Feedback

[Anastasia]

Feedback time. I'm aware it is a little bit early for this, but I feel we're getting a good rhythm down. Please answer the questions with honesty. If at all possible, have these done by Monday night so I'm not clubbing people into this around gametime Tuesday.

1. How do you feel your character has turned out the past level from a mechanical standpoint? Do you feel you're pulling your load? Why or why not? If not, what do you think you can do to improve?
2. Likewise, how do you feel your character has turned out from an RP standpoint? Do you feel that your character is working? Why or why not? If not, what do you think you can do to improve?
3. How do you get along with the other players? Good points, bad points, hangups, irritations, praise?
4. Where do you see your character going? How do you see that enabling them to get where you want them to go, both mechanically and RP-wise? Do you feel you can reach this as it stands now?
5. What adventures and situations have you enjoyed so far? What ones have you not? Why?
6. What could I do to get more of the good and less of the bad? Why?
7. What could other players do to get less of the bad and more of the good? Why?
8. What could you do to get more good and less bad? Why?
9. How's the tone of the game? Too dark? Too light?
10. How has my DMing been? Good? Bad? Consistent? Inconsistent? Why? Give examples if possible.
11. How do you feel I've handled everything, both IC and OOC-wise? Have I been pushing for gaming too hard? Not enough? Has there been any friction you'd like to air out?
12. Is there anything you'd like me to stop doing as a DM?
13. How have my rulings been? Are they reasonable and fair? Do you feel I'm staying reasonably impartial?
14. How has my encounter design been? Are the fights doing it for you?
15. How's my dungeon/area design been? Tips for improvement?
16. How are my various NPCs doing? Are they entertaining you? Are they pulling weight without hogging the screen?
17. Anything else you'd like to add?

Yes, I recycled these from an old Balmuria 1 feedback topic. They're good questions so why not? Don't hurt me. Uguu.

[Corwin]

1) My AC is shit despite having decent full plate armor, but I have faith in it working out eventually. I think I have the means to handle most of anything, although it would be nice to round myself out a bit more from a mechanical perspective. Get an AC or stat-boosting item or the armor-swapping gauntlet, that sort of thing.

2) I have fun with playing Jaela and I don't think anyone hates her personality? If so, I'd call it a success.

4) Mechanically... in the short term, I'd need a few items to compensate for a few of my weak spots. In the longer term, I'll strive to become the sort of mage Raquel is! But that's well into epic. RP-wise, since a vampire is seducing me I'd probably need to make a stop at Arvandor sooner or later?

5) I noticed that how fights end or how situations resolve often affects my enjoyment of the whole thing. If a fight ends while I'm expecting more of a challenge and was casting Heal or some buff like Heroism/Righteous Might and the like, it sours things. Enjoyment-wise, that's easy! Anything with either a focus on you or that allows you to shine, of course. It hardly even needs to come at the expense of others as long as everyone gets a chance to be important and show off their specialty.

6) Related to 5, I don't have a clear answer, but maybe there could be a clearer indication of danger/remaining enemy fighting capacity/that sort of thing? If our characters are these hardcore fighters they'd probably be able to estimate, and then I won't feel like a n00b that runs away from victory.

8) Time-wise, I could expand my cheatsheet collection to account for various stuff (like my nonstandard weapons, since I do carry them), but I think I'm decent enough by now to actually do the prep quickly while I'm waiting for my turn.

9) It hasn't really gone long enough for me to make that call, honestly.

11) Let's game more!

12) The nicks during gaming time, if you can. It just bothers me by breaking through any created mood. I can't be serious about a situation when a GM is Ko-LaggyUGUUHarder.

14) I think I talked to you recently about what would make fights better for me. Along with what I posted here, it should be all?

16) Largely yes! It would be perfect if they didn't air their fetishes with every other line ('Hit me!', 'Men have cooties!', etc). I think it would make them more sympathetic, instead of making me wince whenever Adrian and Elrisa bicker over which gender is better.

17) Number 11.

[Ebiris]

1: Pretty well. I was worried about my low hp, but having god-tier defences has made that a non-issue. My spellcasting is mostly irrelevant, and my damage - while poor compared to everyone else's full attacks - is sufficiently respectable, especially since I don't need to worry about positioning for a full attack. Plus everyone's extra hasted attacks basically comes from me anyway!

2: Afina's a little bit inconsistent but that's by design. She's a placid and quiet fairy who happens to have developed a vicious streak a mile wide. For the most part she puts across the image I'm looking for, with the proviso that I give her  more lines than her quiet nature should allow for simply so I'm contributing and pushing things forward.

3: I don't like to criticise, and there's certainly nothing personal in this, but here goes. Ithea is often fairly quiet during sessions - thankfully it's not in the same league as Glenn was in Glaring Fate, but it's noticable compared to the other three. There's a certain apathetic 'I'll do whatever' vibe and I think Merc could stand to push forward more of an agenda from his character.

4: She's a superfast fairy that kills dudes. She will get faster and kill more dudes. More seriously I want to have her open up more and get invested in training our forces/building awesome weapons for them - she's solid at the front line, but I hope her potential at the logistics end will prove useful for our crusade. Finding more fey - whether generic or Gloaming Wood survivors is also cool (Elrisa and her buddies don't really count since they're elves with fey traits).

5: My favourite moment in the whole game was butchering a bunch of devils in a bar. Most of our adventures since then have been tangential to our overall goal - overcoming trials and tests to get stuff that we can use later on for actually killing devils. Don't get me wrong, it's been fun, but I want to fight dudes I can hate. Although I guess I hate Elysium for ganking my fey powers? Need to find a way to fix that...

6: Honestly, just keep doing what you're doing. You've been at this DMing business long enough to have a good handle on it.

7: Well, I guess you ask redundant questions. See number 3?

8: Hell I dunno. I tend to try my best after all, so I guess I'll see if anyone has any stuff they want me to fix or change.

9: We've been tooling around the heavens mostly, so it's hard to tell what things are really like.

10-13: These are all basically the same question (along with 6). The gaming push seems about right. I'll echo Cor's complaint about DMing under Ko-LaggyisSailorOrgasmo or whatever. Again, you've been DMing a while, you're good at it. If I hate a ruling I'll say so, and I haven't done that lately... You do sometimes brush off criticism brought up in chat with 'I'm not in the mood' or 'Let's talk about it later' which is pretty disheartening to see when it happens.

14: Yes. You're getting better about varying things up (the four treants each with different techniques is a good example) so we're not facing five guys that are interchangable, the fights have by and large been well paced and executed.

15: 'You follow the tunnel for 30 minutes' is pretty sad. I get that it takes time to go places and it paces out encounters to wear down our low duration abilities, but it makes locations feel really spaced out and empty. Even a description of some cool scenery we pass on the way or something, rather than just walking through a bland hallway or tunnel for two miles.

16: I like them. Adrian's a bit of a complainer, but he's a solid presence in battle - despite keeling over from bad luck a few times he hits hard and reliably. Annalise is brilliant since she's unique and interesting and scary and possibly on our side. She could threaten to overshadow us, but her abilities are mainly single-target so it's rare for her to end encounters by herself (I think just the first one and that was obviously an abject demonstration of her power). Haven't seen Elrisa fight for real yet but she's nice without being constant flowers and happiness so we can have entertaining friction, particularly with our male friends. Dana is crazy and has a death wish so we probably won't see her for long. She doesn't seem to be all that great in a fight, either since her damage is so poor. Girl needs some strength boosts.

17: All opinions above subject to change at the slightest moment based on my moods and whimsy.

[Merc]

A lot of questions I'd just have said "See #x" so I didn't bother including them, unless I had other stuff to add.

1. How do you feel your character has turned out the past level from a mechanical standpoint? Do you feel you're pulling your load? Why or why not? If not, what do you think you can do to improve?
I'm mostly satisfied, honestly. The one thing that really bugs me isn't really something mechanical so much as random number generating hate as even when I don't power attack or power attack for only 2-5 points, I'll miss 60-70% of the time.

Hatbot seems determined to piss me off, even if he was surprisingly cool with me last session (he pissed Yuth off instead).

There's a couple of various things I can do to try and improve that besides relying on magical items at least, thought Hatbot will probably just give me even lower rolls. =/

I'm also a little bummed that sneak attack has been so utterly situational for me and the situation has conspired to be that I can't use it most of the time. A lot of fights seem to have stuff that dies in one shot so no flanking, has improved uncanny dodge, immunity to SA, or something else that prevents it. Outside of the evasion and skill points, rogue side feels a bit weak to me as a result.

I'm at least going to want to talk to Adrian about his habit of charging at new stuff when he's last on init, even though other stuff is still alive and being engaged already, it utterly bugs me that he does that when he could get a flanking bonus without losing his +2 atk bonus, get to apply SA (in those situations where it can apply anyhow), not take an AC penalty -and- if he flanks with ME, I get sneak attack the next round too or alternatively with some of those high AC monsters, lower their AC for the others. If I can't do that, at the very least I'd get a much needed +2 to attack to counter evil hatebotting.

It's not like he needs to charge for speed bonus either, with the haste bonus from Afina, we almost always have enough movement to manuever as we'd wish...

2. Likewise, how do you feel your character has turned out from an RP standpoint? Do you feel that your character is working? Why or why not? If not, what do you think you can do to improve?
Character hasn't -quite- gone as I envisioned, but close enough, and I'm mostly okay with Ithea. I have fun playing her anyway though the character feels a bit too lonesome.

Eb pointed out that I'm a little quiet, that's part of the reason, I don't really have anyone I feel comfortable bantering with besides Adrian. The other PCs are mostly just 'friends' purely by situation/common interest regarding Lifasa too.

Ithea respects the three of them, but outside of that respect...she doesn't really know how to react to Afina for the most part though she does kind of like the pixie, Willim is too dumb for meaningful conversation, and she finds Jaela a little obnoxious as well as a little creepy for her thing with Annalise. Oddly, Ithea also has more respect for Jaela than the other two, at least as a warrior, mostly because she seems to generally do some of the most impressive/memorable things in a fight and just being so in the middle of all the action.

Adrian, she has a like/hate relationship with, she does see him as a friend by this point, much more than the PCs, even if initially she found him the most obnoxious, which is a maybe a bit ironic as she's a lot like him, personality-wise. She actually agrees with most of his onscreen complaints, but unless he's specifically asking for my opinion, I don't feel a need to vocally agree. Anyway, by this point, she actually likes chatting with him, though she'll still react negatively to his cat jokes.

She doesn't particularly like Annalise or Dana, and she's kinda ambivalent to Elrisa. She admires what Elrisa does, but really just finds her stance on men/armor to be annoying and wishes she'd shut up about it, then maybe they could be friends, though can't think of a polite way of saying just that.

Mostly, I kind of want more varied NPCs to pop up, which I know we'll get with recruits as time passes, and seeing if Ithea latches onto any of them as friends and develop her personality onscreen instead of internalized like the stuff above.

3. How do you get along with the other players? Good points, bad points, hangups, irritations, praise?
I get a little weirded out by the fact that the half-celestial and npc aasimars are both the dirtiest mouthed individuals, but I mostly just joke with Yuth about that, rather than actually having a serious problem with it.

Outside of that, nothing I feel like commenting on. I guess #2 covered that a bit too, even if that was more from an RP sense than player-side.

4. Where do you see your character going? How do you see that enabling them to get where you want them to go, both mechanically and RP-wise? Do you feel you can reach this as it stands now?
RP-wise, I dunno where I want to go with the character, I'm still getting a feel for Ithea and what I want out of her. Again, see #2.

I do want to have that chat with Adrian regarding that flanking thing in-game though (preferably either when one of Annalise's scenes pop up so I can go in another room, or just some side session).

Mechanically, I want to ditch rogue next level, though I'm still not sure what I want to go into. No PrC has really grabbed my attention (or the prereqs just don't agree with me). I'm kind of pondering factotum, though not that attached either.

5. What adventures and situations have you enjoyed so far? What ones have you not? Why?
I like fighting stuff we can hate too, though I've been enjoying most of the trials too. I'm not a fan of the high AC opponents though, particularly due to my poor luck with hatbot with attacks. That the two guys we fought with high AC also had improved uncanny dodge so I couldn't reduce their AC with that ability I have made those fights worse for me.

I'm also really not a fan of Annalise's heart-to-heart moments or duels. We can't really do much during duels, bantering about it just seems kind of crass in some cases or boring in others, and ditto for the vamp's scenes with Jaela/Afina. It's fine when there's other stuff we can do, but when we have to wait on it, it's a little boring, and it really doesn't help with staying immersed (that also leads to those detached player moments, obviously).

I'd note that as Corwin really wants more gaming and Yuth/I aren't on during mondays/wednesdays, I dunno, can't you hold those things off to those days for mini/side-sessions? Duels aren't a big deal, we've had all of two (Elrisa and Dana), but Annalise really seems to be a time chewer, and it's boring.

I'd point out that last time, I actually tried to split the party because I saw some of that coming, when Annalise/Jaela wanted to do stuff and I took the opportunity to say that since they're doing that and the Helm guy was mentioned already, I wanted to grab Willim and Adrian for that, but that was a no go since Adrian himself quickly nixed it and I didn't want to argue over it. Thankfully that time it didn't take long, but we've had some long ones.

9. How's the tone of the game? Too dark? Too light?
I enjoy it so far. It feels balanced enough, but we haven't really done too much yet or fought anything particularly evil outside of those devils first session, so hard to really judge the game yet. This still feels like the opening act.

16. How are my various NPCs doing? Are they entertaining you? Are they pulling weight without hogging the screen?
I've commented on Annalise and scene hogging and a bit on how Ithea feels about them in #2 RP-wise.

I generally like 'em, even Annalise, she's interesting because of what she is, but good lord the night talks do absolutely everything right when it comes to making me want to alt-tab.

[Anastasia]

Mental note for next time: Ask you guys to quote the questions so I don't have to keep switching tabs. Gah.

1) My AC is shit despite having decent full plate armor, but I have faith in it working out eventually. I think I have the means to handle most of anything, although it would be nice to round myself out a bit more from a mechanical perspective. Get an AC or stat-boosting item or the armor-swapping gauntlet, that sort of thing.

As far as your AC goes, Arcane Duelist will fix this eventually. Between that and your magic your AC is going to be fine eventually. As an aside, I'd try to avoid full attacks and emply magic/hit and run tactics until you have better AC or defenses. Your AC right now is critically low, just asking someone to maim you on a heavy FA.  Otherwise you're fine and have a fair bit of potential.

4) Mechanically... in the short term, I'd need a few items to compensate for a few of my weak spots. In the longer term, I'll strive to become the sort of mage Raquel is! But that's well into epic. RP-wise, since a vampire is seducing me I'd probably need to make a stop at Arvandor sooner or later?

What sort of mage is Raquel? I'm curious as to what you mean there.

5) I noticed that how fights end or how situations resolve often affects my enjoyment of the whole thing. If a fight ends while I'm expecting more of a challenge and was casting Heal or some buff like Heroism/Righteous Might and the like, it sours things.

I do try and challenge you guys, but sometimes a fight wraps up quickly. Hmm, why does it bother you, precisely? What bothers you about it?

Enjoyment-wise, that's easy! Anything with either a focus on you or that allows you to shine, of course. It hardly even needs to come at the expense of others as long as everyone gets a chance to be important and show off their specialty.

Naturally. I try and give you guys chances to do so - even if it's just using a high strength score to bash open some ice or a spot check to notice a trap. This doesn't always work, of course, but I try.

6) Related to 5, I don't have a clear answer, but maybe there could be a clearer indication of danger/remaining enemy fighting capacity/that sort of thing? If our characters are these hardcore fighters they'd probably be able to estimate, and then I won't feel like a n00b that runs away from victory.

I have been skimping on information a little more than I like in combat descriptions. I've noticed this, though the last two fights weren't good ones for it anyway. The chaos creature didn't bleed or possess an anatomy you could easily comprehend, while the next battle was you guys chopping down a small horde of low level berserker lycanthropes.

8) Time-wise, I could expand my cheatsheet collection to account for various stuff (like my nonstandard weapons, since I do carry them), but I think I'm decent enough by now to actually do the prep quickly while I'm waiting for my turn.

By all means. Anything that speeds up replies and actions in combat is good.

11) Let's game more!

I have Mondays pegged to do miscellaneous one/two PC things since most of you are around that day and occasionally on Wednesdays as well. Sundays are completely out until February. Having a full fourth day isn't realistic anytime soon, at least until Merc's semester is over if not longer. 

16) Largely yes! It would be perfect if they didn't air their fetishes with every other line ('Hit me!', 'Men have cooties!', etc). I think it would make them more sympathetic, instead of making me wince whenever Adrian and Elrisa bicker over which gender is better.

Hey, I wouldn't use the phrase fetish to describe it! I know what you mean, though. I've been aiming to start with one or two defining characteristics for each NPC and expand from there. It's worked well for Adrian, he's had the camera time to pull it off. This does lead to hitting the easy button, especially in combat when I'm managing a bunch of other things anyway. 

[Anastasia]

1: Pretty well. I was worried about my low hp, but having god-tier defences has made that a non-issue. My spellcasting is mostly irrelevant, and my damage - while poor compared to everyone else's full attacks - is sufficiently respectable, especially since I don't need to worry about positioning for a full attack. Plus everyone's extra hasted attacks basically comes from me anyway!

Yeah, agreed. Your defenses are fine, the only thing you need is a few occasional damage bumps. You should be good for awhile. Your build is the most complete overall, I think.

3: I don't like to criticise, and there's certainly nothing personal in this, but here goes. Ithea is often fairly quiet during sessions - thankfully it's not in the same league as Glenn was in Glaring Fate, but it's noticable compared to the other three. There's a certain apathetic 'I'll do whatever' vibe and I think Merc could stand to push forward more of an agenda from his character.

Yeah. I try and encourage Merc with Adrian needling Ithea and it works fine. Ithea does tend to be quiet when that isn't happening, I suspect it comes down to Merc being a slower typer again. I'm not going to belabor this point, we've been there before. Generally when a PC isn't doing much I try and give them something to draw them back in.

4: She's a superfast fairy that kills dudes. She will get faster and kill more dudes. More seriously I want to have her open up more and get invested in training our forces/building awesome weapons for them - she's solid at the front line, but I hope her potential at the logistics end will prove useful for our crusade. Finding more fey - whether generic or Gloaming Wood survivors is also cool (Elrisa and her buddies don't really count since they're elves with fey traits).

Yeah. Adrian had Willim considering some trolls and I'm pretty sure Jaela has some plans for various celestials. Building an army in your image and training them up is a good goal. How do you see yourself reaching that goal in more detail?

5: My favourite moment in the whole game was butchering a bunch of devils in a bar. Most of our adventures since then have been tangential to our overall goal - overcoming trials and tests to get stuff that we can use later on for actually killing devils. Don't get me wrong, it's been fun, but I want to fight dudes I can hate. Although I guess I hate Elysium for ganking my fey powers? Need to find a way to fix that...

I knew you guys probably wouldn't fight devils too much at first, nor did I want to saturate you with them. You're going to have plenty of chances to beat down devils and other true enemies, don't worry. Oh yes, yes you will.

6: Honestly, just keep doing what you're doing. You've been at this DMing business long enough to have a good handle on it.

Yeah, but it never hurts to ask. I bug you guys about various things and I don't always get anything out of it. That's fine and I expect that. Sometimes I do get useful things out of it and it's worth the trouble, so I keep on doing it.

9: We've been tooling around the heavens mostly, so it's hard to tell what things are really like.

Yeah, this. I'd like to see you guys get more of a variety of planes. The Heavens are nice, but there's more to do out there than that.

10-13: These are all basically the same question (along with 6). The gaming push seems about right. I'll echo Cor's complaint about DMing under Ko-LaggyisSailorOrgasmo or whatever. Again, you've been DMing a while, you're good at it. If I hate a ruling I'll say so, and I haven't done that lately... You do sometimes brush off criticism brought up in chat with 'I'm not in the mood' or 'Let's talk about it later' which is pretty disheartening to see when it happens.

Well, I'm not going to argue about a point when I'm in a foul mood. It really doesn't do any good. When I put something off otherwise, it's usually because we're in session and I don't want to stop things over a potential rules debate. It's not worth it.

14: Yes. You're getting better about varying things up (the four treants each with different techniques is a good example) so we're not facing five guys that are interchangable, the fights have by and large been well paced and executed.

Good. I do figure you'll get some more regimented battles with Baator. Not to say that devilfights will be boring, but Baator's general nature often makes soldiers similar to one another. So I'm making sure to mix up most of the other fights in case this sets in with them later. Also using various mob rules for groups of similar enemies has helped, rather than making them discrete opponents.

15: 'You follow the tunnel for 30 minutes' is pretty sad. I get that it takes time to go places and it paces out encounters to wear down our low duration abilities, but it makes locations feel really spaced out and empty. Even a description of some cool scenery we pass on the way or something, rather than just walking through a bland hallway or tunnel for two miles.

Frankly, I'm not really sympathetic to the durations complaint. The world around you isn't built so that you can reach all the interesting parts in the 10 minutes your best spells are up. Hell, with manmade fortresses and defenses, I'd consider good design to arrange it so that it takes awhile for invaders to get anywhere.

As for the other part, I can do that. I don't get too into that since it ends up being a time sink and slowing things down even more.

16: I like them. Adrian's a bit of a complainer, but he's a solid presence in battle - despite keeling over from bad luck a few times he hits hard and reliably. Annalise is brilliant since she's unique and interesting and scary and possibly on our side. She could threaten to overshadow us, but her abilities are mainly single-target so it's rare for her to end encounters by herself (I think just the first one and that was obviously an abject demonstration of her power). Haven't seen Elrisa fight for real yet but she's nice without being constant flowers and happiness so we can have entertaining friction, particularly with our male friends. Dana is crazy and has a death wish so we probably won't see her for long. She doesn't seem to be all that great in a fight, either since her damage is so poor. Girl needs some strength boosts.

Adrian: Agreed. Besides a run of bad luck around Elysium he's been useful. He's not the most charismatic person, hell, he has 6 charisma without his cloak. So he does complain and do annoying things sometimes. He's not a people person.
Annalise: Yes.
Dana: Dana reminds me a lot of Demedais. She's excellent in her niche but she has even less defense than he did. That's impressive as hell, let me tell you. Crit fishing helps this but it's unreliable. She may just dip favored soul or cleric and use turnings and a few spells to shore up her offense, haven't really decided yet.

[Corwin]

-I haven't decided 100% on the Arcane Duelist, but yeah, it's about the only thing that would bring my ac up to speed. As for hit and run tactics, I figure I'm gonna get hit anyway so by relying on retaliation and heals I can just make it work for me and outlast my enemies. That does carry the risk of looking lame if I retreat from a nearly-vanquished opponent for a recharge. Why don't I like it? Because it's the opposite of cool. When that fight is remembered, what will remain more in the conscious? That I gave as good as I got, or that I had to retreat while someone else took the initiative and won the actual fight?

-Raquel is the best mage! Quicken spell, all the damn time! (And empower, and maximize....)

-I look forward to seeing more aspects of our allies!

[Anastasia]

I'm mostly satisfied, honestly. The one thing that really bugs me isn't really something mechanical so much as random number generating hate as even when I don't power attack or power attack for only 2-5 points, I'll miss 60-70% of the time. Hatbot seems determined to piss me off, even if he was surprisingly cool with me last session (he pissed Yuth off instead). There's a couple of various things I can do to try and improve that besides relying on magical items at least, thought Hatbot will probably just give me even lower rolls. =/

Yeah, you've had a bad spell of luck. That's not helped you at all, but your basic build is competent. Don't let bad luck get to you, just keep on going. Eventually things do average out.

I'm also a little bummed that sneak attack has been so utterly situational for me and the situation has conspired to be that I can't use it most of the time. A lot of fights seem to have stuff that dies in one shot so no flanking, has improved uncanny dodge, immunity to SA, or something else that prevents it. Outside of the evasion and skill points, rogue side feels a bit weak to me as a result.

I've had this problem with Adrian as well. You guys can dish out high damage and aren't terribly specified out towards flanking, so sneak attack is hard to set up short of attacking before the enemy is ready. I don't think there's been much crit immunity around but there has been a fair bit of uncanny dodge. Penetrating Strike at least gets you half SA if you can flank, but single targets tend to go down quickly. Opportunist can help, and if you get enough crits to make it worthwhile, grab Telling Blow. I do think evasion has done you a lot of good, so that's worth it from your rogue side.

I'm at least going to want to talk to Adrian about his habit of charging at new stuff when he's last on init, even though other stuff is still alive and being engaged already, it utterly bugs me that he does that when he could get a flanking bonus without losing his +2 atk bonus, get to apply SA (in those situations where it can apply anyhow), not take an AC penalty -and- if he flanks with ME, I get sneak attack the next round too or alternatively with some of those high AC monsters, lower their AC for the others. If I can't do that, at the very least I'd get a much needed +2 to attack to counter evil hatebotting.

Generally Adrian does that so you don't leave an enemy alone to flank the party in turn. If two or three of you have one monster tied up, you generally can deal with him and Adrian can hold the fortress down with another. That's his take on tactics as far as that goes - he'd rather not get counter-flanked. That's why he went after that one wolf in yesterday's session, for example.

Character hasn't -quite- gone as I envisioned, but close enough, and I'm mostly okay with Ithea. I have fun playing her anyway though the character feels a bit too lonesome. Eb pointed out that I'm a little quiet, that's part of the reason, I don't really have anyone I feel comfortable bantering with besides Adrian. The other PCs are mostly just 'friends' purely by situation/common interest regarding Lifasa too.

Ithea respects the three of them, but outside of that respect...she doesn't really know how to react to Afina for the most part though she does kind of like the pixie, Willim is too dumb for meaningful conversation, and she finds Jaela a little obnoxious as well as a little creepy for her thing with Annalise. Oddly, Ithea also has more respect for Jaela than the other two, at least as a warrior, mostly because she seems to generally do some of the most impressive/memorable things in a fight and just being so in the middle of all the action.

I generally agree with that; I tend to use Adrian or someone else as connections to help work around this. More on this later.

Adrian, she has a like/hate relationship with, she does see him as a friend by this point, much more than the PCs, even if initially she found him the most obnoxious, which is a maybe a bit ironic as she's a lot like him, personality-wise. She actually agrees with most of his onscreen complaints, but unless he's specifically asking for my opinion, I don't feel a need to vocally agree. Anyway, by this point, she actually likes chatting with him, though she'll still react negatively to his cat jokes.

Yeah, I've been using him as a hook to get you interacting more. It's worked and I think you two have a good dynamic. Helps draw you in better, y'know?

I get a little weirded out by the fact that the half-celestial and npc aasimars are both the dirtiest mouthed individuals, but I mostly just joke with Yuth about that, rather than actually having a serious problem with it.

I find it hilarious. I can't speak for Jaela, but Dana is LN. By aasimar standards she's an odd duck even before you take everything else into account.

Mechanically, I want to ditch rogue next level, though I'm still not sure what I want to go into. No PrC has really grabbed my attention (or the prereqs just don't agree with me). I'm kind of pondering factotum, though not that attached either.

Factotum is good for a three of four level dip if you have a good intelligence score. Yours is 18 and without any boosters on it, so yeah, you could do that. I can look at PrCs and make suggestions if you want.

I like fighting stuff we can hate too, though I've been enjoying most of the trials too. I'm not a fan of the high AC opponents though, particularly due to my poor luck with hatbot with attacks. That the two guys we fought with high AC also had improved uncanny dodge so I couldn't reduce their AC with that ability I have made those fights worse for me.

Yeah, they matched up poorly to you. Most enemies who fight you alone need massive defenses or gobs and gobs of hit points to be anything more than a speed bump, so I'm working on it.

I'm also really not a fan of Annalise's heart-to-heart moments or duels. We can't really do much during duels, bantering about it just seems kind of crass in some cases or boring in others, and ditto for the vamp's scenes with Jaela/Afina. It's fine when there's other stuff we can do, but when we have to wait on it, it's a little boring, and it really doesn't help with staying immersed (that also leads to those detached player moments, obviously).

Yeah, I actually agree as far as Annalise goes. A few bits of that was unavoidable, but I'm trying to avoid doing it except when other things are going on. I don't really want to have three of you sit around for an hour while another person does something. It's not really that good an idea. It's fine occasionally; on that note, Dana was a mediocre choice for that sort of situation. Her high AC and low damage made any duel against her drag out.

I'd note that as Corwin really wants more gaming and Yuth/I aren't on during mondays/wednesdays, I dunno, can't you hold those things off to those days for mini/side-sessions? Duels aren't a big deal, we've had all of two (Elrisa and Dana), but Annalise really seems to be a time chewer, and it's boring.

Yep, that's my plan.

Finally no quote for this one since I accidentally deleted it, but you're right. Finding Aurora was the opening act, now the story has just begun in earnest.

[Anastasia]

-I haven't decided 100% on the Arcane Duelist, but yeah, it's about the only thing that would bring my ac up to speed. As for hit and run tactics, I figure I'm gonna get hit anyway so by relying on retaliation and heals I can just make it work for me and outlast my enemies. That does carry the risk of looking lame if I retreat from a nearly-vanquished opponent for a recharge. Why don't I like it? Because it's the opposite of cool. When that fight is remembered, what will remain more in the conscious? That I gave as good as I got, or that I had to retreat while someone else took the initiative and won the actual fight?

True, true. There's nothing wrong with being cautious, though. It's better to be there to remember that battle than to have eaten a lucky crit that finishes you off when your own attacks didn't hit home. Jaela isn't one for caution much, though.

-Raquel is the best mage! Quicken spell, all the damn time! (And empower, and maximize....)

Lots of powerful magic, okay.

-I look forward to seeing more aspects of our allies!

Aren't we all?

[Corwin]

-CG here. It's refreshing to be a bit crass here and there for a change. Although I do wonder why people expect angels to have some sort of Vow of Niceness. Next they'll expect them to have a Vow of Chastity too or something silly like that (because come on, half-celestials/aasimars).

-The thing is, I'm cautious even in situations where my char would know better (and risk keeping on fighting). When I realize that after the fact, it sours things up some, you know? Losing to a lucky crit is understandable, especially if the glory of victory was also there for the taking. But it's more like I'm losing to myself. I'm talking about those times when I keep on overestimating our opponents and looking lame as a result, whereas the battle ends with a whimper and not a bang.

-Typical Raquel:
http://www.watchanimeon.com/scrapped-princess-episode-1/ Starting about 11 minutes in
http://www.watchanimeon.com/scrapped-princess-episode-5/ Give or take 16.5 minutes in

[Merc]

I've had this problem with Adrian as well. You guys can dish out high damage and aren't terribly specified out towards flanking, so sneak attack is hard to set up short of attacking before the enemy is ready.

That's actually the only times I've dealt sneak attack damage, when I won init and on first strike against something without uncanny dodge.

Generally Adrian does that so you don't leave an enemy alone to flank the party in turn. If two or three of you have one monster tied up, you generally can deal with him and Adrian can hold the fortress down with another. That's his take on tactics as far as that goes - he'd rather not get counter-flanked. That's why he went after that one wolf in yesterday's session, for example.

I can understand that, I guess.

Factotum is good for a three of four level dip if you have a good intelligence score. Yours is 18 and without any boosters on it, so yeah, you could do that. I can look at PrCs and make suggestions if you want.

I was figuring 3 levels if anything.

And suggestions would be great, definitely.

I was considering arcane duelist, gives an excuse to know Elrisa better, but the feat prereqs are horrible for me.

Although I do wonder why people expect angels to have some sort of Vow of Niceness. Next they'll expect them to have a Vow of Chastity too or something silly like that (because come on, half-celestials/aasimars).

It's not so much that I expect a vow of niceness, honestly, I certainly don't think an angel has to be sugar-sweet niceness incarnate, they can be agents of vengeance/retribution or hardasses or whatever, and insults/cuss words aren't something that they just shouldn't do either. The degree/level/maturity of the cussing does feel a bit weird to me though, but I don't mind it that much and if you/Dune enjoy it, I'm not gonna say anything more on it.

[Anastasia]

-CG here. It's refreshing to be a bit crass here and there for a change. Although I do wonder why people expect angels to have some sort of Vow of Niceness. Next they'll expect them to have a Vow of Chastity too or something silly like that (because come on, half-celestials/aasimars).

Most people think nice=Good. This isn't strictly true, though kindness, compassion and mercy are certainly aspects of Good. In this case, profanity has a certain shock value and it is multiplied by your half-celestial heritage. When you think of a half celestial, do you think of a foul mouthed warrior who may be in the starting stages of a relationship with a vampire? That said, most full celestials wouldn't have a mouth like yours. What they'd call profanity isn't something you'd even register as a profanity, due to the frame of reference being so removed from your own. Latha did this a few times in Balmuria 1, dunno if you ever caught her at it. Remember, they speak Celestial as a native language. Celestial has near-endless capacity to describe love, justice, salvation, hope, endurance and all those other concepts that can be related to Good. A profanity in Celestial is going to be far different than a profanity in Common or a mortal tongue.

Granted, a celestial that hangs around mortals and speaks their language can pick up on those habits easily enough. It's not natural for them, since they think in a language that lacks the same structure and references as mortal tongues. Antenora was better at profanity than Latha when it came up; she thought in Infernal for quite some time Now if you want a language to swear in, Infernal's a good bet. Anything that isn't related to lawful evil has negative connotations, and there are myriad ways to denigrate, destroy, insult and generally disrespect anything that doesn't fit into that worldview. Infernal by its definition needs to have these structures and words, the mindset behind lawful evil demands it. This is on a wavelength most mortals can understand far better than unfiltered Good.

Incidentally, this is why I give epic level fiends get Dark Speech as a bonus feat and likewise celestials with Words of Creation. At the point they are at, the language they use is so symbolic and powerful that expanding into that realm is natural. The language and words of an archangel are so fortified and focused on the concepts of Good that the words themselves are holy. A fiend's words are so far removed from any concepts of righteousness and filled with the darkest concepts that the Dark Speech comes as second nature to them. They think in such ways that it is inevitable, fully polarized to an alignment concept that their words follow.

That was a random digression, wasn't it? I'll keep it in the reply since I think it's interesting.

-The thing is, I'm cautious even in situations where my char would know better (and risk keeping on fighting). When I realize that after the fact, it sours things up some, you know? Losing to a lucky crit is understandable, especially if the glory of victory was also there for the taking. But it's more like I'm losing to myself. I'm talking about those times when I keep on overestimating our opponents and looking lame as a result, whereas the battle ends with a whimper and not a bang.

I think you're over-analyzing here. I get what you mean here, but I don't think that makes you a loser. It means your character is wise enough to cut down on their risk.

[Anastasia]

That's actually the only times I've dealt sneak attack damage, when I won init and on first strike against something without uncanny dodge.

Likewise. I think he got it on the arcanaloth, maybe? I'd have to check logs. His rogue side has underperformed along the same line as yours.

I can understand that, I guess.

Feel free to talk to him about it, though. By all means. Improving strategy always helps.

I was figuring 3 levels if anything.

And suggestions would be great, definitely.

I was considering arcane duelist, gives an excuse to know Elrisa better, but the feat prereqs are horrible for me.

Arcane Duelist has two feat reqs for you, as you already have the needed weapon proficiencies. You'd want to dip fighter 2, I'd reckon.

Three levels of Factotum is pretty solid, you could go up to as much as 5 levels if you wanted. Any more than that and I wouldn't call it a dip, as it is 5 levels is stretching the definition.

Recommendations? Okay.

Fighter: The old bonus feat routine. It's not bad if you want to buff your attacks up or grab a few feats. It's the easy dip if unexciting.
Psychic Warrior: Fighter with some added psionic ability. The medium BAB progression is covered by the full BAB Duskblade. A two level dip is fighter+1 for you, any more and you get a slower feat progression.
Warlock: If you cherry-pick a few invocations this could be a decent dip. I'd check some handbooks for tips here if you're interested.
Psychic Rogue: Sneak attack+manifesting. Same idea as Psychic Warrior as above.
Paragnostic Apostle: You can qualify for it as is. None of the abilities are earthshattering, but a dip can be good if any of them strike your fancy.
Occult Slayer: You qualify for it and it is a solid enough PrC. There are flavor problems with it, but that applies to almost anyone who takes it. 3.5 and magic, y'know? The abilities are generally solid.
Tactical Soldier: You'd need to take two feats, but the first level ability makes flanking easier.
Divine Champion: You have some minor qualification issues in revering a deity and weapon focus is a concern. It's an okay 5 level class with decent powers, could be good filler if you want to go in that direction.
Gatecrasher: You qualify with ease. It gives you various planar-related powers, could be useful in this particular game.

[Merc]

Arcane Duelist has two feat reqs for you, as you already have the needed weapon proficiencies. You'd want to dip fighter 2, I'd reckon.

I'd probably be willing to retrain improved initiative or the versatile spellcaster feat and grab the second feat when we hit 15 so I don't need to dip fighter, but I just don't really like either feat. Dodge's not that bad I suppose, it'd give me a little better survivability, but Mobility...how often am I really going to provoke an AoO with my reach?

Recommendations? Okay.

Fighter That's pretty much an "if nothing else pops up", yeah.
Psychic Warrior/Rogue I don't know much about psionics, don't really care to learn either. It'd take too much time to figure things out I think, even if PW is strictly better than normal warrior in gestalt.
Paragnostic Apostle/Divine Champion I mostly want to avoid anything with a divine flavor, to be honest.
Warlock/Occult Slayer Neither really feel right. Warlock's power source seems like a bad fit all things considered too.
Tactical Soldier I'd considered this one, actually. It's not too bad I suppose, and the feats aren't painful either.
Gatecrasher Nothing about this one really grabs me, don't have much else to say.

[Yuthirin]

1. How do you feel your character has turned out the past level from a mechanical standpoint? Do you feel you're pulling your load? Why or why not? If not, what do you think you can do to improve?

Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough damage, but I guess since I built Willim into a tanking role, I should expect that. He's more of a damage-soaker and disabler with Trip & Grapple. I think I really just need to keep boosting my survivability. Well, maybe a little damage increase would be good.

2. Likewise, how do you feel your character has turned out from an RP standpoint? Do you feel that your character is working? Why or why not? If not, what do you think you can do to improve?

I love playing Willim. Willim is the most fun I've had in a long time. I really enjoy the reactions I get from the others, especially when I frustrate or freak out someone. I'm looking forward to our first forray onto the Prime Material.

3. How do you get along with the other players? Good points, bad points, hangups, irritations, praise?

I think we as players get along just fine. I'm still relearning all the rules that I never used, so I occasionally (daily) make a mistake or two. I feel stupid. :D

4. Where do you see your character going? How do you see that enabling them to get where you want them to go, both mechanically and RP-wise? Do you feel you can reach this as it stands now?

I see Willim becoming an unstoppable force as we go on. His survivability is going to go up hugely as he levels, and I'm really looking forward to that. I don't think he'll ever be a king, or rule the world, or even teach primary school, but as long as he's tough and strong, I'm sure he'll get by.

5. What adventures and situations have you enjoyed so far? What ones have you not? Why?

Initial devil beatdown was cool. I REALLY enjoyed our first encounter with Elrisa. Playing dumb is a lot of fun. I look forward to cock-blocking Adrian some more.

6. What could I do to get more of the good and less of the bad? Why?

Gear drops, even if they're trivial. It gives us (me at least) a sense of accomplishment after a fight. Even if they drop a bag of silver or a big ass tooth or something. I was kind of hoping to get a couple of the teeth from that dragon's head, and was a bit disappointed that it all crumbled into dust. The broom was a nice touch, though. I kind of miss the trophies we had from Bal2 a little.

7. What could other players do to get less of the bad and more of the good? Why?

Well, Jaela swears a lot, and that's surprising to me as she's half-celestial, but she mentioned something about being fallen or something(I think?) so it's not really an issue. My only real issue is with Dana. Slopping about "cunt" isn't something I was ever comfortable with. Swearing is fun, but...wow.

8. What could you do to get more good and less bad? Why?

More loots, less c*nts.

9. How's the tone of the game? Too dark? Too light?

I'm happy with either way, and it's been kind of neutral so far. Fairly smooth, too. If you do decide to go dark, you may want to drop us a hint or two.

10. How has my DMing been? Good? Bad? Consistent? Inconsistent? Why? Give examples if possible.

You do fine, sir.

11. How do you feel I've handled everything, both IC and OOC-wise? Have I been pushing for gaming too hard? Not enough? Has there been any friction you'd like to air out?

I could actually do with an hour or so more each day. I've got the time.

12. Is there anything you'd like me to stop doing as a DM?

See previous complaints.

13. How have my rulings been? Are they reasonable and fair? Do you feel I'm staying reasonably impartial?

I've got no problems with current rulings.

14. How has my encounter design been? Are the fights doing it for you?

The ice encounter was GREAT! WILLIM SMASH!

15. How's my dungeon/area design been? Tips for improvement?

Pretty good so far. You're the DM. Give me skeletons to smash or spiders to befriend. >_>

16. How are my various NPCs doing? Are they entertaining you? Are they pulling weight without hogging the screen?

Adrian is amusing. Dana is a little creepy. Annalise is more than a little creepy, although her attempts to fix Willim's brain are highly amusing.

17. Anything else you'd like to add?

Toast!