The Gossip Board

[Dracos]

Relevant:

<Dracos> I assume we can't simply just have those in the Abyss for use already?
* THEREISONLYXORN nods. You're well into a dungeon, so no unless it's on your sheet already.
* Dracos admits the tactical sensibility of it, even if he doesn't like the taste of martyr spells at all.  The only way you can hit one guy and kill two guys.
<Dracos> Well, no, kam is not already carrying platinum rings of 50 gp worth or higher.
* THEREISONLYXORN thinks Shield Other is good when situationally and intelligently used.
<Dracos> It is, it would've, for instance, been a very wise spell to cast for Mari last session.
<Dracos> It's great tactically when the real tank isn't tanking for whatever reason.


So something to pick up for later.

And dune is right, we did get that payoff from kam being in the back.

[Anastasia]

On the subject of DM shit, last session there was some dragging, confusion and general ineffectiveness about updating the topic HP pool. Would you guys like a weekly rotation or for me to assign someone to do this? It needs to be done, it's a question of how you wanna do it.

[Carthrat]

Honestly, it's just a pain to scroll over to the right in mIRC's tiny window, otherwise I'd do it every time.

I'll just c/p it to the left-hand side on gameday and do it.

[Dracos]

random thought: You know what would be a cool thing?  A per day clw wand.  With the lack of a real healer, this might actually be a sensible investment if dune is willing to play ball at some point.

A single CLW wand: 50 charges, 750 gp.

Multiply by x2 to see its actual price of 1500 (obviously an infinite use one is ridiculous/no go).

1500/(25/5) = 7500 gp for a wand that cast cure light wounds 25 times per day every day.

That's a fair number of CLW wands, but we've gone from 1 lasting us a while, to right now burning through about 10-15 charges a session, to likely eventually burning 20-30 charges a session, which means this wouldn't pick up all possible healing... but at the same time would have a super advantage for long journeys away, never truly run out, and help avoid us having to care 5 or 10 CLW wands when we're 1-2 levels higher and looking at wandering through baator for a month hunting for Mari's sister.

[Anastasia]

Eternal Wands from the MIC are about what you're thinking of, Drac.

[Dracos]

Yeah, pretty close.  Those are a bit clumsier though.  Page 159 for ref.

The same effect would be 10000 for buying 12 CLW 2/day wands at caster level 1, Spell level 1.  Clumsy to carry a dozen of them at pathetic use rates.  I suppose it might be more valuable though now we'd be talking about the price of 15 CLW wands of 50 charges.  Anyhow, something maybe to give thought to looking into, despite the price, since its pretty much replacing an unused character spot.

[Anastasia]

Alternately you guys can look into expanding you pool of character healing. Yulia has a lot of potential to grow, if you guys desperately want a backup healer, she could take levels in the Healer or Cleric class. If, yknow, she survives.

[Dracos]

Yulia becoming a heal tank is welcomed by me at least. :) 

Tremendous overthinking below:

I mean the basic bit from my view is that there are longer/more grindy experiences ahead.  This is cool and fun and means we have to play the resource game.  The reality is though we do not have sufficient heal resources in the party for long ventures.  Max right now, with everything healing devoted, we can get like 30 hp worth per day.  We can supplement this constantly with money which we've been doing, but that basically makes it 'how much money do we have and how many days of adventuring are we looking for'.  We bought a month of food and effectively 5 days of healing.  Kind of a pity as it means if a disaster trapped us hunting our way out of the abyss for a fortnight, we'd be crawling on our last legs, unable to handle encounters pretty less than halfway into it.

[Anastasia]

---

Welcome to a mini-feedback session! The last few sessions have been much more combat oriented than usual so I figure this is a good time to peek under the hood. So without further ado:

1. How much do you enjoy combat in Planar Why?

2. How effective are your allies in combat? Why?

3. How well does the group work as a team?

4. What are your strong points in battle? Weak points?

5. What are the team's strong points in battle? Weak points?

6. What are your next 2-3 class levels going to be? Have they changed at all lately and have you been tempted to change your build path at all? Why or why not?

7. How well do you feel you preform in battle? Why?

8. What magical items interest you in the future? Why?

Bonus question: Do you feel the few NPCs you've fought with are helpful and worth the time, as well as taking a bit of the spotlight away from you guys?

[Anastasia]

As a bonus I'm going to answer these from my perspective. Why not?

1. How much do you enjoy combat in Planar? Why?

It's fun enough to put you guys through all sorts of battles, from epic melees to tenser dungeon crawls.  I certainly enjoy it as long as a single fight isn't a complete pushover, unless it was meant to be.  Unless it's made a pushover by a really smart or cunning strategy from one of you, then it's cool.

2. How effective are your allies in combat? Why?

Kam's very effective and an optimization level above the rest of the team. Knight's effectiveness varies depending on if she has a mount for charges and mobility. She's generally never deadweight and can swap between weapons as she finds them. Adail's sorta like a project PC; sorta useful but not in his prime yet. Magic Missile makes a good stopgap. He's not ineffective insomuch as not fully developed yet.  Mari's getting very good at dicing things up, but durability is always a concern. Moderately effective but egads that durability. Nikkolai's pretty good when he uses his spells well and the fire bloodline probably boosted him back up to useful, as did a resource draining dungeon crawl.

3. How well does the group work as a team?

You guys work decently well as a team. Not perfect but you don't usually hinder each other and often help with flanking, covering and buffing.

4. What are your strong points in battle? Weak points?

Strong point? Keeping the battles flowing and trying to make a variety of combat situations. Most battles feel at least somewhat different which is good.

Weak point? I haven't used any real casters yet. There's at least one on the horizon with the lich bitch(Drac, her name is the Lady of the Green Kirtle for the stat topic, I keep meaning to tell you that), but otherwise not so much. This comes down to me preferring something with a robust SLA selection rather than statting up a full caster, which I find impossibly tedious.

5. What are the team's strong points in battle? Weak points?

Strong points? Buffing and flanking. Weak points? Healing.

6. What are your next 2-3 class levels going to be? Have they changed at all lately and have you been tempted to change your build path at all? Why or why not?

Well, I took a level in Gygaxian Design last level, but I think I'll go to more Narrative Master levels after this. I may dip Sadistic Perv just to mess with Mari and Nikkolai, though!

7. How well do you feel you preform in battle? Why?

Well enough overall.

8. What magical items interest you in the future? Why?

I'm hoping to get my hands on a Grimorie NPC, so I can draw on pre-made characters instead of doing all the work myself. Potions of Sleeplessness help for game nights but are damned expensive and nonmagical soda works almost as well.

Bonus question: Do you feel the few NPCs you've fought with are helpful and worth the time, as well as taking a bit of the spotlight away from you guys?

Eeeeh. There's only 3 notable ones I can think of: Michum, Rogue and Yulia. Michum sucked but this was on purpose. Rogue is very good and was designed as a boss, he's your equal in combat and fought like it. Yulia's a 2 HD courre, she's lucky not to be demonfood.
[/quote]

[Dracos]

---

Welcome to a mini-feedback session! The last few sessions have been much more combat oriented than usual so I figure this is a good time to peek under the hood. So without further ado:

1. How much do you enjoy combat in Planar Why?

A fair bit.  I'm playing a combat character, combat is a time to do cool things on the stage.  But also Planar combat often covers a wide variety of combat setups.  I mean in the last few we've faced demons, robo spider mecha, gigantic fiendish sharks and flying heads from doom while plummeting down a waterfall.  There's a lot of flavor there and its nice while usually letting us kick ass.

2. How effective are your allies in combat? Why?

Effectiveness rank?  
Kamvakua|Knight(w/horse)-Mari-Knight(w/o Horse)----Nikkolai-Adail-------Yulia.

Nikkolai could (and is) rising, but still is inexperienced so even when he does cool things, it's rarely feels like his plan to do them.  With higher spell levels and more battle practice, he'll be better at it.  He's often also not given situations that are that great for mages.  Random unplanned encounters with often a variety of environmental concerns.

Adail is a knowingly exotic silly build, much like Eva was, but more survivable.  He occassionally does extremely cool and effective things.  He can always hit with his magic missile arrays.  The will-o-wisp fight was all him.  His see invisible has saved us more times than I can count.  Truthfully, if he could just flank he'd be much higher, but difficulty doing co-op+low damage dealing+low combat options generally leaves him cool but not very effective outside of very specific circumstances.

Mari's weakpoint is Accuracy, HP, mobility, and both of them are pretty close to being good anyway with levels.  Otherwise, she's a solid rogue build with additional wind tricks.

Knight has hp, high ac, highest acc, high damage (sometimes highest damage), and sometimes an awesome flying mount.  She also has the ability to swap into any weapon type and instantly be awesome at it instead of just good and cards.  She tops the kill count.  She also though has a lot of her build invested in something that's frequently and easily not available which hinders her effectiveness.

3. How well does the group work as a team?

Not sure what that means actually.  We survive battles, look after each other, haven't had tremendous get in each others way and generally have a good variety of combat skills that often is supporting.  Uh...  Team survives battle=>Team has worked well?

4. What are your strong points in battle? Weak points?

Denial, strength, hp, brutality.

Weak points? Ranged/magical/flying/status effect combat.  Rogue/tricksty type.  Mental attacks.  Stuff that can't be solved by hitting it with a big stick repeatedly.  Kam's biggest weak point is generally before battle and stuff that puts in trickery, betrayal, or similar things.  We saw that in the curse arc that he's too trusting and doesn't react well when that's stabbed.

5. What are the team's strong points in battle? Weak points?

We're a wave of stabbity death.  We've got good mobility overall, a lot of good detection stuff to make it hard to encounter, aerial and ranged capabilities, can easily setup traps, excellent flanking setups, and a ranged denial pike that makes it dangerous to swarm attack us.  We've got a generally high AC across the board, generally putting us at 50 percent or higher dodge rate against most appropriate level encounters.

multibattle restoration is pathetic.  Ability to buff is also kinda weak.  We've only got a bit of evasion stuff going on and tend to stick together, making AoE blasting encounters very effective at draining us.  And just as an out of battle thing, we're super easy to lure off into small groups and attack separately.

6. What are your next 2-3 class levels going to be? Have they changed at all lately and have you been tempted to change your build path at all? Why or why not?

No.  On a personality side, I tend to pick things 4-5 levels in advance.  it takes blatant face smashing to make me recognize this is bad.  On a reality side, I'm in a hard to enter PrC, looking at several really juicy levels in the next couple.  Change?  Not gonna happen.  On a build side, there really isn't anywhere to go.  As a multiclassed barbarian, I have as options:

A)The PrC I'm in now.  Which is an awesome PrC with high entry requirements leading into level after level of genuinely advantageous bonuses.
B)Barbarian main, with nothing but shit nearby for eightish levels.
C)Berzerker - Which would boost my damage higher which I've not entirely been going for and endanger the party needlessly.
D)Some other barbarian PrC which doesn't count toward rage.  Kind of like a spellcaster taking levels that don't count toward spellcasting.

7. How well do you feel you preform in battle? Why?

I preforate in battle like nobody else.  Oh, perform?  Pretty awesome.  Combat is Kam's arena.  He's a muscle bound brute with high stats and a well designed build that isn't often challenged on his weak points.  He's well twinked and he'd be even more dangerous without intentionally played blind spots and a tendancy to rush into harms way.

8. What magical items interest you in the future? Why?

Fun ones!  I always try and keep a short list of ideas at the bottom of my sheet.  The pendant of seeing lots of things was actually a super fun one.

With Kam's relatively high stats and good combat capabilities I can generally look and enjoy more exotic flavors without feeling I'm being an idiot.

Currently on the list:
A magical book of learning languages easily!
Upgrading my spiffy boots
Blur/displacement armor :P
Magical War Paint!
Con boosting
More powerful cloak of resistance.

But more generally interested in stylish different things as long as I retain a pretty high safety level in combat (Which I have).  A fashionable hat of mental telepathy.  A shield that taunts my enemies for me and whistles as the cute rogue.   A pocketwatch of instant camp site and tea time.  I mean, sure I like items that make me more powerful, who doesn't, but I'd love to see rarer or stylish things to grab.  Heck, suggested displacement as I've never ever seen it actually picked up as an item.  Almost an excuse to do it, even though it always loses to cloak of resistance in its slot.

Bonus question: Do you feel the few NPCs you've fought with are helpful and worth the time, as well as taking a bit of the spotlight away from you guys?

I like NPCs.  They are an important part of the flavor of the world and keep it from just being us yammering amongs ourselves in different environments.  Micham wasn't likable, but he was meant to be.  Rogue, well, I've yammered on before and overall think he was a screwup, but hey we all have bad days and you built something that kinda worked out of him.

HEY LISTEN.

Yes, Yulia?

Hey Listen, What about me!

Yeah, I find Yulia amusing.  I'm sad Bellaphron didn't get to develop more.  I liked that my patron took time out of her day to school me in why you don't fight gods.

Grandma Tam is still the easy favorite.

[VySaika]

1. How much do you enjoy combat in Planar Why?

A decent bit. I prefer it when melee is actually an option for me instead of just MM spam constantly, but that's largely me wanting to have him yell things besides Hunting Fang once in awhile. It's fun when quick moving and you're pretty good at keeping at least a mild level of tension going(unless it's hitting the 11:00 mark for me and then no amount of tension is keeping me awake).

2. How effective are your allies in combat? Why?

Thankfully very, since there's still not much I can do usually! Kam and Knight splatter shit, as does Mari if she can set up for it. I still want some item or ability to let me threaten just a single square, on that note. Adail has no fear of moving into position provoking any AoOs the baddies want to take to let Mari go Sushi Chef on something. Nikki...well, he's kinda in the middle of trying to go from Support Mage to Damage Mage, so it's hard to comment on his effectiveness just this moment. Owns swarms at least!

3. How well does the group work as a team?

Well enough, I think. Not fantastic, but about as well as online coordination is going to happen without bogging things down immensely.  

4. What are your strong points in battle? Weak points?

Strong: AC, Saves, Resistances. Adail still doesn't really die or even get hurt much ever.
Weak: Concrete durability, damage, options. Get past the above defenses and he crumples quick. See what the Hezrou managed a couple sessions ago. Even with his uber Fort and Will saves, effects that give half damage on those even on a successful save are still really damn dangerous. Also his best damage is still MAGIC FUCKING MISSILE. And I have all of the options of a 3rd level cleric in a 10th level game. Yeah.

5. What are the team's strong points in battle? Weak points?

Strong: Melee dominance. Kam and Knight are terrors, Mari has insane damage when set up and if Adail can keep someone's melee attention on him, he can mock them all day long. Nik's haste spell turns this from simply great to downright hilarious in one action.
Weak: Honestly, anyone who can keep us at range. Knight's got her bow and Adail can MM spam but mostly we've got to rely on Nik for a range game. He's hardly bad at it, but he's still just one dude. Also, distinct lack of healing.

6. What are your next 2-3 class levels going to be? Have they changed at all lately and have you been tempted to change your build path at all? Why or why not?

Sacred Fist for the next 2, no questions. May honestly look into a dip for Mettle somewhere after that though. As for build change...frankly, the only thing I could do with that is make him a full cleric instead of doing the Sacred Fist bit, but that would nuke my saves and AC and only gain me two more caster levels. The racial HD and LA prevent me from ever being a useful caster, so there's honestly little incentive to even consider that route.

7. How well do you feel you preform in battle? Why?

See Invis, MM and "lolno" are basically my tricks. They work well enough, if taking forever. Still kinda suck in battle for now, will change in two more levels, we've been over this several times.

8. What magical items interest you in the future? Why?

Anything that lets me do more with the limited magic I have is good, especially healing or supporting spells. Offensive spells with Adail are a wash due to the fact that I'll always be about 3 spell levels behind a full caster. I wouldn't say no to more mundane crap like bracers of armor or the like either, of course.

Also, I will note something I don't think I've brought up before. I have a great fondness for things like Set Items(from the MIC) or Legacy Items(ala Weapons of Legacy), so anything like that showing up would likely make me ^_^. And anything homebrew and unique is usually >>> anything from a book, even if it's less useful overall. Plays to my inner GM, I suppose.

Bonus question: Do you feel the few NPCs you've fought with are helpful and worth the time, as well as taking a bit of the spotlight away from you guys?

Don't feel they've taken the spotlight ever, to be frank. Rogue was badass while with us, but hardly overshadowed the PCs who had the same niche. Yulia is wonderful but really really needs to keep her head down better. Michum was barely memorable for me, I suppose. Generic jackass with a neat crossbow. Yeah, the NPCs are fine in general and don't detract from things at all, IMO.

[Dracos]

I've almost never seen Legacy, Relic, or Set Items used in a game at all.  Kind of a pity as thematic items are fun and I tend to keep things forever anyway.

[Carthrat]

1. All I can really say is that fighting on foot in the abyss is only slightly more fun than it was on the plane of earth. My actions are usually quite straightforward and only take me a few moments to write, so honestly most of combat is just waiting for me; I have to admit the lack of options I have presently means I kinda switch off. I'm missing playing a caster, on some levels.

It must be said that the main challenge in this game is consistently combat, and it's usually party vs. encounter combat. There's very little in the way of espionage or a need to engage in various tricks or cunning plans. It's telling that we're talking about combat and not the game in general, really.

2. Ze others, hrn.

Kam (Lightning Bruiser!) has utterly insane zoning and movement ability. When he activates travel devotion he can effectively teleport around the battlefield and shut down any kind of enemy movement. Very little can stand up (haha!) to +17 trip checks. Likewise, his defences are very tough to beat as well- if enemies can even hit him. Good HP, DR, saves, and the zoning again. I believe he has no real weaknesses not shared by the rest of the party at this point; he's actually stronger vs. magical attacks than myself, Nikki, or Mari, and he's so fast that range is not much of advantage over him. I will admit this is a source of some frustration to me for the following reasons: firstly, I could've played a character on that level of optimization as well, and would have, had I know others would be. Secondly, I feel his power overshadows others in such fights; basically, in most scenarios, he will have the most impact in any given fight.

Mari (Fragile Speedster!) can deal some harsh damage, but she has trouble getting full attacks off before enemies turn on her (low HP, lowish AC, lowish to-hit). We keep getting into fights but her abilities (stealth, shapechanging, stabbing people in the back) are not really able to shine in straight combat beyond the occasional buzzsaw gutting, which required both luck and timing. I think this is slightly unfair to her, since the main challenge of the game seems to be these fights.

Adail's (Stone Wall... um... Fragile Speedster... somehow...) defenses are through the roof, but he lacks an offensive dynamo. Certain attacks really hurt him too (unholy blight, etc.) We really do want the enemy to attack him as much as possible, but it's trouble for him to actually be intimidating enough, I feel. His utility in the form of see invis and good devotion are highly prized.

Nikkolai's a sorc (defying easy fighter-game-style troping), and without some ability to do rules hax it can be very hard to play a blaster mage, especially in a planar environment where half our foes have SR and resistance to everything but like one completely unguessable element. He can always contribute by means of haste and tentacles, but the former, at least, is a terribly boring spell to cast; it makes everyone cooler but the mage and we can't really reciprocate on that, and it's an option that's so good that other ones seem tame by comparison. I often feel his spells need a bit more power.

3. Well... we're not dead yet? I don't actually think there's been that much teamwork, per se. Our abilities don't have that much inherent synergy beyond the obvious (flanking, whee).

4. I am very tough, though not the toughest, and when I manage to close with an enemy I'm usually in good shape. But I am very slow on foot and do not often get a chance to do so. On foot I lack useful tricks or particularly harsh abilities to throw at my enemies.

On a mount obviously these weaknesses just go away and I'm as strong as anyone around really. I hesitate to call it a 'weakness' as such, but AoE effects would hit both me and any mount I have, so I fear them (though not really fireballs and such themselves, even though my reflex is tiny I have plenty of HP.). I'm extremely reliant on having one to the point where I find adventuring without one pretty painful, and I'm beginning to see the perks of Paladin mounts (even if they die, you get them back shortly!). Basically, when I have one of these I'm strong enough and able to ride around at high speeds to crush things (it helps to basically be two characters then), but if it dies I'm pretty fucked for a while.

5. We have trouble recovering after a fight. In one we're reliant on Kam's ability to stuff enemies reaching us whilst we slowly grind away at those who do get close. Normally, Nikkolai or myself would target distant opponents; he can fireball/tentacle them and were I mounted I could close obnoxiously quickly. One thing we're not so hot at is outright mezzing enemies into total helplessness. Very hard for us to kill someone before they can get an action off.

Some of the party has very high saves in one field or another (hi Adail), they can ignore most harsh spells and give us an out vs. certain casters.

6. Dunno. Probably another level in cavalier. Maybe a level in sorc and occult slayer levels later. Dunno! I've considered ditching the mounted thing and asking to rebuild as a duskblade, but it may undermine the effects cards give me.

7. See 4, really. I perform basically as I expected to.

8. Items? Well, if an awesome mount is an item, then one of them, preferably a more durable one this time! A card as a mount could be neat, as could one of those statue things that turns into a creature (and can be used again if it's slain, which is great. Obviously I'm looking for more Cards in general, I hope they have a few more abilities that I can use actively, rather than reactively (Gem and Talons are used against specific threats, for example, but I can't usually parley them into a bigger advantage. And Star eating up a standard action makes her unfeasible in most fights...) If I'm going to spend a lot of the game on foot, and I have so far, then... my first thought was 'overcome my limitations', possibly by means of something similar to what Nikki has (i.e. that anklet of translocation.)

And obviously after that sort of thing, I'm looking at interesting weapons and armour. If I'm wearing full-plate that's so heavy it slows me down (there are youtube vidoes that dispute it does any such thing!) then by god it better provide some pretty awesome defenses. Weapons that cast spells or have unique effects, always a favorite over the boring-if-effective SRD stuff.

NPCs: Well, I can't say I'm all that fond of Yulia, either IC or OOC. I'm only using her for her bo- I mean, abilities! Michum was one of the more believable characters so far by virtue of behaving in a way I expect ordinary people to. Rogue behaved pretty cluelessly and I'm sure we're going to run into conflict with each other again, but I do kinda look forward to it since he's likely a foil to me, and he needs onee-sama style reeducation. I'm still wondering if he'd either revert to his old self if I absorbed him or not. Don't think so, Talons may have been a special case. I didn't speak with that .. aasimar, I think it was, in stratusberg, but I think I liked her, too.

The NPCs I like the most are those with, well, clear reasons to act the way they do. I'll admit I like dealing with people who have concerns rooted in reality (as opposed to fiends/angels) but it's not like I'm actually AGAINST infernal villains, they can be pretty fun to fight! I think the best villains are those we can emphasize with on some level- the kind who, if were in their shoes, we can see why they did what they did- and the best friends are those whom we can disagree with somewhat. Might be good to keep it in mind for NPC design.

I think the reason ones like Kikula and Rogue had troubled receptions was because they didn't have motivations/concerns that justified their actions, even after we tried to think about it as PCs. Certainly, it's silly for us to know everything, but sometimes they way they act just doesn't add up unless you really twist it. I still don't know how Rogue intuited what I was doing, thus prompting that hostility. Kikula surely couldn't have actually thought a dude like Kam would just change sides because.. what, exactly? I dunno what carrot they had. <_<

[Zephyrus]

1. How much do you enjoy combat in Planar Why?

To be honest, my enjoyment is all over the place and is based on an encounter to encounter basis. I am becoming painfully aware that unless you have more knowledge of rules hax (as Rat put it), it's hard to be an effective battle caster, at least as far as direct damage goes. Obviously, I enjoy combat where I actually contribute and kill things. It's been kind of lame to only be able to contribute as a buffer.
Putting that aside, I will say that I enjoy epic battles, even if I'm not always useful in them. Take the Moby Dick-ish battle we had plummeting over the waterfall a few sessions ago. That was awesome and enjoyable.

2. How effective are your allies in combat? Why?

Kam is just an absolute beast in damage. My god, it feels like he could one-shot the Lich all by himself if the dice favored him. His ability to be just about anywhere he wants to be in order to make himself known is a cherished and vital part of our melee party.

Knight's biggest glaring weakness is her mount build. With it, she's awesome as hell. Without it, she doesn't bring the pain, if you know what I mean. I feel that she might better better served to tweak her build to favor hand-to-hand combat and ditch the mounted combat. It's not all that often that she'll have a chance to use it, in my opinion.

Mari can slice and dice with the best of them. Her shapeshifting could see some epic usage, when the time comes for such things to be needed. My only problem is (and has been) her defense. I am in almost constant fear that some monster will get in a lucky blow and that will be all she wrote. I really want to see her defense upped somehow, some way.

Adail has hits and misses in combat. I know that he won't be truly awesome until he has access to spells found at higher levels, but it's just so odd to see a mousey looking turtle. High in defense, low in offense.

3. How well does the group work as a team?

I feel we work well as a team, since we all try our hardest to coordinate our attacks so that there is a sort of synergy that all of us can take advantage of. I do feel that we need to work out something where we are all not quite so bunched together. Some enterprising enemy can and will eventually take advantage of the fact that we are essentially using the infantry square defense. With enough brute force, you can smash right through it.

4. What are your strong points in battle? Weak points?

Buffing is obviously my strong point. Haste is awesome as is Resist Energy, among other spells I have.

My weak points are learning how to use spells effectively, knowing which spells to use in what situation, and having a rather small repotoire of battle spells that can hurt an enemy if I encounter SR or immunity.

5. What are the team's strong points in battle? Weak points?

Our strong points are certainly overwhelming damage in the span of a single turn if the dice are favorable. we try to cover each other's weaknesses and boost each other's strengths.

Our weak points seem to be our overall defense and our health restoration/ability restorations in between battles. If three battles occur in rapid succession...with little to no chance to heal or take stock of ourselves, we're definitely going to be in big trouble.

6. What are your next 2-3 class levels going to be? Have they changed at all lately and have you been tempted to change your build path at all? Why or why not?

I have been sorely, sorely tempted to just go straight Sorc. I appreciate Merc's help and all when I was first starting out, but i feel that it's brought me more headache than aid. A caster class is hard enough to play for a first character. Adding all of this extra stuff like metamagic and Paragon just....blah.

I'm just going to keep leveling Sorc and taking a fire oriented path, simply because i like the feel of it flavorwise and because I like to see things burn.

7. How well do you feel you preform in battle? Why?

Nikk is kinda hit and miss. Sometimes battle is over before I even have a chance to cast something other than a buff. Other times, like the previous session, he rules. Especially when he encounters enemies with little to no SR. That's when he goes all MELTYFACE on y'all.

I feel that he's improved greatly, but he still has a ways to go.

8. What magical items interest you in the future? Why?

The One Ring might be nice.

I also would like to find something that helps me overcome SR and thus, make me more useful.

Bonus question: Do you feel the few NPCs you've fought with are helpful and worth the time, as well as taking a bit of the spotlight away from you guys?

The only NPCs I deem noteworthy are Michum, Tam, and Yulia. Of the three, Tam is most awesome and I want to mess with her more.

Yulia I don't really find annoying. Once or twice I've only wished to squash her underfoot.

The only NPC I really want to know more about and hope to see more of is Balinbomb. Since he's essentially going to be my new master, I'd like to know more about him.