|
Yeah, I'm kinda in the same boat. I didn't really have a "hook" but I've always liked economic games, so when I saw that there was some ground-work done for that, I thought I'd add to the main plot as well as I could, but then I'd peruse the whole trading mechanic.
Um, of note, this character isn't really Charisma heavy, psionics being what it is, so I'd not be able to contribute much to the talky off-ship parts. I thought I'd just help fill the coffers and be useful that way. =3
Side note: Vacation time again. Leaving Thursday, going camping for 10 days. Will not post again till the 20th once I'm gone. Please bot me as needed.
Don't worry, Adran, I'll roll for you! (And get all 1s.)
Obviously Sting has his revenge, but beyond that, he loves to explore. While his capture and torment killed a certain amount of his personality, his innate curiosity was too strong to completely die.
Looking back, I would say that's probably why he singed onto the group originally, before my leaving. A chance to go new places, see new things, and of course, fly around/among them all.
I am considering adding a sixth game I'm running, now that my work life has settled down with my new job (And my jaw is no longer stabbing pain into my brain). If you are interested in GURPS, you can look here and if interested, let me know in the thread.
Rather than do a public recruitment, I'm just going to ask people I'm playing with already first.
I'm at my max with 2 games, 1 tabletop game, this travel business, writing my second novel, trying to get my first novel published, taking care of two elderly parents, taking care of a house and yard, and teaching Sunday School and doing the video ministry for my church, mdt. But thanks for the invite.
I have done GURPS once. With heading out on vacation I will pass. I will also be going to a different job at the end of the month and not sure how much free time I will have to take on anymore. But yeah thanks for the invite :)
Strategy: there's a skyship above the Elephant doing the ol' "drop in on someone" tactic.
Responses:
1.) Shapers making fliers. Put an army of astral constructs up there on the sides.
2.) Energy wall right above the crow's nest. Most Shapers can make astral constructs at Short (25 ft + 5 ft/2 level) range, which at our level would be above the sails (40 ft). Keep making energy walls with the "active" side towards the enemy ship.
3.) Tell the sailors to attack from the fore sides and bow upwards, not directly upwards. Get them out of the energy wall traps that will drift aftwards toward the stern of both ships as we move.
Now, let's hear the objections from the melee/ranged fighters!
FYI, before anyone panics about getting hit by a sniper rifle...
At this distance, they need a 20 to hit anyone. Unfortunately, even a miss hits the ship (since it's the background). Only a 1 causes a miss. Down side of being on a collosal construct.
Also, if anyone does get hit, the damage will go down, unless you happen to be a construct...
FYI : The Paizo rules don't have anything about how to handle potential damage to crew when a ship is in combat. Seems like they assume the crew are never hit by debris as the ship is blowing up around them.
I'll be working on a percentage thing, for every 25 points of damage to the ship's structure in a single attack, I'll roll a chance of a crew hit (one in ten chance), by debris (1/4 of the damage done to the ship by that hit).
Also, note that you're going full speed and trying to not be hit, which slows you down and is letting them continue to close. Of course, they're using gravity at this point, so they can continue to close no matter what (by dropping faster as they move forward). Until they stop diving, you're not going to open any lead space. Assuming they aren't planning to just ram you and break you in half, of course.
Well, "running like a scared cat" was my first response. I could try a full stop, once it looks like the ship above us is also going at speed. But like you said, with the advantage of altitude, they can pretty much follow us as they like for several minutes. Another reason I wanted some altitude of my own with the [i]Elephant[i].
I'm former Army, not Navy, so I could use some tactical advice here.
Things you'd know :
Per Elrohir, this is a 1000 year old warship, which means it's crew compliment, if it's fully crewed, is 60 crew. Which would leave you out numbered 2.5 to 3 to one roughly, if they board.
Because it's a former warship, it's reinforced much more heavily than the Elephant.
Because it's 1000 years old, it's made from Elemental Wood, which has gone out of style. But it means the ship heals itself over time. So it's likely as 'good as new' with regards to the wooden structure.
You know the Elephant is faster, once the other ship loses it's height advantage. Additionally, the other ship has to use wind, unless he's stolen more modern engines for it. The Elephant's engines mean she can go against the wind signficantly faster than the other ship, once she can break free.
However, if he's managed to arm her with heavy weapons, he may be able to pound the Elephant to scrap before you can get it out of range. If he does that, people are likely to die.
As the GM, I see you have a few options :
A) Keep running and try to get out of his range before he pounds you to scrap and too many people are killed.
B) Turn and close on him and fight boarding action at outnumbered odds.
C) Ram him and hope you damage him enough to break off while not damaging yourself too much to get away.
D) Abandon ship and let him ransack the Elephant. He may hunt you down anyway, unless you want to have the crew abandon in drips and drabs as you flee or something to scatter them over a wider area.
E) Go off the GM board and come up with a strategy he didn't think of and impress him mightily!
|
|
My instinct is always to attack, but that's just me.
I can't really say how well a counter-attack will go, since I've not seen this party in combat.
Meh. Once the constructs get in combat we'll have a better idea of what we're facing. If they 1-shot my lvl 4s, then, ya, we're running. ^_^
Imma hold off my action until the others post, yeah?
Well, we are down to 4 players (Art left), so it's just Adraniel (who never posts unless he has something to do, which is hard on the GM since I don't know if he's playing or vanished or if I should go on or not), and Elrohir (who, like Adraniel's player, posts when he has something to post).
And I always found the Black Puddings to be harder to beat than the Lemon Puddings.
TL/DR : Up to the current players if you want to add some more players.
Things you'd know :
Per Elrohir, this is a 1000 year old warship, which means it's crew compliment, if it's fully crewed, is 60 crew. Which would leave you out numbered 2.5 to 3 to one roughly, if they board.
Because it's a former warship, it's reinforced much more heavily than the Elephant.
Because it's 1000 years old, it's made from Elemental Wood, which has gone out of style. But it means the ship heals itself over time. So it's likely as 'good as new' with regards to the wooden structure.
You know the Elephant is faster, once the other ship loses it's height advantage. Additionally, the other ship has to use wind, unless he's stolen more modern engines for it. The Elephant's engines mean she can go against the wind signficantly faster than the other ship, once she can break free.
However, if he's managed to arm her with heavy weapons, he may be able to pound the Elephant to scrap before you can get it out of range. If he does that, people are likely to die.
As the GM, I see you have a few options :
A) Keep running and try to get out of his range before he pounds you to scrap and too many people are killed.
I kinda suspected this, which is why I chose to run. Now, if said warship was under-funded and under-manned and Grimjowl was trying to get us out of the way before we got too experienced for his liking, it'd be different. But I strongly suspect he's got a full compliment of gigantic lizard-men who have been doing nothing but Marine training for the last 10 years signed onboard, and each is still paying off the biggest weapon they could carry, rather than eat for the next 5 years.
I was hoping psionic powers would provide the edge needed to give Grimjowl a good sting before we got out of range, but I'm not seeing it. Not at these ranges with the projectile weapons. I'm not above doing dirty maneuvering, including shutting down the engines and unfurling the sails to make us stop dead in the water, but only if Grimjowl is guaranteed to overshoot us at that point, and I don't recall the Elephant having any main guns to use. I was hoping on picking some up once we got some good trade deals under our belts, but luck and chance are always against Connor & crew, for some reason.
At this point we need some new people to come out of the nameless crew and provide some much-needed support. That or someone with some long-range powers like concussive onslaught who could both stop these projectiles and send the hurt back to Grimjowl's ship. Along with Extend Power to double the range.
Until then, Connor's going to run, run, run away.
You have two light cannons, and two ballista, each with about a 1000 ft range. You don't have any capital ship weapons (heavy cannons).
ANd it's not quite that bad. He's got a few snipers (the guns are actually not that expensive, I have tried to get you guys to do guns before, for this reason). :) Even put a sniper rifle where you could take it, but you always declined them. (Nobody went diving for the one that fell off the ship in the rather shallow bay you could see the bottom through the water in).
Full crew is probably a good guess. 10 year veteran marines, with +4 weapons, yeah, probably not so much. :)
If you'd like to add some more PCs, I'm fine with that. So I guess that means Volita should send an SOS to her pals.
I was on vacation. Just got back late last night. Will have to see what is going on. Let me catch up. I thought I posted about being off grid on vacation. I did in my other games, sorry if I missed this one.
You did, on the 6th.
I've been going back n forth with how I want Elrohir to react, and have actually typed a few posts but then decided I didn't like them :( I will try to get something up tonight.
Apologies then Adraniel, I must have missed it then. I was still on drugs on the 6th, so please put it down to that.
No worries happy to be back before we are all dead, or captured :)
Flann Swallowtail is the seventeenth grandnefew of the longest-sitting nobleman of Clan Celestrada, and he will let you know it in a mild, almost apologetic tone as if it explains everything else. Flann is a rail-thin (by halvavian standards) wallflower of a little thing with a rifle that looks like it could tear his arms off. See, medic is Flann's job, and one he's trained quite thouroughly in thank-you-very-much, but guns are his passion. With his short feet and bare chin, firing off lead shot down a long, steel rifled barrel is the only time he feels... right.
Now, Flann's been working on the Elephant for a while now. He tries not to get too caught up in dates and ages. That's how mother got her wrinkles. The stress. In any case, working as a Vitalist on a ship like the Elephant is clearly below the Swallowtail name, but Flann has been telling folks that he's just taking a few years off to "find himself".
I'm at a two day Vampire the Masquerade LARP event, and have had very little time to read much beyond some discussion pages. Will try and catch up on Sun, but it may not be till Mon till I post, due to my brain likely being mush most of the Sun.
@Flann, Check the House Rules section on the campaign tab, we're using Weapon Groups, so you could pick Firearms as one of your weapon groups.
Also, check the FIREARMS section on the campaign tab, we're using a house ruled firearms system. You'll find it both slightly better, and slightly worse, than the PF system. More flexible, the guns do a bit less damage, but you can do cap and ball.
Advanced firearms are available. They weren't at the start of the campaign, but they are now (I've actually tried to give away a couple up until now, they threw them away).
@Monkeygod, no worries. I'll probably not update until Monday, since it's the weekend.
@Monkeygod, no worries. I'll probably not update until Monday, since it's the weekend.
Whew! I'll try to post tonight, Monday morning at the earliest. I have several "once-a-month" activities, but this week, all of them had their meetings or special annual conventions!
Few things for the party to know:
The collective has telepathy and can share known Powers. You can also use a standard action to have Flann send you 3 HP per 1 PP spent up to 6PP, seven times a day, and I can shift spillover healing onto other members of the collective.
@Flann - Welcome aboard. Please check the other character's avatars, and mimic their entries with stats/skills in the race/class entries on their profile pages. Thanks!
Instructions on how to build those are in the first page or two of the discussion thread if you need help.
Don't mind Connor, Flann - he's thinking of a Mender's Pulse in the healer's network to give everyone Fast Healing 1 hp. Also, sharing powers is a three-round exercise:
[dice=Psicraft check (DC 20) to "see"]1d20+14[/dice] FAIL, TRY AGAIN
[dice=Psicraft check (DC 20) to "see"]1d20+14[/dice]
[dice=Psicraft check (DC 15 + power's level) to "understand"]1d20+14[/dice] 2nd-level powers and below only
Which can be a long time in battle. Connor does have body adjustment, the 1d12 healing power, however.
I will keep making astral constructs, wondering if I should manifest vigor at highest level, just in case...
You actually can outrun them, but not quickly. If you're actively making yourselves harder to hit, you are still faster, but they'll be able to keep you in range longer. At this point, if they insist on keeping range, it comes down to surviving the bombardment and hoping they don't get an engine hit (crit hit). So, you can either stop evading and head into the wind as fast as possible, cutting down on how long they have to shoot but making yourself an easier target, or you can continue evading to avoid being hit as much.
If they hit your engines, you're done. If they start taking down the crew, you may be done (ship doesn't work so well with a dead crew).
ah for some reason I thought you said it was a faster ship. Must of been in my head.
Do the cannons/snipers have a blind spot, say... directly below/behind deck?
The snipers can only hit what is on deck. There's some places on deck they can't shoot, but they don't really care. They've loaded up with Construct Bane ammo, so they're just as happy missing a person and hitting the ship.
The cannons are aiming for the ship, so there's not really any 'blind spot' for that. Even ducking down you can still get hit by shrapnel (since it can go smashing out in all directions and ricochet.
I mean, is there a position relative to their ship that our ship can be in that would make it difficult for them to aim at our ship?
Not really. You're flying 100ft over the Great Skybloom Swamp. Basically, imagine an area the size of the US that's a giant swamp, covered with trees that go up for about 1000 ft, then spread out like a broom (but in a cone at the top, not just a flat rectangle). There's no mountains, all the trees are the same height (give or take 20 ft). Looking down, you might as well be flying over a big flat grassland.
Individuals could drop off the side of the ship and vanish under the canopy and avoid getting hit, but the ship itself is too big to drop down between the trees. They hit you at the perfect place to ambush you.
Then again, the crew has been leaving threats in every port about wanting the other ship to draw it out, so apparently that part of the plan worked? You found it...
Yes, but the weapons are in the bow. SO you'll need to move them to the aft (that takes about 5 minutes) or you'll need to turn and attack. You can drift, turn, fire, turn, accelerate, but you'll lose a bit of ground trying to get away. It takes a full turn to reload the cannons and ballistae. So you can only fire every other round. You could move them to the side firing positions, and fire one every round, but turning the ship to fire also slows you down. That's why they were losing ground on their closing rate when the cannons fired.
You actually can outrun them, but not quickly. If you're actively making yourselves harder to hit, you are still faster, but they'll be able to keep you in range longer. At this point, if they insist on keeping range, it comes down to surviving the bombardment and hoping they don't get an engine hit (crit hit). So, you can either stop evading and head into the wind as fast as possible, cutting down on how long they have to shoot but making yourself an easier target, or you can continue evading to avoid being hit as much.
If they hit your engines, you're done. If they start taking down the crew, you may be done (ship doesn't work so well with a dead crew).
I can put energy walls above the engines to wear away any shells, but that's about it.
You're in a pickle, you've got a much bigger warship after you. They likely have a bigger crew than you. They do have bigger guns than you. If you turn into fight them, either they begin gaining altitude and bombard you until you close, then attack hand-to-hand. Or, you keep running, and hope they don't hit your engines and don't pound you to scrap as you run. You can still escape if they damage one engine, but if they damage both or destroy one, you can't escape.
At that point, you either have to close and fight, or abandon ship. It's unlikely they could kill the crew due to the tree cover, so it's unlikely you'll get (all) the crew killed, but the ship is in danger.
You'll need to open the range back up to about 2000 ft to avoid their attacks. They had longer range previously due to coming in above you, it extended their range. Once they are on the same level, that goes away.
Honestly, it would be better for them to completely close and go HTH, but their captain is still new at this, and he enjoys watching other ships go BOOM BOOM BOOM as he shoots them. :)
More family emergency issues - will post later today.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And the annual "sewer system backup" in the house is now fixed. I hope.
Why I have trouble with Pathfinder:
So... If the constructs have a WIS score, I can add them to my collective. Medic Powers gives Vigor (or Body Adjustment) the Network tag, which means I can Manifest it on any target in my Collective. Reading between the lines, I think that if I can heal the constructs, I wouldn't be able to heal PCs and constructs, because the type of healing is different(?) per Collective Healing.
So.. So uhm... am can I healz teh constructz?
I thought not, but then I realized I didn't know for sure.
My read on it is, you could heal them, but not the humans, at the same time. So you could set up a Collective for the constructs, or the organics, but not both at the same time. It's not so much Pathfinder as it is the Dreamscarred people not being precise in wording.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No, this is the 47-year-old septic tank, distribution tank, and septic lines starting to crumble under the assault of every tree within 100 feet growing roots into the distribution lines. If I pour in too much root killer crystals the bacteria in the septic tank won't do their job and break down the solids into liquids. Not enough, and the roots start to clog the system again. This time I was able to go for almost 20 months before things starting backing up into the house again.
The trees cover the house's roof in the summertime, reducing the need to run the air conditioner continuously, so it's a delicate balance.
You do realize your ship has only taken 10% of it's HP so far, right? It's not as if it's falling apart around you just yet. It's just not pretty anymore.
It's just a little awkward, getting shot at and all. Projects a sense of urgency. We're still feeling out the "do something about it" button.
It's (presumably) our first game of Guns of Icarus. We're gonna spend the first half of our hitpoints learning how to lead a shot, flailing about every time something catches fire, and not knowing there's an aft gun.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That's sort of why I'm posting like I am. I could do 3 rounds at a time, but it wouldn't convey the 'boom boom boom' of the actual battle. :)
Okay I do feel better knowing it's only 10%. But like you said, one or two hits on the engines and we're out of options.
We're still evading and fleeing. We haven't turned around yet. Connor is just frustrated that the Elephant is taking all this damage with no return. Maybe if we get a few more rounds of astral construct-making, he and Volita can send 10 or 16 fliers at them...