DM Nagging: It's pretty much my job

[Anastasia]

I just picked 14 because. I mean there's no damage dice or anything, you could probably justify it being at near any spell level. But it's a powerful sort of effect since most movement stuff is teleportation and skipping through the astral or ethereal or shadow planes, outright fucking with the topography of the plane you're on is more the kind of thing only gods can do inside their divine realms so being a few levels into epic feels right.

Pretty much agreed with the reasoning as to why it should be epic. It's merely a question of where it should go in epic. I'll do some research here, see what shakes out.

It would still require line of sight/effect although on that note the area should probably be changed to a spread rather than an emanation so it can go around barriers. Like a 50 foot wide wall of force shouldn't block off a 3000 foot radius zone of control if it can go around the wall.

Yeah, for sure. This spell feels complicated enough that while the idea is simple, it needs more clarifying text.

[Iron Dragoon]

Yes, it's gone well. It's surprisingly hard to get Alyssa into a fight, just the way it's worked out so far along with her style. The Chaos Ooze was entirely skippable with your setup, though it required not blundering into it or getting unlucky.

Yeah, even though I'm building her for battle, I'm keeping in mind that's she primarily a researcher and explorer. Mix in jack-of-all-trades via Factotum and it makes sense to me that she'd want to take the path of least exposure. I've tried to have her deal with things more through skill and strategy than direct power and I think it's worked out well so far.

[Nephrite]

Now I'm gonna get into my opinions here, but lemme toss a disclaimer out: This isn't about saying what you're feeling is wrong. I'm just going on about how this processes on my end and hope this helps enlighten you as to why it's happening. I've always felt understanding the reasoning to this sort of thing is more clarifying than anything else.

Oh yeah, both sides are all in on it. Lemme put it this way, I think it's mostly a matter of framing. Moore's really good at boosting people. He requires the Grand Sultan personally pulling resources to have a team that can compete with that game. Both teams are going in hard here, and I see it as a testament to how good Moore is at his job that he's able to keep up with that sort of press. A typical level 20 team of heroes would've melted like snow in a bonfire to this assault. But Moore was able to keep up, keep everyone afloat and his team helped take care of business - in a large part because they were so enabled by Moore to be able to do so.

This is why things like tactical advantages, time to prepare and other such things can matter a lot. Compare and contrast this with Jade's operation over in Alicia's thread, which lacked that support and wasn't expecting a full on assault by that level of power. Sure, she had some boosts in play and worked to empower herself, but she lacked the resources or time to leverage herself to a level that Nasir and friends did.

So instead of something that says, 'You can barely keep up, feel bad,' it's meant to be 'holy shit do you see what you're keeping up with, that's awesome'. At least that's the DMing intent here. Generally, when I push someone with a challenge like that, that's a lot of the intent of it.

That does help a lot to try and reframe it. I really didn't think of the "holy moly, the Sultan himself had to call in a favor to Asmodeus (or something like that) to try and stop Moore from fucking his holdings up over and over," it was more "oh great more powerful yahoos from somewhere that are going to be annoying, fuck"

To your last point, it definitely felt more like the former for a lot of it, but I think if we'd puzzled out a way to deal with the armor earlier on it would've been better. It also helped to remember the various skills that usually go unused (like temporary HP and such) to really push boundaries. It also helped showcase some of the weaker areas and what to do to try and shore them up.

It definitely gives Moore several things to ponder in terms of "what tools do we need so that we can handle this sort of thing better in the future?"

[Anastasia]

Yes, it's gone well. It's surprisingly hard to get Alyssa into a fight, just the way it's worked out so far along with her style. The Chaos Ooze was entirely skippable with your setup, though it required not blundering into it or getting unlucky.

Yeah, even though I'm building her for battle, I'm keeping in mind that's she primarily a researcher and explorer. Mix in jack-of-all-trades via Factotum and it makes sense to me that she'd want to take the path of least exposure. I've tried to have her deal with things more through skill and strategy than direct power and I think it's worked out well so far.

Sure, as long as you understand there will be times you have to fight and are prepared for that. In a Creation with embodiments of pure, primal evil walking around, you rather have to be.

[Anastasia]

That does help a lot to try and reframe it. I really didn't think of the "holy moly, the Sultan himself had to call in a favor to Asmodeus (or something like that) to try and stop Moore from fucking his holdings up over and over," it was more "oh great more powerful yahoos from somewhere that are going to be annoying, fuck"

Yeah, it's a matter of understanding that. It's not quite that - both Hell and the efreet get along and have ample reasons to want Moore dead - but the essence of it is 100% on the nose.

To your last point, it definitely felt more like the former for a lot of it, but I think if we'd puzzled out a way to deal with the armor earlier on it would've been better. It also helped to remember the various skills that usually go unused (like temporary HP and such) to really push boundaries. It also helped showcase some of the weaker areas and what to do to try and shore them up.

Yeah, temp HP is great and you have ways to improve. Those are net wins since it gives you things to work with.

[Anastasia]

From epic rules, an update draws here.

Epic Essentia

1. Essentia capacity increases by +1 to 5 at level 24 and by +1 at every 6 levels thereafter (30, 36, 42 and so on).

[Anastasia]

I'm working on improved spoiler blocks for NPCs. I'm pasting the first one I did in case anyone's curious or has suggestions. Annotations added for features I want that Antenora doesn't use.

Antenora
HP: 744temp HP here (nonlethal damage here) (vile, frostburn or other unusual damage here)/744 (fast healing here) (regeneration here)
Negative Conditions:
Bonuses: Attack+0, Damage+0 AC+0, Saves+0, Skills+0, Checks+0 Extra categories can be added as needed, along with notes on immunities from spells
Resources: Holy Fury 34/34 (enc) Divine Retribution 1/1 Smite Evil 7/7 Channel Energy 16/16 Lay On Hands 403/403 Remove Disease 9/9 (week), Spiritual Connection 3/3
Spells Used:
Spells Active:
Notes: Can always inflict nonlethal with attacks, spells, SLAs and abilities.
Smite Notes: +2 damage/paladin level on a charging smite. Typical base damage for a charging smite (with smite added only for bonuses and charge tripler) is 3d8+450 plus +4/4d6 vs fiends plus 2d6 holy plus 2d6 axiomatic 19-20 x3. Remember everything triples and x5 on a crit when adding things.

[Anastasia]

Weekly Roundup

Alicia

By and large, this week was dealing with Chourst. I like that he did exactly what he wanted and you reacted, as well as how he fled. That was amusing, as Malcanthet directed him your way and it caught his attention. A reasonable, low cost gambit that didn't work out in a funny way, so that's good all around. A feeling of terrifying whimsy was there, which is what I was aiming for.

I find it interesting how Alicia's response to Chourst wasn't anger, annoyance, amusement or anything but resigned weariness. It says something about her mindset that's interesting to me.

Moore

Ding dong, the wicked Ebrek is dead! Really, we've hashed over this encounter already so I'll say this: It's good that you got one of them but getting all of them was a long shot. They were too coordinated and too well prepared. Still, you did well in a tough situation, hung in there and got some goodies out of it, too. All in all a win in the end, so I think that went well enough.

I liked how Moore was so outspoken in his disdain about the enemies making a tactical retreat. I almost always get pushback from PCs when enemies don't stand and fight to the death, but this one felt a little more...mmmm, passionate by Moore? Like it touched a nerve.

Tryll

This week was fun setup for an adventure in Ice. This should be a lot of fun, everyone's talking again and moving, so I've enjoyed it overall. I feel like this node is waking up again and that's a great feeling to have, since lately it's been rough going for all of you. In particular, I like when everyone bounces off of each other. Right now I think Miranda will be the straight woman of sorts with Benyen and Dana, so that's a thing.

Alyssa

This week was about wrapping up the hoard adventure as well as starting something new. That chat with Jarem was nice, really getting into his head a bit and some of his deeper motivations. A mortal character of his level has to has one hell of a backstory, something that's slowly coming into more and more focus. Neither Jarem, Emily or Alyssa is terribly interested in just laying it out, so more and more of it gets hinted and shown as we go along.

Seira

A week of good diplomacy.

I enjoyed it, I liked it and it's one of those weeks that stands on it its own merits. The chat with Kassim was interesting, for both what he did and what he showed, along with (from my PoV) what he didn't say. He has no real opinion on Seira or anything she does, beyond a certain amount of polite respect due to her divine nature. That colored his interactions there and I think it shows as he's willing go along with her to an extent.

[Nephrite]

Moore

Ding dong, the wicked Ebrek is dead! Really, we've hashed over this encounter already so I'll say this: It's good that you got one of them but getting all of them was a long shot. They were too coordinated and too well prepared. Still, you did well in a tough situation, hung in there and got some goodies out of it, too. All in all a win in the end, so I think that went well enough.

I liked how Moore was so outspoken in his disdain about the enemies making a tactical retreat. I almost always get pushback from PCs when enemies don't stand and fight to the death, but this one felt a little more...mmmm, passionate by Moore? Like it touched a nerve.

I'm glad we at least got one of them, yes. I have a lot of plans for how to deal with this sort of thing going forward -- if we don't have the accessibility via actual individuals, then we simply make use of it via items or something like that. Easy enough.

You're right -- Moore's taking his role a lot more seriously, and when people just cut and run after making boisterous claims about honor and defeating an enemy, it riles him up. He's very big about taking accountability for his words. Would he have done the same in that situation? Probably. But he also has confidence in his competence.

[Anastasia]

FYI Seira, I'm running out of time, so if I don't get your set of new spoiler blocks done before session, it'll be done during the week.

[Anastasia]

I'm glad we at least got one of them, yes. I have a lot of plans for how to deal with this sort of thing going forward -- if we don't have the accessibility via actual individuals, then we simply make use of it via items or something like that. Easy enough.

You're right -- Moore's taking his role a lot more seriously, and when people just cut and run after making boisterous claims about honor and defeating an enemy, it riles him up. He's very big about taking accountability for his words. Would he have done the same in that situation? Probably. But he also has confidence in his competence.

Fair enough.

I can't say much more without spoilers in this case, but I'll give you a post and a nod to show I'm at least reading it.

[Ebiris]

By and large, this week was dealing with Chourst. I like that he did exactly what he wanted and you reacted, as well as how he fled. That was amusing, as Malcanthet directed him your way and it caught his attention. A reasonable, low cost gambit that didn't work out in a funny way, so that's good all around. A feeling of terrifying whimsy was there, which is what I was aiming for.

I find it interesting how Alicia's response to Chourst wasn't anger, annoyance, amusement or anything but resigned weariness. It says something about her mindset that's interesting to me.

There was an element of subverted expectations on my end when Chourst showed up. Like when I sensed this huge thing barrelling towards us super fast, my thinking was it'd be some horrific Demogorgon spawned monstrosity. He's Malcanthet's obvious go-to for when she wants someone turned into a smear, and it'd serve as a nice lead-in for the stuff on Daun I'm getting involved with.

So when it turned out to be a small army of fodder slaad I was like, just fucking go away dudes no one cares.

Then when Chourst himself showed up it was more of a significant threat but at the same time not one Alicia cared much about. You can't even really hate him, he's just random after all and as he proved even if he shows up to fight you, random chance means he could end up bailing or even being your friend... until the next chaotic whimsy. She doesn't find slaad antics to be very amusing either (though Malcanthet's charms being spurned for the tsunamis was amusing, it mostly elicited pity towards the succubus queen), so yeah the feeling was very much 'This is the shit I have to deal with.'

[Anastasia]

Note to self, there's a bunch of node updates about to hit.

[Corwin]

Spoiler blocks? Where?

[Anastasia]

By and large, this week was dealing with Chourst. I like that he did exactly what he wanted and you reacted, as well as how he fled. That was amusing, as Malcanthet directed him your way and it caught his attention. A reasonable, low cost gambit that didn't work out in a funny way, so that's good all around. A feeling of terrifying whimsy was there, which is what I was aiming for.

I find it interesting how Alicia's response to Chourst wasn't anger, annoyance, amusement or anything but resigned weariness. It says something about her mindset that's interesting to me.

There was an element of subverted expectations on my end when Chourst showed up. Like when I sensed this huge thing barrelling towards us super fast, my thinking was it'd be some horrific Demogorgon spawned monstrosity. He's Malcanthet's obvious go-to for when she wants someone turned into a smear, and it'd serve as a nice lead-in for the stuff on Daun I'm getting involved with.

So when it turned out to be a small army of fodder slaad I was like, just fucking go away dudes no one cares.

Then when Chourst himself showed up it was more of a significant threat but at the same time not one Alicia cared much about. You can't even really hate him, he's just random after all and as he proved even if he shows up to fight you, random chance means he could end up bailing or even being your friend... until the next chaotic whimsy. She doesn't find slaad antics to be very amusing either (though Malcanthet's charms being spurned for the tsunamis was amusing, it mostly elicited pity towards the succubus queen), so yeah the feeling was very much 'This is the shit I have to deal with.'

Which makes sense and fits Alicia. I don't think anyone in the party is really a big fan of slaad and you're right about Chourst. He's like a storm or a day of bad luck. All you can really do is sit there and take it, you know?