You wrote "she reads...", implying quoting from the plaque, about Kor's "affinity for summoning apes". That doesn't appear in the spoiler that I wrote. But it does in the one to Akirra from Alex. :)
That he summoned an army of apes for a big battle in the jungle doesn't necessarily qualify as an affinity. ;)
Do you think my dad attacked the camp? More like a descendant keeping the family tradition alive. :)
Ansha wasn't quoting the plaque, although in hindsight I could see how it would read that way. And she said he had an affinity for summoning apes--the spoiler from DMAK to Akirra said "a particular affinity for Apes." Ansha was saying 'great affinity for summoning apes,' as in he had a great talent for summoning apes...and you have to admit, summoning an army of anything isn't something the average spell caster can pull off. ;P
And Ansha does wonder if Akirra's dad isn't connected somehow--whether that's directly or by having trained people who trained people down the centuries. >_>
And geez, Alex, how many laptops have you destroyed in the past three years?
I'm just teasing you Ansha. :)
I just thought the use of the word was... interesting. ;)
Akirra isn't aware of the attack of course, so he has no official comment.
I sure hope you take out the extended warranties Alex!
DEATH of laptops is blond and smells faintly of PG tips.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Took the kids to see part 3 of The Hobbit yesterday. I thought it was the best of the trilogy (with the caveat that I wasn't wowed by either of the first two films).
I liked the 3rd part the most as well, although I liked the other two as well. Of course, I am far from objective and I am easily pleased where high fantasy movies are concerned, so... :-)
Haven't seen it yet, but definitely hope to in the next few days.
Christmas period is being brutal to me - flying back to KL tomorrow, then should be back on board with everything on December 31.
That does find me in agreement, yes. But then again I expected as much as soon as I heard that a book of The Hobbit's size and page count would be made into as many movies as The Lord of the Rings.
Yeah, the purist train left the station back in the first movie when the group was being chased by orcs from the moment they left the Shire.
I think what I liked better about this one was that the story never came to a screeching halt to deliver a 20-minute 3D action scene with rock-giants or mine-cars or barrels in rivers. Mostly because they were upfront about there being no story in this movie; it's right there in the subtitle that this is just one long combat sequence.
Also, frankly, this was the part of the book that I've always liked the least anyway, so I'm going to be a lot more forgiving about deviations from the plot. (I would have been happier if the book just ended with slaying the dragon/reclaiming the kingdom/"Yay we win!" instead of all the depressing stuff that comes after.)
I found the unarmored humans cutting down the orcs in full-plate immersion-breaking until I reasoned that the orcs were wearing AD&D full plate with an armor class rating of 3 while the Laketown fighters are 3.x warriors who can only miss AC 3 on a natural 1. ;)
My brother-in-law, who hasn't read the book, wondered what happened to the Arkenstone and assumed Bard had kept it since he was the last one to have been shown holding it. I presume there's going to be a deleted scene on the DVD with Thorin's funeral.
Funny to see Legolas actually run out of arrows. Sometime between the end of The Hobbit and the beginning of Fellowship, he obviously remembered running out of arrows, swore that would never happen to him again, and bought an endless ammunition bow. ;)
The bit with the purple-worm-things ("earth eaters," did they call them?) was dumb. If you have big worms that can tunnel through stone, why not bring your army out inside Erebor, kill the 13 dwarves, and use the fortress to hold everyone else off while you remove the treasure at your leisure?
There really was no resolution for either the company of dwarves (with Dain being crowned and Erebor actually reclaimed) nor for the men (with Bard being crowned, etc).
I actually thought the first movie was ok from a canon perspective, and it was more the second (with the elf-dwarf love story and breaking of the company and massive Legolas man-elf love) that caused me indigestion.
I cried when I saw the old cartoon/animated version of The Hobbit and
I am amused by the fact that one of the latest Hero Lab updates has grouped languages by category. Azlanti, Thassilonian, and Ancient Osiriani are now all listed as Common languages, while Orc is Uncommon. :P
Happy New Year to all, btw. I assume 2015 has successfully arrived already in the eastern hemisphere.
Having finally seen The Battle of Five Armies, I will say that I agree with all the spoilered stuff. HOWEVER, *I*, the S.O., and my grandmother all loved the movie (and the S.O. and I are both huge Tolkien geeks who bonded over Elven languages while playing World of Warcraft). Good way to end 2014. And more Legolas and Thranduil and Dain and Beorn would have been awesome.
Also, I really hope Peter Jackson keeps making movies set in Middle Earth. The Silmarillion, or stuff from the Books of Lost Tales, or even newer stuff Christopher Tolkien has edited like The Children of Hurin.
Christopher Tolkien hates Peter Jackson's movies and has no interest in selling the film rights to anything else. It's only because J.R.R. sold LotR and The Hobbit for the animated movies back in the day that Jackson could make the movies he has.
Then again, he's ninety, so if his heirs see things differently, things could easily change.
That's too bad. I knew there'd been bad blood related to the rights to movies and all, but didn't realize it was Christopher Tolkien who had a problem with it.
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Happy New Year to all! I'm back and ready for action! :)
Took the goblins to see The Hobbit on boxing day. Agree with pretty everything already said. It did clear the way for them to start watching The Lord of the Rings with me. My daughter didn't want to see them "out of order". :)
We have watched only the Fellowship so far. I was curious to see how they would react to Gandalf's fall. I suspect they are suspicious of his "death". :)
I gifted them the Emerald Spire (with the entire flip mat package) for Christmas for us to play. We, and they themselves, have been playing the heck out of the Basic set. I think it is time for them to move up to the Core rules. I should have had one more kid to make a party of four. lol
Out of curiosity, Alex, were you able to retrieve your notes on the Sargavan Saga game or are you having to start over from scratch again?
I'm sure he backs things up regularly given his propensity for destroying electronics. ;)
One would hope he learned his lesson after he lost the FIRST draft of notes on the Sargavan Saga. But I like to know for sure. ;P
I bought an external hard drive for the purpose of backing things up and did so regularly for...maybe a month. >_>
Is the new laptop coming along? :)
Thinking of laptops and lost data...I had a dream last night that you said you were closing this game down, AK. (Say it ain't so!) >_>;
Don't even joke about that! :(
Here's hoping we can pick up again soon then!
Alex? You out there? We miss you! :(
He made an OOC post in a game he's a player in yesterday that he's still slammed at work. I guess the new hire hasn't made that much of a difference ... or they've decided that since they now have a larger staff, they can assign the department more work.
Hi all. Started the update routine on Friday but then spent the weekend getting my gf back here with me. Should be posting tomorrow, if work isn't too brutal. Sorry for the delay.
Ready when you are! :)
Have we even fought anything since we picked Akirra up? There were those summoned snakes, or whatever they were in the barracks, I suppose.
He just hasn't had a chance to impress her yet. Plus, N'bellocq starts out with more points, just for being a relative. ;)
Akirra hasn't used his bow, no. :P
The dice will probably fail me in a big way the first chance he gets. :)
Wish you had open/close learned, Ansha. My favorite cantrip for dungeons. ;)
Sadly, I kind of have a specific set of cantrips I always memorize. Prestidigitation for various reasons, ray of frost/acid splash so that I always have some sort of attack spell available, detect magic simply because. I like having daze prepared simply to have an enchantment spell in the 0-level range, even though it's not required in PFRPG. But I may switch out Daze soon. It's getting less and less useful the higher level we get.
Not to mention the more we keep fighting constructs and plants. ;)
That too.
Finishing a map, will be posting up tomorrow.
I think that is covered by the -4 to ranged attacks for its duration. Its vague as hell but if torches are only "flickering" i don't think that's sufficient force implied to auto-deflect. Wind Wall is a horribly written legacy spell too. I'd be reluctant to have a level 1 spell shut down archery with such ease (note i'd personally have Wind Wall be a level 3 spell lol).
Didn't realize Kieran was still hurt from July. Tebati would have thrown a cure light on him before we opened the door, if I'd known. :P
No worries. Even I had not realized it myself until I started writing the post. :-P
Jakob's continued belief in his own lack of combat proficiency despite every indication of the contrary continues to deeply amuse me :).
I aim to please. And apparently also to skewer plant monsters. My dice are on fire!
So I was thinking about next level. I really want to get access to Speak with animals but there seemed no way to get it without taking a level in Druid and even then Jakob's 10 wisdom precludes casting 1st level druid spells. So no dice.
Enter the ACG. Specifically the Voice of the Wild Bard archetype. Here we have a Cha based spontaneous caster who gets their choice of one first level spell off the Druid list.
Speak with Animals is a first level Druid spell.
(queue Ode to Joy and golden light from above)
Is Voice of the Wild available? I know everyone says multiclassing is a bad bad choice for full casters but this looks fun and I would get to talk to birds and strange monkeys.
Seems a pretty horrible level dip on a class already behind on spell levels compared to Wizards/Cleric's etc.
You could take this mystery?
Speak with Animals (Ex): Choose a specific kind of animal (eagle, fox, dog, and so on). You gain the ability to converse with that type of animal as if you were under the effects of speak with animal. You gain the ability to communicate with an additional kind of animal for every 3 oracle levels you have attained.
You may not be around this much nature the whole campaign.
Seems a pretty horrible level dip on a class already behind on spell levels compared to Wizards/Cleric's etc.
You are probably right. Sigh, I will continue to yearn in (near) silence for a spont caster who uses the Druid list. Why this is not an option for the Verdant Sorcerer or Nature Oracle I do not know.
We could always try ritually sacrificing him. Maybe his blood will open the portals between all existing dimensions.