For Ralf I imagined a studio apartment or, as Jaeylinn said, a "one-room flat." If you visualize the layout of the guys' apartment in "Friends" -- open kitchen space to the right as soon as you walk in the door, and a big main room -- then cut the room to a third of that size with a wall from the back of the set to the audience, move the solitary window to the "fourth wall," and throw a futon up against the added wall, that's basically the floor plan I have in my head. Just big enough for one small guy, a cat, and minimal "stuff."
On the second floor of an old building in a seedier part of town. :o)
Still, he's moving into a *better* place, and eating better, than I had first imagined. Even a small incremental improvement is WAY better than he used to have, which was nothing...
I'm going to be AFK a good chunk of tomorrow, but I should be back in the evening to resume posting.
Since the GM did not tell us to expense things like rent and food, I assumed the salary was money above and beyond what we needed for living expenses. Shane lived humblely as an under cover agent for a couple of years, so he is used to modest digs and such.
His apartment is rented, with basic furniture in a low-to-middle class area. In the back of my mind, I have modeled some aspects of Shane on Agent G Callen of NCIS LA, an orphan who lives without much stuff.
Anthony actually still makes a bit of money with his consulting powers and technological expertise. I had him aiding his friend and fellow constable, Susan, in his downtime when I wrote it so he probably got a small chunk out of that for rent. Sure, he's a constable now, but there is such a thing as overtime! (Speaking of, I really have to rewrite his backstory). Anthony tends to spend about half his night in his workshop in the basement so I'd count that as part of his living quarters. XD
So, are we waiting for dinner, or combat orders, or what? :)
Military orders: hurry up and wait! ;)
Karl isn't on much on weekends, so we have time to plot consider our plans on reaching the island.
Ah. Didn't know that about Karl.
I'm very curious, how did you get the strikethru? I'm familiar with html formatting, but I didn't know the Paizo pages supported strikethru. Can you do underlines? I really wish they supported <tab>, or at least didn't ignore multiple spaces...
@Tarvak:
At the bottom of the square for posting, there's a spoiler labeled "How to format your text." Click on that to see what else you can do. :-)
What Jae said. :)
I am completely with you on the wish that tab indents were supported. I wish email did, too. *grumbles about pbem posts that look much more clear before they get sent*
Duh. Never noticed strikethru was explicitly listed. Still wished Paizo supported underlines - they're less "shouty" than bolding.
Aziel - if you mean real, "regular" email, I know the latest versions of Outlook support all formatting - color, tabs, etc. - but I suppose the receiving email program has to too. If you mean Paizo's PM's, well...nevermind.
Are you sure about Outlook? I use Hotmail (now Outlook), and the tabs in my posts never appear. Nor do double carriage returns when I copy from Word, for that matter - I always have to go through a post and re-enter all the double breaks. No way am I doing it for all the tabs, too. :P
No tabs here, but the formatter will at least respect non-breakable space (<Alt> 0160) -- note how I indent the weapons on all my alias profiles for clarity.
This works best for indenting. Since the forums use a proportional font (but the edit window is fixed-width!) it's trial-and-error to get anything close to columns, but it can be done. Sort of.
PURCHASES
~~~~~~~~
Item 1 5 GP
Item 2 7 GP
Another 4 GP
Spaces 5 SP
On the last line, you can see how the formatter collapses multiple consecutive spaces into one.
Interesting. Too much work, though. *considers shaking fist in protest, but is too lazy*
I'd settle for it working in my email, really.
I was mostly responding to Tarvak's wish for multiple spaces not collapsing. The columns were sort of an example. Jumping those hoops would only make sense if it was really important to make columns. Otherwise, as you said, too much work.
I will be posting shortly! New job kicked my butt this week. 45 hours starting from Monday. XD Which is awesome for my wallet but not so much for my creative free time hobbies.
Aziel, I don't know the full situation with your PbEM, but I sent an email from work with the "current" version of Outlook using tabs for indents (just using the Tab key), and received it with a *2004* version of Outlook *Express*, and the indents show up just fine. Just FWIW.
It may be because I don't write the posts in Outlook. I copy my posts from Wordpad, and something gets screwed up in the translation.
Congratulations on the new job, Anthony!
Just for fun, to kill time...
I was complaining about the difficulty of adding skills in 13th Age, so I did a comparison :
PF, averaging over all its core classes, allocates 76 skill ranks over a PC’s 20-level "life", PLUS 20*(INT bonus) [so not unrealistically up to an *additional* 80 points]
13th age starts with 8 points you can divvy up over any number of skills you can justify
Tarvak : justified 12 skills at +4 each = 48 points
Ralf : justified 15 skills at +4 and +2 for a total of 38 points
No one else (that I've noticed) has specifically listed what skills each Background applies to. If you don't specify in advance, it's conceivable that you could end up doing even better than Tarvak did.
PF allows a maximum of (level) ranks in each skill
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 <-- level
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 <-- max skill bonus
13th age allows a maximum of 5 ranks, but adds level
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 <-- max skill bonus
And both add in an appropriate Ability modifier, so that's even for both systems.
So all in all, 13th Age seems to allow more flexibility (always a fan of that!), and the ability to start out with a much more skillful PC, both in terms of number of skills and amount of skill bonus.
But since you need to use a Feat to get more skill points, it's best if you choose very wisely in your initial selection of Backgrounds, as your initial set-up may never change.
However, around 10th level (VERY approximately), the PF character is going to exceed the 13th Age character in total number of skill ranks, if you don't spend Feats on skill points. Just now realized that, will give it some more thought later...
And because Feats give skill points, 13th Age makes the *Fighter* the new skills-monkey class instead of the Rogue!
Thoughts? Comments? Counter-thoughts?
Hmmm, unless I've done something wrong with my math or "typical" values :
If a Feat gives me +2 13th Age skill points, and let's say I can reasonably justify making those apply to 6 skills (that's about what Tarvak and Ralf did), then the Feat gives me about +12 skill points.
I wrote a quick program, and discovered that starting around level 8-10, I'd have to spend a Feat every other level on skill points just to keep up with the TOTAL number of skill ranks a typical PF PC with INT=14 would be getting every level.
Double check : 76 ranks (average) across 20 levels is about 4 ranks per level. An INT bonus of +2 makes that about 6 ranks per level for PF.
Each Feat gives me roughly the equivalent of +12 13th Age skill points. So yep, I'd need to spend a Feat every other level to keep up with PF.
Lots of assumptions and averages in the above, but it seems to indicate that 13th Age is great at skills for low levels, but not so much at higher levels.
P.S. - not saying I don't like it, I like the concept of Backgrounds defining your skill bonuses, and I *really* like the separation of skills from classes!
P.P.S. - adding in your level to the skill roll for 13th Age changes that to one Feat every 2-3 levels to keep up with PF.
(Told you I had to think this out, typing it out helps me think...)
I forgot that's adding your level *to every skill*. Assuming you've justified about 12 skills (similar to Tarvak and Ralf), that's an extra 12 points per level!
That's TWICE as many ranks that the "average" PF class gets, including an INT bonus of +2.
So, 13th Age starts you out with more effective skill points at PC creation, AND gives you way more skill points (compared to PF) as you increase in level.
I'll shut up now. :)
I forgot that's adding your level *to every skill*. Assuming you've justified about 12 skills (similar to Tarvak and Ralf), that's an extra 12 points per level!
Yeah, the +character level to every skill check makes a big difference. Plus all you need is a reasonable argument for why your Background should apply to a check. So while 'garage attendant' (just thinking about my morning so far) might not seem all that useful, maybe you had to park cars in a really tight parking lot and got really good at spatial reasoning and can apply that to some math problems. Or you had to learn all the side streets around the garage to add to Know: Local checks. Or maybe you had to have annual first aid training for insurance reasons, for bonuses to Heal checks. Maybe you passed the time playing chess or teaching yourself to code or learning Farsi from the old dude you worked with.
Anyway, with the way I like to DM, the flexible 'convince me why this applies' system is way better. Or, even better, you could just write it in your post and show everybody why your PC should be able to do something.
I've written Anthony's Scarred Blacksmith background as a Diplomacy skill already. It made sense, since he was a shop keeper, but more of he looked at the entire diplomatic thing as a sort of metaphor for striking and molding iron. He does a lot of that sort of thinking actually. XD
Anthony, just to ease your mind a bit about Ralf's most recent actions, he doesn't particularly care for, or about, people. In fact, excepting his clan, Kostya is about the only person to whom he's ever warmed.
But, he has a strong affinity for animals. In this incarnation's first iteration (a died-too-young game that included Tarvak's player), he actually sat down and had a discussion with a grizzly bear while he tended to its wounds. He's just odd that way.
(Compare-and-contrast with a few posts later, when everyone was talking about sketching or memorizing a tattoo on one of the baddie's wrists. Whereupon Ralf helpfully suggested they just slice it off and take it with.)
Plus, there's a shaggy dog here. On a high-priority, high-consequence infiltration mission! Either that canine is insanely well thought of, or he has some "particularly unique" skills of his own, or things are not as they seem. And as a dog is the most likely entity in the room to be ignored by the team, it just makes sense for him to step up and cover that base.
As for being rude... well, Ralf's just... Ralf. CHA 8...
(Your internal dialog/narration was perfect, by the way.)
For some reason I thought the island would be way smaller. This should prove interesting...
Karl - not that Tarvak understands yet the difference between the Oracle spells he's unknowingly casting and the darkness that Tieflings can create, but is the darkness considered to be "cast magic" that the island can screw up? Thanks!
I guess you'll find out when you get there and use your SLA. :)
Something to keep in mind here folks is that the RHC isn't the modern-day FBI. While, yes, the bureaucracy is similarly overwhelming, out in the field, Constables are expected to be resourceful, think on the fly, and adapt to the circumstances. Especially in a mission like this one. Remember, this is a thrown-together, desperat, quick-response to an iincredibly bad and unexpected situation. We're not going to have good intel. We're not going to have the "right" equipment. We're not going to have a good plan, much less a perfect one. This is a case of, "what resources do we have available? Throw them at the problem, and hope they're effective, while we plan for catastrophic failure."
Also though, we have Karl as the GM. And he likes "complications vs. failure," and "Good story trumps all." Which is not to say we won't die. The best stories often includeppeople dying. But we should have fun along the way. ;-)
Aziel has no relevant questions, she's just keeping her head down and worrying. *g*
Any other questions? Otherwise I'll skip over the two days and move on to the night swim.
Shanes' good.
No more questions, but Ralf will definitely scope out Rori, because his being here simply doesn't fit. So maybe he's actually a shapeshifter or something. As such he's going to pay a lot of attention to both the dog and Everett, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
I think Slippery Sort is applicable to Kn:Nature because its based on Ralf having grown up on the road with his clan, setting up camp in the woods, crossing the wilderness, and so on. From this he should have a solid understanding of plants, animals, general survival, and so on. The name of the background's just unfortunate. :o)
Anthony can't think of any. Is it alright if he studies the map for the next two days though, so that if anything comes up he can use his investigator skill or something to recall the basics of the geography?
Fine here.
Aziel will gradually relax in the familiar atmosphere of the military ship, and absorb what she can on their objective. Other than that, I'm good too.
"Do your research."
Jae will study maps, walk the ship, look over supplies. Probably without talking to anyone that she doesn't have to. Basically filling up her mind palace with stuff that will be useful to know for the mission, and formulating back-up plans (not because she expects her plans to go wrong, but because she's figured out most of the potential flaws in Unit 6's plan.
Which reminds me - - I guess she doesn't know much about Unit 6's personnel. sigh I guess she'll spend a little time talking to them to try to figure out what they can do - so as to properly analyze their plans for failure points.
I think Slippery Sort is applicable to Kn:Nature because its based on Ralf having grown up on the road with his clan, setting up camp in the woods, crossing the wilderness, and so on. From this he should have a solid understanding of plants, animals, general survival, and so on. The name of the background's just unfortunate. :o)
Ralf has heard of spell casters who have a special bond with nature, often expressed in a link with one particular animal. He's pretty sure Rori is Everett's animal companion, is what I'm saying.
Just want to point out that the black coveralls Unit 6 is wearing aren't standard issue. Or at least if they are for Unit 6's office, they aren't for Unit 11's. So Shane and the other PCs only have jumpsuits if they brought them themselves.
Shane specified a black jumpsuit as part of his requisitions for mission gear. I'm not thinking it's anything fancy, just better for sneaking about at night, plus maybe an abundance of pockets for stowing small items and eliminate the need for a bulky backpack. See this post
Jae's equipment list is updated.
1/2 Wand Mage Armor = 375
Sleeves of Many Garments = 200
Shard Gel = 25
Ghast Retch Flask = 50
Iron Pellet Grenade = 50
Alkalai Flasks (2) = 30
Acid Flasks (2) = 20
Blackfire Clay = 20
Foaming Powder = 10
4 Scrolls = 100 (Alchemical Tinkeringx2, Disguise Self, Grease)
4 Potions = 100 (CLWx2, Endure Elementsx2)
Bandolier = Free
Waterproof Bags (3) = Free
Total: 980gp (20 gp cash)
Also, quick clarification, Karl. How long are we expecting to be on the island (Trying to determine what supplies Jae can leave behind - either on the ship, or at home).
The minister said this needed to be taken care of within 3 days of the meeting back at HQ. That was 2 days ago. Unit 6's plan did not involve an extended stay on the island- a few hours, at most.
A guy you've never seen comes up to the deck from below. He's impeccably dressed in a very expensive suit, and walks kind of stiffly. It takes no roll to tell at a glance that he's one of the vilest creatures to walk the planet - a *lawyer* (worse than that, he's a dire lawyer :).
He walks up to Shane, claps him on the shoulder, and says "I'm afraid I'm going to have to write you a citation - you just used the present tense, and that's been outlawed in these parts. There's a stiff fine for using that kind of language around here."
Aziel has darkvision, so she wouldn't use a sunrod for fear of alerting... whoever. That's also why she suggested Tarvak and she go first, but if we're not splitting the party I guess it doesn't matter.
D'oh!
Karl - can you please explain your comment "normal ranged weapons have their range increments reduced to 5'."
Because what I saw on that page was "Attacks with other ranged weapons take a –2 penalty on attack rolls for every 5 feet of water they pass through, in addition to the normal penalties for range."
I'd like to get this figured out in advance, in case we do end up traveling underwater.
What I really want to know is : could I still stand with one square between me and my target, and shoot (with a -4 penalty)?
Or do I have to stand *next* to my target, which would incur AoO's, etc.?
Or what?
And for future reference, if *I* had a Freedom of Movement spell on me, would my arrow continue to carry it once fired?
Thanks!
Because what I saw on that page was "Attacks with other ranged weapons take a –2 penalty on attack rolls for every 5 feet of water they pass through, in addition to the normal penalties for range."
-2 is the range increment penalty. I'm reading that as reducing effective range increments to 5'.
What I really want to know is : could I still stand with one square between me and my target, and shoot (with a -4 penalty)?
The first range increment is 5 feet (aka 'next to your target'), for no penalty. The second range increment is 10 feet, for -2. The third range increment is 15 feet, for -4. All the way out to 10 range increments at 50', for -18.
And there would be an added penalty if you failed your Swim check, since there's no place to stand.
And for future reference, if *I* had a Freedom of Movement spell on me, would my arrow continue to carry it once fired?
FoM is magic and so I assume it applies to attacks, as well. So you'd be able to shoot normally if you had FoM.
For the record, re-winding to totally countermand something another character has already done is something of a pet peeve. It's poor form, and tends to completely wreck the momentum of a game. I've seen games die as a result.
Also for the record, Jaelynn doesn't really care about Unit 6, one way or another (she's a sociopath, after all), but she also knows that dithering in the middle of a high-stress situation gets people killed. Analyze, decide, act, adjust.
Aziel would have plopped in after talking to Tarvak, so if no one has followed within 30 seconds of that, she'll resurface to see what's keeping him/everyone.
Also, I'm off to a birthday tomorrow, so I'll be AFK most of the day. If we keep moving during the weekend, Aziel means to follow the rope and see what has become of Unit 6, and if they're in trouble, if it's possible to aid them without blowing the mission.
Tarvak had some opinions to express, and would not have just blindly followed Aziel into the water. At the time, I (the player) wanted to include Aziel in the conversation, as she had made most of the suggestions, and within the game, Tarvak would have spoken up immediately.
Sometimes out-of-order events just can't be helped in PbP...
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Sometimes, you're right, they can't. But far more often than not, they can, but aren't. Especially when the reason for creating one is that the player "wanted to" do something, or "my character would have _____."
If the party (or another character) has done something that your character would have objected to, or even moved on to a different room of the dungeon before you (the player) were able to have your character do something they probably would have done, the best thing to do is roll with it. Come up with a reason that your character would do so - perhaps he was distracted and forgot, perhaps he had deep misgivings, but bit them back, or perhaps the others just turned and walked away before he built up the courage to actually speak (if nothing else, remember that all people sometimes act "out of character," for any number of reasons in RL).
PbP and RL don't always mesh. It's one of the things that makes PbP/PbEM different from tabletop gaming. The way to look at things that helps to keep a game from getting bogged down in "wait, I would have done/said X, which would require a reaction, and means we need to stop, go back in time and address that, and then retcon everyone's actions..." is this: "RL means that we sometimes get to find creative ways for our characters to deal with situations that they wouldn't have otherwise. Which is sometimes frustrating, but always a great chance to stretch ourselves as writers/players."
Around the table, it's easy to do a "Wait! let's talk about this first," conversation. The objection happens near-instantly, the conversation (usually) only takes a few minutes, the DM says, "OK, so what actually happens is..." and on you go. In PbP/PbEM, the objection often doesn't show up for hours or days, and the discussion takes days or weeks. People get frustrated and/or bored, the fun goes away, and games die. Which sucks for everyone. "My character would..." often results in the character never being able to do anything at all, ever, because the game dies - and they die with it.
I tend to think of RP games in the same way as I do improv acting ('cause that's kind of what it is). The primary rule of Improv is "yes, and." In the scene, no matter how wacky, unexpected, or counter to what you were doing/saying/planning something that someone else comes up with is, you don't say "no, that didn't happen!" You say "yes, and then X!" (Quick Example: the colored documents thing: I had Jae say someone was filling out the wrong forms - instead of objecting, the other player said, in effect, "yes, I am! And I react this way to it..." and it became something that added color (pardon the pun) to the game.)
I have ZERO problems with Tarvak objecting to the delay (in fact, Jae was going to suggest that we all go sooner, as well). ZERO. It's good RP! I like him starting to find his spine (in fact, the primary reason for Jaelynn pushing him the last two times was to give you someone for Travak to react to. I love that he's already moving from complete milquetoast to "objects but is easily shot down - grumblingly." The scene where he finally says something along the lines of "No, YOU listen..." and/or the scene where he gets massive praise from the group for having shared a good idea will be fun!) and on top of that, it's at least partially tactically sound.
My only objection is that you moved it back to before Aziel jumped in, and that it was so directly counter to the action that had already been taken. It would have been just as easy (and less disruptive to the game flow - while also allowing for the tension of Aziel being in the water alone...) to go this route:
Tarvak had wanted to object to what seemed to him a Very Bad Idea, but the impulsive Aziel jumped into the water before Tarvak had even realized what she was going to do. "Wait-!" he said, but it was too late. She was gone. "This is dangerous, he said to the others, instead. "It would take us a couple of minutes to get to them, which means if they're fighting something, it'll all be over by the time we can get there. If they are all dead, following them will do no good, and we'll be heading right into whatever attacked *them*. You guys who studied the map - is there ANY other way to get to where we need to be? If so, we should try that since we *know* the original plan hasn't worked."
"If not, I'd say it'd be better for all of us to go together - it makes no sense to split up our fighting power, especially since my arrows are basically useless underwater (Karl please correct me if I'm wrong). And if just Aziel and I go, and get into trouble, it would take a couple of minutes for you to get to us to help us. We really should all go."
Visibly deflating a little bit as if he'd exhaled from a deep breath, he added "That's just my two coppers, anyway..."
At which point, Jae (or one of the others) would probably have nodded, and said something like, "No time to discuss it. Aziel is in the water alone. Go, we'll be right behind you."
Tarvak expresses his opinion, and the scene moves along. And Aziel's player (as well as the rest of us) realizes that, if they want to have Aziel be part of the discussions moving forward, they may want to have Aziel pause, briefly, before actually doing things like jumping into an ocean to follow a rope that may or may not take her into an ambush - without backup. :-)
The timing challenges that come with PbP as a different medium than table-top, or even PbEM, games are part of what makes it unique as a medium, and that uniqueness is part of what makes it fun. If we choose to roll with the timing challenges, and "slant" our characters' actions towards moving the game along, and keeping the party together, we'll almost always be building a stronger game. And we (the players), as well as our characters, will be learning how to better work together as we go.
And with strong players - like all of the players in this game - making such choices, the game will be stronger, flow better, and probably last longer - you know, unless we all get our characters killed. ;-) The strongest, most long-lasting games I've ever played in followed this philosophy, and created some of the best stories I've ever had the privilege of helping to create.
My apologies for possibly creating a kerfuffle, but I felt the need to express WHY I feel the way I do, as well as (hopefully) clarifying that I'm not trying to attack anyone, just explore what might be a bit of a new perspective for some folks, and share a philosophy that, more often than not, makes for stronger games.
Thanks for listening. :-)