DM Nagging: It's pretty much my job

[Anastasia]

Okay, time for news from everywhere.

Dragonheart Shapeshifter is up in homebrew. This is from B3, it's how Muirfinn shapeshifted into a dragon. It's been revised and turned into a proper PrC for Ianvasah. I may tweak it more in the near future, but for now it's fine.

Speaking of, Ianvasah is tentatively a Druid 31//Doppelganger 4/Ranger 11/Nature's Warrior 5/Dragonheart Shapeshifter 11. It's possible I drop the nature's warrior from it and go with 5 more levels of ranger. I'm not sure if I disallowed it before, so I need to go do my homework. Even if I haven't, I need to see if it cleanly translates to shapeshift.

Spell Booster spells will resume soon, perhaps today. Blame Disgaea 5 for capturing me like a video game hasn't since I was a teenager. It's like I'm 13 and playing Final Fantasy 6 again or 17 and lost in Final Fantasy Tactics. So bear with me on that one, okay?

I'm fiddling with feedback options. I may go back to the Weekly Roundup since daily nags haven't felt quite right to me. They're a little too disposal and short form I think, good for taking a general temperature of things but not good for more in depth commentary. That's okay. If you noticed that I haven't been using daily pokes much the past week, that's why. Alternately, I may come up with a different system altogether, we'll see.

[Corwin]

Do we need such periodic feedback in the first place? We can just talk instead.

[Anastasia]

Do we need such periodic feedback in the first place? We can just talk instead.

It depends. Fundamentally I feel some level of feedback is helpful for me as the DM. Be it daily, weekly or whatever other pace used, it's a useful thing and a useful tool. But really, most feedback is us talking and me taking the initiative to bring it up. The form I use varies, but it's essentially starting a conversation about things in a formal way.

[Nephrite]

Okay, time for news from everywhere.

Dragonheart Shapeshifter is up in homebrew. This is from B3, it's how Muirfinn shapeshifted into a dragon. It's been revised and turned into a proper PrC for Ianvasah. I may tweak it more in the near future, but for now it's fine.

Speaking of, Ianvasah is tentatively a Druid 31//Doppelganger 4/Ranger 11/Nature's Warrior 5/Dragonheart Shapeshifter 11. It's possible I drop the nature's warrior from it and go with 5 more levels of ranger. I'm not sure if I disallowed it before, so I need to go do my homework. Even if I haven't, I need to see if it cleanly translates to shapeshift.

Spell Booster spells will resume soon, perhaps today. Blame Disgaea 5 for capturing me like a video game hasn't since I was a teenager. It's like I'm 13 and playing Final Fantasy 6 again or 17 and lost in Final Fantasy Tactics. So bear with me on that one, okay?

I'm fiddling with feedback options. I may go back to the Weekly Roundup since daily nags haven't felt quite right to me. They're a little too disposal and short form I think, good for taking a general temperature of things but not good for more in depth commentary. That's okay. If you noticed that I haven't been using daily pokes much the past week, that's why. Alternately, I may come up with a different system altogether, we'll see.

For whatever it's worth, Gildas was at least Nature's Warrior 1 on one side.

I know you're iffy on incorporating other people's PrCs but I'll just throw out this one that Gildas also used, which was great fun. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?74521-Battle-Shifter-PrC

[Anastasia]

Interesting idea but I'll probably pass on it (and just go straight ranger until epic), since dragonheart shapeshifter feels like it gives enough there.

While she's a natural shapeshifter, she really only uses the elemental fury and draconic ravager shapeshifts in serious battles. The latter is saved for serious situations or emergencies only, sort of a draconic trump card to lay down.

[Anastasia]

Disgaea is still a massive timesink, that is all.

---

In other news, next week Cor and Eb will be off DST but we won't. So for that single week, I'm toying with shifting game times from noon to 4 PM EST to 1 to 5 PM EST. Thoughts?

[Nephrite]

I'll be out for a few days next week, so it doesn't impact me too severely regardless.

[Anastasia]

I'll be out for a few days next week, so it doesn't impact me too severely regardless.

So noted, drop a note on which days in downtime/away, would you?

[Iron Dragoon]

Tentatively okay with it, barring dinner/family.

[Corwin]

I think I'm fine as is, actually, I've been getting home earlier.

[Ebiris]

An hour either way makes little difference to me. It's a post game after all, no need to get hung up on scheduling!

[Anastasia]

Okay. Yuth?

[Anastasia]

Once again, a reminder to all PCs: Slaad is not interchangeable with DM. PMs that consist of 'hey slaad' or similar things will be ignored.

[Anastasia]

Weekly Rambling

In which I ramble about B6 to stir up replies and commentary. Replies are encouraged, since it's meant to be a conversation.

I'm trying this as a new form of feedback, a less structured version of the Weekly Roundup. We'll see how it goes.

One thing I like about Alicia is her sense of gravitas. She's serious without being solemn, able to be the straight woman in a scene without being too bland. She works well with Syala, who is more lively and a little more irrelevant. Compare this to Antenora and Marie, who has the same sort of relationship, only exaggerated.

This contrasts with Cresiel. Cresiel goes past being serious and into solemn, an almost brooding sort of focus. It's not absolute as some of his banter this week showed, but that's his nature. Xandra's much the same way, albeit this is something of a trait in many archons or lawful good celestials. Duty and Chronias are important things and all the more important to them.

Jetina's a little livelier, though her voice still eludes me on occasion. I've been rereading bits of the Lost Realm, which has helped me refocus her.

Really, I like Tryll's node for being easy to pick up and play, though I need to sit down and have a good run with Yuth sometime. Real life sucks, y'know?

If there's one thing about Seira's node that it reminds me of, it's that hers is very easy to play and feels like the (mechanically) strongest node right now. Most of this comes down to Cor going in the hardest on that sort of thing (though Moore's gimmick has him come in a close second, it's mostly because Cor has a stronger group of node members and support right now, I think, they'd be equal otherwise).

Elite kill squads are what I'm informally calling things like the efreet squad Moore met or what Seira ran into against Shar on Vacuum. They're generally prepared, powerful and largely the mirror of PCs. Same tactics, same sort of overwhelming smash to try and counter PC tactics with similar tactics. It only makes sense, after all. So far Moore's ran into such a group (he really provoked it first) and Seira did recently, though one without quite the prep time or situation to maximize themselves.

Alyssa isn't in a position to quite yet, Alicia hasn't happened to by the luck of the draw and Yuth's been in a dungeon lately.

For sheer humor I think Alicia's node is the best, but I've always had a huge weak spot for the way Antenora and Marie interact. They have it. Moore's squad has been good for that recently, the stuff this week was solid. Seira's has potential but the main catalyst (Donald) is still somewhat sorting himself out for the enforced higher Wisdom score. He's made a few sallies but nothing too outrageous. Yuth's is strong for that but needs a good post session to draw it out, which has been in short supply lately. Alyssa's is the least humorous group, mostly by function of the personalities there. There's certainly lighthearted moments but nothing overwhelming.

Favorite moments of the week? Alicia mastering the tome was strong, she had the right amount of gravitas for the scene. The casual talk and joking as Moore's node rose and then descended Celestia was great (and I liked the bit with Talinalinas too).

Ianvasah's something. As always I'm still clarifying and sorting out a new NPC as I play her, but she should be solid. More on her once I get her sheet up sometime. FYI, this is why I so rarely play games - when one does get me I lose too much of my free time an focus. Admittedly Disgaea 5's nature makes this a lot worse than it could be otherwise.

[Ebiris]

Gravitas is a good way of putting forward Alicia's general attitude, she takes the situations she ends up in and the people she confronts seriously. Even when she trash talks someone in a fight she still tries to keep up a serious image behind it all. It's like being a professional wrestler or something, if you have a gimmick/personality then you want to stick with it for people to easily grasp what you're about! Brand recognition's important for deities after all, your worshippers know what they're getting in for when they follow you, and your peers know what kind of person they'll be dealing with so they can lower their guard a bit. You only ever really see her telling jokes with her friends, and even then she sticks to subtler ones.

As far as not running into elite kill squads, I hope part of Alicia's success in that regard is in how she doesn't hang around in places long enough for any such squads to buff/gear up and teleport over and hunt her down. Like most battle encounters she has are over within two rounds, but actually stripping and looting a defeated foe is going to take at least ten times that long. In that yugoloth pit I'd actually planned on going back and looting the boss daemon and that tiefling who wanted to duel only after we'd gotten the tome, and then use the antimagic field/gate trick to go home without running into the kill squad or avatar of Shar I was expecting to be lingering up on the surface. If we'd stopped to loot we may have gotten away with extra treasure plus the tome when we left, but we also might've had a kill squad hit our flank while we were fighting boss daemon or sorting through all those fake tomes.

It does mean I don't get as much cool loot like other nodes do, but that's the trade-off I'm making for being able to win these fights before reinforcements can show or the guy I'm after can sneak out and escape or whatever.