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Started by Dracos, November 23, 2009, 05:02:20 PM

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Dracos

:(.  I guess its more desired to argue it.  I don't really see the relevance though toward continued char-op toward durability.

It means that they provide a suitably exciting challenge.  Of course, I'd likely throw similar things at it, but we also have different styles.  I'd silently have elimated the explode on death thing without batting an eye noticing the the party wasn't in a good state to survive it.  You don't roll that way.  Which is fine, you're DMing, it's your show.  That the party regularly wins justifies that its appropriate challenge.

Kam faces strong and powerful enemies because he is strong and powerful.  His enemies do a lot of damage because he has a lot of hp.  Everything will always be geared to challenge anyway.  This is a mindset that leads away from ever bothering to even level up.

feh.  What's your real point Dune?  I don't want to just rant at you guys.  I thought I was asking a fun char-opt question and it went a really unfun place.  :(
Well, Goodbye.

Anastasia

The DM makes creations and challenges that can challenge the entire party. That said?

Now I'm not trying to be nasty here, but I've told you before that Kam's better optimized and more powerful than the other PCs in the game.  This isn't news. So let's look at it and look at the type of opponents that challenge Kam. What are they? Extreme offense and sometimes range to deal with him. What does this imply - that I feel these measures are required to fairly challenge the party. In particular, who's the strongest in the party? Even if you disagree, let's roll with the obvious answer here.

You can't really 'win' D&D. Sure, you can make a super powered character, but the DM can do what you can do and can easily do it better. In fact, it's often required to give the party good challenges.  So the stronger the party is, the more firepower the DM uses to challenge them. Do you grasp where this is going, Kam? The reason I harp on this point sometimes is because, quite literally, being very good at what you do makes the DM have to do the same. It's one thing for Kam to be strong and powerful, but he often overshadows the entire party. Hell, in prep, my first question on any design is 'Does Kam automatically win this fight?'.

You're devastatingly good at what you do. I have to make monsters to match, but we're not in a static void. Other things change as well, for example: Knight wants to rebuild Knight, in part because she feels she's having trouble keeping up. I've had to toss Mari a bunch of boosts; it would be worse if Nikkolai's problems weren't mostly learning the system and Adail is a long term project by design. On the other side, the monsters have to step it up to challenge Kam - and they overshadow the other PCs more, since they're designed to challenge Kam. So they have to get stronger to keep up with the monsters and hello vicious cycle. I wouldn't dream of throwing something like the Friar at a party of that level under normal circumstances. I have to keep being more extreme to challenge Kam, and it's damned hard to balance it.

Now I know you're unhappy and you've died twice. It's not really fair to point a finger and say 'This is YOUR fault!', but the fact of the matter is, some of it is.  Look, some of it is mine. I linked you to some char-op stuff to help you build a more solid PC after Eva died and I ignored a niggling doubt in the back of my mind early on with Kam. But the fact of the matter is that you need only look to the opposition to see how Kam distorts things. A powerful character that's out of step with the rest of the party doesn't do anything but ruins the balance for everyone else.

Further, it leads to arguments and general discord. You and Rat don't get along over this, to take a fairly evident example. Then you come and complain that hey, you died! Then you get defensive and mopey about it when you're called on it. You wrap the entire thing in a blanket of self justification and miss the more salient problems altogether. It's okay that Kam's more powerful, I have bad luck! It's okay that Kam's more powerful, I die sometimes! It's okay that Kam's more powerful, I should dominate fights!

You're missing the entire point here. A level 1 character can be powerful in the context of a particular campaign. A level 30 char-op masterpiece can be weak in the context of another game! Some mechanical aptitude is a good thing, but you're never going to beat the system. It's not how the game works. If you made Pun-Pun instead of Kam and I let you play it, I'd be making Pun-Pun+1 to give you a decent encounter. What this does is that things I design to be able to take on Kam are really strong and capable, which leads to increased lethality. Kam ups the stakes for the entire game, I have to call the raise as the DM.

It's no fun to watch Kam steam roller encounters. It might be for you sometimes, but you're not the only person playing here. Being competent, deadly and powerful doesn't mean you wreck the entire curve of the game, man. I've said several times I want combat in Planar to be dangerous and uncertain. If I don't challenge a PC, it loses that. So thus the vicious cycle continues.
<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Anastasia

In other news since I missed Rat this morning:

<Kallen> Question on the sword, or filth fever, really: If one person catches it from me, would they spread it to others?

Normally Filth Fever is spread via injury. However, since the sword's version only requires close contact, it would function as such. So yes.
<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Anastasia

Okay, what are you guys going to be doing in town while resting? Are you going to look into things/research anything/whatever? What are your plans once you're rested up and prepared?
<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Anastasia

Re:Yulia. She's going to be focusing a lot on healing. Next level she'll take the Touch of Healing reserve feat from CC, to be able to freely heal you guys to halfway at any time. Any suggestions for further feats to help this? She's dedicating herself to healing you guys, since quite frankly, you guys get into a lot of trouble and then there's Mari on top of it.
<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Sierra

Hey, c'mon. How many of Mari's minor disasters actually required healing?

Quote from: Anastasia on June 10, 2010, 05:01:36 PM
Okay, what are you guys going to be doing in town while resting? Are you going to look into things/research anything/whatever? What are your plans once you're rested up and prepared?

We need to know what the nearest portals are. Air is big and we can't rely on being anywhere near where we were before, so I'd assume the first thing we want to do is find out where we can go from here. Ideally there would be a gate to the material so we could go kill lich bitch, but how often are things that convenient? We could also ask around to see where Rogue and Baylee went from here. A way to get Kam's hand back would also be aces. I gather we need a larger settlement for that? So that's something to ask about.

Guys, are there any other planes in particular we're looking to get to right now, if there's no easy way to the material from here? (If there's a way to Baator then Mari will get moody and bug people, but we're totally not going there right after barely surviving the Abyss.)

I don't have any other real plans; dunno exactly what's in this town and got the impression it was pretty small to begin with. Mari will practice shapeshifting, I guess.

Zephyrus

Quote from: Anastasia on June 10, 2010, 05:01:36 PM
Okay, what are you guys going to be doing in town while resting? Are you going to look into things/research anything/whatever? What are your plans once you're rested up and prepared?

I'm not sure if my visit with Balinbomb will cover this but things I'd like to do in order of priority:

1. Inspect Phylactery. Try to find a way to keep it from being scryed. Or if it is being scryed, how to mislead Lich Bitch.
2. Find out how successful Balinbomb was at rescuing the boy. If he was not, find out what he knows about the Lich's location, her defenses, etc., etc.
3. Nikk was too busy trying to stay alive in the Abyss to worry about his newfound powers and newfound love/affinity for fire. But now, he's beginning to wonder if Balinbomb wasn't mistaken about his ancestry or worse, lying to him about it. Research into his bloodline is definitely on his list.
4. Find the shortest route to his home plane.

Dracos

Most of those are where we're going next.  Kam's going to put some self interest forward and say we're heading to the nearest big city/famous healer so he can have his hand back.

If said city has a route back to the home plane, fine, but it might be better just to check into contracting a wizard to open one for us.  Not sure how that kind of price normally ends up, but that'd be a route that doesn't have us providing a traveling dart-board for her to target at for a while.

For things kam is doing in town, mainly going to be keeping a closer eye on Mari.  At least making sure she doesn't have a relapse of 'fuck everything that moves'.  Probably practicing a bit with Knight to refresh stabbing things with a sword that isn't ten feet long.

Truthfully, following that, Kam would vote we, in order:
1)Arrange and deliver devastating first strike/raid on the lich's home, with a plan to succeed at doing so.
2)Focus temporarily on accumulating wealth following this for a bit so that we have a bit of emergency cash funds, healing wands, potions, and possibly a few toys for people.  Sure we have two major missions (at least) still on the horizon, but finishing the lich quest would be a good time to take a break and make sure we're set up as a team to survive along our goals in the future.  At present we're probably breaking negative on the lich quest in terms of money.  That's totally fine, we're expending resources to make her dead...for realz, and the regular expending of resources makes for a better feel for the challenge.  Sure, Yulia is around now to give us more long term healing, but it also wouldn't hurt to take some simple quests she can survive too (Hey Listen, that con belt is looking pretty~).
Well, Goodbye.

Carthrat

#668
I specifically made sure Rogue would meet up with us on Nikkolai's home plane, so we don't really need to track them down. Cardsense Go!

I'm all for finding out where the nearest big city is and heading there, for regens and other things. I don't really see what research we can actually do in some podunk village, there's surely no vast library or anything like that we can really use (and the topics we might want to study are fairly esoteric, at that.) I don't think we can just assault the lich's home; we don't really know where it is yet. I spoke with Zeph a bit, and know that her old house got burned down, so she presumably moved to god-knows-where. There are a few ways we can find her.

The first is apparently through Balinbomb.
The second is through one of her friends; apparently she met up with a lot of demons and devils and nasty folks! If Nikkolai could remember any details about one of these people, we can track them down and see if we can't pump them for information.
The third is to go to her old abode and see what we can find.
The fourth is to do random stuff and heavily publicize the fact that we have her phylactery. Perhaps she'll send minions after us we can beat up and interrogate.

I think that *actually killing her* is super hard, owing to her undead nature and the fact that she can (sigh) teleport, meaning we can never really fight her unless we manage to surprise her (which needs a lot of reliable intel), or she wants to fight.

Accumulating money is best done by taking it forcibly from other people. If we pursue allies of the lich, we can steal it from them.

Personally? I need to get a mount. I need to commune with the other cards, it might be nice to sit down and have a chat with them about recent happenings. And Baator is of great interest to me lately, so I think I'd want to do some research on it or start finding informants to help with it, as well as talk to Mari about how to approach rescuing her sister. I'm all about the sibling love~
[19:14] <Annerose> Aww, mouth not outpacing brain after all?
[19:14] <Candide> My brain caught up

Anastasia

Quote from: El Cideon on June 10, 2010, 08:15:03 PMWe need to know what the nearest portals are. Air is big and we can't rely on being anywhere near where we were before, so I'd assume the first thing we want to do is find out where we can go from here. Ideally there would be a gate to the material so we could go kill lich bitch, but how often are things that convenient? We could also ask around to see where Rogue and Baylee went from here. A way to get Kam's hand back would also be aces. I gather we need a larger settlement for that? So that's something to ask about.

Make a general Gather Info with a 'bot when I'm around and post it. Feel free to get others to assist to aid another if you want, or have someone else lead if they're better at it. Whatever works here. You guys can take 10 or 20, taking ten is fine but taking 20 will incur some expenses from repeated wining/dining/bribing, as well as get you noticed. In case you care about that at all.

(This one will probably be repeated a bunch and referred to in later posts, so expect it. I'd rather do one concentrated GI effort rather than a bunch of disparate rolling.)

QuoteI don't have any other real plans; dunno exactly what's in this town and got the impression it was pretty small to begin with. Mari will practice shapeshifting, I guess.

There's not a lot beyond essential adventurer services. It's a small town and a rest point after the Abyss. All things said at least it's not full of demons.

<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Anastasia

You're talking to Balimbomb now so I won't answer half of these as they're redundant.

Quote from: Zephyrus on June 10, 2010, 10:07:38 PMI'm not sure if my visit with Balinbomb will cover this but things I'd like to do in order of priority:

1. Inspect Phylactery. Try to find a way to keep it from being scryed. Or if it is being scryed, how to mislead Lich Bitch.

Make a K:A check here about scrying?

Quote3. Nikk was too busy trying to stay alive in the Abyss to worry about his newfound powers and newfound love/affinity for fire. But now, he's beginning to wonder if Balinbomb wasn't mistaken about his ancestry or worse, lying to him about it. Research into his bloodline is definitely on his list.

This place isn't much for research, 'specially fey research. Your best bet would to go to a fey court in Arborea or other such place and consult learned sages and original sources.

Quote4. Find the shortest route to his home plane.

Ties into Mari's GI up there, see above.
<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Anastasia

Quote from: Dracos on June 10, 2010, 10:26:31 PM
Most of those are where we're going next.  Kam's going to put some self interest forward and say we're heading to the nearest big city/famous healer so he can have his hand back. If said city has a route back to the home plane, fine, but it might be better just to check into contracting a wizard to open one for us.  Not sure how that kind of price normally ends up, but that'd be a route that doesn't have us providing a traveling dart-board for her to target at for a while.

Route to a bigger city is GI bait, see above. Finding the proper spells and price range is something Nikkolai could help you with, he could make an K:A check to speculate how much a custom portal home would cost. Alternately you could go consult a better source that's not in a podunk village in Air.

QuoteFor things kam is doing in town, mainly going to be keeping a closer eye on Mari.  At least making sure she doesn't have a relapse of 'fuck everything that moves'.  Probably practicing a bit with Knight to refresh stabbing things with a sword that isn't ten feet long.

Okay. If you guys want to RP this a bit feel free to go for it.

QuoteSure, Yulia is around now to give us more long term healing, but it also wouldn't hurt to take some simple quests she can survive too (Hey Listen, that con belt is looking pretty~).

This touches on another point, namely Yulia. Yulia wouldn't mind a con booster or some select gear, but she won't push to slurp into the party wealth fund too much. A lot of this lies into you guys, she's tagging along and is Nikkolai's familiar. A general question: Do you guys want to invest into Yulia at all? If you guys wanna blow resources on her I can tell you what she'd like. Up to you guys entirely.
<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Carthrat

#672
She's pretty gear-independent, and some of us are very gear-dependent. I don't mind the occasional trinket, but we're kinda strapped right now.

Maybe when we drop by Arborea next she can gloat to the other courre over finding an awesome bow, and get them to invest in her FairyFighterFund.
[19:14] <Annerose> Aww, mouth not outpacing brain after all?
[19:14] <Candide> My brain caught up

Anastasia

Quote from: Carthrat on June 10, 2010, 10:44:23 PM
I specifically made sure Rogue would meet up with us on Nikkolai's home plane, so we don't really need to track them down. Cardsense Go!

Speaking of, nothing on Air right now.

QuotePersonally? I need to get a mount. I need to commune with the other cards, it might be nice to sit down and have a chat with them about recent happenings. And Baator is of great interest to me lately, so I think I'd want to do some research on it or start finding informants to help with it, as well as talk to Mari about how to approach rescuing her sister. I'm all about the sibling love~

Sure, we can talk with the cards. Poke me sometime about that, you seem to be full of free time lately so it shouldn't be hard. Better info on Baator is something you all need; you can toss it into the GI above, but odds are you'll want to find better sources. You're pretty much right about this being a podunk town.
<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Dracos

Forgot to hit enter on this earlier.
Quote from: Carthrat on June 10, 2010, 11:17:30 PM
She's pretty gear-independent, and some of us are very gear-dependent. I don't mind the occasional trinket, but we're kinda strapped right now.

Maybe when we drop by Arborea next she can gloat to the other courre over finding an awesome bow, and get them to invest in her FairyFighterFund.

Certainly, right now we're strapped.  But after we close out this quest, yes, that should be part of gathering money.  Investing in resources, fairysurvivalfund, and a bit in all of our funds, with an eye to our next big quest in Baator.  To my thoughts, it really can only help the sort of feel of the game if we go to planes prepped properly with equipment to deal with them and we're really enterting that nice spot where it's not unreasonable to gather the currency to do so.  We didn't do half bad at doing it for our abyssal run.

I lean more toward treating Yulia like a character.  No she shouldn't be decked out to a PCs degree by any means, but given we're not telling her to buzz off and go home, we should take some time to make sure she also survives.  The logic would be the same if we were having rogue come along on several of our missions.  And technically, the logic should be the same on your horses, except you already spend your resources to try and make that true.

If we can gather stuff while doing quests that advance the baator plotline, that's totally cool too, I suppose.

Anyhow, I think I'm yammering several sessions further along since so, gonna clam up and let us discuss what we're doing now.
Well, Goodbye.