Solivala has silver spiky hair which is sometimes hidden under his hood, his eyes always covered by dark almost black purple glasses with a black silk mask covering the bottom half of his face. He wears a black hooded sleeveless vest with a high collar that reaches up to the bottom of his pointed ears, the vest has silver trim with various runes running along it. His black belt has a number of pockets and compartments, each with a different rune. His black billowing pants have a pair of large matching silver calligraphy glyphs on each side with a band of silver trim at the ankle. Finally he wears black pointed slippers with a sapphire on the outside.
How is that for his look?
Give him a bit of a desert bandit feel or maybe he has no sense of current fashion sense he has not been around the block for over a century.
How is that for his look?Give him a bit of a desert bandit feel or maybe he has no sense of current fashion sense he has not been around the block for over a century.
Sounds good to me. :)
Should I have Solivala use his skills for a small part of his swarm that he sends to do something or do I have it just use any skills untrained?
I ask because the mod on the little buggers is kinda nuts. For example he sends a tiny sized amount to go get him a scroll, without his ranks their stealth mod is +14 but with his ranks its +31.
Should I have Solivala use his skills for a small part of his swarm that he sends to do something or do I have it just use any skills untrained?
I ask because the mod on the little buggers is kinda nuts. For example he sends a tiny sized amount to go get him a scroll, without his ranks their stealth mod is +14 but with his ranks its +31.
Use the rules as a familiar, which means they would use your skill ranks. At this level there are things that can still make that perception check, and a few who don't necessarily need it. Not to mention if it were something restricted they'd have to deal with security spells and/or other nanites.
Use the rules as a familiar, which means they would use your skill ranks. At this level there are things that can still make that perception check, and a few who don't necessarily need it. Not to mention if it were something restricted they'd have to deal with security spells and/or other nanites.
>.< Still find that mod a bit nuts, guess it pays to be small for sneaking and escaping.
Btw when you said other nanites for some reason I thought an epic battle on a tiny scale. ^.^
Use the rules as a familiar, which means they would use your skill ranks. At this level there are things that can still make that perception check, and a few who don't necessarily need it. Not to mention if it were something restricted they'd have to deal with security spells and/or other nanites.>.< Still find that mod a bit nuts, guess it pays to be small for sneaking and escaping.
Btw when you said other nanites for some reason I thought an epic battle on a tiny scale. ^.^
Oh, I'm sure it will happen at some point. ^.^
Oh, I'm sure it will happen at some point. ^.^
Use the rules as a familiar, which means they would use your skill ranks. At this level there are things that can still make that perception check, and a few who don't necessarily need it. Not to mention if it were something restricted they'd have to deal with security spells and/or other nanites.>.< Still find that mod a bit nuts, guess it pays to be small for sneaking and escaping.
Btw when you said other nanites for some reason I thought an epic battle on a tiny scale. ^.^
Oh it already is. Why do you think Ryo's arm is lit up like a discothèque and he's doing the funky chicken over there in the corner...? (^-^)
When he see's your arm he is going to wonder who has been stealing his old data. >.>
Btw what's the CL or DC of the school wards?
Currently on page 43 and man did I miss alot of the good stuff T.T
The battle between the slark and winged cat was truely epic. Not to mention the snipe hunt, hope you guys have another one in the future.
Well back to reading.
Currently on page 43 and man did I miss alot of the good stuff T.T
The battle between the slark and winged cat was truely epic. Not to mention the snipe hunt, hope you guys have another one in the future.
Well back to reading.
Don't worry, there's always more fun stuff to come. :)
Event Summary:
Well, we haven't gotten very far since our last summary. The kids are back from their field trip which was cut short by seismic activity on the island. Only now a substantial portion of the student body has come down with the flu. The head healer and Vakkler Relkav are well on their way to becoming mortal enemies. And Professor Relkav asked the friendly janitor to keep an eye out for an old associate of his that was poking around where he shouldn't.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to distract Kam from his rocky reunion with his long lost father, Taron organized a prison break to another plane. Unfortunately for our characters they got pulled off course and ended up somewhere near the intersection of the abyss and something or other being attacked by a Hunter and his demon wolf, along with various and sundry other demon friends. Ephebe is acting a bit odd throughout. And after she injured the demon wolf quite a lot, the boy and the wolf disappeared in spite of Jiminy's attempts to interfere with the spell. Fieri was unsuccessfully trying to disrupt some vrocks, while Krays and Tom, a new addition to the group, were much more effective. And Taron and Kam were fighting off yet another group of demons.
And that's what happened last week on 'As the Inner World Turns'. ;P
Yeah I am up to speed as I finished reading the whole thing. Now I must wait for a good place to pop in. I was thinking near the school but sense everyone is away need to wait til their back. Waiting is such a pain lol oh well.
Hey Guys, work continues to be 'highly intrusive' so I probably won't have much or any chance to post this week. I hope that doesn't screw up anyone's plots.
Hey Guys, work continues to be 'highly intrusive' so I probably won't have much or any chance to post this week. I hope that doesn't screw up anyone's plots.
No problem on my end. Whole lot of waiting going on here. :)
*sending out dragon signal*
Okay, starting to worry a little bit. It's like DB3 to disappear for a day or two without saying anything, but this is taking things a bit far.
Anyhow...I'm going to give him until this afternoon around one or so to show up and if he doesn't then I'm moving things forward without him and taking the action back to the school. That lets others participate and he can jump back in when he can.
Roger that.
Fingers crossed, I'll be able to post a bit to help out :)
Thanks for the update Lynora
Btw what's the CL or DC of the school wards?
Dc: Plot
All successful breaks in the wards will be made useless quickly. Detention will be the least of your worries too, as so far only Hunters and the Sunwake Trio seem to be able to work around the wards. And since you are not affiliated with the Sunwake Trio...
Move on without me Lyn.
EDIT: I'm being stalked by a paladin...
Glad to see you're still around, and can do. I'll get things moving again shortly.
EDIT: I'm being stalked by a paladin...
Btw what's the CL or DC of the school wards?Dc: Plot
All successful breaks in the wards will be made useless quickly. Detention will be the least of your worries too, as so far only Hunters and the Sunwake Trio seem to be able to work around the wards. And since you are not affiliated with the Sunwake Trio...
Move on without me Lyn.
EDIT: I'm being stalked by a paladin...
Solivala can bypass almost any ward as part of his abilities. Construction based wards fall under crafting, and symbol, glyphs, runes, and any kind of sigil basically also falls into his abilities. So if anythng he is the guy to get thru wards, as well as build them. hint hint :)
Not that he has a deathwish and will walk into the place even if he is unaware of said hunters and dragons.
Plot shall remain the DC for the Wards.
Plot shall remain the DC for the Wards.
For some reason that line conjures the image of my guy frying like a steak on the grill. I dont know why ;)
Solivala can feel free to make his entrance at any time now that folks are back at the school.
Made my intro post.
Btw bold and italics is him talking in his mind, mostly to the swarm. While bold only is him speaking. Just so its less confusing for everyone.
Made my intro post.
Btw bold and italics is him talking in his mind, mostly to the swarm. While bold only is him speaking. Just so its less confusing for everyone.
Okay. You'll find that the bold for speech convention is rarely used here, but that doesn't mean you can't use it. And just as a heads up, for telepathy we usually use ::thought::
You might have noticed that in reading the thread, but it really helps distinguish mental speech from out loud, which just uses normal quotation marks. Not necessary to use it for thoughts to yourself. Just telepathy.
Also, interested to see how he reacts to the nanite security bots. :)
Tech girl better not find out what his nanites said about her nanites. ^.^
I will figure something out, because his swarm is connected to his mind so I dont know if it would be called telepathy.
Tech girl better not find out what his nanites said about her nanites. ^.^
I will figure something out, because his swarm is connected to his mind so I dont know if it would be called telepathy.
Tech girl would laugh and say that his nanites need better scanners. ;P
Solivala, just to be clear, while she's pissed as hell with him right now Aananda has not made a single threatening move towards him thus far and seems to be very much in control. The only thing she's threatening him with is booting him out. She's treating him like a naughty child being put in time out. :)
Solivala lacks social skills remember, no one gets mad at him more like everyone tries to use him or kill him. Figures he cant really tell and containing him in any way is what puts him in the red. Threat level is rising and the nanites are getting twitchy.
>.< The school is going to get attacked by mad nanites. Battle stations!
lol. Aananda is 52. Which makes her a young adult by dragon standards. But she understands relative aging quite well, and as far as she can see Solivala behaves like a youngling. So she treats him like one. Maybe we should send him to Ryleh for lessons in manners. She's hundreds of years old so he can't complain about her being younger than him. :)
lol. Aananda is 52. Which makes her a young adult by dragon standards. But she understands relative aging quite well, and as far as she can see Solivala behaves like a youngling. So she treats him like one. Maybe we should send him to Ryleh for lessons in manners. She's hundreds of years old so he can't complain about her being younger than him. :)
Thats why he came remember, he has no manners. He talks and mostly thinks like a machine, he is not acting like a youngling he is acting like a factoid. Should crush him with logic not emotion. But I admit I love the misunderstandings, never gets old.
Oh no Kobold attack ^.^
Clarification: Vakkler is too far off to be able to determine Solivala's race.
Should crush him with logic not emotion. But I admit I love the misunderstandings, never gets old.
Does this means Fei needs to go talk to him...? :)
I wish we had some ACTUAL drow for Vakkler to show his bigotry towards. :P
Well no one really knows he is anything but a drow. So until someone finds out that is pretty much what he should be known as.
Just as a heads up I'll be offline tomorrow until around four or so. My son's class is having a field trip to city hall and I've volunteered to go as a chaperone.
Solivala, WTH???
Okay, first I need to know what the stuff around the school is. I was assuming it was wards, as in if you won't let me in I won't let you out, nyah. :P
If it's otherwise I need to know. Especially if otherwise is breaking the rules of the world. (Extraplanar travel only happens through special plot dispensation.)
Also....this is starting to be pretty massive fail at character introduction. I am at a loss. I've been trying to just go with it and work with you, but as it stands I'm not seeing how.
I have my real life game tonight so I need to go and deal with that now. I'll come back to this when I get a chance. I'm just bewildered at the moment.
Ok going to break it down sense it seem to have caused some confusion. The six glyphs he made around the school have nothing to do with his clockwork gate. Thats not even in the equation so to speak.
His clockwork gate is a portal to his demiplane. The gate itself is not a normal stone circle with runes etc etc. His clockwork gate is a construct, I guess you could compare it to a living vault from the epic level handbook but only in a RP sense and for lack of anything else to compare it to.
He threw down his clockwork gate which grew as carrying around a giant gate is a pain. The clockwork gate opened and he stepped into his demiplane. The clockwork gate has the ability to contact him as it is the connection between his demiplane and where ever it is set up.
I think Tom was posting in a past tense that time before the post in which he left after watching the gate react to the bird poop on it.
Anything I missed or questions?
Edit-The wards have no ill effect or anything like that. He is not evil or petty. Ryleh is right about them, more a gift then anything. I was trying to make him pretty much clueless and a bit paranoid but I think it went a little to out there.
Extra Edit- I was not aware their were planar restrictions, everyone seems to use it on a normal basis. >.<
ARRRRRRGH! I wrote this big long explanatory post and then it vanished! And I went to bring it back only to discover that Lazarus has somehow uninstalled itself when I wasn't looking. [headdesk]
Okay, I'll try again in the morning to explain the whole extraplanar restrictions thing. It's just not my night. For now, just suffice it to say that the demiplane does not break the rules since none of it actually leaves Agartha. It's not really any different in that regard than the school itself.
As far as the coming across as too out there...yeah, he really did. Which is why I had Ryleh extend the invitation. Basically it was intended to be a lesson in manners. A basic primer on how to behave as if you weren't raised by gnolls even if you were, so to speak. Let it suffice to say that she can get him the invitation no matter where it is he happens to be. Finding things is sort of her specialty. Communication and observation and all of that. It's her thing.
There's a lot more I want to say, but I keep deleting stuff because I have had a super frustrating day and I can't really trust my own judgment right now. I am sure it will be much easier to address concerns and work things out when I am feeling less frazzled.
Okay, after a good night's sleep and no chance yet of anything happening that makes me want to tear my hair out, let's try this again. :)
I'm not used to being the de facto 'in charge' person, and it makes me hesitate too long to put my foot down on some stuff. It always ends up worse later on. Please bear with me.
So before things go on there's a couple of things I'm going to have to address, Solivala. Although these certainly apply to any other character attempting a similar feat. Taking over another character's creations cannot be an auto-success. This way lies arms race that will suck all the fun out of the game. It's an aggressive action and therefore requires a roll. I'm thinking a caster level check, but I'm open to suggestions if you think there is a better option.
The second thing is the swarm. As it stands it is way more powerful than a familiar. It needs a maximum range (from itself) and that range cannot be as big as the entire school building. Something like sixty feet and any nanites that stray away from the rest of the swarm basically fade. The exact distance is negotiable. And that doesn't mean the swarm has to always be close to you. Just to itself. The idea of the swarm being able to disperse itself through the entire school without anyone being aware of it and then basically sneak attack everyone at once does not sit well with me at all.
There's no need at all to retcon the story so far for those changes. We can just say he made his check to take over the security bots. And the rest was a bluff, a sensible one considering he was freaked out. And since Aananda was having about as good of a day as her player she had a much shorter fuse than usual.
Now, on to the more pleasant stuff...the gate is awesome. I really love that. My only concern about it went away when I found out what it actually was and I think it's very clever. I would really appreciate it if, when introducing a new invention or gadget or whatever, you could give me just a small bit of explanation in ooc or here in the discussion thread. I'm usually reading posts in between doing three other things so that will really help cut down on confusion for me. Plus, I can't appreciate his genius if I don't know what the stuff does. :)
I also thought that you did a great job with illustrating his crafting process. Very cool.
I'm gonna put the other background info in a separate post. In fact I think I'm going to have to write a quick primer on Agartha since we have a couple more potentially interested players, and I really don't want to make the same mistake of forgetting what I explained to who. It's gonna take me a bit since I'm supposed to be taking my kid to a fair right now and won't be at the computer again until later. And even then it's going to take quite a bit of time to type up. Hopefully I will have that up by tomorrow. By Monday at the latest. And my sincere apologies for expecting you to know stuff that I had forgotten to explain to you. Mea culpa.
Extra Edit- I was not aware their were planar restrictions, everyone seems to use it on a normal basis. >.<
Correction, Taron uses it on a normal basis(if by basis you mean whenever he wants to getaway from it all). and he only accomplished it after months of difficult research that only one of similar sanity and emotional balance could do. The fact he was not sane or emotionally balanced helped.
To clarify: Agartha has wards that prevent extraplanar travel. There are things that can bypass them(like Death, who brought Krays here), but those are few and far between, and have a greater chance of killing you(like the faulty star gate that brought Tamrin to Agartha... at an altitude of several thousand feet).
If it can mess with reality, it can get in and out of Agartha. Wish and Miracle aren't even enough though, and the key Taron has only works for emtremely few people. I'm using it sparringly as it is, and only to further the story or get him out of the action when I won't be around.
The swarm is not as all power as Solivala makes it out to be and yes it does have a range, somewhere between 100 ft. and 120 ft.. But it can be spread around and lay dorment, sense he can freely move among his swarm he spreads it around to always give himself somewhere to go. His fear of being captured gives him this habit of spreading it everywhere. The swarm can only do anything when near or controlled by him, they dont have a hive mind unless they gather which requires Solivala. Their advancement is also their weakness, he wont leave them with a program as they will gain a hive mind if they gather which would mean they think for themselves. He does not trust their judgement sense they have no morality and a destroy, flee, consume, or reproduce mindset (kinda like a plague's mindset I guess).
I also limited his "use" of the swarm in any combat related thing by giving him a max of 6 orbs as offensive "weapons". If he ever gained more levels then he would gain more orbs and the related abilities would increase. So dont worry about him throwing an endless stream of nanite fast balls at an enemy.
As for taking over stuff, thats was one of his pretransformation powers. It is also what lets him exist in his current state, it only applies to crafted things but not all crafted things. For example he could control a golem but he cant control a caster or magic sword. I would say its limited to things that move on their own or think/programed.
Swarm Defense: Solivala has a +6 bonus to AC due to his swarm's constent presence.
Swarm Deflection: Solivala's swarm deflects incoming ranged attacks. Under the effects of Deflect Arrows and Exceptional Deflection. (6 ranged attacks)
Threatening Swarm: Spaces around the swarm are considered threatened and traveling thru a swarm square counts as difficult terrain as well as provoking attacks of opportunity.
Swarm Storm: Solivala unleashes his swarm in a fury of attacks. All enemies with in range are attacked with a +19 to hit. This ability takes 1d4 rounds to recharge.
The Clockwork Gate was created by Solivala as a means to connect and protect his personal demiplane. The gate is self aware and has a rather petty and arrogant manner but rarely speaks with anyone directly. Its full abilities are only known to Solivala but it has been observed to have the ability to defend itself, repair itself, and most interestingly connect to other places besides Solivala's demiplane. Another noted power is the gate's ability to change its own settings on what may pass thru it. Lastly it has been observed on a rare few occasions to deploy clockwork helpers. Their abilities are yet unknown, they are extremely quick and often appear as small humanoids but not always.
Let me know if you need anymore info. Also sense his gate has that power you could say it does not completely work while on Agartha or is not 100% up and running all the time save for his demiplane. Kinda like it does not have enough bars except for local calls (demiplane). XD
*grits teeth*
Okay, I'm not really sure why you're arguing with me. I'm really, really not.
No, you can't take over someone else's machines without making a caster level check. This doesn't take away the ability. It keeps it from being all powerful. There is a reason this is rules light and not rules free. (We tried the other way. The resultant arguments took a couple of years to patch up. Seriously. It really kills the fun fast.)
No, you can't spread nanites out all over the world and then call them back into the swarm. The swarm has a range. I'll use your numbers, I have no problem with that. 120 ft is fine by me. Every nanite in the swarm has to stay within 120 ft of the other nanites in the swarm. Beyond that they lose contact with the hive mind and are considered 'unattended' and subject to regular search and destroy protocols for rogue nanites. Since the things are self-replicating I don't think losing a couple here and there is going to damage the swarm. No, they cannot be just left dormant somewhere. Unless it's within his demiplane. Keeping a cache there interferes with no one and lets him have his safety net. Within their range they can be virtually invisible or take on any form and do all number of cool things. But there are limits.
I am not arguing just trying to explain. But I am fine with all that.
I think I remember something simliar to his ability, going to look for it and get back to you.
Edit- I found a spell called Control Construct in Ultimate Magic.....[facepalm, writes note to read the whole book].....ok short version he has to make a Spellcraft check vs DC (10+ the contructs HD), if the master or controller of said contruct is present they get an opposed check to see who controls it that round. That should cover everything concerning that power. Lets say the school nanites have 100 HD.
I apologize if my reaction was overly testy. Probably a little bit of the lack of being able to hear tone or see body language. Sometimes it is hard to communicate over the interwebz. :)
I don't yet have Ultimate Magic so stuff from there you have to tell me what it does. I plan on getting it at some point, but in the mean time...Glad you found that spell. I don't know if I should be encouraged or frightened that it's a similar mechanic to what I thought of off the top of my head. :)
Alright, so with those issues resolved, unless you have something else, I think we can get back to the story. I want to see more of clockwork gate. It reminds me of the Luggage from the Discworld books. :)
No problem, Solivala left off going down the tunnel. I think I am going to make him a little more "human" so things can run more smoothly but I would like to keep some of his lack of manners and common sense when it comes to people. Let me know if I have to tone that down more if it still comes off as problematic.
You should take it that you have similar ideas when it comes to game balancing so that should be good. Also I think d20pfsrd will add ultimate magic to their database after a while, but dont know when.