GM Tyranius Giantslayer (Inactive)

Game Master Tyranius

Can't say a whole lot at this point with this being a public forum and all but military heading back overseas

So we finally watched the extended edition of The Battle of Five Armies the other day, more out of curiosity than anything because I was really disappointed in it in theaters. The extended edition only made me hate it even more to be honest. But more than anything it made me ashamed to be playing a dwarf riding a ram, lol. Such ridiculous nonsense in that movie.

Hahaha. I will have to rewatch it as it has been quite awhile. From what I remember though is that they hopped all about like nimble elves.

By the way your cement work this weekend sounds backbreaking. Hope you had some yak helpers.

Hahaha. I will have to rewatch it as it has been quite awhile. From what I remember though is that they hopped all about like nimble elves.

I don't mind action scenes but the action scenes in Five Armies are so dreadfully stupid. Legolas shield-surfing in Two Towers is one thing and doesn't seem all that ridiculous in comparison, but the amount of unnecessary physics-defying stunts in Five Armies just had me rolling my eyes the whole time. And I thought surely they won't have added in any more action scenes in the extended edition! It will probably be some actual content scenes! Boy was I wrong. There actually added in several more stupid action sequences that just me groaning and wanting it to end.

By the way your cement work this weekend sounds backbreaking. Hope you had some yak helpers.

An understatement, yeah. The problem was that the old sidewalk (from the 50s?) had gotten pushed up so much that you couldn't actually open the screen door. The previous owner's solution was to cut the bottom 2 cm or so off the door, which not only looks bad but has since started to rust.

So I rented a jackhammer last weekend and tore it all out, then hauled all the old stuff away on Monday. We actually did a mixture of bricks and concrete, with brick edging and concrete in the middle. It didn't turn out quite as good as I wanted it to. I've poured concrete several times on the farm but never for a sidewalk and never with brick edging like that so there are a few places where the concrete sticks up higher than the bricks and there's not much I can do about it now. Oh well. If it were my permanent house I would probably insist on fixing it but we'll be selling this place in two years or so. It certainly looks better than the old sidewalk and now we can replace the screen door so all is well.

So we finally watched the extended edition of The Battle of Five Armies the other day, more out of curiosity than anything because I was really disappointed in it in theaters. The extended edition only made me hate it even more to be honest. But more than anything it made me ashamed to be playing a dwarf riding a ram, lol. Such ridiculous nonsense in that movie.

Yes, I hope never to watch that movie again. It is so awful. The cartoon version is better...as is the version of my 6th grade imagination when I read the book for the first time.

SMH

A few years ago I spent way too much money to watch all 14 hours of the extended LOTR trilogy in my local movie theater and I didn't miss a minute.

I was dragged to see Five Armies twice between family and friends and both times I woke up somewhere near the end. It takes a lot to make me bored of middle earth and that movie accomplished it twice.

Tolkien stuff...

I didn't love the Hobbit films, but I didn't hate them either (in full disclosure, I like them more then the animated Hobbit film). I think they were doomed from the start.

The Hobbit is a book intended to be a fairy tale for children. It is a story of fiction within a story of fiction, as told by Bilbo. It did not have the benefit of the full history Tolkien later fleshed out when writing LOTR.

LOTR is a series intended for adults. It is a story of nonfiction within a story of fiction, as told by Frodo. It has a much more mature tone, and is superior storytelling in my opinion.

So how do you resolve these two stories into a single narrative?

Tolkien tried. Some (or all) if you might already know this, but Tolkien issued a second edition of the Hobbit in 1951 that made a few small but vital changes to the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter to account for the new background for the One Ring established in LOTR. He also began a complete rewrite of the Hobbit around 1960, but abandoned it because he felt it would ruin the spirit of the original story.

I believe the second, abandoned rewrite is the key to understanding why people have problems with the Hobbit films. You can't resolve them with LOTR without lessening one or both stories in the process.

I haven't seen the Hobbit films. *shrug*

Everyone wrote:

Tolkien stuff...

I didn't love the Hobbit films, but I didn't hate them either (in full disclosure, I like them more then the animated Hobbit film). I think they were doomed from the start.

The Hobbit is a book intended to be a fairy tale for children. It is a story of fiction within a story of fiction, as told by Bilbo. It did not have the benefit of the full history Tolkien later fleshed out when writing LOTR.

LOTR is a series intended for adults. It is a story of nonfiction within a story of fiction, as told by Frodo. It has a much more mature tone, and is superior storytelling in my opinion.

So how do you resolve these two stories into a single narrative?

Tolkien tried. Some (or all) if you might already know this, but Tolkien issued a second edition of the Hobbit in 1951 that made a few small but vital changes to the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter to account for the new background for the One Ring established in LOTR. He also began a complete rewrite of the Hobbit around 1960, but abandoned it because he felt it would ruin the spirit of the original story.

I believe the second, abandoned rewrite is the key to understanding why people have problems with the Hobbit films. You can't resolve them with LOTR without lessening one or both stories in the process.

I actually thought the first movie was pretty good. The second one was decent. I didn't hate the stuff they added in with Tauriel to be honest. But the third one is just awful.

I actually like the idea of adding some stuff in from The Quest for Erebor (Tolkien's rewrite that you mention) to connect The Hobbit and LOTR a bit more closely, but I think they did a terrible job of doing so. And because they did such a bad job telling the story, my problem with the Hobbit movies is the same problem I have with the Harry Potter adaptations: the books are fine (I'm not a huge fan, but they're good) but the movies are terrible because they can't stand on their own; if you haven't read the books, the movies are really hard to follow and don't make much sense. The Hobbit isn't quite as bad in that regard, but it gets close. And of course the excessive CGI action crap really detracted from the heart of the story.

Amy I flying at the start of combat or do I still need to cast that?

You are flying

It's awesome that Wren's most powerful magic accomplished to date went completely unnoticed by everyone. Even the enemy.

It's awesome that Wren's most powerful magic accomplished to date went completely unnoticed by everyone. Even the enemy.

Ayep. Pretty much continuing as usual. ;)

Yea, I thought that was hilarious. He reappears hundreds of feet away and no one notices.

Will post in next couple hours. On the road headed to Pennsylvania

Yea, I kind of assumed this weekend would be dead with Mother's Day and all.

Ha, yeah, that was the original reason we went back to Indiana this weekend but then I barely even saw my mom at all because we got in late Friday night, I spent 12 hours in the tractor on Saturday, and today I spent the morning in the tractor and we left after lunch. But getting to work on the farm was a bit therapeutic for me after a terribly busy semester year of grad school.

Speaking of which, I might as well warn everyone that it's going to get worse before it gets better. I am going to disappear from June 6-10 for my "prelim A" exam and then I need to start writing my thesis proposal, which I'll be defending on August 23. So until August 23 I am going to even busier than I have been already and this will likely affect my posting. I'm already having trouble keeping up sometimes but I should have a few games ending soon so that might help a bit. But if I can survive the next few months, I will have essentially shaved a year off my graduation and that will be a good feeling.

I think our healing wand situation is better than the loot sheet indicates.

We bought 2 wands of CLW on 7/15/15, then bought 2 more on 2/24/16.

I have a wand with 35 charges as well.

GM Tyranius wrote:

Yea, I kind of assumed this weekend would be dead with Mother's Day and all.

Ha, yeah, that was the original reason we went back to Indiana this weekend but then I barely even saw my mom at all because we got in late Friday night, I spent 12 hours in the tractor on Saturday, and today I spent the morning in the tractor and we left after lunch. But getting to work on the farm was a bit therapeutic for me after a terribly busy semester year of grad school.

Speaking of which, I might as well warn everyone that it's going to get worse before it gets better. I am going to disappear from June 6-10 for my "prelim A" exam and then I need to start writing my thesis proposal, which I'll be defending on August 23. So until August 23 I am going to even busier than I have been already and this will likely affect my posting. I'm already having trouble keeping up sometimes but I should have a few games ending soon so that might help a bit. But if I can survive the next few months, I will have essentially shaved a year off my graduation and that will be a good feeling.

Yea being out in the quiet is always nice once in awhile. :)

Hey man, real life comes first. Do what you need to do and post when you can. :) We will be here. Don't pile too much on.

So I was listening to Bohemian Rhapsody, which made me think about the trailer for the Suicide Squad film coming out, which got me thinking about the last few episodes of Gotham with all the mad science experiments giving insane prisoners (or dead bodies) extraordinary powers at the cost of their memories, and I was wondering...

Is anyone planning to run Strange Aeons?

Because I'm thinking this could be Suicide Squad meets Lovecraft meets D&D.

I am super excited for Strange Aeons

I wanted to start phasing myself out of PbP APs after my current ones finish simply because it's a huge commitment but I think I'd have to break that vow if someone were to run Strange Aeons. That's just too good to pass up.

Sorry for my slow posting this week. As I mentioned, we had long days in the field Wed-Thurs and today we've been hiking with the dogs all day. I've fallen behind on all my games so I'm trying to catch back up tonight.

After looking more into the Warpriest thing, I think I'm just going to go back to Ranger. Even if I stayed in Warpriest for a bit longer, I wouldn't really gain much and I'd lose HP, full BAB, animal companion progression, etc.

Oh well, lesson learned! Archetype name doesn't have to be character idea!

:)

Torgan, I wouldn't discount warpriest so fast. Fervor at 2nd level is very useful (swift casting spells is great for combat oriented character), and it looks like your archetype gets sneak attack at 3rd. You'd have only 3 HPs less then a straight up ranger.

I nearly have Jorgan leveled but I can't decide on a Teamwork feat for him and Spirit. They have Precise Strike, Outflank, and Share Healing and those haven't really come up, usually because Jorgan is riding him so they don't flank often. The option to split healing is nice though.

Question for the GM: Would riding be counted as adjacent for the purposes of Teamwork feats? That might help me narrow it down. Something like Coordinated Defense or Charge might be useful if riding counts as adjacent.

Jorgan, Kraygan can pick up any teamwork feat he qualifies for on the combat list with his martial flexibility Brawler ability (and his magic saddle passes it to Haggis when he's riding), so maybe we can find something good with them in mind?

Dropping Mount spell for another Magic Missile which is much better than his freakin' bow. Also, Wren has 9 hours of Over-freakin'-land Flight now. He'll be complaining about his knees less often now. Maybe. As part of his character growth, he'll find new things to complain about.

Last level: April 18, 2016.

+1 Grumpy Old Leatherman

+6 hp
+1 feat

+moar spellz

+6 Skills:
------------
+1 Perception (now +13)
+1 Spellcraft
+1 Disable Device
+2 Fly
+1 Know (arcana)

I see I'm still medium sized on the map, did my spell not go off before hand or was it accidentally overlooked?

Overlooked :)

Yo guys! Got back from North Carolina just now. Spent about 15 hours in the car so I don't want to go back and read the posts from today at the moment, but I will get a post up tomorrow.

Cheers!

This is just a reminder that I will be taking the preliminary exam for my PhD program from Monday-Friday this week and will not be back until next Saturday or Sunday. Please bot me if needed to keep the action moving. Thanks!

Good luck and have fun! :)

That is quite possibly the greatest post of the thread.

-Posted with Wayfinder

How did the exam go Jorgan?

It was pretty grueling but not as bad as I was expecting. I finished on Wednesday morning, spent the rest of the day editing, and then turned it in yesterday just to get rid of it, even though it wasn't due until 5:00 today. Glad it's over with. One more milestone checked off, now I need to start working on my thesis proposal for August.

@GM: I had this come up with another character and it didn't occur to me until now whether or not it applied to Jorgan.

Very large creatures take up more than 1 square.
Creatures that take up more than 1 square typically have a natural reach of 10 feet or more, meaning that they can reach targets even if they aren't in adjacent squares.
Unlike when someone uses a reach weapon, a creature with greater than normal natural reach (more than 5 feet) still threatens squares adjacent to it. A creature with greater than normal natural reach usually gets an attack of opportunity against you if you approach it, because you must enter and move within the range of its reach before you can attack it. This attack of opportunity is not provoked if you take a 5-foot step.
Large or larger creatures using reach weapons can strike up to double their natural reach but can't strike at their natural reach or less.

Jorgan himself isn't Large-sized but his weapon is a large-sized reach weapon. So should it actually have a 20' reach but within that Jorgan doesn't threaten?

And if that's the case, when Jorgan is mounted is that measured from any square Spirit covers that I choose? (That won't matter so much in another level when Spirit is huge-sized.)

Been doing some research and overall it looks as if the reach itself is based on your size and not the size of the weapon. So a medium creature with a normal reach weapon, large or even huge reach weapon is still 10 feet as it doubles the characters reach.

Now if you were to become large yourself with a reach of 10 feet then the range would double out to 20 feet.

I could not find a lot on Paizo's websites besides Large creatures using reach weapons but here is some older ruling on the matter. Link

Ok, that's probably better for Jorgan's build anyways despite the extra AoOs it might have afforded him. I have another character (Atum) built for just such a thing though (Living Monolith + reach weapon + Improved Unarmed Strike = 20' threatened area) and it works great.

I will be scarce until Sunday evening. The wife and little girl are flying in to visit for the weekend and haven't seen them for four months now.

So, I'll post a reminder about this when it gets closer but I figured the earlier I give a heads up the better.

From August 1st to August 8th I'll be out camping. My phone will be with me but since we'll be in the mountains I don't know what kind of service I'll have, and I will also have no way of charging it, so if I am able to get online in the evenings it will likely be just for the first couple days of the week.

I'd suggest a backup battery. Maybe one with a solar power option. Not just for the game, but for security.

Sounds good and have fun! Careful of the dwarves! Mountainfolk!

Late night with lots of driving. Get a post up tomorrow.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Sorry, getting late for me so I'll try to catch up tomorrow. We're in the peak of pollination right now and a little short on help so I've been out in the heat all day. Might rain later this week and give me a day off though.

Will update tomorrow afternoon. I am driving late still as I am headed back across the country and back home to Iowa.