The Coffee Table

[Dracos]

Is someone actually playing an artificer?

[Merc]

I am considering it, Drac. I might stop if Jon starts crying and telling me to stick to captain america because it's making him work too much though, what with the warforged and the artificer and oy vey... =)

But yeah, I was considering warforged artificer 6//warblade 6. Which is part of what has been bringing up warforged and artificer questions. Warforged, I'd take even with a charisma suck, as long as the rest of racials don't suck too much, hence questions there. Artificer looks interesting, and hey, when in rome (or eberron as the case might be), might as well not just explore new races but also explore the new class I've never really seen before.

Plus, really, I built 'captain america' build, mostly as an expected tank, but a tank isn't really -needed-, per se, so I'm leaning more and more hat route.

I'll probably stick with Kap, only if Jon decides warforged/artificer is too annoying to get it into play in gestalt or if we run out of time and it's game time, so I don't have a choice.

[Navilee]

Artificers are nice, although they tend to lack combat-use with the casting length of their infusions (at least, I think I recall their infusions casting in minutes rather than actions; will checka).  They get some nice abilities, though, not limited to the XP pool for crafting.  And the reduction crafting feats are affordable when you get the crafting feats for free.

Debating if I should make a full caster, then, or not?  Basically, leaving it up to you lot. 

[Merc]

Play whatever you want. =)

And a lot of infusions are 1 round or 1 standard action. The -good- ones such as weapon enhancement, are all one minute, though.

Which you can reduce to a round by either spending an action point (Ugh...) or having the Rapid Infusion feat from one of those other books that Jon put up, which allows you to do it without spending an action point 1/day, I think.

[Dracos]

I agree, play whatever you want, though i kind of would rather not have a crafter in the party :P

But I guess they are different and I can hardly rebuke someone doing that in this kind of game :3

[Merc]

*sniffs* If I play one, I totally won't make any items for you. Only for Navi and Rin. =p

[Navilee]

Play whatever you want. =)

And a lot of infusions are 1 round or 1 standard action. The -good- ones such as weapon enhancement, are all one minute, though.

Which you can reduce to a round by either spending an action point (Ugh...) or having the Rapid Infusion feat from one of those other books that Jon put up, which allows you to do it without spending an action point 1/day, I think.

You are the opposite of helpful.  I'm indecisive by nature, hense placing the decision out of my hands.  I have a wizard mostly made (excepting equipment; didn't want to do that at 9 in the morning with no sleep when I was finishing the character up).

Huh.  At least they have really long durations, though.  Makes the buffs somewhat more appealing.  And frees up spells for other casters!

[Jon]

3.5e warforged do still have warforged components. check the books.

That warforged writeup is approved, Merc.

If you want to play an artificer, you can make items using the 'previous levels' craft reserve. If you do so, however, 20% of the points you use must be spent on consumable items, which will be thrown away, to represent partial use during the adventures you've presumably had. (You still have to pay the gold cost for these thrown-away ones.) And, of course, since the reserve doesn't carry over between levels, you start with no more than 150 reserve points.

[Jon]

Given your occupation, you may expect people to try to stop you from achieving your objectives. In cities, many of these people will basically be rent-a-cops (when they're not the city guard). I think it would be beneficial for you players to decide your attitude towards lethal damage in such cases, now rather than later.

[Dracos]

I'm a hired killer to my plan.  I deal with problems for my employers.

I'm jotting up a background regarding that.  Given we're working for a city lord, I assume that even when we kill folks, we'll have a safe haven to return to, and that absolutely, folks might be hostile.

Of course with rep, folks who are hostile and do recognize us on sight might not want to tango with us.  They might rather want to not meet our eyes and hope we don't stab them to death.  They might instead generally send off for local big bads to take us out.  Whatever. :)

[Navilee]

Sim probably wouldn't care much either way; on her own, she would tend toward avoidance or mind-effecting spells but she isn't going to stand in front of the homicidal halfling for some random guards; they tend to know what they are getting in to by enlisting and it isn't worth her life at the hands of a short murderer.

[Jon]

Given we're working for a city lord, I assume that even when we kill folks, we'll have a safe haven to return to

You're working for a pirate lord. He's rich, but very much a local power. Your "safe house" is just going to be an inn that doesn't ask too many questions about where you got the money. At least, that's the case when you're not in his town or near his sphere of control.

[Dracos]

That sounds like a safe house to me. :)

What I meant is:  I assume when we're in his terrain, we're relatively safe and when we aren't, well, we're the badass agents of a foreign crime lord.  Nobody is gonna like us or want us there anyway.  I wasn't even really assuming we'd get safe houses when we're outside his territory.  Inns that don't ask questions is a pretty nice step up.

[Jon]

I wasn't even really assuming we'd get safe houses when we're outside his territory.  Inns that don't ask questions is a pretty nice step up.

Well, they're relatively easy to find in the larger cities (like Sharn) or the rougher cities (like Stormreach). Might be harder in rural Breland.

[Dracos]

Good of Session 1:
No interparty conflict right off the bat.  We meshed acceptably.  Way to go.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveBadBand We're these guys.  That's hillarious and awesome.  

A scenario in which we both got to kill things and approach an issue like a puzzle.  We were also rewarded for treating it like a puzzle, putting a plan into play, and executing on it.  Coolness.  I like that kind of stuff.

An enemy encounter that wasn't, 'you are in battle, roll initiative'?  Good stuff!  Missable encounters?  Good stuff.

A lively first session with puzzles, some intrigue, NPCs being people, and some combat action.  :)

I think everyone had a good time.  Can't argue with that!

someone else did loot splitting and logging and I didn't have to.  That was pretty cool

Observations:
Some differences in expectation between DM and players on the mission.  This went smoothly though and the DM handled it relatively well.

Incentives for performing things in a cool fashion may be nice.  As opposed to penalties for slaying everything and whatnot.

I took charge like a beast from the getgo and didn't give anyone a chance really to lead.  It was kind of awesome, but the opposite in a way of how I sort of intended.  It felt kind of right for Alis though.  What do others think on that?

You reduced xp as we steamrolled them.  That's not a bad habit really.  Enemies that aren't much challenge don't deserve much xp.

Naming NPCs is kind of interesting.  Not sure what I take of it for flunkies really.

a full surprise round, I believe, is an effective '-2' to EL.  They have that jotted down somewhere.  Just for the observation anyway.  I don't think it would've gone much differently without, but it might've let some of the bad guys act, instead of being dead before they got to move.

Bad of Session 1:
We didn't rob the van because we didn't have any reason to be interested in it yet, so the DM's plot there wasn't taken advantage of.  We were too much into succeeding whatnot.  Suggestion here is look for hooks for us to go do what you want.  A letter from the boss saying to accomplish x has us accomplishing x.  If it'd included 'loot what's possible' rather than leave no notice' we would've totally savaged the place, killed the guys knocking on the door in awesome fashion, and driven away on their armored truck.

Dramatic descriptions of enemy death is fun.  Lack of so, not so fun.  The enemies were quickly realized to be totally insufficient and the DM felt bored running them.  They didn't try to run, be scared, etc.

The armored van coming up.  I appreciate that it was foreshadowed, but eh, coming off a bit from other DMs that tend to use that stuff to force conflict when teams go a different way.  Really just felt pet peeveish :P  I'm glad no encountered ensued there caused by any sudden expectation. :)

You should've made us all work harder to surprise the halflings, and definitely shouldn't have just given us a full party surprise round.  Four full round actions is a huge leg up economy wise, especially with all the enemies being flatfooted during it.  I was hoping to try and get just 1 full action surprise round.  I was amazed that we all got it, especially with no opposition to my sneak rolls.

Getting XP only for killing things encourages amoral killers.  Sure, I'm playing one, not much of a problem, but just noted.  If you would like us to keep playing other solutions, it's good to have some scenario xp representing such.  We spent most of the session strategizing around and achieving a cool break in, steal, and get out.  We got xp for the last few minutes of steamrolling.

We're gonna be really hard to balance enemies for.  A lot of range, high damage dealing.  I gave my remarks in IRC about suggestions here.  The elite array was actually probably pretty clever given how twinking and gestalt boosted power otherwise.  

Loot, boo.  Man I'm tired of 'here's random treasure, play math until you turn it into something you care about'.  Nothing on you at all, you did it totally validly.  It's just something I've grown tired of.  Both Merc and Dune's game being almost lootless so far have left me wondering at how awesome it is not spending x hours after every big battle sorting treasure for the party.

Adjustable economy values are cool RP things, but really painful on whoever is doing the math for the players.

Session ended short :(  Prefer longer sessions.

and that's enough yammering.