Team Dwarf/Gnome in Elves vs Dwarves -- ELVES KEEP OUT (Inactive)

Game Master Chainmail

Hon is getting sick and tired of this SOS baggage. He is seriously thinking he would be better off starting his own guild. But I suspect his departure from SOS will garner a bounty, cuz you don't quit until they say you quit, preferably feet first.

oh BTW, I leveled Hon with a sorceror class. You know, to keep Kib on his toes...

Huh, and here Kib always thought that was due to Hon's terrible diet of cabbage and baked beans. At least his trying to channel it in a positive direction!

Kib's leveled. Couple new spells (lvl 2, whoo!), some skill points yadda yadda. C`mon level 6!

Damn good Shot Gallak.

Of course that never happens when we're fighting for our lives. - sigh -

Question for the Chainmaker:
Hon rogue talent choice.
1) His long-term build lends itself to the black market connections. Especially as I threw a point into profession(merchant). I just don't know if this is applicable for this campaign.
2) Or alternately: Guileful polygot for 4 more languages, not yet decided, to be slowly added as RP opportunity avails.

This follows a thought process as focused as skill monkey and resourceful liberator of needed stuff not so great combat PC. Granted he hasn't added much thus far, acting as a distraction or hinderance.

3) On a personal note I am tired of missing: Probably go for the Combattrick: Point blank shot followed by precise shot at 5th level.

It all depends on where I can predict where Chainmail will bait us next.

Well, I say we go kill some giants, but that's probably a combination of Brask and Joan talking in my head.

I say go find a cleric and raise Kragg? Or can we allow Kragg's player to come up with a new character instead?

Kragg hasn't checked in yet. May have to PM him.

I think that's up to Kragg. Is he still with us?

Still here but had a long week and didn't check the boards since I am still dead. Will have him leveled up soon though.

Anyone want to give a quick recap of where we are and what side each person is on? Lost track about 100 posts ago.

Chris and the guys with the golem are on our side.
Lucas is in with the Duergar.
Hon is in hot water with the society.
Magnum is still out cold.

I think that's the gist of it.

Thanks Joan...

How is Chris and the guy with a golem on our side all of a sudden? I thought we ticked him off when Brask started attacking him?

Yeah, not quite sure about all that except the inference that Chris's iron golem in the city may have had too many SOS strings attached. Thumper perhaps made a better offer via an adantamite golem, plus the reference to a WhiteLight do-gooder society (that Hon is also in disagreement with) buddy of his.

Ya'll seriously work like Dwarf mining for ore. The shortest, straightest route is the only route, geo-stableness be damned.

Seems like Hon is building bridges just so he can burn'em later. Hon does not know when to lay low, yet. Lessee: Dwarf on/off, SOS off, Whitelight do-gooders Off but not marked for death yet.

Just wanted you to know, my players often said my intrigues made the Harkonnens of Dune look tame.

That fills me with terror, and I don't know why.

Just wanted you to know, my players often said my intrigues made the Harkonnens of Dune look tame.

I was in a new campaign(AD&D) with a first-time first rate DM like this. We knew each other for 10+years, my campaign and mentoring the youngster until official adulthood. He knew all my tricks and, on a personal note, all my buttons. Corrupted all my LG characters, made honest men out of my dark-side PCs. The boy played me like a violin prodigy and he enjoyed schooling his master. I recognized some the traps for what they were and still couldn't help myself. We both had fun.

I will continue to work the skill monkey angle. I figure we have enough meat shields and arrow catchers.

Can you give us all our options on what we can choose from next to do Chainmail?

And (believe it or not ; ) Hon does make a good point (I know, I know!). Why in the world Did we go into town and all the BS that entailed when we had a good, solid enclave of DWARVES we coulda hung with?

Oh, and on another note, Chainmail, was you posting the cost of Kragg's resurrection your way of telling us that That was all the 'loot' we were gonna get? Cause if so, damn it!

Oh! Ah, I mean...
<.<
>.>

Welcome Back Kragg! = D

Blah blah blah

Hon does make a good point (I know, I know!)[I am not worthy to stand, nay, grovel in Hon's shadow. /translation].

Welcome Back Kragg! = D

Concur. I don't think Sparky would've tolerated Hon as an interim leader. It would be a natural fit, mind you, but I'd have to make an example of an insubordinate Gnome. Might hurt his feelings.

Not railroading anyone, but the ships are still an option.

Also, huddling with the dwarves will reveal the rush to the Forbidden Forest to mine some quality ore.

Both sound like fun. Throwing Forbidden in front of Forest is like putting Do not touch on a cookie jar.

Hon was brought onboard to assist with identifying and acquiring resources for the clanhold. The Forbidden Forest endeavor would be a nice recovery after the previous fiasco.

That is my two copper pieces (that I lifted off of Kib).

At the risk of dating the source material: The plan to arrange a duel between the bad dark dwarf and the party champion was inspired by the original Star Wars movie. The fact that people from both sides may stand around and watch a great duel was a well established precedent in 70's sci fi. It is probably less relevant today.

As for fiasco, this party did better than some. Best success was achieved as Gallak later commented, with a stealth approach. One party spied on the duergar for three days before fighting. They probably did the best. Another group begged Liselle to come along and used the Maul to blow through every door and the staff to pass through walls and took the fight to the duergar early.

Posting has slowed dramatically and will probably slow through the holidays. Let me know when everyone wants to break for Christmas.

Hon, Kib, Kragg, Joan, and Khazad seem in.

Need to hear from Nar and Gallak. Posting at pivotal moments is somewhat important for RP.

You were the first group to attack the druid though :-)

Well, at least we did something new.

No railroading at all as I looked back to find out what we where going to do and the ice caves were next on the list.

I will be offline until Monday.

I'll be out of town tomorrow. I'm going to go graduate from college. :)

Hey, that I'm sure that barbarian woulda cheated, he was a druegar after all, which is why Kib attacked him.

And that druid looked funny. Course he coulda just had a sensitive nose and been partial to certain, shall we say, 'aromas', originating from certain bean and stanky ale loving' secret society members (Kib has always remained firm in his belief that their whole organization stinks)

But now that Kib has contributed twice as much as he felt was worthy to the 'Let's help Hon become a proper thief, finally' fund, and his guilty conscious from being so Clearly superior to his 'all thumbs' teammate is assuaged, Kib is fine to go wherever. But the Cookie Jar is still his top pick.

Quick question... How do we do hp again as I realized Kragg is not leveled up and need to know that before I go further.

Pathfinder style. That is max at first plus (HD/2)+1 per level after that.

Thanks again.

Need a Kragg diplomacy roll in the game thread.

I need to say that I find Hon's character amazingly refreshing. I hope Hon does not change a thing.

His last post had me bursting out laughing. The imagery of Hon leading his two shadows throughout their keep to the sames rooms over and over repeating the same stories over and over had me in stitches.

The annual RP award goes to Hon. We will see who wins it next year.

Thank you for the kudos, Chainmail. Came home a wee bit early and what a mess we've gotten into. I can say with confidence that Hon did not directly screw this one up.

Criminy, didn't we just get here? Now we are being shown the door? Hon gots stuff to do and not everyone has heard his stories yet nor seen "Low-Blow" strike the pose.

Official PBP response forthcoming later tonight.

Wait, the Dwarf who terrified the Gnome and sent him running before our Leader even got a chance to talk to him is asking to be the party negotiator?? Now I know I'm in a Dwarven party! ; P

And also, do we have any gp left in the clan kitty? As I'd really like to have a wand of magic missle for Kib. And also there was some other spell that woulda come in real handy, but I forget what it was. Anyone?

And anything else we need as a team while we're here?

And where's Nar??

Nar is here, just been really busy between work, family, and other real life stuff. I have been reading, but Nar isn't much for all this intrigue anyways. By the end of this week I should be able to focus on this again

Who knew gnomes were such skittish and cowardly creatures? Surely, not I.

Besides, he called me a sailor. XD

Moving the diplomacy discussion here.
The problem is, the best I can do with my +7 is help you out when you roll yourself. That nets us a (-1 you, +2 me=) +1 on diplomacy. I know that Kragg makes all the executive decisions, but we desperately need someone more personable to handle the checks, and therefore, the talking.

Without meta'ing too much, I propose that Kib "messages" the group, linking us all up so we can hear whispers. Kragg posts what he'd like said, and either rolls himself for Gallak "relaying" it, or I'll just regurgitate it with a little spin and roll myself.

Most organizations have some sort of face or PR rep who have a way of smoothing out the decisions opinions gaffes of a gruff CEO. Expecially if he earned it, there is likely to be a couple of PR minders, one to distract said leader with a tidbit of info to stew over and another to speak and handle the monotomy nitpicky details of negiotations. I think we have reached that point of self-awareness. Leader provides direction, lets #2 take the heat.

If immortal is ok with it then all responses from Kragg will use Gallak's diplomacy as Gallak is filtering with Kragg says. Of course this may not always be applicable if Gallak is off cavorting or gallivanting around with Hon.

Cavorting? CAVORTING?!?!

....yeah, okay, a little.

Cavorting and galivanting. I must use those words in my next post. You should try it Kragg. Might put a bounce in yer step and curl in yer beard, get rid of Mr Grumpy Pants Heart of Stone.

Ok, I was biting my tongue (ok, well mostly) about the whole brouhaha, but now I have to say something as I'm more confused than ever.

First off, I still don't understand how/why Thumper got so upset. Kragg never accused them of anything, let alone stealing the hammer. He simply said that ours was stolen, and If (he did emphazie the If with a capital I) it was ours, that he wanted it back. Certainly reasonable.

And Nobody in our clan insulted anybody in Thumper's clan or their skills. Well, except Gallak insulting the Gnome, but that was a personal insult, not a clan-wide one. Kragg didn't say anything along those lines at all and all Gallak said regarding the clan or their skills was that the Gnome had no place to say that his clan were the best miners.

And certainly no one insulted Thumper personally. Kragg said that our shovel was stolen, which it was, and Thumper knew damn well it was stolen (if not necessarily from who-but it wouldn't have been to hard to guess) if he bought it from the blackmarket. So how is that an insult?

You're the DM Chainmail and I'm happy to go by your rules and play in your sandbox and I'm certainly still enjoying myself. But if I'm to be honest it sorta feels like events have been railroaded a bit (and, actually, this is not the first time I've felt that way.)

Please understand, I'm not unhappy with the game in general, but I am the kind of person who much prefers open and honest communication. So I hope this is all taken in the context and intention in which I mean it.

Cool?

I understand. Thumper is a difficult case. He was meant to grumpy, easily insulted, and undiplomatic. Taking creative license, I made him an Alpsbane (hopefully Brask has taken no offense).

The gnome was intimidated, which I create as having great immediate effect, but treat it as a poor way to effect long term relations. The 'boys' obviously would get a distorted and unfavorable story from him.

As for accusing someone of having something stolen and stealing, that is indeed a distinct, but fine line. One that one easily insulted could misconstrue.

Six other groups previously have been in this situation with Thumper's clan. Now the current statistics are 3 out of 7 groups have left with them neutral or worse. Some of the more successful groups actually gave Thumper gifts of unrefined adamantite, mithril or laen which improved his disposition immensely. One group gifted him the shovel (which obviously hadn't been stolen).

Thumper always led with his best offer, so negotiating always had bad consequences.

As for railroading, I made sure there are lots of options open. That way befriending these dwarves was not required.

Anyway, it appears the posting rate is not even close to that of the elves. We will have to see if we have enough participation to continue after the holidays. Input from the cleric of Angradd would have helped here.

I know I haven't posted today since I am still trying to wrap my head around what happened as Kib mentioned. However it seems, though Kragg is waiting for the Druid to finish eating before carrying on with the conversation. Since there is no point proceeding forward for Kragg as he somehow insulted mama Alpsbane as well by not enjoying the food set before him, I am waiting.

No one has insulted Mama Alspane. She is mostly uninsultable. Like mothers everywhere, she wants people to eat.

With the lack of posting lately, I am sure many share the frustration. Missing a clue in the story line can make a difference, as has happened here. In this case it was probably due to the passage of time as we hit a big lull.

Enjoy the holidays and we will see where we are next year. If we continue, I still have a lot of AD&D giant stats to convert to pathfinder :-)

I mentioned the duergar had suits of half plate, I do not think any were salvaged in the rush. The trip to the mines was singularly unprofitable.

Anyway, if a shopping trip is in order, best we put in the gameplay thread. The dwarven hold, as mentioned before, is a great source of weapons and armor, but little else.

Asking Thumper and his dwarves to buy stolen/black market goods through their 'source' would be....gutsy at this point given circumstances.

I(player) was debating on our timeline regarding the extracurricular activities because there are indeed a few special items I'd like to get but the funds are low. And there is always a little niggling voice insinuating Chainmail has got something right special planned. Of course, that may be truly how Chainmail's voice sounds but lets not talk about that.

Hon (the PC) is wondering about the possible price on his head, conversely, he still needs to finish and provide reports to the SOS [snicker] regarding the most recent events. Reports he could not work on much less send out due to his minders and rightous paranario by Thumper's Clan. He is weighing the risk factors, relying on Diplo+6, Bluff+5 or Intim+5 as last resort because the SOS[snicker]runs a rigged game.

On a more personal player level, I've toyed with the idea of actually drafting up a SOS[snicker] report and PM'ing it to you Chainmail or merely going with the meta Ominus Dominus handwave. Hmmmm
I'll post generic actions, spoiler specific, PM a report. The report will likely be PM'd tomorrow.

I mentioned the duergar had suits of half plate, I do not think any were salvaged in the rush. The trip to the mines was singularly unprofitable.

Anyway, if a shopping trip is in order, best we put in the gameplay thread. The dwarven hold, as mentioned before, is a great source of weapons and armor, but little else.

Asking Thumper and his dwarves to buy stolen/black market goods through their 'source' would be....gutsy at this point given circumstances.

Oh, sorry, didn't see this before my last post. I have another question though, so is it necessary (and if so, why?) to go through the black market to get something as standard as a 1st level wand? Especially when there's a whole school of wizards in town?

Sorry for going AWOL. I'll be catching up tonight.

We will attempt to get some momentum again. Lacking any input--no shopping will occur. I do not think anyone hauled out armor suits, so Kragg raised and restored was the only contribution of Thumper and his dwarves. Could explain the 5000 platinum offer for the mining trip.

I guess without Adam, the game will slow down :-)