Eberron Giantslayer (Inactive)

Game Master mittean

Thanks, Tuk! I've enjoyed working on it. And no worries about losing track. As long as you're okay, that is never a problem. :)

Thanks, Thuurvi! I added it into my HeroLab for her as well.

Yes.

Bought:
Str 18 17 pts
Dex 14 5 pts
Con 12 2 pts
Int 10 0 pts
Wis 13 3 pts
Cha 8 -2 pts

Total cost 25 pts
Racial Abilities: +2 Con, +2 Int, -2 Cha

Okay, that's listed as 18, 14, 12, 10, 13, 8, which still actually costs 29 points. But on your character sheet its what I listed above: 18, 14, 14, 12, 13, 6, which costs 31 points.

I think I see what happened...okay. Yeah. In 3.5 the warforged was listed as +2 CON, -2 WIS and -2 CHA. The warforged listed in the HeroLab follows that amount. That's annoying. Why did he change that from the core ECS? Hmmm...Let me see if I can figure out the RP values...(thinking out loud as I puzzle this). He has it at 14 RP, so an advanced race.

Okay. He decided to upgrade the warforged from standard ability scores to specialized ability scores...for no damn reason. Hmm.

Okay, bugger this. You use HeroLab if I am not mistaken? Sod the stupid conversion. He had to drop Light fortification as well. So let's revert the warforged to 3.5, the one that is presented in HeroLab. GDIT that is annoying. I'm going to dig into his sight for the other conversions, see if there is anything else where he just decided to upgrade their power for no reason. Grr.

Alright, we are starting to get to the close of this combat. I'll be writing up a narrative on it soon, and also a comparative of RAW, and how this would have looked. I am interested to know everyones thoughts and impressions, and even suggestions. I may dismiss them, but I am interested in hearing them, lol.

A big thanks to our resident dwarf Thalmor who has patiently waited in the wings.

I feel the game is going well so far. I'm hammering out a couple of details that I think work better over PBP, and a few that do not. Our pace is good, not too fast, not too dragging. We are moving faster than comparable campaigns, which is nice.

So everyone knows, I gave Thuurvi a power she did not have. Its called Telepathic projectile, and lets her chuck small items at people to do a little damage. Her build is big on those powers later on, and has no acid splash or any other 0-level damaging spell, so I gave her this to make up for that, fit her theme, and solve her problem of "do i have a dagger out, or a sling?" So she'll be Scarlet witching things into the side of enemies heads, coming to a theater near you. (When we open back up again).

Hopefully you all have a bit of a taste of my type of storytelling now. I like character driven dialogue that is fast and natural, rather than stilted and put on. I like stories that come out naturally rather than "presented". I like dialogue that responds in the flow of the conversation more than referencing posts from days before. I like the party feeling like a band of brothers and sisters, like friends. Less formal, as it were. I like combat that is reactive and tactical, that is fun yet difficult, and cinematic. Combat that can change at a moments notice. I like magic and other things that feel like describing part of a world rather than part of a set of rules.

Anyway, I was just up thinking, and thought I would post my thoughts up here.

This was a pretty good week here. Some family members are starting to get vaccinated. I had a great and productive meeting with Keith. We finished off Wandavision, and I had my birthday. Finished re-reading the Thorn of Breland trilogy. I hope everyone else is doing well as well.

All is well here, as well, GM.

I am enjoying the style quite a bit. Giantslayer can be a bit of a grind fest in parts, so playing more cinematic and story driven should make it feel quite a bit more fluid.

As for vaccines...despite being a public safety telecommunicator, I am not eligible til mid-April. The wife should be getting g hers much sooner, thankfully.

Also, Valeros going for the Johnny Cage style crotch punch against 3 makes me think of Monster Squad.

"Kick him in the nards!"
"Wolfman don't got Nardi, dude!"

Yeah, that moment was totally decided by the dice and made me laugh. I never saw monster squad, so that's good we're unintentionally hitting those beats.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm mostly concerned about the latter books...over PBP, I'm not actually sure how interesting a slow wilderness crawl will play out except for doldrums of identical. So we'll see.

Mid-April is a date to look forward to, then. :) BTW, I don't recall if I mentioned it, but I now have had a Mrs. Three in my head for the last month or so, and I bloody love it.

I like how everything went from watching it - considering that I have a lot of summons, it'll be interesting to see how I can use their abilities. I expect at some point I'll just recycle lines and actions - having to come up with a creative way to describe a badger attacking, three hundred times before level 4 *may* test my abilities.

A note: if you have a lot of different reaction abilities, I think you'll have to explain all that can be used and when, and make a table or something. There seem to be a lot of "reactions" and I'm not sure from reading who gets them and why.

I'm still getting a feel for all the spoilers and the methods of combat, but I'm digging this campaign. It's involved, which is good.

And oof, WandaVision. Right in the feels (not the nards).

mittean, I forget if it was brought up, but we have a Discord for my RoW game--don't know if you'd want to have one of those for this game, or if it would divide our attention further. I know I don't always have time to look at every Signal/FB messenger/Keybase/Discord message :D

Hahahaha. Yeah.

Summons likely won't get Reactions. Basic monsters also do not. So an orc usually would not, but an orc Fighter would. Summons, Familiars, and probably mounts and animal companions don't, I need to think on them.

There are also some Reactions that I am going to allow you all to do to enemies, but not allow the enemies to do to you unless for some reason everyone thinks it is a good idea.

These would be Reactions that hurt you as the Defender even if you succeed, and Reactions that hurt other players.

Two examples: I love the idea of sometimes you're hit, but you just "absorb" it through your armor, shield, or weapon, using the Hardness and item hp instead. This makes things deteriorate over time (which I like) and makes you need to upkeep them in role-play (another good thing). But in rules, it means a goblin has an attack against Thalmor +15, and Thalmor's Defense is +17, beating the goblin. Which means the goblin misses, and Thalmor gets a Reaction. I roll the Reaction and get "Take the hit on your armor." So you do.

But this is essentially you won the exchange, he missed, and you still took damage to an item. I don't like that. So you can do it to enemies, they can't do it to you.

The second is Three and Tuk attacking an ogre barbarian. Three gets a +15, and the ogre barbarian rolls a Defense of +17, beating him. His Reaction he rolls is "use your attackers weapon to deflect his allies weapon."

So the ogre parries Three's attack, using it to get in the way of Tuk's attack. (This also works with the ogre hitting Tuk with Three's weapon.) But that means what happened in the rules is Three attacked, missed, and then Tuk is punished with as penalty.

I love them in theory, I love them in tone. I dislike punishing players for their teammate's failures.

You will be able to do that to enemies, however.

Reactions are randomized. I have a generator I’ve been building.

To clarify, Thalmor, I currently have around 30 different Reactions. They are all loaded into a randomizer. If one comes up that is unusable in the situation, I re-roll. Everyone gets access to all of the Reactions, if it applicable to them. For instance, if I roll one involving a shield, and the combatants don't have a shield, they don't roll that one, where as combatants who do, might.

I am defining some to only be trigger-able if you beat the attackers roll by 5-10, so that will change, but it should be all behind the scenes for you guys.

I think I will let Mounts (when applicable), animal companions, eidolons, etc. use Reactions. All of these level with the characters, and are often big (if not the only) places of combat.

I have a framework for spell Reactions and counter-spelling, but that will likely go through some adjustments as we go.

Summons, basic creatures and non-hero classes will not have Reactions.

I do appreciate everyone using the format, Thuurvi. It makes my job so much easier. I read other PBP's and get anxiety, they are such a mishmash of posting styles.

I'm assuming we don't need a discord. It'd be just another sight to check. And I never use Discord, so...I'd be the one not checking. Lol.

Happy Birthday!!

I'm liking the narrative-like way things are coming together.
From a fellow DMs perspective, it seems like more work for you, but I'm not complaining!

Thank you!

I'm glad you're enjoying it. It is, but also (I imagine Jacynta would confirm) my OCD brain and storytelling style don't really allow me to do it less narrative style. It's work I usually enjoy, repetitive organizational, and creative.

I may have missed a round due to a super busy day yesterday. :( Let's go see...

Just a saving throw, that’s all.

Three you still actually have this turn, all you've done is re-roll on last round. Jacynta is the only other one left.

Jacynta brought up a good question that I thought I would answer here for everyone: How many Hero Points can you spend in one round?

My knee-jerk reaction is one, but, honestly, if youfeel you need to spend more than one, and you have more than one...what difference does it make? You have a limited number to spend.

I am willing to consider more than once per round if everyone thinks that is better on a PBP.

I have also been having discussions with Jacynta on HP values. The biggest issue is, in person, this battle would have taken...about an hour, we think. Pretty normal, pretty standard. But over a PBP, where we average about one round every two days, it can feel like you're in one combat for...well, two weeks. Lol.

Now, that happens to a degree with all PBP's. I think I was in one combat that lasted almost four months. But I want to push the fast, dangerous, changing cinematic feel of the game, and slow slog is the opposite of that. I don't think this has been a slow slog at all, but I can see where combats later in the game potentially could be.

I know I can control some things on the DMs side, and it will also help to have Thalmor involved, as he'll add to the damage done, etc.

I'm going to monitor it through this combat and likely the next, then possibly make some adjustments specifically to PBP to facilitate that frenetic, frantic, intense feel. I'll keep everyone posted as I go.

Also, Three, I have a post directly to you that I think you missed here on the Discussion board about Skill Points.

Also, we cannot find rules on this anywhere, so I am going to come up with something here: To "hand" or "toss" something to an ally that is in a square adjacent to you, like a weapon or Potion, takes a Swift Action by you, and can be caught with an Immediate Action by them. This does provoke an AoO for both parties, as your focus is diverted away from defending yourselves.

If you are not adjacent to each other, it is a Move Action to aim and toss it, and an Immediate Action to catch it. Both parties still provoke AoO.

If an AoO is successful, there is a 50% chance that the item is dropped. In the case of a potion, or other breakable objects, there is a 10% chance it breaks.

Does that look good to everyone?

Yes, must have missed the direct questions.

Height: 6'2"
Weight: Approx 300lbs (unloaded)
Eyes: Bright green, slightly glowing.
Starting languages: Common, Draconic (or whatever Cyre or House Cannith used as a battle language...maybe Goblin?)

The Eberron conversio had warforged as normally unarmored, with this text for

Warforged have a metal plating that provides them with a +2 natural armor bonus to AC. Warforged can still wear normal armor as can other races, however this plating also counts as metal for the purposes of a druid's armor limitation. Warforged can be targeted by spells, powers and effects that affect objects made from metal, stone and wood.

So he's wearing his lamellar armor much as a human or other humanoid might

Re: skills, took Kn(engineering) and Stealth. Thanks for the catch, GM

Three do you use HeroLab?

No, no Herolab here. Sorry.

Oh! Let me see if I can remove my botting! If you're posting!

Ah, dang it! It is just over the hour mark.

What time of day do you usually post Three?

And DM me your e-mail. I'll send you over a bb code character sheet built with HeroLab. I use it to track all of the combat's, make sure I have all of the statuses, etc. correct. So I have built Three in there. It's why I saw you were short on Skill points, and other stuff.

PM sent.

I usually check in around now ish, assuming no issues getting the kiddos up...0500-0530 est.

I'm typically checking most days from now til 1500 est, and a bit in the afternoon.

Weekends are a bit more sparse.

Alright, thank you. I'll finish up the character sheet, and then format it and send it over to you, so you just have to copy-paste it onto your page.

Aaand scene.

This is the way combat would have looked RAW. ooc portions are where I obviously had to deviate from what happened.

ROUND 1
Three moved 20 ft. and formed their mind blade.
Tuk moved 20 ft. and assumed Total defense.
Jacynta Stealthily moved 10 ft. and drew her dagger.
Ezren cast Enlarge Person on Valeros and moved 10 ft.
Valeros squeezed through and attacked Tuk +24 vs. AC for 11 damage. (2 left)
Thuurvi drew her dagger, cast Bless and used Planar haze as a Swift Action.

ROUND 2
Three attacked Valeros +18 vs. AC 17, hitting for 10 damage (26 left).
Tuk attacked Valeros +25 vs. AC 17, hitting for 3 damage. (23 left)
Jacynta moved 5 ft. and attacked Valeros flanking +25 for 2 damage. (21 left)
Ezren cast Mage Armor.
Valeros attacked Tuk +18 for 10 damage. Tuk goes unconscious, and then Valeros attacked Three with his short sword 6-2=4 vs. AC 17, missing.
Thuurvi used hazardous terrain, moved 10 ft., and attacked Ezren +9 vs. AC 16, missing.

ROUND 3
Three attempted to Grapple Valeros from cover +13 vs. CMD 19 and missed.
Jacynta attacked Valeros +20 vs. AC 17, hitting for 4 damage. (17 left)
Ezren took a 5 ft. step and cast Shield. (This just took a little longer in RAW)
Valeros attacked Three +16 and +8 vs. AC 17 missing, and moved 5 ft. to remove flanking.
Thuurvi cast Bane, Neither Ezren nor Valeros saved.

ROUND 4
Three attacked Valeros +23 vs. AC 17 for 9 damage. (8 left)
Jacynta moved to Thuurvi.
Ezren cast Magic Missile at Thuurvi for 5 damage. (4 left) The spell was successful in RAW, not in ours.
Valeros took a 5 ft. step and drank a potion of CMW for 2d8+3 healing 14 points. (22 left)
Thuurvi moved up and attacked Ezren 5+2=7 vs. AC 20, missing.

ROUND 5
Three attacked Valeros +20 vs. AC 17 for 6 damage. (16 left)
Jacynta moved and attacked Ezren +8 vs. AC 20, missing.
Ezren cast Magic Missile at Thuurvi for 4+1=5 damage, Jacynta's AoO missed, and he moved 30 ft. Thuurvi is unconscious.
Valeros power attacked Three +14 and +15 vs. AC 17, missing, stepping 5 ft.

ROUND 6
Three attacked Valeros +16 vs. AC 17 and missed. (Instead of blinded).
Jacynta moved 40 ft. to Valeros (who hasn't moved due to Reactions)
Ezren moved 30 ft. and climbed over the counter. This technically happened before in ours, but in RAW, his initiative would have actually been after Jacynta.
Valeros attacked Three +12, missed, as Three is not prone in this one, and then stepped 5 ft.

ROUND 7
Three attacked Valeros +25, hitting for 11 points of damage. (5 left)
Jacynta moved 5 ft. and attacked Valeros +21 for 2 damage. (3 left).
Ezren cast Magic missile and hits Jacynta for 2 damage. (11 left)
Valeros attacked Tuk in ours. Here he would attack Three +18 vs. AC 17 for 14 points of damage. Three is unconscious.

ROUND 8
Ezren stomped, knocked Jacynta prone, and did 1d4 ⇒ 3 damage to Jacynta. (Jacynta 8 left). He would have picked up his wand again as a Move Action.
Valeros would have had a critical strike on Three for 18 damage before the critical. Here it would have been against Jacynta, ending the battle.

Only thing is that Engineer #3 has speed 40. Light armor + Speed of Thought.

Alright, I meant to have something up when the combat ended a few days ago, but c'est la vie. Part of the purpose of doing the brawl with the iconics was to introduce the party to the house rules that Mittean uses, but part of it was also to be able to raise concerns and questions. I'll go first.

What were your thoughts on Reactions? Were there any that felt particularly weird, or unfair, or un-fun? Did you like the way it changed the feel of the fight? Do you have questions about Reactions?[b]

What were your thoughts on the altered Attacks of Opportunity? Did you like the way it changed the feel of the fight? Do you have additional questions?

What were your thoughts on using Active Defense? Did you like the way it changed the feel of the fight? Do you have additional questions?

And what other things did you like or dislike about the way that combat went?

I was a bystander, but watching it, it seems like the corrections Jacynta mentioned (slightly fewer combat maneuvers) would be good to shorten the duration. I expect my little creature friends will help in that regards, as they just pummel folks (though I may have them try maneuvers if they're smart enough).

I also agree that active defense seemed to be frustrating for everyone - it also seemed to drag out the combat for a while.

Regarding Jacynta's spoiler on attacks of opportunity - I believe there was a missing [/b] somewhere in the bbcode. This prevents the spoiler from being expanded (FYI).

Ah, that's alright. The issues I outlined about attacks of opportunity I talked to Mittean about, and I think we came to a better solution.

The biggest thing we are thinking to pull back on AoO is Blinded...that one is rough. So I'm going to try a partially-blinded...with a 10% concealment against all enemies and FF, see how that feels.

Active defense is odd because you miss more attacks that you might hit, but you also succeed at attacks you would miss and get hit when you normally wouldn't, and avoid an attack when you normally wouldn't. I suspect it is the way human brains work when responding to something that has an element of randomness rather than a marker of clear delineation of success.

I personally like Active Defense. I am willing to drop any and all of these House rules for the game, however, if everyone would prefer any changes, which is why the discussion.

I never used Active Defense (or it never triggered?) so I wouldn't know what it's like to use as a character. Does the player get to choose the Active Defense option?

Seems like a mix of Dirty Fighting and makes the fights a little more random and cinematic. I'm not against it...but I will go with the flow.

You did, it's in the crunch of all of the attacks. Every time you made an attack roll against someone and Mittean responded, your target's defense roll was in their post. Similarly, when anyone attacked you, Mittean rolled their attack roll and your defense roll at the same time. He's handling the extra rolls, so the players aren't affected by that specific aspect, but it still affects the flow of the game mechanically.

That is correct. I wanted it to feel seamless and behind the scenes...which apparently I did very well, lmao.

For instance, you posted:
Thuurvi steps out of Valeros' big reach and mutters something, moving her dark fingers. A spatula launches itself at Valeros.

Crunch:

Ranged Attack Telekinetic Proj: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (16) + 2 = 18
for: 1d6 ⇒ 3

and my response was:
"What in Khyber?!" Valeros swears as a spatula smacks him in the face. Tuk cuts in again, and Valeros smacks aside his arm, hitting him in the elbow.

Thuurvi you do 3 points of non-lethal damage to Valeros.
Tuk is hit with NUMB STRIKE - Attacker loses the ability to make their next attack, as their limb is numb. They keep hold of their weapons and can move normally and defend normally.

Crunch:
Valeros's Defense; Enlarged vs. Thuurvi's attack +18: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12, Thuurvi hits for 3 points of non-lethal damage. Valeros's Defense NUMB STRIKE; Enlarged vs. Tuk's attack +17: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22, Attacker loses the ability to make their next attack, as their limb is numb. They keep hold of their weapons and can move normally and defend normally.

This line states that Valeros is Defending against an attack; That he is enlarged, which directly affects the numbers of the attack; that the attack is being made by Thuurvi, and that she rolled a +18; and that he rolled a +12, rather than a static AC for her to try to hit. (His normal AC is 17 when enlarged and unable to use his Two-Handed Defense Feat because his Dex was lowered, as it was in this combat).

This happens on literally every single attack or AoO made in combat. It means you could have rolled a +16...and in RAW, you would have missed. But if Valeros's Defense was +15, which is HIGHER than he actually rolled in this example, you still would have hit him.

This is one of the inherent questions we're proposing here:

I am okay with the active defense bits and all the reactions.

Its going to slow down combat encounters, but thats going to happen in PbB anyways.

So.long as GM is willing to do the behind the scenes stuff and take on that extra work, I'm fine with it.

Thank you, Three.

Gotcha, but we don't get to choose how our Active Defense manifests...if we have a list of options, that might be cool, even as a request (?)