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[Anastasia]

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).

Agreed. I'd like to study the city more, I've gotten in the habit of filling in the world outside of Balmuria lately.

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

Yay! I worried it wasn't quite Lawful Evil enough, I wanted more signs of rigid order, but the outcast nature of things dampened that. Still, even in the wastes you saw signs of it. Packs of half dragon hellhounds, a supreme king of the hell gargoyles, Dolarin's group acting as a military unit and so on.

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.

Josa hasn't seen much combat yet. He's your boss and he's over levelled, so that's on purpose thus far. I'm okay with how he performed, but I don't disagree with your sentiment at all. If he did anything like that, he did it by putting much of his material wealth out on a long shot to save his employees. That's pretty damn stand up, as you said. His PrC should help with that concern, which I was waiting on anyway.

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?).

Sylvie has no ranks in K:A, just a high int score, Jack of All Trades and inspiration points. I feel it's reasonable enough that she didn't know in light of that, though it's close. Josa? On one hand it's magic above his normal grasp, on the other I simply made a math mistake behind the scenes. <_< So IC I'm writing it off to a good faith mistake on Josa's part if it comes up, though it's not really his fault.

'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.

Yes, yes it could have. I didn't have that in mind with Croger's comments to Aaeru, though it certainly would've been thematically fitting. Aaeru martyring herself to allow the others to escape would've been an awesome send off to her. Not that I want her to die, but you know what I mean.

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!

Agreed with Simmer and already discussed that above. Agreed with the last as well. Josa's basic logic was more people=better odds.

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!

Yeah, Hell dragged near the end. I had blown my wad with encounters for awhile and the last few days were a little lighter on you than I planned. It was also because I was trying to come up with a good climax, but I kept coming up blank. I'm not thrilled with this ending either; I said something in #elysium that's relevant:

> I'll freely admit I couldn't think of a climax to it the way it ended up. If I'd planned this all out from the start I could've, but my hand was pretty weak here. I did try and spin it a bit as Hell mocking the effort and trying to enforce a meaninglessness on your heroics, which I feel is appropriate enough.

I don't think this is strictly bullshit, but at the same time, it's a small patch on the problem of having no dramatic resolution. You know when you make an argument and it's not incorrect, but it doesn't really satisfy the problem either? It's sorta like that.

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?

Simmer's going to pick up Searing Spell with her level 5 sorcerer bonus feat, which will help alleviate this problem. For now stuff like holy water and arrows helps fill in the gaps. The plight of a mono elemental caster is a terrible one.

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!

Noted! <_<

[Corwin]

-Surviving NPC cast

Nothing's really changed re: Sylvie, I feel. Josa has both earned my loyalty and lost my faith in his competence, which should be interesting enough in the longer run. Simmer... kinda feels off. Unlike with others, I don't really feel she has her own voice, but is more a vessel for you to speak, if that makes sense. Doesn't really matter to me either way. Kinda hoped to chat with Rubri but I suppose it wasn't in the cards.

-Too many NPCs?

On the one hand, I wouldn't have taken Brent. I wasn't around when Merc had that scene, and I didn't really see the use of another person along. That's really why I was trying to ask anyone (Josa, Sylvie, Croger) for help and information, but wasn't recruiting anyone. I also seriously wondered, even with Bimbo IQ (tm), just what the hell Simmer was doing there. On the other hand, I can't really say it was too many NPCs for my tastes or anything.

-Battles

Repetition isn't particularly fun. When you can call your recent combats 'grinding' you're probably straying off the path. Encounters can also be filled with delicious interaction, so defaulting to combat can disappoint. And that whole mindset of 'don't stab first, ask questions later' gets eroded when everything really is trying to openly kill you. I know, Hell, etc. I kinda hoped Hell would have some denizens who are smarter than that? What else... fighting enemies represented by a letter and a number isn't particularly fun. I realize why it happens, but I can't help but try to get past it quickly when it happens often and repeatedly. There was genuine confusion on my part since Josa killed S1 but S1 was in init after S2 and really, they didn't even speak or have anything to separate them from one another.

On a personal level, I just don't feel heroic fighting weak creatures or fauna/flora. It's quite possible I don't like the lower levels combat options, although I didn't feel any particular shame about fighting a human even earlier on. Maybe it's the perception of monsters at our CR that just prevents me from acknowledging them as worthy opponents, while people are a whole different threat.

-Performance in battle and concerns

My concern is that I'm currently lacking in one true panic button option. Fire and Critical Strike are situational, and Holy Power is highly situational. My grapple is only good if I set it up with magic, do remember, and if we get ambushed I would very rarely spend a round of combat on that sort of prep. That goes into my assessment of the options before me, and so it bothers me. Spells-wise, I haven't really hit into the good alternatives just yet. I have combat support and utility spells, but not anything remotely like a reliable alternate option (I don't even have MM!). Yes, Glitterdust. Yes, it never worked for me when I used it.

If I've been pushing you with questions on whether we level, it's because the next three levels are _really good_ for me. I will get arcane strike which lets me transcend my issue with not bypassing special DR (which I likely never will), I will get some new spells to broaden my options, and I might raise my AC with a feat (my AC otherwise giving me a lot of concern).

I don't mean to imply I'm weak. I'm just saying that right now, I basically hope one of my situational options applies, since without them I have a basic flurry that doesn't really bypass dr or does enough damage to make it count. The fight with the valkyrie really showed me what my limits are, and that issue hasn't been fixed yet. It puts a sort of pressure on me, a worry that the next fight I'll be totally useless where it counts. Take Seira's frustration at always coming across enemies you can't SA, multiply by a dozen.

-Allies

Janson and Andrea seem solid? Wayland doesn't really speak or use his combat options, which feels a bit weird to me.

-Suggestions

I often say it, but that's because it's true? Interactions are golden. I like them! I think everyone likes them. We could get to the point where we have too much of them, but I don't think we're there yet. It can spice up an encounter, it can give us new friends or recurring enemies or even nice combat banter. It can let us define ourselves better, or explore parts of ourselves. Naturally, even outside of combat, I'd like to have more of them. And naturally, with people who aren't forgettable, since the idea is to have fun!

[Corwin]

Commenting on Merc's post and Dune's responses to it~

-Hell did feel like Hell. To me, the good and the bad divided between character and player. Aaeru certainly feels good with herself over how she measured up and due to the success of their rescue mission (heroic sacrifices midway through and losing material possessions don't particularly clash with her point of view). I started feeling bad somewhere through it as random encounters kept on showing me time and again just how insignificant we are. It's easy enough to ignore normally, but not when you're confronted with it all the time, and it doesn't feel very heroic.

-Agreement on Josa. I'll just add that what actually bothered me out of Josa's quirks rather than making me roll my eyes is the way he kept on thrusting us into cutscenes. Combined with the grinding, it felt too much like a different sort of game. This isn't actually a complaint about 'We're PCs! We're the ones who should do things, not NPCs!'. I'm totally cool with letting our boss handle things. It was more that we were left standing there to cheerlead for him, and not RPing things can be kinda boring? If we could just talk amongst ourselves and 'contribute' to the scene that way while Josa handles the negotiations, it would've been cool, but he was shooting that down and the other NPCs weren't really biting on that.

-Plane Shift and the other key Hell-related knowledge. This part bothered me a lot. It's one thing if Josa just knows enough about the spell to tell that it crosses planes, but not about the limit (although it would be ironic and kinda funny since he railed at Janson for not knowing how Sending works). It's even okay that he had a suboptimal spell choice. My complaint about his sucky spells was born of frustration as he was consistently striking out and the rest of us were dropping, one every other round. It wasn't really serious. I could see how he goes to Stronger's shop or a temple and asks for some scrolls to help mount a rescue to Hell, and the topic of getting the right sort of spells in prep would come up, but it's not like it HAD to happen this way. I would like to separate this from criticism of things that really shouldn't have happened, idealism or blondeness or what. A bag of holding stuffed with food and drink, but only two healing potions? And those only by Simmer? It felt more like artificially making things harder for us rather than any poor IC decision. Or how about explicitely holding a discussion with Josa and Sylvie (with Andrea and Simmer present), and then with Croger? We learned what hurts devils and what doesn't. But in the end, no one actually took anything to bypass DR? Sure, last moment prep and all, but I recall Wayland grabbing silver gloves to deal with the werewolf situation without any particular issue or too great an expense, and Andrea borrowed a silver sword at the time. Due to this precedent existing, I just felt cheated that I tried to set up prep that was for the benefit of those who can use material objects, but it was largely ignored, even by the very people who lectured me on what one should bring over. The whole uniqueness of our party was that we were going on a rescue mission as opposed to being tossed into Hell without any prep, but scroll of Plane Shift aside and the food/water, it fell slightly short on that front. Like, why is Simmer going? She wants to be with us and can take the fireballs from the sky? That's cool, I get it... why not borrow Andrea's silver sword so you can do something? She only ever got the bow by accident, due to me telling her to grab it OOC to _do something_. If she hadn't done that, she probably would've spent the entire trip just standing there, her potions spent the very first battle.

To summarize, there were many different, small complaints, as one might expect. Some were just blowing off steam or wishful thinking. But I felt that there were also serious ones, and it's a bit disappointing to have them all clumped together and then summarily dismissed as nonoptimal choices. How about Croger? I discussed our plan with him. He knew exactly what we were doing and how. He's a cleric so he should have decent wis (since you used wis9 to point out Josa's bad choices). It never occured to him that we would be over the spell's limit? From chatting to you, I understood that he actually had Plane Shift so it's not even over his level. Planning is fun because it gives more options than the default "Charge~!", but only if you feel like it's getting used.

[Ebiris]

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?

Balmuria I think could use a little more atmosphere. We generally just traipse between Whimsical Sweets, various taverns, and various temples, but there's not so much indication of the flavour of the neighbourhoods around where we're going or on the way.

Also, Balmuria feels kinda sanitised and safe. I've mentioned this before, but between the mythal and the hordes of highly skilled guards and the general good mindset of the people, it just feels a bit whitewashed. This is a valid feel for a city, but I'd prefer an environment with more shadows and dirt, y'know?

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

Josa gets much props for going to Hell on our behalf rather than staying behind where it's safe, it counts for a lot and I'll forgive his pomposity and poor negotiating skills for it (speaking of? When Josa said he'd handle negotiations with the gargoyles, someone really should have remembered all those jobs he's sent us on for 25gp between us.

Even though Janson and Sylvie are ostensibly dating, I haven't seen much from her lately, and I'm pretty bummed that the Hell ending robbed any joy from a reunion I'd thought would be quite passionate.

I do like that our friendly NPCs are pretty flawed people - Josa's a windbag, Sylvie's greedy and manipulative, Silver's mean and vicious. It highlights their loyalty and friendship all the more, and makes them more realistic as people.

Simmer's single-minded focus on all fire all the time is getting a bit tiresome. She really needs a hobby or something to broaden her horizons. She's still fun to interact with and play off her naivete and pyromania - it would be nice to see a bit more fish out of water (for all she'd loathe the term) situations with her, given her sum total life experience for who knows how many decades is hanging out by one tree.

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

I wasn't playing in the rescue team, but I felt having NPCs outnumber PCs two to one was a bit excessive there. I was kinda glad Noel and Branna died on our end.

How have the battles been lately?

Hell was very brutal, but our wins there were satisfying for it. The puzzle dungeon was kinda lukewarm - I most remember the eye monster getting played up as a super deadly threat to melee with in PM, but then everyone charged it and kicked its ass without any injury, which kinda took away from that. Smaller numbers of more distinct and potent enemies is better than hordes of faceless mooks, but both do have their place, and the mook hordes work well for people with area attacks so we shouldn't dispense with them completely.

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

Kinda meh. Spiderclimb and eldritch blasts mean pretty good survivability against most non-flying foes unless we're fighting on vast empty plains (don't do that by the way, interactive environments make for far more interesting battles), but even with touch attacks and even before the -4 shooting into melee penalty, I've still got pretty shit odds of actually hitting anything, and none of my other invocations are any use in combat.

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 very happy when Aaeru finds something to do other than grappling, since it makes fights tremendously boring for me. Wayland could do with using stunning fist more, I dunno about his other psychic powers if they're much help. Andrea not using mirror image once in hell is criminal.

Simmer really ought to get a ranged or finesseable weapon. Sylvie should get some nunchuks or something, if only because having three dudes running around flurrying punches is godawfully boring.

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

I dunno how much the d100s are true random encounters and how much is you just making us worry before running whatever you had prepped regardless, but more detailed scripted encounters would be better than having a random chance of a dozen random enemies tossed at us on an open field.

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

The balance right now is fine, it's easier to do character-driven stuff on the side alone/with one or two PCs rather than in a normal session because focusing on one PC when the others are all there as well is kinda meh for all concerned, but that stuff's always going to be seasoning compared to the meat of getting everyone together and driving adventures forward.

[Anastasia]

Nothing's really changed re: Sylvie, I feel. Josa has both earned my loyalty and lost my faith in his competence, which should be interesting enough in the longer run. Simmer... kinda feels off. Unlike with others, I don't really feel she has her own voice, but is more a vessel for you to speak, if that makes sense. Doesn't really matter to me either way. Kinda hoped to chat with Rubri but I suppose it wasn't in the cards.

Simmer's voice is basically light and irrelevant lately, if that helps you at all. As for Rubri'Granit, if you want to talk to him we can fit that in soon.

Repetition isn't particularly fun. When you can call your recent combats 'grinding' you're probably straying off the path.

To be fair, I don't think the combats were precisely a grind. I think the overall situation was, with being in Hell. It's a fine distinction but one that needs to be made. I liked the large majority of the Hell combats overall.

Encounters can also be filled with delicious interaction, so defaulting to combat can disappoint. And that whole mindset of 'don't stab first, ask questions later' gets eroded when everything really is trying to openly kill you. I know, Hell, etc. I kinda hoped Hell would have some denizens who are smarter than that?

To the underlying point, agreed. Interactions are good. Nothing but homicidal nuts isn't very good, you know?

To this particular surface point? Amazingly, creature are intelligent even when they don't play to your presumptions! It's Hell in a place full of desperate outcasts. Of course it's going to be fucking violent. Even then, Dolarin and the gargoyles both attempted to parley first. The former didn't work out since Josa's dice sucked and the latter extorted you. Considering that the gargolyes got money for nothing, I'd say they're plenty smart. Really, I take issue with this entire statement since it's flat out wrong.

On a personal level, I just don't feel heroic fighting weak creatures or fauna/flora. It's quite possible I don't like the lower levels combat options, although I didn't feel any particular shame about fighting a human even earlier on. Maybe it's the perception of monsters at our CR that just prevents me from acknowledging them as worthy opponents, while people are a whole different threat.

I think it's a complex medley of reasons for you. This isn't strictly a Balmuria obervation as much as a personal observation, so don't entirely correlate this to Aaeru.  I think that you always want more options and more things to try. Casters suit you for this, as do higher levels since you have more options then. Second of all, hard, gritty battles don't suit your tastes. I usually peg you as wanting foes who can compete, but aren't really at the PC's power level. To take a really bad analogy, you want a SSJ Vegeta enemy to a SSJ2 Goku PC. On the flip side, I'm unafraid to give you bad guys that are stronger than you, to give you harder battles and force you to rise to the occasion. Third of all, I think there's a certain otherness to monsters. To take something you said, a mosquito with 20 class levels is still just a mosquito. They're still never going to be on the level of a proper opponent as far as you're concerned. To you, fighting goblins, bears and all that just isn't interesting compared to more exotic fare.

No, I don't really have a conclusion to draw from that, just sayin'.

My concern is that I'm currently lacking in one true panic button option. Fire and Critical Strike are situational, and Holy Power is highly situational. My grapple is only good if I set it up with magic, do remember, and if we get ambushed I would very rarely spend a round of combat on that sort of prep. That goes into my assessment of the options before me, and so it bothers me. Spells-wise, I haven't really hit into the good alternatives just yet. I have combat support and utility spells, but not anything remotely like a reliable alternate option (I don't even have MM!). Yes, Glitterdust. Yes, it never worked for me when I used it.

You're a sorcerer. It'll work itself out, trust me. Okay, that's a shitty and glib answer, but it's true. Remember how Alicia's magic started crummy and got better as the game went on? It's the same paradigm at work, you'll get more options as you go on.

If I've been pushing you with questions on whether we level, it's because the next three levels are _really good_ for me. I will get arcane strike which lets me transcend my issue with not bypassing special DR (which I likely never will), I will get some new spells to broaden my options, and I might raise my AC with a feat (my AC otherwise giving me a lot of concern).

Nah, it's fine to ask if you're leveling up. I said it in chat last night and I'll repeat it here: You guys are leveling up soon. Not quite yet but soon, so get your ducks in a row for that ahead of time.

[Anastasia]

-Hell did feel like Hell. To me, the good and the bad divided between character and player. Aaeru certainly feels good with herself over how she measured up and due to the success of their rescue mission (heroic sacrifices midway through and losing material possessions don't particularly clash with her point of view). I started feeling bad somewhere through it as random encounters kept on showing me time and again just how insignificant we are. It's easy enough to ignore normally, but not when you're confronted with it all the time, and it doesn't feel very heroic.

OOCwise I'm okay with this. You know how Fascism wants you to feel tiny and insignificant compared to the state? Hell has the exact same philosophy. You're not a hero, you're a fool who scraped by through pure luck against the true majesty of Baator. A certain player intimidation is part of being in Hell. If you fuck up and the full weight of Baator comes down on you, you're beyond fucked. Does this make it better? Eh. That one's open to a loooot of interpretation.

-Plane Shift and the other key Hell-related knowledge. This part bothered me a lot. It's one thing if Josa just knows enough about the spell to tell that it crosses planes, but not about the limit (although it would be ironic and kinda funny since he railed at Janson for not knowing how Sending works).

Yes, I'm fully aware of the irony of what Josa did there. That was on purpose. <_< Anyway!

It's even okay that he had a suboptimal spell choice. My complaint about his sucky spells was born of frustration as he was consistently striking out and the rest of us were dropping, one every other round. It wasn't really serious. I could see how he goes to Stronger's shop or a temple and asks for some scrolls to help mount a rescue to Hell, and the topic of getting the right sort of spells in prep would come up, but it's not like it HAD to happen this way. I would like to separate this from criticism of things that really shouldn't have happened, idealism or blondeness or what. A bag of holding stuffed with food and drink, but only two healing potions? And those only by Simmer? It felt more like artificially making things harder for us rather than any poor IC decision.

Those healing potions were what he had in stock when this happened. He didn't have time to brew up any more before you went off into Hell, nor did he have the funds to purchase extra standard potions. Before now you guys had minimal need for healing and weren't even cleaning out the supply closet. He had no reason to make a big reserve of Healing Nectars.

Or how about explicitely holding a discussion with Josa and Sylvie (with Andrea and Simmer present), and then with Croger? We learned what hurts devils and what doesn't. But in the end, no one actually took anything to bypass DR? Sure, last moment prep and all, but I recall Wayland grabbing silver gloves to deal with the werewolf situation without any particular issue or too great an expense, and Andrea borrowed a silver sword at the time. Due to this precedent existing, I just felt cheated that I tried to set up prep that was for the benefit of those who can use material objects, but it was largely ignored, even by the very people who lectured me on what one should bring over.

The only one who really needed to get DR bypassing was Sylvie. She couldn't afford anything good, so that left silver. She could have gotten gloves, I suppose.

The whole uniqueness of our party was that we were going on a rescue mission as opposed to being tossed into Hell without any prep, but scroll of Plane Shift aside and the food/water, it fell slightly short on that front. Like, why is Simmer going? She wants to be with us and can take the fireballs from the sky? That's cool, I get it... why not borrow Andrea's silver sword so you can do something? She only ever got the bow by accident, due to me telling her to grab it OOC to _do something_. If she hadn't done that, she probably would've spent the entire trip just standing there, her potions spent the very first battle.

As I said before, her idea was to find ways to be useful once there. She used her magic, that bow, carried potions and brought along holy water. Like hell if she was going into melee with 19 HP, though.

To summarize, there were many different, small complaints, as one might expect. Some were just blowing off steam or wishful thinking. But I felt that there were also serious ones, and it's a bit disappointing to have them all clumped together and then summarily dismissed as nonoptimal choices. How about Croger? I discussed our plan with him. He knew exactly what we were doing and how. He's a cleric so he should have decent wis (since you used wis9 to point out Josa's bad choices). It never occured to him that we would be over the spell's limit? From chatting to you, I understood that he actually had Plane Shift so it's not even over his level. Planning is fun because it gives more options than the default "Charge~!", but only if you feel like it's getting used.

NPCs aren't there to shore up every possible mistake, nor did it happen to cross Croger's mind that you'd be coming back with too many people. So no, it didn't occur to him.

[Anastasia]

Balmuria I think could use a little more atmosphere. We generally just traipse between Whimsical Sweets, various taverns, and various temples, but there's not so much indication of the flavour of the neighbourhoods around where we're going or on the way.

Agreed.

Josa gets much props for going to Hell on our behalf rather than staying behind where it's safe, it counts for a lot and I'll forgive his pomposity and poor negotiating skills for it (speaking of? When Josa said he'd handle negotiations with the gargoyles, someone really should have remembered all those jobs he's sent us on for 25gp between us.

Yes, yes someone should have. Amusingly he was about right - the figure I had for a successful bribe was 1200 GP and up. This doesn't exonerate him, just sayin'.

Even though Janson and Sylvie are ostensibly dating, I haven't seen much from her lately, and I'm pretty bummed that the Hell ending robbed any joy from a reunion I'd thought would be quite passionate.

Yeah, she's been pretty quiet this entire trip. That'll change soon, I've just had too much going on to play her snarkiness.

I do like that our friendly NPCs are pretty flawed people - Josa's a windbag, Sylvie's greedy and manipulative, Silver's mean and vicious. It highlights their loyalty and friendship all the more, and makes them more realistic as people.

Yes, that's what I'm aiming for.

Simmer's single-minded focus on all fire all the time is getting a bit tiresome. She really needs a hobby or something to broaden her horizons. She's still fun to interact with and play off her naivete and pyromania - it would be nice to see a bit more fish out of water (for all she'd loathe the term) situations with her, given her sum total life experience for who knows how many decades is hanging out by one tree.

Fair enough, I'll consider it.

Hell was very brutal, but our wins there were satisfying for it. The puzzle dungeon was kinda lukewarm - I most remember the eye monster getting played up as a super deadly threat to melee with in PM, but then everyone charged it and kicked its ass without any injury, which kinda took away from that. Smaller numbers of more distinct and potent enemies is better than hordes of faceless mooks, but both do have their place, and the mook hordes work well for people with area attacks so we shouldn't dispense with them completely.

With how this party has various means of debilitation I find single big enemies to be a risk at best. Stunning Fist, Grapple, Glitterdust...and I get bitched at if they're immune or better than the PCs at it. So it's always juggling this and that and trying to make various fights stand out.

I'll be very happy when Aaeru finds something to do other than grappling, since it makes fights tremendously boring for me. Wayland could do with using stunning fist more, I dunno about his other psychic powers if they're much help. Andrea not using mirror image once in hell is criminal.

Agreed with Andrea and already discussed. Wayland I agree with, though his psi stuff right now is mostly boosters.

Simmer really ought to get a ranged or finesseable weapon. Sylvie should get some nunchuks or something, if only because having three dudes running around flurrying punches is godawfully boring.

That's a thought on the weapons for both of them.

I dunno how much the d100s are true random encounters and how much is you just making us worry before running whatever you had prepped regardless, but more detailed scripted encounters would be better than having a random chance of a dozen random enemies tossed at us on an open field.

Some of column A, some of column B.

My prep was always frantic behind the scenes for this, since there was so much of it. Dolarin was scripted for example, while the glaive guy wasn't.

[Corwin]

-Could be fun to talk to a hardcore dwarf.

-You took issues with my claim, but you eliminated important context while doing so. I think you got offended because you read it wrong. If you glance at the sentence preceding it, I'm talking about everything openly wanting to kill you. It's somewhat jarring, since coming from Prime, we would have all these ideas about devils working behind the scenes and tempting people and all that. It's what religious sermons would warn against, too, more than the direct 'devils are scary in battle and will try to kill you'. So it really surprised me that devils had far better PR on Prime than they deserve. I think the saying about catching more flies with honey than vinegar often gets the point across, and while I can see how it wouldn't be for everybody, it really surprised me that it was for nobody that we came across (I can only talk about personal experiences, not about what the other group saw). Even the ones who talked first were clearly and unashamedly threatening us with imminent violence from the start, which naturally put us against them, and I was just saddened that it was all the types we came across.

-On combat, I think you oversimplified it. I don't really want to get too deeply into this, so I'll just offer this one correction. It's not just the exotic. I can also see 'pc races' as worthy adversaries. You know, I can envision an elf growing up all cool and unique and being powerful enough to be a worthy opponent. And while D&D would allow a housecat to take on a bunch of fighter levels to be the same mechanical threat level, I just can't consider it a worthy opponent. Coming back around to the exotic, if it's some awakened housecat, now we're talking again!

-I know it'll work out eventually since I'm a mage. I'm not particularly troubled over my build. I was talking about not having good options right now, in this given moment in time. I worry over having situational stuff, and in fact all of my cool stuff is that way. My magic is subpar right now, with only a single lvl2 spell that never works (I actually took it to round out Janson's see invis so that we could work together and negate the advantage of any invisible enemies, since I expected you to run enemies with high saves; which you consistently do, even if you try not to). I don't need to think back to Alicia, Seira's own magic started out fairly shaky.

-The obligatory response here would be to ask if you would enjoy playing two weeks of Fascism: the D&D.  >_>  In all seriousness, it's a complex issue, since on the one hand it feels authentic and I can't fault that, but on the other that very authenticity eventually becomes a drain on player enjoyment, yeah?

-I have to disagree on prep once more, where it comes to bypassing DR. I don't know what Josa or Brent used, but Andrea's feather clearly didn't bypass devil dr, Sylvie you mentioned yourself, and Simmer should have started out with a crappy non-masterwork bow to begin with.  >_>  There was no real reason to wait to see what one can do until already in Hell.

[Yuthirin]

Guess I should get my lazy ass on this.

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?

Personally, I'm waiting for a proper city chase scene. (One where you can hear the Wockitcha-Wockitcha 70's style chase music in your head) But that's just me. :)

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

I hate Silver less on a weekly basis. Simmer is amusing. Josa's segues into flowery speech are Kuno-esque, but not annoying.

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

Nope, it was suitably hellish, with just the right amount of death-induced terror.

How have the battles been lately?

Delicious.

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

Hatbot seems to have a thing for me. Not a good thing, either.

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?

My allies are more than adequate. Enjoyable, even. Our diversity is what makes us great.

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

Nope, yer good.

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

I'm always up for anything. I'm always having fun.

Any other comments or feedback that fits nowhere else?

Nothing here.

[Anastasia]

Personally, I'm waiting for a proper city chase scene. (One where you can hear the Wockitcha-Wockitcha 70's style chase music in your head) But that's just me. :)

I've actually had this as a possibility in my notes once or twice, but it's never come to bear. It's a shame, since with all the monks and boosted movement speed types in the party, you guys would dominate chases.

Hatbot seems to have a thing for me. Not a good thing, either.

You and Andrea both lately. Catching a 30something critical hit arrow to the chest is not cool, nor is blowing an easy reflex save on shocker lizard terror.

[Ebiris]

Our diversity is what makes us great.

2 Monks
2 Paladins
2 Human Paragons

Diverse is not a word I'd use for this party.

[Corwin]

Called dibs on paladin and human paragon first! Honest, check #e logs!

[Anastasia]

Our diversity is what makes us great.

2 Monks
2 Paladins
2 Human Paragons

Diverse is not a word I'd use for this party.

To be fair, the party members work differently despite class overlap...except for a lot of kung fu fighting. Andrea sings and smites, Aaeru pins and prestidigates, Janson skirmishes and shoots, and Wayland punches and psionics. With gestalt some class overlap is inevitable, and it doesn't help that Sylvie's gimmick is to copy you guys.

[Corwin]

Merc is a filthy copycat! Down with Merc!

(Balmuria 1 had two paladins and two arcane casters. Anyway, I really think it's more how you use what you have than what the mechanical build is. It's also why I don't care one bit if Sylvie punches or kicks or uses nunchaku, it's all the same and depends on desc)

[Merc]

Yuth is more of a copycat than me! Monks have more overlap than paladins! =p

And I was planning to do paragon from the start, even had it in my sheet notes. =p