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WOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! More exploding head monsters WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, and hey Tac! :)
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Hello!
Also: woooooooo!
And yes, I live. I'm just buuuuuuusy. Also a little afraid to tackle the more-than-1k posts catching up in FaWtL would require.
Look, as it turns out, building two game world's, play testing systems, running two PnPs (well, running one, prepping for another), finishing a PbP, stay-at-homing two kids, and doing TKD with them both keeps me kind of busy...
Weird. And frustrating! I wanna do more stuuuuuuuufffffff!
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Hello!
Also: woooooooo!
And yes, I live. I'm just buuuuuuusy. Also a little afraid to tackle the more-than-1k posts catching up in FaWtL would require.
Look, as it turns out, building two game world's, play testing systems, running two PnPs (well, running one, prepping for another), finishing a PbP, stay-at-homing two kids, and doing TKD with them both keeps me kind of busy...
Weird. And frustrating! I wanna do more stuuuuuuuufffffff!
Oh, just be like me -- slack off at work, watch no TV, have no social life, and just game and prep games.
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The Malek, He Just Won't Die, played 31-Jan-2018
At this point, I'm about ready to mandate that every player bring a device capable of running Hero Labs so that they can all calculate their buffs correctly. They cast so many spells, and they have so little understanding of what stacks and what doesn't (an honestly difficult task) that the numbers they call out and the numbers that they should have are two totally separate concepts.
Malek last night was a prime example: He had Shield and Haste from Voren, Barkskin from Hooken, and Protection from Evil from Athelya. So without considering stacking, his base armor class should have gone from 20 to 31. Unfortunately, he already has a Ring of Protection +1 (Deflection bonus) and he was raging, so it should have been 28. Impus Major was telling me it was 33.
And one of the major, major, major issues is Bacon Boy. I really misnamed Talky McTalktalk. Bacon Boy will absolutely, positively NOT shut up during other people's turns, and it's always, "Did you add this? Did you add that? Don't forget you get another 1d6 from Discordant Voice! No! You need to roll more dice!"
He confuses everyone, and bonuses get added three or four times because he keeps telling the other players that they've forgotten them, even when they haven't. I'm seriously at the point that I'm going to start hitting him for 10 hit points every single time he opens his mouth outside of his turn. He thinks he's helping. He's actually really screwing things up and skewing them grossly in favor of the players.
Anyway, that extra 5 AC fundamentally changed the combat, as is pretty obvious when you think about it. At the end of last session, Malek had opened the door into the great hall, been hit by the two waiting alchemical golems, and the party saw nine morlocks waiting for them, and those who could see magic auras saw the distinctive abjuration auras filling the room that screamed, "Lots and lots of Globes of Invulnerability."
So Malek, being Malek, closed the door.
Lots of repositioning by both groups occurred: The morlocks, knowing their Globes only lasted 3 rounds at a time, redistributed themselves to be able to re-cast them. The alchemical golems pounded on the doors for a round, then stopped and waited for the morlocks to finish their casting. The party rearranged themselves in the guard room to what they considered a more tactically-sound formation. People in both parties declared actions.
And Narlock cast Open to open the door again. Athelya, curiously, put a Blade Barrier on the golems. The golems hit Malek. Malek hit the golems. Hooken shot them. Kwai Chang tried to trip one, failing. Voren buffed and bombed. The lead morlock used his Hunter's Bond to grant all of his followers his favored enemy bonus against native outsiders (helloooo, Voren!). And the rest of the morlocks poured through the Blade Barrier to attack the party, but couldn't get too far in because of the Malek in the doorway.
So it was an all-session, bloody, brutal fight. Malek's miscalculated AC kept him alive for the combat (at one point he was down to 27 hit points), but he needed a lot of healing, including a Resurgent Transformation from Voren and a Heal from Athelya. However, since he was blocking the entryway, Kwai Chang was backing him up, and Voren and Athelya had taken to the air, while Narlock had Vanished, the morlocks' only targets were Malek, Kwai Chang, and Hooken.
So the party managed to use area effect spells effectively, keep their fighters standing, keep their casters out of reach of the raging morlocks, and we ended the night with the fight reduced to mop-up mode: Most of the morlocks are down, meaning it's, "Punt the intellect devourers" time. Since all the party members have Protection from Evil, the intellect devourers can't do anything better than claw at the fighters, and that's just not going to get them anywhere.
Anyway, I think from now on we're going to have a, "Sit down at Hero Labs and get your buffs accurately" period before every fight. Last night was extremely frustrating in the ridiculous numbers some of the kids were throwing out, and Bacon Boy's insistence on telling everyone to add more more more was just grating...
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Understandable frustration NH, maybe a quick chat with Bacon, to be fair, he IS trying to help, but his Sense Mo seems to be failing him a bit. I happen to be a detail sorta guy, so I do what he does at table all the time, but I am judicious about it. Normally accepted with gratitude, but then, the judicious bit is at play there :).
Perhaps suggest Bacon double check his math and that he is not double stacking, etc before putting his helpfulness into action. His intent is good, but his execution is rather off. He does need to understand that too much helping does the opposite of what is intended by it.
It is times like the one you just described that I think we GM's wish we had Data-like ability to process information, an infallible mind hero-lab, alas, not likely to be a thing. A mandatory hero-lab for buff tracking however seems like a great thing, save you some sanity at least!
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Usually I'm the one asking people if they remembered such-and-such buff or situational modifier (higher ground, flanking, etc), but I'm the DM and I only ask when they're 1 or 2 points short of a hit or confirmed critical. We also don't get together as often so people have a tendency to forget stuff.
But the biggest difference is that I'm asking other *adults* as the DM because I'm trying to be nice before I announce their characters have been eviscerated/incinerated/defenestrated. Children wrangling children just leads to a stampede.
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Well, the issue is that Bacon's a repeat offender. Don't forget that he's the one who assured me, "Yeah, alchemists can buff the entire group," and it wasn't until Shiro started playing an alchemist and said, "No, they don't work like that at all" that I learned just how much Bacon Boy was abusing the rules. By that point, the entire party was built around him being the only buffer, so I had to grandfather in this ludicrous overreach.
And let's be honest: It's absolutely, typically, 100% standard teenager behavior: Have an idea as to how something works, and argue vehemently that that's how it works without checking. I don't think it's maliciousness or power gaming on Bacon's part, as GM Beernorg says I think it's an honest attempt to help, clouded by a lack of understanding of the ruleset.
The problem in Pathfinder is the sheer number of buff types, and the fact that some stack (Dodge, Natural Armor, Untyped) and others don't (Deflection, Armor, Enhancement), leading to an incredibly-complicated game to try to keep track of.
So my big issue is that we only play 2 1/2 hours a week, yet every week we have an average of half a dozen (I kid you not) pauses while I have to look up some spell, ability, or class feature one of the kids is using because I ask, "How does that work?" and they answer, "I don't know!"
Last night we had me looking up Soothing Performance, Magic Eater, Resurgent Transformation, and Arcane Sight.
So it's just one of those bookkeeping things: "There are 6 of you and 1 of me. Can you PLEASE understand your own character's abilities so I don't have to keep stopping the game to look them up, or question you because your totals sound off?"
And it's not just the kids. Of the 4 games I run, 3 of them are interrupted every 2-3 combat rounds by me having to look up something because one of the players doesn't know how one of their abilities works, or because what they describe sounds so beyond the pale compared to other Pathfinder abilities. (Clustered Shots, anyone?)
Dumping all the bookkeeping in the GM's lap is unkind, and leads to a much-less-immersive experience.
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Hang in there NH ol' boy!
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Sorry.
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Sorry.
Oh, I know you mean well. It's the same advice I keep giving Talky: It's OK to be silent.
Movies, games, social media, etc., all encourage a constant buzz of noise to the point that most people (not just young ones) feel uncomfortable in a quiet room.
But there is nothing quite so wonderful as a family strewn about a living room, all silently reading books or doing crafts, comfortable in each other's company and the silence.
But yes, I will vent on occasion, because it is frustrating when things that should be pretty simple get so complicated.
I'm working on a solution for next week's game. We'll see how it works.
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Oh, and as long as the Great Lord Bacon is here, he had a really clever idea you guys might be able to help us with:
Can anyone think of a potion or alchemical concoction that would reveal that a creature is possessed by an intellect devourer?
I love the idea, and I think it's ingenious to come up with it to ferret out the little buggers, and a 14th-level alchemist should be able to come up with something, but heck if I can think of something in the ruleset, and custom magic items take forever to craft...
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Alas most of the tricks for finding or defending against aberrations (including our brain eating little friends) are not alchemist focused.
But, here is a short list of some anti-body snatcher spells and alchemist items:
detect aberration (1st level ranger spell)
suppress charms and compulsion (assuming those who are dead and controlled by intellect devourer get no benefit)
word of resolve (1st level paladin spell)
Essence of Independence (alchemical item)
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Well, spell research exists in the ruleset. Expanding that to alchemist extracts shouldn't be a big deal - most of them are merely mimicing spells anyway. Duplicating an existing spell on to a different spell list isn't a huge/unbalancing deal *most of the time*. So in my mind allowing him to research an alchy extract for detect aberration is probably the easiest way to go.
But, again, I'm more permissive as a DM than you are. Where you see unbalanced death machines, I see "not that big a deal - let the martials slaughter the masses, that's what they're supposed to be good at". I recently allowed a gnome pyrokineticest to take the pyromaniac alternate racial trait and apply it to kineticist blast damage, since it specifically calls out that it affects alchemist bomb damage. I consider these two class features to be analogous enough to allow it.
And my groups still have a lot of character deaths. They are very aware that anything I allow them to do I will allow for the baddies.
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::poke poke:: unless Hooken has an archetype that trades away spells, or not enough Wis...he can at least ferret the little buggers out via detect aberration. Spell prep required of course...
Of note, to help deal with spell casting (there are SO MANY SPELLS!!) I link all my spells for a PC that has casting in my sheet, of course, the sheet is in google drive so that is easy to do!
Helping!
@ Vanykrye Gotta love the rule of "fair is fair"!!
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Well, yes, Hooken could do it, but the question was about finding an alchemically-flavored way for Baconator to do it.
I think spell/extract research is the easiest way to go unless you can find items to do it. My online resources are blocked at work, so I can't look up exactly what the Essence of Independence does, but I'm guessing it would work just fine. If I get a chance to look either after work or over the weekend (or, if the afternoon is quiet, take a look using a non-work computer that isn't my phone) I'll see if there's anything else out there that NH might find reasonable.
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Oh, and as long as the Great Lord Bacon is here, he had a really clever idea you guys might be able to help us with:
Can anyone think of a potion or alchemical concoction that would reveal that a creature is possessed by an intellect devourer?
I love the idea, and I think it's ingenious to come up with it to ferret out the little buggers, and a 14th-level alchemist should be able to come up with something, but heck if I can think of something in the ruleset, and custom magic items take forever to craft...
I'd say that true seeing (a 6th level alchemist extract) might possibly be used to recognize creatures possessed by an intellect devourer.
Oh, brain puppies are treated as evil summoned creatures for purpose of interacting with protection from evil spell. Technically they can't even make natural attacks as they are blocked in such circumstances. They are restricted to confusion and daze monster spell-like abilities.
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Heck, I'd go with Seek Thoughts. "Hmm, yes, I do sense thoughts of 'MAN these humans are convenient puppets!'" Might be stretching it a bit since it would rely on the intellect devourer just happening to have that thought at the moment, but it's an idea.
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The problem in Pathfinder is the sheer number of buff types, and the fact that some stack (Dodge, Natural Armor, Untyped) and others don't (Deflection, Armor, Enhancement), leading to an incredibly-complicated game to try to keep track of...
Yeeeeep. My players are at roughly the same level as yours, and despite having both a mechanical engineer and a finance geek among my player base, we still get regular cries of "okay so what are my actual numbers?!?"
I recently enacted the nuclear option and just banned numbers-only buffs from the table (Divine Favor, Prayer, Barkskin, etc), except for a couple of grandfathered-in exceptions like Inspire Courage. We'll see how it goes, but hopefully it'll be a slightly simpler game.
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XD
Because I’ve had so little time, I haven’t actually had the chance to read any of the comments made after I read nobody’s homes post, however, the CB on spell might be a good place to start for such utility… It is not, technically, on the Alco alchemist formula list, however, it really seems like it should be, considering it sounds exactly like what an alchemist would do.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/see-beyond/
Ugh, hideous post is hideous. That’s what I get for using talk-type without the time to check for accuracy...
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I'm working on a solution for next week's game. We'll see how it works.
Does it involve SPREADSHEETS?!!!
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I'm working on a solution for next week's game. We'll see how it works.Does it involve SPREADSHEETS?!!!
3" x 5" cards, actually. Keep in mind that I'm ancient.
I actually vastly prefer the cards (presupposing they’re kept well-organized), as they’re easier to grasp than Excel or similar.
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BTW, from now on, I am calling intellect devourers "brain puppies"
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The Party Does Things Right?!?!?!?, Played 07-Feb-2018
One of the things I hate about playing with teenagers is that they're teenagers, so they're still struggling with massive emotional baggage they don't even know they have until it hammers them like a great white shark falling out of a satellite and landing on their bean curd.
One of the things that I love about playing with teenagers is their resilience, adaptability, and willingness to roll with you if you cut them some slack.
Bacon Boy was perfectly willing to work with my solution of, "You can only ask about buffs that you've cast," plus a little ramekin of color-coded chits for Malek's buffs so we could all see them and figure them out. Talky was having a really rough night, but when the party needed a bard he stepped up to the plate and came through.
I really like these kids.
So, oh yeah, the game...
I'm afraid the game was ludicrously un-funny. The group was essentially mopping up the brain puppies intellect devourers, and Kwai Chang came to the realization that if he couldn't beat them to death, he could at least trip them all.
There is nothing so obscene as a monk using Flurry of Blows and Improved Trip to trip every single fricking adjacent creature. Right next to Mr. "Oh, I know we did my buffs wrong last time, so that's Resurgent Transformation and Greater Rage and Good Hope and Inspire Courage and Witch Hunter. Those all stack, right?" Malek who was correctly doing 1d10 + 32 + 1d6 adamantine damage with every hit. There was a small amount of tension at the other side of the room where the brain puppies intellect devourers had learned that casting Inflict Serious Wounds defensively and then touching Hooken was a sound strategy, but Athelya and Voren came in to interfere and spoil their day before they could do so much as drop Hooken and eat his brain.
The nerve!
After mopping up the fight, Hooken listened at the adjacent door, and his Perception roll of 43 (yes, at 13th level he's at +24. It's ouchy) told him there were people whispering to each other one room over. Unlike the AP, which expected the PCs to stand outside the door and break it down, first Hooken used his Gloves of Reconnaissance (best magic item EVER!) to peer through the door and verify that the morlocks inside were sporting the Pathfinder symbol, and then Narlock used Tongues to Diplomacy her way through the door, mentioning Thekoke, Juliver, and Eando Kline.
So the party got to meet with Udarra the morlock lore oracle (loracle?) without breaking down the door, and without unnecessarily slaughtering the low-level morlocks inside in a comic-book-esque, "Let's make the good guys fight each other" moment. If we were playing with XP, that would have been a bonus right there.
Instead, the kids did me proud again. Playing as, "Better than an AP writer", their first concern was not the urdefhans, nor the serpentfolk, but the morlocks, like any sensible, compassionate, good-aligned party. So I had to do some improv as they came up with ways to ensure the morlocks' safety, and make sure no more intellect devourers would threaten them. AFTER that they asked about Eando Kline, the urdefhans, and all that, so they know that Kline and Juliver went to meet with the leader of the urdefhans to try to get their support. They asked Juliver what she remembered about the meeting, so I told them to roll a d20. One natural 20 later, she could tell them that not only had they made it to the urdefhan leader peaceably, but he had also let them leave peaceably, so it was possible to Diplomacy your way through that territory.
The party decided to spend the night and a second night with the morlocks, not only to protect them, but so that Voren could finish crafting Bara's Headband of Vast Intelligence +4.
Bara will soon speak... what will she say?
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Anyway, that extra 5 AC fundamentally changed the combat, as is pretty obvious when you think about it. At the end of last session, Malek had opened the door into the great hall, been hit by the two waiting alchemical golems, and the party saw nine morlocks waiting for them, and those who could see magic auras saw...
One non-electronic option:
Graph paper with their standard AC on the top broken out by bonus type in each column. Then, list buffs underneath broken out by type, and they can easily track the total. Notecards is another option.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
BTW, from now on, I am calling intellect devourers "brain puppies"
You weren't calling them that before?!
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I know that this isn't related to the game, but since NobodysHome touched on it, I wanted to mention that I actually had been having a terrible week leading up to that night. A shout-out to NobodysHome and Impus Major for creating space and listening to me rant on about my problems. And to the rest of the guys in the group since all of them showed concern in their own way(yes, even you Voren). You nerds are the best.
Something funny did happen that night, which was me expressing frustration that Inspire Competence didn't affect me. I realize now that the reason for this is that Bards are the best class and others are just lacking in being useful.
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I like the mental image of Kwai Chang break dancing around to trip intellect devourers.
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I know that this isn't related to the game, but since NobodysHome touched on it, I wanted to mention that I actually had been having a terrible week leading up to that night. A shout-out to NobodysHome and Impus Major for creating space and listening to me rant on about my problems. And to the rest of the guys in the group since all of them showed concern in their own way(yes, even you Voren). You nerds are the best.
Something funny did happen that night, which was me expressing frustration that Inspire Competence didn't affect me. I realize now that the reason for this is that
Bards are the best class and others are just lacking in being useful.
You should always feel free to share your stuff here!
... or you could do what I did, drop a drama bomb on a thread and then not show up for, like, a day because you’re hiding (and/or the forums were down every time you went to read or say something).
EDIT: you know, I started trying to mention one thing, decided against it, and left half the sentence in a way that seemed to imply something weird that was never part of the original post. I don’t know, look, I’m in a Resteraunt in my phone - I don’t have time to make sense right now! ;P
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Astoundingly Drejk, nae, I know, how could I go so LONG without using such a glorious name (they ARE a great monster, they get the BEST horrified player looks!)
Owww, Bara can soon wax poetic about stuff like eating boggard maidens, how much she loves Malak, and what the names for their inevitable 2,000 spawn should be...
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Well, we're going to have to wait one more week to hear Bara's first words. Not because of illness, or game prep, but because yet again Impus Major's see, "Upcoming one-week break" and think, "We need to assign a bunch of major projects simultaneously to ensure our children have no sense of hope or happiness."
So we are seriously scheduled to work together on homework from 3:00 - 10:00 pm today, just to take care of the stuff that's due in the next 2 days.
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The Party Does Things Right?!?!?!?, Played 07-Feb-2018
...but so that Voren could finish crafting Bara's Headband of Vast Intelligence +4.Bara will soon speak... what will she say?
Easy... "Hey, can I have more of those little brain puppy things? They're like little popcorns..."
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I like the mental image of Kwai Chang break dancing around to trip intellect devourers.
That cinches it! Kwai Chang is bringing a boom box to the next battle.
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Isn't the gnome bard already a boom box? Small-sized music source.
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Isn't the gnome bard already a boom box? Small-sized music source.
Indeed he is. Now if I can get him to roll off a little Sabaton or Powerwolf on his ukulele, that would realllly set the right mood.
On a different note, I'm oh, so sad. In honor of Supperman's brilliant visual, I was able to take my current avatar icon, and add in a boom box in the background. It was a subtle, yet meaningful addition to the picture. Unfortunately paizo does not currently allow customized icons (they say so in their help pages).
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LOL
My brain immediately goes to this..Kwai Chang in battle
::punch, punch, knee:: "Woman, men, and children fight, they were dying side be side ::kick, punch, kick:: Warsaw RISE!!!!!!!!!!
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If you're going to quote Sabaton, you HAVE to provide a link!
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And the bard is a HUMAN, not a gnome. The gnome bard died quite a while ago, saving her froggy love from near-certain doom.
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Noted NH, will make sure to link in music, to be fair, how can I NOT, is SABATON!!! :)
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bara has a hat
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bara has a hat
It's not a pretty one.
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LOL...don't let Bara hear you say that Dawning, she understands stuff better now.
But...more to the point...she eats things just as well as before....
Bara is one lady you do NOT want to fashion shame....especially if her tummy is rumbling.
LOL...don't let Bara hear you say that Dawning, she understands stuff better now.
But...more to the point...she eats things just as well as before....
Bara is one lady you do NOT want to fashion shame....especially if her tummy is rumbling.
I should consider that she is a giant frog monster. In fact, now that I think about it, Narlock should be terrified of the Froghemoth since she must've heard horror stories about it...
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I would never suggest that her hat isn’t pretty!
I might suggest that she can find a more flattering hat of some kind that would bring out the beauty of her natural features better...
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I know, I know, you guys are eagerly anticipating a writeup. But with Bara finally "awakening", the kids wanted a blow-by-blow, and I'm prepping MASSIVE dungeon crawls in both SS and CT. Stay tuned. It'll show up by Sunday afternoon.
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Sunday? Afternoon?!
(which means I'll probably be reading it on Monday morning)
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Well, I learned my lesson trying to run Strange Aeons cold. "OK, so you're breaking a window to get into A15 because it's empty? No worries."
"We go to A23."
"Ok... hang on... OK. Though the wide-open door you see 8 armed guards who just watched you break a window, climb in, drink some potions, and buff, all while inexplicably not attacking you. Let's roll initiatives..."
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Bara Speaks, played 21-Feb-2018
The party enjoyed the mongrel's hospitality for another day (to Juliver's fuming), Voren continued to work on a circlet for Bara, and Athelya and Narlock continued to watch for any signs of further brain puppy incursions. Another restful night in the depths of Ilmurea, and Voren was ready. He had crafted a Fedora of Vast Intelligence +4 for Bara.
He approached her cautiously, asking Malek to soothe her. As always, Malek failed and Narlock had to step in. Thank goodness for bards with Handle Animal. Voren approached cautiously, and delicately placed the fedora on Bara's "head". (Have you looked at the pictures of froghemoths? Where do you put a hat on that thing?). So of course, just to make my life truly miserable, Voren chose the included skills as Perception and...
Linguistics!?!?!?!!?!
WTF, Voren?!?!?!!?
So we sat down at Hero Labs and dutifully added the TWENTY-TWO new languages for Bara (20 HD will do that to you). It was hilarious because Impus Minor came in after the fact. "Wait a minute! Why does Bara speak Elven?!?!?!"
There are very few languages she doesn't speak.
As new thoughts flooded into her mind, Bara's first word was, "Malek?"
The next few minutes were clarifying the notion of "food" vs. "not food" to Bara. Confused at the entire concept that there were some living things that were neither food nor mates, she ate a few more dead morlocks as she pondered this deep philosophical issue. Fortunately, a successful Diplomacy check by Narlock convinced her that Narlock was a member of this ephemeral 'third matter'. Once she had a concrete example in front of her, it was much easier for Narlock to convince her that the other party members were similarly members of the 'third matter' squad, as was Heron.
Confused but content, Bara went along with the party as they faced their most dangerous foe in Ilmurea yet again: The 40' wall.
I swear, for the final fight in this campaign I'm just erecting a 60' wall. It was that bad.
TEN MORE MINUTES of real-time bickering and Voren finally cast Spider Climb on Bara and she carried the wall-phobic party over it.
As they moved across unclaimed territory, Voren caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Fortunately, he and Hooken determined that it was a large number of morlocks. My favorite conversation of the night:
"It's morlocks! Who here speaks Undercommon?"
"Hey, Bara speaks Undercommon! Let's let HER talk to them!"
"Yeah!"
"Oh, no. Wait. That's not such a good idea. Should we have Voren cast Tongues?"
NobodysHome: Thekoke volunteers that he speaks Undercommon, and may be able to communicate with these strange creatures.
Yes, the party had made a massive Diplomacy roll to convince Thekoke to come with them to meet with the urdefhans, over his vehement objections, and then they'd totally forgotten that he and Juliver were there!
Way to make the NPCs feel important, party!
I'm afraid the rest of the evening was pretty straightforward:
So yes, I did indeed lose the 12 pages of prep and all the interesting NPCs you encounter if you decide to slaughter all the urdefhans, but let's be blunt: Killing all the people you're hoping to ally yourselves with weakens their position at the very least.
Next week, the party heads for the fortress...