I am 37, married with two kids (14 and 11), and my youngest is eager to start running a game of his own. *sniff* So proud *sniff* I work full time, but am going to college on my GI bill for an English degree, as I would like to be an English teacher. I did almost 12 years in the Army (been out for 6), and settled in around Baltimore, MD. I started playing in middle school at the library before and after class, and during lunch. I prefer mostly fantasy, though I will play others (Shadowrun, Rifts, Star Wars, just about any Super hero game), It's always just a diversion until I go back to fantasy. Can't say I'm into much of anything other than gaming, and I feel a little like an addict when it's been too long since I've had my gaming fix.
37 and recently married (obviously). My daughter just turned 18 and started college to study nursing. 16 years in the Air Force, I command a maintenance squadron in Georgia. I will retire some time, but they've been good to me, so I'll hang for as long as possible.
I love to travel. Been to 37 countries, around the world twice. I like soccer, scuba diving, and reading (fantasy of course, as well as George Washington and other founding father history)
I've been gaming since I was 10, although I haven't done dedicated tabletop since college. Just a little bit here and there when I run into old friends. I stick with fantasy and D&D (now Pathfinder since 4ed blows) and play CRPGs as well to get my fix.
54 (just had a birthday). Single. Played D&D back in '77, and haven't stopped since. I play a wide variety of games and table-top minis. I'm a lab tech, and read a lot (some fiction, but a lot of history and science).
Lets see, 31, married, (just celebrated our 9th in July) have 4 kids, 3 girls and 1 boy, in that order. The oldest is 7 and she is going to start 2nd grade tomorrow (which I have a hard time believing), the 2nd is 4 going on 5, and #3 is 2, about to 3 in a week, she is starting preschool on Thursday. Finally my son just turned 1 at a week ago and is toddling all over the house, he is currently pulling on my pants want me to pick him up.
Okay, I spent 6 years in the Army, I settled in the DC/Baltimore corridor and have been working here since. I started gaming young, so young I don't remember exactly when, but I started with war gaming, but always found it stale and missing...something. Played around with the D&D rule set in some of the old video games, but didn't have any of the books. This make me think, why can't we put some of these concepts into these wargames. Around 10-11 years old, was introduced into the world of RPGs and realized this is exactly what I was trying to create for years. I messed around with gaming for years, but didn't have a 'regular game' until I was 18. Been hooked since though, getting groups hit or miss while I was in the service. No table game right now, and striking it out in the world of play-by-post to get my hit right now. Though my last group broke apart around the beginning of the year and not having a group is starting to wear on me.
I'm into Fantasy as my first love, but also heavy into SciFi.
On a side note, a few other games I was playing in have either petered off or severely slowed down. If anyone is recruiting for any new games, or requires replacements for an ongoing campaign, let me know.
Will do, but life has been busy latley, I'm doing well to keep up with the two I'm now.
I posted Will do last night and it seems to not have posted it.
So to check in. You are mostly right. With summer coming to an end, the last few weeks have seen birthdays, labor day, work trips and the start of the school year. So been fairly busy. However, things are now returning to a semblance of routine. My availability should be increased hopefully. I know I have been really bad about not checking regularly latley, so I will try and buckle down and focus. Also, as far as adding in some good RP, I've got some notions on what is going on, but I don't have a concrete feel on what kind of background might surface for my character. I'm fine with it never coming up, or it becoming a major story point. Just PM me if you want to work in some details.
Finally as a couple people have noted. Latley the little prompt that appears that says (x new) for posts, has been sporadic at best, and sometimes shows no new updates for a week or so at a time. If folks are getting flakey that may be part of the reason. So contacting via other means if possible may help.
Finally as a couple people have noted. Latley the little prompt that appears that says (x new) for posts, has been sporadic at best, and sometimes shows no new updates for a week or so at a time. If folks are getting flakey that may be part of the reason. So contacting via other means if possible may help.
A lot of people in games I am in have been saying this has happened to them.
I've noticed it too, but it has not been too bad for me, since I check pretty regularly. I sent out a series of PM's about two weeks ago, but I can do so again...
I'm here, and have been following along, it was just as I put in the post. Delia is the least likely to jump up and share information, so she was mostly silent just watching the exchange, and not putting too much fuss about it since Adivion had already helped pay for their expedition.
I HATE the lost (x new) tag. I run 2 PbP, and play in 9. That's 22 threads (discusion and gameplay for each) to check for missing tags. I keep track of the two I run, checking frequently, and the more active others. Otherwise I check once a week or two for the mostly inactive games. Sadly, there always ends up being an unmarked update the day after I checked.
On the topic of Guidance, I can see your point for the total research rolls (although Guidance is a duratiation of 1 minute, it is used on the next skill check), it should be aplicable for your version of Aid Another in this situation. Basically, Ember would cast the spell, and then try to find something of interest paging through the papers, counting on the guidance to direct her.
If you don't want to use it as such, I will not protest (now that I know your opinion). But that does bring up the case of when do I make the skill roll, since that is what Guidance is used for.
And it is an orison, which means that there is no limit to casting it.
I would like to start by stating again that I consider GMing a role that should complement the players, reflecting group opinions and ensuring that they have fun as often as possible. Therefore, if I present something as a ruling, I invite feedback and discussion on the point, as I dislike arbitrary rulings. Present your point of view, and if you think my argument is flawed, please tell me why. I'm human, and maybe it is flawed. To many GM's have a god complex.
As to my approach, I like to run a somewhat plausible, internally consistent world (others would use the word realistic here, but I don't think it's appropriate, for obvious reasons), and this is often the basis for rulings, as I feel they give the world a more naturalistic feeling and enhance both the game and immersion.
So on to the issue at hand:
It is an orisen, and technically unlimited in the number of castings you can use, but swinging a sword is not limited by number of times per day either, though it stands to reason there is only so many times you can before growing too tired. This to me seems like there should be a reasonable RP limitation, even though there is not a technical one.
The spell itself provides guidance on a skill check performed up to one minute after casting. The nature of a research (or gather information, or craft) skill check is that the check itself takes a long period of time. I don't treat it as being three hours of preamble with a check at the end, or an initial check indicating how the next three hours proceed; the check itself takes 3 hours.
If you were to view the research as a continual series of one minute long checks, it might be possible to cast the orison every minute to gain guidance on what is read over the next minute. However, as you spent around 6-7 hours total in research, this would mean having cast the orison around 400+ times, including verbal and somatic components (which would probably annoy the hell out of everyone else in the room after a while). Such a marathon casting session would still be possible, but might require the mental equivalent of stamina checks (concentration or will checks) to keep at it, despite the mental fatigue and effort required to keep casting after so long. With such a degree of mental fatigue, you would probably require similar checks to maintain concentration on what you were reading, and not missing something due to fatigue.
In this case, the discussion is theoretical only, as the outcome would not have changed at all with a successful check by Ember.
I both understand and agree with your interpretation of this. I agree with the concept of trying to add believability to the game, and infusing with more common practicality (not sense for the same reason its not realism). Barring the use of a spell with a 1 minute duration over the course of 6-8 hours seems fine to me, only for the reason that using that spell that many times seems just plain silly from the perspective of, would you really do any single activity every minute for 8 hours, and yes, it would be EXTREMELY annoying to be in the same room.
When we're RPing our character, and condensing hours of effort into a single die roll, it seems so trivial, but in that one check might represent hours or even days of back breaking effort. I could see a farmers entire harvest coming down to a single Profession:Agro skill check. That one check might encompass a whole growing seasons worth of effort, but we could roll away 20 years worth of crops in a minute or two.
Closing out before I wall of text attack everyone again. I would also like to thank you Rigor, for the correct use of the term, 'arbitrary.' So many times do I hear it used to say something is pointless or meaningless. It’s just nice to hear it used correctly for a change.
Wow, complimenting someone's grammar on a forum? Careful, or you may break the whole Internet.
If anyone is interested, I'm recruiting for a Legacy of Fire campaign. Check it out here.
Preference will be given to people I've played with before, particularly those who have stuck with the game for a good while, like yourselves.
I don't have time right now, but I will probably try and put together a character, so keep an eye out for it. I will let you know.
I am running a LoF game on the boards is a cool AP. I am trying to cut back on the games I go in, getting busy. Good luck with it though Rigor.
I have quite a few games going on here (10-12 ish depending on activity), and was never that interested in LoF, thank you anyways.
Alistair is out this week on a business trip, bad (or no) wifi again. He is trying to figure something out, but may not have access until he gets home Fri night - Sat day EDT
He says 250 might be too much from him, as he doesn't know how much he will need for spells and he thinks it will be more than 140
FYI, it's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and I have family in town for the long weekend. As a result, I may not be able to post much for the next few days.
Have a happy Thanksgiving, Rigor Rictus!
Everyone still around?
I am. Work has been much busier lately, and I used to do most of my updates during breaks between patients. With fewer breaks there has been a lot less time. Hopefully it will settle out soon.
Still here. Had a crazy last week and a half, so have been just quiet until the town meeting starts.
I think we discussed it briefly once before, but didn't complete due to the untimely death of the monster involved, but my understanding is that the Celestial Template provides only the monster Smite Evil Ability, and NOT the Paladin's smite evil ability. While I could be mistaken, a quick check of the forums indicates a general agreement with this:
I think the key here is that the words, "as the Paladin abilty" are not there, meaning that this is not meant to provide any abilities beyond those listed. Therefore it provides HD to damage and CHA bonus to Attack, but not CHA to AC, bypassing of DR, or extra damage to undead or evil outsiders.
I welcome anyone else who has other information on this issue to let me know.
As a fellow DM, I would concur with your assessment.
Didn't realize there was any smite other than the Paladin one. I just went to Paladin when I looked up smite, because I knew smite would be there.
Do you still agree with the assessment though? I don't want anyone to feel they are being treated unfairly or nerfed arbitrarily. If you do disagree, I will most certainly read your perspective and any supporting posts you might bring up. Otherwise, I will assume that this interpretation is correct as it appears to be rules as intended and rules as written to me.
Though I disagree, I don't really care. I don't feel it's a nerf or unfair, just a different perspective.
I think it's technically RAW, but the threads linked don't show any developer RAI. There are so many instances where RAI is so convoluted based on who wrote/edited which book. Ever since 3.0 there have been so many rules confusions as they don't agree between books and the source in having to look them up in 5-6 different passages.
The issue I have, is that there is no ability, as an ability labeled as Smite Evil other than a Paladin. There are no Bestiary rules for Smite Evil. Almost every use of smite evil, points at Paladin, and even the blurb in the celestial template puts parentheses around what it does as a side note, not as a rules explanation. Like it says "they can smite (you know like when it adds this and that)", but doesn't read like every other power explanation.
The 'proof' people are using as an example is the exclusion of not saying "it's like a Paladin", but what about the exclusion where it doesn't say "It's different than a paladin because". Or with inclusions, people always use "It says exactly this, so it means ONLY exactly this", but that could simply be the designer thinking 'I don't need to spell it all out, It's smite evil and we have a word limit'. The problem with playing the ONLY what's included game, is it leads to the mindset of "since it doesn't say you can use .... like that, then you can't". We can play exclusions/inclusions all day to interpret RAI, but without a developer's word on RAI, I will more often than not just go with GM's call.
To me, I have no problem with either interpretation, so if you think it should go one way I'm cool with it. GM'ing is a lot of work, so I'd rather not take up a bunch of your time on something that I don't take issue with.
If it's not an issue, I think I'll stick with my interpretation. I agree with pretty much everything you've said about rules confusion, and it is a pretty standard issue between books. As it's in the core rule book, I'm not convinced that is the issue here, but I'll admit it is possible.
One factor is that having all creatures being able to smite evil as a paladin could be game breaking, as almost all enemies in a heroic game will be evil, and every animal (including Dire at higher levels) would then automatically be able to bypass the creature's DR, bar none. You can imagine what this would do in the hands of a Master Summoner...
If a reference comes up that specifies that they do get a Paladin smite we'll revisit this, but until them I believe this makes the most sense.
Greetings all, so the "Super Storm" known as Sandy, is known more aptly as the destroyer of internet access at my house. Sorry I haven't posted, but being kicked out work for 2 days, and having internet/cable/phone knocked out has made for a boring couple of days. I'm actually quite saddened by the modern dependence on these services for both infrastructure and entertainment. It seems the whole world stands still when you can't get online.
Anyway, I'm catching up now, and will post shortly.
Power out first time I could get online, do not know how long I can stay, will try to post after I have read up.
Guess his power and/or internet connection didn't last. Too bad. I'll update tomorrow regardless of whether we've heard from him.
Going out of town for the weekend. Posts will be poorly constructed (on the phone) and late in the day, if at all.
Ok. Have a good trip. I think a few people are still having power and/or connection problems post Sandy, so things seem to be moving slowly. I'm landlocked in Alberta, so short of an ice storm or seasonally inappropriate tornado, my connections should be safe. Take care, and we'll see you when you get back.
Yeah, I grew up very near the geographical center of North America in South Dakota, I know the feeling, being as far from an ocean as possible on this continent for the first 17 or so years of life kind of shaded my outlook when it comes to oceanic activities. My concern still bend significantly toward ice storms and tornadoes than hurricanes and other various ocean based weather systems.
I apologize for the slowness of my responses lately. I have recently been assigned a new swath of duties at work, and it has made for a far busier schedule than was my want. I am actually now falling behind with some tasks, and I am making efforts to change the situation by making sure those in charge are able to see how services might suffer as a result of this change. So far, feedback has been good, so ultimately, things may get another change for the better. For now however, I do not have as much time as I once did, as even breaks seem to get eaten up by work.
I have every intention of continuing this game, but I wanted you to be aware that the slow down may be the normal rate of post and state of affairs for the next little while. I hope you all can understand, and continue to enjoy the game.
Is fine, work getting busy happens.
What I am thinking of doing from here on out is running the top level and the dungeon simultaneously in order to help speed up the game. I'll ask everyone to separate and title where their post or post sections are taking place, such as...
Upstairs
Kendra moves up and opens the door.
Dungeon
Kendra attacks with magic missile .
If anyone dies, then that level will be considered to have happened last, allowing the character to continue playing through the other level while generating their new character. If somebody dies on both levels... well we'll deal with that if and when it happens.\
Any thoughts about this approach?
I use a similar method in my own games, and it works fine. There's rarely conflicts, even though time is 'fuzzy'. I'd recommend NOT running combat simultaneously in two separate rooms. If we reach a significant obstacle or fight in one area, all flex-time threads in other areas pause until it is resolved...
Sounds like good advice. We'll go with that.
We haven't heard from Agnar or Allistair in a while. Not sure if they're just lurking, absent, or just unaware of the recent posts. I'll put up the bat signal and send them a PM asking them to check in.
I'll be travelling tomorrow and Sunday, and I'm away with my wife for a few days from Dec 28-31 (Kids with the grandparents, yay). Those days I'll be spotty or absent, but I should be able to check in through the holidays otherwise.
Combat will be starting in the Upstairs timeframe, so please make your initiative checks.
Sorry guys, it's been a little more trouble than anticipated to update the game. I had to leave my computer at home due to space considerations and doing updates from an iPhone will be laborious, however I will try to get one up soon. Without my computer, I may not be able to update the maps, so my updates may just require using coordinates on previous maps. I have to files for the maps with me on a flash drive, so if I can barrow a computer I may be able to do the modifications, we'll see.
I'm back home January 5th or so, so worst case scenario, we'll be back to normal then. Merry Christmas everyone!
Going away the next few days for a romantic getaway with my wife. While I'm sure there will be some downtime, I don't know if I'll have wireless at this resort, or if my wife would let me get away with posting. Long story short, you can probably expect me to go dark for a few days. While I've been trying to get the chance to update while away, the truth is that it is more likely ill not be able to check in until I get back. That should make it around Jan 7 to get things kicking again. Thanks for hanging in there, we'll be back at it soon.
Quite alright, as it is with the holiday season. I rarely find time to spend more than a 2 minutes here or there to look at the screen anyway. Got some good superstar voting in, but not able to concentrate for much longer than it takes to read two entires, pick one and move on.
Enjoy the getaway, have a happy new year, and we'll worry about getting back to gaming in 2013.
As the Focus list notifications don't always show you that there is a new post in the game thread, I'll post here as well to call attention to it. There is a new post, please check in.
So, I'd like a group consensus; obviously, this game has slowed to a crawl. Part of that is certainly my fault, as I moved to a more irregular posting schedule in the fall as changes at work made it harder to post as often. Lately, I have gotten better at managing my schedule, and I think I have been posting more reactively when all the party members have checked in.
I realize that the slow period may have caused some to start checking in less often, or feeling that there is no rush to post their response. I have been guilty of the same in games I think are slow moving. However, with a week gone by and only one person having posted, I think the question needs to be asked, is this game dead?
I for one am willing to keep going if we can rejuvenate things in this game. Even if we want to continue it as a slower game, such as a 2 or 3 post a week game as opposed to a daily post, I would be willing to continue what we have here. However, if the consensus is that we have lost too much momentum, or too many players fail to answer, we may be forced to stick a fork in it. Let me know your opinion.
I'm still in. Obviously, the lack of others to interact with makes it a bit stale, but I'm on the boards every couple hours, so it's easy for me to check. I'll swing with the consensus.