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[Anastasia]

Every few months I like getting the pulse of the game. You know, get in touch and find out what's working for you and what isn't. It's a chance for everyone to talk about the game and volunteer information up. This first installment is on the earl side, but I'd like to open up comments early on, so if any corrections are needed they can be done now instead of later. Better to fix problems before they get out of hand, yeah?

Please try and post here before Thursday's session. Thanks.

Game world

1. How do you like the city of Balmuria? Do you feel it gets enough attention and feels like a part of the game, or is it more of an afterthought for you guys?

2. What aspects of the game world you like to see more of?

3. What aspects of the game world would you like to see less of?

NPCs

1. What NPCs do you like so far? Why?

2. What NPCs do you dislike so far? Why?

3. Do you feel NPCs have enough time on camera? Too much? Not enough?

4. For NPCs that follow you, I'm planning to keep them all about 2 levels behind the party. Does this sound good to you guys?

Battle

1. How have the battles been so far?

2. How do you feel you're performing so far? Any concerns about anything?

3. How do you feel the others are performing? Do you feel that anyone is falling behind or overshadowing the rest?

Meta

1. Any suggestions for how I run the game? Am I doing something particularly good or particularly bad?

2. So far it's been largely group adventures and less focus on splitting up or  individual scenes. With more jobs coming in it's entirely feasible you guys could split up to get more done at any one time. Would you guys like this or any permutations thereof?

3. Any other complaints/comments/compliments? Get 'em out here.

[Merc]

1. How do you like the city of Balmuria? Do you feel it gets enough attention and feels like a part of the game, or is it more of an afterthought for you guys?
It's nice enough, and it's presence is definitely there, but we're still starting out, so we aren't exactly interacting with a whole lot of the city so far. This will probably change as we start growing a reputation though, so I'm not concerned with how it's going, and I think it's fine between what we do get, and what's in the world flavor thread.

2. What aspects of the game world you like to see more of?
Nothing comes up from the top of my head.

3. What aspects of the game world would you like to see less of?
I don't really hate anything so far either, honestly.

1. What NPCs do you like so far? Why?
Sylvie. She's just kind of interesting with her nerdy mom thing. I still want to meet the kid one day though.

2. What NPCs do you dislike so far? Why?
I don't really care much about Noel/Branna mostly because it's hard to peg a personality to them, and they just fade into the background. Coming from me, given I sometimes do the same, well...

3. Do you feel NPCs have enough time on camera? Too much? Not enough?
Sylvie is fine. Josa is interesting enough when he shows up, being so...bubbly, but his presence as a boss isn't really felt strongly either, and even with the stock-closet, it feels a little hard to justify paying him 50% from an OOC perspective (IC, Andrea doesn't really think much on it and thus not bothered by it).

So far, he's only really found us one possible job, which admittedly we turned down, but in general he just tells us to go look for stuff or advertise and we do that. But it really feels like we're doing our job troubleshooting and then his job too. I'd just like to see his presence more in a sense that makes him feel like a boss.

Noel/Branna, like I said, fade away too much when they're around. It's kinda turning into a joke like that one character from the Eyeshield 21 manga (assuming you even get the reference past my having mentioned it before) is technically there, and they're supposed to be helpful, but they don't really add anything either.

4. For NPCs that follow you, I'm planning to keep them all about 2 levels behind the party. Does this sound good to you guys?
I don't have a problem with them being lower level, or closer, or whatever. You could also consider having some non-gestalt characters. It seems everything in the world is a gestalt right now? I don't know if that's your intent, or just how it's happened to go with encounters we've had.

1. How have the battles been so far?
Fun enough, although even as gestalt, there's some of that concern just from being lower level, especially since a lot of the encounters seem to be gestalt themselves.

2. How do you feel you're performing so far? Any concerns about anything?
Hatbot seems to hate me for attacks, so I'm performing pretty lame there, but I'm happy with the support portion of my build and may just keep emphasizing that. I do feel a bit awkward with having a lot of social skills though, especially when I'm generally not strong with them, and it feels a bit wrong to type something lame and then succeeding just because my character is talented in that, but not typing anything has it's own lameness.

3. How do you feel the others are performing? Do you feel that anyone is falling behind or overshadowing the rest?
I like the other characters, and I'm comfortable enough with them as allies/friends. Outside of that, I'll abstain on commenting since it's hard to comment on stuff like falling behind/overshadowing from just two levels, and things will keep changing.

1. Any suggestions for how I run the game? Am I doing something particularly good or particularly bad?
While I like going out and finding out our own adventures from time to time, when I think of this kind of set-up, my mind goes to that board of jobs in Fairy Tail with a ton of jobs that members of that guild just go up to and pick something they feel like doing.

I went over it a little with my issue with Josa above, but I really do wish he'd do more that makes him feel like the boss, like the guy who organized us and leads us. That's really the only thing that really bugs me right now (I don't care about Noel/Branna enough to be bothered by their lack of presence, honestly, and I'm still happy exploring/learning about the balmuria world).

2. So far it's been largely group adventures and less focus on splitting up or  individual scenes. With more jobs coming in it's entirely feasible you guys could split up to get more done at any one time. Would you guys like this or any permutations thereof?
Eeeh, splitting up players just leads to split attention and one side of two or more rooms always seems to get more done than the other even if they should have taken the same amount of time. Unless someone is going to be absent for a few sessions, I'm more of a fan of sticking together. It's not bad to have split rooms from time to time, simply by necessity or someone being bored with what's going on and wanting to go do something else, but in general, I'd rather have everyone together.

3. Any other complaints/comments/compliments? Get 'em out here.
Nope.

[Ebiris]

1. How do you like the city of Balmuria? Do you feel it gets enough attention and feels like a part of the game, or is it more of an afterthought for you guys?

It seems pretty well in there, but it's early on and there's still lots to explore. There's been a lot of focus on the temples and high class taverns/inns, it'd be nice to get more with the seedy underbelly, such as it is. If it even exists - if it doesn't then more reason to go to Sanaxt or some other place with more excitement!

2. What aspects of the game world you like to see more of?

Oh, I just answered that, didn't I? More grit and what lies beneath the shiny veneer.

3. What aspects of the game world would you like to see less of?

None of it's been objectionable enough to get rid of. The nice stuff is still there, after all.

NPCs

1. What NPCs do you like so far? Why?

Sylvie's the only NPC with real presence, I feel. We've seen a few others who seem to hint at more - Moongal, the Selunite aasimar, the duo from Sanaxt, but none have really had enough interaction to really cement anything.

2. What NPCs do you dislike so far? Why?

I hadn't actually thought about it, but Merc's complaints about Josa are spot on. He really needs to earn his keep better. Noel and Branna are complete non-entities who seem to fall into the same quantum uncertainty state that familiars often do, seeming entirely absent until suddenly one of them pops up in the middle of the scene, which is pretty jarring. I certainly don't like them enough to actually want to see more of them, though.

3. Do you feel NPCs have enough time on camera? Too much? Not enough?

I'd say they have enough as things stand, as I said the undeveloped ones can hopefully grow more as the game progresses.

4. For NPCs that follow you, I'm planning to keep them all about 2 levels behind the party. Does this sound good to you guys?

Totally don't care.

Battle

1. How have the battles been so far?

Low level is sketchy and gestalt doesn't really help with the overall fragility and see-saw nature of combat right now.

2. How do you feel you're performing so far? Any concerns about anything?

Even with ranged touch attacks, -4 for firing into melee is harsh. The swarms are getting me by, though.

3. How do you feel the others are performing? Do you feel that anyone is falling behind or overshadowing the rest?

Everyone seems reasonably competent, no one really feels to be carrying the team or dragging us down.

Meta

1. Any suggestions for how I run the game? Am I doing something particularly good or particularly bad?

I wouldn't worry so much about giving everything in the world a full set of gestalt class abilities. It's fine for notable NPCs, but for fodder and even for set piece monsters it just doesn't matter so long as it has a few abilities it can showcase in a fight.

Having more 'up front' job visibility would be nice, because having Josa send us out bar-hopping every five sessions to drum up work is getting old. We could even have our own in-house notice board where prospective customers can just toss something up and we can peruse at leisure. Either that or have rumours come across more naturally through the grapevine than us specifically asking a bartender.

2. So far it's been largely group adventures and less focus on splitting up or  individual scenes. With more jobs coming in it's entirely feasible you guys could split up to get more done at any one time. Would you guys like this or any permutations thereof?

I don't mind doing simple little jobs alone, particularly social-oriented ones where we can develop our characters and the NPCs more - ditto for non-job side scenes. Best for little stuff we can do when not all the players are around as much to pass the time as anything, since we're on the clock for scheduled sessions it's best to make sure everyone's fully involved and preferably together at those times so we can make the most of it.

3. Any other complaints/comments/compliments? Get 'em out here.

Nothing springs immediately to mind.

[Anastasia]

I'll do these too. I'll answer them to the best of my ability and as reasonably close to the question as possible.

Game world

1. How do you like the city of Balmuria? Do you feel it gets enough attention and feels like a part of the game, or is it more of an afterthought for you guys?

It's doing okay. One thing I want to present is the city as a culture and it's own entity. Like how someone from New York City is someone from New York City. You can tell. I want the city to have more flavor. On the other hand I worry about drowning you guys in it, or making you more beholden to checking the background info topic several times a session.

2. What aspects of the game world you like to see more of?

The PCs! Okay, this one's hard for me to answer without getting spoilery.

3. What aspects of the game world would you like to see less of?

References to old PCs. They have a time and a place, but I don't want to flood Merc/Yuth with stuff that Cor/Eb get but you guys don't. You want it to be part of the world without being a wank, y'know?

NPCs

1. What NPCs do you like so far? Why?

Sylvie and Josa. They have the most heart in them; Sylvie's fun in a smart, slightly snarky way.  Josa just damned fun to have around, though hasn't quite gotten a lot of time yet.

2. What NPCs do you dislike so far? Why?

Lisanne's husband. NPCs that provoke that manner of reply suck, arguments about it aside.

3. Do you feel NPCs have enough time on camera? Too much? Not enough?

It's about right. I'd like to have them have more time on camera being useful and fun. If you have someone who you like having around, I want them to be useful to you guys. On the other hand it's always a balancing act so that the NPCs don't start to intrude on the PCs or take away the limelight from them.

4. For NPCs that follow you, I'm planning to keep them all about 2 levels behind the party. Does this sound good to you guys?

<_<

The idea is to have a standard I can work with and refer to regarding any NPCs that end up around. For example I thought it was awesome Wayland got some helpers of his own with some quick words and force. I have no problem with the party making friends, so when this does happen a policy in place is nice.

Battle

1. How have the battles been so far?

Solid. I'm keeping it fairly simple so far and keeping battle sizes low. One note that I've been meaning to talk about for awhile:

Most enemies of intelligence try to finish off wounded enemies unless circumstances advise otherwise. When you're hurt and facing something nasty, there's nothing wrong with full defense, withdrawal or healing. Yes, I'm thinking of Wayland here. OOC I wondered why you didn't heal or take precautions, but I suppose you figured the best defense was trying to end the fight with offense.

2. How do you feel you're performing so far? Any concerns about anything?

I want more interesting opponents, as well as using gestalt to greater ends. You can make some nutty combination with gestalt as well as awesome ones. So far I've stuck to familiar ones. I want to try and change this.

3. How do you feel the others are performing? Do you feel that anyone is falling behind or overshadowing the rest?

Janson's behind right now but this past level helped him a bunch, so we'll see. Aaeru's a bit ahead of you guys due to VoP, this will likely taper off later as more magical items become available. Balance looks solid enough so far, though.

Meta

1. Any suggestions for how I run the game? Am I doing something particularly good or particularly bad?

For you guys? I love it when you guys chat and go back and forth in #elysium as a group. Sometimes I feel Eb and Cor dominate these for various reasons, especially with Yuth feeling quiet. I worry about possible alienation there, but that's the sort of thing I worry about as a DM. I want the players to be having fun and be friends, y'know?

2. So far it's been largely group adventures and less focus on splitting up or  individual scenes. With more jobs coming in it's entirely feasible you guys could split up to get more done at any one time. Would you guys like this or any permutations thereof?

No opinion here for now.

3. Any other complaints/comments/compliments? Get 'em out here.

Check the board once per day and reply as needed. Don't be afraid to post!  Even if you think it's silly or stupid, sling it up. Communication is good and the board's good for easy inter-group communication.

[Merc]

3. What aspects of the game world would you like to see less of?

References to old PCs. They have a time and a place, but I don't want to flood Merc/Yuth with stuff that Cor/Eb get but you guys don't. You want it to be part of the world without being a wank, y'know?

I don't mind them, personally, it's a way of showing the world off and learning about it, though it does take a while to remember some of the references even if they've been at the world fluff thread (an example being that Luna shop, that Eb/Cor immediately picked up on, but I briefly went 'huh?' on. It was easy enough to look up in the world fluff thread though, and most references do seem to pop up there in the thread.)

1. How have the battles been so far?

Solid. I'm keeping it fairly simple so far and keeping battle sizes low. One note that I've been meaning to talk about for awhile:

Most enemies of intelligence try to finish off wounded enemies unless circumstances advise otherwise. When you're hurt and facing something nasty, there's nothing wrong with full defense, withdrawal or healing. Yes, I'm thinking of Wayland here. OOC I wondered why you didn't heal or take precautions, but I suppose you figured the best defense was trying to end the fight with offense.

That was partly my fault too. I can't recall the last time I've healed or been healed in the middle of combat, so it's not something I tend to think of as an option, and here I'm the only one that has healing spells right now.

2. How do you feel you're performing so far? Any concerns about anything?

I want more interesting opponents, as well as using gestalt to greater ends. You can make some nutty combination with gestalt as well as awesome ones. So far I've stuck to familiar ones. I want to try and change this.

I do want you to keep in mind that you don't -have- to gestalt everything, and sometimes it may be more interesting to toss a higher CR opponent at us instead of a gestalt opponent. You don't have to, but keep that in mind.

3. How do you feel the others are performing? Do you feel that anyone is falling behind or overshadowing the rest?

Janson's behind right now but this past level helped him a bunch, so we'll see. Aaeru's a bit ahead of you guys due to VoP, this will likely taper off later as more magical items become available. Balance looks solid enough so far, though.

I honestly don't feel like Janson's behind right now because the swarm stuff lets him keep up with the rest of us. I actually tended to feel that Wayland was the weakest character, but the difference was pretty small with us being level 1, and psionic hijinks will probably put him on better ground (nobody kills with their brain quite like a barbarian though).

3. Any other complaints/comments/compliments? Get 'em out here.

Check the board once per day and reply as needed. Don't be afraid to post!  Even if you think it's silly or stupid, sling it up. Communication is good and the board's good for easy inter-group communication.

I check the board more often than that. =p

[Anastasia]

Selected replies.

From Merc's post:

2. What NPCs do you dislike so far? Why?
I don't really care much about Noel/Branna mostly because it's hard to peg a personality to them, and they just fade into the background. Coming from me, given I sometimes do the same, well...

They aren't developed yet. I want to spend some time with them, they have a tendency to fade into the background because of this. I still feel I've made a bit of progress with both. Noel's a touch cowardly and not much of a stand up guy. Branna's more brave and loyal, as well as feeling a considerable debt towards Wayland for bailing them out of trouble. I want to build on these with time, the main factor against it is that they're often around with Sylvie. Sylvie invariably steals the scene, or at least my attention. She's a bright girl so I make sure to consider what she says.

Josa is interesting enough when he shows up, being so...bubbly, but his presence as a boss isn't really felt strongly either, and even with the stock-closet, it feels a little hard to justify paying him 50% from an OOC perspective (IC, Andrea doesn't really think much on it and thus not bothered by it).

So far, he's only really found us one possible job, which admittedly we turned down, but in general he just tells us to go look for stuff or advertise and we do that. But it really feels like we're doing our job troubleshooting and then his job too. I'd just like to see his presence more in a sense that makes him feel like a boss.

Yeah, I agree here and want to modify this. We'll see how it develops, just saying I'm aware of this and concur.

I don't have a problem with them being lower level, or closer, or whatever. You could also consider having some non-gestalt characters. It seems everything in the world is a gestalt right now? I don't know if that's your intent, or just how it's happened to go with encounters we've had.

Most everything is. I'm not a huge fan of the PCs and a handful of people being gestalt while the others aren't. It really messes with my innate sense of game balance and immersion. (Grognard detected.) That said I'm trying to spice up the formula, using templates instead of a class or second class on things, as well as trying other packages.

2. How do you feel you're performing so far? Any concerns about anything?
Hatbot seems to hate me for attacks, so I'm performing pretty lame there, but I'm happy with the support portion of my build and may just keep emphasizing that. I do feel a bit awkward with having a lot of social skills though, especially when I'm generally not strong with them, and it feels a bit wrong to type something lame and then succeeding just because my character is talented in that, but not typing anything has it's own lameness.

Agreed.  I think Andrea has charisma and you're finding more of her voice. Just keep with it and see how she blooms. Also perhaps try a few gimmicks? I can give you a few suggestions if you'd like.

Eb replies:

It seems pretty well in there, but it's early on and there's still lots to explore. There's been a lot of focus on the temples and high class taverns/inns, it'd be nice to get more with the seedy underbelly, such as it is. If it even exists - if it doesn't then more reason to go to Sanaxt or some other place with more excitement!

There is some as Aaeru's situation implies, but not the sort of real GRIMDARK suffering other cities may have. By standards Balmuria's the most prosperous city in the region in the last several thousand years, blessed by magic, mythal and fate. It reminds me of what an early Netherese city might have been like in Forgotten Realms. There's so much new potential and chances to grow. It's very much like, say, America in 1880. There's untold riches at your beck and call, seemingly an entire world of potential hardly dreamed of in the old empires over the sea. Of course that time is called the Guided Age and there's a lot to be said of that as well...

But since there's an existing portal network taking sojourns to other areas isn't hard at all, and getting back to Balmuria is easy. If you guys want gritty or harsh later on and Balmuria's not doing it, feel free to take a portal hop.

Even with ranged touch attacks, -4 for firing into melee is harsh. The swarms are getting me by, though.

I know I risk being smited by saying this, but dip fighter for two levels for precise shot!!!!!!

*Smited*

Having more 'up front' job visibility would be nice, because having Josa send us out bar-hopping every five sessions to drum up work is getting old. We could even have our own in-house notice board where prospective customers can just toss something up and we can peruse at leisure. Either that or have rumours come across more naturally through the grapevine than us specifically asking a bartender.

* Anastasia nods.

Yeah, a lot of things so far have been a bit forced since you're starting out.  Now that you guys have made a bit of scratch, more work can start piling up. I like how you and Merc both mentioned a job posting board, I'll keep that in mind and work on it.

[Corwin]

Game World

1. It doesn't get enough attention, but we haven't been at it long enough.

2. See 1

3. People who feel like they only exist to make a point about something.

NPCs

1. Sylvie is okay, although it would be nice to have another likeable NPC who is there to compare her to.

2. Sylvie is the only NPC of note.

3. To continue this trend, yes, it would be nice for other NPCs to be developed alongside Sylvie. I would very much like to avoid a single NPC who is lots more close to the party than everyone else, whether everyone else is a faceless minion or not.

4. Don't care about mechanics, here. That might change if I take particular liking to an NPC?

Battle

1. We really only had three battles so far. No complaints.

2. I have the expectation of winning if I use enlarge self and grapple. This has been met with mixed results even during the times when I could actually cast the spell in battle. Not enough data to say if that'd work for me, and I don't want to rely on it constantly either. Not enough data on whether I'm decent in combat without enlarge self+grapple, either.

3. More interested in how others act outside of battle. Talking > rolling, for me.

Meta

2. I have the feeling that doing more pair/solo stuff is more conductive to meeting more people and getting acquainted to them, thus giving them a chance to develop. But if I desperately wanted this I would've said so of my own initiative.

[Corwin]

I've actually read through the thread this time, rather than the opening questions. My comments:

Janson's behind right now but this past level helped him a bunch, so we'll see. Aaeru's a bit ahead of you guys due to VoP, this will likely taper off later as more magical items become available. Balance looks solid enough so far, though.

Dune, could you please elaborate on this?

I hadn't actually thought about it, but Merc's complaints about Josa are spot on. He really needs to earn his keep better. Noel and Branna are complete non-entities who seem to fall into the same quantum uncertainty state that familiars often do, seeming entirely absent until suddenly one of them pops up in the middle of the scene, which is pretty jarring. I certainly don't like them enough to actually want to see more of them, though.

Seconded. Thirded, really, considering Merc. Incidentally, like Erin, Aaeru indeed has a familiar. It will never show up if I can help it, however.

There is some as Aaeru's situation implies, but not the sort of real GRIMDARK suffering other cities may have

It's weird for me to saying it, considering my character, but Balmuria having ordinary disease going around seriously breaks my suspension of disbelief and my immersion. Aside from the many, many reasons I don't buy it, disease spreads and is nasty and it has to be a major imperative for the authorities to help with it whenever it springs up. Perhaps they can pay the many temples in the city to send their acolyte to cure disease for free to prevent its spread-- well, the spell is actually free of costly material components. I guess the city can pay the clerics so that the clerics feel better about doing this 6 seconds-lasting thing so that their neighbors and the people who they pass on the street don't share the Plague with them?

Sarcasm and all, but this specific part just really doesn't work for me. Why did I jump to disease when my situation was mentioned? Because 2 out of 2 times I had Ilmater time, diseased people were there and we treated them! Without magic!!!

Speaking of. I really liked what you wrote on the people frequenting Ilmater's temple. I'd love to do things with them outside of repetitive caring for faceless, nameless people. I presume I spend much of my time at the temple helping out off screen because doing the same thing again and again is really boring to RP. But hopefully, my 'coworkers' can become more than a face and a writeup?

[Ebiris]

The fact that Balmuria is such a rich and prominent city means it's going to attract people from all over. Not all of those people are going to be honest hard working types. Think of it like LA or Hollywood, all the people from the sticks who go there with dreams of making it in the Big City only to slip through the cracks, or who go there solely to prey on all the glitz and wealth that's put so temptingly on display. It's the latter I'm more interested in - a rich city means a rich criminal underworld.

As for disease, I think there's an important difference between a plague and an illness. The city might pull out all the stops to contain a highly contagious deadly disease, but I can't see it enforcing mandatory cures every time someone comes down with something - it's just not worth it to cure Bob the Ratcatcher of his diarrehea if he's just going to get reinfected tomorrow and it's nothing a bit of bedrest and better hygiene won't cure on its own.

[Corwin]

I don't like being a naysayer, but while I can understand the appeal of interacting with the criminal element, I don't share it myself. It's not something that particularly connects to me, and I expect it to have coarse, rude and untrustworthy people that I doubt I'll like. As an aside, while I can get how crime might still exist, obviously, I think that organized crime (mafia!) or old school banditry just can't work in a city like present day Balmuria. So that leaves, what, pickpockets and the usual minor inconveniences? If we're dead-set on exploring serious criminal elements, I'd prefer to do it in another city where I'd find it more believable. Luckily, Balmuria is a trading hub!

While I purposely referred to the black death to up the sarcasm to eleven, I think you're underestimating the effects, in turn. If you have a disease strong enough and/or contagious enough that you would visit a doctor if you had the cash for it, then it's a disease that I would expect the city and the various clerics to heal. It helps that it's free and only takes 6 seconds of their lives. You are, of course, entirely right that clerics shouldn't bother to cure diarrehea or insomnia or hangovers.

[Anastasia]

2. I have the expectation of winning if I use enlarge self and grapple. This has been met with mixed results even during the times when I could actually cast the spell in battle. Not enough data to say if that'd work for me, and I don't want to rely on it constantly either. Not enough data on whether I'm decent in combat without enlarge self+grapple, either.

Early on it should work fairly well. Later on you'll run into bigger creatures and start having the normal difficulties there. However, bear in mind that most things have a decent check at this stage and a single +4 isn't an auto-winner.

2. I have the feeling that doing more pair/solo stuff is more conductive to meeting more people and getting acquainted to them, thus giving them a chance to develop. But if I desperately wanted this I would've said so of my own initiative.

Deeply exploring characters tends to work best in smaller groups, since you can focus on one or two people. For example, one thing I want to do is have Wayland just spend some time interacting with Noel/Branna one on on-er, two. You're right about it and having it be a useful too for developing people.

Dune, could you please elaborate on this?

Grapple's a good shutdown option and you're competent in melee. You're not head and shoulders above the others right now, but I feel your build is the best one of them right now and VoP helps that since it's strong right now.

While I purposely referred to the black death to up the sarcasm to eleven, I think you're underestimating the effects, in turn. If you have a disease strong enough and/or contagious enough that you would visit a doctor if you had the cash for it, then it's a disease that I would expect the city and the various clerics to heal. It helps that it's free and only takes 6 seconds of their lives. You are, of course, entirely right that clerics shouldn't bother to cure diarrhea or insomnia or hangovers.

Ironic fact time: Dysentery, diarrhea and the like kill millions of people in the third world. If you don't have medical help and lots of clean water these sort of diseases are absolutely killer. You shit yourself to death through dehydration, not a good way to go.

Let's look at Balmuria a moment. Let's say Balmuria has 100,000 people living there right now. It's a nice round number for easy math, so bear with me. Out of them 1% is sick with something or another, so 1,000 people. That's a rough estimation, but it works for me. This ranges the gamut from colds and stomach aches to full on horrible disorders and malaise.  Out of these thousand people, how many can get magically cured? How many spells per day of remove disease are floating around? Not 1,000, let alone that the priests in question are always going to memorize that one spell and cast it the maximum number of times per day. This isn't even counting the normal influx of people visiting, at trade or what have you. They bring in more people, more sicknesses and more germs. Further, while Balmuria is prosperous, it's sanitation still isn't up to modern snuff. Diseases spread easily, especially amid the lower classes.

It's not realistic for disease to be wiped out. Someone who's in bad shape is going to get a cure disease. Someone who can pull out of it on their own isn't. It's hard pragmatism.

It helps that it's free and only takes 6 seconds of their lives.

Oh sure, it's free to cast for the cleric. A cleric of Ilmater or a paladin with cure disease may very well do it for free. Most clerics though?

Remove Disease by a 5th level caster: 150 GP.

Clerics have to pay the bills too. Their temples need money to enact the will of their Gods and donations are standard. The city has a budget too, and paying temples 150 GP per time they cure disease is going to fuck the bottom line faster than Gate can make a bad pun. I mean, I'd love to think that disease can be wiped out with ease, but it's just not realistic. Money, resources and simple reality say otherwise.

Edit: I'll get to the crime/underside branch tonight.

[Corwin]

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Janson's behind right now but this past level helped him a bunch, so we'll see. Aaeru's a bit ahead of you guys due to VoP, this will likely taper off later as more magical items become available. Balance looks solid enough so far, though.

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Dune, could you please elaborate on this?

Grapple's a good shutdown option and you're competent in melee. You're not head and shoulders above the others right now, but I feel your build is the best one of them right now and VoP helps that since it's strong right now.

My VoP at lvl2 gave me:

+4 to AC (Exalted bonus that counts as Armor, so not stacking with MA and the like)
2 Exalted feats (Nymph's Kiss that gives bonuses to cha-based skills and 1 skill point per level, and Initiative of Spirituality, which gives a 1/day 3d6 area blast vs undead and outsiders)

I had to pay with two normal feats for it.

My VoP at lvl3 gave me:

+5 to AC (+1 from previously)
2 Exalted feats (the aforementioned ones)
Endure Elements as an Ex (which is nice!)

I seriously fail to see how this is in any way overwhelming, now or then, but you keep on mentioning my VoP in chat and how it's made me very strong.

[Anastasia]

With the conclusion of this trip it's about time for another round of feedback! Please read and respond! These are cribbed from the first set; I feel they're a good set of questions.

How do you feel the gameworld has been represented so far? The focus is Balmuria and the surrounding areas, how do you feel the flavor of them has been?

What do you think of the surviving NPC cast? Feel free to be as specific or as broad as you wish.

There were a bunch of NPCs along for the Hell trip. Were there too many for your tastes?

How have the battles been lately?

How have you preformed in combat? Concerns about your own performance?

Do you think the others are holding up their end of things? How about your allies? Are they useful? Any suggestions for how they continue to improve?

Any suggestions for how I run the game? Am I doing something particularly good or particularly bad?

More alone/duo time? Less? More group stuff? Less?

Any other comments or feedback that fits nowhere else?

[Merc]

How do you feel the gameworld has been represented so far? The focus is Balmuria and the surrounding areas, how do you feel the flavor of them has been?
Nothing's really changed here, opinion-wise. We haven't really seen all that much new environment-wise that's Balmuria-related (the little split-off solo-sessions and the lunar festival pretty much) since we've been off exploring outside of it (Janson's home, fairy maze, undead temple, jumanji, puzzle dungeon, hell).

Hell felt like hell though, for both good and ill of that!

What do you think of the surviving NPC cast? Feel free to be as specific or as broad as you wish.
My opinions over Sylvie/Simmer haven't really changed.

Josa, while it was very nice to actually see him in action and doing more stuff (given that was one of my earlier complaints), didn't really impress overall. It was little things like the magic missile thing and others that showed he's not exactly a very wise person for all his intelligence, while nice character touches also irked given the situations where he had his blonde moments. Still, he's not the only one that made some dumb/rash decisions, and in the end, he cared enough about two employees to go dive into hell for and spend a small fortune on rescuing. That's respectable.

I really would like to see him doing something cool/impressive though, something that'd make me go "Man, glad he's on our side!" or "And that's our boss for ya! Isn't he cool?", y'know? Like I said, my main gripe is that he just doesn't set out to impress.

There were a bunch of NPCs along for the Hell trip. Were there too many for your tastes?
While team bimbo wouldn't have known about the people limit on Planar Shift, I'm surprised that neither Sylvie nor Josa did and that we'd have too many people if nobody died (or maybe they were just cynical and expected people to die along the way?).

'Coincidently' (or some master plan? Dun dun duuuuuuuun~!), we ended up with the right number after deaths, but that could have been more awkward if even one of the NPCs that died didn't.

The decision to take Simmer along felt weird too given she doesn't have much to do when fire resistance comes up, though thankfully she found a role as the potion gal since I'd probably be dead otherwise, and Dolarin's bow made her less boring than she would otherwise have been in that whole scenario.

Otherwise though, I think we went in with the right idea of taking as many people along as we could to improve our chances. We were going to hell! We needed to take everyone we could that could help!

How have the battles been lately?
Hell was kinda feeling like a long RPG-grind session for exp. It's most interesting in the beginning, and while you're still at it to get to your reward, near the end you care less about the encounters and more just getting to your goal. I was starting to feel like it was dragging, so I appreciated the turn of events with the nightmares and amusement over having to control my character to do something stupid (yeah, I'm kinda masochistic like that. It's probably why Andrea keeps getting into such situations).

Andrea's lips were saying "No! No!" but surely she meant "Yes! Yes!" even as she struggled against Aaeru's embrace!

How have you preformed in combat? Concerns about your own performance?
I'm pretty comfortable/happy with character for now.

Do you think the others are holding up their end of things? How about your allies? Are they useful? Any suggestions for how they continue to improve?
I'll be honest and say I haven't really been looking at Janson's/Wayland's side of things since they got tossed to hell (I kept planning to wait until we got through or I died, so time for some log diving this week). That said, overall I'm comfortable with all of them and trust them to watch my back/not let me die. Not much more to say there.

I do hope to see Simmer do more than just stand there looking because she's got nothing to do when stuff's immune to fire, that's always depressing, so it was nice to see her pick up Dolarin's bow. I hope to see her doing more of that sort of thing, I guess?

And I've already commented on Josa above. I want to see him do something cool/impressive/wizardish!

Any suggestions for how I run the game? Am I doing something particularly good or particularly bad?
I don't really have complaints besides those we've already voiced over chatroom post-sessions, and you've generally taken those comments into consideration already, so don't really have much to add in that regard. I would like to see fewer sub-tables for a while though!

More alone/duo time? Less? More group stuff? Less?
I'd like to get the group together and do more four-of-us stuff again after being split off from each other. But less in the combat/fighting side of things and more of the interaction stuff. I really do like combat scenes, but I'm down for a breather from that after the grindathon that was hell.

[Anastasia]

I'm going to answer these myself to give you guys my thoughts. Please don't reply to my answers until you've replied to these questions yourself.

How do you feel the gameworld has been represented so far? The focus is Balmuria and the surrounding areas, how do you feel the flavor of them has been?

It's been doing okay showing you the city and the world around it, not great. I'd like to get into more flavor of how things work, make it more of a breathing, living world. I think I've gone a little too far in laying off that stuff lately, letting the setting become taken for granted. Admittedly a giant, unplanned Hell trip took the focus off Balmuria entirely for awhile.

What do you think of the surviving NPC cast? Feel free to be as specific or as broad as you wish.

Sylvie's still fun and I've found my voice for her. She didn't have a lot of chance to show that voice during the Hell trip, but she's been good otherwise. She's fun and I enjoy her snarking when she gets going. She's just the right shade of irrelevant while taking things seriously enough.

Noel and Branna were fun, shading them in a little here and a little there. It's a shame they're dead, brave Noel and cowardly Branna...wait. Oops. I mean brave Branna and cowardly Noel!

Brent I was playing as a young paladin full of go get 'em! He went and got it, his very own funeral plot. Sorry Andrea.

Simmer's turned into a light hearted, in it for the fun sort. I'm playing her as growing used to her new sense of wonder, slightly drunk on her new life and all the amazing things she has grown to know.  Having friends to help her integrate into a new life steered her away from a breakdown all alone, I think, and she's damned lucky for it.

Josa's a windbag with subpar judgment at times. This is good, it's exactly what I've wanted for him. I have a blast playing up his too verbose style of speech, using vaguely ridiculous speeches whenever he takes the stage.  He's also your boss and isn't afraid to act like it occasionally. This causes conflict on occasion, with an NPC willing to take the stage and the authority to enforce it.  This has mixed results, more on that below.

There were a bunch of NPCs along for the Hell trip. Were there too many for your tastes?

Yeah. Rubri'Granit suffered for this, as I was focused on the wondertwins before they shuffled off this mortal coil. Sylvie and Brent suffered for this as well, and in general I felt I had too many NPCs on hand to fully focus on other things. I don't mind a person or two with you, but that was over my personal capacity and I felt many aspects of the game were hurt by it.

How have the battles been lately?

This is really a few different questions for me. I'll answer them one at a time.

How is designing monsters for me? Not bad. I've had fun choosing templates and classes to compliment characters, as well as building non LA/racial HD characters like Balyss. It's fun to get creative with it, though I find myself defaulting to fighter when I can't think of anything better. It's become my catch-all for when a particular class or template doesn't jump out. This isn't a bad thing, since fighter has good synergy with most everything in gestalt.  With all those bonus feats I can go in a lot of directions to compliment a monster with fighter bonus feats, and the d10 HD extra hit points.

How is battle? Battle's been okay enough, with a few good fights amid generally average ones. Most battles have been hard, challenging the party to various degrees. There haven't been many truly vicious battles save for the Helltrip, nor have there been many walkovers. That's about where I'm aiming. Enough to where any battle has risk, but not so much that every battle should expect fatalities.  I try and make battles that challenge you in different ways each time, which has been decently successful. Mostly, though I think by now it's obvious that ranged options are a good thing! There's been fliers, archers and general times where getting in close is a bad idea. If I wasn't obvious about that before, consider me now Mr. Blatantly Obvious.

Bad side? I think battle variety has suffered. Lately I've fallen into the habit of running a lot of little fights, but each fight is a bunch of the same creature type. This is easy to run but does tend to make repetitive battles. I think I need to mix each battle up a little more as well as adding some general spice to things. Now granted the last two areas haven't helped. Rubri'Granit's maze was intentionally like this, since it was basically a homage and the source material often does the same thing. Hell is Hell, and groups of the same enemy are par for the course there. Legions of bearded devils, herds of lemures, squads of erinyes, that sorta thing but on a smaller scale. Still, I do think it's been going too far.

How have you preformed in combat? Concerns about your own performance?

Most of the monsters have preformed exactly how I wanted them to. This varies in effectiveness, of course.  To use a few recent ones: The Ash Elementals were dimly intelligent but well trained, focusing on one target at a time for speedy extermination! Meanwhile Dolarin was an above average Bearded Devil(Int 10), who had the good sense to provide support fire and let his minions deal with things. They weren't exceptional, but they worked to their natural capacity. Alternately, the pair of spinagon warlocks weren't so bright(Int 8), following a basic, somewhat flawed plan. They came out and zapped you, using distance to stop melee attacks. It wasn't perfect, and they paid for it, but they preformed where they should have. I'm happy with this.

NPCs have preformed mostly well. Two deserve special note here - Josa and Simmer. Simmer should have been using Deep Slumber more, but I frankly forgot she had it. Whoops. It's easy enough to play off IC, she's so focused on fire that she forgot about what natural magic she has left.  She's made an effort to be useful even in an area where her powers are mostly useless. She's ran around potions, picked up a bow and generally tried to contribute! Considering her mental scores this is exactly what I expected out of her. She's not been perfect, but hey, she's tried.

On the other hand, Josa's smart but not quite so insightful or wise. He made decent prep, selecting decent but not great battle spells. Lightning Bolt is a solid choice since devils don't resist lightning, and magic missile is always good offense. On the other hand, he could have chosen somewhat better. This is okay! He has a crappy wisdom score(Wis 9). Despite him getting some flack OOC over it, I feel he performed to character. Yes, he's smart and he has a good vocabulary. He's also somewhat shortsighted and pompous, not to mention he's never dealt with devils before. Coming in perfectly loaded with Orbs of Force and whatever else isn't realistic.

Do you think the others are holding up their end of things? How about your allies? Are they useful? Any suggestions for how they continue to improve?

Now I'll talk about the PCs.

Janson: Is the damage king right now, though this will taper off fairly soon. It's a competent build and I've said so before, nothing's changed. I do think you need to bite the bullet and get Precise Shot. Yes, it's ego, swallow it and get on with your life. Dip fighter or some shit if you need to, it's not the end of the world.

Wayland: Good at what he does. Psionics have given him a few tricks, though hopefully they'll give him a ranged option soon. (Will it? I dunno offhand, feel free to chime in here Yuth.) I'm surprised I didn't see any stunning fists from him(Or anyone here, really, but that's another story) lately, but oh well. Hard to say for sure since I've never dealt with psionics before.

Andrea: Solid and competent. Charging Smite is nice, though it's just started to see use. I think you need to invest in some defense: full plate by itself doesn't keep up well much longer.  Also you have Mirror Image, use it! It could've saved you pain vs that lion or in a few other battles. The only thing scarier than a charging smite paladin coming for you is a charging smite paladin with Mirror Image up coming for you.

Aaeru: Pretty good when the dice cooperate. Has a fair few options and the Spirituality feat chain has proven useful.  Between that, flurry, grapple and magic you have a fair few choices. More than you like to present, though you almost always do that and always want more Cool Things. More on this later.

Any suggestions for how I run the game? Am I doing something particularly good or particularly bad?

I've touched on various ways above, so this one's redundant for me. Can I think of anything isolated.....mmm, not offhand. I probably will later, but oh well.

More alone/duo time? Less? More group stuff? Less?

After all this, some solo time for everyone feels overdue. I'd like to explore the after effects of this ordeal with all of you, there's a lot that can be said. It's been a bitch of a trip that's left no one unscathed.

Any other comments or feedback that fits nowhere else?

I'm gonna use this for meta-feedback.

Yuth: Could you try saying a little more with Wayland? It's getting to the point where he's somewhat opaque, I'd like chances to explore him more. How has the loss of his hirelings affected him? What about everything that's happened in the last few months? What about his feelings on Ilmater? I think you've slid a little too far into the quiet/stoic type simply by lack of lines versus everyone else.

Cor: First of all, you know how I talked about Josa and his spell selection being sub-optimal up there? People aren't always perfect and  don't always make perfect choices. Expecting everyone to make what you feel are the optimal choices is nothing but a big old fallacy. You have a really bad habit of doing that and deriding anything that doesn't fit your OOC views there. I don't find you going on about how lame or stupid someone's choices are to be useful feedback at all. It doesn't mean you're wrong about the point. Of course Josa could have chosen better spells; I'm not arguing that. It's the way you're going about it and your expectations. People aren't perfect, nor do they always make flawless choices. Even high intellect and wisdom doesn't make someone immune to mistakes or simple bad luck. Even geniuses screw the pooch sometimes, let alone the rest of us.

Edit: Yeah, I'm aware that last paragraph comes across as adversarial. I'll be honest, you annoyed me with that and I'd been letting it simmer since then.