I'm steadily inserting the information for the more relevant pages, if you guys want to help out with it (it's under the hell village link at the top), it'd be much appreciated. Also, Johnny, if you wanna fix the conditional formating and such on skills it'd be super appreciated. :)
You may have additional Class Skills that I'm not listing: If it isn't on your sheet, I'm not looking it up :P <3
@MDT: Once I get around to getting a Wealth tab up, do you want me to include services performed (like the bridge, or the heal spells) in our 'wealth'? What about items we likely have access to that are not on our person (like the mithral breastplate)? Or should I just stick to what we're carrying?
The sheet now has all objects that I am aware of listed (that have a price). We're a 'little' over budget, but if we pretend that the crafting mostly came after the pulling (it did), we're still fine-ish.
I did 1.5x cost for an unusual slot for the charisma earrings that I think Johnny is wearing.
We'll bump up to 100k maximum pull (and such) at next level... but we'll still be over 80%. So no more pulling until level 7 :( (In fact, his pulling wouldn't have put a dent in it: Doubling our Gem's value by crafting magic items is what did it. Hard.)
I also have not listed any of the Rods... which is gonna add a lot, I think. :(
Ah, figured Johnny was just about to give the ring back. And yes, those are some niiiice rods.
A large stick could solve the raccon problem
I think I solved the conditional formating for the most part (looking at what you did made me understand what you did :P), but did you really type that in over and over and over? :o
I took a minor shortcut that should be fine as long as people aren't doing things with massive penalties. It's not as pretty as yours was, though :(
@Luna: The raccoon isn't the problem in that relationship. :o
Hmm... I still think it would be very useful to get an impression of what these people (and the city as a whole) think about the Church in general / the upper world, as well as just how much of an iron grip on society our enemies have or if there are rebels and atheists everywhere further from the wall. Could mind-reading magic or something be useful here? I think only Johnny has it, but casting a spell like that might be considered a bit rude.
I wouldn't consider it a bit rude... I'd consider it a declaration of war. What I think is very, very different from what I say. I'm a very, very kind person, but I am not at all a nice person. :P The things we keep to ourselves are our own... and these people seem -very- forthcoming with how they feel about things (in fact, our pet bamboozled a few and they aren't after us with pitchforks!)
Well, sure. But we're here to get some information beyond just "Do you know what a raccoon is? What about you there, in the corner?"
Also, Neri: there's a lot of stuff that looks like it didn't make it onto your spreadsheet. We're actually just past double WBL right now (using the gems for crafting really helped).
I listed everything I knew about (without digging). Anything I missed, please feel free to add.
Oh, right, should have mentioned that I just went back through all our crafting sessions and have now added everything.
(Didn't know we had the mithral breastplate though, hmm)
Yeah, things off to the left are things we're not carrying at the moment that we have access to. The Mithral Breastplate was left with Kong (I'm sure he'd be willing to part with it for the right reasons, though)
Oh... I'll separate it, then, into group gear we are and aren't carrying.
Meanwhile... maybe we should split up and try to blend in at the bar, get info out of different characters at our own paces, etc? Liisa could join or observe the card game, someone charismatic could talk to the lay priest, and generally ask about how he gets answers from the gods if he isn't part of the clergy, I could armwrestle or have a drinking contest or something with the fist-user and wild mage, and someone could talk to the bartender and other patrons.
It's no secret to them that we're probably not law-abiding citizens; we could mention that we'd rather not talk about our past, that we've recently traveled a lot, and that we're looking for work or allies without wanting to attract too much attention from the surface world. That's basically the truth, and I don't think it would raise too much suspicion, but we could see what all the different patrons have to say in response without having awkward whole-bar conversations.
Things that stay in the compounds, or are given to the village, don't count against your totals. Unless you get tehm back, then they do. Don't worry about services performed. I'm only worried about things you currently have available. If you lose something in game, that comes off the total.
Sure—but we're still well, well over, thanks to cheap and ruthless crafting (Lina pressing for things made of gems, etc).
Also—if nobody here seems marked by any gods, that means the church probably doesn't have an iron-tight grip on them, which is good. It also means that we can potentially recruit people to our cause willingly, without having to mark them against their will etc., so that's also neat—I'm not sure who in this tavern we could get to willingly step across the barrier, but if we find a Wild Mage *not* looking for a place to detonate, who just wants to escape the church's persecution...
P.S. As for our sales pitch—yeah, we're demons from Hell. But if the gods themselves are super into murder, torture, and genetically-based oppression, that means their enemies are probably not so bad. Rather, Hell is a place of unlimited food and water, where people only do the labor they feel like doing, nobody is persecuted for their magic or beliefs, all your chronic wounds are healed, and the gods don't eat your souls after death (the dead, instead, seem able to choose to remain as ghosts if they want—and once we get a cohort who can take the witch gem, they'll also be able to reincarnate if they want). And that's the truth, though sadly none of us can cast an Abadar's Truthtelling spell to drive it home.
I feel like the "someone charismatic should talk to the priest" probably refers to me. But at the same time, I am not as charismatic as Johnny and therefore have no idea how to approach someone and get them to talk about a topic that they clearly don't want to talk about. So...I think I'll pass on that for now. These guys seem to be regulars, so we'll probably have chances in the future.
@Neri: Sorry it's taken me so long to get to look at the spreadsheet. But the skills page looks fine to me, so I'm guessing you cleaned up whatever you wanted cleaned up? And yes, I did basically copy them down for each skill, manually modifying which square to look at for ability scores. But once you get one column down, you can just copy-paste for all the rest. Hopefully you didn't need to change much from the other spreadsheet though, as they seem to be set up the same.
Oh... you, or Neri, or Liisa all have about twice my charisma score. Mostly that's the one guy I think Lina definitely shouldn't talk to.
I should probably also assume at this point that we've gotten rooms with no further ordeal, and we can probably cut a bit later to when we're just drinking in the tavern and talking to people. (Anyone else getting a Farscape vibe from that bartender?)
I had to redo it all, actually. It was basically copy-paste. BUT copy-paste wasn't actually working for me. It doesn't seem to. Is there something other than Ctrl V I should use for pasting a formula?
Liisa is probably the closest thing our group has to a priest that is not a priest. 'I talk, and the land listens.' That sort of thing. But again, I tend not to try to pull things out of people they don't want to talk about (but I'm also not extremely charismatic, and more a considerate coward :P)
Sorta priest yes : )
I think I will deal with the raccoon therapy first, and we can brainstorm approaches/ideas how to approach the priest.
I'm thinking of simply dragging Johnny and his injury to the priest and ask if he can fix it, followed by some spellcraft (might give something? If it doesn't show as a spell it might be Lay on Hands or Channel Energy [assuming our characters are aware of those. Hmm. Maybe not]). At the very least, it is a conversation starter ?
You could always just turn the racoon to stone! o.O
Could. But only if it is willing and friendly. So maybe with some trickery :P
(Or, she could level something like Charm/Dominate Animal against it. But that seems excessive at the moment, going to start with talking to it!)
Re: Lay on Hands
That would be the most absolutely glorious outcome. "I'm a paladin... but I have no idea what a lawful good deity is." XD
Unfortunately, it looks like Verdant Shoals isn't near Demonshales, or else we'd have a subtle route to asking about how accepted fugitive apostates are in BlueStreakHome.
Asking for healing is pretty clever, though.
Other thought: we could ask the magical/historical researcher about rumors we've heard of a demon named Selvaria, who used to be associated with the Blue Streaks.
Neri will have a suggestion in character once the raccoon business is all sorted. :)
I think it'll help the RP move along a bit better if we start talking in character instead of planning out of character and then just rushing through everything. Maybe that's just me, though :(
Maybe? I've usually found games go slower when everyone waits for a few characters to finish a conversation, though, because of all the back-and-forth on a single issue.
And I feel like it just kind of... rips the soul out of the game when it's just 'I think the party should do this', then we do that. I know as a DM it -really- hurts my ability to be creative with my players when they just say what their intent is, because it leaves me with few options besides just sighing and telling, instead of showing. :(
*shrug* I may be off base, though.
Personal style choice, I guess. As a GM, I find it rather a hassle when players spend weeks making small talk without anyone making plans to move forward on the story.
I do feel like PbP has the ability to go deeper into roleplay, especially with charismatic/intelligent characters, because you can really think out responses and strategies—but I also definitely prefer long, informative posts (characters working through everything they want to say, rather than the normal sentence-by-sentence pace of a sentence, etc). or else split dialogue, because otherwise it feels like people tend to post simple responses only when they don't know what to do/say next but feel the rules of politeness-to-NPCs expect them to keep making pleasantries.
Yeah, I totally agree on face to face. There just isn't enough time at an average table for real and meaningful interaction with even a -single- combat... at least not for my group. (Granted, we have a guy who always plays wizard and never knows what he's doing until it's legitimately his turn)
But Play by Post is a place you can put a lot of thought into what you're going to say, be responsive, be thorough... that sort of stuff. :)
I tend to get kind of frustrated by people who don't know what they're going to do until it's their turn/10 minutes in to their turn. It's part of why I can't play Risk. That and the fact that I strongly dislike the political back and forth about why player X should attack player Y instead of player Z. Patience is definitely something I need to work on getting better at in face to face games. And competitiveness. :/
I don't like risk because I don't really understand how it's -supposed- to work. The dice just feel rigged from the rules I know regarding the game :P
"That actually makes it worse, you realize? It's like a chef not knowing if he's cooking a mushroom or a toadstool." She makes a wave in the innkeeper's direction. "Sorry."
The innkeeper winces. "It's fine..."
The wildmage laughs. "Yeah, don't expect mushrooms here. Roasted meat only."
Annnd just noticed this. Nice one, MDT—and even funnier considering that we're made of meat, and were I playing a MUCH more chaotic character I might have mentioned it. (I just looked up the fungal tree, and apparently I'm more closely related to a velociraptor than a portobello is to a morel, which is craaaaazy)
I'm good to press on when others are.
Also, I think raccoon is just permanently blurred, and has a really solid stealth (between size mods and ranks). Otherwise, Lascerna spotting it stealing is ridiculous. :p
Then we hit him with a tranq dart and start adding the seasoning :D
I wonder if raccoons taste any good.... Although I suppose a good enough cook could probably make almost any animal tasty. Except I've heard of a shark, I think in the Icelandic area of the world, that dumps urea through it's body as a defense mechanism to ruin the meat, so maybe not quite any animal.
He's not been that bad, honestly. What's he done (other than steal stuff, which is his nature). You'd be grouchy too if you'd been dead for a few thousand years, and your new boss not only ignored you but when they did pay attention, they chased you and threatened to have people kill you.
Heh... he hasn't bad, but he has been indiscriminate.
Alas, any of the rest of us would probably get along better with our animals (though the lizards we'd probably need some way to hide).
If everyone is done RPing, I'll move things along tomorrow. DIdn't want to interrupt while you were plotting.
Sounds good. We might not want to risk splitting the party, even in town—maybe hire a guide to take us on a morning tour (and specifically ask them for "features of architectural interest" like churches or really old buildings), then dinner and info gathering in the tavern?
I wonder if raccoons taste any good.... Although I suppose a good enough cook could probably make almost any animal tasty. Except I've heard of a shark, I think in the Icelandic area of the world, that dumps urea through it's body as a defense mechanism to ruin the meat, so maybe not quite any animal.
Funny that you would go for the Icelandic shark, because ...
:P
@Tour - that sounds like a plan : )
Unless anyone's opposed, we'll take the tour option, then? I believe Liisa, Johnny, and Neri were the ones who might have specific questions to ask our guide as we travel around town.
Tour is fine. I can assume you suggested Neri not investigate the town first thing in the morning, and he'll instead hang out in the tavern. Not drinking. The first drink was enough, and he doesn't have the constitution to be a drinker in the first place. :P
I dont think Luna has chased or threatened the raccoon in any way has she?
I think he meant Liisa's hat comment. Which was only one of the two options given and since the other was 'play nice' I can't really feel too much sympathy for the raccoon.
Yep, sorry. Got people mixed up. The hat comment
Although Luna has ignored it as much as possible, rather than try to be friends (and has told people she doesn't like it in it's hearing).
Buried at work, btw, so updates tomorrow ish
Funny that you would go for the Icelandic shark, because ...:P
Oh, I knew that they still ate the shark meat. I've just heard that it's still pretty gross. Hence, I guess, the "acquired taste" bit.
It's okay. We still love you. :)
@Raccoon: Neri thinks it's the most glorious thing to have happened to us since arriving. The fact that Luna hates it just makes it more hilarious.
Now... when Neri gets a little lizard that likes to set things on fire... :s