Feedback

[Anastasia]

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.

That and your CMB, yes.

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.

He's fun to play against, at least for me. Annalise trying to teach him how to speak better got me to crack up several times.

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.

There's been more than a few no-drop battles. These happen occasionally but I'm not a huge fan of them. So yeah, agreed.

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.

Welllll. I wouldn't use cunt in real life either, but at the same time Dana would. I wouldn't maim and murder for evil, but the devil I'm RPing as the DM would. So I usually don't think about it like that, I just do what's appropriate for the character in question to do. I try not to openly make you guys uncomfortable, but at the same time I try and be true to the characters in question. It's usually a balancing act between these things, taking various things into account.

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

I can try and run longer if you guys like. This wouldn't be an everyday thing since sometimes I have things to do around that time - years of stopping at that time for work or personal things sets up habits - but I can do it sometimes.

[Anastasia]

I wrote these answers at the same time as the questions, so some of these answers may end up repeating what I've already said. I did it this way to get my honest, off the to of my head thoughts before replies might change what I'd have to say.

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'll refer to the noteworthy NPCs for this. Adrian's turned out well enough mechanically. While he doesn't exploit his sneak attack damage as much as he should, he likes crippling strike and he's pumping out solid damage. His low AC is going to get him into more trouble soon enough. He wants to pick up Telling Blow as soon as possible with the way he keeps nailing crits. Annalise is doing exactly how I expected, you can take that as you will. It's not hard to be effective when you're a spellcaster 6 levels above the party average. It's too early to say on Elrisa, she hasn't seen much combat. Naliel...well, I sort of expected she might die. It's not like I put a lantern archon in a mid-high level group and expected it to survive easily. It's a risk of the job for her. Dana I think performs well within her niche, which is all I'm asking for from her.

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?

Again, noteworthy NPCs.

Adrian has been interesting for me to play. He's no great charismatic leader - he has a natural six charisma without his cloak - but a guy trying to avenge and push back a nightmare. This is on purpose. I didn't want to give you guys a leader to rally around. I want you guys to be the leaders and I made that clear from the get-go. That said, he's not afraid to open his mouth, even if sometimes he puts his foot into it. He also doesn't hide his opinions all that well, at least as far as certain things go. Hi Elrisa! Anyway, I tend to think of him as a mid level lieutenant who was thrust into a more prominent role. He's a hero, but he's not a Hero, y'know?

Yes, he's a little bit creepy on purpose. How can you say you're wearing your mother's soul around your neck and not be creepy? Well, it's not easy and he's not interested in dressing it up. It is what it is, and he has far more important things to get done. After all, no one made a catgirl joke today!

Annalise I'll refrain from comment on.

With Elrisa, I'm surprised you guys like her so much. I know she has a high charisma and acts like it, but at the same time she says some fairly nasty things. I guess it's easy to accept that when she's pretty and talking about people you may not like, eh? Anyway, she's not evil or anything, but she definitely has her biases. I'm trying not to make her too one-note about it, but she's not had a lot of screentime yet and what time there played to her biases.

Elena's a lot of fun and fairly transparent so far. Gah, that's a horrible pun. I'm sorry. Anyway, I feel that you can really see through her, you know? With all the grim faces and serious people, I figured someone more carefree would be a fine contrast. As an aside, I have a sketched out build for her but she's low on the priority list. It wasn't possible for her to fight you with the Celestial Key, and she can't leave Aurora. So doing that statblock up is low priority.

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

I think I'm getting along with each of you well.

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?

Let me answer this on purely mechanical grounds. I'd rather not go into RP-wise for various DM reasons.

Adrian: He'll be fine. His basic build is good and Planar Champion gives him some nice tricks as well as versatility. He'll want to pick up a ranged option at some point; I think he has UMD so a good wand could be a possibility. He does have a weak breath weapon thanks to Dragonfire Adept, but 1d6 isn't scaring anything. Besides that, I'm debating what he should do once he finishes off Planar Champion. He'll have 4 levels to kill; running fighter is boring but getting greater weapon focus and eventually greater weapon specialization could be worthwhile. This lets him grab epic weapon focus and epic weapon specialization eventually. Barring that, I'm not really sure. Maybe scout for skirmish or dragon devotee if I want to make him more dragon. I'm not really sure.

Annalise: Probably Vampire//Sorcerer for the forseeable future, assuming I don't have a trick up my sleeve. She's done with Unseen Seer, going past level 5 isn't worthwhile for her.

Elrisa: She's staying in swashbuckler forever on one side. On the other she'll finish up Arcane Duelist and then have 4 levels until epic. No idea what she'll do with them! More fighter or more sorcerer are both valid options, as is another PrC. This may change if and when she sees combat. Her build works fine on paper, but you never know how things will turn out.

Misalea: Ranger/Bard, maybe a PrC at some point if she gains levels. She doesn't look likely to see a lot of direct combat right now.

Dana: Run the table on knight and finish up dwarven defender. She'll probably go to fighter again until she can do epic dwarven defender. It's still too early to call on her, but that's the loose plans I have drawn up. Jaela said something about getting her turning so she can recharge protection devotion. A favored soul dip could do that, I suppose, or she could get more exotic about it. Turning does make a lot of sense for her, but it's too late in the game for her to get a worthwhile progression of it. She faces some of the same problems as Demedais.

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

I've enjoyed almost everything. There's been a couple of terse days or middling scenes, but by and large things have been good. None come immediately to mind, which is a good sign they're fairly minor problems.

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

Mmmm. I can't really answer this for myself, so let me give each of you some advice in the same vein.

Eb: I think Afina could use just a touch more flavor. It's a consequence of her basic personality, I feel like she pushes people away and keeps her feelings inside. She's the most interesting when something gets her talking.
Cor: Actually, I don't have a lot to say. I feel like I'm getting along better with you than I did in Balmuria 2. Yay.
Merc: Just try and emote a little more and say a little more. I know you're a slow typer and we've had this conversation before, so I won't belabor this one. It's nice when Ithea shows some banter or argues with Adrian.
Yuth: Keep learning 3.5. You've gotten a lot better, but you still have holes. You're patching them, like with full attack and combat maneuvers, so keep on doing that. I like Willim as the tall, dark and stupid type that he is. It brings a certain comic relief to the table. You probably should rage more often in combat, though. It's a free action, don't be afraid to pop one if you need to. Hell, if you find yourself needing more rages per day, take extra rage. On the other hand, there may be RP concerns here and it's an RP based choice not to rage all that often.

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

Pass, see above.

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

Me? Less away time when possible. It's often unavoidable due to the dog needing to go out or my stomach going sour. Anyway, my approach to building NPCs this game has been one or two salient points of interest and slowly building from there. With the way you're collecting people, I'm afraid they'll become one note wonders. I want to work on building characters around you that aren't just gimmicks to be trotted out whenever you need them.

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

It's about right. It's not terribly dark nor is it lighthearted. It's just where it should be for this sort of game.

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

I think I'm doing okay enough. I'm trying to make battle interesting, especially since there's been a lot so far. I knew this was going to happen so I've tried to make various encounters interesting and varied. I'd like to use less one big enemy and nothing else sort of battles, unless that one enemy is a duel or really damned interesting to fight. I feel the arcanaloth and the chaos creature qualified for that, not sure about any others. Galariel went okay but not great - by the way, he was basically using Souther's style from Fist of the North Star, throwing golden phoenixes and the like around from atop the peak of a mountain(pyramid).

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXQ91-06nzA&feature=player_detailpage#t=258s if you're curious)

I hope to see more RP soon enough, once Aurora gets better established and stocked with people. I knew the start would be feeling people out, then it went right to Ysgard, soooo.

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 can't really answer this one, can I? Well, there is one worthwhile point. I'm trying to encourage a little more gaming. If nothing else, some odds and ends character scenes on Mondays, since most of us are here sans Merc. I tried this past week and it never really materialized and this coming Monday isn't going to have anything like that since you're in the middle of a fight.

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

Pass.

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

I generally try to rule for a balanced game and to respect the spirit of the rules. I'm not perfectly impartial, as I do take into account each character's build and relative strengths in certain cases. This is unavoidable in 3.5, as what's fair on one build could be broken on another. I do try and be fair and keep you guys as balanced as possible.

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

No comment here, but I've tried to keep the encounters interesting.

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

There's not been a real dungeon until now, but I've tried to make each area feel indicative of its traits. This isn't a group for leisurely planar introspection and spiritual exploration like Balmuria 1, so I try and stick to more concrete examples. I think the Astral sells itself easily, as using it to travel makes an obvious, immediate impression. Elysium did alright, it was on one of the more quiet, rustic layers. Ysgard is doing a good job for itself so far. The Deep Ethereal did rather well for itself too, I think.

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

I'll reverse this and give you guys mechanical advice instead since I've covered most other elements about you guys, and you guys are supposed to hog the screen. You're the PCs.

Eb: You're in pretty good shape. You're playing a strong combination of classes and you know what you're doing. You fall a bit behind on damage when everyone else starts full attacking or Adrian crits, but everything else works. Maybe pick up a direct damage spell if you run into someone with insane AC. You could take something to snatch Mettle if you really wanted to, but it's rather excessive.
Cor: Boost your AC. You're going to take Arcane Duelist eventually which will fix the problem. That'll put you in average AC for awhile and help patch that hole.
Yuth: If you're investing more in combat maneuvers, boost your CMD! The easiest way to do this is by increasing your size and strength score. This is easier said than done, though you've been looking at various PrCs along those lines.
Merc: Maybe invest in a bloodline for some extra spells? I know Duskblades are rather limited and this would get you some variety. Dragon Compendium has an assortment of these if that interests you.

17. Anything else you'd like to add?

Nah.

[Ebiris]

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?

Afina has ancient fey secrets she can teach people for when it comes to going really fast and killing people! More concretely she's an assassin by trade (even if it hasn't come up explicitly since she's been taking part in stand up fights with the rest of the party ever since we started) so she can get our own assassin corps off the ground.

I took craft (weapons) so I could add to our cause beyond simple killing as well. Excalibur was made by fairies, and Afina can make awesome weapons, too! (well, except for lacking the craft magic arms and armour feat. I'll take it if it's needed but I'd prefer if we could RP around that a bit especially since I've made the investment in skill points) Other than swords, siege/defensive weapons are a possibility. If we can spontaneously generate portals anywhere within Aurora's vicinity then this becomes a possibility.

[Corwin]

I'm thinking of establishing a style of my own via cannibalizing all the ones I'm exposed to. Should be fun, if I don't die horribly in the process. But if I make it, I'm renaming the Gambit after me.  >_>

[Anastasia]

Oh God, you're taking Robliar's Gambit? Are you sure Dana isn't rubbing off on you?

[Merc]

Ko: Don't pretty much all bloodlines require you to be a sorceror or have a familiar?

[Ebiris]

With Elrisa, I'm surprised you guys like her so much. I know she has a high charisma and acts like it, but at the same time she says some fairly nasty things. I guess it's easy to accept that when she's pretty and talking about people you may not like, eh? Anyway, she's not evil or anything, but she definitely has her biases. I'm trying not to make her too one-note about it, but she's not had a lot of screentime yet and what time there played to her biases.

Elena's a lot of fun and fairly transparent so far. Gah, that's a horrible pun. I'm sorry. Anyway, I feel that you can really see through her, you know? With all the grim faces and serious people, I figured someone more carefree would be a fine contrast. As an aside, I have a sketched out build for her but she's low on the priority list. It wasn't possible for her to fight you with the Celestial Key, and she can't leave Aurora. So doing that statblock up is low priority.

It's worth noting that Afina's way more racist and prejudiced than Elrisa (although she doesn't have any gender hangups at least). Elrisa has a pretty reasonable dislike for humans and dwarves given who wiped out her country/people. Afina hates anyone who's not a hardcore isolationist fey (and she even hates some of them!) - circumstances have forced her to ignore her prejudices in favour of gathering forces to retake Lifasa, but that makes everyone equal in her eyes. She'll take an elder vampire and a hagspawn on her team because as far as she's concerned they're both terrible but at least have the potential to be useful, and right now that's all that matters to her. Intellectually she has some awareness that her old mindset probably wasn't correct given the end result, but it's still there.

Also forgot to mention Elena when talking about NPCs. She's awesome! I feel bad for wrecking her eternal duty and then forcing her to work for us, but I'm glad she's willing to look past all that herself and lend a hand.

[Yuthirin]

I like Elrisa because she's easy to anger. I am highly amused by this.

It gives a new meaning to the term "trolling!"

[Anastasia]

Ko: Don't pretty much all bloodlines require you to be a sorceror or have a familiar?

The ones in Dragon Compendium simply require you to be able to cast arcane spells without preparation. Duskblade qualifies for that.

[Anastasia]

It's worth noting that Afina's way more racist and prejudiced than Elrisa (although she doesn't have any gender hangups at least). Elrisa has a pretty reasonable dislike for humans and dwarves given who wiped out her country/people. Afina hates anyone who's not a hardcore isolationist fey (and she even hates some of them!) - circumstances have forced her to ignore her prejudices in favour of gathering forces to retake Lifasa, but that makes everyone equal in her eyes. She'll take an elder vampire and a hagspawn on her team because as far as she's concerned they're both terrible but at least have the potential to be useful, and right now that's all that matters to her. Intellectually she has some awareness that her old mindset probably wasn't correct given the end result, but it's still there.

That helps frame her point of view rather well. I'd semi-forgotten that in everything else.

Also forgot to mention Elena when talking about NPCs. She's awesome! I feel bad for wrecking her eternal duty and then forcing her to work for us, but I'm glad she's willing to look past all that herself and lend a hand.

I do enjoy her, yes, and I get the impression you guys do as well. She's a victim of circumstance, but all of you are too.

[Anastasia]

Feedback time. With many questions there's going to be some redundancy. If a question is purely redundant for you, say so and skip it.

I'll answer these later from the position of the DM. Don't want to influence answers ahead of time.

People

PCs

1. How do you feel your character is working out? Any areas that are particularly good or problematic?

2. How do you feel about the other PCs?

NPCs.

3. I strive to provide interesting NPCs, especially since this game is based around recruiting and building an army. How am I doing at that?

4. Who are your favorite 3 NPCs? If you haven't covered this already, why?

5. Who are your 3 least favorite NPCs? If you haven't covered this already, why?

Bad Guys

6. How do you feel Baator has been presented, as far as your primary antagonists go?

7. How do you feel evil in general is portrayed? I've been pulling few punches with them.

8. How do you feel about any other opposition you have?

Places

Planes

9. How do you feel the Heavens are shown? Are they working for you? Why or why not?

10. How do you feel the Hells are shown? Are they working for you? Why or why not?

11. How do you feel the other Outer Planes are shown? Are they working for you? Why or why not?

12. How do you feel the Inner Planes and misc (Astral, ect) are shown? Are they working for you? Why or why not?

Areas

13. What areas have you visited and liked, or thought were fun and memorable? Why?

14. What do you think of Aurora? I try and show it off whenever I can, but it's usually just a homebase that you rarely walk around in to merely see the sights.

15. What do you think of Brightwater? It's the closest thing the group has to a town and you visit it fairly often.

Things

Treasure

16. How's loot going for you? Am I giving you interesting items?

17. How about the raw quantity of GP? With Aurora+NPCs+Expenses there's always going to be a need for more, and this was design to have some money crunch elements to it. Afina's crafting has taken a considerable load off this burden, but it still exists.

18. I've dropped...3-5 artifacts in game, I believe? What do you think about them?

Meta

19. How am I DMing?

20. How's the tone of the game for you?

21. How's combat going? I strive to keep combat both dangerous and interesting whenever possible.

22. Now that you have some idea (but not all) of what's going on and some hints of why Lifasa fell, what do you think? Right now, it looks like the devils are using some form of fate to empower events and its your task to give fate a kick in the 'nads.

23. Who do you consider your biggest enemy in game?

Misc

24. This is purely meta, but I'm curious. Would your PC ever consider negotiating with Hell or a devil faction?

25. Do you think you can save Lifasa? IC and OOC.

26. Throughout the Planes, it can be said everyone has an agenda and a cause to promote. How much of a sense of that do you get?

27. Is 27 the sexiest badger-slaad on Lifasa?

Seriously 27: There's a lot of mysteries in the game world, from small to huge. What do you identify as mysteries, and what do you think the answers are? Assuming you have a guess as to what the answer is, anyway.

[Merc]

1. How do you feel your character is working out? Any areas that are particularly good or problematic?

I'm happy with Ithea, and I'm more comfortable in her shoes than the last round of feedback. Yes, I still fade into the background occassionally, but overall I do feel I'm a lot more active with Ithea. I do like interacting with all the varied NPCs too.

I know that's one of the things I really commented on last time, when we'd only gotten up to Dana then, and I've gotten opportunities to chat with a ton of the characters since then, including getting to know better the characters I didn't much like at the last round of feedback. There's still a lot of NPCs I've not interacted too much with though, particularly the pixie group, hopefully I will later on. I'd also like to interact a bit more with the soldiers/people rather than just the currently named NPCs. At the very least, making the catfolk contingent feel more of a presence for Ithea to be responsible for.

Mechanically, I'm also happy with my character. The sneak attack annoyance became a non-issue by rebuilding as a combat rogue, she has her niche/style, I actually don't feel dice-hate as much (whether it's simply better dice luck or change in perception because I'm playing Ithea better and her build is more balanced now), and I like where she's at power-wise, I certainly don't feel like I'm lagging or overshooting anybody.

*laughs* As a random note, I aged her from 18 to 19 somewhere between level 16 and 17. So she's the same age as Jaela now.

2. How do you feel about the other PCs?

I'm fine with all the players and I'm okay with the other characters, though I'm not particularly attached to any of them. Willim's the only one Ithea could say she was close to, she only just met Muirfinn and she's not just not close to Afina or Jaela. Heck... Ithea actually kinda dislikes Jaela at that.

The two work well in combat, and there's a lot of respect as far as fighting goes, but their personalities just really feel like they clash and whenever they do interact, I tend to feel Jaela is often snippy/condescending or just ignoring her. That's fine, of all the PCs, Jaela is the one I'm almost never paired with for split-up scenes anyway. Kascha getting cursed and trying to rez Elrisa one last time, I think are about it, and I didn't even really do anything in those besides tag along so there was no sniping. Lack of interaction means I don't get annoyed often, and when I do, never for long.

More interaction between the two could change things for better despite that, I actually like a lot of the NPCs I used to dislike because of that extra interaction...then again, I somehow doubt it would. The only common ground between the two is the storyline, and even there Jaela has ideas that Ithea disagrees with fundamentally. The two just seem to mutually rub each other the wrong way, and nothing's gonna be done about that as long as they're still able to work well together in a fight, likely. And all things aside? The two would still try their hardest to save the other from death even at their own expense, I think.

Afina, there's really no particular reason I'm not close to her, I just never got attached to her, though I have no dislike for her either. Ithea seems to get along just fine with her and the few scenes they get together, Afina and her do actually chat and interact usually. Even in scenes where Ithea fades a bit, Afina always feels like she's paying attention to everyone, and when Ithea says something, she'll comment back, so I don't immediately feel like fading away again. Afina's pretty much the most mature of the group (though that might change with Muirfinn joining, hard to tell still) too, and the character with closest philosophy to Ithea so there's never any real friction there. Even if there's no friendly attachment, Ithea still holds her in really high regard, both in combat and out of it. She might have served as a good sounding board for Ithea on the split-session stuff, I did immediately think 'talk to Afina' when Kascha died, but it's likely Sylvie will be used there in the future instead, given their budding friendship.

Nothing to say on Muirfinn given he's so new.

Overall, Afina and Jaela are a lot more take-charge than Ithea, just due to them typing out more lines, though since I don't see either as a friend, I don't really interact much with either outside of the bigger scenes, and even then I tend to stick with Yuth and the NPCs for chatting, while letting the two hammer out plot-relevant stuff faster, only occassionally interjecting a thought about whatever they're discussing. Ithea'll just takes the lead if the other two aren't around to do so.

3. I strive to provide interesting NPCs, especially since this game is based around recruiting and building an army. How am I doing at that?

*thumbs up?*

I said it above, but I feel that Ithea develops most as a character from interacting with NPCs, not from interacting with other PCs.

That said, I really would like to see the nameless soldiers/rank-and-file have more presence. It gives Aurora more life when we see them do stuff, sure we have giants playing gulah, poker tournaments and other stuff...that all occurs with the named NPCs, but there's a charm to seeing stuff involving characters like Carly outside of those story objectives, or that lycanthrope that picked a fight with Elrisa and got knocked on his ass, etc.

Of course, given all the stuff there is to do, not exactly sure when you'd get to detail them out more either...

4. Who are your favorite 3 NPCs? If you haven't covered this already, why?

I'll list four, since the last three are roughly around the same rank: Sylvie, Adrian, Annalise and Dana. Bonus points in that I actively disliked all of the last three at first.

When I was creating Ithea, I kind of made her background parallel Sylvie's to some degree, with the difference being that Sylvie did live up to her hype but realized she wasn't happy with it while Ithea saw that she didn't live up to it and struggling afterwards because of it, not to mention that Ithea's focus was always more combat-oriented in the first place. It was fun to actually interact with Sylvie once we picked her up, and then have a chat over those points of similarities/differences and bonding there. Still a pretty new relationship, so who knows where it'll go, but I like Sylvie so far, more than in Balmuria 2, although I think Ithea'd be fairly disappointed/angry if she ever mentions dumping her kid and they'll probably argue there. Family's important to Ithea, and she doesn't even have any living relatives left, knowing Sylvie has them and doesn't want to be around would be...a revelation about her new friend.

Adrian, I really disliked at first because of his ego, but he pulled back on it after getting a tree dropped on him (he deserved it!) even if he's still petty with the kitty jokes. Like she told Sylvie, right now Ithea considers him on the same scale as someone would consider an annoying younger brother. Familial-type love? He's really the one she's closest to, even if she's more comfortable with Sylvie.

Annalise's introduction really soured Ithea initially on the vampire, she didn't like almost being manipulated/controlled into freeing her, and just the fact that she's an undead monstrosity (if a beautiful one) did her no favors, but Ithea's still warmed up to the vamp a lot since then. She likes Annalise's personality, she's very self-assured and coy, and the fact that she hasn't betrayed them yet and actually has helped Ithea on a fair bit of things means she's grown on the catgirl. Like a fungus. Still don't trust her entirely, but there's at least enough trust there to interact with her and ask her out for help with visiting some other plane, as well as I don't feel quite as bad about defending/justifying her presence anymore. Ithea'll never admit to kind of liking her, of course. It sets a bad precedent (Not sure to what, but I'm sure it does). She does wish Jaela the best of luck with truly redeeming her, it's at least one project where she's really behind the celestial pirate, even if only in the privacy of her own mind.

Dana...is Dana. She's another fungus-like growth. Seeing her deal with the aftermath of Willim's death helps flesh her out more, and even if she's still a dirty-mouthed skank, Ithea does consider her a close friend now. And she gets -such- a kick out of Dana being an honest to goodness princess too.

5. Who are your 3 least favorite NPCs? If you haven't covered this already, why?

I don't really have any NPC I dislike enough to put into a 'least favorite' category. I've not interacted enough with some of them that I'm just generally neutral over them, and the ones I interact heavily with, I do like, even the ones that I initially would have put in this category.

6. How do you feel Baator has been presented, as far as your primary antagonists go?
7. How do you feel evil in general is portrayed? I've been pulling few punches with them.
8. How do you feel about any other opposition you have?

Hell is hellish. Evil is evil. This is all 'duh!' stuff, but I really can't put it into better words... I mean, I've enjoyed myself and I think the portrayal is fitting. What's more there to say? I do hope we can keep our enemies to just dragons and devils and keep other factions from really feeling that we've made enemies out of them. We do have triad problems, but as long as we don't go knocking at their door, it seems a non-issue. There's also still the gith to deal with and we're waiting on the fallout of Adrian's group dealing with mechanus, so we'll see.

9. How do you feel the Heavens are shown? Are they working for you? Why or why not?
11. How do you feel the other Outer Planes are shown? Are they working for you? Why or why not?
12. How do you feel the Inner Planes and misc (Astral, ect) are shown? Are they working for you? Why or why not?

More planar facts, please! Details about the places we specifically visit are fine though, I liked Marambor, dealing with Brightwater, Lady Chen's palace, the abyss, etc. They're atmospheric enough to interact with. Just more details about the planes themselves. They're all unique, how do they affect us? We only usually get a little fluff line when we teleport, but the lack of planar details means they don't really stick with us unless you continually reinforce that fluff, which you don't always.

14. What do you think of Aurora? I try and show it off whenever I can, but it's usually just a homebase that you rarely walk around in to merely see the sights.

I like how it's shaping up into a city-state, makes me think of Balmuria's origin as an old abandoned fortress that started expanding into something more, which is a nice meta tie to the world of the last two games. Other than that, see question 3.

16. How's loot going for you? Am I giving you interesting items?

I'd like to see more funny stuff like the jade pendant, the stuffed dog, etc. Sure, we usually sell it, but it's still fun to read about them when we pick them up and I always laugh when I see something like that. I also like the personalized items like the duskblade orb and such as well, obviously.

The shop stuff for Aurora is also neat, usually because of laughs, but there's stuff I might consider buying when I get my cash reserve up more.

17. How about the raw quantity of GP? With Aurora+NPCs+Expenses there's always going to be a need for more, and this was design to have some money crunch elements to it. Afina's crafting has taken a considerable load off this burden, but it still exists.

It's good? I don't really have much to add here. The 51 days of money crunching was mind numbing though, I don't want to do that again, and definitely not during game-time.

18. I've dropped...3-5 artifacts in game, I believe? What do you think about them?

They're nice and varied in power levels/effects, so they're neat!

21 is pretty unique. I'm curious what shape it'd take for Ithea, but at the same time, I really, really, really don't want to carry it either. Ithea's made a lot of bad calls to get to where she's at after what happened with Lifasa that I don't think she particularly would want to relive and really think about.

My ranger-in-a-cloak gets a lot of love, it's done wonders for me and I didn't even initially want it. Unseen bracers are a little boring, but the +5ft reach is still an essential part of my character now. Sucks that I have to take 'em off whenever I want to deal with people (or UMD stuff) though.

Other artifacts...I know we've gotten 'em, but I haven't really kept track of them and how they're used, outside of passing on them since I've gotten two, so no comment on 'em.

19. How am I DMing?
20. How's the tone of the game for you?

I'm having fun usually. I like the tone as well, there's a lot of dark elements like in Balmuria 2, but this time they work well with our setting/plotline, and I feel like we're going places and doing things that actually matter when we fight against the forces of evil, instead of just trying to survive even as we get whittled down one by one. Which is funny given our characters in Balmuria 3 actually have the more impossible fight ahead of them.

We also have a lot of breather scenes which is nice for the occassional change of pace, though as I've said, I wasn't really fond of the love quest, even if I was keeping myself involved with it. Interacting with Willim for that was what kept it semi-interesting. And now he's dead. :(

21. How's combat going? I strive to keep combat both dangerous and interesting whenever possible.

I like the fights, there's been a lot of dangerous fights that we've gotten dice lucky with, and some not so lucky with, but they're generally fun, even with the occassional frustration at hatbot (well, more occassional -now- anyway, frequent was a better word last time around). There's a few stinker fights here and there, but we've all commented on those guys before already, so I doubt we need to comment on them again.

The sundering devils are bitches and I will murder the crap out of any future orthons as fast as possible.

22. Now that you have some idea (but not all) of what's going on and some hints of why Lifasa fell, what do you think? Right now, it looks like the devils are using some form of fate to empower events and its your task to give fate a kick in the 'nads.

While I know you dislike TTGL, it's a suitable enough response that covers that question: "Row! Row! Fight the power!"

23. Who do you consider your biggest enemy in game?

The devils in general, the complacency of 'Good' in honoring agreements or doling out punishment, and how they deal (or don't, rather) with loopholes, and fate/prophecy. There's no specific face to be considered the biggest enemy, although Bel, Abigor and the nine traitors all have huge targets on them from our corner. There's a reason the crusade will likely go on even after Lifasa gets freed, even if all eleven characters mentioned die.

24. This is purely meta, but I'm curious. Would your PC ever consider negotiating with Hell or a devil faction?

Devils? No, never. Ithea is going to continue to oppose fully the idea of doing anything other than murdering them. Someone that works with devils (ie, the red crescent banner guys for example), possibly. A devil itself, no.

She's perfectly willing to deal with other evil or problematic character, even recruiting them like Annalise/Baleruk, especially if they appear willing to add their power to ours. Doing questionable acts for the sake of Lifasa/Aurora...well, she's not hard to convince/get her to justify such notions to herself. That said, she won't budge on devils, outside of maybe a devil who's already been proven to have redeemed and wishes to help them fight his still corrupted kin.

...Maybe.

Ithea's mostly just not willing to see resources spent on them, even if they're not her own resources. Those erinyes are going to have an accident sooner or later if Jaela ever lets them out for a redemption program. They'd have to project an aura of pure goodness or something more ridiculous to get a pass from Ithea.

25. Do you think you can save Lifasa? IC and OOC.

Yes and yes. Not any time soon, but it'll happen. The most damning thing for me (in respects to the game anyway) would be getting a job over in real-life, in which case I won't be able to help save it anymore.

26. Throughout the Planes, it can be said everyone has an agenda and a cause to promote. How much of a sense of that do you get?

*slams fist on desk* Our agenda and cause is better than theirs, and if they don't like it, they can suck it! Next question!

27. Is 27 the sexiest badger-slaad on Lifasa?

If he's hanging out in Lifasa, staying outside of the devils' reach, I wanna know how he's sneaking over!

If you meant Aurora, then he's its only badger-slaad, so I guess he is the sexiest, just by default? =p

Seriously 27: There's a lot of mysteries in the game world, from small to huge. What do you identify as mysteries, and what do you think the answers are? Assuming you have a guess as to what the answer is, anyway.

Anything 27 says/writes is a mystery. I've commented by PM on my thoughts on some of his crap since you tend to ask. Just a lot of the plot stuff regarding Lifasa and devil prophecies/fate is another mystery.

[Anastasia]

I'm happy with Ithea, and I'm more comfortable in her shoes than the last round of feedback. Yes, I still fade into the background occassionally, but overall I do feel I'm a lot more active with Ithea. I do like interacting with all the varied NPCs too.

Agreed here. I feel Ithea's firmed up lately, in particular with Sylvie. More on that later, I'm sure.

I know that's one of the things I really commented on last time, when we'd only gotten up to Dana then, and I've gotten opportunities to chat with a ton of the characters since then, including getting to know better the characters I didn't much like at the last round of feedback. There's still a lot of NPCs I've not interacted too much with though, particularly the pixie group, hopefully I will later on. I'd also like to interact a bit more with the soldiers/people rather than just the currently named NPCs. At the very least, making the catfolk contingent feel more of a presence for Ithea to be responsible for.

Yes, there's enough people around that knowing everyone really well is likely unrealistic. I try and get people around, as well as have various interactions for everyone. You do touch on one point that I'm unsatisfied with - the common soldiers don't get a lot of character. To a degree I expected this, as I have a lot of masks to wear without worrying about the common soldiers. On the other hand, they don't do a lot, either, and they add a lot of flavor. Especially with you and the catfolk, since you have a reason to be invested with them.

Mechanically, I'm also happy with my character. The sneak attack annoyance became a non-issue by rebuilding as a combat rogue, she has her niche/style, I actually don't feel dice-hate as much (whether it's simply better dice luck or change in perception because I'm playing Ithea better and her build is more balanced now), and I like where she's at power-wise, I certainly don't feel like I'm lagging or overshooting anybody.

I think it's more that you're happy with your build now. I haven't noticed a serious upswing in your dicebot luck, but your setup appeals to you a lot more now. Plus sneak attack is a headache. A nice headache if you don't mind dealing with it, but it is a headache. Getting rid of that probably did do you a whole lot of good.

*laughs* As a random note, I aged her from 18 to 19 somewhere between level 16 and 17. So she's the same age as Jaela now.

Truly, we are lead by babes in the wood.

I'm fine with all the players and I'm okay with the other characters, though I'm not particularly attached to any of them. Willim's the only one Ithea could say she was close to, she only just met Muirfinn and she's not just not close to Afina or Jaela. Heck... Ithea actually kinda dislikes Jaela at that. The two work well in combat, and there's a lot of respect as far as fighting goes, but their personalities just really feel like they clash and whenever they do interact, I tend to feel Jaela is often snippy/condescending or just ignoring her. That's fine, of all the PCs, Jaela is the one I'm almost never paired with for split-up scenes anyway.

More interaction between the two could change things for better despite that, I actually like a lot of the NPCs I used to dislike because of that extra interaction...then again, I somehow doubt it would. The only common ground between the two is the storyline, and even there Jaela has ideas that Ithea disagrees with fundamentally. The two just seem to mutually rub each other the wrong way, and nothing's gonna be done about that as long as they're still able to work well together in a fight, likely. And all things aside? The two would still try their hardest to save the other from death even at their own expense, I think.

Afina, there's really no particular reason I'm not close to her, I just never got attached to her, though I have no dislike for her either. Ithea seems to get along just fine with her and the few scenes they get together, Afina and her do actually chat and interact usually. Even in scenes where Ithea fades a bit, Afina always feels like she's paying attention to everyone, and when Ithea says something, she'll comment back, so I don't immediately feel like fading away again. Afina's pretty much the most mature of the group (though that might change with Muirfinn joining, hard to tell still) too, and the character with closest philosophy to Ithea so there's never any real friction there. Even if there's no friendly attachment, Ithea still holds her in really high regard, both in combat and out of it. She might have served as a good sounding board for Ithea on the split-session stuff, I did immediately think 'talk to Afina' when Kascha died, but it's likely Sylvie will be used there in the future instead, given their budding friendship.

Nothing to say on Muirfinn given he's so new.

Overall, Afina and Jaela are a lot more take-charge than Ithea, just due to them typing out more lines, though since I don't see either as a friend, I don't really interact much with either outside of the bigger scenes, and even then I tend to stick with Yuth and the NPCs for chatting, while letting the two hammer out plot-relevant stuff faster, only occasionally interjecting a thought about whatever they're discussing. Ithea'll just takes the lead if the other two aren't around to do so.

That's about how I see it with Ithea, yes. Afina's character type isn't conducive to making close friends and Muirfinn's new. I'm not surprised about Jaela - if nothing else the 21 argument felt like it solidified that impression you have of her to me. As far as the split thing, I've noticed it and it's starting to OOC annoy me. Lately it's mostly been Ithea+Muirfinn or Afina+Jaela doing things, just the way it's worked out. Want to try and correct that.

*thumbs up?*

I said it above, but I feel that Ithea develops most as a character from interacting with NPCs, not from interacting with other PCs.

I've noticed this as well. I've been pondering this over and I think the answer is a simple but twofold one. First of all, none of you quite naturally sync together. Afina's too independent and understated, Jaela clashes with people easily and Muirfinn's new. Why work with harder things when you can deal with other characters instead? NPCs are often easier to develop against - less PC ego/focus and more reactive to what PCs do in general, I think.

That said, I really would like to see the nameless soldiers/rank-and-file have more presence. It gives Aurora more life when we see them do stuff, sure we have giants playing gulah, poker tournaments and other stuff...that all occurs with the named NPCs, but there's a charm to seeing stuff involving characters like Carly outside of those story objectives, or that lycanthrope that picked a fight with Elrisa and got knocked on his ass, etc.

Of course, given all the stuff there is to do, not exactly sure when you'd get to detail them out more either...

Agreed. I squeeze it in when I can, but there's a lot going on already.

I'll list four, since the last three are roughly around the same rank: Sylvie, Adrian, Annalise and Dana. Bonus points in that I actively disliked all of the last three at first.

Coooooooool.

When I was creating Ithea, I kind of made her background parallel Sylvie's to some degree, with the difference being that Sylvie did live up to her hype but realized she wasn't happy with it while Ithea saw that she didn't live up to it and struggling afterwards because of it, not to mention that Ithea's focus was always more combat-oriented in the first place. It was fun to actually interact with Sylvie once we picked her up, and then have a chat over those points of similarities/differences and bonding there. Still a pretty new relationship, so who knows where it'll go, but I like Sylvie so far, more than in Balmuria 2, although I think Ithea'd be fairly disappointed/angry if she ever mentions dumping her kid and they'll probably argue there. Family's important to Ithea, and she doesn't even have any living relatives left, knowing Sylvie has them and doesn't want to be around would be...a revelation about her new friend.

Yeah. I hadn't really pinned any of that when porting Sylvie over to Balmuria 3. I didn't think Sylvie and Ithea would hit it off at all, if anything, I found myself fishing with her early on since she got off to a bad (and entirely unplanned) start with Jaela. I didn't realize the similarities until they talked, and then it clicked hard. Sylvie got it at the same time, and she found what she was looking for really hard at exactly that moment - a friend. I liked how they clicked and how natural it felt.

Though yes, there's plenty of room to criticize Sylvie for bad choices. For all her potential and natural ability, she's made some downright shitty choices in her life. For all her intelligence, her coping mechanisms fucking suck. She's a terrible mom at least in part because of that, ran off to the Planes on a foolish quest for understanding that turned dark and is now throwing herself into vengeance that isn't even her own to make.

Adrian, I really disliked at first because of his ego, but he pulled back on it after getting a tree dropped on him (he deserved it!) even if he's still petty with the kitty jokes. Like she told Sylvie, right now Ithea considers him on the same scale as someone would consider an annoying younger brother. Familial-type love? He's really the one she's closest to, even if she's more comfortable with Sylvie.

I toyed briefly with Adrian having a crush on Ithea, but it never really felt right. After you said all that, I realized that Adrian really does love annoying Ithea, just like a friend or brother. He doesn't express it the best - honestly with a base cha of 6, I've been running with the interpretation that he has a socialization disorder, maybe something mild on the autism spectrum. He's capable of improving and I've seen some of his growth as him trying to improve his socialization. I ran with it enough that I felt justified putting his level 16 stat point into charisma.

Annalise's introduction really soured Ithea initially on the vampire, she didn't like almost being manipulated/controlled into freeing her, and just the fact that she's an undead monstrosity (if a beautiful one) did her no favors, but Ithea's still warmed up to the vamp a lot since then. She likes Annalise's personality, she's very self-assured and coy, and the fact that she hasn't betrayed them yet and actually has helped Ithea on a fair bit of things means she's grown on the catgirl. Like a fungus. Still don't trust her entirely, but there's at least enough trust there to interact with her and ask her out for help with visiting some other plane, as well as I don't feel quite as bad about defending/justifying her presence anymore. Ithea'll never admit to kind of liking her, of course. It sets a bad precedent (Not sure to what, but I'm sure it does). She does wish Jaela the best of luck with truly redeeming her, it's at least one project where she's really behind the celestial pirate, even if only in the privacy of her own mind.

I'd make a fungal infection joke here, but I think Cor would literally kill me. Not gonna say much else here, that's standard policy with her.

Dana...is Dana. She's another fungus-like growth. Seeing her deal with the aftermath of Willim's death helps flesh her out more, and even if she's still a dirty-mouthed skank, Ithea does consider her a close friend now. And she gets -such- a kick out of Dana being an honest to goodness princess too.

I had a lot of fun seeing her deal with the aftermath. She's coping in a way that's distinctly her and I really feel it adds to her charm. Also yes, I get a huge kick out of her being a princess too. It's a such a simple and overused thing, but Dana pushes it so far that it's funny again because it's so absurdly against type. It even goes past the typical rebellious princess thing.

Hell is hellish. Evil is evil. This is all 'duh!' stuff, but I really can't put it into better words... I mean, I've enjoyed myself and I think the portrayal is fitting. What's more there to say? I do hope we can keep our enemies to just dragons and devils and keep other factions from really feeling that we've made enemies out of them. We do have triad problems, but as long as we don't go knocking at their door, it seems a non-issue. There's also still the gith to deal with and we're waiting on the fallout of Adrian's group dealing with mechanus, so we'll see.

Yes. Hopefully you guys are more aware that your actions get attention and cause consequences in the game world. What Bahamut and Tiamat did was a dick move, but it was also a direct reaction to what you did and what you stuck to doing.

More planar facts, please! Details about the places we specifically visit are fine though, I liked Marambor, dealing with Brightwater, Lady Chen's palace, the abyss, etc. They're atmospheric enough to interact with. Just more details about the planes themselves. They're all unique, how do they affect us? We only usually get a little fluff line when we teleport, but the lack of planar details means they don't really stick with us unless you continually reinforce that fluff, which you don't always.

Agreed. I've been a bit lazy with it lately. I think I got burned out on it arguing with Cor over 209. Gonna be working on that to reinforce it better going ahead.

I like how it's shaping up into a city-state, makes me think of Balmuria's origin as an old abandoned fortress that started expanding into something more, which is a nice meta tie to the world of the last two games. Other than that, see question 3.

Heh, that is a nice bit of continuity, isn't it? That thought hadn't even crossed my mind.

I'd like to see more funny stuff like the jade pendant, the stuffed dog, etc. Sure, we usually sell it, but it's still fun to read about them when we pick them up and I always laugh when I see something like that. I also like the personalized items like the duskblade orb and such as well, obviously.

The shop stuff for Aurora is also neat, usually because of laughs, but there's stuff I might consider buying when I get my cash reserve up more.

Yes to both, and I've been using the shops in Aurora to fit in more quirky stuff. The things that Filbrez sells are unique to him or really rare/unusual, the books are one of a kind and net you some information (as posted when you and Sylvie read some of them) that ranges from interesting to useful to random. The alchemical solutions that are for sale are unique, too. If you like the shops, use 'em some.

I don't like dropping personalized items too often. It's a bit unbelievable if you always find something personally designed for you, and it reduces the wonder and magic for when you are so lucky as to. So appreciate then when they do happen! As for the first point, agreed. Quirky items come up from time to time. The last batch was in the gelugon's possessions - if nothing else, the items there were meant to be different. Having that little bit of uniqueness or occasional history to an item is fun.

It's good? I don't really have much to add here. The 51 days of money crunching was mind numbing though, I don't want to do that again, and definitely not during game-time.

Fair 'nough.

They're nice and varied in power levels/effects, so they're neat!

21 is pretty unique. I'm curious what shape it'd take for Ithea, but at the same time, I really, really, really don't want to carry it either. Ithea's made a lot of bad calls to get to where she's at after what happened with Lifasa that I don't think she particularly would want to relive and really think about.

Fair enough. 21 is a blessing and a curse, useful and utterly alien and a whole bunch of other contrasting good/bad things. I don't blame anyone who wants to avoid it. Hell, Sylvie wanted to get rid of it until Jaela pissed her off enough to embrace it more. The fact that it's getting those reactions shows that it's working as designed.

My ranger-in-a-cloak gets a lot of love, it's done wonders for me and I didn't even initially want it. Unseen bracers are a little boring, but the +5ft reach is still an essential part of my character now. Sucks that I have to take 'em off whenever I want to deal with people (or UMD stuff) though.

The ranger cloak is a whole lot of fun. I made that when designing some new epic magical items, just putting things through the paces and seeing what I could do with the system as revised. Tweaking it into an artifact gift sort of thing worked out quite well.

I'm having fun usually. I like the tone as well, there's a lot of dark elements like in Balmuria 2, but this time they work well with our setting/plotline, and I feel like we're going places and doing things that actually matter when we fight against the forces of evil, instead of just trying to survive even as we get whittled down one by one. Which is funny given our characters in Balmuria 3 actually have the more impossible fight ahead of them.

Yeah, this is what I was aiming for. There's darkness inherent in the premise and Hell tries to break you in body, mind and soul. They don't hold anything back - ask Ilsenine. At the same time, I want you guys fighting against it instead of bowing your heads and succumbing. You guys have a hard fight ahead, but as long as you hold onto hope and Aurora, you have a chance.

We also have a lot of breather scenes which is nice for the occassional change of pace, though as I've said, I wasn't really fond of the love quest, even if I was keeping myself involved with it. Interacting with Willim for that was what kept it semi-interesting. And now he's dead. :(

At this point that entire quest is an awkward hanging appendix.  It was an it was an interesting idea to try and mix things up, but it's really gone nowhere and struggled doing so.

I like the fights, there's been a lot of dangerous fights that we've gotten dice lucky with, and some not so lucky with, but they're generally fun, even with the occassional frustration at hatbot (well, more occassional -now- anyway, frequent was a better word last time around). There's a few stinker fights here and there, but we've all commented on those guys before already, so I doubt we need to comment on them again.

The sundering devils are bitches and I will murder the crap out of any future orthons as fast as possible.

Yeah, I'm always trying different styles of fights or trying to add something to it. Sometimes it's subtle or not even noticed, sometimes it's obvious, but you always gotta try. Sundering is a distinctly unpleasant move, and one that I'm glad got attention. It's a nasty trick.

While I know you dislike TTGL, it's a suitable enough response that covers that question: "Row! Row! Fight the power!"

Heh. No, that's about what I want to hear. On the other hand, if you think screaming loud enough with hot blood will win by itself, you'll find yourself making multiple posts to the Cemetary. Hell is a horrible opponent and there are creatures on the Planes who have lived so long that there are no numbers to express how old they are. Things that breathe power and only the wisest or most foolish know of, things that no mortal should ever have to confront. It's best to remember that, too. Gathgorian was an unpleasant reminder that there are things far stronger than you out there.

The devils in general, the complacency of 'Good' in honoring agreements or doling out punishment, and how they deal (or don't, rather) with loopholes, and fate/prophecy. There's no specific face to be considered the biggest enemy, although Bel, Abigor and the nine traitors all have huge targets on them from our corner. There's a reason the crusade will likely go on even after Lifasa gets freed, even if all eleven characters mentioned die.

Fair 'nough.

Devils? No, never. Ithea is going to continue to oppose fully the idea of doing anything other than murdering them. Someone that works with devils (ie, the red crescent banner guys for example), possibly. A devil itself, no.

She's perfectly willing to deal with other evil or problematic character, even recruiting them like Annalise/Baleruk, especially if they appear willing to add their power to ours. Doing questionable acts for the sake of Lifasa/Aurora...well, she's not hard to convince/get her to justify such notions to herself. That said, she won't budge on devils, outside of maybe a devil who's already been proven to have redeemed and wishes to help them fight his still corrupted kin.

...Maybe.

Ithea's mostly just not willing to see resources spent on them, even if they're not her own resources. Those erinyes are going to have an accident sooner or later if Jaela ever lets them out for a redemption program. They'd have to project an aura of pure goodness or something more ridiculous to get a pass from Ithea.

Interesting. Noted.

Yes and yes. Not any time soon, but it'll happen. The most damning thing for me (in respects to the game anyway) would be getting a job over in real-life, in which case I won't be able to help save it anymore.

Fair enough. If I ever win the lottery, I'll send you some cash to tide you over. <_<

*slams fist on desk* Our agenda and cause is better than theirs, and if they don't like it, they can suck it! Next question!

Ahahahahahhahaha.

If he's hanging out in Lifasa, staying outside of the devils' reach, I wanna know how he's sneaking over!

If you meant Aurora, then he's its only badger-slaad, so I guess he is the sexiest, just by default? =p

DOH!

Anything 27 says/writes is a mystery. I've commented by PM on my thoughts on some of his crap since you tend to ask. Just a lot of the plot stuff regarding Lifasa and devil prophecies/fate is another mystery.

Yes. Again, feel free to try investigate the mysteries. Knowledge is power and all of that. You never found the diabolical prophecy involving the Child of Lifasa before killing it, but knowing what was written there would have been supremely useful.

[Merc]

I think it's more that you're happy with your build now. I haven't noticed a serious upswing in your dicebot luck, but your setup appeals to you a lot more now. Plus sneak attack is a headache. A nice headache if you don't mind dealing with it, but it is a headache. Getting rid of that probably did do you a whole lot of good.

I do think dice luck has improved actually, even if I still bitch out Hatbot about the same. But how the build is set-up also does help. Even if I miss big time on full attacks, someone else hitting means an extra opportunity for me, so I don't feel like I've wasted a round when that happens. I like being able to act multiple times in a round, it makes me feel more involved and like I really am contributing.

That's about how I see it with Ithea, yes. Afina's character type isn't conducive to making close friends and Muirfinn's new. I'm not surprised about Jaela - if nothing else the 21 argument felt like it solidified that impression you have of her to me. As far as the split thing, I've noticed it and it's starting to OOC annoy me. Lately it's mostly been Ithea+Muirfinn or Afina+Jaela doing things, just the way it's worked out. Want to try and correct that.

I've noticed this as well. I've been pondering this over and I think the answer is a simple but twofold one. First of all, none of you quite naturally sync together. Afina's too independent and understated, Jaela clashes with people easily and Muirfinn's new. Why work with harder things when you can deal with other characters instead? NPCs are often easier to develop against - less PC ego/focus and more reactive to what PCs do in general, I think.

Corwin and I had a PM discussion earlier. He was making sure OOC I didn't have a problem with Jaela (I don't, she annoys me sometimes, but it's in-game clashes, and Ithea is just as rude back sometimes), and we just talked a bit more regarding my commentary and how the two can interact/etc.

Ithea probably will continue to not go out of her way to include Jaela in side-stuff because of how she feels, but we'll probably be mixing up a bit more in the future still. I'll probably be going with Jaela on a trip to Fire soon.

They're still really likely to keep on clashing, even if OOC we have a better understanding of the other's IC mentality.

I toyed briefly with Adrian having a crush on Ithea, but it never really felt right. After you said all that, I realized that Adrian really does love annoying Ithea, just like a friend or brother. He doesn't express it the best - honestly with a base cha of 6, I've been running with the interpretation that he has a socialization disorder, maybe something mild on the autism spectrum. He's capable of improving and I've seen some of his growth as him trying to improve his socialization. I ran with it enough that I felt justified putting his level 16 stat point into charisma.

Ithea would have been really weirded out if he'd crushed on her.

Yes. Hopefully you guys are more aware that your actions get attention and cause consequences in the game world. What Bahamut and Tiamat did was a dick move, but it was also a direct reaction to what you did and what you stuck to doing.

I was always aware there were attention/consequences to what we did, and I've generally tried not to piss anybody off too badly or trying to keep things from getting worse, particularly with the githyanki (which we still have to resolve past the ambassador and deal with the queen) and mechanus.

That said, I don't actually think what Bahamut/Tiamat did was really a dick move, we honestly did deserve shit for what we did. Going along with Baleruk was stupid, but it was fun and IC we felt we had reason to do it so we did, and hell, we pretty much went and lectured -gods- over why we thought they were being stupid. So yeah, we deserved that shit.

But...

Kascha didn't. The fact that Bahamut cursed her, hell, the fact that it was he, the lawful good deity, who pulled that shit...well, he fucked up there. If Bahamut wanted us to regret our actions or see it as a punishment, he failed spectacularly. That was the real dick move, and why nobody really regrets saying 'Fuck you, Bahamut/Tiamat!'.

Heh, that is a nice bit of continuity, isn't it? That thought hadn't even crossed my mind.

Always figured that was on purpose.

If you like the shops, use 'em some.

I will! When I have more money... I said that already! =p

I don't like dropping personalized items too often. It's a bit unbelievable if you always find something personally designed for you, and it reduces the wonder and magic for when you are so lucky as to. So appreciate then when they do happen!

That's fine and makes sense, wasn't really asking for more actually, just saying it is cool to get. Arandalhaz's loot really is the only time we've had personalized loot anyway, though I don't think Afina's really gotten anything personalized for her ever. It's probably hard to personalize for pixie assassins though, outside of fey-nip!

They don't hold anything back - ask Ilsenine.

Don't have to, we already know it was ewww.

On the other hand, if you think screaming loud enough with hot blood will win by itself, you'll find yourself making multiple posts to the Cemetary.

Well, to be fair, the TTGL guys made multiple posts there too (tv series anyway, not as much the movies), hot blood just made 'em persevere through their difficulties!

We know better than to charge into Hell expecting a win right now too, while that group would charge right in.

Fair enough. If I ever win the lottery, I'll send you some cash to tide you over. <_<

*laughs* I'm fine money-wise for the time being, but thanks for the sentiment. I too will send you cash if I ever win the lotto. =p

[Anastasia]

I do think dice luck has improved actually, even if I still bitch out Hatbot about the same. But how the build is set-up also does help. Even if I miss big time on full attacks, someone else hitting means an extra opportunity for me, so I don't feel like I've wasted a round when that happens. I like being able to act multiple times in a round, it makes me feel more involved and like I really am contributing.

That's true. It feels like CR+Opportunist+Savvy Rogue is a good combo for you. It hasn't really slowed down combat either, which I'm grateful for.

Corwin and I had a PM discussion earlier. He was making sure OOC I didn't have a problem with Jaela (I don't, she annoys me sometimes, but it's in-game clashes, and Ithea is just as rude back sometimes), and we just talked a bit more regarding my commentary and how the two can interact/etc.

Ithea probably will continue to not go out of her way to include Jaela in side-stuff because of how she feels, but we'll probably be mixing up a bit more in the future still. I'll probably be going with Jaela on a trip to Fire soon.

They're still really likely to keep on clashing, even if OOC we have a better understanding of the other's IC mentality.

Anything interesting come of it? Yes, I'm being nosy.

Ithea would have been really weirded out if he'd crushed on her.

Yeah, likewise. Misalea further scotched that.

I was always aware there were attention/consequences to what we did, and I've generally tried not to piss anybody off too badly or trying to keep things from getting worse, particularly with the githyanki (which we still have to resolve past the ambassador and deal with the queen) and mechanus.

Yes. You guys are in a position of command and authority - lots of eyes are on you, both in Aurora and outside of it.

That said, I don't actually think what Bahamut/Tiamat did was really a dick move, we honestly did deserve shit for what we did. Going along with Baleruk was stupid, but it was fun and IC we felt we had reason to do it so we did, and hell, we pretty much went and lectured -gods- over why we thought they were being stupid. So yeah, we deserved that shit.

Agreed.

But...

Kascha didn't. The fact that Bahamut cursed her, hell, the fact that it was he, the lawful good deity, who pulled that shit...well, he fucked up there. If Bahamut wanted us to regret our actions or see it as a punishment, he failed spectacularly. That was the real dick move, and why nobody really regrets saying 'Fuck you, Bahamut/Tiamat!'.

Also agreed. Lawful Good doesn't mean lawful nice, and the Gods aren't perfect. Powerful, incredibly wise and able to alter reality, but not perfect. OOC I agree that Kascha didn't deserve this. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, faced with a deity going all Old Testament on mortals. No comment beyond that, why Bahamut did what he did is an open question.

Always figured that was on purpose.

Not really. I do a lot of things on purpose - down to obscure things with double meanings and numerology - but coincidences do still happen. I never made the distinct connection of the two, though subconsciously it makes sense. I was nostalgic for Balmuria 1 when I came up with this game (still am), so some aspects of it leaking in make sense.

I will! When I have more money... I said that already! =p

Get more money!

That's fine and makes sense, wasn't really asking for more actually, just saying it is cool to get. Arandalhaz's loot really is the only time we've had personalized loot anyway, though I don't think Afina's really gotten anything personalized for her ever. It's probably hard to personalize for pixie assassins though, outside of fey-nip!

The staff of nature sword (or whatever it was) was designed for Afina, but she didn't bite. Oh well. That happens sometimes. Honestly, Afina's build is largely self sufficient and her crafting adventures allow her to make what she needs. With her AC and to hit, I don't think she needs anything else pre-epic anyway. The only thing she'll really want is to get Rapid Blitz at some point or another, but she's still more than contributing so I wouldn't even put it as a priority.

Fair enough. If I ever win the lottery, I'll send you some cash to tide you over. <_<*laughs* I'm fine money-wise for the time being, but thanks for the sentiment. I too will send you cash if I ever win the lotto. =p

Please. Stupid job market.