Just a place to separate it from casual discussion and 'where we go next'. :P I suppose where we go next could work too but this seems the more overwhelming topic :)
Player feedback:
Kam: You've done okay lately. I feel like you're falling back into the easy habits of Gourash and other barbarian types you've played before, so I've wanted to challenge you. The curse isn't meant to hobble you but to challenge you on an RP front, but hopefully you'll get it fixed soon. Nice stand up fight with the elemental; you were really at risk after that opening crit. Suggestions? I don't think your AC is salvageable, barbarians generally can't do shit about that. The rage penalty to AC is too counter-productive, so I'd focus on gobs of HP, improving that DR and maybe some sort of miss chance. Try and keep your AC mildly competitive and focus on SMASH.
Adail: You've been coming into your own the past few sessions. You're starting to get a good rhythm with the rest of the party and especially Kamvakua. You've not had any luck with magical items: The armor was intentionally a bit of a funny joke item and the rest tend to miss. Granted, when you're a tiny mouse that fights unarmed and unarmored, most gear that's dropped isn't going to be any use. Paradoxically you need the least gear of any of us so it's not a big deal. Just keep it up until you get more and more casting, your build will only improve with time. I did like how you dealt with the arrow demon, luck of the dice aside.
Oh yeah, and damage. Obviously you need damage. <_<
Mari: You've been consistent throughout the game: The wild girl who's along for fun as long as it's not too deadly. I do notice you seem a bit softer on Nikkolai this session, is the OOC chat rubbing off? Um...past all that, HP HP HP HP. You need gallons of HP and you need it now. That amulet of temp HP has paid for itself over and over for you, at least. Main thing I think you need is a dex booster. More AC and more to hit at once solves a lot of your problems.
Knight: Feeling a bit Starry with things, eh? Your build continues to be heavy and generally productive, though I feel like between weapon drops and cards you've gotten the lion's share of the loot lately. Am I the only one that thinks this? Being a medium sized humanoid who is willing to use every sort of weapon in the game does likely skew this. Um, I don't have a lot to say about you otherwise, you know what you're doing.
Nikkolai: Nice to see you again! The RP's fine, I don't have a lot to say here; I feel my comments are best geared to more productive matters. I feel your main problem is contributing in combat, somewhat aggravated by system woes. I'm surprised you didn't consider a Wall of Smoke to pin down the archer or some such, though haste is always a good opening move for this party. You need to level up, I'm going to go into all of this with you when we do.
Re: Kam Suggestions - Was going to suggest the idea of something to give him a miss chance if he wants more defense, myself. Definately think that's the way to go over trying to buff BARBARIAN ARMOR CLASS.
Re: Adail Loot - Basically, yes. I'm a monk/cleric, I don't need gear most times. The armor will be something nifty to trade at some point I'm sure. Some better magic gloves, or maybe a magic gi would be cool eventually, but really nobody is going to DROP anything for Adail to use. He's tiny and very specialized in what he can use, anything for him is going to need to be either custom ordered or offered specifically for him as a reward, not randomly found. As for damage, two more levels and my damage problems fix themselves. Sacred Flames is just that stupidly good when you have a high wis. Everyone is probably tired of hearing that by now, but it's really the truth. I knew when I made him that Adail's damage would be lollerskates until Sacred Flames.
Though as a random thought, letting my unarmed attacks count as Good for the purposes of bypassing DR would be sweet. This actually gives me an idea that I'll poke you in PM about, Ko~
Re: Mari - Yeah, Mari and Adail both want that dex booster pretty bad. She gets dibs though, needs the AC more and she can do more with the extra accuracy then I can. TWF rogue damage is sick and disgusting when it can be set up properly.
Re: Knight Loot - IMO, Knight is basically a pure fighter and thus as a rule will need the most loot. Fighters live and die by thier equipment, moreso then any other class. Without it, they've got basically de nada. So yeah, no issues there from me.
Re: Nik - Yay, you're back~
Quote from: Gatewalker on March 17, 2010, 03:35:04 PMThough as a random thought, letting my unarmed attacks count as Good for the purposes of bypassing DR would be sweet. This actually gives me an idea that I'll poke you in PM about, Ko~
Don't you have the good subtype? That qualifies automatically for it.
Quote from: Anastasia on March 17, 2010, 03:40:07 PM
Quote from: Gatewalker on March 17, 2010, 03:35:04 PMThough as a random thought, letting my unarmed attacks count as Good for the purposes of bypassing DR would be sweet. This actually gives me an idea that I'll poke you in PM about, Ko~
Don't you have the good subtype? That qualifies automatically for it.
Oh, it does? Did not know that. Awesome~
Quote from: Anastasia on March 17, 2010, 01:51:42 PM
Player feedback:
Kam: You've done okay lately. I feel like you're falling back into the easy habits of Gourash and other barbarian types you've played before, so I've wanted to challenge you. The curse isn't meant to hobble you but to challenge you on an RP front, but hopefully you'll get it fixed soon. Nice stand up fight with the elemental; you were really at risk after that opening crit. Suggestions? I don't think your AC is salvageable, barbarians generally can't do shit about that. The rage penalty to AC is too counter-productive, so I'd focus on gobs of HP, improving that DR and maybe some sort of miss chance. Try and keep your AC mildly competitive and focus on SMASH.
Heh, that's alright with challenging :P Sometimes it sticks well, sometimes it doesn't. We had our clash a bit on Kikula, though I appreciated a bone in the clash of Noble Barbarian lifestyle versus absorbing city living. I am enjoying when there are language toss outs lately as I'm more and more getting to leverage the constant study of languages (I would like to play that up), though if nikkolai returns I may start losing out there by simple skill point limits. While I can be whiny *ding*, I overall have not minded the curse being there. It's neat, and while a disad, its a toy in the RP field, much like knight's new arm. It's something to play with and add flavor to my writing at points which I tried to play a bit with once I woke up yesterday. Will kam be happy to see it gone? Sure. But as long as I'm not getting overwhelmed, I certainly aren't having a huge problem with it there. And ye can quote that next time I whine about it :P
Combat wise, I am very pleased at more flanking and cooperative play being an option. I am still a bit disappointed at having good cause to rage so often, as I've always wanted it sort of as a turbo mode on an already powerful character, rather than my go to 'how I fight'. Why do I do it so often given that? Well, if a giant is on the playing field, I'm going to do it instantly, start of combat, no questions asked. Kam is well aware of what a large difference in size and strength means and he's not going to sit around and see who gets their head cut off. If the combat starts with 1 or more of the party in serious trouble, then the same will happen. Not many that haven't fit this type, but when that happens I've tried to refrain. Without rage, I'm still above average fighter with a fair number of tricks, solid hp, and a good ac. Relative to the party, Knight, as predicted, has solidly caught up in effectiveness. Which is fine :P Let's both have fun being awesome.
Build wise, I suppose I was still going toward ac. In terms of neat changes in view, I have the super cool area debuff intimidate coming next level, next planned feat is going to be chaotic rage which will make my rage even stronger, and there's some damage resistances coming along soon as well. Maybe AC isn't the wisest to go for though and I'm pretty happy just making it so that its a 50-80 percent hit chance in rage versus a 95 percent as I think the difference is fairly important. I've been pretty aggressively avoiding buffing power for lots of reasons (including the request not to buff power). It's funny to recommend 'focus on smash' when that's the go to barbarian build style and what I avoided in favor of variety and technique for the most part. No power attack or leap power attack or berzerker style stuff really in the build, just taking a solid core power level and fleshing out variety.
Where I am though, the rest of the build for a while is set in stone (There's no decisions for the next 2 levels really) or from items, which have been hard to discuss this game. So far, from the beginning of Kam joining to now, he only has 3 different items on his sheet: The shield, the potion of fly, and the improved ring of protection. At the current rate of acquiring different things, its hard to ponder much 'where I would take it with the one item drop I'm likely to pick up over the next tenish sessions'. Should I not focus on more AC items? probably, I think boosting saving throws/Charisma is generally wiser short term and what I put on my sheet for ideas. Should I move more into globs of hp with a con booster? Probably, it's not at all a bad direction. Should I hunt down a stronger spear to improve accuracy and more neat effects on it? Yeah, I would totally like an opportunity at some point to quest for that or more likely do a favor for an awesome cool planar smith to have them build it and would be very sad if I just bought it instead of quested for it. Would a miss chance or crit hit nuller type effect be welcomed? Sure, it would be super cool in lots of ways. I'd love trying that stuff out and it'd be neat and different and all that. It's also usually restricted for higher power campaigns with lots of loot though. Damage reduction, while a neat suggestion, is only boosted by levels or feats, neither of which I can simply acquire and with my next feat being RAGE HARDER AND MORE OFTEN it'd be six levels away minimum (and rage harder really does beat an additional DR 1 or DR2 I think).
I'd love more loot in general, though you've spoken that that isn't where you want to take the campaign flavor and I understand (if don't agree :)). It's funny that I agree Rat's gotten a lot more loot/neat things lately, given rat largely sees them as 'just stuff' (and I don't dismiss, but cheer knight looking over neat toys and other things that add flavor to the game) while I largely see them as toys that expand the realm of things you get to do, show off, etc in the game world. A wand of cure light wounds is more than just healing, it's also a prop that lets Adail get to do something neat every battle.
Personally? I'd love to see more wild noncombaty-powerful loot involved too. It would've been neat if someone during our ogremoch bit had dropped ogremoch unholy symbols, or religious tracts. Want a cool item idea? A book of local powers! A book of language learning that cuts the skill point cost in half! A musteval party symbol that can turn the party into musteval for an hour! Some enemy's decorative headress! How about local tour books? Someone's stack of steel ingots :P Mari's "I'm a drow" necklace still solidly holds the coolest drop in the game without competition. The book that breathed fire was another neat one. I'd cheer on whenever you look at a pile of loot that is "Magic bow, Magic sword, two magic rings" if it was asked "Could one thing that was neat and flavorful and said these were people rather than mobs be added here?" :P Ah, I'm unreasonably demanding, apologies.
mmm, I'll yammer narrative wise later, thoughts flee me.
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Adail: You've been coming into your own the past few sessions. You're starting to get a good rhythm with the rest of the party and especially Kamvakua. You've not had any luck with magical items: The armor was intentionally a bit of a funny joke item and the rest tend to miss. Granted, when you're a tiny mouse that fights unarmed and unarmored, most gear that's dropped isn't going to be any use. Paradoxically you need the least gear of any of us so it's not a big deal. Just keep it up until you get more and more casting, your build will only improve with time. I did like how you dealt with the arrow demon, luck of the dice aside.
Oh yeah, and damage. Obviously you need damage. <_<
Adail really really could use more damage dealing, but yeah, largely seems like he is having fun :)
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Mari: You've been consistent throughout the game: The wild girl who's along for fun as long as it's not too deadly. I do notice you seem a bit softer on Nikkolai this session, is the OOC chat rubbing off? Um...past all that, HP HP HP HP. You need gallons of HP and you need it now. That amulet of temp HP has paid for itself over and over for you, at least. Main thing I think you need is a dex booster. More AC and more to hit at once solves a lot of your problems.
Frankly, even if a con booster came along, I'd feel obligated to hand it to mari and encourage her not to get flattened. Mari though is fun to play with. Ideally really something to allow her to use tumble through easily so that she can get on the other side of creatures as lacking improved movement or particularly safe movement limits her ability to dare risks and get close without an easy picking setup.
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Knight: Feeling a bit Starry with things, eh? Your build continues to be heavy and generally productive, though I feel like between weapon drops and cards you've gotten the lion's share of the loot lately. Am I the only one that thinks this? Being a medium sized humanoid who is willing to use every sort of weapon in the game does likely skew this. Um, I don't have a lot to say about you otherwise, you know what you're doing.
No, you're not, and while I teased knight a lot on this after last session, playing tug with an item I don't even want, I'm rather glad to see at least some neat toys crossing the parties hands. Her build is seriously strong and flexible with tricks to avoid AoO, damage multipliers on closing, extremely high speed, fly, power attack, large weapns now, etc. She was solidly outdamaging me last session even in rage mode, which was a little bit of a surprise, but fine as we're both playing twinked builds (The Lance Knight and the TripMonkey Barbarian)
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Nikkolai: Nice to see you again! The RP's fine, I don't have a lot to say here; I feel my comments are best geared to more productive matters. I feel your main problem is contributing in combat, somewhat aggravated by system woes. I'm surprised you didn't consider a Wall of Smoke to pin down the archer or some such, though haste is always a good opening move for this party. You need to level up, I'm going to go into all of this with you when we do.
wb nikki :) Good to see you again :)
I can't be held responsible for loot. Y'alls know I don't mind giving away stuff. To whoever has the most need, right? If the windsword can be converted into two shortswords I'd be fine with that, f'example.
Not much to say. As long as we continue to get into brawls all the time, Knight and Kam will remain spotlight dominant, if that bothers anyone. (any and all of my ability to keep up with Kam presently comes from Bell, and Bell is very squishy at present.)
Adail and Mari are like team stealth/backstab, and I am nothing if not constantly on the lookout for ways to exploit that. Doesn't seem to come up much though.
I don't blame ye at all Rat :) No responsibility there. Teasing, yes, responsibility? No.
Bell being less squishy wouldn't hurt, though isn't bell's real defense your Ride skill? Really, you should spruce out your ride more. Have you considered jet engines? Maybe spoilers?
Adail actually really can't do much as a team backstab. Stealth, sure, but really one of the rest of us need to be there for Mari's flanking backstabbery to really come alive. Kam works well since he gets doubled flank bonuses, but really all it takes is someone with the ability to threaten a square. Really, the nicest buff that could ever possibly be handed to Adail is a way to threaten a single five foot square. All of a sudden he'd be able to act as a multiplier for setting up flanks with his supreme ability to move about. Much like Nikkolai's haste, it would allow him to indirectly be responsible for way more damage than he could ever pull off by himself and suddenly open up a world of tactics that are currently closed off despite his mobility and high ac.
Yeah, if I got something like that, my usual action would be "Move to somewhere Mari can flank from, THEN throw a Magic Missile". And sure, let any enemies around take as many AoOs as they want for me doing that, Adail generally doesn't give a crap~
Heck, flanks are welcome everywhere. Even nikki I think. The more characters that build around achieving and benefiting from flanks the more powerful they get though.
Sure, but nobody else has "damage suddenly goes from sub-adail to wtfhax" just due to the addition of a flank, like Mari does. Rogues are always the most important ones to set up flanks for.
Though I'll contest that flanks are welcome for Nikki. If he's flanking then it means he's in melee which means something has gone terribly wrong. <_<
see gate. Nikki needs to not run into harm's way more. Only Mari and Kam really superbenefit from flanks.
Bell's defense is iffy, since his saves blow and against SPAM ATTACK he basically dies.
Adail has CLERIC SPELLS. Like Silence. And Hold Person. And he can punch people to stop them moving. He's more dangerous than y'think. Pity enlarge person doesn't work on him though.
I solidly respect the cleric/monk overlap. He did, just get those last level though, so I hadn't noticed them yet.
I think even you do. You have a high to hit, enough to be funneling a fair amount of it into power attack. His flank with you basically turns into +2 damage on each hit. I thought that with the lance you'd be getting the 2x power attack mod rather than the 1x but I suppose you are using it in one hand (and have enough damage mods anyway^^). Not in the league of Mari's +SNEAK ATTACKx4, but it's a solid ability to transform the benefit of flanking (+2 to hit) to an ability to accomplish more.
BUt Nikkolai the Brave runs into melee... :P Ah, sorry anyhow last session for encouraging that.
Silence I intend to get some use out of. Hold Person...I dunno, strikes me as massively useless in a planar game. So very little of what we deal with is effected by "person" spells.
Indeed. It's possible you'll swing by the Prime at this point, since Nikkolai's talking about lichbitch exterminations, but that's not enough to really matter.
Mmm.
I will note that I liked the amount of time we were in Earth Plane. 5-20 sessions is a nice general size category for spending 'mostly' circulating one plane. Compared with Stratusberg where the air plane was largely 'one trip, one city' it allowed for more depth, more experiencing the flavor of the plane, more denizens and all that good stuff. What conflicts against this is when we land and a card is our only objective and also an objective that says 'leave the plane' rather than experience it and find other objectives of interest there. Part of what made the earth plane work well there was the card was very far away behind a lot of obstacles.
I think I'll differ here with Rat on that I would prefer that it be unaware that there's a huge risk/time demand on the far away card in the future. Knight will want to generally keep heading toward the card anyway as every action, and a 'need to move there immediately' makes it feel like a dick move to go 'and let's go free some slaves from the dao while we let your brother get tortured and possibly killed'.
This isn't to say I'm opposed to them being in real danger. I just don't want to know about it while we're half a plane or more away. When we're like say, in the same city? That's awesome timing if it needs to happen.
All we can really do is act as things happen to us and deal with things as they appear. Sometimes we'll be pressed, sometimes we won't, etc. I like it when things fit together.
Cards do have the long-range psychic connection going. Granted, I didn't expect actual communication to be possible, but it apparently is in some cases, so it'll probably come up again.
Rat has a cool avatar. :)
Hunting down a neat goliath avatar that isn't naked barbarian with a great axe to join in the fun is apparently exceedingly hard :( I've found one sorta that's at least civilized warrior...with a great axe.
Good session. :) Light, but a good flavor change from the Earth plane. It allowed both Nikkolai and Knight to expound on their nearby goals in their personal quest, got rid of my curse, had nikkolai be awesome, and also introduced a Courre into the group. It's a shame mari missed it, but overall good stuff. We're set up nicely to head off toward the White Knights, and there's a whole lineup of major quests that have been nicely introduced for when we finish the hardsoil stuff.
Dune also gave a fair talking to on planar views after the session that I appreciated. Still have my view, but I see his more now.
Negatives? Kind of disliked being written out for not rolling aid. I suppose I should've but it seemed obviously in the bag with knight rolling 30, and I said as much in ooc. Adail I suppose is right that I should always roll on every opportunity to do so, but yeah, either way, didn't like that we paid more attention to the dice than what characters were doing.
Really find Rat raising 'death isn't harsh enough, resurrection isn't tough enough' to be super irritating (especially for someone trading permadeath as a penalty for additional powers even though your viewpoint isn't new for you). I'm on death 2 and character 2 at this point, having already sat out a session in the past for dying and whipped up a new character following it. This death involved getting a geas and getting cursed, a plot line that ran for six weeks and nearly got us all killed by Ogremoch's minions. It also permanently drained 3 hp from nikkolai, providing a chance for nikkolai to really solidly pay it forward against dealing with his lich. While I wouldn't have blinked an eye at a personal quest being required as part of getting the curse off, it really annoys me to see this thrown up post session. Dune made good choices for keeping the game going, and I'm annoyed at seeing a doubly sympathetic 'resurrection should've totally been tougher'. Really, what were you looking for? Con drain? Losing a Level? Some other horribly obnoxious permanent cost? Having to quest for two weeks while I sat around suffering because I hit a 5 percent you die chance? Seriously, I've yet to see a game where this is brought up and death was treated trivially by the players, but it's always brought up when someone comes back from the dead in a manner that lets them keep playing the game and really at this point ticks me off to hear it because it's never in a constructive 'you know, this death and resurrection would've been cooler and more dramatic in the game if we did this group involving activity'. It's never 'Okay, dead player, while they're dicking around with resurrection, you're going to get a side quest running during the session doing things in your heaven or hell so that you can keep playing'. It's always 'oh, dice came up bad, hit the player. No, hit them harder, they haven't suffered enough for letting their character get killed'.
Anyhow, had to get that off my chest.
The basic reason for my complaint was that death is a powerful, life-changing event (literally, ha ha ha), and if you're going to have people coming back from the dead then it needs to be treated with some weight. Your resurrection actually promised this, given that we needed to make a pact with an evil god to get it done (although the fact that it could easily be done elsewhere kinda belies this, and makes our circumstances what's dramatic, not actually dying yourself.) But...
The curse, geas, what-have- you- they did not come into play very much at all, so I find your complaint about needing to struggle with it for six weeks to be somewhat flat. No effort was necessary to 'cure' it, either, we basically showed up in Arborea and It Was Done. There were no issues involved in getting it done, I would've been happy enough to undertake some quest or go through some process or whatever. Instead... more convenience. The world seems to exist to solve our problems and provide for our wants sometimes. This isn't even unique to you- it's not every game you get a pegasus just by asking for it- but I think this trait is particularly heightened in this case, since all we really needed to do to cure the curse was apparently live long enough for someone to show up and fix it for us.
I don't think it was just a 'bad dicing situation' that got you killed, either.
Finally, I thought the rest of your party being basically guilted into trading HP for your problems to be solved was kinda lame. It's not like we can say no without looking like enormous dicks. I didn't mention this because Nikkolai seemed to have fun anyway so what do I know? But this is what I thought.
It wasn't just a bad dicing situation. It was a stupid death. It was me taking a ridiculously unnecessary risk that raised the chance of dying from a flat zero to five percent in order to make very sure that the harpy queen didn't just casually go over and skewer the heavily wounded mari. It was also something that had it gone slightly differently we would've just been going 'that was awesome' in the ooc room, much as we had been mere moments before when I was pondering out loud about doing it. But the circumstances OF the death don't really matter. I can't think of anyone who particularly enjoys getting their character killed, much less having other players go 'you should stay dead longer so that it is more meaningful and we have to struggle over the character's death while they miss out on 1-3 weeks of gaming'.
I'd have put no complaints (and expected) a quest on it. I would've had little complaints about having to bear it a while longer. That said it was't the 'curse'. The whole ogremoch plot arc basically revolved around them profiting as much as possible from Kam's death and nearly got everyone killed. I'd say Dune gave it a reasonable amount of screen time. It was kind of lame demanding an hp payment from other party members, but it's really no more different than the go to of losing con or xp for it. Overall, I think Nikkolai rose well to it and we can make interesting play off of what happened. But the details of the resurrection follow up also don't matter much. It just bothers me that this flail against convenience for the sake of keeping is never phrased first in "Hey, dune you're handing us too much neat stuff'. It's always phrased in a 'man, death should've been more epic, resurrection should've been harder' and it bothers me.
It's fine you have a very strong opinion of death, but we live in a game world where we regularly go out and KILL things and things try and kill us. Just because they are there! Where gods regularly resurrect both good and bad guys based on vague things. Where folks who die go to another plane that you can travel to with a spell. You can kill a guy, plane shift, and go kill him again if you want to be a real jerk about it! It's not that my opinion on it is right or yours is. There's one opinion that really shape's how death is handled in the game, which is dune's. I think overall he's taken a pretty reasonable angle to it, and it annoys me seeing a session closer with him apologizing to claims that he's not harsh enough.
Anyhow, I'm argumentative, but I didn't really want to make a long thing out of this. I more just wanted to shout out "Hey, this annoys me."
I'm sorry if you didn't like my phrasing, but I don't know how else to put it concisely. I'll try again.
The world should not bend around the PCs wants and whims. It is one thing to strive for what you want, and quite another for the world to simply give it to you on a plate. The world did not hand you your ressurection on a plate; it came with strings attached. I liked that! (In fact, the whole Nixale segment was pretty much the most fun part of the game for me so far, for a number of reasons which I relayed to Dune in PM a while back.) Those strings were just randomly cut with no effort on our part, save enduring them long enough (which itself wouldn't have been so bad if it, I dunno, ebbed over time or something- the details DO matter! The game IS the details in many respects.) I didn't like that so much, not for dealing with something that seemed so important and dramatic as a soul-binding curse.
I dislike this insinuation that we run around killing stuff just because it's there, because I'm pretty sure we don't actually do that. That's a lame D&D aphorism that needs to die.
As far as the fact that ressurection happens.. well... I can't really argue that it doesn't exist. I don't like it much as a plot device and want it to be treated with a certain gravitas if it has to happen, which I think is a pretty reasonable thing. It shouldn't be something you undertake lightly. Ogremoch's deal ensured that we'd continue to take dying fairly seriously. The karma that kicked in later to free you of the constraints... caused me to question it.
It makes me sad to see the issues death and harsh curses and other things raise neatly dealt with by the wayside in order to 'keep the game going smoothly'. Is that how other obstacles in our path will be rectified in the future? It kinda saps the integrity of the world. I appreciate that this is a game, and obviously you want people to have fun which they can't really do whilst not playing due to being dead- but it's also a collective story (sorta) and at least some attention should be paid to principles of storytelling.
On a more generally meta level-
-Don't start an argument if you don't want to argue. I can't help wanting to respond when my comments are questioned.
-Yeah, Dune lays down the law, but it's clear we both also have our own ideas on what's hot and what's not, and if there's anywhere they should be voiced in relation to this game, surely it is whilst giving feedback? In the end I accept what happens and continue, the game is too fun to push too hard on this (but I'll always defend my viewpoints regardless.)
Staying the hell out of this one in general since for the most part I don't actually care, but I didn't mind the silver platter fix in this case. It realy affirmed for Adail(and to a lesser extent for me, since I've been having him act like this without any real garuntee that's how the world worked) that the Good guys really do take care of thier own. It's not a case of "oh the Powers That Be can just fix everything for us~" since we sure as hell wouldn't come to them for everything, and if we did they'd stop helping pretty quick, but in a case like this where there was de nada we could do about it on our own? Yeah, it works for them to help out. Sure, they could have made us find the door to the Court of Stars on our own, sure they could have asked for some quest in exchange, but you know what? Sometimes it's nice to just see Good being Good.
On the meta level, that's fair. On the obvious meta level though, we've not seen eye to eye on death for the many other times we've talked about it. Having the long argument won't change that. I'm the same way where I can (and sometimes do) go forever in an argument. Overall, I'm a believer that if the principles of storytelling involve players sitting out for long lengths of time, they can go screw themselves. There's lots of ways that don't do it, but I appreciate in a weekly game that resurrection is available and that the follow ups for that happening don't last forever either.
I took your statement harsher than it was. My own bad on that. Rereading it, you were really always just complaining about how it ended rather than the route. Sorry about bitching.
Anyhow, we didn't really do nothing though either. We went to a place where there's not one but thousands of people that could break that curse and is the bastion of my own allies. It's not like we continued wandering through the planes and it was just dropped on us. While Dune took a 'holy spirit from above cures it', it really wouldn't have changed very much had we walked a bit further and asked where the nearest CR20+ holy good eladarian. We were along a path where it was inevitable that in short order we were going to be meeting a holy power capable of dealing with the curse who was friendly not just 'oh another band of adventurers'. Like you have your cards and things, both Kam and Adail have higher planar allies around Arborea. Encountering them is in part a toss back both to backstory and to the Knight of the Stars feat kam has.
Quote from: Dracos on March 31, 2010, 12:12:22 PMNegatives? Kind of disliked being written out for not rolling aid. I suppose I should've but it seemed obviously in the bag with knight rolling 30, and I said as much in ooc. Adail I suppose is right that I should always roll on every opportunity to do so, but yeah, either way, didn't like that we paid more attention to the dice than what characters were doing.
I thought I'd said OOC that if you wanted to count you needed to aid Knight here, but a log-check revealed I didn't. Whoooops! I was using that to keep track of who was actively involved and gambling on the outcome. My fault.
Quote from: Carthrat on April 01, 2010, 10:06:40 AM
I'm sorry if you didn't like my phrasing, but I don't know how else to put it concisely. I'll try again.
The world should not bend around the PCs wants and whims. It is one thing to strive for what you want, and quite another for the world to simply give it to you on a plate.
This I agree with 500%. The gameworld does not automatically bend to the whims of the PCs; the PCs effect the world and it effects them back in turn. Now speaking of karma, this doesn't mean it's the end of it. A powerful entity did you a favor when you were down. There's nothing wrong with this: It's a Good aligned paragon. This doesn't mean she pats you on the end and forgets she ever helped you.
You're in as much debt to her as you were to Ogremoch. She's not going to gank your soul or make your life miserable, it's not what she is. These things have a way of coming around and evening out in the long run in the Heavens, I'm aware of this and making things meaningful is something I strive for. Unlike Ogremoch, it may be something that helps you even more in the long run at danger to yourself at the short term, or a sacrifice, or something else in tune with the desires of Chaotic Good.
I gave up Kam's revival easily enough because I wanted to keep the game smoothly running and Drac not sitting out for multiple sessions. On the other hand, it wasn't a free cookie that negated the gravity of death. By the same token, this easy recovery is a chance for me to expand the gameworld and give you more meaty situations to work with, not just waving a magic wand to make everything all better.
In other words, it's all good, let's have fun. I know what I'm doing! Really! <_< I'm not trying to discourage feedback but let's try and not turn it into ARGUMENT WARS 9000 PC DEATH EDITION!!!.
QuoteStaying the hell out of this one in general since for the most part I don't actually care, but I didn't mind the silver platter fix in this case. It realy affirmed for Adail(and to a lesser extent for me, since I've been having him act like this without any real guarantee that's how the world worked) that the Good guys really do take care of thier own. It's not a case of "oh the Powers That Be can just fix everything for us~" since we sure as hell wouldn't come to them for everything, and if we did they'd stop helping pretty quick, but in a case like this where there was de nada we could do about it on our own? Yeah, it works for them to help out. Sure, they could have made us find the door to the Court of Stars on our own, sure they could have asked for some quest in exchange, but you know what? Sometimes it's nice to just see Good being Good.
That too. Ogremoch demanded tribute to deign to save Kamvakua, and even then it was a dreadful thing. Good did it because it's the right thing to do, while expecting that when the time is right, Kamvakua would choose to do the right thing as well.
I dunno the statements on debt in this case is weird to me. Reason:
If a generic Moon Maiden came down anyway and asked kam to go risk his life for some good cause that didn't involve abandoning a good cause he was already risking his life for? He'd go do it. It wouldn't matter that he didn't owe that specific agent of a good god anything or that he owed her his life. It's the kind of thing that makes a good character rather than a neutral one. I find it harder to envision debt to good people as a meaningful statement. It doesn't have any dramatic ring to me.
I like Adail's 'good looks after good' and generally agree with that play on it. Maybe the fact that she did a big favor mean that she actually has kam in a queue of 'I'll tap this person if I have a task that fits them' but it really doesn't strike me as something that matters in the grand scheme of good. I'd be really surprised if she showed up and phrased "I'd like you to go do this task for the good of Selune because I did this thing for you and you owe me" instead of "I'd like you to go do this task for the good of Selune. The task is...".
Even a Good character can have weird neuroses. Maybe she'll want you to mow her lawn or something.
Although in principle I agree. Being forced to do good is only dramatic if for some reason you wouldn't normally. Which may well be the case for most characters, but you kind of expect it from holy dudes.
Dune put feedback in the gossip board. Bad dune :P
Good session agreed. I wasn't as drowsy during it as I worried about but still need to eye my sleep schedule so I stop bombing on tuesday nights. Dune was worried I wasn't in the attention getting, but I figured it was a natural shift from the end of last session being about Kam to this session flowing through Adail, then Knight, Then Mari, then Nikki. So kam's at the front of the loop :P If things worked that way, which that don't.
Neat change for mari, though I have to admit, it's kind of a pity she didn't really stay as Pixie mari for any real length of time (1 battle, 2 social encounters). That said, she's totally picking up Eva's traits. She is now eva's spiritual successor. Don't die!
Call out to Knight, really appreciated the lead in on rage as part of combat. Kam has quite a bit of exploration on that in his character, so it was fun to get to expose on it in discussion. Thanks. :)
The philosophy bit around rogue went a little overboard. Both on my end and as Kam I sort of faded out of caring. I really do appreciate that having Rogue as a potential paladin of Freedom is a super cool ethics twist for the party. It's a challenge for Knight as the rest of the party can conflict about the whole nature bit. It was spun off by the uber-boss of Kam's knighthood, so that was also a nice conflict of interest. I like that. But by the third go around of arguments, I certainly no longer cared as a player. Whatever is going to happen with him will happen depending on how things turn out when we meet him. Not a single word was uttered that really was going to change that after establishing the base premise of "He's been 'freed' and he doesn't want to go back for his own reasons". I guess that's mean, it really was a nice bit for Knight to express more strongly her "They Must Be One"...but it means when the discussion on the exact same thing happens, only with Rogue as a speaker too, the whole set will sound tired.
Glad to see backstory alliance type stuff coming in. I found that fun, and I bet Adail did as well. If we're hunting rogue, I suspect we can leverage that further as we travel arborea. Innkeepers with favors, travelers Kam or adail have helped (or have helped us), all would be very cool to come across and go with the flavor of the characters :). I dunno if I should be whipping up characters kam met in the past or whatnot, glancing sidelong a bit at that. I lean more no, but it is a collaborative fun making bit.
How did you guys like the bonuses you got in the dream, or the sand in Adail's case?
Blowing a fear check is always depressing, so less chance of that is nice.
(will bell ironically fail a fear check in the future?)
Do kinda wonder what we got rewarded for?...
Overall, I liked the last session in general. It was a cute side trip that introduced a bit of Arborean culture while simultaneously addressing in game that hardsoil was doing well. It set the tone on how even in mortals, we can both be awesome and have a long way to go, with a single eladrin able to compete reasonably with the entire team. It gave Kam an opportunity to pull in some background narrative on his own tribal history, so yay for opportunities to use our backstory to fuel the narrative in game.
Cheers to Nikki for being unrepentant in his constant flirting with anything female. Yes, In character Kam was being 'boo that', but hey, you don't have an argument if everyone acts agreeably. Adail got to do neat "I take on overwhelming challenge in a meaningful contest of skill" too.
I admit, I've never seen Chameleon used in game as a PrC. But then I suppose there's so many PrCs, that there's plenty I've only read and never seen used.
I really like the choice of thematic benefits. Freedom as a minor bonus to saving throws is something that may hardly ever come up mechanically, but it certainly is something I cheer from going well with Kam's theme of a free journeyman sage.
And most importantly...I was awake the whole time! :D
Random additional observation on last session:
The Save DCs for cleric spells in this party are always going to be garbage. Both clerical types are heavy non-caster multiclassed and not much we can do about it. We're not going to ever beat anything that can even throw a saving throw out.
Well, save DCs aren't affected by multiclassing directly. The DC for a spell is spell level + ability mod + 10. Indirectly it affects them since they're multiclassed so they have lower level spells available than average, but.
Prolly true.
Not necessarily saying anything is wrong. Just observing that anything coming with us with comparable saving throws to what we have is only targetable by nikkolai with spells.
Magic in general struggles in a planar setting. Spell resistance is more common, most things have really good saving throws and can resist damage or certain save or suck/die strategies.
Our saving throws are kinda a bit inflated. The way multiclassing stacks them is pretty henious.
Wizards/sorcs/etc can cheat around enemy magical defense via pretty much the entire Conjuration school. It honestly seems like a shame, but what can you do?
Randomness: with all the discussion of money, greed, death, and large figures being tossed around lately, I did a brief count that actually was convenient for staying grounded.
Practically speaking and ignoring Knight's expensively purchased new class feature, the whole group sits between 55k and 65k of wealth, so just around the level 10-level 11 suggested wealth bracket. Yeah, we have our desire to gather general wealth to be better protected/deadly for our clearly fearsome foes, but kind of nice seeing how relatively evenly wealth is managing about, even on characters who I thought would be way behind.
heh, I post it and I neglect my intended 'Good going, Ko'.
Bah, feedback :)
I usually just give out what feels right and overwealth, so.
A few questions.
1. How do you feel your characters have grown in play? Do you like these changes? Why or why not?
2. How do you feel the other characters have changed? Do they live up to themselves? Why or why not?
3. We have a celestial and an exalted good PC in party. How do you feel they interact with others and represent the concept of Good? Does this fit for you? Edit: This isn't meant to call them out, but to provoke discussion on the matter.
4. How do you feel the plot is going relative to these three questions?
Changes are a bit hard to talk about, a lot of what I think has changed in my own char might not be evident to others, and vice versa. But anyway...
1. Eh, I feel Knight's okay. Maybe kinda overbearing on a frequent basis. She doesn't grow that much, it's sort of by design. Recently, with the Balance thing coming up, it was put to her as a kind of dichotomy, who would she choose, her family or friends? I guess I didn't see it as big a deal then, because it feels like she can actually have both at the moment. It's still something worth struggling over, though, and the focal point of her decision-making at this time. Since she strives for people she has attachments to and not ideals, the choice will always be 'can I help everyone? will they be alright with my actions?' It's something that can be best displayed when people she cares about are put at odds.
She resolved it with Balance and came out ahead, but I dunno if that will always be the same. As always, she's willing to fulfill her objective by force if her family doesn't listen to reason, so...
Basically I think she has a strong desire to keep her comrades intact and alive, help them fulfill their desires, and she's willing to do whatever is necessary to get it done, and at this point it's not just out of mutual need, but genuine companionship. Indeed, she is prepared to do things they may not like, if she thinks it is ultimately for the best; you can see that in being willing to beat up and absorb her family, if necessary.
2. Changes, huh.
I think Mari might have got a little more responsible since the consequences of the Yugoloth thing. It's hard to tell, because there may not have been many opportunities for her to be irresponsible since. While I do think it's clear she was changed by the revelation of her sister, earlier, there hasn't been much room to show it yet. I think she's had very strong characterization for most of the game, though, and she's totally the one I'm most comfortable RPing with, IC and OOC.
Nikkolai, man, he feels like he's all over the place. I don't know if he's trying to reform or growing braver or what. I never really felt the 'now Nikkolai will become a good man!' arc has held too much weight, he just doesn't seem to act like one as far as I can see. He has the trappings, he has the Solar girlfriend, he has the courre familiar, but he still seems like the same guy he always was. I mean, I never even thought he was a particularly bad guy in the first place, just someone a bit self-absorbed, reasonable enough. So not only do I not see the change there, but it doesn't seem like that big a jump, either. Is he meant to be a coward, or a brave guy? I don't know that, either. It's hard for me to know what Nikkolai's trying to live up to, so I can't really judge him on that.
Adail I think is getting more assertive as the game progresses, but he also seems to remain fundamentally the same, in terms of character. Similar to Kamvakua in the latter part, I can't recall what events made a particularly big impact on these guys, and it feels like they've remained pretty much the same, temperament wise. Now...
3. ...they are both allegedly celestial/exalted/Capital-G-Good characters, so Goodly that they get special powers and are holy dudes because of it. To me, that has always seemed kinda more like an informed thing than a concrete thing. I don't think I'm acting out of strictly goodly intentions. I don't think Mari or Nikki are, either, we all have personal motivations that do involve opposing evil as a byproduct, though. And Adail and Kamvakua seem to be happy enough to hang out with us and whatnot, but... it's really hard to see them as ardent pursuers of truth, justice, goodness, etc when they don't seem to really push that as an agenda. Ok, so Adail occasionally makes mention of whether an act will serve the cause of Good or cannot be done because it helps Evil creatures, but I feel invoking the explicit nature of things there is kinda missing the point, somehow.
I also know that Drac doesn't see Exalted the same way I do. I kinda put him on the same level as a paladin; he has all the paladin-style abilities and has a Good aura and all that. He may not have a strict code of morals or anything, but he certainly should always be looking for the right thing to do, right?
I remember fighting the Ice Queen. When we killed her the first time and she stole someone else's body, that was kinda horrible, right? Then.. we killed her again. At that point, I think we had a good picture of the situation, and killing her again surely resulted in the death of another of her (presumably innocent) maids. I don't think any of the exalted characters angsted over this or anything much. It's understandable that you might not catch the implications in the middle of a fight, but later... I think it even got brought up OOC, at least? A scene like that is really made for exalted characters to take a moral stand and shine, I think, or to ponder later, have regrets over, etc.
The key for exalted characters is that in order to live up to their potential, they need to be placed in situations where their morals are put to the test. This actually doesn't happen very often, and in the case I remember where it did, well, I don't feel there was a reaction. It is not enough to simply hound us with enemies or present Always Chaotic Evil things for us to fight. For them to shine, there must be situations where doing the right thing is really hard, and they don't even need to do it if they don't want to, or choices between a right thing and a wrong thing and always picking the right thing. Because this kind of thing doesn't come up often, it may well be hard for the players to get a chance to really RP their nature as holy emissaries.
I do struggle personally with figuring how to RP around such beings, including NPCs of similar nature.
To kind of sum up this, I really hope to see some thorny situations in which what is right is not so obvious (e.g. the one we're in!.) If a character's morality is meant to be a big part of their personality, then I feel the game should test it by presenting difficult dilemmas. I'm not sure that's to the style of the people playing such characters, though. It doesn't need to happen all the time or anything, there's certainly room for crushing waves of obvious evil. The key is making a dilemma out of it, somehow.
4. Well, getting trapped and suffering a total defeat is certainly a new experience.
As for what celestial/exalted good have to do with this, well... I talked with you about this, but I don't have much reason to personally hate the lich. You've spoken to me about perceiving the undead as being truly unholy abominations before, but I don't really hold to that, it's just a state of being in and of itself. She certainly may have done evil things in the past, but the present is what's important and I don't personally feel compelled to bring her to justice, especially if she's willing to play nice and help us out. As long as she doesn't obstruct us, I'm not bothered by her. She's certainly treated us well enough so far, so...
The fact that she has Nikkolai as a minion under her total control would count as an obstruction. The fact that Nikkolai personally wants her dead also shoulders me with the responsibility to see that happen. It could be a problem, especially if she could help us achieve our other goals and feels compelled to deal.
In any case this is not the time to fight her, but the time to gather information and prepare to negotiate.
1. Nikkolai...well, it's hard to accurately describe his changes. He began as a self-centered, smart-assed, snide little boy who thought nothing of putting the rest of the party in harm's way to achieve his goals or keep himself safe. In truth, many of his personality traits are the same. There are times when we see a glimpse of kindness since his "reformation" at the hands of the Solar. But mostly, he's still struggling with the concept of being Good. After a lifetime of caring for himself, it's come as quite the shock to find that he now considers the party his friends (and has for some time). How is he supposed to act? He grew up with the mantra "Kindness is weakness" constantly being re-enforced in his lessons. I agree with Knight's assessment. Nikkolai's newfound insights and morals are all over the place, mainly because they haven't been tested firmly as of yet.
I rather like that I have such a complex character, even if he is a snarky bastard most of the time.
2. I feel that Knight is very resistant to change. She is slowly becoming more human, if you will, but her thinking is still fundamentally the same, despite having her views challenged by members of her family and outsiders interested in acquiring that power. Her mindset has always been, and continues to be, to help fulfill the goals of the other members of the party which overlaps with her goal of reuniting with her family. I truly feel that if it were required of Knight to separate from us for a time in order to regain a card, she would. Not that it would be out of spite or disregard for the party, but because it is her driving force in the game. It's what she exists for.
Mari has perhaps grown a little more wise in matters concerning strange drinks and food. Perhaps now she'll be more responsible and thinking before she acts. Other than that, I don't feel that she's changed a great deal over the course of the game. She very much lives up to the carefree wanderer persona and I'm not sure that anything, short of something ridiculously traumatic, that could change this mindset of hers.
Adail and Kam...I'm afraid I have to agree with Knight on this score. Except for a handful of instances where I noticed both of them particularly adamant about certain situations, their views and morals haven't really been strenuously challenged. For example, I can't see them meekly accepting to work for the Lich in exchange for comfort/goods/whatever, despite how sensible it would be to do so, especially in our current situation. It would be a betrayal of their alignments, in my opinion, if they ended up dickering around with the Lich without so much as a fight.
3. See above. I feel that perhaps they haven't been placed in situations that would provoke overly obvious reactions.
4. I certainly did not expect to be in this particular situation. I expected something more...grand. An ultimate showdown or something. Me as a slave and the others as prisoners is just a bit of a downer. =p
I'm not sure how the others would react to this situation, but my goal is to see her dead and then piss on her ashes, though I won't do so if it puts my friends in mortal danger. I fully expect the Good aligned characters to be in accordance with this view, though they might be more inclined to wheel and deal with her to be in a better position to kill her.
1: Adail's fairly static as a character, and this is largely by design. Part of that is based on mindsets that carry over from my GMing preferances in how Mortals are all individuals by default while Unique Immortals(such as Adail, a musteval with class levels) are rare. And even then, they still all fit in a general mold for each type. It's what makes them different from Mortals, and actually lesser then them in some ways. Mortals all have the ability, and the inherent right, to choose thier own ultimate fates, while very few Immortals develop the strength of Self needed to stray from the path they were born on. And frankly even those few that have such ability, rarely do stray. This is getting kinda rambly, but it all comes back around to the fact that Outsiders in general are less individual and less prone to change and growth then any intelligent mortal. I'm not really sure if Dune and I are on the same page in this regard, since this is how I treat Immortals in my games, but I'll bet it's close enough. So while Adail is unique and he does grow somewhat...he shouldn't grow much.
As far as RPing wise goes, he is getting a bit more assertive(as Rat noted), but that's more me getting more comfortable with how to interact with the others then anything else. Also he's decided that despite my earlier intentions, he is a bit of a punster and a bit of a freindly snarker(he was always intended to be an unfreindly snarker to enemies in combat, but I didn't expect him to carry that over into thinks like poking Mari's ego every time she starts getting too much the upper hand on Nik in the banter war).
2: Ah, peer review. I hate this part, and thus it will be kept fairly short. Also, screw you for using the phrase "do they live up to themselves". Seriously? Vague yet loaded phrasing like that is one of my biggest pet peeves. This is a game, not one of those retarded psych exam questionaires everyone has to take when filling out applications these days. [/chibi-rant]
Knight: Has really seemed to fully get past that stage where she was insanely focused on finding her family and nothing but. The thing with Balance cemented that she now sees her freinds on roughly the same level and isn't any more willing to sacrifice us then she is her siblings.
Mari: Yeah, she does seem like she's a bit more responsible(or perhaps just a bit more willing to listen to others in thier area of expertise) after the yugaloth thing. And she's getting more girly lately. She started the game really coming off kind of tomboyish, but now she's dressing up in noble gowns and calling herself a queen on a lark.
Nikki: Dude's honestly a little bipolar. One minute he's trying to be a good guy and acting somewhat humble, the next he's as arrogant and self absorbed as ever, and at any mention of miss Lich he turns into a scared five year old. It's actually quite amusing, so don't take this as a heavy criticism. I do see the trying in that first part, and it's possibly something Adail and Nik needs to talk about but...bleh. Don't like taking up group time for a 1 on 1 chat, and I'm never around for extra stuff. So I'm not sure what to do there.
To talk about myself again, that's another part of why Adail seems to have little real depth. He doesn't really get personal or deep in groups, but is more a one on one kinda guy for anything heavy...while I'm never around for one on one stuff as a player. Kinda failing my own character here. Anyway, back to peer review.
Kam: Kam's roughly the same guy he's always been too. A little more cautious after the Ogremoch fuckery and the abyss, but still basically willing to trust first and smite later as nessesary if trust is broken.
3: Ah, yes, this. Okay, for Adail's part...I've honestly been playing him as about the most lenient and relaxed Good I can justify a celestial being. Partly this is due to his personallity, he thinks Mortals have the right to choose for themselves and such. Also, not Cha heavy and no real social skills, so he's not exactly good at preaching(which is quite on purpose, because I hate preaching). He tries to inspire by actions, and if he doesn't always get those right...well, he can make mistakes. As he's fond of saying, "Not even the Great Lion is perfect". And when he does make them...frankly, he tends to keep alot of stuff internal. Dune sees a fair amount of it in PM, as I'm often checking with him about making sure my assumptions for how a Celestial should(or could) act mesh with How Reality Works in his world. But Adail's not the type to really show it outwardly. Do I think he's managing to live up to his role as a celestial? Yes, but not nessesarily every other Celestial might agree with that. Coming back to the first bit, he is a Unique one afterall. But there is a reason he doesn't have any Exalted feats or abilities.
4: For immediate plot stuff, I sincerely doubt the lich will ask us to do anything we'd highly consider fighting her rather then doing. She outclasses us, sure. But not by so much we aren't still a very real danger to her. Also I doubt having us "fall to evil" or anything along those lines even ranks on her priority list anywhere. She doesn't seem to be Evil for Evil's sake, so much as it's just where she ended up while pursuing her real goals. Simply put, she's a mortal villian(despite being undead), not a Fiend. And if she's willing to deal and offer us some concessions(like, say, freeing Nikkolai), Adail would be willing to deal as well.
For non-immediate stuff...well, I don't like making predictions that far ahead. So the above will have to do.