and the fight was over. (OK, not totally meaningless; it was Narlock's Haste that got the damage that high, but still...)
Since they were Hasted, they ignored any and all loot or distractions and raced down the next passage, only to find... an 80' long corridor filled with mud. Yecch!
So, advice to AP writers: Four CR 6 creatures against level 10 PCs does not an encounter make, no matter what the terrain looks like. The ooze mephits did their best: They hit Kwai Chang with an Acid Arrow (which he just ignored, since it didn't do much damage). They hit the party with a Stinking Cloud. Life Bubble ensured that that was almost boring.
Fortunately, Voren came along for comedic relief. Even if the Stinking Cloud wasn't harmful, it was preventing Hooken from doing his killy stuff, so Voren pulled out a dispelling bomb and his player asked, "I can't miss, can I?"
"Well, you could roll a 1."
He dutifully rolled a 1.
So Voren, standing in the middle of a Stinking Cloud, needing nothing other than to simply drop the bomb to dispell it, somehow managed to fail. No. None of us can explain either. He had to throw a second bomb, but this time he easily dismissed the cloud. Athelya, being Athelya, just had to hit the mephits with a Fireball, so they all attacked her, and actually got in 30-40 points of damage before they died.
Moving on, you would have thought I'd described the corridor as filled with acid rather than foot-deep mud. Kwai Chang used his Boots of Levitation (of course) to "gondola" his way across with his quarterstaff. In a mental image that will stay with me for years, Malek crawled along the wall as Narlock clung onto him desperately. Recall that he's 1'10" or something similarly ridiculous. The notion of a pretty young woman of 18 desperately clinging to a climbing frog to avoid getting her feet dirty is... joyous.
Athelya flew across, and then Irwin decided to show off. He spent a ki point on a running jump, then rolled a 43 on his regular Acrobatics roll. Doubling the distance for the ki point was basically an 86 on a skill roll. I believe it's the highest I've ever seen. Irwin cleared the entire corridor in a single bound... for no good reason!!! Hooken, being the only remotely sensible person in the lot, just waded across like a normal person, with Heron taking up the rear. (Poor Bara again couldn't fit down the narrow corridors, but watching them try to convince her to carry them all while squeezing just so they could avoid the mud was... delightful.)
They moved into the next room, where two more mephits managed to bull rush the levitating Kwai Chang into the center pool, only to have the mud turn to rock around him. Unfortunately, monks, Reflex saves, and Kwai Chang was fine.
We ended the night with them wondering just what it was at the bottom of the pool that had attacked Kwai Chang...
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Nice. I do like the occasional encounters that are lower than the party, though more so if they are at least interesting. It makes things feel less like an MMO with staged areas equivalent to the PC levels.
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Welcome to the jungle we've got...mud and troglodytes!
Not wanting to get dirty...as adventurers LOL ROFLMAO