DM Nagging: It's pretty much my job

[Corwin]

No problem. It does offer other options of getting out/affecting things through the bars, plus it's sufficiently large vs medium creatures and below, thus my question.

[Anastasia]

Io's deity information block is up in on the R&S board. For those of you who don't feel like going over, it's below. It's odd to see someone in Balmuria with both one of the domains from the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Heavenly Virtues. It's best understood that Io was made to fulfill a fairly specific role by the Incarnations in regards to that.

Io
The Concordant Dragon, The Ninefold Dragon, Creator of Dragonkind, the Wyrm of Beyond
Greater Deity
Symbol: A multicolored metallic disk
Home Plane: Dragonpeak
Alignment: Neutral
Portfolio: Dragonkind, balance, peace, knowledge, perfection, creation
Worshipers: Dragons
Cleric Alignments: Any
Domains: Balance, Chromatic Dragon*, Creation, Dragon, Gem Dragon*, Generosity, Knowledge, Magic, Metallic Dragon*, Pride, Spell, Strength, Travel, Truth, Wealth
Favored Weapon: Scimitar (Claw)

* See the Creator of Dragonkind salient divine ability

[Corwin]

I caught up on Iddy's thread, and the houseruled Permanency only allows for two permanency'd spells upon you.

In any case, a creature cannot have more than two permanent spells active on him. Additional permanency spells fail.

[Anastasia]

A relevant point, Cor. Thank you.

[Anastasia]

DM work complete: Lliira has the music domain now, she traded divine shield for another extra domain SDA. No one else posted absolutely has to have it, though possibly Faerinaal will get it when I repost him soon. That or Morwel will squeeze it in, the eladrin really should have someone with it with how they're tied to bards.

[Anastasia]

A reminder that DST hits this weekend in the US. You all know the drill by now.

[Anastasia]

As I mentioned in chat, I'm talking about incorporating rules for excessively large creatures. A chat paste so we're all on the same page first of all.

<CC> Dune, does this mean any ray attack and so on is pointless due to size?
<CC> Like, if I celestial conduit this dragon, it'll just tank it?
> You'll need more gun, yes.
> So to speak.
<CC> At an estimate, how large is it? Are we talking mile-long?
> Somewhere around there, yes. Something in the range of 'stupid what the fuck are you doing stop' territory of that.
<CC> ngh
<CC> I can kill it but everyone else dies too
<Ebiris> Alicia can be that big but she still dies just as easy.
> How big can you get, anyway? I haven't looked at the SDA lately.
<CC> It's mechanically colossal
<CC> So the limits of that, I think?
> I'm just wondering if it demarcates a particular size.
<Ebiris> 1600 feet tall.
<Ebiris> So okay not a mile.
<Ebiris> That'd be 1600 meters.
> So like a bit less than a 1/3rd of a mile.
<Ebiris> But yeah mechanically she's only colossal which is typically more like 80 feet tall.
> Yeah, the rules get a little hinky at that point. I fudge them on occasion and I'm quietly working on some sort of rules to handle extreme sizes.
> Truth be told since it's come up, this is a test run for a few of them DM side.
<Ebiris> Still let me throw Glasya's spaceship at Lixer's castle.
> For normal size differences I just handwave it since it's super high and heroic fantasy.
<Ebiris> So all in all worth it.
> Yes.
> But something like the Calamity who has a special quality to use its size as a defense? That's a valid argument when you get absurdly large.
> The rules will probably be a few guidelines that assume a decent dollop of adjudication since each case of stupidly large size is different.

And the mentioned special quality for reference.

Gigantic (Ex)

Due to the titanic size of The Calamity, smaller creatures struggle to damage it. A creature of less than Colossal size is simply not big enough to deal meaningful damage to The Calamity. Any effects or abilities they use fail on account of The Calamity's size. Colossal creatures are able to damage The Calamity, but are still tiny compared to it. They deal only 1/10th of the normal amount of damage to it. This is deducted before damage resistance or any other factors apply.  For example, a Colossal creature who deals 100 points of damage to The Calamity only deals 10 damage to it.

Truly enormous effects are capable of affecting The Calamity for full damage, but such are extraordinarily rare. Such an attack would need to be at least 10 miles wide. If a creature can produce such an effect, they can ignore Gigantic when using such an ability.

The purpose of these rules are to do the following:

1. Enable 'pin prick defenses'. Namely, when any normal attack a creature could do is akin to a pinprick due to the size difference, any damage is largely mitigated due to this.
2. Determine what sort of size difference would qualify for something like this, as well as establish that most exiting Colossal creatures shouldn't provoke this. This is meant for exceptions, to better enable certain types of set piece battles and scenarios.
3. That while size and reach are related, these rules do not change reach in any standardized way. The DM can adjust this for a creature as he sees fit, as not every creature who might use these rules is the same. Which ties into the last point.
4. To establish rules that are flexible enough to be guidance and allow room for adjudication and customization in each case it is used, as well as any needed mechanical adjustments for a handful of abilities that scale with size (such as fell the greatest foe), and understanding that adjusting them won't be a way to bypass these rules easily.

I want things like the above, along with things of dealing with gigantic creatures  that aren't automatically just throwing more force at them without thinking. Seira outthought one and used relevant abilities today in her threat, that's a good example.  So my proposed rules are the following:

1. When a creature is [ratio to be determined] larger than normal creatures, damaging them at that size simply isn't effective. This reduces or prevents damage altogether, unless you can deal damage over a far wider frame than usual to compensate for this.
2. Certain abilities may give extra here if they're being treated as colossal+. For example, fell the greatest foe may deal extra damage in theory, though it wouldn't overcome the baseline problem of the creature being too big to harm at your size.
3. Bear in mind size differences to adjust rules as needed. For example, batting aside an entire flying ship or being so small you could attack through the bloodstream and body of a creature as an adventure.

[Anastasia]

Weekly Feedback

Alicia

I admit that I've had a fun time this week. This sort of challenge for Alicia is one I've wanted to run for quite some time. Combine that with a chance for Marie and Jessica to get screentime and you have a winner. I've enjoyed how the two are ultra competent here and yet simply not equipped or used to working together. As Marie has a new powerset this makes a lot of sense to me. Anyway, I've enjoyed the challenges, the banter and the set up for the camp assault, which is going well right now. It's also been a kick to see how all of this meshes with the plans in play. Also, this is a really great time to give Jessica screentime, as she comes more into her new powers and role without being on the spot in front of an established deity.

Moore

Dicebot hate Moore.

That aside, it's been a fun week just to see Moore network, call in favors and promise others as well as seek every idea he can to get out from this curse. Obviously getting an artifact related to Orcus or using the one sealed away is difficult. It's also a nice case of where the PC's earlier deeds and fame can be a direct reason for other things to happen. Normal people don't get the attention Moore has, but most aren't someone like him. This applies across the board, as you can see with one of Seira's encounters this week. Those small but unspoken ways of forging and referencing a character's reputation are fun for me.

Tryll

Earth hoooooo! Really, I'm having fun getting this node moving again and progressing against the dragon threat. That breath weapon blast was an ugly one-two, but the party's made a strong recovery and is dealing with all sorts of nasty tricks and traps. Tryll's skillset is well suited to dealing with those and he's acted reasonably well with them. The only drawback is that if at all possible - and if need be having scrolls do it or Benyen changing his normal spell set - that Knowledge check on shadow dragons should have been made earlier so death ward was already up. Hindsight there, really.

Alyssa

I've had fun cleaning up all of Alyssa's odds and ends this week. It gives things a sense of progress, plus Ianvasah had some good screen time. She doesn't advertise she's a doppelganger every interaction she has, but it's a part of her and influences the way she sees some things. A chance for that to come out (as well as seeing a business man with the magic to treat his body as another thing to adjust to make a sale) was enjoyable. Alyssa's doing a good job of setting up her move and getting things ready, as well as prepare to re-establish. So solid stuff all around and next week should be good when it hits that.

Seira

I'll be honest: This wasn't my favorite dungeon to prep, but I admit you've made me have a lot of fun running it. The boiling dragon battle was a treat of abilities and resources used with intelligent strategy. There's been a lot of speedbump battles here - I think it's safe to say that so far, it looks like the efreet invested mostly in a few trump cards and otherwise preferred to let the natural terrain scare away attackers. A reasonable choice that looks worse in hindsight, but hindsight can do that. Nonetheless, I've had a great deal of fun with it as well as a possible conclusion Monday -assuming nothing else happens.

Everyone

I really had fun this week, some RL things aside. We had a few super strong days that more than make up for that and I'm ready for next week.

[Anastasia]

No problem. It does offer other options of getting out/affecting things through the bars, plus it's sufficiently large vs medium creatures and below, thus my question.

We'll try the cage version without - between epic escape artist skill usages, teleport and other tricks, it may be manageable. Expect this to change quickly if I'm proven wrong. I suspect I will be proven wrong frankly, but hell, we can give it a try.

[Anastasia]

Belated ruling, but disallowing Alyssa's Quickshift. Never made a ruling on that, apparently. Fixed now.

[Nephrite]

Moore

Dicebot hate Moore.

That aside, it's been a fun week just to see Moore network, call in favors and promise others as well as seek every idea he can to get out from this curse. Obviously getting an artifact related to Orcus or using the one sealed away is difficult. It's also a nice case of where the PC's earlier deeds and fame can be a direct reason for other things to happen. Normal people don't get the attention Moore has, but most aren't someone like him. This applies across the board, as you can see with one of Seira's encounters this week. Those small but unspoken ways of forging and referencing a character's reputation are fun for me.

From an IC perspective, It's great. It's nice that he can go around and get attention. Well, it isn't so much that he wants the attention exactly, but it fits that he's diplomatic and is meeting new people.

It's also a nice change of pace to fighting stuff and all that.

From an OOC perspective, it's really kind of boring. I realize it isn't fair to just wave a wand (excuse the joke) and make him better. At the same time, it's not really fun to have to be on what amounts to a Dragon Quest-style fetch quest hoping to find that one thing that will help.

I totally get why things are being done like they are, but it's been a week and there really hasn't been any progress -- again, logically, I totally understand why. I'm just hoping to get back to Regularly Scheduled Programming soon.

[Iron Dragoon]

Weekly Feedback

Alyssa

I've had fun cleaning up all of Alyssa's odds and ends this week. It gives things a sense of progress, plus Ianvasah had some good screen time. She doesn't advertise she's a doppelganger every interaction she has, but it's a part of her and influences the way she sees some things. A chance for that to come out (as well as seeing a business man with the magic to treat his body as another thing to adjust to make a sale) was enjoyable. Alyssa's doing a good job of setting up her move and getting things ready, as well as prepare to re-establish. So solid stuff all around and next week should be good when it hits that.

Yeah, it's tying things up and dealing with stuff. Hoping to get some actual work done on the real mission here soon. I actually totally forgot that Ianvasah was a doppelganger until she mentioned it.

[Anastasia]

Moore

Dicebot hate Moore.

That aside, it's been a fun week just to see Moore network, call in favors and promise others as well as seek every idea he can to get out from this curse. Obviously getting an artifact related to Orcus or using the one sealed away is difficult. It's also a nice case of where the PC's earlier deeds and fame can be a direct reason for other things to happen. Normal people don't get the attention Moore has, but most aren't someone like him. This applies across the board, as you can see with one of Seira's encounters this week. Those small but unspoken ways of forging and referencing a character's reputation are fun for me.

From an IC perspective, It's great. It's nice that he can go around and get attention. Well, it isn't so much that he wants the attention exactly, but it fits that he's diplomatic and is meeting new people.

It's also a nice change of pace to fighting stuff and all that.

From an OOC perspective, it's really kind of boring. I realize it isn't fair to just wave a wand (excuse the joke) and make him better. At the same time, it's not really fun to have to be on what amounts to a Dragon Quest-style fetch quest hoping to find that one thing that will help.

I totally get why things are being done like they are, but it's been a week and there really hasn't been any progress -- again, logically, I totally understand why. I'm just hoping to get back to Regularly Scheduled Programming soon.

That's fair enough. Either way it should have more action and things happening the coming week. Ysgard is good at that.

[Anastasia]

Weekly Feedback

Alyssa

I've had fun cleaning up all of Alyssa's odds and ends this week. It gives things a sense of progress, plus Ianvasah had some good screen time. She doesn't advertise she's a doppelganger every interaction she has, but it's a part of her and influences the way she sees some things. A chance for that to come out (as well as seeing a business man with the magic to treat his body as another thing to adjust to make a sale) was enjoyable. Alyssa's doing a good job of setting up her move and getting things ready, as well as prepare to re-establish. So solid stuff all around and next week should be good when it hits that.

Yeah, it's tying things up and dealing with stuff. Hoping to get some actual work done on the real mission here soon. I actually totally forgot that Ianvasah was a doppelganger until she mentioned it.

Yeah. Ianvasah is a doppelganger but it doesn't form the core of her identity. It means it isn't something she's in your face about all the time, but it does impact her and come up occasionally.

[Corwin]

Neph, 4 deities failed to cure you! Go trash something of Orcus's, it'll be a far more glorious quest!