Lucas di Viespea's page

A better captain than your sorry ass wouldn't have lost anyone, Lucas sneers inside his head. Outwardly, he simply shrugs it off.

As they make their way down the coastline, Lucas growls, "I just about want a hostile native tribe right now. I'm damn near at the point where every word out of Plugg's mouth makes my stabbin' hand itchy," he says, as he surveys the island looking for a place to land the boat.

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (11) + 5 = 16

Fair 'nuff. You know the score better than I do. Good luck over there!

Lucas went to ready the launch. As he did, he called over his shoulder, "Ain't a terrible idea. That much sooner we come back with supplies, that mch sooner we get where we're goin'."

Tom, I sure as hell hope you put ranks into Keeping Your Damn Fool Head Down! :-)

Seriously, stay safe.

If that's what the book says that's what it says; it simply strikes me as a case where they split the hairs way the hell too fine. Either way, that roll of mine wasn't helping anything...

Um, if you're willing to allow the actual Knowledge (Engineering) skill, I can take a stab at it...

Kn(Eng): 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6

Ugh, that's a rotten roll... :-\

Lucas peers over the rail, grimacing. "Looks bad," he says in a noncommittal voice.

Like when the mechanic is "showing" you something under the hood of your car and you don't know what on earth he's talking about.

Lucas wouldn't have expected any sort of overt response, for precisely those reasons, but that certainly wouldn't have prevented him from asking. And yes, I did take one dagger off Lucas' inventory. :)

Using Indomitable Presence on my Fort save; anyone else that's within 30 feet of me gets that +3 morale bonus.

1d20 + 4 + 3 ⇒ (13) + 4 + 3 = 20

Lucas looks down at the dagger in his hand, then takes it and whips it out over the railing, into the sea. As it is lost to the waves, in his heart he makes a brief prayer to Besmara.

O Queen, they say that all things that go beneath the waves become yours, to do with as you see fit. All I ever sought was to live a free life on the waves as one of yours. My friends and I need Sandara’s help in that. I beseech you, keep her safe until the sea shall give her back to us.

As Plugg bellows at them, Lucas walks coolly back into the rigging. "Abandoning a priestess of Besmara, we’ll end up cursed of the sea…"

In response to Atsadi’s question, Lucas replies, "My gut says bad luck, but he’s happy to take the loss. The question becomes, if he’s now down one with Quinn gone, how many more of us can he lose before he literally can’t man the ship?"

Tours of old ships are awesome! There's really something about those wooden ships and their iron men. It sounds like these are some of those memories that your kids will still have decades from now, even after most of the rest of childhood is long forgotten.

I damn well hope so, Tom! :)

Lucas post coming soon (TM); I just need to de-clunkify the writing some. Might be tough, b/c today's my kids' first day of school, so I'm pretty drunk right now. j/k

Lucas turns to the crewman who'd been assaulted. "They do anything more noteworthy than climb up here and start stabbin'? Are you hurt?"

Tom, both boys had a freaking blast. That little outing was geared right at their age range (5 and 7.5). Michael kept on his face-paint moustache and goatee right up until bedtime, begrudgingly allowing my wife to wash it off so that it didn't end up all over his sheets.

Then last weekend we were in Mystic (CT) Seaport, and we got to tour a few old ships, like a turn-of-the-century fishing ship, a 19th-c whaler, and a replica Viking longship. Definitely wasn't walking around eyeing stuff up with our guys in mind, nope... ;)

Using the methods of the Inner Sphere Stance, Lucas was able to fend off the grindylows' attacks until they left openings for him to counter. Then, quick as lightning, he buries the axe spike in one while he flicks his knife at the other.

Uh, let's say the axe is going at the one that just came to me, and the dagger is at the one I already attacked.

Boarding Axe attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 5 = 18
Axe damage: 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2

Dagger attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (19) + 5 = 24
Dagger damage: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4
Dagger confirm?: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (1) + 5 = 6
Dagger crit: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (4) + 1 = 5

"Grindylows. Sea goblins. I know there are folks that think they're cute and s+!~ like that, but me, I don't see it."

Sounds right to me, yeah.

How's it going over there, Hurley?

Lucas whips his weapons out swipes both of them at the bizarre-looking creature in front of him. The axe's follow through is a little wild, as Lucas tries to decide what on Earth he's facing.

Dagger Attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (11) + 5 = 16
Dagger Damage: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

Axe Attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (1) + 5 = 6
Axe Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 3

Knowledge: 1d20 ⇒ 15
If this thing is humanoid, my Local is +6, if it's an aberration, my Dungeoneering is +1. Please apply whichever mod applies. As I said, probably won't get to post again until Sunday night.

Hey folks, just letting you know, I'm going out of town from Thursday morning through Sunday. I don't think I'll have much opportunity to post in that time frame.

Like Donald Duck...

Okay, with you so far...

...in the Atlantica levels in the Kingdom Hearts games.

Aaaand you lost me. :) Fortunately, the rest of your description makes sense, thanks.

Even if the characters can't ID, can we the players at least get some sort of description? Right now in my mind's eye we're under attack by department store mannequins. From the children's department, I guess, b/c small. :)

Hefting his boarding axe and one of his daggers, Lucas grins at Ambrose. "Shall we, Butcher?"

If needed:
Initiative: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (1) + 4 = 5
Kn(local): 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (9) + 6 = 15

And which shipmate is about to think, "Wow, good for Lucas and Ambrose?"

And Darkvision 60 feet doesn't see very far into the water. XD It does let you see down in that direction, though.

If that was directed at my question, I'm not asking about down in the water. I'm asking about the fight up at the forecastle that you mentioned. What do we see there? If there's not suicidal amounts of trouble I'm heading over there.

Summoners are actually pretty hard to get wrong unless you have no idea what you're doing. XD

(They're not, as commonly thought, an overpowered class. They just have a pretty high power floor, higher than some groups normally play at.)

Challenge accepted!!!

:-)

OK, third note of the day:

3) From Blood of the Sea the Deepwater Eidolon type. That's just wonderful. Granted, I've never touched Summoner in my life, so I'd probably build the most ass-backwards eidolon to ever grace the seas, but still...

Two notes:

1) Idea I had yesterday: sunbuoy. Basically a floating sunrod. Would be effing perfect for our current situation.

2) We are taking our sons here for my younger guy's 5th birthday Friday. Saying I'm a bit jealous that I don't get to play along too would be a wild understatement.

Atsadi gets low light vision and 30ft blindsense while in water with his shark form :3

So between that and me and Ambrose having Darkvision, can we safely assume we have a clearer picture of our respective environs?

"MAN OVERBOARD! CREATURES ATTACKING IN THE FORECASTLE!"

Lucas bounds into action. "We'll need a line to ready for whoever went over."

Lucas takes it in stride. Without getting OOTS-y meta about it, sometimes you just roll a 5.

At the sound above deck, Lucas bounds topside, weapons in hand and peering to the front of the ship with his darkvision.

Battered by the storm, Lucas counts himself fortunate he can even keep his grip up in the rigging. "Doin' my damnedest, Jaws," he says as he narrowly ducks the end of a rope flying toward his face like a whip. "But this storm is making it tough as hell!"

Climb: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (11) + 4 = 15
Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (5) + 5 = 10
Fortitude save: 1d20 + 4 + 3 ⇒ (9) + 4 + 3 = 16 Once again including my morale bonus from Indomitable Presence, which will extend to any ally of mine within 30 feet. Might also prove a good "negotiating tool" of sorts, for the folks we're trying to influence to see me as an asset, y'know?

Lucas gets up in the rigging, and although he can barely see his hand in front of his face, he perseveres, and encourages his shipmates to stick with it. "C'mon, men! No storm can stop us!"

Well looking at that previous list, we're can't be that much worse off... :) So is this all straight Diplomacy checks, are there other things we can do along the way, any insights you can offer into the process and how we play it out would be great. (I have UI, and I know it's got a more detailed section on influencing people than what came previously, but I still haven't really read into it that much (at all).)

Lucas looks back out over the deck of the Man's Promise. "Any thoughts on who to approach first?"

Lucas nods thoughtfully at Sandara's comment. "An awful lot of angry faces among the crew," he says. "But if we can't get 'em t'help us, maybe we can at least get them to sit that dance out when it's time...?"

Is the list on the Campaign Info tab the people on board with us? If so, that's a disturbing number of Hostiles...:-\

Lucas frowns for a moment in thought. "Wait a minute," he says as he turns to Atsadi, "You were the one who told me he was from Westcrown!" He breaks into a grin, too appreciative of the joke to be pissed.

At Sandara's revelation, Lucas' pleasant facade drops, rapidly replaced with a scowl. Plugg barely tolerated the three of them as it was currently, for reasons that had never entirely been clear to the tiefling. Some guys are just born a$+@#*~s, he muses to himself.

"Do we have any idea how many of the crew are...equally dissatisfied?"

Lucas raises an eyebrow. "Barely enough that I feel okay going to sleep at night," he replies, "But as for hard numbers, I’m not sure."* Lucas takes another look around and, assuming no one else is within earshot, continues in a low voice. "My impression is that most of these guys follow him out of fear, not loyalty. If something were to… happen to him, I’d wager the only other one we’d have a real problem with is Scourge." Looking over at Ambrose’s scowling visage, he says, "Any thoughts from the Butcher of Westcrown?"

*Felix is as in the dark there as Lucas. Do we have any gauge on this?

Lucas looks around the deck, and if he sees Atsadi or Ambrose, makes that sort of gesture-with-his-eyes motion that says, "I'm going over there."

Lucas felt a twinge of relief that Quinn seemed to be on his and his allies' side. That wasn't to say he trusted her as he did the other two, but she'd played it relatively straight with them, and Lucas took this as a sign he had not been forsaken by the Queen at this ignoble start to his career as a pirate.

Lucas stands next to Sandara, leans over the rail, and looks out at the sea. "Good evening, Miss Quinn. Are you having as much fun here on the Man's Promise as I am?"

Fair 'nuff. The stance-boosted values for AC and Will are there in brackets as per your suggestion, to be used when I'm in ISS. Thanks for the formatting suggestions, they helped a lot.

I couldn't put the stance info into the stuff in my header. As it is that's approaching what I consider an unwieldy size (at least from a mobile view), and it actually wouldn't display the whole thing when I added it. I made a note at the top of my profile that Inner Sphere is my "default active" stance. My last remaining question would be, should I include its bonuses to AC and Will in my header totals? I hesitated to do so, as they are conditional.

Absolutely, makes perfect sense in the context of this campaign. That's not to say there might never be contexts in which we need to check ourselves.

Raven, Hurley: I am now trying to imagine Fisk's reaction if Zohruk got up in his face all "stanced up". I think he'd make Gunnery Sgt. Hartman look like Steven Wright.

I feel like that's how they're meant to be used, since that's otherwise a pretty big thing for the development team to have not noticed and errata'd by this point...

Oh, I agree that it's pretty much the design intent (otherwise, how would you ever get the benefit of stances that, for instance, give an initiative boost, if you can only activate them after initiative has been been rolled). I think the only downside would be folks who know this stuff (Knowledge (martial)) could see it as aggressive/provocative to have someone walking up to them in Battle Dragon Stance. Which, in most contexts, won't be a big deal, but could be if we ever have to "mind our manners."

I'll find a way to include that information in my summary line, as Inner Sphere Stance would be my personal go-to (+AC and Will saves, yes please!).

Thanks for pondering that on a slow Tuesday.

I just realized I never reset my Readied Maneuvers; that's done now.

Rednal, what’s your take on what I’ll call “yellow alert” use of martial stances? A stance by definition only takes a swift action to initiate and they can be started and maintained out of combat; RAW, Lucas could wake up in the morning, go into Inner Sphere Stance, and keep it going all day. It would seem prudent, if he was walking into a situation that could potentially turn hostile, to have these things active. Could we note one such ability as our "yellow alert" option or something?

Thanks. Natually, I'm glad I came back. :)

Here's to eventually kicking Plugg's ass!

As a random aside, I've been playing the soundtrack from Moana so much and I can not stop thinking of Atsadi as a Pirate Maui.

I've been meaning to tell you, we finally watched Moana this weekend. My older boy flipped over it, and they all watched it again without me while I was at work this week. Every time I saw Maui, all I could think was,

"YES! I know him! He's a friend from work!"

EDIT: typing that just made me watch the trailer for Ragnarok again.

While I haven't looked at the rules for traps, my gut tells me I'd have to spend way too much damn effort to make something that might nail a kobold who has late-stage Parkinson's. So for now I'll just bide my time...

Profession (Sailor): 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (12) + 5 = 17 Taking the influence action, so the check is as normal.

Constitution: 1d20 + 1 + 3 ⇒ (9) + 1 + 3 = 13 I'm adding in my bonus from Indomitable Presence (see PoW p.18), which grants a bonus vs fatigue effects. This bonus will also apply to any ally within 30 feet of me, FWIW.

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (14) + 7 = 21 Just trying to reduce the hatin' on us.

Lucas spends another day swinging through the rigging of the Man's Promise, keeping things in order, doing his best to lift spirits and help others with thier tasks (Indomitable Presence), and doing his damnedest to establish a bit more rapport with the other crew members.

(Acceptable, if not optimal, consolation prize in this effort would be any of the crew who are strongly pro-Plugg/anti-us.)

By the way, I meant to tell you.

Lucas loves his rigging, and keeps it in as good a shape as he can.

He has already gone on record saying what a half-assed job the crew of the Man's Promise did with the rigging of the ship, and will do so again a few more times.

Lucas will be especially careful during a storm.

Because it would be a real tragedy if, in the middle of a storm, there was a moment when no one was looking, and something came loose at the wrong time in such a way that it knocked Plugg or Scourge overboard, and they were lost at sea before anyone could do anything about it.

Yeah, a real tragedy...

See? I'm feeling eight times more piratanical* already.

Oh, and I'm ready for a new day if the other guys are.

Rebuild of Lucas' character page will proceed.

Slight mod to the above: I'll be emphasizing Thrashing Dragon maneuvers instead of Steel Serpent. Feats will be tighter, but SS uses a skill keyed off a dump stat, and I wouldn't want more than a few ranks of Heal skill anyway. Plus, it just looks cool to lay into guys with a sword and a boarding axe, y'know?

Indeed, I'll go over Lucas' page as I go and make sure everything is in accord with the errata. Thanks, and everyone have a good holiday.

Sometimes the first idea you had just doesn't end up working...

I think it was gonna work mechanically, but once I got it in my head that it didn't suit the concept, well, we've probably all been there when you tug that thread and the whole thing comes apart. :)

I appreciate the willingness to let me change this. It will break down like this.

Feats: both get replaced with Weapon Finesse and Deadly Agility.

Other class features: the Pinhole Gambit to be replaced with Acrobatic Gambit*.

Skills: the ranks currently in Sleight of Hand and UMD will both get moved to Heal, which is needed for...

Maneuvers known: Solar Wind and Tempest Gale are out, to be replaced with Steel Serpent and a smattering of Golden Lion and Thrashing Dragon.

Gear: I'll be picking up a gladius to go with my other weapons (that I figure would be paid for out of pocket).

Feedback?

Thanks again, and GL with the move.

*Gambits and several other things got slight tweaks in the PoW errata, which came out a few weeks ago. Have we all seen that?

The fight aboard the Man's Promise revealed an important truth: I hate being The Pirate Archer. It's not like I'm averse to carrying a bow and using it in times of need, but this is a pirate story, and I feel like a knob being The Archery Guy In A Pirate Story. Any chance there might be a point in the future where I could retrain feats/maneuvers to a more melee bent? (Doesn't have to be right now, but sooner beats later.)

Lucas listens to Atsadi's tale, his unblinking serpentine eyes following along with every word, glinting with the telling of this tale.

"Hah, yes! I love it! When the time comes, I hope you will add 'Looter of Ghol-Gan' to those titles, much as I plan to do myself. There's fortune and glory to be had in those ruins, and I aim to have them! My father disappeared searching for them, but I will see it done!"

I no longer have to wonder how the heck anyone survives as a single parent.

Preach! :)

Raven, you out there?